Lorna Cole

I know this year was very different for everyone and some of your plans will have been completely ruined but I hope you were able to enjoy Christmas as best you can. Despite living in a tier 2 area, I spent Christmas at home with my immediate family which isn't much different from most years. We'd usually visit family in the days after but obviously haven't been able to this year, I'm lucky to have had a relatively normal Christmas though.  I've seen a lot of people feeling unsure about posting what they got for Christmas this year, but generally, it seems people want as much normality with content as possible. I'm also very grateful for the gifts I received!  I actually treated myself to a new laptop as my old one stopped working earlier in the year. Since I've just applied to new university courses it was definitely a worthwhile purchase and I put some money I recieved for Chrismas towards it!  Usually my grandparents will give me money so I can buy things

I love any sort of tag post but a festive one is even better. A big thank you to Anna-Alina for tagging me, you can check out her post here ! Christmas tree. Real or fake? Is a Christmas tree a must-have for winter holidays and creating the Christmas atmosphere or is it not necessary for you? I love going to pick out our Christmas tree each year, we usually get it around the start of December so it marks the official start of the Christmas season for me. I think fake trees can look great but I'd miss the smell of a real one! Holiday drinks. Coca Cola, eggnog or hot chocolate? Or maybe something different? What you drink on Christmas? Definitely hot chocolate, I tried Costa's Chocolate Orange one recently which was great! We always make hot chocolate on Christmas Eve whilst watching a Christmas film so it always makes me feel super festive. What are your own Christmas traditions? One tradition I enjoy is getting new pyjamas on Christmas eve and I also love playing board games du

I hope everyone had a brilliant Christmas, however you celebrate! If you don’t then hopefully you had a good holiday break! I thought I’d share some of the things I kindly received this year as I always enjoy reading these sorts of posts.  An iPhone 11 was my main gift this year, though I basically treated myself to it haha! I previously had an iPhone 7 which served me well but wanted a bit of an upgrade. I use my phone constantly for socialising, blogging, coursework, photos and entertainment so think it’s a worthwhile buy and I’m really pleased with it so far!  I also got a keyboard for my graphic tablet as I was having problems with my laptop so now I can do all my work on my tablet. It’s pretty useful as it clips in and basically turns it into a laptop but you can still use the touchscreen and pen as well.  One thing I’m always trying to improve is my health and fitness, something I want to work on a lot in 2020! To potentially help and motivate me I asked for

As I’ve not been doing Blogmas this year I thought I could do a roundup of the lead up to Christmas!  Secret Santa   I participated in a Bloggers Secret Santa again this year and we opened our presents last week. I was kindly given some really lovely gifts, I’m especially looking forward to trying the different masks as it’s something I often forget to buy! Also Lindt chocolate is always a winner!  I also really enjoyed buying the gifts, it’s so fun to wrap everything up and see them open it! Big thanks to Casey for organising it - you can see a roundup of it on her  Instagram! Decorating   I think the thing that really kicks off the season for me is decorating the tree as it instantly makesme feel Christmassy! I think we have a fairly simple tree, with a red, white and wooden theme, I kind of wish we could have a tree that was decorated for every season! Christmas Shopping   I said on my Instagram recently about how I think I’ve bee

I am working with Paperless Post, who kindly gifted me some coins to use on their website. However, all opinions are my own of course! Paperless Post is a company that allows you to customise online stationery such as greeting cards, invitations and flyers. You can then send them via email to the recipients, using your Paperless Post coins. These can be purchased, however, there are also some free cards available and you receive 25 free coins when you sign up too!  I was really impressed by the different designs they have, they are actually partnered with fashion designers like Kate Spade, Kelly Wearstler and Oscar de la Renta.  As we’re quickly approaching the festive season I thought this was the perfect thing to try out as it’s so easy to send Christmas cards! You can choose a design and then you have the option to customise the text, backdrop and envelope. They also offer photo cards so you can add your own photos to make it even more unique! Here are a couple of photo ca

December is always a busy month and the one I look forward to most! So, I thought I should share some of the things I enjoyed over the month, which seemed to fly by! Experience  Now, of course, I had to mention Christmas as a whole since it is the thing that makes December my favourite time of the year! I enjoy the whole lead up to Christmas and spend most of my time watching Christmas films, listening to Christmas music and eating a lot of food! It’s also really lovely to see family and Christmas Day itself was amazing too. I was lucky to receive some brilliant gifts which you can check out here ! Film We finally went to see Mary Poppins Returns which completely lived up to my expectations, I'm a big Dinsey fan and new I had to watch this when they announced it. I loved the new story and thought Emily Blunt was absolutely perfect for the role, Lin-Manuel Miranda was also incredible! I also think that the nods to the original were really well done and it’s definitely a

Firstly, Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great Christmas, holiday or just a nice time if you don't celebrate anything! I know these posts aren't everyone's cup of tea but, I'm very grateful for everything and am not bragging at all, I just think it's interesting to see what people received. Also, I like to be able to document all the gifts I was given this year as something to look back on.    My main present this year was a Fujifilm Camera which I was so excited to open, I've been interested in photography for as long as I can remember and plan to start a Creative Arts Degree which will help me to develop my photography skills. It's also going to come in really handy for blogging too and I can't wait to start taking better photos for my posts! I've been meaning to get a new pair of shoes for a while now so this year I asked for some Nike trainers.  I wanted black ones since they go with pretty much anything and have a feeling this w

Christmas Eve is often a very busy day and begins with the chaos of getting all the final bits ready for Christmas. We usually collect and deliver presents to different family members and do some last minute shopping for any food or essentials. My Mum then prepares some bits for Christmas Dinner and my evening usually kicks off with the annual trifle making. I’m not sure how many years I’ve been making one for me and my Dad but it’s at least 6+ so it’s become a tradition now! The evening is (hopefully) a bit more chilled out and we usually watch a Christmas film. This year’s pick is The Muppet's Christmas Carol! One of my favourite traditions is getting a few gifts to open on Christmas Eve. Most often, this consists of some new festive pyjamas which we usually put on straight away and have them for Christmas morning. I’ve had multiple designs over the years and this time I received this matching grey fairisle set which I really love! Luckily it’s not too thick as I hate getti

This year I participated in a Secret Santa for bloggers which was organised by the lovely Casey. Despite a few hiccups, it was a lovely thing to be a part of because I was able to connect with so many new bloggers and we all have a great support system now! You can check out Casey's post here if you'd like to see what everyone else got too as she kindly provided links to all of our blogs! My gifts arrived quite a while ago, packaged in some really festive Christmas Pudding wrapping paper and I really had to resist the urge to open them, I always used to be one of those kids that would feel around and try to work out what a present was when I had to wait to open it, haha! My Secret Santa was Eloise who blogs over at The Longing Wanderer . She absolutely nailed my gifts and I couldn't be happier with them so I can't thank her enough! Firstly I opened two bath bombs which smelt amazing even before opening them, I quickly recognised that they were from Lush whic

 I was recently tagged in The Christmas A-Z Tag by the lovely Gemma, you can check out her post  here  or head over to her blog:  Hidden Little Gem . The purpose of this tag is to essentially share the things you love and associate with Christmas - using each letter of the alphabet of course! Finally, make sure you tag more bloggers to complete it as well. A -   Absolutely everything. I thought I'd start there because that encompasses it all and instantly covers how much I do love Christmas! B -  Buying the tree is something I always like to do because we usually get it at the start of December which really kicks off the festivities!  C -  Chocolate is definitely one of the best things about this time of the year, it's great always but you just have an excuse to eat so much more! My favourite has to be a Terry's Chocolate Orange! D -  Decorating the tree is another thing I enjoy because it instantly makes me feel so Christmassy, we also like to put up our outdoor

It's that time of the year again when everyone is trying to think about what to give people for Christmas, as well as making their own wishlists. I thought I'd do a quick post with a range of ideas because I know I always look for posts like this to get some inspiration! Beauty: → Bath or shower set - I mean you can't go wrong can you, they make a great gift and can be used by anyone. I love this set from the brand Hugg that I got from Waitrose . → Perfume/Cologne - Also a super simple idea but it's so nice to get something new to wear. Also Fragrance Direc t has 70% at the moment! → Bath bomb - A good bath is underrated and of course Lush is the ultimate go-to for amazing bath bombs but of course, lots of places sell some lovely ones. → Makeup palette - For the makeup lovers, I feel like a palette is a gift that will be appreciated and you can get eyeshadow, contour, highlight etc. James Charles x Morphe Palette is insane for those who l