You mug!

I'm really ill, which is a total bummer because I had planned on doing a few important things, ironically one of them being registering with the local GP, but I'm too sick to leave the house, so things are on hold. I only hope that I'm a bit less snotty and achey for my driving lesson tomorrow as my test is in less than a month, don't ask me why I booked it, I don't know either.

I'm placing full blame for this lurgy on my sister and Moon's brother, I can't blame one or the other as they seem to both have the same thing and have been ill for the same amount of time, and I've been near both of them, my immune system was doing so well until about 11pm last night, unacceptable.

In slightly more fun news, I finally got around to taking part in the 'Yours & Theirs' project this week and my image is up on both their Facebook and blog, so I'm pretty chuffed.
The theme was 'Your Favourite Mug', and this is the photo I entered.

This is neither my mug, or even a mug I use, it belongs to my Gran and it's the one I give to Moon whenever we're there for a cup of coffee. It's so funny and difficult to hold, as well as being ridiculously tacky, but it's definitely one of the best mugs I've seen.
I'd love to take part in similar projects as it was so easy, perhaps a downside being that 'Yours & Theirs' is Australian; it would be great to be part of something a bit more local, for no other reason other than to have another, more focussed outlet to share my work.

I'm going to give this week's theme a shot too, it's 'A Place You Like to Go', and if you're a long-time reader of this blog you'll know there are quite a few places that I like to go, a lot, so I'm sure I'll be able to get around to capturing something.
Here are a few of my favourites from the 'Your Favourite Mug' entries.

Lucy White


Candice Wilde


Alana Dimou
Why not give it a go yourself? It's so much fun to see people's different takes on such simple subject matter. If you know about any similar UK projects I'd also love to hear about them.

Ooo Wah Oh.

I first heard about MUA's Love Heart collection back in the beginning of February, I thought they seemed like a cute idea but never spotted any to pick up. Yesterday, while in Crawley I managed to find about three out of the five available colours in Superdrug. They were similar to colours I already had, which is why I went for U & I, a pastel yellow, which I thought would be good now that Spring is starting to show it's face.

However, and I'm not sure if reviewing things on a blog means you always have to be nice, but I was pretty disappointed. I mean for a £2 price tag, it's not as though it broke the bank, but having used a few MUA polishes, I was expecting it to be alright. Sadly not, the application was pretty watery, and unlike any other polish I've used, it was incredibly streaky and even now, after five coats, I'm still not happy.

I think it has actually been saved a bit by the bargain purchase of BeautyUK's Matte Top Coat, which I am happy with.

BeautyUK Matte Top Coat, £1.99, Superdrug
For the price and size, I think this is pretty great, and it goes on really well, with no gloops.
Although 'U & I' does come in undeniably cute packaging, and actually does dry really quickly between coats, it just doesn't have the right finish and I'm left feeling a bit let down. I'm not sure if it's colour, but I have seen a range of mixed reviews for most of the collection. I do believe that you get what you pay for with beauty products, and I know £2 means I shouldn't expect it to be amazing, but MUA do generally live up to a high standard - I love their bright individual eye shadow palettes - and with this being a collaboration, maybe I was just expecting it to be much more.




Have you tried any of the other colours in the MUA Love Heart's range? What did you think?

Kind of just fell into this review a bit, but I'm genuinely a little bit annoyed.

While I'm here, I found this photo that I took on my Blackberry of the newly revamped upstairs to Snooper's Paradise, which I mentioned in my last post, isn't it beautiful? Sorry the phone-photo doesn't do it justice, but I was a bit nervous about full-on papping it.

There's only three days left on my eBay listings if you're interested, you might be able to get a bargain.

'This one's for you', 'No it's not'.

Yesterday was lovely, Moon and I spent most of the afternoon in our favourite city, Brighton. Everything about Brighton is lovely, it's like it's got completely different laws, not sure if that makes sense or just sounds incredibly pretentious, I don't mean it to be pretentious.
I love Brighton, it's so laid back, and it just feels like there's more to see, and it's by the sea, so that's a plus. I'd love to get the chance to move there one day.

The day began with opening Moon's birthday presents, I bought him a couple of cute books, some Oreos, Moustache Elixir (it's a drink) and a pair of wicked-cool Vans, a bit different from what he usually wears but I think he likes them.




Doll was super impressed with the wrapping paper, apparently it was really tasty, as well as being a great place to hunt.
It got to half 11 pretty quickly and we zoomed off down to Brighton, stopping just outside for Harvester. We had planned to go to this cute vegetarian place that we've been saying we'd go to forever, but we've promised to go next time and hopefully Harvester won't call again. It did hit the spot though.


This must have been the biggest cucumber.



The second shop we came across, the first being AHA, where I picked up my cat-print canvas bag, was Porta, everything in there is amazing, the jewellery, the bags, the scarves. It's got a slightly vintage feel and the displays are beautiful, even incorporating a dolls house. I'm excited to head back down there once I've got some cash, just so I can buy everything. They had the most adorable tiny people necklaces and pins, which I wish I could show you!

Just looking at Porta's window display has me drooling, each necklace is great. Surprisingly I spotted Modcloth's famous What's the Story, Winston?' pug necklace, and they had a few variations including a bear and even a bunny, kicking myself that I didn't jot down designers.



Even walking down The Lanes provides a visual feast, so I was pretty happy window shopping really.



Pleased to see this sign in Get Cutie, it's nice that they are happy to warn people, but also pretty funny that they have to.


Boy Parker


The entrance to Snooper's Paradise.


Snooper's Paradise was looking particularly great yesterday. They've clearly done it up a little and there's now a lot of light coming in so it's much less dingy. I mean, that was undoubtedly part of the appeal but it's nice to have a bit more room to move. I'm not sure how allowed I am to take photos, but I only took a few anyway. There was so much interesting stuff, I couldn't resist.





I'm seeing a lot of doll house furniture around at the moment. Some of it is so intricate, it could almost be literally miniaturised versions.




They've really done up the upstairs of Snooper's Paradise, which now stocks vintage clothes, shoes and accessories and is probably one of the most beautiful rooms I've seen in ages. Didn't snap it, but take my word.


This is the collection of Studio Ghibli books stocked in Dave's Comics, so great.



As I mentioned, there was a lot of window shopping involved yesterday, while passing this barbers, we spotted this ultimate lad, how comfy and cute does he look?



It was such a shame that it was such a gloomy day yesterday as by comparison the day before and today were brilliant, at least it wasn't absolutely freezing though.



Rounding up our day in Brighton and attempting to get back to the car park before the price rolled up to £18, we took a stroll along the seafront, which is full of lovely places to look at and take photos of.



Here I am sitting in a boat.
Jacket: New Look
Dress: New Look
Necklaces: Primark, Accessorize
Bag: River Island
Tights: Dorothy Perkins
Shoes: Primark

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When we got back to Moon's we had more Chinese food - we had it again for tea tonight! - and cake. I picked up these cupcakes from the Cloud 9 bakery in Brighton, it's where I got my birthday cupcakes from when I was in Brighton for my 21st birthday, they're a pretty great bakery, even making cupcakes on request. I just picked up two banana, a white and chocolate and a belgian chocolate, I had the banana and it was delicious.


I've had a really nice couple of days, I wish we could do more things like this without it needing to be a special occasion, hopefully I won't have to wait much longer, it was pretty great to just hang out.