Sunday 25 October 2015

Heroine Make-up from Japan!

Hello Everyone!

Today I've a quick post on a Heroine make-up compact all the way from Japan - I'm very lucky that one of my good friends bought this back for me on a recent trip there a few months ago! (Sadly the Kit-Kats she also bought back for me didn't quite make it to the photos!)


The powder compact comes packaged on the cute little card - inside has the powder, a mirror and a little puff for applying it with. I really like the illustration on the packaging, I think it'd draw my eye to it in a store.


The powder itself is the lightest that they do - it's quite pigmented but not heavy. It applies very smoothly. It doesn't have much of a scent either which is good for those that don't like perfumed products


The coverage is very good too - I've not blended the edge in so you can see where the powder is - it's a pretty good match for my skin tone. My skin felt very soft and smooth after applying this - the only thing I did find was that it didn't last terribly long and needed touching up around lunch time and again later on in the day, but that could just be skin type, I imagine for someone with normal to dry skin this powder would be ideal.


Bonus photo! This was my make up with the Heroine Make Powder! As an over all powder for fixing foundation I found I had a few problems. It seemed to react differently with different foundations - for some reason when used with the Benefit Flawless foundation, it went super orange! I also found that it didn't react well to one of Miss Sporty's BB cream as it went a different shade of orange! However used on it's own its fine, it doesn't react and is great for days when you only want a little bit of coverage.

Have you ever tried any of Heroine's make up? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Ta-ta for now,
X

Thursday 22 October 2015

Let's Cook! - Old El Paso Stand N' Stuff Taco kit


Hello Everyone!

It's time for another Let's Cook! Today I'll be showing you Old El Paso's Stand 'N' Stuff soft Taco kit - this is the smoky BBQ one. Old El Paso very kindly send me some of their new range to try out, as I've already tried out the fajitas before (The BBQ one is one of my favourites!) I decided to try out the taco kit first as I've seen these advertised on TV recently and as I like Mexican food was curious about them.


The kit comes in a brightly coloured box - you'd definitely notice this in a super market! I love the fact Old El Paso's branding uses a red tile roof, it makes you think of somewhere warm and sunny. So the kit is very easy to use - you only need to add 500g of minced beef, two tomatoes, lettuce and 125g of grated cheese. The back has very simple and straight forward instructions on how to prepare the tacos - I think this is ideal for a week night dinner as it's ready in 20 minutes with very little fuss or mess.


Inside the box are the tacos, a sachet of seasoning mix and a pack of salsa.



The instructions say to heat a little oil in a pan, add in your mince and brown the mince. Easy peasy!



Once the mince is browned, the box says to drain off any excess liquid (I didn't seem to have any!) Then sprinkle in the seasoning mix.


Once the seasoning has been added you mix it through to coat the mince before adding the water. I do love the smell of this seasoning.


I'll be honest I found it quite hard to get the seasoning to mix through as there didn't seem to be enough of it or water. The box says to let it simmer and once its boiling to let it boil for 10 minutes stirring occasionally. Mine never came to a boil as it just didn't have enough liquid in it despite following the instructions. I'm wondering whether I should have cooked this in a sauce pan rather than a frying pan, the box didn't specify either way and I use this pan for fajitas.


Whilst the mince is cooking you need to warm up the taco shells - again this is really straight forward, you simply take them out of the packet, carefully separate them and pop them on a microwaveable safe plate and into the microwave for 30 seconds on high power.


After about 10 minutes the mince looked like this - I think due to the lack of liquid it did dry out in a few places, it smelt really good though!


Here's my pre-pared lettuce, tomato, cheese and the salsa sauce from the kit.


Everything all together! Look how colourful it is!




Assembling the tacos is simple, you take an empty shell, add some mince, some tomato, lettuce, salsa and finally cheese! How easy is that? Dinner in 20 minutes with very little mess to clear up after which is always an added bonus. These did taste pretty good, although I thought a little dry and the flavour wasn't super strong - it's very similar to the BBQ fajitas which is great in my opinion. If I bought these again (and I may well do) I'd be tempted to add either more water or try a different pan to see if that made a difference to the dryness. As tasty as these were and fun to make I still think Old El Paso's fajitas will remain my favourite for the time being, but I'd definitely recommend giving this a try for a straight forward and easy dinner!

You can find the Old El Paso range in most super markets, but if you'd like to check out their products, why not take a look at their website below?

Old El Paso Website


Ta-ta for now,
X


In collaboration with Old El Paso.

Tuesday 20 October 2015

~*~SPONSORED REVIEW~*~ MIMO Pencil Case Shop ~*~POSITIVE~*~


Hello Everyone!

Today I've a very exciting review for you! If you read my site regularly you may remember that I recently posted a segment on Kawaii stationary and one of the featured stationary sites was MIMO Pencil Case Shop, in case you didn't, MIMO is a on-line shop that focuses on affordable cute and kawaii stationary. Based in the USA MIMO is run by the lovely Jeanette.

MIMO sent me a huge box, containing a planner set to review! Funnily enough this arrived on my birthday yesterday! The box contained everything you would need to start using a planner and some! I'd originally planned for this to be an un-boxing video - everything was so beautifully wrapped, but Harry had other ideas - he got very confused by me talking to the camera and thought I was asking him to come and play and the video very quickly became a write off! (I will try and re-film this in the next week as I really do think it'd be great to show you the products, especially the planner, up-close.)


One of the first things I found in the box was this adorable little note - I love little touches like this as it makes things seem more personal. I really like the design on this little note-let and have a plan for it already!


The first little package I opened contained these mini highlighters, a role of deco tape and a role of eraser tape! These will be so useful for me! 


I use highlighters a lot when I'm researching for articles and having lots of colours is really handy as it means I can colour code my research. I'll also be using these a lot to highlight important dates in my planner! Each highlighter has a cute character on and I really like the stripy design as it makes them bright and colourful. The little packet is mega useful as well as it means I can keep them all together and put them in my bag to take out and about. 


Deco tape is something that has always interested me - it's exactly what it sounds like, it's a tape you can apply to paper that has little decorations on, this one has bunting and butterflies - how cute is that? I'm definitely going to use this a lot as I think it'll be fun to use to mark important days. 


Corrector tape is always, always useful for me! I'm rather prone to making mistakes on paper, and I do tend to draft out things on paper first so this is super useful as well. It'll also come in handy if I put a date in my diary (I nearly always use pen) and I need to move it, rather than leaving a huge ugly scribble I can just use this to cover it! I love the design of this to, I find it funny that it looks like a milk shake bottle, it almost looks like milk is pouring out when you use the tape!


Next was a box containing two decorative tapes! I like that the front of the box shows the pattern of the two tapes in detail - this pack contains two kinds of lace style tape.


Look how pretty these are - I think they'd be fab for edging important pages or even for sticking in photos! The colours used are very vibrant which means they'll show up well on paper.


Eep! Totoro! Oh my gosh, I love, love, love Totoro! He's right up there with Rilakkuma! This is a little cellphone/bag mascot and he's so soft and squishy! This has already made it onto my handbag so I can take him with me where ever I go.


Check out these adorable paper clips - these have definitely been made with love. They are so detailed and such pretty colours! I'm going to use them in my planner to mark pages and hold in some loose leave notes.


Here's where I got to before the video ended - so I was able to get some photos of the lovely wrapping Jeanette does! I mean look how perfect that is! I am horribly useless when it comes to wrapping, and there's usually tape everywhere if I've had some kind of involvement, but this is sealed with a single cute sticker! I am in awe of her wrapping skills!


Inside this package: Animal stickers, Lovely days pages markers, Rilakkuma page markers and post-its and daily schedule post its.


If you know me, you know that I love stickers! These are adorable, puffy little animals with funny faces! No doubt I will use these everywhere possible! Page markers are always useful, I also use them to make little notes when I need to remember something important or when I need to reference something. These ones have such a cute bear and friends design, they remind me a little bit of Pinny-Mu.


My favourite Rilakkuma!¬ I have no doubt I will use these absolutely everywhere! This is one of my favourite designs too! The daily schedule will be very useful for me as I often have a few things I need to remember to do on a day to day basis. I love the giraffes face peeping in from the side of the page.


More of that awesome wrapping! I love that Jeanette has taken the time to match the tape or stickers to the paper!


In this package was a white kitty pen, a bunny ruler and an strawberry milk pen.


How cute are these little faces? The kitty pen is a black gel pen which is very smooth to write with. The bunny ruler has to be one of my most favourite things in the package, it's a great size and I love his expression! The strawberry milk pen matches the correction tape. This is actually an erasable pen which means it'd be good for draft writing or even outlining drawings!


Oh, ho, ho! It's my favourite Rilakkuma! Look at his squishy little face, he's made out of a super soft fabric and really well made. This is a pencil case.


Check out the details on his tummy - he even has little yellow paws.


Inside the pencil case were some colour gel pens! There is a whole set here and probably every colour imaginable - they are very fine tipped so perfect for writing in small spaces or even sketching with. I know I will use these a lot. Bonus: You can see that the pencil case has Rilakkuma's name embroidered on which is a really lovely touch.


The last thing I unwrapped was this pastel purple macaron planner - this came wrapped in a lovely box, which is a great idea as it'd protect it during shipping.


Look how beautiful this planner is! I've always, always wanted a pretty coloured planner, so much so that I have in fact ruined my boring black filofaax with spray paint in effort to kawaii-afy it! I adore this colour, it's just pefect. The material used is a high quality textured PU leather. It has a hand button snap at the front to keep it closed.


Inside the planner is a six ring binder. On the inside of the front cover there is plenty of room to put business cards, a bigger slot for notes or papers you may need and a loop for a pen.


The diary insiders are a perfect size for writing in. I've also found the filiofax ones way to squished in to get all the information I need in. I also like that these don't have printed dates - that way you can put your own in any format you like, and also if you bought this part way through the year you wouldn't loose out on use if the previous months were no good.


The back of the planner has another slot for loose papers and another pen holder! This is really handy as I like to keep a pen and pencil in my planner. I also tend to keep any useful bits of paper, such as directs or leaflets in my planner too so there is plenty of room for that.

Some dividers and extra inserts were also included with the planner. I'm going to decorate the dividers with some of the stickers and tapes that MIMO sent in the package.


This is the front page of the diary inserts and it's given me an idea for this planner! As well as using it as a normal day-to-day planner, I'm going to turn this into an inspirational and motivational planner too! I'll be doing an update on the planner in a post very soon so you can see what I have used it for and get an idea of how you can use it too!

I want to say thank you to Jeanette at MIMO pencil case shop for this beautiful set, I really do love everything she sent and it's been packaged with such care and attention. I can honestly say that I would purchase from MIMO and know that my order would be taken care of perfectly.Customer service is spot on and Jeanette is a lovely person to talk too and she is only to happy to help with any queries you may have.

Please go check out MIMO pencil cases shop, if you've seen something you like in my review you can be sure you'll find it on the store, but give me a shout if you need help finding it!


You can also find MIMO on the facebook below:

MIMO PCS FACEBOOK PAGE

Ta-ta for now,
x