Holiday shopping

I'm going on holiday on Monday so today I went shopping to get a few last bits like travel size toothpaste, facewash and nail polish remover wipes.

I had seen this adorable wash bag on someone else's blog and knew I HAD to have it. It's from the kids department at Primark and only £4, it's adorable!

And these are the nail polishes I have bought/swapped this week alone, I think I have a problem ;-)

Also, look what my lovely friend sent me in the post. She was given this as a gift with purchase at the clinique counter and didn't have any use for it.
So cute!

August 2012 Empties

Hello, my name is The Nanny and I'm a cosmetics hoarder

I have a massive drawer full of creams, soaps and potions and I've been trying to use up some of them before purchasing new 'stock' ;-)

So between July 15th and August 15th, this is what I finished up. I didn't use more of it just to finish a product as that would have been a waste.

Let's start:

1.Imperial Leather foamburst Hawaiian Spa shower foam 200ml
This took ages to finish. The bottle claims it contains enough for 40 showers and I definitely believe it. What a bargain!
I really liked the smell of it.

2.Soap & Glory Flake Away Body Scrub 300ml
My alltime favourite body scrub. The smell is amazing and it leaves your skin baby soft. I have already re-purchased this one.

3.The Body Shop 'Love ETC' Body Butter 200ml
The smell is similar to the Soap & Glory Body Butter so that was nice as I got the Body Shop one during an online sale(50% off I think) Left my skin soft but maybe not as nourishing as Soap & Glory 'Righteous Butter', which I will buy again in the winter, by which time I should have used up all my other body butters.

4.Cutex Strengthening Nail Polish remover 100ml
5.Asda Nail Polish Remover 250ml
They both did exactly what it says on the tin. Didn't notice any difference between cheap and more expensive nail polish remover.

6.Mischa Barton 'Lemon Zest' Whipped Shea Body Butter 65g
This is amazing and if this small pot wasn't £10 it would be all I'd ever use. I managed to buy one more on ebay for a couple of £ but haven't been able to find it anywhere for cheap. The smell is lovely and fresh and it feels really nourishing to my dry skin.

7.Bath & BodyWorks 'Vanilla Berry Sorbet' antibacterial foaming hand soap 259ml
One of the things I bought when I was in Florida earlier this year.
I LOVE Bath & BodyWorks hand soaps and always bring 3 or 4 back home from the States.

8.REN Mayblossom Balancing Cleansing Gel 25ml
9.Clinique liquid facial soap mild 30ml
They were nice face soap, not much to say about them. Not too harsh but managed to remove my make up. I have recently given up facial wipes and have been using muslins and cloths instead and feel my face has been cleaner compared to when I was using the wipes.

10.No7 Beautiful Skin Facial Wipes
I bought these using my £5 off voucher so they only cost me £2.50, they did the job of cleansing my face and removing my make up but like I said, I try not to use them anymore.

11.Di Palomo Wild Fig&Grape hand cream 25ml
This was in a recent Lux Bux and I really enjoyed the smell. I'm constantly washing up or washing my hands so I have extremely dry hands and cuticles and am always using hand cream.

12.L'Occitane Immoretelle Brightening Hand Cream 15ml
This was in the 'Latest in Beauty' Box a couple of months ago and I'm glad I finished it. It was a lovely handbag sized product but it felt a bit sticky.

13.Oral B complete Toothpaste 50ml
nothing to say about toothpaste really ;-)

And now some products I didn't actually finish but I'm throwing them out anyway

14.VO5 curl boost crunching spray 200ml
This made my hair look 'wet' even when I didn't use a lot of the spray. Not a fan of 'wet hair' look

15.Impulse 'Loving Words' body fragrance 75ml
I just bought it because the bottle looked fun but I'm not liking the scent

16.No7 Extravagant Volume Mascara in black 9ml
This was a £12 mascara and in my eyes(ha) it's not worth the money. I didn't like the brush and it made my lashes look clumpy.

17.Clinique High Impact Mascara black 4g
a magazine freebie and I really liked it. Just throwing it out because it's gotten a bit too old and I have a few more miniature mascaras to use up.

WOW, 17 products and I didn't even try hard to use up :)
I hope this makes up for the 12 or so nail polishes I have bought in the last week, and no I'm not joking ;-)

I'm going to try and make this a monthly installment, maybe someone out there is interested in seeing which products I'm using up.

Nobody puts nanny in the corner....

One of the reasons I haven't really posted much is that I haven't really figured out what blogging niche I belong in.

I'm by no means a beauty blogger, I can't post any pictures of the kids I look after, so wouldn't make an interesting 'nanny blogger', but I'm also nowhere near ready to start blogging about our own journey to start a family, since that's probably still a couple of years away.
So what do I do?

If you're here because you googled the birthday parties, then you're not interested in reading about the beauty boxes, yet of you're here because you're looking for a product review, you're likely not going to want to read about what the kids and I do all summer long.

I guess I shouldn't really worry since the reason I'm blogging is because I want to do it for myself, but let's admit: it's always nice to have a few followers along for the journey.

Toodle-ooo
:)

U.S.A. beauty haul

So, a couple of weeks ago my mummy and I embarked on an adventure together...12 days at Disneyworld Florida. The longest amount of time we've spent together since I moved out of her flat and the country 10 years ago so I was curious to see how we'd get along.

We did just fine but were both ready to get back home.

I very much enjoyed the sunshine, everything Disney, the pool, THE FOOD, the shopping and just being back in America :)

So of course we had to go shopping a couple of times, 12 days at Disney could get a bit too much if you don't get a little break every now and then.

Because we like to complicate things a little bit, we decided not to rent a car and rely entirely on public transport. I should have timed the amount of time we spent on Disney buses while we were there...or maybe it's better that I didn't.
It took us a good 2 hours door to door to get to the Florida Mall and the Outlets, even Target and Walmart weren't much closer because you always had to take 2 buses or a bus and a Monorail to the Main car park first, where you could catch the public buses.

Anyway, let's get to the good stuff-the pictures:

First the food, OMG I love American Junk ;-)
We were on one of the dining plans(free with our booking) so all of our food during the stay was FREE, at the end we still had a ton of snack credits leftover so we went to town and I brought 4 packs of cheesey Mickey head crackers, 2 packs of Disney gummy sweets, 2 boxes of Nutter Butter cookies and one piece of Tiki Toffee, which I got at the Polynesian Resort.
The rest is from our 3 trips to Target and Walmart, chewing gum, about 60 sticks of Crystal Light Ice Tea, peanutbutter/Raspberry/Mint M&Ms, Goldfish Crackers, various other crackers and pretzel...

I am ashamed to admit that most of this stuff(apart from the gum, some of the crackers and icetea) has already been eaten and I've only been back 2 weeks. No wonder I have gained 4 lbs since my return ;-)
Best purchase? Peanutbutter M&Ms!

Next, Beauty stuff:
*2 bottles of Aussie 3 Minute Miracle(a bargain at 2 for $5, when I usually pay 2 for £7 here) The heat, sun and chlorine quickly messed with my hair so I needed more than just the conditioner I had brought.
I will definitely be stocking up on Aussie stuff as this is what I am using here and if I had known that my suitcase would be almost 5kg/10lbs under the weight limit on departure day I would have picked up one of the massive shampoo bottles with the pump which has enough for up to 100 washes!
*Aussie smoothing serum, housekeeping must have thrown my Frizzease serum out, so for a couple of days I was sporting afro-like hairstyles until we managed to get back to a shop and buy a replacement. Florida humidity and my hair aren't friends!
*Banana Boat Sun Protection Spray SPF30. I love this stuff and buy a bottle whenever I'm in the States. I paid $5, it's closer to £9 over here. It's invisible and doesn't need to be rubbed in. Use in a ventilated room! Earlier this year my friend and I used this stuff in a tiny cruise ship cabin and could hardly breathe afterwards ;-)
*4 Bath & Bodyworks Foaming Handsoaps, they're amazing and I've been buying these for a couple of years now. It may sound a bit naff that I buy soap when I go to the States but I really love them and it's sort of like and 'all year round' souvenir because they last ages(since it's just me using them) I got 4 for $20 and bought them in 'caribbean escape', 'coconut lime verbena', vanilla berry sorbet' and 'sea island cotton' which is part of a birthday present for my friend next month. Sadly my favourite scent had been discontinued
*A small 'caribbean escape' scented candle, also from Bath & Bodyworks, which was a free gift that day as they were holding a Mother's Day event(Mother's Day is the second Sunday of May over there)
*2 frangrance mists, one in 'Be Enchanted'[quote: frosted florals sweetend with sparkling, sugared pomegranate inspired by all that glitters] and one if 'sea island cotton(fresh linen type scent), which also is a part of my friend's birthday present. The 'Be Enchanted' mist is for me and I love using it because it is so much lighter that a perfume or eau de toilette
*3x Secret Deodorant, I love this stuff and it lasts ages. It's an invisible gel and I thought the bottle would be finished really quickly as you're supposed to use 2 'clicks' under each arm but they end up lasting about 3 months for me, good stuff for $4 each. This time I got two in summerberry and one pear scented because they didn't seem to stock my usual peach scented one anymore. Pear deodorant sounds a bit strange, we will see what I think of it.

And last but not least, my nail polishes, a slight addiction of mine.[right to left in the picture below]
As well as the free food, our booking also included a Disney gift card for $150, which my mum and I split. This was valid in any shop or restaurant on Disney property but we were having a really hard time spending the money because we didn't feel the need to buy Disney merchandise like tshirts or teddies. I was so happy when I found that one of the shops in Downtown Disney stocked the Muppets range OPI nail polishes, so I got three for $8 each.
I got:
*Designer De Better a silver foil nail colour with little specks of bronze/copper in it. It looks amazing. So far I have only tried it on one nail but can't wait to try a full set of nails. I envision removal to be a pain though.
*Meep Meep Meep, a shimmery fuchsia, more glittery than the next one...
*Wocka Wocka! A shimmery red, I actually took this to the nail salon to be used for my pedicure yesterday and I love it. I don't normally wear red polish so it's a bit something new for me :)

We did two trips to Target and 1 trip to Walmart and my mum was laughing that she would always find me in front of the nail polish shelf, I got
*Essie turquoise&caicos. I don't think these kind of shades particularly suit me but it just looked so pretty and I have read many positive things about Essie polishes. A bargain at $7.75, when they're about £8-10 here
*Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in 'Hidden Treasure', I don't like wearing bright nail polish on my finger nails, so this will be perfect, just the right amount of shimmer $6
*Sally Hansen Xtreme wear in Posh Plum, it's quite similar to my go-to Pedicure colour of Nails Inc 'Paris' but this one is shimmery, so quite looking forward to trying it out $2.49
*Seche Vite Dry fast Top Coat $10, I have read many raving reviews about this and can't wait to try it since I am a little bit impatient when it comes to lettin nail polish dry

There you have it, my little beauty haul, nothing too exciting but I enjoy having little souvenirs I get to use all year round. I'm already looking forward to my next trip out there, hopefully before January 2013, when I'm going on a cruise.

April 2012 LUX Box beauty box review

I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to Make Up and despite being dangerously close to turning 30 I don't really experiment with skincare at all and still use my trusty £4 Nivea Moisturiser on my face, I have been for about 10 years now.

But reading blogs and watching youtube vlogs have made me become aware of all the wonderful products available out there, including these curious things called 'beauty boxes'
I remember that as a child my parents would sometimes buy us what was called a 'wundertuete'(surprise bag) at the toystore or newsagent. For roughly 50p you'd get a little bag of treasures like stickers, colouring books, useless pencils and assorted plastic toys that never lasted more than a day, yet we still loved them.
Beauty Boxes are a similar idea. Every month you get a little box containing roughly 5 items to try out, some are samples, some are full size items.
So the more I started reading about beauty boxes, the more I wanted to give them a try.
The problem was that there were just too many for me to chose from and I kept reading bad things about every single one of them, mostly preferred treatment for the big beauty bloggers, which just isn't fair.
A couple of weeks ago I came across 'Lux Box', who were due to bring out their first box in April and to get customers interested, they were offering an introductionary price of £7.50(plus postage) instead of £10 for the first box.
I decided to give it a go and received mine this morning at 9am :)

Let's have a look:

It all came in a brown box without a logo, but I wasn't expecting any other parcels and had been stalking my postie all weekend so I knew what it was:

lovely champagne/dusky pink box, my straighteners are exactly the same colour, a shame my camera didn't pick it up properly

ooooh, the suspense:

So this is what the box includes:

*A full size steam cream(~£10-£13)
*Eldora false Lashes in H101, made from human hair, £4.25
*2 1g eyeshadows by BMbeauty, in the colours 'wolf howl' and 'her majesty', original sizes are 2g pots so these two are wirth £9 combined
*10ml Balance Me wonder eye cream(£14)
*a tiny pot of MOA The Green Balm, based on a full size product I estimate this to be worth £1
=total value £38.25(I paid £10.45)

To be honest I have to say at first I was a bit disappointed because to me these were all no name products and I expected there to be at least one product I would recognize.
But when I actually read up on the items that were sent I was a bit happier and will continue my subscription for one more month and then re-evaluate.

I have never used false lashes and the ones I received are quite 'thick', I think I will need to start off with a little more natural looking ones.

The MOA green balm is a good size for my handbag. I have the most horrendous cuticles so I will be using it to treat them a little bit.

I've been meaning to start using an eyecream, like I said...I'm getting older ;-)

The eyeshadows are fun colours, I'm going to buy a eye shadow base soon and try them out but here are some swatches on my hand, the pinky one is 'her majesty' and the blue/purple one is 'wolf howl':

The steam cream is the star item of the box, I had never heard of it before and I will say that I will probably not use this on my face but use it as a handcream instead. It does feel lovely on my skin but I think it may just be too rich for my face and make me break out in spots, also it's lavendar scented, which isn't something I would ever chose.

All in all a good first beauty box after getting over my inital disappoinment of not knowing a single item in the box.

I have another one coming soon(she said beauty box), so stay tuned for that one :)

If you want to find out more about the Lux Box and maybe even subscribe, this is the link:
Lux Box

Octonauts Birthday Party

Last year Belle and Boo were absolutely obsessed with the Octonauts. I think it started when Belle heard about it from her friends at nursery, where they would all play 'pretend' in the school playground.
We didn't mind the girls watching this show as it was fun and very educational.

So when it came to chosing a theme for her 4th birthday party last Summer, Belle quickly decided on an Octonauts party.
The only problem was that at the time there were no party wares or merchandise available, the only thing you could buy back then were the books.
So her mum and I put out thinking caps on and got creative.

Part of my birthday present for her was this birthday banner with matching Octonauts bunting(there were 2 of the triangle shaped bunting chains, only one is in the picture), it was very time consuming and every circle was cut out by hand(so make that 24 big circles, 24 little ones, 24 triangles and 30 Octonauts figures/symbols)

(note my amazing photo editing skills *haha*)

She and everyone absolutely loved it, I have to say I was very proud when everyone complimented the banner on the day of her party. It did take me a good 5 hours to make so I think I deserved it.

My boss ordered some tshirts and badges off ebay, the quality was not great and the transfers came off in the wash despite washing inside out.

Even the guests joined in:

My boss baked this amazing Tweak bunny cake and I made some cute cupcakes, using the Hummingbird bakery vanilla cupcake recipe:

The children kept busy by colouring Octonauts colouring sheets, making Octonauts headbands/hats, playing pass the parcel and musical statues and also 'Pin the eyepatch on Kwazii'

There was fish shaped foods in the form of sandwiches

and crackers, which I 'imported' from Germany:

(source: here)

It was a great party and everyone loved it.
Next: Boo's 3rd birthday party, which is coming up at the end of May, we are buying paperplates from America because the theme is so HER!

I smell PINK!

(first of many non-childcare related posts)
I have recently become addicted to reading 'beauty' blogs. Those girls are amazing with make up and their collcetions of beauty 'stuff' makes my massive drawer dull of showergels, creams, potions, powders, sticks, wipes and other things look tiny.

I don't know where I first saw them but as soon as I did, I just knew I had to have it!

DKNY Be Delicious has recently brought out 3 new(limited edition) scents inspired by cakes, I mean how amazing is that? I LOVE cake!

The three scents are:
*Pink Macaron(pink)
*Tart Key Lime(green)
*Creamy Meringue(yellow)

I love anything pink and sweet, so it was a no brainer, which one of these three perfumes would have to be MINE. I tested it yesterday when I walked past the perfume shop in town and it's so lovely. I will be popping in later with a gift certificate and buy the Pink Macaron before it sells out.

And just for fun, here's a little trip down memory lane about all the perfumes I have used in my life:

It all started out with my mum being a AVON Lady, so when I was little, I always experimented with the little sample bottles and mixed them to 'create' wonderful new scents. I must have smelt horrible.

The first perfume I ever had was CK One, by Calvin Klein. A unisex scent, which is very much not what I would use today, but then again I was a 14 year old non-girly girl back then, so it was a good fit.

I think I used that for a couple of years and when I started working my fulltime job at 16(this makes me sound like I dropped out of school, but I didn't!) I would treat myself to nicer perfumes.
The first one was 'Jil' by Jil Sander(decription here), a perfume that was released in 1997 and has since then been discontinued(and sells for €200/bottle on ebay). A very intense and sweet scent, it really made me feel 'grown up' at the time. *haha*.

After that I bought 'Sensations', also by Jil Sander(description here) , mainly because I had loved the other one by her so much.

Then came 'Amor Amor' by Cacharel (read more about it here):

Then 'Gloria' by Cacharel(read more about it here)

After that I used 'Miracle' by Lancome (see the description here) In my opinion this is a lighter scent, perfect for summer. Definitely not as heavy and sweet as the pink colour would have you belive.

Then I went through a phase of not really using any perfume or using whatever free sample I could get my hands on and now I don't just stick to one, I have quite a few smaller bottles I am using at the moment. Here's a picture of my current ones:

left to right: Amor Amor from Cacharel(somehow all the red 'paint' came of the glass bottle), MEXX Woman Summer Edition(2011), Thierry Mugler's 'Angel'(mini bottle from a Glamour promotion a couple of years ago), Alien by Thierry Mugler, Horizon by Esprit and Jamaica2 by Puma. My favourite one out of all of these is 'Alien', followed by Mexx Woman, a scent I picked up last summer in Germany just because the bottle was pink :)
The Esprit and Puma ones were given to me by my mum and are not really what I would have picked for myself.

Dark Kiss by Bath and Bodyworks. I bought these last summer in Florida and love it. It's only a body spray but I use it like perfume because I find it quite long lasting. Not so much a fan of the bodylotion, but the shower gel is fab. Will be picking up some more in 2 weeks when I'm going back to Florida!

Wow, that was a long post about perfume :) To cut a long story short: I love pink, sweet, heavy and girly perfumes.

Having fun with food

Boo is a little bit of a fussy eater and sometimes it helps to make her food more fun, so this is what I have come up with so far:

The very popular fruit faces, the girls gobbled these up quickly:

*The 'hair' in this last picture is made with Kiddylicious Apple Fruit Wriggles*

Happy porridge(I appologise for the quality, this was 'pre iPhone')

And our valentine's day lunch:

Out of the mouth of babes

Both Belle and Boo have always amazed me with their advanced speech and vast vocabulary. We never really used 'baby talk' at home and teach them the proper names for everything.
For example last year around her second birthday Boo asked if we were going to the drycleaners that day, probably not a word in most 2 year old's vocabulary.

Lately Belle has been coming up with some pretty funny things and I wanted to share them with you:

*while we were brushing the girls' teeth I asked them to bite their teeth together so I could brush their front teeth and Belle sais "M. you have really crooked teeth" [while I do have an overbite, they're not crooked]

*talking about jobs and going to university she asked me why I didn't go to university. I told her I chose to be a nanny to look after little boys and girls like her, while their mummies and daddies are at work. She thought for a second and then asked "M. when are you going to get a real job?"

Both girls also insist that I am pregnant, which I am not. Let's just hope they don't say anything like that to their parents ;-)
Maybe this means I need to work on my chocolate addiction!

It's been a while

So, it's been a few months since my last post.
At first I simply stopped writing because summer was over and the whole reason I started this blog was to document our summer together, but lately I have been feeling in a bloggy mood so I decided to start this up again and hoping to write a few blogs over the next weeks. They will most likely not all be related to nannying but will instead be about random things in my life, like competition wins, recipes, movies...so really anything and everything.