Today please welcome my special guest, Belle, talking about her new YUUBag…

Me: Can you tell me what it was that first appealed to you about the YUUbag?

Belle: The thing that first appealed to me about the YUUbag was all the compartments and the fact that you can attach it to the car and use it as a desk as you’re going along.

Why did you choose the HUUG design?

I chose the HUUG design on the YUUbag because it looked really pretty. My favourite colour is purple and I like horses so the purple horse on the front of the YUUbag  were just perfect for me.

How did you feel waiting for your YUUbag to arrive? 

Waiting for the YUUbag to arrive was really exciting because it looked really cool on the advert. I couldn’t wait for it to come so I could actually see it on the inside properly. View Post

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What do you see when you look in the mirror? What I see varies a lot. Sometimes I look in the mirror and see a big wobbly heffalump. Other days I feel more positive.

When I went to record a clip for the What I See project I was in a particularly positive mood, as you can see from my video here. It was because I was in London – going to London always makes me feel all excited and full of potential. Plus it wasn’t that long after I got my funky new glasses and I was feeling pretty awesome, like one of those modern social media types. If I was a man I would definitely have a curly moustache. View Post

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Christmas to me is about people.

I know there will be some of you groaning and complaining about all the relatives you have to visit and how you wish you could just stay home on your own and eat an entire turkey while you watch Back to the Future, but I simply can’t be Scrooge like about Christmas.

Christmas for us has always been about spending time with friends and family. Even if you don’t like your family, (which luckily I do), how would Christmas be different to any other day if you didn’t make the effort to get together? It’s the more the merrier for me, and I will go out of my way to see friends and wangle party invitations – any excuse for a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie. I also LOVE buying presents, and have already spent more at Rex London than is probably acceptable given that it’s still September, but I don’t care. Boo to you all. View Post

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Over the last couple of weeks I’ve diarised family birthdays, created an emergency card and present kit and reorganised my medicine box, so I feel I may as well just give in, buy myself a floral pinny, don a pair of beige stockings and become an actual 1950s housewife.

It could be quite fun. Apart from the fact of having to earn money. That’s trickier when you spend all of your time glazing fruit loaves.

Still, perhaps in spirit at least?

Do get myself in the mood, I had a browse at the cleaning section of the Kleeneze website. If I am to become a domestic goddess I definitely have to get over my dislike of anything that involves getting my hands wet.

It was a revelation! Who knew that cleaning wasn’t just swooshing your hand around the sink a bit after you clean your teeth? There are all sorts of cleaning products out there that I didn’t even know existed. Here are four of my favourites. View Post

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So inspired was I by my medicine box makeover this week that I decided to tackle another area of disorganisation – birthdays.

I am officially hopeless at remembering birthdays, so much so that I normally rely on my sister to text me a couple of days before important datess, and am totally lost otherwise. The only birthdays I really remember, apart from the family I live with obviously, are my mum, dad and sister. If you’re not one of these people then apologies for all the birthdays I have accidentally ignored.

I do feel though that in this age of modern technology, fancy gadgets and what not that I should be able to organise myself. There isn’t really an excuse is there when you could have a million electronic devices all beeping at you at once? First off though I have to know when the birthdays are, so I text my sister for information. Birthdays are tricky – if you’ve known someone for most of your life it seems a bit rude to ask ‘so, when is you birthday exactly?’ It’s a bit like meeting someone new and forgetting their name. You can’t ask more than twice. After that you just have to make sure you never find yourself in a situation where you have to introduce them. View Post

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OK, I know, it’s not a very interesting sounding title. It sounds like it’s bound to be some terrible sponsored post where I’ve been asked to include the phrase ‘fabric plasters’, but honestly it isn’t. I am literally that boring that I thought a fun evening activity would be to give my first aid box a makeover. Sure, Rex London did give me a lovely new tin and some cute plasters, but that was my idea.

I probably need to get out more.

Let’s face it though, my old medical kit was in need of some first AID itself – both in terms of presentation and actual content. The old plastic tub doesn’t exactly scream ‘medicinal chic’ does it? View Post

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It used to be that people wrote letters.

When an elderly relative died you would discover a box of musty smelling postcards and love notes, written in a consistent, swirly hand, the letters looping elegantly from one to the next. You’d search through them, trying to piece together the history of a relationship, the feel of the paper in your hand somehow bringing the story to life.

Nowadays we send emails or texts – often short, poorly spelt missives that do little to conjure up any sense of romance or intrigue.

Emails aren’t all bad though. Just because you can’t physically hold them, can’t bring them up to your nose and inhale deeply, imagining you catch the scent of the other person, doesn’t mean they can’t tell just as powerful a story. Thanks to Memeoirs, you can now capture those stories, pin them down onto paper and tuck them away in an innocent looking cardboard box in the garage, ready for future generations to discover and get excited by. View Post

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Do you ever look at infographics and wonder ‘what does that even mean?!’

I do.

That’s the thing about statistics though isn’t it? You can make them show whatever you want if you just display them in the right way. It was following this train of thought last night that led to me buying the domain name madeupinfographics.com. (As you do). I thought it might be fun to just make stuff up, present it nicely and see if people still liked them as much even if they weren’t conveying any useful information. It’s basically what I do with my blog anyway, but with more charts.

The slight hitch in my plan is that until this morning I had never actually made a made up infographic, (or a regular one for that matter), but I figured it couldn’t be too hard surely?

This is my first attempt.

Would you read a blog of made up infographics?

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Have you ever been to a production of Twelfth Night where you have been invited on stage for a shot of tequila?

Come to think of it, have you ever been to a production of anything where that has happened?

Neither had I until last Thursday.

I was invited along to Bristol’s Tobacco Factory to check out their new comfy seating and watch the Filter Theatre Company’s production of Twelfth Night, and was jolly glad I said yes – not only did I get a tequila, but half way through, as some sort of quirky-theatre-company-interpretation-of-Shakespeare thing, they had pizza delivered for the audience. Very avant-garde.

(Be warned, this is the level of my theatrical review skills.) View Post

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A post about shoes from Bee…

I opened the box, my hands trembling. There they were. The most gorgeous shoes I had ever seen. I stared at them for a while, taking in their beauty, memorising them. They caught me looking and I turned my head away blushing.

I carefully put them on and they fitted me perfectly, just like I knew they would. I stood up and looked in the mirror. We looked great together, like we were made for each other. View Post

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I have Bee with me again today, taking her new LEGO lunch box and flask out with her during her first week of university. 

There’s no getting around the fact that being a student in London in pricey, however there are some useful habits a student should get into to save money where they can.

Eating out can eat into your budget – buying a meal deal everyday for 3 years will cost you approximately £3,285, which is enough to buy a used car or pay rent in halls for over 24 weeks. Therefore it’s important to take food with you when you’re going out for the day to avoid having to pay £3,000 for lunch.

No one wants to be the chump with the crusty old Tupperware box, so invest in a super cute lunch box to stay awesome while you al fresco.

I took my LEGO lunch box and flask out for the day in London to see if it was the right lunch box for me. View Post

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Mortgages are apparently at their most affordable level in 14 years. This could be good news for me as it was around 14 years ago that my Gran offered to lend me the money for a deposit for a house and I said ‘Nah, that’s alright, I’ve got loads of time to worry about things like that.’

D’oh!

A couple of years later and the rented house I was living in had doubled in value and it appeared that I had missed the property boat for good.

(I doubt I could even afford a boat.) View Post

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