I know that you guys all love a haul so as a special treat I'm sharing a bit of exclusive content with you. I don't know if you aware of it but I have a You Tube channel, where I mainly post unboxings, and haul videos. A lot of the time I make videos to accompany blog posts and vice versa, but every now and then I shoot a haul video exclusively for my You Tube followers. When I do that I sometimes feel a little bit guilty that some of my blog followers may be missing out so today I thought I'd one of my You Tube channel exclusive hauls with you.
Today it's a bargaintastic home, lifestyle and stationery haul from a variety of stores including Poundland, Tiger and Aldi, and the good news is that the most expensive item was just £5
If you're on a mobile device and you can't see this video please check it out via this link x If you have questions on any of the items that I bought then leave me a comment either below or on my You Tube channel and I'll get back to you x
Have you ever had one of those days where you just can't concentrate on anything, and where if someone asked you your name, you wouldn't be able to remember it? Well I think I'm having one of those weeks! Last night I started uploading a You Tube video only to notice this morning that I'd actually updated the wrong one! Argh bigger disasters at sea I suppose, so instead of getting a Primark haul, today your getting another collective home haul instead. Of course I hadn't edited any of the photos that I needed, so guess what I've spent all afternoon doing!
It's been a bit dull and rainy this afternoon though, so I've been chilling out with a few candles lit and working on my tappy lappy, as mum affectionately calls it. it therefore makes sense to start off this haul with a few (or a lot of) scented candles.
In the last home haul that I posted I showed you a lovely hamper of Yankee Candles from QVC that I'd picked up on auto delivery, well just before I'd finished that post my second Yankee Candle 39 Piece Seasonal Hamper arrived.
Again it came beautifully packaged in a sturdy canvas storage basket, and like before it contained, 12 of Yankee's famous votive / sampler candlers. You got two of each in the following autumnal fragrances, Autumn Nights, Sweet Apple, Ebony and Oak, Rhubarb Crumble, Honey Clementine and Cranberry Pear.
It also contained two green bucket style, glass votive holders, and two boxes of 12 tea lights, in the Autumn Night and Honey Clementine fragrances.
I've got to be honest and say that are a few fragrances in this drop, that just aren't me, I'm still going to burn them and try them though, and if I don't like them, I may hold a little Yankee Candle giveaway later in the year. Last time I looked this kit was actually still available on QVC UK all be it for a higher price than what I paid. I think there kits are a great way to try some new fragrances, and I'm in love with a couple of new discoveries, Cranberry Pear and Rhubarb Crumble. If you can't get your hands on this kit, most of these fragrances should be available from various other Yankee Candle retailers.
Although I love my Yankee Candles, over the last few months I have been trying to try out a few different candle brands, and after buying my mum one of their Parma Violet fragranced candles for her birthday, I recently bought myself a candle from Flamingo Candles, in the fragrance Mango and Dragonfruit.
Believe me this smells as good as it sounds, sweet, tangy and mouthwateringly fruity. I love the sparkly acrylic flamingo on the jar and I'm in love with this candle. I got mine from the Littlewoods catalogue website but you can also buy Flamingo Candles from various retailers and of course from their own website.
Someone that I have tried candles from in the past is NEXT, I particularly love their Festive Spice fragranced candles and reed diffusers and I've also been pretty happy with the other fragrances that I've tried from them but for a change I decided to try out some of their other festive fragrances.
Beautifully packaged in triangle, tree like box, tied with a ribbon, this set of 6 fragranced candles, which was just £12 would make a perfect gift.
The box contained 6 candles packaged in different coloured, mercury glass votives, which you could probably reuse. All of the fragrances have a festive feel, and include, Gingerbread, Figgy Pudding, Under The Mistletoe, Cream Liqueur, Mulled Wine and Roasted Chestnut.
Each candle burns for around 15 hours and whilst some of them don't smell quite as I expected, you get a really nice selection of fruity, warming, fresh and woody scents. All of the candles in this box are available in a larger size and I've already bought Mulled Wine in the full size. Many moons ago Yankee Candles produced a fragrance, also called Mulled Wine which I loved, and this is the closest fragrance that I've ever found to it. Please can we have this one in a reed diffuser too, NEXT, pretty please!
I do love a reed diffuser, they make a great substitute for conventional air fresheners, and get a good one and you can easily fragrance a whole room, or even a house without the need to too many chemicals or a naked flame. I do love NEXT's for ever day and for their festive scents, but again I always come to a Yankee and one of my favourite ever fragrances from them, is Lemon Lavender.
Yankee do a couple of different types of diffuser but I do love the traditional candle jar look of this one. I can easily get a couple of months out of one of these in my room, they key is to just keep turning the reeds to refresh the fragrance.
I think I'm going to leave this one in storage till after Christmas now though, as I'm currently in a very foodie, fruity and festive fragrance mood at the moment, hence this purchase of yet another candle!
Although I love Yankee and other brands for their quality and burn time, I couldn't resist this Poundworld purchase. This is a lovely fruity fragrance that is supposedly reminiscent of a Powdered Blueberry Krispy Kreme, have never personally smelled one i can't say but this certainly smells edible! These can't actually that bad for the price I've had a few under the Betty Crocker, Skittles and Chewits branding and they all provide a pleasant if intimate fragrance.
Ahh I do love a pound shop, and although it is still a tiny bit early, I've recently picked up a few things from Poundland's Christmas range.
Ho Ho Ho indeed, I couldn't resist this Santa mug, made of ceramic, it has a cute little slot underneath for your biscuit. There isn't a huge amount of space for drink but I think that this would be perfect for little people.
Over the years I've managed to accumulate quite a few festive character tea light holders from Poundland, and this little fella is my newest addition. I prefer to use these with battery operated tea lights, but obviously you can also use them with a real flame.
Open any interiors magazine and something that seems to be bigger than ever before is lighting. For many years, lighting was an essential but now it's become a trend and more often than not a design feature in the home. I love a bit of mood lighting and the next few pieces that I'm going to show you are about the light.
The first buy is again from Poundland's festive range, and it's another set of battery operated string lights. They have some lovely ones at the moment, and the majority of them to me could be used all round. My mum's already picked up a set of white wooden star lights but I loved this retro looking light bulb string.
I love my fairy lights but at the moment I'm also loving initial lights I already have one but this one that I picked up from Studio was just £9.99 and it was very different to the one that I already have
It's make of wood and it has a smaller, squatter shape than my other Primark metal L. Again it's battery operated and the LED lights are also quite small. As well as the entire alphabet they also have a variety of numbers too.
Something else that I got from Studio, was a Cinematic Lightbox. These are absolutely everywhere at the moment, and I've so many bloggers with them, that it was inevitable that I would jump on the bandwagon.
This one which is around an A4 size was £14.99 and contained 71 letter, number and punctuation tiles. You can get these cheaper but it's better to shop around a little bit. Some of of them are smaller, and some of them don't contain that many tiles. This one don't contain enough letter U's of all things so I had a little look on eBay and i managed to get myself another couple of sets of letters.
The next couple of things that I got from Studio were from my bedroom. First up something pretty boring - this rubber doorstop which was just 99p.
You can get doorstops pretty much anywhere, but I loved the flower detail on this one, my bedroom door has an annoying habit of slamming when any of the upstairs windows are opened so I'm hoping this quirky doorstep will keep it still.
Next up bedding, I didn't really need another duvet set but I loved the colours and the floral pattern on this one, which was just £11.99 for the double set and also from Studio.
Not the best picture I'm afraid but this is what it looks like on the bed. If you're not a Studio customer, B&M stores have the same set for a slightly pricier £14.99.
I love my bedroom pretties and when I saw this particular product on the H&M website, I added it straight to my basket.
I love my pineapples and I now have a display of all my pineapple candles, and trinket boxes on one of my new IKEA Helmer's. This large glass and gold tone glass jar was £7.99 and it also came in a few plain colours.
From sensible pretties, to fun and silly, and another few purchases from Tiger Stores. Like pineapples, Cacti have been everywhere this year, on cushions, clothing and even on the humble eraser.
This one was just £1 and it has major kitsch appeal, I don't think I'll ever use it, but I love a bit of quirky stationery, speaking of which..
I love my daisies and this quirky set just appealed. Again from Tiger, it's a plastic daisy case which contained a variety of mini stationery bits including a mini stapler and staples, mini scissors, a mini highlighter pen, a mini sellotape dispenser, and some mini sticky note page markers.
My final purchase in this haul and from Tiger, was a bit of silly one, a set of make your own paper flowers. I love my crafting and to be honest I haven't done enough of it lately. This kit makes a variety of layered paper flowers which you can then go on to use as card toppers or in scrap booking.
I know that was a pretty extensive and candle filled haul, and whilst it wasn't what I intended to post today I hope you enjoyed it or found it useful x You can watch the offending video below or via this link, so don't forget to have a watch and of course subscribe x
If you have any questions on any of my buys, or if you fancy linking me up to your own home and lifestyle video and post then leave me a comment below x
Hi Guys x I hope you're all having a nice weekend x I've got a home haul for you today and it's a long overdue one. I've had some of these bits for quite a while now but as you know sometimes life gets in the way. Some of these bits are for my bedroom, and some are for my home office, come craft room, some of the things that I've picked up are super practical and some of them are just for fun.
I'm going to start off with a few bits from a fun store, that's pretty new to me, Tiger. Hailing from Denmark, Tiger is one cool and quirky shop. It stocks pretty much everything from herbs and spices, to home wear and stationery. Since I've been going for monthly eyebrow waxes at the Benefit counter in Debenhams in Newcastle, I can't resist popping in and having a nose.
The first two things that I bought pretty much sum up the Tiger vibe, cute desk tidies that look like shopping baskets and shopping trolleys. I'd seen a few pictures of these online, and loving anything that's miniature I couldn't resist adding them to my all be it, much larger basket. Since they're made of metal, they're pretty sturdy and the plastic coated section come in a variety of different colours. I think the baskets are around £4, and something makes me think that the trolley was a little bit cheaper. I think they make great funky looking storage pieces and if you have little people I'm sure that they would make pretty cool toys.
Something else that I picked up from Tiger was this pack of wooden log, fridge magnets. I know some people think that fridge magnets are a bit tacky but personally I love them, and whenever I go somewhere new on holiday I always pick up a magnet to remind me of my travels. These cute little wooden magnets that resemble tree rings though are now safely adhered to the magnetic notice board in my office, to keep my notes and my photographs safe. They were just £1 for a pack of 4.
I also picked up a pack of magnets from Poundland. I already have the brightly coloured letter magnets that you'll probably remember from your nursery and primary school days but these vintage typewriter style magnets probably appeal more to the adult in me. You can also get them in a ransom note style type, so you can leave yourself messages or make up rude words as you please x
Like a lot of bloggers out there I love my stationery, and I'm one of them, I love cute notepads, cute stickers and even cute writing sets. I know writing letters seems to be a bit of a dying art but I don't think there is anything nicer then receiving a hand written note or letter. I usually buy note cards but for a change I decided to buy a couple of cute writing sets instead. Both of these sets come from The Works, and they had loads of pretty ones to choose from but I loved the lip print and the almost Orla Kiely style stem and leaf print. They were just £1 a set, and each one contains 10 sheets of writing paper and 10 matching envelopes x
Next up something else that bloggers all seem to love, candles! I've loved candles for as long as I can remember, and I burn a scented candle pretty much everyday. Although I'm trying to branch out a little bit and try new things, Yankee Candles are still my brand of choice. I buy a lot of my candles in store but for pricing on Yankee Candles you really can't beat QVC UK's prices. A few months ago now (I said this haul was late!) they featured a Yankee Candle Today's Special Value, which on this occasion was a QVC exclusive 39 piece Warm Summer Nights Seasonal Hamper.
The set came in a sturdy canvas basket which featured a super cute tassel and pom pom bag charm. The basket featured two layers of candle products. The first layer contained 12 votive candles in some of Yankee's newest spring and summer scents, it contained 2 x Passion Fruit Martini, 2 x Flowers In The Sun, 2 x Moonlight, 2 x Dreamy Summer Nights, 2 x My Serenity, and 2 x Sunset Breeze votives.
If that wasn't enough the second layer of the baskets contained two boxes of 12 tea lights in the Passion Fruit Martini and Flowers In The Sun Fragrances and 2 purple glass bucket holders to burn both your votives and tea lights in.
Unfortunately I can't remember exactly how much this kit was, but I do remember that the value was amazing and way less then RRP. Whilst the votives and the tea lights won't fragrance a huge space, I like to use them either on my bedside table, or the desk next to me while I'm writing, or crafting. They're perfect for a gentle, intimate fragrance and this kit gave me a fantastic opportunity to try out some new fragrances. I have to say I don't think there is a single fragrance in this kit that I dislike - my favourite is probably the super fruity Passionfruit Martini, but I can see myself burning all of these depending on the time of day and my mood. I also bought this kit on what QVC call their auto delivery programme, which basically means that I'm going to receive another 3 hampers, all in a different design, with new holders and new seasonal fragrances in fact I may have already got the Autumn hamper which I'll show you in an upcoming post :)
If you've been reading my blogger for a while now you'll know that this was the year when I was going to try and get organised. I really am trying but there is still so much more that I need to do and need to sort out, and the next few things that I've bought are hopefully going to help me do that, by improving some of my storage options.
This is a foldable, hexagonal storage ottoman which comes from QVC. I've seen a few similar things on the market but this is strongest and the best quality one that I've come across. Made of a faux leather it folds down flat, but when it's assembled it's super strong. It features a padded lid, which makes it a comfy seat, and you can even reverse the lid and use it as a tray. It's sturdy enough to stand on and it's surprisingly roomy. I'm using mine to store all of my electrical beauty bits such as my tongs and my straighteners. I also bought the wheeled section separately so I can move it round and use it around my room as a seat. QVC do a lot of these ottomans in different shapes and I would really recommend them if you need extra storage and occasional seating.
I love my jewellery but I have to be honest and say that I'm running out go places to store it. I have a large mirrored jewellery cabinet for my fine jewellery but my fashion jewellery storage is all over the place, I have some pieces in hat boxes, some in fabric dress style hangers on my doors, and I also have some jewellery hooks on the side of my wardrobe, and believe it or not i still need more jewellery storage. My mum actually got some of these a little while back for B&M and after trying hers I though that these would be perfect for hanging on my wardrobe frame. They are just £1 each and I'm currently using them for long necklaces but you can also use them for belts and scarves. I'm going to do a proper sort and then I think I might do a jewellery storage video to show you all of my jewellery and the different storage options that I use, if you'd be interested in seeing that, then let me know x
Next a few pieces from the storage mothership that is IKEA, if you need storage for just about anything then you need to take a trip to IKEA. I never ever leave empty handed and this visit was no exception, as well as picking up some dining room chairs for Mummy Lou I also picked up another set of Helmer drawers.
Annoyingly the new ones are much of a pure white than the cream ones I have but I'll have to live with that. I used my original Helmer for nail polish storage and to be honest it's starting to overflow so most of my new one will be filled with nail polish too, and if I have any space left, I'll be storing some other beauty items. These aren't the biggest drawers that IKEA do but you can fit them into quite a compact space, and the drawers actually hold quite a bit. I also love that they're on wheels so you can move them around for cleaning. I love them and i would recommend them to anyone whether you use them in the bedroom, the office, or even in the bathroom.
I'm in the process of sorting out my new office space, and whilst I'm moved in and blogging from my desk now, I'm still sorting out boxes of stuff and adding pretties. Apparently plants help you to concentrate and they help to keep you calm so I picked up a pack of 3 cacti plants. I used to have a cactus or two in my bedroom many moons ago and because they're so easy to care for, I thought that this set which was £4.50 would be perfect for my desk. I still fancy something bigger and more flowy and greener to go on the top of a set of storage drawers but given my uselessness with plants I'll need to consult Mummy Lou aka Mrs Greenfingers before I buy anything else.
The final few things that I want to show you are from eBay x According to my mam I'm slightly obsessed with cushions, and yes I'll admit it I do have quite a few in the two rooms that I consider my own, but I love my comfort and I think cushions can make a bed look more dressed and inviting in an instant. This time I didn't buy a cushion as such but these two cushion covers that I got work perfectly with the lilacs and pastels in my rooms.
Come on which beauty lover wouldn't love these cushions? The fabric isn't the best but I love the Chanel fragrance print and of course the NARS lipstick print. These two cushions came from overseas sellers, the perfume cushion was just £2.39 from this seller and the lipstick cushion cover was £2.58 from this seller. A couple of different sellers do these covers at varying price points though so it's worth shopping around x
The final thing I've got to show you in this haul also came from eBay, and it's a mug. A few bloggers I know have this mug already and I believe they got if from Truffle Shuffle, I found this one on eBay though and I love the fact that you can get it personalised with the name of your choice.
Unfortunately the seller that I bought mine from doesn't seem to sell these anymore but this seller does and they have loads of different Little Miss and Mr Men themed mugs, including some of the new adult themed mugs all of which can be personalised. I'm quite fancying a Little Miss Social Media mug next ;).
So that was my long awaited home and lifestyle haul x I've also made an accompanying You Tube video which you watch below or via this link.
I'd love to know what you think about my haul, and I'd love to know what home, lifestyle and stationery items you've bought recently so leave me a comment and let me know x I've already got another home and lifestyle haul planned so make sure you following my blog so you don't miss it x
