Beauty // My travel makeup bag

Hello there!! 

How is everyone today! Hope all is well and that you are smiley and happy :) A smile a day keeps the doctor away! I was recently in a local hospital waiting for an x-ray and on a white board there was a sign saying smile and something along the lines of it's good for you and people benefit from it. Anyway the funny thing was the receptionist was the grumpiest and most unfriendly person I have ever seen, I had to try so hard to not say anything and point out the whiteboard behind her. It sure did make me and my gran chuckle. 

Little update I have decided to change the days that I post to a Sunday, Wednesday and Friday as it suits my week a little better as I tend to write my posts on a Tuesday and Thursday as that is when Mum is at work and I have the most free time. 

Anyway I'm off on a family holiday to Wales this weekend! I've personally never been to Wales so I'm excited to see what it's like! Have any of you been to Wales or do you even live in Wales? I've said Wales a lot of times so now I'm thinking of Whales as in the ones that live in the sea! Have any of you seen the film Free Willy? Sounds weird I know but it's about a whale and setting it free etc! Was one of my favourite films as a child, we had it on video which probably tells you how old the film was! I have gone completely off topic now I do apologise. 

Right so today's post is going to be my travel make up bag and what I take with me on holiday :) obviously this changes at different types of  the year though so I'm sure I will do similar posts in the future. I always love being nosy and seeing what different make up people use and what they take away with them so thought this would be a great post today so I hope you all enjoy it :)

I'm never a fan of packing to go away but that's usually because I always want to take everything I own with me! I'm not very good at picking what things to take, and I always feel sorry for the things I leave behind. So I've had the difficult decision of choosing what make up to take away with me for a week. I tried to think logically about what to take whilst I was packing so I tried to pick little things and brought an eye-shadow and blush palette so I have lots of choice and can still do different looks without taking everything.

Primer : Now I'm still trying to decide whether I like primer or I don't. I have a couple at home but I decided to take Benefit's Porefessional as it's slightly smaller than the other ones I have so thought it would be perfect to travel with!

Foundation: I've been trying out a couple of different foundations over the past few months and I can finally say I have found my holy grail foundation! It's one that has been talked about loads by bloggers and vloggers and has lots of positive reviews so I thought why not give it a try! My new holy grail foundation is.......Nars sheer glow of course! After hearing so many good things about it I was very excited when I finally got my hands on a bottle and the colour match was great, the foundation feels amazing on my skin and doesn't bring me out in spots, it also gives a nice healthy glow to the skin and as I have dry skin this is what I want from a foundation! I'm in love with this stuff and could talk about it all day but I don't want to bore you and I think I may do a review post on it at some point! Have any of you tried it? What do you think of it?! 

Powder: Now when I travel I always tend to take pressed powder rather than loose powder which I tend to use a fair bit at home! My pressed powder is also smaller and as it's pressed it's doesn't make much mess! So I decided to take my favourite powder with me which is the Rimmel Stay Matte. I love this powder I think it does the job well as the other great thing about it is the fact that it's a drugstore one so it's not too pricey :) 

Bronzer: Bronzer is definitely something that is a necessity in my travel make up bag so I decided to pack my all time favourite bronzer which is a KIKO one. If you haven't checked out KIKO cosmetics already I highly recommend that you do! I've been really impressed with everything I've purchased from there so far and they are high quality at an affordable price, what's not to love hey?!

Blush: I have a real thing for blush, I have so many of them so it's always hard to decide which one to pack so I want to take them all however there isn't always room for this. So this time I went away I found the perfect solution which was to take a blush palette, then you have a couple of different shades of blush for different make up looks and it's all together so it doesn't take up as much room well that's my theory  anyway. In my current travel make up bag I decided to take my hourglass Ambient Blush palette which ticks all the boxes for being a great one to travel with. 

Concealer: Now this is something I sometimes use when I'm away but it all depends on how much time I have and where I am and how much sleep I have. So I decided to pack one of my favourite concealer's which is a high coverage one so I have something if my bags under my eyes decided to be enormous one day or if my face decides it wants to have a breakout whilst I'm away. I decided to pack MAC's Pro Longwear concealer :)

Brows: Now I am obsessed with eyebrows, literally obsessed. I rarely ever go out the house without sorting out my brows first even if I have no other make up on I will have nice brows. So of course I have had to pack my daily brow products. I like to use Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Wizz and then I use NO7 lash and brow perfecter and these two products never fail to let me know so they had to come for a trip. 

Eyeshadow: I always find the easiest way to pick what eyeshadows to take away is by taking an eyeshadow palette as you then have a variety of shades and a palette is much easier to travel with rather than lots of individual eyeshadows. For the current holiday that I was packing for I decided to take my Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette :)

Mascara: This is a beauty product they people take with them every where. Even if your not wearing any other make up mascara can make the world of difference, well it sure does to my eyes. The mascara that I have brought away with me this time is one that people have been talking about a lot recently in the blogging community and I can now see what the hype was all about! Of course it's Benefit's new Roller Lash Mascara and my goodness it sure does make your eyelashes look amazing! I'm in love with it. This was definitely a beauty product I was not going away without. The one I currently have is a tester one so it's a smaller one but that's great because it makes it the perfect colour to travel with. 

Lips: You always have to take some sort of lip product away with you, I tend to take some sort of lip product everywhere even in my handbag. Instead of taking a couple of different ones I made the brave decision to only take one lipstick and one lip gloss with me as it would then be less to pack and then I wouldn't be stuck for choice on what to wear on my lips when I was away. I tend to prefer nude and pink shades and these tend to go with most looks so I took my Urban Decay lipstick which is very pigmented and lasts a long while and my MAC lip gloss both of which are light pink shades. 

So this is everything I have taken away with me in my travel make up bag. Obviously it varies depending on where I go and what time of year it is, but as this was a holiday to Wales in February I have taken enough to do a full face of make up. I hope you have enjoyed this post, I love knowing what products other people use and what they take away with them so here is what I take with me! 

Where is your favourite place to go away to? What is your holy grail product that you take everywhere with you? 

The Barney picture today is one of him in the car the other day! Obviously it was too bright for him to have his eyes open! He is loving the canal next to where we are staying! He is in and out of the water all the time! I love watching him splash about in the water and have lots of fun!

Hope you are all well and jolly!

Anna-Louise

xx

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Winter walks #3 // Barney Rubble

Hellooo there!

How is everyone! Hope you are all well and that your are having a great week so far! Have you been up to anything exciting yet this week? We haven't had any snow here this week which is great, as well it gets a bit boring after a while, not that we had that much of it anyway! It's been a rather warm week so far with a number of clear and sunny spells! Oh dear I'm sounding like a weather woman! What's the weather been like with you? The sun makes me so excited for spring and summer they are definitely my favourite times of the year! I'm also definitely more of a summer fashion person than a winter person! What about you guys what season of fashion do you love most? 

I'm afraid today's post is going to only be a short post! I'm just really not feeling myself at the moment so don't really want to a force a post and you guys not enjoy it. I'm having a lot more feeling down time at the moment but that's aspergers and my medication for you but hey ho, there will be good times around the corner I'm sure, there always is, isn't the saying every cloud has a silver lining something like that. 

Being a dog walker means I go on a lot of walks, and I love taking photographs so like to take my camera with me which results in well can you guess?! Lots of pictures of Barney of course! So instead of a chatty post today I thought I would just share some of those pictures as I know a lot of you enjoy the Barney photos and well I love my dog and love posting pictures of him so here you go....

I tried to get them both to look at the camera but Katie just wanted to look where she wanted! Terrier's hey they have a mind of their own!

Barney and I found some sticks and some water both of which are Barney's favourite things on a walk so I thought it was only fair to let Barney play his favourite game of stick fishing! 

He was so funny he kept trying to sit down in the water and would then realise it was super cold so would sit hover instead. 

Barney likes to put his head under the water to look for sticks! Strange dog, maybe all the best ones are under the water who knows! I'd love to be a dog for the day just to know what goes through their mind. Would you? 

I hope you have enjoyed these Barney pictures, I love pictures of him as he always makes me smile and looking at pictures of him makes my smile bigger and brightens my mood! I think the world of this dog and he has changed my world for the best and I can't thank him enough for it :) He truly is my very best friend :)

Hope you are all well and jolly 

Anna-Louise 

xx

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Barney's 5 favourite toys

Hellooo :) 

How are we all?! Hope all is well, the sun is shining where I am today. I definitely think the sun automatically puts you in a better mood. I hope the sun is shining with you today wherever you may be. 

So if you haven't already picked this information up from previous blogs, I have a chocolate Labrador called Barney and well he is my best friend. He will be 2 this summer, they grow up so fast (I sound like a mother) and he is mad. I bought him to help me with my aspergers and my confidence and well having him has helped me enormously, he really is the best dog ever.

Anyway I thought so that you guys can get to know him a little bit better and I love writing about Barney I would do a post about him, so I decided this one could be about his 5 favourite toys. Barney is obsessed with toys, he has more toys than a pet shop and he has 4 toy boxes full in the house. He just loves them. Despite the fact that he has so many toys he does have a few favourites that he loves a little bit more than all the others so we wanted to share with you guys what they were.

Barney was the best when I was taking these photographs it's like he knew I needed him to pose. He posed with every single toy and didn't really try and play with them and surprisingly he didn't run off with one of them either and he thinks that's a great game. My mum and Gran couldn't believe it he was a superstar. The funniest thing was the tennis ball photographs as I went to him please can you hold this in your mouth so I can take some pictures. And he did, he held it in his mouth until I stopped taking the pictures what a clever dog. He really is the best thing that ever happened to me and he always puts a smile on my face even when I'm in the worst mood or have a strop and there is nothing better than coming home and seeing how pleased he is to see me, I really do love my dog and honestly he is my best friend! 

Now Barney has a bit of a thing about Pluto. When I first got him I had this Pluto toy that I'd had for years and thought it would be a great toy for Barney to snuggle up next to in his crate. Well Barney decided that Pluto was going to be one of his favourite toys immediately. He loved Pluto and took him everywhere, in fact he loved Pluto so much that he managed to rip his head of, so then he started to walk around with just Pluto's head. It was really creepy when he would just appear with this head, but then my dog is strange. Someday's he would just walk around with Pluto's body depending on how he was feeling but Pluto's head was a definite favourite he would still walk around with it everywhere. To this day we still have Pluto's head and Barney still loves it, we just can't bear to throw it out! Have any of you seen the advert with the dog and the man where he is about to throw the dogs toy away but the dog won't let him well that's what it feels like. 

As we all knew how much Barney had loved Pluto and still loves Pluto's head we decided to get him a new Pluto for Christmas. He is one happy dog with all his Pluto's. Who buys their pet a toy from the Disney store for Christmas hey?! I really wanted to get him an Olaf but I couldn't find one in any of the Disney stores I went into. The search will go on. You may be thinking I'm mad yes I am but I just love seeing my dog happy, and well he just loves Pluto. The new Pluto is still in one piece at the moment. 

The next toy that Barney has is his 3rd addition of it, he is obsessed with it so much that he has destroyed the other two and have a 4th one waiting for him. This toy is known as Colin, Colin the Caterpillar and Barney loves him to pieces. He is a rather big caterpillar that squeaks and Barney drags him everywhere. If Barney has ever been away from home the first thing he does when he gets back is to go and find Colin. If you ever meet Barney I'm sure you will meet Colin too that is how much Barney is obsessed with him. The pictures will probably show you a bit about how big Colin actually is, especially as Barney is a big and tall Labrador. It was so funny to watch him try and drag him around when he was a puppy as Colin was bigger than him. Colin also seems to lose a lot of legs, poor Colin. The pictures below are of Colin the 3rd.

Barney seems to prefer larger toys, and if it's soft and fluffy even better so I bought him this giant duck thing in a pet shop as I couldn't resist it and knew Barney would love it and he did and it even became one of his favourites. I think he quite likes toys that he can cuddle up to because he is cute like that. It was really sweet as when I was taking photos of him and the duck he was cuddling it, I do love my dog.

Barney loves to play ball, like he goes crazy over playing ball, me and mum could barely hold him before he got his new lead when he knew he was going to play ball. He thinks is the best game in the world and would like to play it all day everyday. We tend to play ball more in the summer as the village green is to wet in the winter and our garden is tiny. Therefore a ball is one of Barney's favouirte toys he has so many of them but looks after them really well at the same time, maybe he think's they are treasure. He also has this really annoying habit of rolling them underneath the sofas and furniture, it's so annoying especially when they are out of our reach and he won't let you forget they are there, you have to get the long duster to encourage them out silly dog! 

Hope you have enjoyed this blog post thought it was a little different :) let me know what you think! Do any of you have a dog? What's their favourite toy? Or maybe you have a cat with a favourite toy? Let me know :) 

Hope you are all well and jolly

Anna-Louise 

xx

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Favourite Drink

Hellooooo there!

Sorry I didn't get chance to blog yesterday, I was super busy again and then I had to watch the second part of silent witness. That programme  always keeps me on the edge of my seat, and well then I fell a sleep. You probably didn't need to know all that but now you do haha!

It's raining here today.....a lot! Rain rain go away!

Today I thought I would write a blog post about my favourite drink! Everybody drinks as your body needs fluids to keep you alive. Therefore everyone drinks which means everyone must have a favourite drink.

My all time favourite drink is chocolate milkshake! I literallly could drink chocolate milkshake all day everyday and be just fine, apart from the fact it probably wouldn't be the most healthiest thing in the world for me. I have at least one everyday. It's probably a slight addiction to be honest. If I go anywhere for dinner or to eat that sells milkshakes then I will be guaranteed to have one. I also love milkshake shops! We don't have many round where I live but whenever I see one I'm straight in there like a kid who's seen candy :) My favourite milkshake shop is one in Pocklington in Yorkshire, they make them with fresh ice cream in there and you can choose your flavour and what chocolate or biscuits you want to go in it! Its the best if you ever happen to go to Pocklington you need to go and get a milkshake from this shop! Sorry me being me and having no memory (my old age 19 going on 90 remember) can't remember the name of the shop, but its the only milkshake shop there so you can't miss it :)

What's your favourite drink?

I'm also a big fan of bottled water, I drink at least two bottles a day. It's the best, it tastes so much better than tap water too, well in my opinion. I think all water tastes different though anyway. No one agrees with me on this, well no one I have discussed it with so far but different makes definitley taste different. Must be because they come from different places, although does all water come from the same place? I'm not sure on the bottles they say where they come from and different ones say they take the water from different parts of the country, but then does all water come from the same place originally. I'm not so sure now, if any of you know the answer then your thoughts would be most welcome!!

Do you guys like bottled water?

Thought i'd insert a picture of my favourite milkshake in Devon, it's a little cafe in Colyton, not far from Seaton and just a minute walk or so off you get off the tram which runs from Seaton to Colyton. If you ever happen to go on that tram, call in at this coffee shop you won't regret it! They also have chickens and llama's or alpaca's I'm not sure of the difference outside! We have been going there for years and the milkshakes they make are amazing. They also make them with fresh ice cream :)

Barney's just been cheeky and got on the kitchen table again! Naughty puppy, he's not in mum and dads good books at the moment to say the least. Here is a picture of him the first time he did it! I think he does it to feel like king of the castle!

Hope you are all well and jolly and have a lovely day :)

Anna-louise
xx

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