simplycarinaxo

CHRISTMAS WISHLIST!

Published on December 1, 2017December 1, 2017 by simplycarinaxo4 Comments

Hey there beautiful souls,

Now that autumn is slowly transcending into winter and Halloween and bonfire night are well and truly over I can slowly start to get excited for Christmas! I love Christmas, I mean who doesn’t bar the Grinch!?! The last few years I haven’t really had a Christmas wishlist but this year there are actually a few things I really want and I can’t wait to share them with you and look forward to reading your wishlist posts too!

Dinosaur £25 Wilkos – I know I am 24 years old, supposed to be adulting, but I’m sorry this Dino is just way to cute!!! And my childhood dream of having a large cuddly toy has yet to be fullfilled!

Epilator £44.99 Amazon – Anyone else hate shaving? It’s so tedious so I love using my electric shaver to just quickly go over my legs. Admittedly it’s not as clean a shave as using a razor, but does the job if you’re in a hurry. So as my old Philips epilator/shaver decided to give up I would really like a new one for Christmas and this Braun epilator seems a great deal. I’ve shopped around and amaxon definitely has the cheapest deal.

Milk and Honey £6.99 Amazon – This book has been on my wishlist for ages. I keep seeing her words float around instagram and have thus wanted to read her work for a while now.

Turtles all the way Down £7 Amazon – I really enjoyed all of John Green’s other books so I’d love to read his new one. Although I do already have a huge to.read list! Let’s be honest you can never have too many books!

Catan Extension pack £22.73 – this is one of my favourite games, but when my flatmates and I get together there’s often more than four of us so I would love this extension pack so that more of us can play together, because it’s not really a game you can play in teams.

Vikings Seasons 1-4 £34.99 Amazon – I absolutely love this series nand really want to rewatch it. However now that I do not have Amazon prime anymore I thought the best option was to add this series to my collection.

Bamboo Bathtub Caddy £17.99 Amazon – I love a good bath, who doesn’t!!! I go all out and make it a real pamper experience. I get out the wine, the candles a healthy snack and watch an episode of something. However there’s never enough space for everything, so I’ve had my eye on a bath caddy for ages! Hopefully this will be under the Christmas tree!

So here are just a few of the things that are on my wishlist this year. What about you? What’s on your wish lists this year??

Love Carina xo

CHRISTMAS HOMEWARE HAUL

Published on November 29, 2017November 29, 2017 by simplycarinaxoLeave a comment

Hey beautiful souls,

I have been so excited to share this blog post with you! I am obsessed with homeware and just love decorating the house, so of course I get very excited about Christmas and can’t wait to make the house all festive. I do have a rule though that Christmas decorations can’t go up until December, however as I am now currently in northern Ireland, I did make an exception to this rule and started a little early.

The milk bottle ghosts and pumpkins have been taken down and the Christmas candles and decorations are slowly being put up. Here are some of the Christmasy bit’s and bobs my housemate Jessica and I picked up on our trip to Newcastle the other week:

Star tealight holder £5 Wilkos – Red Display plate £1 Wilkos – Bath bomb £1 Wilkos – Candles £3 Primark – Room spray £3 Primark

Tealight holders £1.50 each Tiger – Cookie tin £3 Tiger – Napkins £1 Tiger

These are only the first few Christmasy decorations we bought and I can’t wait to buy some more bits and bobs, put the tree up and finish decorating the house! Have any of you started decorating yet??

Love Carina xo

DURHAM LUMIERE

Published on November 22, 2017 by simplycarinaxo6 Comments

Good evening beautiful souls,

On Thursday the Durham Lumiere began. It is the UK’s biggest light festival and works with different artists to bring various light displays to the centre of Durham. The Lumiere is a four day event drawing in people from all over England to come and see the light festival. This is the Lumiere’s 4th year and it’s the first time I have been!! I was only at uni in Sunderland, so just up the road really, so I don’t know why I never bothered to come home to Durham to see the previous Lumieres I realise now I totally missed out!

So I was very excited to finally go and see all the light installations! I went with my housemate Jessica and we walked around for a good 2hs; I absolutely loved it! We only saw about half of the Lumiere and I’m gutted I didn’t go back another day to see the rest, but Sunday after work I was just far too tired to go out into the cold again.

Anyway, here are the things we went to see:

Did anyone else go and see the Lumiere? What were your thought’s on it?

Love Carina xo

MY WINTER READING LIST

Published on November 12, 2017November 12, 2017 by simplycarinaxo4 Comments

Good evening guys,

I absolutely love reading but recently I’ve been so caught up in binge watching Netflix shows that I haven’t picked a book up in ages. Abandoning my books has left me feeling guilty; it’s high time I finally get reading again. My fingers have been itching to pick up a book and so I thought I’d share my winter reading list with you. I have at least 40 books on my ‘to read’ bookshelf but here are the books I am currently in the mood to work my way through.

TINTENHERZ – CORNELIA FUNKE

The Inkheart trilogy, written (originally in German) by Cornelia Funke, is a series I have actually already read when I was about 12 years old. One of the reasons I am picking this trilogy up again now is that I haven’t read a German book in ages and I really need to keep my German reading up. I am noticing that it is getting more and more difficult for me to read with ease in German; it’s not that I don’t understand it anymore, but it definitely takes a lot more concentration for me to take everything in and not drift, so I figured a young adult’s trilogy would be a good start to get me back into German books. Moreover, I remember wolfing these books down the first time round and I have been eager for quite a while now to delve back into the beautiful world of this trilogy.

WOLFSANGEL – M.D. LACHLAN

I picked this book up the last time I was in Barter Books in Alnwick. It intrigued me with its blurb about wolves and Vikings. As of yet, I haven’t read a book set in the Viking era, but I love series like Vikings set in this ancient era and so I’m excited to give this a go.

THE LITTLE BOOK OF HYGGE – MEIK WIKING

MAKING FRIENDS WITH ANXIETY – SARAH RAYNER

Of course there had to be a book or two of non-fiction. I am trying to incorporate more non-fiction into my everyday reading and for my winter reading list I of course had to choose The Little Book Of Hygge to give me all those warm cosy zen feels and then I also decided on Making Friends With Anxiety a book I picked up quite a while ago in the hope that it would give me some insight and maybe suggest some new coping mechanisms for anxiety, which I suffer from on a daily basis.

THE REVENANT – MICHAEL PUNKE

I believe this book was a Christmas present about two years ago and I still haven’t got around to reading it! I picked this myself with a book voucher as I wanted to see what all the hype from the movie was about. I always want to read the books before I watch the movie or series adaptations, so I still haven’t seen the movie wither yet; before I get more books for Christmas that get put aside for two years aha, I thought it was high time I ticked this one of my list.

THE HANDMAID’S TALE – MARGARET ATWOOD

This has been on my ‘to read’ list for quite a while and with the quite recent hype of the televised show based on this book I decided I couldn’t put this one off much longer as I really want to watch the show, but as I just mentioned I refuse to watch it until I have read the book, so it’s time to get reading.

Have any of you already read any of these books? If so what did you think of them? I’d love to hear your thoughts and tell me what’s on your reading list too!

Love Carina xo

ORANGE PUMPKIN CRISPY CAKES

Published on October 29, 2017March 3, 2025 by simplycarinaxo1 Comment

Good evening guys,

On Friday I hosted a Halloween games night and made these cute pumpkin crispy cakes. I thought you’d like this easy recipe, so here you go.

You will need:

Silicone moulds (these pumpkin ones were from Lidl)
195g mars bars
90g butter
3 cups of rice crispies
Orange extract
200g milk, dark or white chocolate

Melt chocolate in the microwave and pour a little into each silicon mould. Pop into the fridge to cool. Now chop up butter and mars bars and melt on a low heat until smooth. Add a couple drops of orange extract. Once smooth take off heat and stir in rice crispies. Take moulds out of fridge and fill with rice crispy mixture. Leave to cool down before putting moulds back into fridge to set. You’ll be able to enjoy them after an hour or two.

Love Carina xo

BEST HALLOWEEN MOVIES

Published on October 28, 2017 by simplycarinaxo6 Comments

Good evening guys,

It’s time for my next blogtober Halloween post! I’ve seen so many people in this past week share their choice of favourite Halloween movies. I’ve enjoyed reading these posts and reminiscing over some of my childhood favourites like The Little Vampire, as well as realising how many movies I haven’t actually seen yet. Thinking of all these great Halloween movies really put me in the mood to snuggle up and have a movie binge night. So I thought I’d share a list of my favourite Halloween movies and add a list of the one’s I have yet to watch too because these are the ones I’ll be working my way through tonight once I’ve crawled under my blanket with a bowl of pumpkin soup in living room by pumpkin light.

Some Favourites

Casper The Friendly Ghost
The Little Vampire
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Sweeny Todd
The Addams Family

To Watch

The Nightmare Before Christmas
Corpse Bride
A Nightmare On Elm Street
Beetlejuice
The Craft
Hocus Pocus

That’s all from me today; do let me know what your all-time favorite Halloween movie is!!!

Love Carina xo

HALLOWEEN MAKEUP TUTORIAL

Published on October 26, 2017October 26, 2017 by simplycarinaxo11 Comments

Good evening guys,

Halloween is one of my favourite times of year in part because I love dressing up and having some fun with face paint! So with only 5 days till the 31st here’s an easy skull inspired makeup look – hope you enjoy!

You will need:

White face paint – black face paint – a little dish of water – black liquid eye liner – black pencil eye liner – dark grey/black eye shadow – white eyeliner – black mascara – makeup brush – beauty blender/sponge

Fresh faced – make sure you have washed you face and moisturised it before you begin.

Start by wetting your makeup brush to dilute the white face paint and apply all over your face and down your neck. Use the beauty blender/sponge to pat out any brush strokes and blend the paint into you neck.

Next use the black face paint and apply similarly to your normal contour lines (as well as encircling your eyes in black) before blending in with your sponge. Tip – do one contour line at a time and blend in with sponge; if you paint on all the lines first they will dry very quickly and prove difficult to blend!

Once the basic contouring is done, keep layering on the colour till you have the depth you want before setting in with dark grey/black eye-shadow. Next grab your black liquid liner and paint on the nose bone or rather lack of and go on to blend your eyes into their dark surrounding with your pencil liner. Use it to fill in your eyelids and darken your waterline. Now it’s time to use your black mascara to define and darken your eyelashes.

And last but not least take your liquid liner again and draw on the stitched up mouth – start with the horizontal line before adding the smaller vertical lines. Remember to take the horizontal line all the way from right to left and over your lips not just from the corner of your lips outwards.

And there you have the final look! Nice and easy and quick!

Hope you enjoyed this post!

Love Carina xo

MINI GETAWAY – DESTINATION ALNMOUTH

Published on October 8, 2017September 2, 2024 by simplycarinaxo4 Comments

Good evening beautiful souls,

At the beginning of the week I was away in Alnmouth, a beautiful village on the seafront. It is my dads 50th this November and he’s celebrating early with his brothers, sister, their spouses and his mum who have all flown over from Germany so they can enjoy a weeks holiday together in Alnmouth. I could sadly only visit for three days as I had to work, but I did enjoy three days with my extended family. I took the train up on Monday and on Wednesday we all drove down back to Durham together so the family could see our hometown. Although short it was so lovely in Alnmouth; I am already missing it. Anyway the coastal scenery is just so beautiful there I just had to share some photographs with you.

On Monday we went to Bamburgh a short drive up the coast from Alnmouth, for a lovely walk at the beach, although it was so windy the sand whipped around our legs in a bit of a sandstorm.

The next morning the sun was rising over the beach and I enjoyed my breakfast with a view. The living room window had a lovely window seat looking out onto Alnmouth beach and it was the most peaceful breakfast I have had in a long time – breakfast goals on point!

After breakfast I went for a walk at the beach with my dad which was lovely as the sun continued to shine. The weather was just fab!

Later on in the day we went to the Alnwick Gardens where we had booked to eat lunch in the tree house in which is just so cute and quaint. The food was amazing and we all enjoyed ourselves. I sipped on my favourite Rose Lemonade, had a terrine for starters and pork belly with broccoli and apple mash for mains which was just scrumptious!

After our meal in the tree house I walked to Barter Books in Alnwick. It is one of the cutest bookshops I have ever been to. A large building filled with secondhand books, antiques and first editions. One can really spend half a day here browsing through all the books. If you are ever in Northumberland I totally recommend you take the time to visit this quaint bookshop. There is a little cafe for refreshments and chairs to sit and read in oh and there are some CD’s and DVD’s too, but only a small section. As far as I am aware you can also exchange books, as in if they don’t already have certain books you can trade them.

On Tuesday evening we continued family time and had a lovely night reflecting on the past by looking at old photos which was cute.

Well that sums up my mini getaway in Alnmouth; thanks for reading! Also I’d love to know if you have ever been in Bamburgh, Alnmouth or Alnwick, so please do let me know!

Love Carina xo

RECENT BUYS – HAUL TIME!

Published on September 24, 2017 by simplycarinaxo4 Comments

Hello guys,

So I’ve been really excited to write this blog post! I have been spending a little too much money recently aha but sometimes I just can’t help it, all things fashion, beauty or homeware just excite me too much and I don’t always have enough willpower to listen to my reason telling me ‘No Carina you don’t need this!’ aha. So here is my haul, anything I can find online I will add a link to. I hope you enjoy!

Unicorn Slippers – £4.99 B&M

Black Loafers – £15 Asda, Sunglasses – £1 B&M

Palm Leaf Duvet Cover – £14 (King Size) Asda, Yellow Cushion – £4 Asda

Buddha Tealight Holders – £3 each Asda, Fairylighs – £1 Poundland

Ivy plants – £1.50 each B&Q, White Romantisk Tray – £7 Ikea, Napkins – £0.90 Ikea, Tealights – £1.35 Ikea

Trinket dish – £1.50 Ikea, Candle holder – £2 Asda

Reusable Glass Bottle – £3 TKMaxx

Anybody else in a current shopping phase and buy anything exciting?

Hope you are all having a lovely day!

Love Carina xo

AUTUMN WISHLIST!

Published on September 21, 2017 by simplycarinaxoLeave a comment

Good morning guys,

Recently I have been in a real shopping mood because there are so many cosy autumnal things that I currently want. It’s a dangerous time seeing all these things I want to buy and it’s difficult trying to restrain myself from spending too much money aha.

I like all seasons and can never decide which is my favourite time of year; however when it comes to fashion, Autumn has definitely got to be my favourite! I am a sucker for deep dark colours so when the mustard’s and wine reds come out and it’s time to snuggle up in big knits, I get really excited, I mean what’s not to love?!

Another thing I have become obsessed with in the last 3 years is homeware. I feel like I should have studied interior design so I could homeware shop all day long for other people, because I just don’t have the space or money to constantly rejig my bedroom theme or buy more homeware decorative pieces or add to my kitchen… aha.

Well, here are some of the things on my current wishlist, I might treat myself to some, like a new candle, others, like the yellow velvet shoes, I really want but would barely get any wear out of, I will only gaze at from a distance but not buy. Sometimes I wish I had an office job so I could wear nice clothes, get my nails done and wear heels aha, but when you work in a cafe/as an artist your clothes will always get dirty with coffee or paint, your nails would be ruined in no time and you’re on your feet most of the day so heels are not comfortable at all. Anyway, here’s my current autumn wishlist:

Yellow Velvet Block Heels, Wanderlust Canvas, Chevron Knit Throw, Cream Colour Block Ladder Lace Up Jumper

These New Look Mustard Velvet heels are the bomb! I am in love! However I know I would only ever wear them once or twice as I am not good with high heels; but that doesn’t stop me from admiring them from a distance!

This canvas from Wilko’s is just super cute and would fit well into the accessories scheme in my bedroom I think. I dream of travelling one day, this wish is so rooted into me that I feel it would only be appropriate to have the Wanderlust definition on my wall with this pretty floral nature pattern around it.

Throws, throws and more throws, I mean you can never have enough right?! This throw from Next just looks super cosy and snuggly and I need it aha. It’s getting solder now and my duvet just isn’t quite warm enough anymore so I want a new throw to match my new bedroom colour scheme to keep me that bit warmer at night.

What can I say about this River Island jumper?! It’s just so funky! I love the colour mix and pattern with the laced through effect on the side and sleeve. This would also look well cute with the velvet boots and a pair of black skinny jeans.

black-suedette-embroidered-block-heel-boots

Black Suedette Embroidered Block Heel, Yankee Candle Cosy By The Fire, Urban Decay Naked Heat Palette, Black Sheer Floral Duster Coat, Black Fringe Sleeve Sweater, Vegan Polley Shoes

Again another pair of beautiful New Look Boots and again a pair I will probably admire from a distance as I sadly just wouldn’t get much wear out of them, but oh the embroidery is just stunning. I love floral patterns and this is a really nice design in beautiful colours.

I know it’s not Christmas yet but Yankee candles just smell amazing I think it’s never to early to accost your nose with wintery smells. They just ooze out cosy evenings and I love nothing more than to enjoy an evening in candle light whether it be with my favourite book or watching a movie with my housemates.

OMG can someone please just buy me this pallet already!?! Ever since Urban Decay’s Naked Heat pallet came out I have been drooling over these beautiful rustic colours and itching to try them. However I try to be sensible and I’m not sure I can justify splashing out on this at the moment whilst I have plenty of eyeshadows for the time being; but wee’ll see, maybe I’ll cave aha!

This River Island duster coat just aught my eye because of the beautiful rusty hues. This is probably to cold to wear without a coat in autumn, but would be perfect for a night out with a LBD for example.

Ah Dr.Martens how long I have eyed your shoes up! These pretty Polley shoes are from their Vegan range as I would not buy real leather shoes anymore. I am in love but at £115 I’m going to have to save up for quite a while!

I do love black as it just goes well with anything and this tassel jumper is just fab. The tassels just add that something extra and make it fun. You could pair this with a skirt, on top of a dress or with jeans, it’s a great versatile jumper.

the-little-book-of-hygge-penguin-hot-chocolate-lisa-hjalt-02

Grey Check Trousers, The Little Book Of Hygge, Palm Leaf Duvet Set, Light Wash Ripped Mom Jeans

Trouser time! I have always been a leggings girl, but recently I have been loving my black cropped jeans and really want to add to my trouser collection. I love these checked high waisted trousers from River Island. They are smart but can be worn casual with just a black t-shirt and so they’d be perfect for me to wear to work still as well.

The Little Book off Hygge – it’s been on my wishlist for a while. Learning how to live well, finding a peaceful state of mind, seems like an important thing fro everyone to do! I think this is one of my wishlist items I will treat myself too!

Bedding – I love new bedding and I have resisted so long to buy new ones, but this one from Asda I just love. All my bedding is white or light colour based with greens and greys, but I love that blue is the background colour here. It gives a nice rich feel and with it getting colder I think I want a deeper darker coloured bedding, so I think I will invest in one.

And last but not least these cute River Island Mom Jeans. I struggle to find jeans that fit; as I have big thighs for them to fit there they will then usually be to loose around the waist. But I as I mentioned I have been loving a pair of black cropped skinny’s which I found in a charity shop actually, and they made me want to start wearing jeans more often which is great for this time of year anyway. I think I will definitely have to go jeans shopping soon!

So that is it for my current wishlist, do let me know what you think guys and I’d love to hear what’s on your current wishlist too!

Love Carina xo