Holiday diy gift ideas

So it's that time of the year again when we all begin frantically planning presents and gifts for our loved ones and spending hours coming up with that one perfect gift idea for that special someone! This year we have decided that instead of spending loads of money (that we don't have) on gifts for our friends and family and dragging ourselves from one busy shop to the next trying desperately to find the perfect present, we are going to attempt to create our own unique gifts for everyone! We got some inspiration from other bloggers and websites which gave us inspiration and ideas for what types of presents to make and we decided on a beauty hamper gift (obviously) as we think it is so cute and who doesn't like a beauty hamper right? As you probably know by now, we are all about beauty, fashion and trying new things, we love putting lot's of thought into people's presents and making them look cute and unique and with it being our summer holidays we have a lot of free time so why not fill it with DIY projects especially if we are using them as gifts!
Christmas is so exciting for us and we love the idea of making our own presents and feeling the great sense of satisfaction of seeing people smile when they open their gifts (hopefully)! Here are the recipes for the things we have made as well as photos of the finished product!

Vanilla Brown Sugar Body Scrub:
We thought that body scrub would be the perfect thing to add to a hamper or even give as a simple gift by itself and we were right! The scrub was amazing and ridiculously easy to make! It smells like Christmas and looks good enough to eat! We highly recommend making this if you need that extra something to add to a present and don't want to spend a lot of money!

Ingredients (makes 2 medium sized jars)

- 1 cup brown sugar

- 1/2 cup coconut oil

- 1/2 teaspoon vitamin E oil (you can also use bio oil)

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. After all the ingredients are well-mixed, place in the fridge for about half an hour. (this step is optional - we found that this made the mixture a little thicker and easier to apply as a scrub) After removing the mixture from the fridge you may find that it is hard, if you leave it in room temperature for about ten minutes it will start to soften and will need to be mixed together again before becoming the perfect consistency! After you're mixture is the right texture, transfer it into a jar or tub of you're choice with a lid. Now you have a perfect inexpensive simple gift to give to a friend or family member! 

Bath Salts:

Everyone loves a good, relaxing bath especially when it smells amazing and leaves you feeling completely refreshed when you get out. It fits perfectly with the style of this hamper and is so easy to make that we thought we had done something wrong! But whether you use it as a gift on its own or as part of a hamper like us it is a perfect cheap and easy gift to give to your friends and family.

Ingredients (makes 1 medium sized jar) 

- 1 cup sea salt

- 1 cup epsom salt

- Any essential oil 

Mix your two salts together in a bowl and gradually add your essential oil mixing it well to make sure all the salt is covered. You can also add in dried herbs or extra scent if you'd like, just grind them to a powder before you add it to your salts. Put the salt mixture into a jar or tin (we got ours from a local dollar store), screw the lid on and you're finished! That's all it takes, like we said, super easy! We decorated our jars with lace but whether you do this or not is completely up to you and you can always change the decorations depending on what you like or what suits the person you are giving it too. Keep the salts sealed and sprinkle a few spoons into the bath to use it and there you go, a simple and extremely cute gift for anyone who likes a good bath, which really is everyone! Enjoy!

Candles:

In our eyes a hamper isn't complete without candles. Personally we are obsessed, we won't even try to count how many we have, lets just say it's probably too many! Although it is summer here and it isn't a traditional cosy Christmas there is always room for candles in a gift, whether you decide to wait until winter or use them right away everyone loves a candle in their rooms. You'll be surprised at how easy they are to make, we were apprehensive at first, we thought it would be too complicated but it turned out to be as easy as our other diys, and you only need a few things.

Ingredients:

- Tea lights (you can use any colour or scent)

- Candle wicks
- Hot glue gun (optional)

- Jars

- A small pot

- Any essential oils 

Before you start making any candles you will want to prepare you jars, we got ours from the local dollar stores. To prepare the jars you just need to remove any labels stuck to the glass and put the wick inside, we got a length of candle wick from a craft store and cut it to the size we needed. We found the best way to secure the wick to the base of the jar was using a hot glue gun but if you don't have access to one sticky tape will work too. Once the wick is stuck to the base you need a way to hold it up and in place whilst your candle sets, to do this we tied two wooden kebab sticks together with elastic bands and had the wick secured in-between them to hold it up. 

Now that your jar is prepared you can move onto the actual candle. Firstly you need to remove the tin and wick from your tea lights, we got a big bag of unscented, white ones from the craft store (the tin should come off quite easily and you can then take the wick out from the bottom on the candle). Once you have done this you need melt them, to do this you will need to boil some water in a medium sized pot and place a smaller pot on top of the water (preferably an old or cheap pot that you don't need as it will get wax on it) and essentially create a double boiler. Once the water is boiling turn the stove down to a medium heat and add your tea lights to the smaller pot, using an old spoon or like we did, a wooden kebab stick from the pack we bought, stir the candles as they melt into a clear liquid. As the candles melt you can add a few drops of your essential oils to add your scent assuming, like us, you bought standard unscented tea lights, if they are already scented just leave the candles to melt.

Now the exciting part, once your candles have completely melted you can pour the wax into your prepared jars. We advise doing this inside an old container or on an old tray as it's likely that the wax will spill and it can be hard to remove. Being careful not to burn yourself pour the wax into the jar, without moving the wick if possible, until it is as full as you'd like it to be and leave it to set. We found that once the wax had set it had left a hole in the candle so if this happens just melt a few more tea lights, add your scent, and re fill the jar, this should fill the hole and once set you won't even know it was there.

When your candles have completely set you can remove the sticks and cut the wick to the right size and you're done. You can add little decorations to your candles if you'd like, we think they look so cute with little lace bows or labels but even by themselves they are perfect!

And that's it! After writing it all out it looks like a long process but once you get going it goes quite quickly and you can easily end up making a lot of candles for your hampers or even as gifts on there own. 

 

We can't wait to give everyone their diy gifts for christmas! We think our friends and family will appreciate the thought and effort put into making these presents and hopefully we'll see a smile on their faces when they open their hampers and enjoy the wonderful relaxing treats inside.

Merry Christmas

Love,

Megan and Gabby xox 

Review | Revlon Colorburst Lipstick

When it comes to finding the perfect lipstick you could honestly spend your entire life looking, with new formulas and colours coming out all the time it is near impossible so whilst going on our hunt that will honestly never end we find products that fill that position of 'the best lipstick' for a certain time before we inevitably find a new product to take its place. For us at the moment the Revlon Colorburst Lipsticks are just that. We are suckers for good packaging, after all it's the first thing you see and we are very guilty of choosing a product just because it looks pretty! Out of all of the lipsticks we have (all drugstore) the packaging of this lipstick is by far our favourite, we love the simple square black design and the indented criss-cross pattern makes it look classy and more expensive which in our eyes is never a bad thing, the tops of the tube have a plastic panel showing the colour of the lipstick which makes finding a colour in the morning when running out of the door to go to school so much easier! Butenough about the packaging, on to the actual product.

In our collection these are the colours that we have and to be quite honest we love them all! From left to right they are: 021 - Cherry Ice, 028 - Rose Nectar and 001- Lilac. One thing we both love about these lip products is the amazing pigmentation, the colours look beautiful on everyone who has tried them (our friends were our guinea pigs for this test!) but we also love how you can wear them everyday. You may think it's a bit scary to wear a red or purple lipstick everyday and trust us when we say we thought the same thing which is why we love this product, on days when we just want a bit of colour but not have a bright lip we gently dab a little bit on our bottom lip and rub our lips together and it gives a perfect amount of colour for a natural everyday look. The lipsticks have a soft creamy texture and glide easily over your lips, we wouldn't say they are moisturizing but they don't dry out your lips at all. Some shades have a hint of glitter in them making them brighter and perfect for parties or summer, who doesn't want a but of sparkle? The lasting power is surprisingly good considering they are drugstore, the colour will last us around 4 hours before we have to top it up, that is if we don't eat anything in that time, we usually re-apply after eating but that's something that you need to do with most products. These retail for around $25 in New Zealand which is around $19 US dollars and although that sounds way too expensive in NZ it is just slightly over the normal price for lipstick but there are always ways to get it cheaper (online shopping addicts here!)and they are definitely worth the few extra dollars.

Overall we love these lipsticks and they are definitely a must have when it comes to lip products, they suit us perfectly and do everything we need them too without all the annoying problems that can sometimes come with wearing lipstick.

*

Talk soon,

We love you!

Meg and Gabby

xoxo

Christmas Wishlist

Every year at Christmas we always get stuck when asked what we would like as a gift (which undoubtedly happens every year) and every year our minds draw a complete blank despite the fact we have been mentally putting a list together since January so we end up with the useless answer of 'I don't know' or 'Oh, I don't mind' which of course isn't helpful at all and usually results in us having to do that awkward 'pretending to be happy' face (which we all know about) when we open gifts that maybe aren't quite what we would have hoped for, and before you say anything we've all done it so don't lie! So this year we decided to put our minds together and come up with our Christmas wishlist which includes all of the things we have been wanting lately and some things that we've had our eyes on for a while but have never been able to purchase. We hope this may help you with some ideas of what you might like for Christmas and also give you inspiration for what to buy for your family or friends. So here it is! Our Christmas Wishlist:

1. Marc Jacobs Watch 

We've had our eyes on these watches for the longest time and we absolutely love the gold colour and detail of the etched logo top ring! These watches are just absolutely gorgeous and a must have for our Christmas wishlist!

2. White Windsor Smiths

These shoes are perfect for every occasion and look amazing with any outfit, they have the added height (which we both definitely need) with the casual sandal style and are so comfortable! They are so hard to find in New Zealand and when you can find them they are slightly out of our 'student' budget so we really hope santa is nice and gives one of us a pair of these lovely shoes. 

3. 'Dot' or 'Daisy' by Marc Jacobs

We definitely have a bit of an obsession when it comes to perfumes and we seem to fall in love with all of the Marc Jacobs scents! At the moment our favourites are 'Dot' and 'Daisy' which both smell amazing! Whenever we're at the perfume store we're constantly using the sample bottles (oops!) and we're never disappointed with these scents. They last long and stay smelling amazing all throughout the day and we would love to own our own bottles! 

4. Kate Spade Handbags and Purses

There is nothing better than having that one handbag that you can reach for at anytime and have it go with whatever you're wearing whilst also being big enough to fit everything you need inside it, right? And well, we won't deny it, the designer label makes it just that little bit more exciting! Oh and the purses, we could go on for hours about how perfect they are but we won't bore you so instead we'll just say if we ever had enough money to buy a purse or handbag from Kate Spade we'd be running to the mall or going straight to the internet to order one right away but for now they're staying right here on our wish list waiting patiently.

5. M.A.C Lipstick

This wouldn't be a complete Christmas wishlist without at least one make-up product and there's nothing more appropriate for Christmas then a bold red lip which in our minds leads straight to M.A.C. You simply can't go wrong when it comes to lipstick at M.A.C but at the top of our list we have 2 shades. Firstly, Russian Red, a classic and perfect for everyone and secondly, Lady Danger, a slightly more coral shade but as Christmas is in summer here in New Zealand why not go a bit lighter? We all have those days where all we need to complete our look of the day is that perfect red pout so really what better Christmas gift could you ask for!

6. 'It' by Alexa Chung

Alexa Chung is definitely a huge fashion inspiration for us and we admire her carefree attitude to life! She is definitely one of our big girl crushes at the moment and we've heard amazing things about her new book titled 'It' and we would love to read it ourselves to see just how amazing it is! The book is part memoir, part scrapbook and part style guide. We cannot wait to have the book in our hands and will probably not put it down until we've finished the whole thing!

7. Essie Nail Polish

We are both lovers of nail polish and rarely go a few days without having a colour on our nails and anyone who has a love of nail polish knows about Essie polishes and how amazing they are so it's easy to see why we'd want to get our hands on them! Although they may seem like a small thing, here in NZ they can be quite pricey so why not ask for them for Christmas?

8. A Mini Cooper

This is by far the most expensive thing on our list but it something that we have both had our eyes for a long time. Having both got our drivers licenses this year it's not surprising we would love to have a car and in our minds nothing beats a Mini, they're just so cute! Obviously this isn't something we are expecting to get as it is way out of our price range but we thought it at least deserved a mention on our list!

9. Money!

We've found as we get older our Christmas wishlist shrinks and we end up with only a few things left that we'd like to have and when you have multiple members of family wanting to get gifts what better way to avoid the bad gifts that will end up at the back of a draw then to simply ask for money! We are definitely not the first people to do this but this way we have an excuse to go shopping and get things we will actually make use of, which is really what we all want for Christmas!

That's it for our list this year! We hope this gave you some inspiration of what to say when you get asked what you would like, which lets face it, will happen, or even what to get for your friends and family if you were completely stuck for ideas. But remember, if you do get that bad gift from a great Aunt that you haven't seen in years it's the thought that counts! 

Merry Christmas lovelies! 

We love you!

Megan and Gabby

xox

Bucket List

Hi lovelies! So as part of our new lease on life we wanted to create a list of new things to do and experience within the next year and what better way than to start a bucket list! We wanted to include a range of different things, not just your average swim with sharks or jump of a cliff but everyday things too, like doing yoga on the beach and going hiking and we thought why not take you with us on all our new adventures! So, we will be posting photo's and keeping you updated about our experiences by checking off our bucket list and adding to it along the way. We hope that this might inspire you to go out and create your own bucket list (or even use ours if you want to!)

- Go hiking

- Skinny Dip

- Loose 5kg

- Have a New Years kiss

- Go camping

- Have a picnic

- Midnight swimming

- Go on a road trip

- Yoga on the beach

- Go skiing

- Get a job

- Play spin the bottle

- Finish school

- Swimming in the rain

- Go para-sailing

- Take more photos

- Sleep under the stars

- Go to a concert

- Kiss a stranger

- Go roller skating

- Buy a polaroid

- Go swimming at Piha

- Try every flavour of Body Tea

- Go on a Rollercoaster

- Go ice-skating

- Make our own candles

- Take photobooth photos

- Use a fake name at Starbucks

- Take a class

- Go kayaking

- Meet lots of celebrities

- Go on a tire swing

- Get a tattoo

So far this all we have, but don't worry this list definitely isn't finished yet and we're always looking for new things to add to it! We will be updating our list on our bucket list page, so keep checking that page to see our list grow and to see how many things we have crossed off! 


Lots of love,


Megan & Gabby


xox

Awkward introductions...

 Hi gorgeous people! So we have decided to finally make a blog after months of talking about it but never actually getting around to making it. To start off our blog we thought we'd get the introductions (which we're not so good at) out of the way. So here goes..

Our names are Megan and Gabby, we are both 17 and living in New Zealand however we both grew up on different sides of the world, we met in 2012 and have become the best of friends ever since! We have both been wanting to make a blog for a while now but we just never got round to doing it, but since we have just finished school we have decided to make these next two months the best of our lives and what better way of keeping the memories then to blog it! Since we're both obsessed with beauty, fashion and adventure we decided we wanted to try something different and start a new chapter of our lives and we couldn't think of a better way then to create a blog to express our passions and create memories to last a lifetime. This blog is a place for us to share what's going on in our lives, to express our love for beauty and to have fun!

We want to update our blog frequently, just writing about our day and what we did, any adventures that we go on, the fashion trends that we are loving during the year, monthly favorites and the occasional beauty product review! 

So to sum it up we are hoping to have a really crazy and fun few months ahead of us and we're hoping you'll join us on the adventures!

Love, 

Megan and Gabby 

xox