Last Minute Festive Treats and Gifts

Hey guys,
So today on Christmas eve eve I thought I would share with you some quick and easy last minute sweet treats if you need something for your party or you need a gift for someone I have two festive treats for you.

The first thing I'm going to show you how to make is peppermint bark its a cute little chocolaty Christmas treat.

You will need:

1200g of white chocolate (twelve 100g bars)

600g of dark chocolate or milk chocolate if you'd prefer (six 100g bars)

12 peppermint flavoured candy canes 

A baking tray

Grease proof paper

A ziplock bag

Two glass bowls

A sive

Two tablespoons

Two spreaders

A teaspoon

Okay so before we get started we need to put the Christmas music on to get us in the festive mood. I'm in love with the Michael Bublé Christmas album.

So you want to start by lining the baking tray with greaseproof paper. 

Now you want to put half of the white chocolate in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time and stirring it in between until it is completely melted. Once it's melted pour it onto the tray and spread it out evenly and put it in the fridge to set. 

While its setting you want to place the candy canes into a zip-lock bag, seal it and smash them up. I used a tea spoon to break it up. Once it was all broken up I decided to sive it to separate the dust from the broken candy cane.

Once you've done that the first layer of chocolate should be set so you can melt the dark chocolate like we did before and then just pour it straight on top of the first layer of chocolate and I decided to sprinkle the candy cane dust on top of this layer before I put it in the fridge to set.

When that layer has set we can melt the other half of the white chocolate as before and then pour it on top of the dark chocolate layer and then you want to sprinkle the candy cane bits on top them put it back in the fridge for a final time to set. 

Once it's all set you want to chop it up I neatened up the edges and then cut it into little

chunks. You may need to ask an adult to help you with cutting it up as I had to get my mum to cut it up for me as it was really tough but we did leave it over night in the fridge so that might have affected it.

 You could place them on a plate the chunks in little cupcake cases to serve as a sweet treat at your Christmas party.

This can also make a great gift you could just wrap them up with cellophane or you could simply make a small one. 

To make a small peppermint bark you do the exact same thing except with roughly 3 bars of white chocolate and 1 bar of dark chocolate (100g bars) and just three candy canes.

So the next thing I'm going to show you how to make is a super cute hot chocolate kit.

You will need  (for one):

Hot chocolate powder

Mini marshmallows

A candy cane

Two piping bags 

Two mini rubber bands

Festive washi tape

Curling ribbon

So you want to fill up a piping bag with hot chocolate I put in 4 teaspoons but just follow the amount on the back of the container. You want to tie that off with a rubber band, trim it down and place it inside another piping bag.

You then want to pour marshmallows into the bag until you can't see the top of the first piping bag then you want to tie the top with an elastic.

Now you want to decorate it I put some curly ribbon round the top and added a candy cane with some festive tape.

You could put it with a Christmas mug to give as a gift to someone.

I hope this has helped you if you were stumped on what to get something to finish off someone's present

Merry Christmas,

Charlotte x

Christmas Nails

Hello everyone, 

So I broke up from school for the Christmas holidays yesterday and were only eight days away from Christmas and one of my favourite things to do is paint my nails for Christmas and so I thought I'd share a Christmassy nail design with you that you can achieve in just four easy steps.

You will need:
Nail polish remover
Red nail polish - Sally Henson Runaway Red-y
Top coat - Barry M
Gold glitter polish - Colour Unlimited Nail Polish
Makeup sponge
Cotton buds

Step 1
Start by painting your nails red I did two coats to make it more vibrant

Step 2
Paint the glitter on to the sponge putting more at the bottom so it will have a gradient effect. Then dab the sponge on the bottom on the nail to transfer the glitter.

Step 3
Dip the cotton bud in nail polish remover and clean up around the edges.

Step 4
Apply a top coat to protect your design and your finished! You have beautiful nails for Christmas time.

Have fun painting your nail in this Christmassy design
Charlotte x

Christmas Gift Guide-Friends

Hi guys,

So as I'm sure we are probably all aware we are now in the wintery month of December and the countdown to Christmas has begun. So what I thought I would do is a gift guide it's for friends and family so you can find the category the person your buying for fits under and gather some ideas of what to get them. so hopefully this will help you out if your struggling for ideas for what to get people for Christmas.

The Sport lover-that sport and fitness obsessed friend
Tickets-you could buy them tickets to see their favourite  team play
A Team Top-you could buy them just a shirt or you could get it personalized 

The Makeup Guru-that friend who is always experimenting and trying out new brands
Gift Sets-a lot of brands bring out mini versions of their products 
Clarisonic-this would make a really good present for someone who is obsessed with skincare
A MAC Makeover-a one-to-one session with a MAC Pro I'm sure they would love and they have different packages for different prices
High End Makeup-I'm sure that anyone who is into makeup would really love to be given some luxury makeup like a Naked eyeshadow pallet 

The Fashion Stylist-the friend who knows whats in and whats out
A Shop Voucher-you could buy them a voucher for their favourite shop
A magazine subscription-if they are constantly buying magazines then why not get them a subscription to their favorite fashion magazine

The Music Mystro-the friend who always has headphones in their ears
Headphones-you can get really nice pairs of headphones for a variety of different prices
iTunes voucher-any music lover i'm sure would appreciate this gift 
CD-their favourite artists/bands album
Bluetooth speaker-these are really good and it means they can listen to their favorite music out loud without having to faff about plugging things in
Tickets-you could get them tickets to a music festival or to see see their favourite band/artist

The Film Fanatic-the friend that is always up to date with the current movies
A DVD
Tickets to the movies-you could buy them tickets to see a movie that they have been dying to see
Projector-there are lots of different ones that you can buy but the best one's I've seen you just have to slot you phone into them and it'll project the image on the wall

Part Person, Part Phone-we all have that friend that can't put their phone down
Juice Cube-this is great if they never put their phone down and are constantly on the go because this way they can charge their phone on the go!
Phone Case-a new phone case is always a good bet and a personalized one would be really cute

The Budding Photographer-that friend that photographs everyone and everything
Instagram Coasters-if they are constantly sharing their photo's with others on instagram then i'm sure they'd really appreciate this gift
A Digital Picture Frame-this would be a great gift as they could see there photos all the time

These were just a few ideas i had of course you can mix and match the gifts and they are all of varying prices
I hope this helped you,
Charlotte x

Top Tips for Christmas Shopping

Hello everyone, 
Now as much as I love shopping even I can find shopping for Christmas presents quite stressful the crowds and the queues to pay, so I thought that I would share with you my top tips on how to minimise your stress levels when Christmas shopping.

Online or instore?
Now this decision you need to make quite quick before the Christmas rush hits because otherwise your gifts will still be in the post and I'm going to admit I do a mixture of the two as you can find unique things in little high street shops as well as at Christmas markets there are many happening all over and you can get really cute Christmas decorations so there a great place to look but if your not a lover of shopping then online shopping might be best for you as there's none of the crowds and no queues to pay
Have a plan
Once you've decided where your going to shop you need to decide when your going to do it. Don't leave it till Christmas Eve to go beacause as we all know at Christmas things can sell out so they might not have the thing you ere looking for but if you've planned well when your going  then you should have another day you can go and get the bits you didn't manage to fort on your first shopping trip.
Make a list 
Have at least a rough idea of what your wanting to get and who your getting presents for
Set yourself a budget
This is really important or you can end up going overboard on one person and only spending a fiver on the other!
Organise your time
Once you've got a list then you'll have an idea of what shops you need to go in so work in a logical order so your not ping-ponging about this will also help maximise your time

So they are just a few of my top tips for Christmas shopping if your stuck thinking of ideas on what to get people whether they're close friends or family then fear not I will be writing two gift guides which are coming very soon 

Happy 1st of December 

Charlotte x