January Lifestyle Favourites...

Harry Potter and The Cursed Child

Don't worry, there's no spoilers here. All I will say is I'm a huge Potter fan (ask anyone and they'll probs tell you how annoying my talking along to the film is) and I loved the play. Despite reading a spoiler - damn newspapers - I wasn't disappointed. Yes the plot wasn't my favourite but the staging and magic were incredible. I nearly shed a tear at the end which says a lot as I never cry. I now have a new favourite HP character and wanted to see the play again before Part 1 had even finished. I might be biased being somewhat of an HP geek but I think Cursed Child is the perfect follow on to a series that is so intertwined with my childhood.

Bullet Journals

I'm a stationery lover. I have countless notebooks that I jot things down in and this year I wanted to try and keep that to one book. I've seen videos and posts on bullet journals before so decided to give it a go this year. Setting my bullet journal up took a little time and I'm still not 100% on how I want the layout to flow but I'm enjoying this new system so far. At the moment I'm only using it for personal things but I think I'll start doing it for work too! If you're looking for a new form of keeping ideas and want the freedom to create something pretty visually pleasing, I'd definitely recommend trying bullet journalling. 

Holiday Planning

There's nothing like a bit of holiday planning to brighten up January! As this post goes live, I'll have touched down in the French Alps and I CANNOT wait! Being in snow covered mountains is my happy place and I'm so excited to spend a week back in my favourite place with my favourite person. *Warning: my Instagram feed is likely to be full of all things Alpine*

Polaroid Photos

I got my Instax Mini 8 last Christmas but haven't used it all that much since then. The film is pricey so I only got it out on special occasions. This year I've decided to start a new traditional, well two new traditions. One; taking a polaroid of Ben and I on New Year's Eve and two; taking a polaroid every month for the rest of the year. I'm hoping to have 12 snaps of 12 memorable moments from 2017 that I can always look back on.

What have you loved this month?  

5 Things I've Learnt Since Moving Out...

This Tuesday marks one year since I moved out of home. 365 full days of living with Ben in our little flat in Clapham. 8760 hours of adulting! To commemorate this landmark, I thought I'd sum up some of the things I've learnt since moving out: 

1. I'm actually pretty lazy (cooking? ironing? changing the sheets? You name it, I'll find any reason not to do it...) 

2. Moving out means you suddenly become obsessed with all things interiors. I now have an appreciation for why my parents spent so long in the home section of shops! 

3. You can never own too many candles

4. Nothing beats a quiet Sunday morning in bed. Fresh sheets, coffee in hand and Person Of Interest on Netflix. 

5. Mum made cooking look a hell of a lot easier and quicker than it actually is

Las Vegas & New York Photo Diary...

During a very boring external hard drive tidy up yesterday, I got lost in my mound of holiday snaps from last year. Several hours later and suffering from a severe case of wanderlust, I realised that as I was on a bit of a blog hiatus during the last half of 2016 these never made it onto the blog. So, here's some of my faves from my family trip to Las Vegas & New York back in October!

Finding Confidence...

Queue the cliche, but at 25, I feel like I'm now actually reaching the stage where I truly feel that I'm starting not to care what other people think. I've mentioned on here before that I'm a people-pleaser and hate to be disliked. There's been numerous times where I've recounted conversation I've had with colleagues, friends, friends of friends and thought "why the hell did I say that?! They're going to think I'm strange..." Now at the ripe old age of 25, I feel the tides turning and so what if people don't like me? So what if people stare when I ask the boyfriend to take photos of me in public for my blog? 

I'm not saying that magically overnight I've suddenly become a completely new version of myself but, this weekend I actually had the confidence to stand in the street with my boyfriend and attempt to shoot a 'style' post of sorts. For me this is a big deal. I'm not the most comfortable in front of the camera (put me behind it any day of the week!) and I'm my own harshest critic when it comes to looking at photos of myself. But, this weekend I managed to push past the feelings of embarrassment and pose in the road for half an hour. I might not be 100% happy with how I look *note to self, get back to the gym* but I'm confident enough to put these images up on here as a start to the new me  my new outlook on life...

Happy 2017...

Happy 2017! So this post may bring on a sense of deja-vu as this time last year I was writing pretty much writing the same thing I'm about to now... but, here goes nonetheless! 

So, I spectacularly failed at sicking to my 2016 resolution of blogging at least once a week. I just fell completely out of love with it. Half way through the year it felt like I forgot how to string sentences together and no mater how hard I tried, I just couldn't find any words to go with the pictures I was capturing. Rather than force out blog posts I decided to give in and leave it until I felt like writing again. (Instead I ploughed my creative juices into Instagram and successfully posted every other day in 2016). 

For anyone returning (which I highly doubt is the case #worldsworstblogger), you may notice that things have changed a little thanks to the wonderful guys at Pipdig. Part of the reason I think I stopped enjoying As A Blonde last year was because I stopped liking the look and feel of it. Now with a sparkly new design, I'm hoping the urge to write will come flooding back - fingers crossed!

Unlike last year I'm not going to pressure myself wth any targets. What will be will be. I want this space to go back to being me writing about things I love. If that means I have a gap of a month without any posts then that's what this space will be. 

So, here's to 2017 and all that the next 365 days will bring!