Winter Favourites

The Questions:

What are your favourite things about Winter?

Winter is about cold mornings, dark nights and icy roads- but if you learn to embrace it, it can be the 'most wonderful time of the year'. Apart from Christmas and everything that comes with the exciting build up, my favourite part about winter is probably the seasonable weather. Although the cold climate makes getting out of bed 100x more challenging, I love crisp frosty mornings and the chance of snow. Walking to university when the sky is blue and the air is cool is my favourite time of day, and rushing home to warm up on dark afternoons leaves me feeling so festive. If you stop moaning about it, it's all so cute and enjoyable... embrace it. 

What is your favourite Winter outfit?

A typical winter outfit for me is black skinny jeans (what's new?...), a plain tee, and my beloved (and well worn) tan Timberland boots. I've also been loving my new winter coat, a smart black duffel with a fleecey fur collar. I picked it up from Topman early last month, and you can see it on some of my recent instagram posts. If you guys are interested, I'll feature it in an outfit of the day post soon! 

What is your favourite Winter food?

Who doesn't love a roast dinner? and they're pretty mandatory at this time of year. As a Brit (and especially as a northerner) a roast dinner is eaten in my house at LEAST once a week, but they're perfect at this time of year. When you include all of the trimmings- parsnips, roast potatoes, stuffing and sprouts, it's everything. If you don't like sprouts, you're doing christmas wrong!

Favourite Winter drink?

I'd love to sound super festive and classy, and say something spectacularly Christmassy like Bailey's or a strange caramel coffee of some sort- but it's really not my thing. I recently tried Costa Coffee's new White Hot Chocolate and was beyond disappointed, to me it tasted like luke warm baby formula- not impressed. What I do enjoy though is hot chocolate, and Starbucks is every instagrammers dream at this time of year.

What is your dream way to spend a Winter’s day?

If we are talking FANTASIES, I'd spend the day shopping in NYC with an an unlimited budget and all of my friends and loved ones. Ice-skating in Central Park, Mariah's festive concert at the Rockefeller Plaza... one day I'll make it. 

How do you like to do your make-up in the Winter?

I obviously can't answer this question as I don't wear makeup to the extent of having a 'wintery' way of doing things, but for girls you can't beat a dark lip- berry tones and purples. I know Rebel by MAC is a perfect lip colour for this time of year.  Some of my friends kill it, maybe you should ask them. 

What are you hoping Santa brings you?

My Christmas list is typically the same every year: aftershaves, underwear and money (what more could a boy want? ha) What I'd kill for this year is a new iPhone, and I'm undecided whether I'd prefer the six or six plus, is bigger always better? Unless I win the lottery, I won't be getting one anytime soon, but a boy can wish. 

What are the first three things that remind you of Winter?

Snow, Santa and sparkly lights. 

What is your favourite Winter song?

If you don't follow me on Twitter (which you should) you won't know that I've been LOVING Mariah's Christmas album. 'All I Want For Christmas Is You', 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)' and 'Hark The Herald Angels Sing' are spectacular- check them out. Apart from the QUEEN of christmas miss MC, other festive favourites of mine include The Pogues' timeless anthem 'Fairytale of New York' and Chris Rea's 'Driving Home For Christmas'. So much love.

What is your favourite Winter memory?

Sledging seems like the perfect winter activity, but honestly I've had so many bad experiences I can't even pretend to enjoy it. Icy fingers, frozen feet and wet clothes- no thankyou. Some cute memories I have involve waking up to snow, and sitting in my pyjamas checking the school website in the hope it would close for the day. Everyday I'd wait at the bus stop, and when the busses stopped running, school was cancelled. What could possibly be more exciting for a lazy fourteen year old? Watching old movies in front of the fire when you should be working makes it all so much sweeter. 

What is your favourite Winter scent?

If we're talking winter scents it HAS to be a Yankee candle. I love the festive ones, and I'm currently burning 'Cherry Vanilla', it's heaven. In addition, I love the Christmas Markets in my hometown of Manchester. The smell is a mixture of chocolates, cinnamon, hog roast, pancakes, hotdogs and mulled wine- it wouldn't be winter without a day trip here. 

Finish this sentence… If I could have one wish this Christmas it would be…

To be surrounded by my loving family, singing and laughing over a gorgeous roast and a couple glasses of wine! oh, a white Christmas would be lovely too, so I'm wishing for snow!

Thankyou for reading, I've been super busy at university and I am finally coming towards the end of my first semester. I've been doing really well actually, and got a First Class mark on my most recent essay! I'm very happy and proud to say the least! Follow me on twitter and insta to keep up to date with my latest antics, and keep your eyes on this blog. Much more exciting stuff coming up this month :-) xx

Recent Purchases for Autumn/Winter- Topman Haul

With the summer slowing disappearing and the darker nights approaching, I've been excited to start searching for a few items to begin my autumn/winter wardrobe. This season is my favourite time of year clothes-wise, I love to layer and wrap up in darker colours and comfortable materials. So recently I visited the Trafford Centre with the aim to spend a bit of my savings on some key pieces to kick off the fall season. I'm constantly getting asked on twitter and in private messages about how to dress and where to shop, so this post will hopefully be helpful to some of you. If I had one tip it would be keep everything simple, and stick to one colour scheme. For me this year is has to be monochrome: blacks, whites and tonal greys. 

The first item I picked up was this grey/black check skater t-shirt, which I found in Topman for £16 (available here). I was immediately drawn to it because it is made from a much thicker material than the kind of tees you find in store for spring/summer. For this reason it's ideal for the wintery months. I think I'll get a lot of wear out of it too, as it is both comfortbable and easy to style- it should see me right through to summer next year. The one I purchased was in size XXS, something I was shocked about as this size is always much too small for me- I'm almost 6ft! The t-shirt is designed to be oversized, and in order to find a fit I was comfortable with, I opted for this much smaller option. In my opinion, the XXS fits like a normal M, so bear this in mind if you decide to order it online. 

Another staple for autumn/winter is a good pair of black jeans. I've been living in my Topman Super Spray Ons, an extremely tight pair which admittedly sometimes resemble leggins. If this is the look you're going for, I'd say these are the perfect pair. In my personal style, I always think the tighter the better when it comes to denim jeans- avoid bootleg at all costs guys. My size is 28/32, put I'd definitely advise trying these on in store before you buy. Topman/Topshop always have an impressive selection of jeans available, I wouldn't bother looking elsewhere.  Online, the black super spray ons I bought aren't currently available, but a pair of black spray ons are available here for £30. 

Another recent purchase was a pair of black (are you noticing a theme?) desert boot style shoes. The 'suedette lace-up chukka boots' are available here for £40, a price I was impressed with as similar boots from Clarks can retail for up to £100. I'm saving these shoes for nights out and parties in the festive season, as they are a smart and fashionable alternative to a brogue or formal shoe. In addition to this, they are also a change to the black vans that I wear day in day out, perfect for when I feel like switching it up. I've wanted a pair like this for a long time, so I'm really happy with this buy. 

A key trend for this coming winter is the Breton stripe, a style made famous by the iconic French designer Coco Chanel. You can see this type of print everywhere on the high street, and I found this £14 oversized tee in Topman here- which was also available in red and white as opposed to navy. This shirt is a basic, and can be paired with jackets, hoodies, and denim jeans of any colour. If you're looking for a versatile item with a nod to the stipe trend- this is your best bet. If you have a bigger budget or fancy a splurge, have a nosey at the Pretty Green and Fred Perry websites- but for me Topman always clinches it on price alone. 

Thanks for reading guys as always, and don't forget to follow me on bloglovin, twitter and instagram- all my links are on here somewhere! Leave a comment with your favourite trend or items you've been liking, I love hearing from you and I'll reply as soon as I can!