Harry Potter Haul March 2014 ♡

Hello there muggles! I haven't posted in a while because honestly I've not been out that much, I'm finding A levels quite stressful at the moment and I've just had my mocks but as a reward this week I went to Kings Cross (to go to the Harry Potter Shop) and Oxford Street to buy some Harry Potter merchandise so I thought I would show you what I got :)

1. Harry Potter Glasses (£4.99) - Harry Potter Shop at Platform 9 3/4 (Kings Cross station)

I hadn't gone into the shop intending on buying these but as we walked around the small shop I decided to pick them up so that I can be Harry, James, or John Lennon...

2. Large Hedwig Toy (£15) - Harry Potter Shop at Platform 9 3/4 (Kings Cross station)

This is something I had planned on buying because I had seen it on the website but I had not idea how small it would be in real life, it felt like quite a frivolous purchase but I had intended on buying it and I felt sad just leaving it in there, it's about 20cm so it's not tiny but it's not what I would call large.

3. Platform 9 and 3/4 ticket (£1.99) - Platform 9 and 3/4 Shop (Kings Cross)

I knew these could be bought here but I wasn't planning on buying it initially because I felt it would be a waste of money as you can print out tickets from this website but it looks really nice, it's printed on nice paper and the gold is sort of engraved into the ticket, you can buy a ticket attached to a lanyard for £5.99 which I considered because I could take it to school but I decided against it.

4. Postcards (50p each) - Harry Potter Shop at Platform 9 and 3/4 (Kings Cross)

I knew I had to pick up some postcards to stick up on the Harry Potter section of my wardrobe and these were much cheaper than the one I got at the tour (read about that here), but the selection at the tour was much better, the ones at this shop were mostly plain and moreso advertising the shop but I liked these two postcards because little Harry is adorable and I believe in house unity (I'm a gryffindor)

5. Hogwarts Pin Badge (£3.99) - Harry Potter Shop at Platform 9 and 3/4 (Kings Cross station)

I'm not sure where I'm going to pin this but I'm considering ordering some robes from eBay so I may pin it on there, I was considering getting a house pin but as I said I believe in house unity so I thought this would be nicer.

6. Badges (£1 each) - Harry Potter Shop at Platform 9 and 3/4 (Kings Cross Station)

I really like the D.A badge I got because I like to think I would've been in Dumbledore's Army (or Defence Association), I also wanted something to represent my house so I got a gryffindor badge that I can wear with pride.

7. Golden Snitch and Sticker Kit (£5.99) - Waterstones

I had seen these kits on amazon before but I didn't realise they were still being made, they had a bunch at the Waterstones in Oxford street, I haven't seen them in the smaller waterstones. They had them for time turners, hogwarts snow globes, horcrux lockets, mini Hedwig models.. I was considering getting a time turner but the one that comes in this kind of kit is chunky and doesn't look like the ones in the films that much so I have ordered one on eBay for half the price. I like this kit the most because when I make the snitch up I can put it on display next to my chocolate frog boxes from the tour, and I don't know what I'll use the stickers for, they may just be added to my evergrowing sticker collection.

If you're a tourist planning to make a stop at Kings Cross, I'm going to save you the trouble we had by telling you if you get to Kings Cross St. Pancras on the tube, LEAVE THE STATION and cross the road to the big dome and that is Kings Cross and pretty soon you'll see a mass of people lining up to take their picture at platform 9 and 3/4. We walked around St Pancras for a long time then had to ask someone where the shop was and they directed us across the street, we weren't alone though we got stopped a few times and asked by foreigners if we knew where the shop was (our house scarves, my Hedwig backpack and my Harry Potter shop probably made us look like Potterheads but who knows...) At the shop there is a photo opportunity, there is a cart half way in Platform 9 and 3/4 with a sign and you can line up and take your picture, we were considering doing this but we live so close and we didn't want to get into a queue so we've saved that for another day. The shop itself is quite small and can feel claustrophobic but it is a must-see for any Potterhead, the things in the shop range from fairly to cheap to quite expensive so I reckon you would come out with something whether it be a postcard, which is probably the cheapest, to some of the official prop replicas which can go up to £300. They do have chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott's every flavour beans but they aren't the same ones sold at the tour, the frogs are small and the only cards you can really get are Professors so do yourself a favour and go to the studio tour (or just the shop that's there because it's free to enter the shop) and buy a proper chocolate frog there!!

I got a bit rambly but when I was looking for posts about this shop I couldn't really find anything so I didn't know what to expect, so I hope I've informed you if that's what you're looking for, or I hope you enjoyed seeing what I bought!!

♡

Collective January Haul 2014 ft. Isabella: Primark , New Look,Superdrug and More ♡

Hello there people, I have been shopping a few times in January so I thought I would show you what I have gotten as on each trip I haven't bought a great deal but together it makes a substantial haul. I went out with Isabella yesterday and got some cool stuff, we also baked brownies so I might do a separate blogpost with the recipe on there :)

1. Beatles Shirt (Primark) - £8

    Frilly Dolly Socks (Primark) - £1.50 each 

    Hello Kitty and Tatty Teddy Socks (B&M) - 99p each

I didn't buy this with Isabella but I thought I would still show it, I've had quite the obsession with socks recently because I've gotten some Dr Marten shoes which show off my socks so I've come to the realisation that I need more socks. I love love love Hello Kitty and Tatty Teddy, and I think frilly socks are nice to wear if you're wearing 'grown up' type clothes or bands shirts because then it shows you're mature but a bit childish too.

2. Pop Tarts t-shirt (New Look) - usually £12.99 but with student discount it was about £10.37 

I found this shirt in New Look and although I've sort of made a new years resolution to buy less t-shirts, I felt I had to buy this because anyone who knows me knows that pop tarts are one of my favourite things in the world, it has gotten to the point where people who I barely know in sixth form will come up to me just to tell me that they tried pop tarts, pictures are 3 types of pop tarts: chocolate chip cookie dough, blueberry and chocolate chip which were all £3.50 in tesco, one of them Isabella gave me for Christmas but I'll get onto what she gave me for Christmas later :)

3. Clueless (B&M) - £2.99

    Tatty Teddy Socks (B&M) - 99p

B&M isn't a shop I see everywhere, in fact I only know of two but if you know of one you really need to go there because you can get practically everything there at reduced prices. Even pop tarts! Unfortunately there weren't any when I went with Isabella yesterday. I picked up Clueless because me and Isabella started watching it the last time we met up but we didn't finish it and we watched the last half hour yesterday, I just thought I'd buy it because it's a good price and a film I feel I should own and it can take a place next to Mean Girls. I've already explained my newfound obsession for childish socks so I won't go into more details.

4. Baby Lips (Superdrug ) - £2.99 each but in a deal that was like buy one get one half price
    Free sample of Nivea Deodorant (Superdrug) 

I have wanted Baby Lips for what feels like forever, you can see this in one of my old wishlists. I have heard from reviews and people I know that these two are the most popular, I really like the idea of them because they smell good and tint your lips but feel more like a lip balm than a lipstick. Isabella got the peach flavour which is funny because her nickname is peaches and she picked it up without knowing it was peaches. We got offered a free sample of this deodorant too, my Mum brought up the point that it may have been offered to us because we smell but obviously I accepted it and I think it's a nice compact size so I can keep it in my bag for school or satchel for when I go out. If you want a review of baby lips I can do that so comment below if you'd like to see that :)

5. Frilly dolly socks (Primark) - £1.50

    Alice in Wonderland Socks (Primark) - £2.50

I picked up some more dolly socks (I think that's what they're called) in an off-white colour because I already have white ones, black ones, and grey ones. I figure if I can get at least 7, I can wear them everyday. I've seen loads of people pick up the Disney socks in primark and I was very tempted, they had Snow White, the Little Mermaid, Bambi, Tinkerbell and these. I would've bought them all had they not been £2.50 each because that's a lot for socks and I would've ended up spending over a tenner, but these feel so soft, I'm a little worried about whether the colour will wash out but oh well.

6. Lolita glasses (Poundland) - £1

Me and Isabella just like buying accessories when we go out even if we're not going to wear them again, these are not quite Lolita glasses because the shades aren't black but they're close enough and we were both reading Lolita at the same time plus it reminded us of Lana Del Rey who we both love. 

7. Isabella's Christmas Presents to me

I would've included my Christmas presents from Isabella and Antoinette in my Christmas Haul but we didn't exchange Christmas presents until last week but I still wanted to show you. Isabella bought me a box of the pop tarts from America, that sounds stupid because they're all from America but some of them are cheaper because they're sold in England more but these ones aren't so yay! Also she bought me a Winnie the Pooh toy and a Roo toy which is so cute, I was with her when she bought them and they are in a deal at the moment, they were like £6.99 each which is amazing for Disney toys plus they're fairly big.

8. Antoinette's Christmas Present to me

What you may or may not know is that me and my friends are obsessed with Harry Potter, especially after going to the tours (which you can see a blogpost about here) and I am completely and utterly in love with Draco Malfoy (and Tom Felton) so now I have a cushion.. with his face on.. in my bed.. which is great :D

9. Black Cardigan (Primark) - £10 but charged £5

First things first, I am a bit confused about the price of this. Before I picked it up, I thought it would be £12 or £14 like all Primark cardigans but then it said £10 which was a pleasant enough surprise, then they only charged me £5 at the counter which is such a bargain. I bought it two sizes too big so it's really cosy and baggy, I wanted one just like this as I mentioned in my wishlist so that's awesome.

10. The food me and Isabella bought.. 

Before you judge us, we really didn't eat that much from here, I reckon we were hungry when we bought it because we ended up dividing most of it up and I took it home, we used some of the chocolate to make brownies which tasted so good and I'm thinking of doing a recipe blogpost on those, if you want to see that please comment, we spent the rest of our day after shopping watching the end of Clueless and watching Ferris Bueller's day off as well as making brownies.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed seeing what I've bought over the last month :)

2014 Reading Challenge ♡

Happy New Year people on the interwebs!

I know many of you have probably been making new years resolutions (or completely poo-poo-ing the idea) but I have sort of made a resolution myself for the first time I think. I can't remember any other resolutions I've made, perhaps I made them and failed so decided to block it out from my memory.

Anyway, I've set myself a reading goal on the website Goodreads for 2014. My goal is to read 15 books this year, that might not sound a lot to you but I haven't done much reading since GCSEs and now A levels. 7 of those books will be Harry Potter because after going to the studio tour I feel I need to read it again, also I've been physically unable to watch the films after having a movie marathon after the tour - I am emotionally broken, I can barely watch clips without dying internally. I'm also wanting to read the Bell Jar which I received for Christmas, I'm hoping to read a lot more this year. If you want to add me on Goodreads, you can do so here. I'll accept anyone as a friend on there. It's a cool but geeky website I suppose, you can rate books, add books to your 'to-read' list, add favourites, write reviews, do quizzes, and there are forums so you can discuss the books - I took some enjoyment in discussing a Jaqueline Wilson book from my childhood on there.

That's all for now, I was thinking of doing book reviews on here too but I'm not sure. If that's what you'd like to see then please comment, thanks :)

Christmas Haul 2013 ♡

Hello everybody! I hope you all had a merry Christmas if you celebrate it (I'm not religious but I celebrate it for the commercial side and to treat family members and my friends don't shoot me I'm sorry)and if not, I hope you've been enjoying the time off school or work. Sadly I have mock exams in January so I can't relax too much, I did take Christmas day off though to watch Elf with my family, eat bacon sandwiches, open presents and end the day with burgers and an episode of a TV show of our choice each. My grandparents and one of my half sisters came over on Boxing Day. Anyway, I got some really cool stuff this year and I thought I'd show you what I was given, this isn't to brag but I enjoy seeing what other people got for Christmas and it makes for a more personal post :)

This is what I got in my stocking, opened at 8:45am thanks to my 13 year old brother (I would've woken up early anyway to be honest), I was going to take pictures of all the individual items but I thought that would take ages and bore you to tears. I would be lying if I said I hadn't already eaten the m&m's, I'm a bit scared to eat the Hello Kitty chocolates, they're like malteasers, I don't want to throw the box away so if I do eat them the box will probably be hoarded in my room. I was a bit disappointed to find that the Disney tissues were plain so now I'm scared to open them as well - I really am terrible I know.

This is probably the cutest present I received, not only is it a big hello kitty toy which would be cute enough but it is a microwave heatable thingamabobby too! I hardly ever use them any more but maybe I will now. It's such a lovely addition to my room because of the colours, my room is light pink and white on the ceiling so it matches the colour scheme perfectly :)

Another hello kitty toy! I actually got this in my stocking but I forgot to photograph it with the others and it's cute enough to deserve its own photo, whilst it looks a bit Ke$ha-fied, I think this is cute - I just really like hello kitty.

This is one of my best presents, an Eeyore onesie! This is really cute, I actually made a mental note to buy a Disney onesie in the new year (I had hoped that they would be reduced in the sales) but now I have one so I'll be okay for a while. My Mum said she thought this one was perfect for me, and I quite like it - it's very fluffy and warm and I should think I'll be spending the majority of 2014 in it.

If you've read my favourites posts from a while back, you'll know I really love the simple moisturiser and I have used the toner before but not the cleanser. These products will definitely come in handy, plus it comes with a bag to put the products in and my makeup bags tend to be too small so it's nice to know I can divide up my stuff :)

Usually at Christmas, me and my brother are given jelly belly jelly beans in our stockings and we did get some this year but we've also both been given this which is quite a cute addition for my room. I used to have something similar to this but with gum balls (Lizzie will remember, and she'll probably remember the event that happened with it that turned me off gum for life) but this is much nicer and I hopefully will never be turned off from jelly beans. It does come with a packet of jelly beans as well. You have to put money in though to get the jelly beans though, but I love this I think it will be a cute addition to my room.

I was elated when I saw I had gotten this! I had told my Mum a few times before how much I wanted to try soap and glory and she said she was going to get some for my birthday and she didn't but she got me other stuff so I had forgotten about it, then I get this for Christmas which has several full sized products! It includes Hand Food, Sugar Crush Body Wash, The Righteous Butter Body Butter, Peaches and Clean Deep Purifying Cleanser, Heel Genius, Butter Yourself Moisture Lotion, The Scrub of Your Life Body Buffer, Thick & Fast Super Volume Mascara, and Sexy Mother Pucker XL in Pink Out Loud. Such a nice selection and it also came with some free samples of Super Serum. I like how it came with a proper bag too which I can use for travelling in the future (not that I do a great deal of travel but it's nice to know it's there)

Anyone who knows me knows I am a hell of a DVD junkie, especially with Disney films - I am basically getting all the ones we have on videos which have been watched so many times and me and my Mum are worried they're not going to play any more. I also got a couple of studio Ghibli films which is great, see I love Disney so much that I even go for Disney's company in Japan. I was surprised to get the Little Mermaid because that's been quite expensive and I hadn't seen it in any of the 2 for 1 sales so my Mum specifically said "don't expect the little mermaid for Christmas this year", she didn't say how she got it and to be honest I don't mind. I'm glad I got the Hunger Games too because I never got to watch it in the cinema, I wanted to read the books first but I don't own the books so I might just have to watch the films. I have seen all of the films here except for The Rescuers Down Under, Billy Elliot, The Hunger Games, (not sure about Winnie the Pooh) and Kiki's Delivery Service so I'm looking forward to watching those!

A nice little makeup set from my Mother, called Glamour Gift Box, containing Extreme Length Extend Mascara in Black, High Shine Lip Gloss in Whisper (is whisper a colour now..??), Stay Perfect Eye Shadow in sheer brown, and Stay Precise Felt Tip Eyeliner in Black.These all sound neutral so I'm sure I'll get quite a lot of use out of everything in there, if it were bright coloured things I'd be worried because I've still got huge pallets from when I was about 12 or 13 when I used to wear a lot of eye shadow when given the chance and usually in bright colours and I cringe just remembering it. So I wouldn't want any more bright coloured things that I'd get no use out of.

These presents are only paired because they're what my brother gave me, it may look a little pathetic to you but I really like it because over the past couple of months I have been collecting hello kitty socks (sensing a theme yet?), tatty teddy socks and disney socks so this is just another one to add to the collection and I quite like the money box because it's a cute knick knack.

More DVDs hurray! One of my favourite shows from my childhood (early childhood) but then I found some episodes on youtube and watched them again quite a while ago, and when I saw a box set had been released either last year or this year I knew I wanted it so I put it on my Christmas list. For my birthday I got the Sabrina the Teenage Witch Boxset so I am building up my collection of 90s TV shows.

Would is be Christmas without one of these? I think we all know the answer. I finished these by the end of boxing day, not going to lie. I have no shame.. well actually I have a lot of shame.. moving swiftly onwards.

Another thing I had put on my birthday list and forgotten about! This is such a great gift because it contains so many Ben Folds/Ben Folds Five songs, it's sort of a 'best of' if you will. My Dad has a few Ben Folds piano books already but they have the scores for all of the instruments so they're a bit awkward for me to play from because I'm constantly having to turn the pages, my Dad is so good that he already knows it but this is great because the difficulty is the same, challenging but I'm willing to learn, but the score is just for piano and vocals so I won't have to turn the page as often. If you're interested, I've just started grade 8 piano and I got a merit in my grade 7 - I was pleasantly surprised, I absolutely love having new pieces to play so for a bit of fun on the side of my grade 8 pieces I now have some Ben Folds. If you don't know who he is, youtube him because he is such an amazing artist who doesn't get nearly enough credit.

This is a gift from my half sister which made me smile because, if you've been following me and don't know my name - my name is Bess, she saw this shop in Valencia called Bess and sent me a picture on Whatsapp of it and then she bought something there for me. I actually quite like the necklace as well, also a bit of chocolate is always good :)

I got these books from my grandparents and I've wanted to read the Bell Jar for quite a long time now, I've heard it can be quite triggering so I'm a bit worried about that but I'm still looking forward to reading it :)

More body butters! I really like this set because it's all fruity and I love sweet scents, it has body mists and body butters too which is great because I don't have many sprays so I usually don't smell of anything.

I also got a lava lamp but I keep forgetting to photograph it, and when I remember it it's turned off so it's just a big lump of wax haha sorry about that.

Thanks for reading, I know I wrote loads for each picture pretty much and probably bored you to tears because you just wanted to see the products. Again, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas or enjoyed having some time off to relax.

♡

Harry Potter Studios and What I Bought There ♡

Hello there! So I went to the Harry Potter studios in Leavesden on Friday 13th December 2013 (won't be saying 2013 for much longer), and it was absolutely magical (see what I did there), I took some clips and had originally filmed a haul but long story short it wouldn't upload so I've just got the clips put together and I have quite a lot of photos and what I bought - on with the show!

 The Harry Potter bus!
If you want to take the bus to the studios (which I recommend unless you're driving), it's £2 for a return ticket and £1.50 for a single. It picks you up from Watford Junction and comes about every 20 minutes, the journey takes roughly 12 minutes and they play a video on the bus so sit at the front! Me and my friends said right at the back to be together so we couldn't really hear the video but oh well..

These passports come with a child's ticket but all of my friends are adults, we had a really kind tour guide who saw we wanted them so she ran off and came back with a stack just for us! They basically have spaces on each page for you to imprint a pattern which you can find at different locations in the tour, it's just a nice little souvenir to have especially if you don't want to have to spend too much in the gift shop but want to take somethinghome!

Gryffindor Boys Dorm

The Mirror of Erised

Dumbledore's office

Me and Antoinette being Ron and Harry

Me and my boy

Again.. me and my boy

The knight bus, I apologise for the lighting - it was night time. Next time I go, I'm going in the day time just to get better photos but at night it was absolutely beautiful - night and hogwarts in the snow is a great combination.

The wand chooses the wizard Mr Potter! Click over to Isabella's page

When we all got back to Antoinette's, we watched all 8 movies back to back. Well, maybe I should say me and Antoinette watched all 8 movies back to back. Lizzie watched with her eyes closed.. I tried to take a picture of the golden snitch cake pops we had but it was really blurry and I didn't realise until they were gone. We also made cauldron cakes but they were a bit of a fail, and we bought chocolate frog moulds but we didn't use them in the end. We made butter beer too but we didn't follow the recipe and so I had a big blob of butter in mine which was.. great..

WHAT I BOUGHT:

Time turner - £8.95
I really wanted one of these, I'm going to acquire a chain for it so I can wear it like a necklace but it's really cute. There are cheaper key rings, but they're still £5 - £10. It's a pricey store, I'll tell you that.

Chocolate Frog x2 - £7.95 each
Some pricey chocolate BUT you do get a wizard/witch card with each chocolate frog, the frogs aren't hollow so it's pure chocolate, and it's huge. The cards are also sort of holographic, I got Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw. Apparently you can only get the house founders which was disappointing, I was hoping I'd get Godric Gryffindor because house pride!

Snape Postcard - 95p
One of the cheaper things in the store, you can buy a pack of 10 for £8.95 but spending nearly a tenner on postcards felt a lot so I just got a postcard of one of my favourite characters. They didn't have one with Draco on, I'm guessing they were sold out or non-existent, otherwise I would've gotten one with Draco on it.

Hedwig backpack - £29.95
A pricey backpack (sorry I'm overusing that word now). I wanted a Hedwig plush toy which from what I read online would be about £22.95, I was prepared for that, but they only had Hedwig puppets and the backpack looked cute so I got that instead. They have plush toys of loads of the animals, like Scabbers, Fawkes, Aragog, random owls, Crookshanks, pygmy puffs..

Harry Potter t-shirt - £15
I'm glad I got a tourist type t-shirt because I don't have any Harry Potter shirts and this has most of the characters on (some were under my skirt such as Draco..) and I wore this to school on the following Tuesday (I wasn't emotionally ready for school on the Monday) and so it sparked conversation with people asking how the tour was, which was nice, I'm still not emotionally ready to upload all the photos to facebook (Facebook isn't ready either as it won't let me do it)

That's everything I bought, hoped you enjoyed the post!