Favorites Friday! - from kitchenware to makeup!

Between now and just before Christmas I have collected a few new things that I really love and I just want to share with you! I’m going to say from the start that none of the brands or stores that I am about to mention have anything to do with this post. Everything I’m about to share with you are things I bought because I wanted them!

I don't buy a lot of kitchen stuff these days because I have most of the stuff I need. It's the odd occasion I add stuff to my collection and here are a few of the random things I've recently added!

The cookie stamp that says "Eat Me" I picked up at Home Sense on clearance for £1.99! I couldn't say no and I have yet to use it! Perhaps this post will make me go make some cookies so I can at least  say I used it once! If you have never been to a Home Sense I have to recommend that you do! It's a sister store to TK Maxx therefore it's very similar the main difference being that it's all homeware! It's wear I bought 2 of my 3 Nordic Ware bundt pans for only £16.99! 

The Mummy & Me mugs I bought around Mother's Day from Sainsbury's. My youngest loves elephants and a good cup of tea so I couldn't resist getting these mugs as a matching set! 

The butter dish is from Lakeland's and was bought with a gift card from my father-in-law gave me for Christmas! It was a little bit more spendy then just a regular butter dish, but it's insulated and is suppose to keep butter at a spreadable consistence at all times. Which has been mostly true as the weather has started to warm up. However our kitchen is the coldest kitchen and in the winter the butter was cold because the dish was cold and therefore not very spreadable! 

I used to have so many and as I love to share my baked goods with friends and family most of them have gone "missing." I decided it was time to invest in a nice set of cake tins - these are called Hearts Cake Tins and I also got them from Lakeland's with my gift card! 

I have a confession I am a coffee drinker! What I live in England! I know, but I just prefer coffee. I used to drink a lot of of those Nescafe cappuccino and latte sachets until they started effecting my bowels. No the most pleasant thing to talk about on here, but I realised that something in the sachets were upsetting my stomach so I was on the look out for an instant coffee that suited me. I have been drinking this CafeDirect for about a month and I really like it! I sometimes add the vanilla syrup to make it a bit like a latte! 

These post cards are my absolute favorite - Gotta love Paperchase! Especially the Loch Ness Monster one! As long as you believe in yourself then nothing else matters! 

Everyone always tells me to shop at Primark and when I do go in I very rarely seem to find something, but my last stop in I came across these two t-shirt and I couldn't say no! At about £5 a shirt why not? 

When I was in teenage years I loved candles! It's only been recent I've started buy candles again. The top one is from Paperchase and smells like avocado and mint - I have yet to burn it so will have to get back to you on it. The other two smell great and burnt evenly across. If a candle doesn't burn evenly and it just goes down the middle it's not a good value candle. Candles should burn straight across and another way to ensure this is by allowing candles to burn for at least an hour at a time. Of course as always with candles do be careful - never leave it unattended and in reach of children or on ledges where pets may jump up on. 

Never in my whole life have I ever been into make-up and beauty type stuff, but I suppose things change!

At the top is what I recently bought from Kiko at the Oracle in there 5 items for £10 deal. It was hard to choose, but I went with a nail buffer block, white shiny nail polish, a nude lip gloss, a red lippy and complimenting red lip liner. Wasn't impressed with the nail polish, but love the nude lip gloss!

Speaking of lip glosses I added my two favorites at the moment! Vaseline (limited edition) and classic Carmax! Keeps my lips from chapping! 

Speaking of chapping I love love love Soap & Glory's Hand Food lotion for dry/chapped hands! I have used it for years now! I also included a new face wash from Soap & Glory that I like and have been using for about a month now.

I ran out of eye make up remover and decided to try one by Simple and I find it quite nice. It doesn't try out my eye lids and is fairly gentle on my skin.

Since I had my hair cut shorter it means it needs to be styled more! When these two products, Smoothly Does It - Frizz Free Cream and Mega Hold styling mousse have been my saviours most days!

And I almost forgot the Barry M foundation primer and concealer! There isn't a bad thing about them and would recommend them to those who need make up on a  budget.

These are from Barry M - the lip glosses called Cor Balmy! are just the right about of color and moisturiser and they come highly recommended! The Sunset nail polish is also from Barry M and I have to admit I am pretty impressed with these! If the instructions are followed two coats of the color topped with the Sunset curing polish they last absolute ages! 

That's it for my Favorites Friday! There is no way I could write one of these every week or month for that matter as it's taken me months to collect all these new things! I haven't been baking as much lately because life stuff has been taking priority. It's unfortunately not easy life stuff either. I do hope to bake this weekend and will be sharing with you next week!!

Five on Friday: My Five Favorite Baking Ingredients

As a blogger I start a lot of my posts out with I love love love this or that. Apparently that's annoying. There was a person on twitter saying so. Ever since then I try really hard not to gush about my favorite types or flavors of bakes too much or in that way. I try to be a bit more natural about it.

However I do have a handful of favorite baking ingredients. If I had to choose between these five things I would have to walk away as I couldn't decide I love all of them!!

Apples:

An apple a day keeps the doctor away! It counts if they are baked in pastry or cake or cookies!! 

Check out my apple bakes!

Cinnamon: 

Works so well in bakes!! It's got a bit of heat and always makes me think of fall/winter! 

Things I've made with cinnamon!

Peanut Butter:

Reminds me of my childhood and tastes great paired with chocolate or on it's own!! 

Look no further for my favorite recipes using peanut butter!

Coconut:

You either love it or you hate it!! 

If you love it find recipes here!

Coffee: 

I not only love drinking coffee, but I love coffee flavored cakes, frosting, ice cream, and so on!

See how I use coffee to enhance my baking!

What are your favorite things to bake with? 

The Human Element

I’m not very good at choosing just one thing as a favorite. If I have to choose a favorite color, flower, tree, sweet, cake, or a decade I really can’t give just one answer.

Today’s topic for Blog Every Day in May is ‘Favorite Decade.’ Some might be able to answer that quickly having something that happened in a decade that make it stands out for them.

I don't have a favorite decade. Each decade has something special about it. 

So, I thought I would focus on retro desserts instead of music, movies, fashion, or political movements – all things that define a decade.

Then I just started thinking about what actually defines a decade. There are the things I listed just there types of music and fashion and wars and other political stuff. 

We get a lot of the facts. In the 1920’s women had won the right to vote. That’s a fact. It happened, but it takes away the human part of it. What did women have to do to get that vote? How did the people feel?

Upside Down Pineapple Cakes were popular in the mid 1920’s. Why were they popular? People then didn't have access to ovens like we do today and they made cakes in skillets. Fruit on the bottom cake batter on top and when you flip it over instant upside down cake. Who used pineapples first is still unclear.

I promise I have a point to all of this and it’s that facts don’t define a decade. I can read about what people wore, what they listened to, and what they ate. But I don’t know how those people felt.

I know how I feel when I wear my comfy jeans and novelty tees and I know how I feel when I hear Timber by Pitbull featuring Ke$ha, and how I feel about the desserts and cakes I make and eat. I know I feel about the economy and how it affects all of the above.

However, I can only guess how it would have felt to be a young woman in the 1920’s having fought or not fought for the right to vote. Depending on how I felt about woman voting would then determine how I felt when I had the right to vote. 

I am for equality in all shapes and forms so I would like to think that if that was my time, my decade that I would have been one of those woman who felt strongly about woman being equal to men. Heck, we're still fighting for it. 

I can dress in vintage clothing, but it will always feel like dressing up (to me) instead of my everyday clothes. I can listen to Elvis Presley but lets be honest his music is tame to the music I grew up listening to in the 90's and naughties. I can bake pineapple upside down cakes, but I have a choice of baking it in the oven or on the stove in a skillet or even in a novelty pan that has indents for the pineapple. I take the use of an oven for granted. 

I will never know how the people of the past felt about certain things. Because their feelings were based on their environment and the social society they were a part of.

Everything changes.Yet, nothing does. People will always be people and people will always love and hate or laugh and cry ... what makes one love and hate or laugh and cry changes. 

There is a human element to every decade, to the past, that we will never fully grasp unless we lived it. 

My favorite decade(s) are the ones I have lived in and the ones I will be a part of. 

notes: This post was written for day 17 of Blog Every Day in May. Photos are from here and here. The two pans are Nordic Ware they have not sponsored this post nor do I own either of them I just thought it fit with my post.