Candles, Candles, Candles

If you haven't guessed already, today I'm going to be talking about candles! Specifically Yankee Candles.

Yesterday I was shopping and decided to have a look in Peter Jones, because they have Yankee Candles. I always love smelling and trying out new candles, so I spent a long time in there.

At home I have a Yankee Candle in the scent Christmas Eve. This is so warming and lovely and it smells just like what I'd associate with Christmas.

As you can see, it's one of the small jars with a strange twisty lid (easiest way to describe it haha)
I always love the picture on these candles too:-)

When I decided I wanted to purchase this candle, I was curious to what the others would be like so, of course, I had to smell them in the store. I literally went through every single candle they had and decided on my favourites. I have 2 Christmas and 3 non-Christmas favourites so here goes, in no particular order.




Christmas:

The first candle I loved in the Christmas section was:

Christmas Cookie. I'm a huge sucker for sweet scents and this smells so yummy! It's pretty much the same to Snowflake Cookie, so if you own one, I wouldn't recommend getting the other. I love this scent so much and I bought one of the mini candles.

This is more of a buttery, vanilla scent but it's not overpowering at all, I love this A LOT!

The next Christmas one I bought was Merry Marshmallow. This is another sweet scent but it is more refreshing and sugary than the other one. It's very fresh and not buttery, so It's a different type of sweet to the previous one.



Non-Christmas:

The 'non-Christmas' scents I liked, I didn't purchase, however nearer to the spring/summer I will definitely be getting these and maybe a couple more, because they smell AMAZING!

The first one is Pineapple Cilantro. This has to be one of my favourite candle scents of all time. It's tropical and a tad citrusy, which I love and it's the perfect scent for summer and maybe even spring. I saw it in one of Yankee Candle's tumblers which I think are sooooooo much nicer than the odd jars that they use. Does anyone know if these are new or if the jars are still being made for most of the candles, because I like the tumblers a lot better? I noticed that the tumblers were mostly on the regular candle scents that weren't specific to Christmas time. Anyway, back to the candle...
I adore this candle so much because it's just so lovely!





The next candle is Pink Dragon fruit, this is floral, fresh scent that's quite subtle but still really nice. It also looks super pretty!



My final favourite was Garden Sweet Pea. This, again, is quite subtle but super refreshing and nice!

I hope you enjoyed this post and it helps you to choose candle scents. I'm very picky about candle scents and these tick all the boxes for me! I also now have various candle scents stuck in my nose from smelling them so I could give an accurate scent description to you, haha!

Question of the blog: What's your favourite candle scent?
Quote: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift , which is why we call it the present.
-Shona xo

Christmas With Shona!

Hey Guys, how are you doing?:-)

Today I wanted to talk about the future of my Youtube channel in December. December can only mean one thing- CHRISTMAS! I've decided that I'm going to do a couple of random vlogs on my BRAND NEW second channel if I do anything interesting! I'm also going to be doing a Christmas TAG if one is popular this year. If not I might make my own (ooo) ;-) If I find some super yummy recipes I might share those with you too.

The main purpose of me making this blog post is to get your opinions on what videos I should do, but also I might do some special blog posts where I share something super Christmassy that I've been loving? Don't forget to let me know:-)

Sorry this was so short. I'm hoping to pay more attention to my blog in the future:-) I've come to the conclusion that's is quite difficult to type, sing and listen to music at the same time:S

Question of the blog: What would you like to see me do this December?
Quote: Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
- Shona xo

Cookie Clicker

Hey Guys! Today I'm talking about my new addiction to the 'Cookie Clicker'.
In this game you have to click a cookie to bake more and more. There are lots of things you can buy to make your cookies per second go up, until eventually, you don't have to click and your cookies still go up:-)
You can also purchase upgrades with cookies to make it even harder. There are also achievements you can earn.

Here is a snapshot of my game so far:





I'd definitely recommend you go check it out, but you may get addicted (YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED) ;-)
http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/ <<< The Game

Sorry it was a short one guys!

Love you guys<3

Question of the blog: How are your cookies doing on the game?
Quote: I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.

-Shona xo

Little Mix Salute- Track by Track

In my last blog post, I mentioned that I would be a in-depth review of Little Mix's new album 'Salute'.
It came in the post on Thursday (yay!) and I've had it on repeat since then! I thought go through each track and tell you what I think of it.

Salute- This is very different and talks about girl power:-) It's a great opening track as it's so lively and fun.

Move- This was their first single from the album. It's so upbeat and lifting and I love the music video! It would be great in concert!

Little Me- This is one of my favourites from all of their songs. I have it on right now:) They sung a slightly more stripped on the Xtra Factor and I love it so much. They talk about advice they would've given themselves when they were teenagers.

Nothing Feels Like You- I love the chorus for this and I could imagine this being on Just Dance:)

Towers- This is slightly slower, but it's still a great track. It's a great classic track and great to sway along to.

Competition- I love this one (then again, I love them all.) It's so upbeat and I love the pre-chorus. Their vocals sound great and I always find myself dancing to it:)

These Four Walls- This is a really sad song. Little Mix themselves said it is one of the saddest songs that they've wrote/sung. They sung it on 'Surprise Surprise' and it was so nice.

About The Boy- This is amazing! I love the beat on the chorus and Perrie hits an AMAZING high note on the bridge.

Boy- This is another of my favourites. I LOVE the intro and Jesy sounds particularly amazing in this!

Good Enough- Another slow one with great vocals! I love the bride and would love to learn this on piano!

Mr Loverboy- This is upbeat but quite slow at the same time. It's very catchy and has a great piano riff at the end:-)

A Different Beat- This is slightly similar to Salute and is kind of military style at the beginning. I love the chorus a lot!

There is also a deluxe edition with four extra tracks on it which I also have:-)
See Me Now- This has a great backing beat and is quite a different style to the other tracks. I love Leigh-Anne's solo on this too:-)

They Just Know You- Jade opens this track with a great verse. I like the melody on this one. It's really catchy and really good:)

Stand Down- This has a great beginning and is really powerful. It would be sooo fun in a concert, especially on the repeated parts. I really can't wait to see if they're doing a Salute Tour!

Little Me (Unplugged)- This is the acoustic version to 'Little Me' and it's slightly different. The vocals are great and I just love it. No wonder it's one of my faves:D Want to learn this on piano so badly!

Listening to the second disc a lot, makes me like them even more!

Overall, this album is better than their last one (in my opinion) and I love it so much! I would definitely recommend you pick this up!
Question of the blog: Which Little Mix song is your fave?
Quote: You could be beautiful, wonderful, anything you want to be'

-Shona xo

Like Christmas Day Came Early

Hey! I decided to use a Little Mix pun in the title (if any of you get the reference!)

Anyway, I'm going to be talking about Christmas today, because I'm in a super Christmassy mood all of a sudden. I love everything about Christmas- the songs, decorations, dinner, and the atmosphere. I also really enjoy the John Lewis Christmas adverts every year. If each advert was as nice as those, I would love advert breaks! I found out a new one had been 'released' from Sprinkleofglitter (Louise), as she wrote a blog post about it!

I was wondering which types of videos you wanted me to do this Christmas? If I find a festive tag floating around I'll definitely give that whirl, but I wondered if you'd like to see any videos such as, winter essentials, baking videos related to Christmas or any other Christmas themed videos that you enjoy, please let me know!:-) (I wonder how many times I've said 'Christmas' in this blog post already, haha!)

Sorry this was so short, I just wanted some suggestions, so I know what to get cracking with!

Love you guys:-)

Question of the blog: What's your favourite thing about Christmas?
Quote: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

-Shona xo

Little Mix Salute!

Hey Guys! Today I wanted to share with you, my excitement for the new album 'Salute' by Little Mix. If you've read my blog for a while you'll know that I LOVE Little Mix and I was sooo excited to hear about the new album. (I pre-ordered my deluxe edition from Amazon for £9:99). It is released on the 11th November and I wondered if, when I got the CD, you wanted me to do a more in-depth talk about it and each track? Let me know if you do/don't! I'm so excited and after hearing a couple of the songs that they have let us hear, I know I'm going to love it! Also, I'd be super excited if they did a Salute Tour, I'd definitely go!

Sorry this was just a quickie guys! Also, before I go, i wondered if, when it came out, you wanted me to do Sims 4 reviews/lp's over on my Youtube channel? I've been pondering this for a while now, but I think it would be great for you to see my first impressions and I think it would be really fun!

Love you guys!

Question of the blog: What's your favourite band?
Quote: Pretty's just a pretty word.

-Shona xo

Alton Towers Scarefest 2013!

Hey guys! As I mentioned in a recent blog post, I'm going to talk about my trip to Alton Towers. I went for the scarefest which is where the park has Halloween-y events going on. I'll start off with talking about the rides. I love rides and Alton Towers is not disappointing with them! One of my favourites was Air. It was my first time going on it and it was amazing! You feel like your flying and going backwards is the best part! You start off by sitting in a seat and then you are tipped horizontally so you are facing the floor. It is actually really comfortable and feels really secure. I went on Air in the dark, so I couldn't see much, but it was my favourite ride EVER! It's so amazing:-) I also bought I cute pen from the gift shop. (Sorry the quality's bad)

I also love Th13teen, as it's amazing when you drop and go backwards. Also, in the dark you can't see a thing. It's so thrilling and I love the queue. I like to impersonate the voice (shhhh;-])

The only negative about the rides, is that they have a lot of technical issues and have to fix them, but I can live with that, because it's well worth it!

We went to a cute little chicken place next to The Smiler (in the X-sector section) and it was really nice. It was a little overpriced but 99.9% of things at theme parks are! I ordered a chicken burger and it was really good:-) Also, it only rained a couple of times, but seeing as you're queueing most of the time, it doesn't bother me so much.

Anyway, I have loads more to say about the AMAZING scare mazes so here goes! Firstly we went into the Terror of Towers which is based around two explorers who allegedly went on a journey and never returned. It explains that you have to embark on the same journey and try and complete it. Before you enter the maze it plays a introductory video as you enter and then you go in.

Inside was quite a blur to me, as it's so thrilling, but I remember you walking around a maze and lots of actors feature in it. They come up to you and scare you and say things to you. One in particular sang a nursery rhyme in my ear which freaked me out;-) At the end of all of this, there is quite a long section where you walk through a maze with strobe lighting. If you don't know what strobe lighting is, it's basically extremely fast flashing lights. These ones in particular were white and they create an illusion while moving. Because you can hardly see and the actors move so quickly, a face will often pop up beside you and disappear again. It's really weird but really cool! Also, it looks like everything is moving in pictures.

The next maze, and by far the best, was The Sanctuary. I have a bit more info on this one:-) The backstory behind this maze is that Dr Kelman has a hospital  (The Sanctuary). It was closed down after complaints about forceful treatment, but he explains that it was re-opened again. His motto is to smile always and there are various posters in the queue saying things like 'Don't do drugs a smile will have the same effect' or 'A smile a day keeps the doctor away'. These are linked to the new ride, The Smiler. You enter the hospital being told you are meeting your fellow patients. When you go in, you see physco patients that go crazy and say things to you like 'Don't go downstairs, they cut you'. Of course you still go downstairs, passing some sort of kitchen on your way. You also enter an all-white corridor where there is smoke rising from the floor and water rains on you whilst there are multi-coloured flashing lights.  When you go downstairs you are greeted by a vile smell and a woman is chopping a body up on a butcher-type table. When you exit the dark room, there are flashing lights and Dr Kelman's voice shouting things like 'They don't need to know what we really do here!' and 'smile.. SMILE!' and 'Time to get corrected!'. Basically, they try to make patients permanently smile, by sending them mentally crazy, or cutting their faces/mouth so the blood looks like a smile (Gross, I know.) Anyway, overall the maze is amazing! Awesome experience!

The video played during the queue.

The third maze was the Zombies Scare Zone! You were allowed to film in this one so look on Youtube and someone will've uploaded the footage. This was very short and not very scary, so I don't have much to say about this one!

The final maze, Carnival of Screams, I unfortunately couldn't go in, as it was closed when we went to it. However, here is the backstory/description which I thought was really cool and amazing!

I hope you enjoyed my post about the scarefest! Love you guys!

Question of the blog: How did you celebrate Halloween?
Quote: I don’t regret the things I’ve done, I regret the things I didn’t do when I had the chance.
-Shona xo

Tanya's Cookies!

Hey! Yesterday I was really in the mood for baking and since I'd seen one of  Tanya's blog posts showing how she makes chocolate cookies, I decided to make them! While I was making them, I couldn't believe how much sugar was in them (300g!!) and there is also loads of cocoa powder (75g!!) but they taste absolutely delicious! I think I made mine a little too big, as they are huuggeeee! But taste good nonetheless. I used dark, milk and white (with vanilla) cooking chocolate and mixed it with sugar, butter, flour, egg and cocoa power. Go check out Tanya's post for exact measurements! I then added a tiny bit of milk and it created a dough-like consistency. I them made 10 blobs on 2 baking trays and baked for 11 minutes! They are perfect when they come out of the oven and, when cooled, taste delicious and moist and the chocolate has melted nicely. I'd definitely recommend making these, as they are super quick and simple!

Question of the blog: Did you make them and enjoy them?

Quote: You make a living by what you earn; you make a life by what you give.
-Shona xo