Tuna Pasta Salad

A lazy meal for today's blog post! I randomly one day decided to make this meal as I love the supermarket pasta lunch meals. However, when I started to watch my calories around January time, using fitness pal, I was shocked at how bad some of them are, so I threw this together.

This is probably the easiest pasta salad ever but it is so delicious. Today, whilst taking the photos I made it for my mum and she loved it!

What you'll need:

• Any pasta of your choice
• Spring onion (I tend to use one for a serving)
• Some lettuce of your choice
• Cucumber
• Seafood Sauce (OR you can mix salad cream with ketchup and it makes a similar tasting sauce!)
• Tuna

Boil some water on the oven, for your pasta, I add salt and olive oil.

Add your pasta once the water has started boiling, I boil this for as long as the packet says. I just estimate the amount of pasta I'll need.

While the pasta is boiling I put the rest of the ingredients into the bowl. First I put in the tuna, I use half of a John West tin per serving.

I then chop up my spring onion, cucumber and add in my lettuce.

I then add and mix in the seafood sauce.

I then add in and mix my pasta and your done! As you can tell it's not the best presentation but it tastes so good!

Hope you enjoyed this meal idea!

Love El

xxx

Nails of the Week

I decided to do a new Nails of the Week post as these seem to be quite liked on my blog! I would also like to apologise for using yet ANOTHER W7 nail polish but I have fallen in love with a another colour of theirs! I will have a couple of links at the end if you would like to purchase this nail varnish.

Now I would say this is a very Autumn/Winter colour, but the weather has certainly turned cold, rainy and miserable here in England so I'm pretty sure its acceptable! I love Winter and I also love burgundy so I think this was made for me.

The finish of this nail polish is also beautiful, I have had many compliments on it and been asked if it is gel or my nails are acrylics, but no just real nails with a lovely nail polish! The finish of polish actually feels like plastic when its dry on your nails but I personally quite like that!

W7 "Crimson" Nail Polish

 First Coat

 Second Coat

 Third Coat

Wish the pictures would do the nails justice!

Places to buy this nail polish:

amazon.co.uk

ebay.com

Love El

xxx

My Full Face Makeup Routine

I was going to call this "My Everyday Makeup Routine", however, I 100% don't wear makeup everyday. I am also going to do a separate post on "My Lazy Day Makeup Routine", that will have less products and takes less time!

This makeup look does not take long at all purely because I'm just lazy. It also doesn't include an eye makeup look, except mascara, purely because when I wear eyeshadow it changes all the time.

I would also like to say I don't know why I look so incredibly young in these pictures! I promise you all I am 18! I'll try and look older in the photos next time, some how, because the fact I look SO young is scaring me!

My full face of makeup steps:

The first thing I do is moisturise and occasionally prime my face. 

After this I apply my foundation, Boujois Flower Perfection Foundation, which is now discontinued which is extremely annoying!

Next I apply Collection Lasting Perfection Concealer to my blemishes and under eye dark circles, which certainly need concealing!

I then add my Natural Collection powder, Benefit Hoola Bronzer for bronzing and contouring, and then any blusher that takes my fancy. After this I take a highlighter and I actually use an MUA individual eyeshadow in either pearl shade 1 or 2, you can sort of see the highlighter in these pictures but it looks great in person!

Now my lips seem to be a dry condition at the moment so the lipstick isn't looking it's best but today I went with this pink nude colour from Smashbox called Pop of Pink.

I HAVE to curl my eyelashes and I highly recommend the £1 Primark eyelash curlers. Then the final stage, mascara. I hardly ever use just one mascara, so firstly I use Maybelline Roket mascara in waterproof. I use a waterproof mascara first as this means the curl will hold all day! The next mascara I use is Benefits They're Real mascara and finally I apply Jordana Best Lash Mascara, also using this on my bottom lashes! I really struggle to find just one amazing mascara, but this is my perfect trio!

So that's everything I put on my face on a full face of makeup kind of day, but that kind of day doesn't happen often, only on days/nights out or celebrations really!

My top: Miss Selfridge

Love El
xxx

Luxury Hot Chocolate

Now I am one of those people who will have a hot chocolate at any time of the year, but I think its acceptable to put up my this post as the weather in England is getting worse and worse by the day....

I'm really not lying when I say I have had everybody's fair share of hot chocolate, but this at home Luxury Hot Chocolate is up there with some of the best I've ever had! (Belgium and France probably, I'd say, have the best) 

The cocoa powder is from the company Whittard of Chelsea, they also have amazing coffees (according to my mum) and teas, and they really have delicious hot chocolates. I have also tried the Rocky Road Hot Chocolate which is another fantastic one.

Now for the steps:

I tend to take the lazy route and grab a mug that can go in the microwave and fill it up with the amount of drink I want.

 I've found that 1min 40seconds is pretty good or even 1min 50seconds to make sure it's nice and hot!

Whittard's Luxury Hot Chocolate 

I use 3 heaped teaspoons to ensure the drink is extra chocolatey (sometimes 3 and a half....we all have a cheat day right?!)

When I have a hot chocolate I go all out because it is a treat so of course mini marshmallows are needed!

And squirty (aerosol) cream!

To top it all off a sprinkle of cocoa powder (a sprinkle of icing sugar is also tasty)

So if you're in the UK or your country is cold too, treat yourself to a hot chocolate to warm yourselves up! 

Love El

xxx

Sparkling Pink Lemonade

This recipe today is not actually for food but for a drink! Now I actually took a picture of this recipe about 1 year ago and I'm pretty sure it's a Tesco one but I can't be totally certain. The recipe has very simple steps but it certainly calls for a fair bit of muscle work and patience!

For the ingredients you will need:

• 6 Lemons
• 150g Caster Sugar
• 2 Teaspoons of Grenadine Syrup
• 1 Litre of Sparkling Mineral Water

First:

You need to zest the lemons, I used a grater for this, after that you need to juice the lemons, it's a lot of elbow grease but it'll be worth it!

Second:

Put the zest, juice and caster sugar into a heatproof jug. Then add 500ml of freshly boiled water into the jug, and stir until the sugar has dissolved.

Third:

Add the grenadine syrup, I personally didn't stir the mixture. Then leave the drink to fully cool. After it's cooled put it in the fridge, covered, to chill.

Four:

Finally, strain the mixture into a sealable bottle of some sort, I used a two litre plastic bottle (the glass bottle is just for show!) and then water it down by adding your litre of sparkling water.

 I know there are only 5 lemons here, thats because there was only 5 pack available. Although I did add another lemon to make 6.

Love El

xxx

Trentham Gardens

Yesterday my best friend, her mum, my mum and me all went on a day out to somewhere called Trentham Gardens, in Stoke-on-Trent. We have been here many times together and it has almost become a tradition to go!

It is such a beautiful place I thought I must write a blog post about it and take some pictures. Now Trentham is one giant garden BUT it's much more interesting than that, however just look at the view from the look out, it's beautiful.

As we started walking around the garden I thought these flowers looked really pretty and therefore got a couple of pictures.

Now the best thing about the gardens and I think I can speak for me and my best friend, Jess, when I say its the best, is the bare foot walk! It is apparently supposed to make you feel calm, but I can't really say it does, however it is a lot of fun!

Sorry about Jess being blurry, my mum can't work manual focus apparently! Two years ago this mud actually went up to our knees! 

I thought this picture of Jess showed perfectly how much it can hurt, from walking over gravel, torn up rubber, stones and so much more!

As this picture shows there are much nicer parts of the bare foot walk just like the water, which is probably the best bit! P.s. this is a very rare sight of me in a skirt...that NEVER happens!

Next thing we did was go to their cafe, Jess and I both ordered raspberry and white chocolate muffins (delicious) and a milkshake. When our order arrived it was clear these weren't just ordinary milkshakes, they were some kind of magic! Think its an understatement to say we were glad we'd had salad for lunch!

Trentham Gardens are doing some kind of find the fairies hunt at the moment. I only got photos of two wire fairies, but they are amazing.

Now for these last photos there is just an array of random shots of me and Jess featuring Trentham's amazing lake. There are some silly pictures and some nice but they're all natural, candid photos and I've decided to put them all on here for fun. And who would believe it me, the blonde, and Jess, the brunette, have been best friends for 14 years at the beginning of September!

What Jess calls her "pooing face", I don't know either?! But she is funny!

Not sure what my face is doing here, but at least it's a good photo of Jess!

My outfit:

Top: boohoo

Shirt: H&M

Jess's outfit:

Top: H&M

Skirt: H&M (not available online)

Shoes: New Look

Love El

xxx

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