October photo diary

2018, lifestyle, photography

Hello!

I mean, we all know I’m a big fan of capturing memories, documenting things and taking photos, so is this post a surprise to anyone? Probably not!

I’ve always liked having printed photos – I’ve just finished an album of some of my uni photos and I’ve got a couple of other photo albums and scrapbooks on the go. I’ve recently started making the most of getting 50 free 6×4 from Snapfish each month and I love choosing which ones I want to print to capture my month.

So I thought I’d do a more digital scrapbook, photo album thing and make a little snapshot of my month so far! Not sure if this is something I’ll do regularly, because I’m really enjoying making physical photo albums and I don’t think a blog post of 50 photos to summarise my month will have the same long term impact (nor do I think anyone is really that interested) but for the moment, I’m sticking with it and this last week has been pretty manic so it’s a good time to share!

[ o c t o b e r ]

I actually really love Sainsburys TU clothing, but I can’t justifying buying any part of this outfit at the moment (though after payday is a different matter entirely)

the first crunchy leaves feet picture of the year!

I wasn’t joking when I said I got loads of photos printed – there’s 140+ in this batch

Sainsburys released these collectable Lego cards for children. My 22 year old boyfriend is obsessed and very disappointed that it’s now ended and he didn’t complete his collection!

Oops it fell into my basket? (I really like the sunlight in this photo)

and here, three thousand years late, the girl discovers Huji – the photo app that says you’re living in 1998

when the boy takes outfit photos and then asks you to take a photo of him

I love cooking so much – this is the stuffing mixture I make usually for putting inside roasted peppers, but recently we’ve been putting them in wraps and making enchiladas with them and it’s been a big success (would anyone care about a blog post recipe?)

a photo of my granddad 1954 (left) – he just looks like such a ladies man and this is why I love printed photos!

my boy and I on our way to London!

Nick was our housemate for two years and one of our best mates at uni for all three years, this was the first time we’d seen him since graduation in July – three months!

Huji returns 4 The Circle Final – hosts Alice Levine and Maya Jama on the right and all the contestants are on the sofa on the left but it’s not very clear in this photo

We got moved to the other side of the studio and for a while we had a much better view (until some rude boys pushed in front of us) but I love this photo of all the finalists!

the view from our hotel was actually really cute

Really felt my make-up – I often avoid looking at myself at any opportunity but I didn’t hate myself on this day lol

underground signs aesthetically make me happy

the Natural History Museum is actually stunning

my tol boy with real tol boiz

I’m now obsessed with Dinosaurs and skeletons are proper cool

I thought this photo was proper artsy when I took it but it was mostly so I could read about the dinosaurs

trying to be creative but I wasn’t quite tall enough for this cool granite stone wheel thing to be a cool background and the lighting was rubbish but STILL

Huji photos and lens flares? CUTE

weekly card game night with le fam (minus my sister, who’s at uni)

RIGHT let’s talk about this – we’re quite competitive so we’re keeping track of overarching scores and somehow I’m OVER SIX HUNDRED POINTS BEHIND? Raging m8

even more Autumn-y leafy feet photos

the amazing cupcakes I made for my sister’s birthday (I wrote an insta post all about them which you can see here!)

family squeeze themselves into a car for a long ass drive to Bournemouth

Le Birthday Girl!

Bournemouth beach outfit shoot – I wrote a whole blog post about it which you can read here!

my sister in her funky new coat / the outfit she would wear if she was the Doctor

family birthday dinner at TGI Fridays

the birthday hat

I FINALLY GOT THE BIRTHDAY GIRL TO WEAR THE BIRTHDAY HAT!

nobody gets left behind… (he did though, reluctantly)

the drive home was SO PRETTY and all the trees were full of Autumnal colours but I couldn’t properly pick it up on camera

and my phone is mostly full of very exciting screenshots like these! Where are my Arrowverse fans at?

‘I can’t share a post with 50 photos in, that’s too many!’ she thought, then not being able to cut her photos from 17 days to less than 30.

Ah well, who doesn’t love a long post every now and then! It’s a bit like scrolling through Instagram but it’s just me, bit vain. Maybe I take too many selfies, maybe that’s not the worst thing in the world, but I’m getting better and taking family photos and documenting the everyday and I’m really happy with my mentality towards preserving memories – I’m going to have rooms full of photo albums and scrapbooks at this rate!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

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what I got for Christmas 2017

2017, lifestyle, photography, student

Hello!

Christmas is a time full of love, thankfulness and gifts. I wasn’t sure about writing this post but looking at the gifts I got this year and the ones I have chosen to include, this isn’t a list of me showing off how much money my family spent on me and I think the controversy around these posts are kind of centred around that. Assuming people that write these posts are in the same mindset as me, these posts aren’t boasting about anything – I just want to share some of the wonderful, thoughtful gifts I got, take some pretty pictures and show thanks to those who went to the trouble of buying me a gift.

So with that in mind, let’s get into what I got for Christmas this year!

Long story short, I have a collection of cactuses and plants (some real, some felt) and I’ve named them all David – David I is a felt plant from Tiger, David II is a real succulent that I always forget to water, David III is a DIY cushion that I never made, David IV is an Ikea toy, David V, VI and VII are a set of three plants from Ikea and this, is David VIII. I love my little collection and I love that these coasters can be arranged in whatever fashion I like, I think it’s so fun. My mum has a way of finding the weirdest and most amazing little gifts.

It’s only within the last six months of the year that I’ve really got in to any kind of gaming. I’m still completely head over heels obsessed with Overwatch and the depth to which the creators go with the characters and their story arcs. The basic story about this character, Bastion, is that he’s a kind of robot built to fight in a war – the one in the game gets lost and finds a bird in the woods who becomes his friends. Ganymede, the bird, teaches him about love and friendship and the robot essentially becomes sentient. So this is a Ganymede toy and the box is shaped like Bastion’s head and it’s really cute.

I don’t know if I’ve done the game any justice in my description but if you want to add me on X-Box my handle is ‘sophieislame’.

To be honest, I was really awful whenever my mum asked me what I wanted for Christmas because there really wasn’t anything I wanted this year. But she did offer to take me to Long Tall Sally so I picked up this gorgeous loose turtle neck jumper in grey and my new favourite yellow jumper. I’m really into yellow right now and the fact that the sleeves are long enough that I can actually wear it properly make me unreasonably happy. Also it’s like wearing a hug it’s the softest thing I have worn in a very long time.

I don’t know if there’s much to be said but wow I’ve got a lot of food this year, like a lot. I’ve eaten so badly.

Also shout out to the honey roast ham my mum made because oh my god I’m salivating thinking about it.

It could be said that I’m somewhat of a stationery nerd – I have a rather large collection of pens and, my oh my, did my family build on this – my mum bought me two different sets of pens and a cute little elephant pencil case with stencils for my bullet journal (I’m actually dead excited to start putting these to use!) and my sister bought me a book on fancy lettering and brush pens to go with it! I’m so excited to learn about writing all fancy and making my bullet journal just that little bit more beautiful. It’s going to be stunning.

Now I don’t think it would be a ‘what I got for Christmas post’ if I didn’t include what my gorgeous boyfriend got for me this year – he’s truly spoiled me, pre-ordering the new Fall Out Boy album, a ‘merch voucher’ for when we see them in January, a Hufflepuff scarf (that I’ve wanted for so long) and amongst other things, this frame – that makes absolutely no sense out of context. Here’s the context – two of my favourite albums of all time are ‘Save Rock and Roll’, Fall Out Boy, and ‘This Is War’, Thirty Seconds to Mars, (let’s leave all opinions to one side please and thank you) and I’ve been saying for ages that when we have a permanent space I want to get them properly framed and hang them in an office space. So Lucas bought me new copies of both albums so I could cut them up or whatever if I needed to and then drew this wonderful interpretation and stuck fairy lights on the frame. I actually adore it, I think it’s really cute and I’m excited to have it in years to come.

This post ended up being way longer than I thought it would, but tell me all about what you got for Christmas in the comments! I feel like the memories that come with the presents are the best bit and that’s what I want to savour.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

15 things that make me happy

2017, lifestyle, music, student

Hello!

A lot of my posts recently have been a bit mopey, so I thought I’d write a post that focuses on a much more positive outlook! Not tips or advice or any talk of mental health, just fifteen simple things that bring me joy!

Some require more detail than others – some need no explanation but others I’d like to give a little bit more detail to. This post is as much for me as it is for my blog, so I hope you enjoy it.

Long drives with my mum
Listening to music with really good headphones on – my Apple headphones really loud are great, but really high quality headphones in a quiet room where you can hear literally every line of the songs; love it
Lindor chocolate
When things are organised and tidy – ironic considering the state of my bedroom and desk but when everything is in it’s place my brain feels just that little bit happier
Seeing live music – my favourite bands concert, a local band performing in a cafe, even a decent busker – live music that show’s real talent just makes me happy
The sea – I don’t know if it was growing up so far from the sea, but being near the sea and hearing the sound of the waves and watching the water ripple calms me down a lot
Coloured pens – I’m basically like a child, colours make me happy
Wearing a dress and feeling really cute
When you’re having such a good time with friends and you don’t notice the time until it’s 3am
Having everything on my to do list ticked off
The woods and open fields – the complete opposite to why I love the sea, but fields and trees and woodland areas remind me of home and I would love to act a scene in a wood, I’ll write it into a book one day
Getting a good grade on something I worked really hard on – the nerd in me just loves doing well, but getting a first on any assignment feels like I’ve actually done well
Creating, in any form – writing, video, blogging, photography, fiction, I just want to make things
Being able to just dance in an open, empty dance studio
Looking back at old photos – I’m a very nostalgic person

I could have gone on and listed more, but I didn’t want to overdo it – when I started this list I struggled a bit but the more I got into it the more and more I listed and the more I thought of. Even if you don’t have a blog I thoroughly recommend making a list like this because it really makes you appreciate the littler things – things that make you happy doesn’t have to be a person or a big event, little things like feeling good about how you look or having a nice selection of pens.

I hope you’re feeling happy and you’re having a good day! Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

valentines day date ideas

2017, lifestyle, student

Hello!

Look at me trying to be seasonal and relevant.

I’m not massively into Valentine’s Day – my boyfriend and I aren’t massively into celebrating it at the moment because we’re both students therefore we’re both poor and I’m going to recycle that traditional ‘we don’t need a certain day to tell each other we love each other’ blah blah.

But 2017 is also the year that I’m trying to give handmade and more sentimental presents, so I thought this could also be a part of that, so here are some Valentine’s Day date ideas!

Leave surprise presents waiting for your partner when they wake up, particularly if you’re not there, surprise presents are always nice.
Go for a dinner date, but I’d recommend booking in advance on Valentine’s Day because I think a lot of people will be going for Valentine’s Dinner on Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s. I said it too much.
On the other hand, you could prepare a meal for your partner at home – whether it’s breakfast, lunch or dinner, whether it’s fancy or if you just got them a bowl of cornflakes, it’s the thought that counts!
Leave cute notes scattered around the house or living environment or at work or something – hide it in their diary or a notebook or inside their laptop or whatever, cute surprise notes are lovely.
Make a little care package with snacks and little presents – take a shoe box, fill it with packets of sweets and little tiny presents (I recommend Kinder Eggs because they are both treats and a present in one) and it can be a very nice little present with a little bit more sentimental.
To go hand in hand with that, an at home movie date! Pick a movie you both like, make a bowl of popcorn then you don’t have to spend any money (or much, depends on your kitchen popcorn stock) and you already know you’re going to like the movie.
Ingrid Nilsen’s video that may or may not have inspired this video:

A card or a note with a fond or special memory is more than enough to remind someone you love them.

Now I think I like Valentine’s Day more than I did when I started writing this post.

I’m currently at a Busted concert in Portsmouth and I’m organised enough to have written this post in advance, maybe this week I will actually upload on Monday, Wednesday and Friday! Sorry I’ve been so bad at uploading on time recently, going back to uni took me by surprise a little bit I think!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

Playing the Piano

2016, music, Uncategorized

Hello,

Music has always been a massive part of my life – I grew up surrounded by so many different genres of music and I’ve been playing music since I was 8. From keyboard, flute, singing, saxophone (till I was 18!), piano on and off and self-taught guitar, I definitely grew up around music.

I recently asked my dad to bring my gorgeous electric piano down to Southampton so I can use it and whilst it barely fits in the flat, I’m loving using it so much. It’s so beautiful with weighted keys but the perks of not having to maintain a real piano and keep it tuned and stuff (I can barely keep me alive, let alone a piano or a pet).

I have a few pieces that I’d really love to learn to play but at the moment I’m learning Fairytale by Ludovico Einaudi (give it a listen if you’ve got a minute, it’s a really beautiful piece!) because it’s relatively simple and it’s getting me back into the swing of playing piano again! I often just play chords and sing along but I’m loving having it here to play.

I am starting to play way more regularly and having sheet music rather than playing off my iPad really helps but I’m thoroughly enjoying making more classical music again!

I think I’ll be playing a lot more when I go back to uni and I have more of a routine and for stress relief more than anything else but I also love having that skill under my belt and I want to be better! And I won’t do that without practicing and being a bit rough around the edges for a bit.

I’m going to start making covers again on my YouTube channel as of next week in a move towards making regular content again in 2017 and I’m excited to make the most of my piano, guitar and minimal ukulele skills alongside working with my much more talented friends to make some really cool content!

How lame did that sound? Wow, I think it’s time for bed!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

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