DIY heart garland

Time: 10 minutes

This whole blog was supposed to be all DIYs but so far this is my only sooo yh? I might do them more often if this one does well but it's just hard to think of something original and as far as I know this one is. I was originally inspired by this really cool garland I saw in ikea:










This is a DIY on how to make these adorable heart spade garlands for Christmas and the best thing is they are  easy. And I'm not just saying that. It really is simple.

1) What you will need:

• A couple different colours of A4 paper or card ( any paper will work but thick paper or car will hold its shape best). I chose the colours white, red and mint to replicate a peppermint stick coz ITS CHRISTMAS. (Well its not anymore its February but this idea would work perfectly well fro valentines too.)
• A cm ruler
• Pencil or pen
• stapler
• Scissors, x-acto knife or rota trim ( I forgot to take a picture of the scissors sorry but hopefully you know what scissors look like ?)

2) Measure strips that a as long as the width of the A4 paper and about 1cm wide.

3) Then cut them out. I used about half the sheet of paper for colour and my garland was around 1.7m.

4) this bits kinda hard to explain. you fold the strips in them loop the two ends together to make a heart. You then take another folded strip and slot the folded part in between the two ends of the other strip. ( The picture will probably make more sense.)

5) you then staple the folded strip and the other ends together. (Again look at the photo.)

6) keep repeating this process over an over again and you've got your chain. 

I hope you enjoyed this DIY please leave a comment if you did. I had a lot of fun making the garland so I hope you will too.

Secret Santa gift ideas

This year like we do every year, my form at school do secret Santa which if you have never heard of before is when you each pick a name out of a hat and you have a budget to buy a present fro the person. We picked our names out today because our school is super organised like that and somehow i manage to get the same person every year! I am not going to say who that person is just in case my class at school have randomly found my blog and are storking me..... which is very unlikely but still. Our budget is five to ten pounds. If you are stuck on what to buy your secret Santa hear are a few affordable present tips.

1) If you don't know what the person likes than I always go for body wash. You cant go wrong. i mean everyone has showers, or at least i hope they do, so everyone will use the present.
http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/christmas.aspx#/christmas.aspx

The body shop do tonnes of Christmas gift sets for under ten pounds and they are really good quality. The gift set above is only £6 and comes in a variety of scents.
https://www.lush.co.uk/category/452

Lush is also great for this kind of stuff although their gifts tend to be a little bit more pricey. But they do sell pre wrapped gift sets so if you are not much of a wrapper then.....yeh.

2) Vouchers!!! This another good buy if you don't know the person very well. If you want to get quite a small voucher, say £5 or £10, I would suggest a Starbucks or boots voucher.



3) now i am going to list a few thing that cost around 3 pounds. You good bu a few of them for one person as a little hamper or just one:

baby lips are really popular at the moment as the just came out in the UK. Boots do a 3 for 2 as well so look out for deals like this if you are buying for more than one friend.

Other chap sticks make great gift as well.


Barry m polishes are also good value seeing as they are cheap but really good quality.


These socks are from top shop whoa also do a deal if you buy more than one pair. Primark do tonnes of Christmas related socks and gloves too.

NOVELTY CHRISTMAS GIFTS (i dont know why i felt the need to write that in capitals) such as mugs and baubles make good gifts too. Check out the store tiger for this sorta stuff  http://www.tigerstores.co.uk/tiger_home.html.
paper chase and accesorize also do jazzy decoration and what not.

Finaly...FOOD ( this time capital letter are needed) you cant go wrong with some tree shaped marsh mellows and candy canes.


I hope this blog post has been even a tiny bit useful and I will try and do some more Christmas related blogs in the future because it is the "most wonderful time of the year". ( wow that was cheesy)

see ya.

John Lewis Adverts

Hello!
I am sorry I haven't posted in a week but I have 101 pieces of homework to do and not much time to do them in. ( Trust me that wasn't even much of an exaggeration ). So long story short, I wont be posted in a while until I get on top of my mountain of homework.

But i have decided to make a quick post about a subject I feel very strongly about ( its bringing a tear to my eye now just thinking about it). If you live in the UK you might know that Saturday marked the release of the John lewis Christmas advert 2013. This is an annual event that I participate greatly (wow that sounded posh) and to be honest I think I almost prefer it to Christmas day itself. If you don't happen to spend your life watching John lewis adverts then please become acquainted with them in my COUNTDOWN OF BEST JOHN LEWIS CHRISTMAS ADVERTS EVER!!:

1)2009 "sweet child O mine"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ7Rz2rmjck
this is my favourite for many reason. One being that I love the song. But the main reason is because the meaning behind it is so true. I hate to say it but each year as I get older Christmas becomes and little bit less exciting. This advert is all about bringing the child hood joy of Christmas back.

2)2011 "Please please please"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSLOnR1s74o
This is probably the most popular of all the John lewis adverts and also the most emotional. but I must admit, I was no way never as selfless and the little boy on this video. I didn't start buying my parent present until I was about 11. But I did once find loads of pennys from around the house and wrap them up as my dads birthday present. I had no concept of the value of money way back when so I thought I had given him tonnes. It was probably only about ten p. chances are that it was also already my dads money lol.

3)2007 The shadow advert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jACG8GKBLI
i think this was the 2007 one but I am not really sure. its just really clever how they managed to make the shadow using just the products in their store. this was the first of their good Christmas adverts as well.

4)2010 "Your song"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpV-xagkTDU
I cant say I am keen on the song (mainly because it has been over played so much in the last three years since this advert was released) but I do love the video.

5)2008 "From me to you"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmQ74XO_Fx0
I love the version of the song in this advert and although there's not much of a plot in this advert I still think its brilliant. (if you haven't guessed already I think they are all brilliant.)

6)2013 "somewhere only we know"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqWig2WARb0
This has always been one of my favourite song and the story line is quite cute. however I am not much of a fan of cartoons which is why it is not further up the list.

7) 2012 "The power of love"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N8axp9nHNU
Don't get me wrong I do like this advert I just think it  was a bit of a let down after the one the year before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYOsWWKHZVw
This is not one of their Christmas adverts but its another brilliant advert so I thought I would include it.

Sorry if you thought this was a bit of a boring blog post. I will think of something more interesting to do next time.

The Post it Game

It is that time of the year again when the shops and streets and coated in lights, the days are getting shorter and Starbucks have started bringing out their red cups! This can only mean one thing, CHRISTMAS is just around the corner. in my household and friendship group this is just an excuse to play as much board games as possible. I love board games. Cludo, logo, uno, kerplunk, I could go on. ( but don't worry I don't like monopoly). Put my favorite game is the post it game. If you haven't heard of it that please read on because I can assure you that it will become a favorite with your friends and family. And the best thing is you can play it pretty much anywhere. All you need is a post it notes a pen. Me and my friends have even played it at school in the middle of the corridor! ( CAUTION: if you are playing this game in a public place like a corridor, here speaks the voice of experience, prepare yourselves for the strange looks as people people wonder why you have got a piece of paper that says Justin Bieber  on your head.) okay so here's what you do.

1)this game can be played with  2 to 100000000000000000000000000(there's no limit) people.
2)give everyone a post it note and get them to right something on it for the person next to them. You can write pretty much anything but I recommend choosing a them e.g, objects, places celebrities (they are the funniest.)
3)they that have to stick the note on the person to the right of themselves (or left as long as everyone goes in the same direction) fore head.
4) The rest is a bit like twenty questions. You each take it in turns to ask a question about the person on your post it and everyone else can either answer yes or no. The first person to guess their post it correctly wins.

You are probably all reading this think that it couldn't be more boring but trust me it's really fun and you will get a lot of laughs out of it. Here is a strange pictureI did to illustrate the game. ( I was bored and had nothing else to do.)

Songs of the month: October

Hello! Sorry I haven't posted in ages. I am in year 11 so I've been quite busy what with gcse's, coursework and what not. But, anyway, I have decided to start  a new series on my blog called songs of the month ( if you haven't guessed from the title). The songs I choose more times than most wont have actually been released that month because im a strong believer that if a song is a good song it's a good song no matter how old it is. I can't stand it when this happens:
Me:"Oh, have you heard of the song " bla bla bla" I love it"
friend with bad music taste: "OMG, that song is so old"
Me:"But it's a good song"
don't worry, I don't listen to songs from way back when when Telly was black and white and pop tarts weren't yet invented (poor people) but I just don't think it matters how old a song is if it is a good song. Comment if the scenario above has ever happened to you. (not the thing about Telly being black and white and pop tarts. The conversation lol). Okay, I am going to end my rambling now because this introduction was a lot longer than intended and I doubt any of you are still reading this. So here we go:

Home by Philip Philips
http://youtu.be/HoRkntoHkIE
 This song is all about going through changes in life. It's suddenly dawned on me that it's not long until I hit adulthood and I have to start making big steps to new schools, work, university etc and for some reason this so reassures me. So take a listen.

She will stay beneath the moon by Adam Barnes

http://youtu.be/YAAV9mkS638

I first heard this song on the youtuber Zoellas video. I've never heard of this artist before but I just really like it and it reminds me of Autumn for some reason.

Almost there by Anika Noni Rose

http://youtu.be/x2HJKN3H7pg

Yes it's the song from princess and the frog. I have a confession: I love disney songs so you might see them in my monthly Favourites quite often. 

Stop this Train by John Mayer

http://youtu.be/39nb8vHQWIQ

I must admit I'm not usually a fan on john mayers songs. But this one differs from his usuall ones and the lyrics are really meaningfull and I think that's always important in a song.

I hope you enjoyed this post and I promise I will try and post more regularly from now on.