Summer cake recipe

Hey guys :)

Yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far, I live in a small city in England where it reached a scorching (or so I feel compared to last weeks rain) 26 degrees centigrade. I decided to take a walk to a shop about 15 minutes away to buy some strawberries and made a cake ready for mum when she got home from work :)

It's a simple Victoria sponge laden with strawberry jam and topped with freshly whipped cream, strawberries and grated chocolate.

It was super easy to make and here are the ingredients and recipe if you are interested...

three medium sized eggs

8oz (about 230g) self raising flour

8oz/230g caster sugar (you can use less if you're making a sweet topping)

8oz/230g margarine

A jar of strawberry jam for the filling 

For the topping...

A tub of thick or extra thick whipped cream

A punnet or handful of strawberries

chocolate

Utensils you will need...

Weighing scales

A large mixing bowl

two cake tins

a spoon or two

a knife 

a whisk

an oven set to gas mark 5 or 190 degrees C.

a cooling rack

a grater

Recipe  

1. Add the caster sugar and margarine into a bowl and mix until creamed together.

2. Add the eggs one at a time and gradually mix in the flour.

3. Beat the mixture for a while until smooth 

4. Grease the cake tins with a little margarine 

5. Split the mixture between the two tins and smooth them over.

6. Place the mixture onto to middle shelf of a pre heated oven for around 20 minutes untill they look golden on top.

7. Check the mixture is cooked by pricking it with a knife, if it comes away clean it is cooked, if there is mixture on it, leave it for a bit longer.

8. When cooked, take the cakes out of the oven and place them on a cooling rack for about ten minutes and then carefully remove the cakes from their tins.

9. when fully or mostly cooled, spread the jam onto the one sponge and place the other on top.

10. empty the cream into a jug or bowl and whisk until firm. Pour this all onto to top of the cake and spread it out carefully.

11. Arrange the strawberries on top, grate the chocolate and sprinkle this on too.

and et voilà, a lovely summery cake!

Thanks for reading guys, Happy Thursday!!

Lots of love, Lucy 

Mini Boots/drugstore haul!

Hello there!

I took a trip to town yesterday and of course had to go into Boots and buy things which I didn't really need but which looked super pretty or interesting. I decided therefore that I would haul my little shop for you :). I apologise that there isn't that much, I'm on a strict 'no spending too much!' regime since I splashed out a week ago spending about £200 on clothes (uh oh). Hopefully more will come once I forgive myself a little.

Anyway....into the haul...

I picked up a Rimmel Scandaleyes waterproof eyeliner in 'bronze' for £3.99. 

I prefer using brown eyeliner because I am super pale and fair and feel that black is sometimes too intense on my skin tone. I have previously tried Soap & Glory and Topshop waterproof eyeliners which came out pretty much black, but this one appears much more brown and has a slight shimmer so I am super excited to try this out. 

Another Scandaleyes product is this shadow stick in the shade 'bulletproof beige' which was £4.49.

I lied a little, this was actually from Superdrug because although there were about six in Boots, they has ALL been used. It annoys me SOOO much when people do that. There was a tester there but I guess they thought they'd just try another six aswell. 

I feel this will look really good as an all over base colour, on the waterline and in the inner corners. I put a little into my inner corners when I bought it and it stayed for ages, so it's looking good so far.

The Schwarzkopf got2b salt spray was £4.07

I am again yet to use this, but I have used salt sprays before and loved them. This one seemed to be the cheapest so I picked it up and sprayed it. Now I don't know about all of them, but for Christmas my brother bought me a Label.M one which retails for anything from £4 to like £15 and it had a very salty smell to it, don't get me wrong it was quite pleasant. Although this one has a really lovely almost fruity clean scent to it which I was not expecting. I am really looking forward to trying this out.

This Batiste dry shampoo was on offer at £1.99. BARGAIN!

This is one of their 'new' dry shampoos that strengthens and adds shine. Whether it does or not, I don't know yet. I picked this up because I am running out of my current one and this one smells pretty similar to the 'blush' one which is my current favourite. It's the typical white colour and I'm intrigued to know how/if it works. 

I picked up this essie 2013 summer collection nail polish in 'Rock the Boat' for £7.99.

I love the colour of this one, it has a slight shimmer and looks lovely on the nails. I have gone into a bit more detail about this varnish in my blog post which you can find here. 

Last but certainly not least, I grabbed a Revlon lipstick (it's not like the 3 million I have already are enough, am I right?) in the shade 'pink in the afternoon' for £7.49.

This for me is one of those 'my lip colour but better' lip shades and is a really pretty rose pink colour. I also love the name of it. This is one of their 'super lustrous' lipsticks and I have worn it to death already. One thing I will say is that it seems pretty drying, I find the need to put a lip balm on with it. I also got and extra £2 off with a voucher and so for the price I really don't mind. 

And that is it. If you would like me to give a more in depth review or anything into any of the things I have bought, please do ask, it gives me post ideas :)

Lots of love, Lucy 

Essie's 'Rock The Boat'

Hey there everyone!

Hope you're all ok. 

I recently picked up one of the essie summer collection nail varnishes called 'Rock the Boat' on a trip to Boots (haul to come soon!). It is a beautiful pastel blue/ periwinkle colour with shimmer (hopefully you can see that in the second pic). I'm not the biggest fan of essie because I usually find that they chip super easily and cost quite a bit, although I couldn't pass on this colour.

Shimmer

Base coat of O.P.I 'Nail Envy'

With one coat (left) and with two (right)

Overall, I am super happy with this colour. At the moment there is no chipping but I will more than likely go over it with a chip-proof top coat to make sure. It's such a summery colour, I can imagine this on a super sunny hot day at the beach would look AMAZING! 

Have you tried any of the new nail varnishes in the essie 2013 summer collection?

Lots of love, Lucy 

Follow me on Bloglovin :)

Hey guys,

I came back after a 4 month break to read a load of posts about GFC ending. WHAT!? I am utterly confused as some people are saying it is only google reader that is going and others, GFC all together.  If the latter is true, after finally getting 158 of you lovely followers, you chummys all may disappear over night :(, which is not good!

Just to be on the safe side, you can follow me on Bloglovin here...

http://www.bloglovin.com/frame?blog=4028135&group=0&frame_type=a&link=aHR0cDovL2x1Y3lsb3ZlczEuYmxvZ3Nwb3QuY28udWs&frame=1&click=0&user=0 

...and I will most certainly follow you back! :)

If you know any more about this and if GFC is going, I'd love to know so that I can g through and follow you all on bloglovin.

Lots of love, Lucy

Outfit Of The Day!

Hey guys,

My outfit today on a trip to the dentist (arghhh!!) and into town...

Army Jumper - Urban Outfitters £35

High waisted jeans - Topshop - £36

T-shirt - Brat&Suzie - £35 (they have some really cute, unusual tops....

http://www.bratandsuzie.com/collections/t-shirts ) 

Thanks for reading, I hope you have had/ are having a great Tuesday :)

Lots of love, Lucy 

Song Of The Week!

Hello there.

I was just listening to a load of songs I have been loving recently and thought, how can I incorporate this into my blog?...A song of the week would be good! I think I'm going to make this a bit of a regular Sunday thing, telling you guy what my favourite (or favourites if I can't pick) song has been the past week :)



This week I have been OBSESSED with 'walks like Rihanna' by The Wanted. I don't typically like songs like this (super pop-ish and about random crap) but this is so damn catchy and happy, plus it often plays at work and makes me cope with the shift a little better.

If you haven't heard it...here it is...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OGyHRKMPOE

What have you been listening to the past week?

Lots of love, Lucy 

Outfit Of The Day

Hey guys!!

Outfit of the Day for you from a cinema trip I took yesterday to see Man of Steel (AMAZING FILM!!).

Jeans - Topshop MOM jeans - £42

Grey cropped T-shirt - American Apparel from TKMaxx - £8

Cropped denim shirt - Topshop - £28

Brogues - NewLook - £27.99 

L necklace -  Matalan - possibly around £5

Belt - Urban Outfitters - I bought this ages ago but they sell a similar one for £12

Hope you guys are having a lovely Sunday :)

Lots of love, Lucy 

Confessions of a Blogger Tag.

Hey guys,

I know, I'm hopeless!! I last posted in February and that is not good enough! But I have a few excuses lined up, Uni finished a few weeks back and so up until then I was burdened with work and spent all my waking hours sat in the library writing 4000 word essays. It payed off though, came out of my second year with 2 Cs, 3 Bs and 3 As and since summer began I have been doing overtime at work. I'm hoping to be a better blogger from now on though. I'm going to start off a little easy with a tag and I'll soon (hopefully) be uploading some OOTDs and Hauls (accidentally spent about £150 in Topshop last week, oooops). So anyway after that essay, into the Tag.

01. When did you start your blog?

I started this little blog of mine on the first of July 2012, meaning it's nearly a year old :O how fast has that gone!

02. Have you had any online presence before?

I have never had a blog before or a YouTube channel (as much as I'd love one!!) but I have Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and things (Links up there ^^ *winkwink*)

03. Why did you start a blog?

I love and am incredibly addicted to watching YouTube and have for a couple of years, wanted to start up my own channel but I have zero confidence with stuff like that. I knew about blogs and had read a few and followed some on BlogLovin' and so I decided to start up my blog LucyLoves :)

04. When did you become serious about blogging?

For a while I posted really randomly, sometimes three times a day and then again two weeks later, I had a very basic blog design and maybe one or two followers. After a few weeks I realised how to personalise it and how to gain more followers. I also started blogging more frequently and even scheduled certain posts if I knew I was going to be out. 

05. What was your first post?

I actually started a LucyLoves blog before this one but forgot the password and so remade my blog as this one you see now. Originally on that one my first post was a 'hi, this is my blog' post, although on this blog, my first post was about Revlon lip butters and MUA lipsticks.

06. What has been your biggest challenge about blogging?

Definitely (as you can tell) keeping motivated to blog and to not take months out. I LOVE blogging and reading blogs and when I compose proper posts I spend ages on them. It's just sometimes I push blogging to the back and can't build the motivation or find the time to blog. I do miss the blogging community when I take time out though.

07. Where do you see your blog in one year?

Ehm, not that amazing to be honest. I'm training as a teacher and so don't see it becoming anything big unlike bloggers who work in the beauty/fashion industry. I just love using it as a way to express my love for fashion and beauty and such things and hope that I can entertain some of you guys with my future posts.

08. What is the most rewarding thing to you about blogging?

for sure the people. I have never met any of you lovely guys although I enjoy reading about peoples lives and what they've been upto and what clothes they like and things and reading comments on my posts. It has opened up a whole other community and world for me that I never knew that much of before. I love you guys :)

09. What is the most discouraging thing?

Nothing too major, just again the time it takes me (as a bit of a perfectionist) to compose posts. After getting home from a day at work all I want to do is watch YouTube or The Big Bang Theory and eat, I have thought about uploading a post on numerous occasions but just cannot get off my but and do it.

10. What's your lasting inspiration or motivation?

Hearing from you guys in comments or e-mails about posts you've liked and saying that you've followed or something. To think that people actually read this stuff I post is what WHAAAAT!? I also absolutely love fashion and make up and pretty things and love sharing things with other people and finding out about new things through reading other's blogs. 

Aaaaaaaand, that is it. I apologise again for my lack of blogging and hope that you'll forgive me haha. 

Also, I tag anyone who is reading this right now to also do this tag

Lots of love, Lucy