Afternoon Tea at Hotel du Vin

While Lucy was visiting in Bournemouth I thought it'd be nice to do something special and thankfully Emerald Street came to the rescue just as I was thinking this.

If you haven't heard of Emerald Street it is the email newsletter counterpart to the Stylist magazine everyone is given for free in London on their way home from work. Obviously because I'm not in London every week I needed my fix and this daily newsletter is perfect with restaurant/bar recommendations, offers and competitions and a cute Reading Room.

Anyway, they were offering Afternoon Tea for Two at Hotel du Vin in Poole for just £25. Now to students this may be pricey for just a couple of cakes and a cup of tea but stop there and have a look at the gorgeous afternoon we were able to have, then you'll be jealous/ desperate to go yourselves for such a good deal!

{Pretty tea set}

{Snuggly Chairs}

{Lombard Champers}

{Jasmine Green Tea}

{Our amazing cake and sandwich selection}

{Classically British Cucumber Sandwich}

{Diddy Egg Mayo Sanwiches}

{Now that's what I call a Scone!}

So for £25 we got 2 glasses of yummy champers, a pot of tea each, 4 types of sandwich: Salmon and Cream Cheese, Ham and English Mustard, Cucumber and Mayonaise, Egg Mayonnaise. Then we get to the cakes, scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream, dense chocolate loaf, carrot cake with cream cheese and walnuts, huge eclairs.

The hotel is so lovely, we had a nice comfy corner with sofas and we sat there for over 2 hours getting through all of our cakes, it was surprisingly filling!

So to get the offer you have to sign up to Emerald Street, print out this voucher (you have to hunt for your nearest Hotel du Vin then you can get the voucher) and give them a ring to book a table. The offer lasts til 15th April and is a really nice thing to do for an afternoon with your bessie!

1920's Madness

This weekend has been a bit jam-packed but the main event was Tim's 1920s birthday party! It was such a lovely party and a lot of fun, Rob's cocktail skills were improving (and getting stronger!) throughout the night and everyone looked fab.

The pictures of the party are care of the gorgeous Lorna Rose Clift and is probably the best photography you'll see on this blog!

{'Howard' was a new friend for the night}

{Amazing cake with Rosie and Alex}

{Special Drinks Menu for Tim's}

{Jo in her gorgeous outfit}

{The birthday boy and Peter}

{Howard hides behind Julian}

{Our bartender Rob}

{Reed's gorgeous outfit!}

The rest of the weekend was very family filled, our cousin Harry turned 16 on Saturday so we all went round for loads of pizza and an evening of Just Dance, I think it's safe to say I was the champion!

{Family mugshot, everyone looks good in Sepia}

Mother's Day was lovely, we got Mum a specially made Lush box of some delicious smelling hand creams and a cute washing up fairy! I hope everyone spoiled their Mums rotten yesterday!

1920's Mood Board

Today a few of us are going to our friend Tim's 1920s themed birthday party. The house is being turned into a speakeasy with cocktails on tap (this is how I've imagined the party in my head, I'm not actually sure what Tim's planning on doing!)

The 1920s is by far my favourite era, I've always thought I was born in the wrong time. I just love the secret freedom of the prohibition times and the gorgeous flapper outfits.

As soon as I heard about the theme I went straight onto Pinterest and began my mood board to get some ideas together. If I'm honest I think my outfit will be channeling Millie from Made in Chelsea but if she can pull it off then I can at least try it!

Heres a few of my favourite pictures to get me inspired for the night!

{Sequins + Roses}

{Feathered Headpiece}

{Diane Kruger's Curled Up-Do}

{Tassels}

{Perfect modern twist}

{Where my love for the 1920s started: Fitzgerald}

So from looking around, the main gist was tassels, sequins, lace and pearls. I managed to find this little dress which doesn't look great on the hanger but is actually quite cute on (its very short, this may be why!)

So the dress is from Apricot which is another one of those dresses I found in Beales (but New Look stock it too!), its very useful having the shop so close at work but not for my bank balance! The dress was £25. The little sequin and bead handbag is from Noa Noa (also in Beales) which was £39.95 down to £19.95 in the sale. Its tiny and only fits my phone and a lipstick but I should survive!

Then the plan is to pile on the pearls, I have a lovely cream sequin head band from accessorize and I'll stick a feather in. While I was working at a vintage festival in Goodwood I picked up some tights with the seam down the back of the leg which I'll wear with black heels. 

I'm curling my hair and just leaving it loose and the make up will be lots of black eyeliner and slicks of red lipstick. I cannot wait to see what everyone looks like, I'll post pictures on Monday! Have a fab weekend everyone, drink copious amounts of Guinness on Saturday and Happy Mother's Day on Sunday!

Graze

Graze is a brilliant service and I would honestly recommend trying it to anyone, the first one is for free you might as well!

Basically it's a healthy snack delivery every week for £3.75, they deliver 4 little punnets of goodness. They're so perfect for that snack at work or while you're working away in the library.

You can bin the things you don't like (I didn't like the dried fruit) and rate the things you really liked highly so you get them more often! The dippy bits and breads and nuts are delish and they fill that little spot before dinner and they're not crisps which makes a change from most students snacks!

They're such a lovely company and started by the LoveFilm guy so really they're only going to get bigger. I love all of their design and the cute added touches they have to the boxes and punnets you get. Around Christmas everyone got this little fella in their boxes:

You can get your first box for free with this code: 7KXQ3M8 and you can cancel if you don't like the box or keep on the deliveries (the first one is usually pretty good as they're naturally trying to impress you!)

{Picture found @grazedotcom}

So give it a go, browse the food selection and do some rating in your spare time and hey presto you get some delicious food for pennies and in the long run you'll probably save money and weight from avoiding those vending machines at uni!

The website is www.graze.com so give it a go and get grazing.

GlossyBox

I received my GlossyBox Harrods Edition in the post the other day and I can honestly say I'm in love! I'd had such a crappy day at work and it was the best pick me up a girl can have!

The idea of GlossyBox is basically you pay £10 a month (plus a bit of postage) for a box of 5 designer/deluxe testers for make-up, hair and bath and you get some really brilliant things in there.

I love being able to try things out before buying an expensive tube of moisturiser and finding your skin's too sensitive for it! I'm pretty fussy about mascara too and I love trying new ones in the little tubes before spending £20 on a full size!

You can review each item you receive and get 20 points every time you do, once you receive 1000 points you get a free box, just for saying something you'd say to a friend!

I think its brilliant and if you're not persuaded yet then look at what goodies I got!

{Valentino - Valentina Eau de Parfum}

{Molton Brown - Bath and Shower}

{Clarins Extra Firming Body Cream}

{SK-II Skin Signature - Moisturising Cream}

{Shu Uemura - Cleansing Beauty Oil}

{Lancome - Hypnose Drama Mascara}

I'm so pleased with all of my bits, the mascara is amazing, the Molton Brown shower gel smells delish and the moisturiser is great and will last absolutely ages! I actually looked on the website and the full size of the moisturiser is £127 so I think this box was a pretty good deal at £10!

Along with all of the goodies, you get at least 20% off all the full size products if you like them. They do a men's section but this is only quarterly, but it does looks pretty good.

If you like the look of it have a little browse on their website http://www.glossybox.co.uk/ and this is an invite code http://www.glossybox.co.uk/invitation/NjQ2MzY=?utm_source=Customers&utm_medium=link&utm_term=NjQ2MzY=&utm_campaign=Refer-a-friend/ I *think* this might give you some extra offer or something!

Goodbye Dissertation

I have finally handed in the thing! I never have to think about Tudor adaptations again but for those of you who aren't on my course and have no idea what I'm on about this is the general gist of the research:

The main premise was talking about adapting novel to film which is pretty much the only thing we see these days in movies and television. I put a twist to the research and discussed historical adaptations of the Tudor period instead so I could look at mis-representation of history and how it effects the audience's learning. I thought I'd do this because I thought I liked history and the Tudors especially, BIG MISTAKE! I've literally ruined any liking I had of Tudor adaptations and never want to see one again!

Basically lots of historians think that if a film tells the audience that Anne Boleyn slept with her brother then everyone will think its true even though it was just scandalous rumour from the court (who doesn't like a bit of gossip?!) However, others say that the audience aren't THAT stupid to think that everything in a drama is true? 

Well I did a survey and found that (hooray!) we're NOT that stupid which is just brilliant, so I'm really glad I wrote 10,000 words about that.

I had quite a lot of interest in this dissertation at the start so I probably should have written this post back then, but now I'm cynical and glad to have it out of my life. Anyone else writing a diss at the moment I feel for you and you will get through it (for tips to keep on track see here) 

However, for me, I'm very much looking forward to my freedom and getting gazeeboed with my fellow BATVers and my sister is visting for the week yay! 

That's A Wrap!

This weekend we FINALLY finished Alex's film, Paperthin Hero. We had our re-shoot after the disastrous shoot last Sunday and thankfully the sun was out and we had a brilliant days shooting.

We were filming in an old fashioned alleyway in Poole all day and we set up a little dead end for our little boy James to be trapped by his horrible bullies.

In these scenes he imagines he sees his superhero Battleman! So Beth's lovely friend Jonny helped us out for the day and dressed up as our superhero, he did a pretty good job!

I think we're all really pleased with the turn out and I can't wait to see the edit, but for now I'm glad to have finally finished it!

Here's a few pictures from the shoot on Sunday:

{All hands on deck in the alleyway}

{Elliot looking menacing with his potato}

{The beloved satchel that is stolen by the bullies}

{James about to get his own back on his bullies with a potato}

{Battleman!}

{He's flying off to another job}

{Battleman graphic which is seen in the comic too}

I hope everyone managed to have a nice relaxing weekend, I cannot wait to have a weekend off soon! I can taste the freedom!