November in Instagram

Disneyland Paris holiday photos.

 

Mcm expo, more Disney/Paris photos.

 

Disneyland again, new book, Christmas wreath of dreams, pins.

 

Disney, Paris, cosplay plans, new way of displaying pins, Christmas candles, Christmas cups, adorable choker.

 

Christmas tree in Stockport, Dreams pin, decorations at the Trafford Centre, my favourite Lush products, more cosplay plans.

Nic

xx

My Disney Christmas Decorations Wishlist

Every year, we incorporate little Disney touches in our Christmas decorating. Whether it's snow globes, candle holders, or tree decorations, we always include Disney. So, with this in mind, I thought I would share a little Disney decorations wishlist for 2016.

All items Disney Store.

It's pretty much all tree decorations, but they seem to have stopped doing snowglobes online (or at least they have in the Christmas decorations section) so I couldn't really put any in here, even though we love a good snowglobe in our house.

Nic
xx

Gift Guide Part 1: Ladies

Welcome to my annual Christmas gift guides. I thought I'd start today, as it's Black Friday, which realistically is when everyone starts their Christmas shopping anyway. Today, I thought I'd start with ladies, whether it be your mum, sister, SO or just a friend, here are some presents that I think would be fantastic for ladies.

1. Cath Kidston Cross Body Bag.
2. Thomas Sabo Bracelet.
3. Skinnydip iPhone Case.
4. Marc Jacobs Daisy Dream gift set.
5. Fashion in Film book.
6. Benefit makeup set.
7. Hotel Chocolat Hamper.
8. Sailor Moon Luna/Artemis Bag.

I hope this has gotten you all in the festive spirit, check back next Friday for my men's gift guide.

Nic
xx

Disneyland Paris Halloween Trip Part Two

Welcome to the belated second part of my Disneyland Paris Halloween trip! I was supposed to post this on Sunday, but I was feeling sorry for myself with a cold, so, today it is. Before I start this part, you can catch up with part one here, and you can see my part two vlog here.

Okay, so after we'd filled up on our hot chocolates, it was time for Magic on Parade; my favourite thing at Disneyland Paris. The parade was excellent, there were a couple of Princes and Princesses walking in front of the carriages, and Lee was super happy, as he got some great character interaction during the parade. After the parade, it got very dark very quickly, so we decided to go and watch the villain show, as we prefer to watch that in the dark. We met Jafar (who was scary) and Frollo (who was downright terrifying). We were going to also try and meet Cruella, but her queue was massive, so we didn't bother.

After the villain show, we were both pretty hungry, so, as I wanted to eat at new places this trip, we decided to go to Colnel Hathi's Pizza Outpost, which was pretty good value for money: we each got pizza, garlic bread and a drink, and, unlike the meal deal at Earl of Sandwich, I could actually use my Annual Pass discount, so it worked out at a really good price. We then decided to wander around the shops whilst we waited for Dreams, which was perfect as usual. The only problem I have with it is that I can never get a very good spot for it. Maybe it's because I just rock up five minutes before it's about to start. Ah well, c'est la vie. After Dreams, we were eager to head back to our hotel to go to the beautiful bar, which has real log fires, and have a bottle of red wine. Then, we collapsed on to our beds, having a wonderful nights sleep after a great day.

The next morning, I decided to let Lee have a lie in and make the most of the comfy beds before we had to check out at 11, so I went to Extra Magic Hours on my own. I actually managed to do so much; I met Mickey and Minnie, went on Space Mountain and Peter Pan's Flight, ran into a couple of others, and then, as I was walking past the queue for Donald, I saw some of the other girls that were there. They let me come in the queue with them, and we chatted away and then all went to meet Donald and all had some group photos together, before I said goodbye to them all to have a last breakfast in the hotel. After we'd checked out of the hotel we went for one last time around the shops in the Disney Village, and then said see ya real soon to Disneyland Paris as we headed into Paris centre to spend a day and a half there.

Overall, it was a great trip, and I can't wait to go back again.

Nic
xx

Disney's Sequoia Lodge

On my recent trip to Disneyland Paris (I know, I'm really dragging out these posts aren't I?) I stayed, for the first time since I was five years old, in an on-site Disney hotel. That hotel was the Sequoia Lodge hotel. So, I thought I would write a little review of our two night stay here.

The hotel is Bambi themed, which won me over straight away, I love Bambi, and you really felt the theme in the room. The wallpaper had a border on it that had Bambi, Thumper and Flower on it, the beds had a lamp on with a deer engraving on it, and we had the most beautiful Bambi print on the wall, it really was beautiful. The hotel is also set up like a hunting lodge, inspired by the Sequoia National Park in California, and you also immediately feel this theme as soon as you step in to the hotel. There's nods to it everywhere, from Chip and Dale wearing safari style outfits in the lifts, to the bar with real log fires in it, and the oak, all of the oak. Lee said he felt like he was in Twin Peaks, and that's pretty much as good as it can get for Lee. The view from our room was Autumnal trees too, so you really felt like you were in a lodge.

Now for the important parts of any hotel: the bed and the shower. The rooms are designed to sleep four, so we had two double beds in our room, and they were honestly the comfiest beds I've ever slept in. We were that comfortable in our beds that we had one each rather than sharing, and we fell sound asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows on both nights. The shower is a lovely temperature and power, and the shower gel/shampoo bottles had little Mickey Mouse heads as lids. So cute.

Obviously I can't talk about the hotel without mentioning the food and drink. The breakfast buffet was wonderful for a French pastry lover, and they had the French version of Golden Nuggets in the cereal section, but, as Lee really dislikes French breakfasts, he wasn't overjoyed with it, unlike me when I realised that they had the dreamy Disneyland hot chocolate in the machines in the breakfast room. The bar is simply gorgeous, and we could've spent hours in there, sipping red wine and getting lost in the decor of the hotel.

The walk to the park is the last thing I'm going to talk about in this review, as it is obviously an important detail. The hotel is so near to the edge of the Disney Village, it literally took us about five minutes to get there and get in to the magic. Overall, I would highly, highly recommend this hotel to anyone staying at Disneyland Paris, and I'll no doubt be staying there many many more times in the future.

Nic
xx

Ooh La La

Pinafore, Jumper, Boots, Bag- Primark / Coat- Topshop / Beret- eBay

Of all the times I've been to Paris, I've never done an outfit post! I know. So I thought this trip I'd definitely do one. And for my first ever Paris outfit post, I obviously had to include the Eiffel Tower, so I took some at Trocadero, with the perfect view of the Eiffel in the background. This really is a wonderful spot for some lovely photos, and we actually saw a couple having their engagement shoot in the same place.

I decided to wear all pastels as ever, with this beautiful pink pinafore being a favourite of mine since I first bought it. I've always loved the style of pinafores, and I'm sure I'll be wearing this pink one for a long while. As per my usual favourite colour combination, I wore a pastel blue jumper, as it seems I literally cannot resist pairing baby blue with baby pink.

Nic
xx

Sailor Aurora Cosplay

I have now been to all of the conventions I am planning on going to this year, so I thought, as I've done with all my other cosplays, I thought I would have a separate post for my cosplay from MCM October. At this con, I went as Sailor Aurora as part of a Disney/Sailor Moon crossover group, along with Ellen and Jasmine. 

The costume was incredibly easy to make, as I already had an Aurora costume base from February. So I used the peplum from that, and altered the skirt to make it a sailor scout length. I used a t-shirt pattern to make the top, and extra pieces of fabric for the bows. The little neck detail thing that the scouts wear, I cut a piece of the material that was leftover from the skirt, and attached it to my front bow for ease of wear. And that is basically it.

You can follow my cosplays more on my cosplay page here.

Nic
xx

Disneyland Paris Halloween Trip Part One

We arrived in Paris almost two weeks ago now, so I thought I would start my series of posts about the trip today. So, after a morning in Paris on the 31st, (more to come on that another day) we decided to head to our hotel in Disneyland Paris, the Sequoia Lodge Hotel, for a bit of a rest before the Halloween Soiree. The hotel itself is beautiful, (another post for another day), and we certainly had a good rest in there. Then it was time to get ready for the Soiree, which I dressed as Aurora for, and then we headed in to the park. We soon met up with a few others, and we queued for a villain. Unfortunately, after the villain parade, Lee was in agony with a bad back, so we headed back to the hotel for a good nights rest, stopping for an Earl of Sandwich on the way.

The next morning, we got up and had the hotel breakfast, which I loved, and then we headed to the park for extra magic hours. We eventually got in and headed for our first ride of the trip: the newly refurbished Peter Pan's Flight. I loved the refurbishments, they added some extra magic to this wonderful ride. After the ride, we went on a couple more rides and then went to meet Marie. She was such a cheeky little cat, and kept the long queue entertained by being extremely mischievous. We then met Maleficent, which has sort of become an October tradition, and then decided to go for another regular stop off: Market House Delicatessen. Their Croque Monseiurs really are my favourite. After lunch, we watched Vive la Vie and went to go in the studios park to go on Lee's favourite ride: Ratatouille. 

After Ratatouille, we went on a few more rides (including Buzz Lightyear's Laser Blast and It's A Small World), and, after a couple of failed attempts to get Lee on Space Mountain, we decided to go and get a hot chocolate and wait for my absolute favourite thing at Disneyland Paris, which I will leave for the next instalment of this trip report.You can also see what we got up to in the first part of this trip's vlog, which you can see here.

Nic

xx

30 Before 30: Update

It's that time again: my bi-annual update of my 30 before 30 list. I can't believe that in just 18 months time, it'll actually be my thirtieth birthday, I literally feel about 24. But nevertheless, it will soon be here, and so, it's time for the update. If you remember, last time I made some adjustments, if not, here is a refresher, so I'm going to be working off a combination of the original list and this new one. So here we go:

Meet as many Disney bloggers/vloggers as possible
I think I've made great progress with this one, with both my April trip, the Manchester meet up and my recent Halloween trip, I've met a fair few now.

Read 200 books
I've read 137, so I will definitely do this one.

Have fun with fashion
I think I am definitely doing this one, I'm definitely wearing more of what makes me feel comfortable and happy read: pink, so I'll continue with this one.

Learn French
I've started this one, baby steps so far, but, having not learned another language in over 14 years, I'm doing well.

That's all this time, I'm hoping to do some of the bigger ones in this next six months, so fingers crossed I'll get them all done.

Nic
xx

October MCM Comic Con

Last Sunday I went to my fourth, yes, fourth Comic Con of the year, MCM London. I actually managed to blog about it before I lost all my photos/videos this time, and so I can write a nice visual post for you all.

I wasn't planning on going to any panels at this con, so instead I spent a lot of time admiring the cosplays on show. I cosplayed as Sailor Aurora as part of a Disney Sailor Moon crossover group, but, due to getting delayed at Victoria underground station, I missed the Disney meet. I saw people coming out of it though that looked amazing, I am always in awe of amazing Disney cosplays. After our timing disaster, myself and Lee decided to wander round the stalls and halls in general, looking out for cosplays in the meantime. As usual, we saw a lot of things we wanted to buy, but, as we were heading to Paris almost immediately after the con, we decided to be good and save souvenir buying for next May.

It soon came to my favourite part of any convention: the cosplay masquerade, so we raced to the Gold stage in order to get good seats for it (which we did) and we sat back and watched the showcase of amazing cosplays. As usual, I wasn't disappointed, and it even inspired Lee to want to take part in one one day. I especially loved the Love Live group, the Majora's Mask performance, and Megan and Alex as Belle and the Beast.

Overall I had a fantastic day at MCM, and hopefully next time I'll manage to make it for the whole weekend rather than just one day. You can see all of my photos from MCM on my cosplay page, I can't wait for the next con now.

Nic
xx