MADEIRA

Hey everyone,

Two weeks ago I was on my summer holiday on the lovely island of Madeira! For those of you who have never heard of Madeira before it is a Portuguese island that's quite far off the north western coast of Africa (I think that was an okay description xD), and it's quiet, cultured and very very beautiful.

We arrived on the Monday and spent our days exploring the capital city- Funchal- going on tours of the east and west, levada walking, swimming in the pool, and of course doing a bit of shopping here or there. So here are some snaps we took along the way, I'll describe what's going on as we go along...

My sister sitting on a rock at the highest point on the island

We visited a fish farm, awwwww

 Me, looking mightily squinty, with my new bird house. This was an ongoing joke throughout the holiday, it's probably too confusing to explain :/

Some FAB photography skills shown here by me

There was a food fair a town called Santana, and I thought this looked really cool

We decided to play a game of 'spot the Emily'in the Botanical Gardens. This round may have been too easy though...

 My sister liked the trees a bit too much

 Evening drinks out, that's me on the left and my sister on the right

 A big thing in Madeira is tobogganing down the hill, unfortunately we didn't get to do this, but we got to sit in a nice replica outside of our hotel 

It was very windy on top of that hill

Some nice street decorations

This is a traditional house in Santana, there is only one person that actually still uses the houses as his home, and he very kindly lets people have a look around for free (as you can see in the picture below). I thought seeing the houses was great as it really gave you a feel for the history and culture of the island, plus they look freaking amazing am I right?!

Casual person hang-gliding 

This is one of the views from a levada walk we did. Levadas are the water system that they use on the island to transport water from the mountains to all the different towns and you can do guided walks along many of them which give you some stunning views and allows you to see things you can see from the road-side. 

This was the pool and bar area of our hotel at night time

We thought this tree was really cool

We had lots of coffee, and as Emily put it I needed to 'Instagram the shit out of that stuff', and like a good little hipster I did!

And of course there is always time for a good old selfie (ew that word makes me want to vom)

Obviously I have many many more photos that I'm not going to share with you guys because I don't want to bore you to death, but I thought I would share some to show you this snippet of my life. It honestly was an amazing holiday and if you ever get the chance to go I would really recommend it. It's not the usual sort of place for young people as it's not really a party island, but me and my sister really enjoyed it, so I guess it's down to personal taste, and what you want from your holiday.

I was so happy because I managed to read the whole of the first Game of Thrones book and Divergent whilst there which made me really happy, but that's not really important :3

Anyway, I've got quite a few book reviews I want to share with you guys pretty soon, which I'm excited to write, and as it is also the summer holidays I will probably be doing some baking pretty soon, because why not?!?

Thank you for reading,

Love Katie xo

Super Summer Haul

Hey everyone,

It's one week tomorrow until I head off on my summer holidays (yaaaay), so I've been starting to think what outfits I want to take with me. Recently, whilst I've been out and about, I've been looking for cheap items to buy that would be great for the sunny weather. Obviously a lot of the stuff I'm going to take with me I have had for a while (I'm not made of money), but I have also found a few little gems which I'm going to share with you now. I'll be honest though, practically everything I've bought has come from Primark, so if you're not a fan I'm sorry!

ahhhhh, as soon as I saw this dress I fell in love. I just loved the colour and the pattern made me feel really girly. I don't usually wear light coloured clothes (boring right?) because I don't really like standing out too much, but it's summer so everyone else will be anyway. The elasticated waist makes the dress really slimming, and I liked the and the triangle cut outs at the top as they reduce the need for a necklace in my opinion, which really helps me as I'm never brave enough to use half the necklaces I own aha. I also thought the dress would be good for cooler days as well as you can just throw on a denim jacket and some tights to keep warm whilst still looking good. This dress cost me £8 from Primark.

 These shorts are definitely my style, and the more I look at them the more I love them. They weren't my original choice, as I preferred another pair which has a white, lacy, flower pattern totally across one half, however this pair just fitted so much better. I love the lace trim and the acid wash (which is more noticeable in person) however they are quite short, so maybe not sixth form appropriate, but definitely holiday appropriate! These were yet again from Primark, for the slightly more expensive price of £12.

Now I was slightly disappointed in Primark's choice of crop tops, however I fell in love with this and thought it would go wonderfully with my new shorts above ^^ I am usually more of a dog person, but the top with a puppy on was no where near as cute, and it had a blue background, which I thought made it look a bit more tackier so I decided the kitten was the way forward, and at £5 I couldn't say no.

 Woooo, finally something that isn't from Primark! I bought this Denim Jacket from New Look online a few weeks ago and absolutely love it. I decided to put it into the summer haul, as here in the UK summer doesn't always mean sunshine, yet the jacket goes perfectly with summer dresses, meaning you can stay summery even when the sun goes in. So far I've mainly worn the jacket for a more 'grungy' look, so I think it is great for all styles. It is also slightly acid wash and over-sized, which I love love love as it means it's really comfy and easy to move around in (I HATE tight things, I buy all my clothes at least one size too big as I can't stand anything that clings). The jacket cost £22.99 plus £5 delivery if you buy online, unless you get it delivered into store, but it is definitely one of my favourite buys recently, even if I am very late to jump on the denim jacket band-wagon!

 This is a denim camisole top and when I saw it I thought it looked very cute and it only cost £6, so I thought why not? I think it would go great with a pair of shorts and sandals on really hot days as it is very light and loose. I saw the perfect pair of creamy, lacy shorts in the Urban Outfitters sale last week when I was in Liverpool for only £20 (and I say only because if you've been in  UO you will know that is very good for them.) However, it was right at the beginning of the trip and I decided to leave them in case I saw anything else I preferred throughout the day. Needless to say I didn't, and we never got round to going back *cries*, biggest regret EVER! 

It really annoys me how you have to buy bikini parts separately because I find it hard enough to find one that I like, and then you have the added issue of finding both top and bottom in your size. Anyway, I'm really picky when it comes to bikinis, so I always end up just settling for one which will do as I grow bored of looking. I was a bit weary of this as I'm not really a pink person, but it is definitely growing on me.I bought this from Next, the bottoms were £8 and the top was £12, which believe it or not was the one of the cheapest bikinis I could find.

For the past month I haven't worn earrings as I literally have no pairs. I seem to go to parties and when I wake the morning after I have always lost an earring, and it got to a point where this had happened with ever pair I owned. So I bought this pair from Primark for £1.50 (sorry for the shoddy picture) as I thought they were really summery and big, and I looovvvveee BIG studs.

This pair of sunglasses were sort of an impulse buy as I already own 4 pairs, but when I saw them for £2 in Primark I didn't even contemplate not buying them. I just thought they were really chic, and unlike any of the other pairs I have, and I know I will definitely wear them so I have no regrets! 

I don't really know why I'm showing you my bobbles, but 50 for £1 is a pretty good deal. I know after a few months I will have lost them all and will be down to just one that is about to snap but will hang on for a few moths until I end up buying more, but at that price who can complain?

This dress was £8 from Primark and I have just fallen in love. The patterns and colours are just beautiful and it goes great with tights and a bowler hat for more cooler weather, or with bare legs and sandals in the heat, and because it's so patterned it is really easy to style as you don't need anything else bold to go with it. The dress was quite long when I bought it so I had to use my fabulous sewing skills (ahahah, I kid) to shorten it so it looked a normal length on me as I am really really short!!

This cost me £5 from Primark and soon became my new favourite dress! It's plain and simple, which is sometimes all you need. I like to pair it with a simple gold chain necklace, little blue socks,a pair of brown brogues and of course a pair of sunglasses, which if i'm honest I mainly use to keep my hair out of my face as my hair is very long. There were loads of other colours as well which I'm tempted to go back and get as I literally don't think I can over-sell this dress.

I haven't bought any new shoes at all this year as I still have many that are in good condition, including my favourite ever pair of shoes- my black and white deck shoes <3 I did really want a pair of black jellies, and I was tempted to get a Juju pair for £20 from Schuh, but I was feeling a bit frugal at the time aha. 

I hoped you liked this type of blog, I'm tempted next time to take the photos of me wearing the clothes to show you how I would style them as I feel it would look better, so let me know what you think. (I had already spent too much time taking photos of all my clothes by time I had this idea to actually do it) :3 

Stay tuned because I have soooooo many book reviews to do that I want to share with you, and a few events coming up that I think will be interesting to show you. Leave a comment with anything you've bought for the summer.

Love Katie xoxo