Lush storage

I had a tweet not so long ago from Sherrie asking me how I stored my Lush products, in particular my soaps, so I thought I'd do a quick little blogpost on it.

Like me, Sherrie doesn't like leaving used ones on the side of the bath/shower because as anybody who has used a Lush soap before will know, it goes a bit skanky and slimy. I always throw mine away if I don't use it all in one bath or shower. It sounds wasteful, but I very, very rarely have some leftover, and this is why:

Whenever I buy a chunk of soap from Lush, I cut it up into small slices. They are soft enough for a regular, sharp, kitchen knife to cut through, and the creamier the soap is, the bigger the chunk - simply because they melt away quickly. Once I have lots of chunks, I put them in a big bowl/jar, with a lid on, and store them in my bathroom away from the sunlight. I'm not too bothered about mixing up the scents either, because when it comes to actually using them, the original scent is what comes through. However, that could be because the scents that I love from Lush are the same, sweet and fruity scents. I just grab a chunk and head off to the shower or bath. I'm not usually fussy which chunk I pick out, but I am a bit annoyed that I only have one of my favourite 'Honey I Washed The Kids' left. I must invest in more!

I'm lucky enough to be able to fit a substantial shelving unit in my bathroom, so my soap jar sits on top of that. I use the same process for my bath ballistics, bth melts and bubble bars too, though the jar I'm using at the moment is a touch on the small side! I never use a whole bubble bar so I cut those in half (except The Comforter, which gets cut into 3 or 4 pieces), and in they go. Again, the lid is imperative because it keeps the texture and smell locked in. We do't want crusty bars of nothingness now, do we?

With my body butters and massage bars, I buy the tins from lush, cram as much in them as possible, then they get chucked in the pretty hatbox that is stored on the shelf underneath. This is where any Lush things with their own packaging lives, like the shower gels and skincare items, as well as the shower jellies that come in their own plastic tub.

At the moment it is housing my regular skincare items, because I haven't bought anything from Lush for quite a while! Writing this post has reminded me that I'm long overdue a splurge.

So there we go, my Lush storage. I hope some of you found this helpful, as I know that when I first buying things from Lush I ended up with loads of yellow bags hanging around on windowsills or in drawers. Not pretty!

How do you store yours?

xoxo

Thinking outside the box

Make up storage was becoming somewhat of a nightmare for me. It shouldn't have been, because there are hundreds of storage solutions available, but I was on the lookout for something practical, yet pretty and budget friendly. My Mam is a very creative person, and lives by the motto "If you can't find what you are looking for, make it yourself". And so, I have. Well... kind of. After rearranging my bedroom on Thursday, I realised that I never actually showed you my make up storage. But that's okay, it wasn't anything special - just a load of boxes and drawers stacked on top of a shoddy old desk. Very practical but very ugly, which bothered me! This is my new 'make up station', a lot more pleasing to the eye :

And the best part? Most of this was stuff that I either already had, gifted to me, or 'borrowed' from other rooms of the house, so it hardly cost a penny. If I was to do this by repurchasing everything from scratch, I doubt it'd cost more than £150 anyway, so hardly budget breaking.

The actual table is less than 6 months old. My brother was using it in his room for his TV, but he is blind and to watch TV he has to sit up super close so that he can make out shadows and colours. It was uncomfortable for him to sit high up, so he bought a new, lower table. I jumped at the chance to have this one from him because it is the perfect size. It has one little drawer which I store my skincare in, and a shelf on the bottom where I store my main make up collection.

The mirror was a gift from my Mam and Dad. I'm not sure where it was from or how much it cost, but I saw one similar in Dunelm Mill yesterday, if it wasn't the exact same one. The butterfly is a clip on one from Hobbycraft. My Gran, my Mam and I each bought some last year, and I found this one lurking around unused. I already have mine clipped to my living room mirror and thought it looked really sweet, so I replicated it on this mirror. I think they were only about £3.

The three perfume bottles in the middle were a Christmas gift, also from my parents, and the two at each end were 'borrowed' from my Mam's lounge. I think they look better in my bedroom than her lounge! The lamps are from Ikea and I've had them for years. I'm sure they're still available and they also do them in different colours. I don't use them to apply my make up because they cast a pink glow, but they're perfect for creating a bit of ambience in the room. Here is a bigger one I keep on my chest of drawers, just to demonstrate the pretty pinkness of it.

My make up brush holders (with dirty brushes - apologies!):

I saw my Mam drinking tea from one of these the other day and thought it would look cute on top of the table with something in. I ended up putting my make up brushes in there, and used popcorn kernels to make them stand up. A temporary measure, but it does the job. She hasn't noticed the cup has gone from the kitchen cupboard yet! Whilst I was in Dunelm Mill yesterday, I saw it's twin looking sad and lonely on the shelf, so I snapped it up. For £1.49 it would have been rude not to, even if it was a replacement cup for Mammy. As it happens, I've put my face brushes in there, so now I have two pretty brush holders. And my Mam is still missing a cup...

These little pots are actually candle/tealight holders from Ikea. As I said, my Mother is extremely creative, so she has oodles of ribbons and embellishments in her craft room. I thought this pearly one was pretty and fitted well with the loose 'shabby chic / vintage' theme I was trying to create, so I just glued some around the candle holders. I put some cotton buds in one and some bobby pins in the other, both of which I need within easy reach.

So, onto the shelf underneath, complete with my radio! I can't live without my radio in the mornings. I listen to Radio 1, which wakes me up a treat. The box on the left holds my hairdryers, straighteners and curling tongs, and was bought for £1.49 yesterday in the Dunelm Mill sale. Only now I'm realising most of the things on my dressing table came from Dunelm Mill haha. It's covered in pretty, pink, rosy fabric and although it's a squeeze to get my goodies in, they do fit. Phew! The rose tin on the right was 'borrowed' from the kitchen. My favourite cake stand came in it so has been sitting reduntant in a cupboard. I use to to store my rollers, bobbles, hairbands etc.

The middle section holds my make up. I have a drawer unit from WHSmith which doesn't go with the room at all, but it is covered in cupcakes and is absolutely adorable. To be honest, my collection has outgrown it, but it will suffice for now.

The top left drawer holds my mascara, eyelash curlers and false eyelashes. The middle drawer on the top row holds all of my eyeliners - pencil, liquid, gel, glitter etc., and my pencil bases, like my NYX Jumbo Pencils and MAC Shadesticks. It is chockablock and is a pain to rummage through to find what I want, but I have a cunning plan for storing these in the future. The top right drawer holds my lip balms and lip pencils.

The middle row has two bigger drawers, and the left one holds my cheek products - all my MSF's, pot-form blush, bronzers, cream blush, highlighters etc. This is my favourite drawer of all.

The right drawer holds my eyeshadows and loose pigments. I don't store my MAC palettes in here because there's no room, but I have some Urban Decay palettes and Sleek palettes, aswell as my primers like Urban Decay Primer Potion and Benefit Creaseless Cream Eyeshadows. The little plastic tubs are empty cotton bud tubs - always handy to store things within your storage.

The big bottom drawer holds my face make up, so my foundations, concealers, primers and powders.

My collection is pretty small compared to some, but it's still substantial and I'm forever rearranging things around in the drawers to find the best fit! On top of the drawers are my two MAC eyeshadow palettes, and my MAC blush palette. I have my most worn eyeshadows in one palette so it's easier to grab in the mornings, then the other has pressed pigments and my lesser worn colours.

Also on top of the drawers is my favourite part of my make up collection, my lipsticks and lipglosses. I store them in this gorgeous, ivory, wooden box that my parents got me for Christmas. It has roses painted on the lid and is the perfect size for lipsticks.

I put my lipglosses upside down in an old cotton bud pot so I can see the names. If a lipgloss is too big to stand up, I just lay it down at the front. To store the lipsticks, I cut the MAC lipstick boxes in half. I try to arrange them in colour order, from lightest to brightest, but because I store them upside down, I can read the names when I'm in hurry.

Phew, this was a bit of an epic post, but I wanted to show you some storage ideas aswell as my stash. You don't have to use boring boxes or pots, but if you do, try jazzing them up with some inexpensive embellishments. This is my favourite part of my room now, which is odd because my bed is there too... haha. When my budget allows, I'm going to buy a white, French style dressing table. That's the ultimate dream style for my room.

How do you store yours?

xoxo

Retail therapy

Mr Lollipop and I went to Cardiff yesterday to spend our Christmas gift cards. Am I the only one who goes sales shopping, but ends up buying the full price things? Anyway, I went to MAC and bought:

By Candlelight MSF from the Warm & Cosy collection. This collection didn't interest me at all and I wasn't going to buy anything from it. However, I took one look at this in the shop, saw how gorgeous it was, and practically screamed at the MAC girl to get me one before they sell out!

Sugarrimmed dazzleglass. I know this is probably nothing exciting to most of you, but this is my first ever dazzleglass. I chose this one because it is similar to Snowscene lipglass, which is something I have a love/hate relationship with. I love the teal and pink glitters in Snowscene, but find that the base of the lipgloss is too white/pearly, and very thick. It ends up looking really odd on my lips. Sugarrimmed is more of a milky pinky-white base, so I've still got the pretty glitters without looking like a corpse.

Hue lipstick.I bought this after somebody recommended it as a nice pink-nude, similar to Pure Rose lipstick (which I adore). I really like it. It's not quite the same as Pure Rose, but it's pretty enough in it's own right, and is the closest I've found to a dupe. It's a glaze formula too, which is one I really enjoy wearing.

 

Below are some swatches and some comparison swatches, though be warned, they're not the best!

 

I went to WHSmith in search of the next installment of the TrueBlood books, called Dead and Gone or something, but they didn't have it. Boo. They did have this though:

It's similar to the Laura Ashley design drawers that most people use, but it's got little cupcakes all over it instead. I think it's adorable, and whilst it may not match the French-style bedroom I am doing, it's pretty damn cute and puts a smile on my face! Much prettier than the plastic drawer system I had in place before. This was the only sale item, and I saved a massive £5. Ooh get me and my sales shopping! It co-ordinates (but doesn't quite match) with my Love Heart bucket brush holder too! (please excuse the dirty brushes, I need to wash and sort through them!)

Then we trundled off to HMV. I was on a mission to find TrueBlood. I'd seen it on the HMV website for about £25, but when I got to the shop it was £37. How can they justfy charging different prices from online to the shop? Scandalous. So I left it behind and bought it for £27 in Tesco instead. I'm going to watch some of it this afternoon. Yippee, another fix of Eric!

And we bought Rock Band. Mr Lollipop's brother bought it for his two little boys for Christmas, and we had a ball playing it so decided to buy our own. It's much harder than it looks though! I managed to get 100% playing guitar on Mr Brightside this morning, but that's nothing to be proud of since it was my 12th attempt haha.

Grabbed any bargains lately, or are you rubbish in the sales like me? x

Merci beaucoup

I recently did an interiors blogpost, where I showed you the style of bedroom I'd like. Months and months and months ago, I think it was as we were moving here in May, I mentioned to my Mammy that I'd love a French-style wire mannequin. She somehow remembered it, and guess what Santa brought me? Yep, a gorgeous wire mannequin.

I put the ribbon on myself, but isn't it lovely? I want to decorate it with fairy lights, pearl necklaces (fnar fnar) and some lovely roses. Eeeeeeeh I'm so excited to finally have one of these! I don't know how much it cost, I don't want to know, but I've seen some for around £60 that are nowhere near as nice as mine. But then, I'm biased ;)

They also got me this cute little box. It's cream with hand-painted roses on it. Perfect for my French shabby-chic style bedroom I'm lusting after. It's sitting on my dressing table now, filled with my lip products, so I get to look at and admire it every day :)

And finally, I got these adorable little perfume bottles. I'm assuming my parents got them in the same shop as my mannequin.

Aren't they pretty? I love all stuff like this, and just had to show you all.

I had lots of other lovely gifts but I'm still debating whether I'll do a post on those. I appreciate everything I got though, so thank you to my wonderful family who spoiled me this Christmas!

Handbags and gladrags

Apart from make-up, I have a love of shoes and handbags. I spent last weekend sorting out my wardrobe, and finally unpacking everything from the house move. Not bad, considering I moved almost 3 months ago!

Now, my house, although beautiful, is by no means one to rival that of some you see on MTV's Cribs, but I do have a room that is completely mine. No bed, no fiance... just me, my make up and vanity, and a built in wardrobe with all my clothes, shoes and handbags. We call it my Boutique, and I love it. It's girly and mine, all mine.

My only issue is... I havent got enough room! I've got a lot of my clothes in the wardrobe in my bedroom, but they're all going to be in here eventually. Ideally, I want everything to stay inside this wardrobe (except my make up, obviously), but as you can see I have absolutely no spare space. The floor is covered in shoes... I've got to store my flatties standing up in two show boxes. And that's not even my entire shoe collection!

I also hate my handbag storage. I've only got half a shelf to spare, so I've got to tuck bags inside each other, and my clutches/small handbags are stored inside the box underneath my boots.

This is so impractical, as not only can I not be bothered to rummage through everything to find a particular bag, I forget what I have. My favourite and most used handbags are scattered around the house on different door handles, but I want everything in one place.

The boxes on the left of the shelf stores my hair products, like electricals and curlers, and next to that is jewellery and nail polish. I have no room on my vanity for these, so they need to stay in the wardrobe. Oh, and the teddybear is a bag too. My dad got it for me when I was 13 and I can't bear to throw it away - it's so cute!

I know I'm not the only handbag lover with a small storage area, so how do you store yours?