BEAUTY | Montagne Jeunesse | Banana Foot Treatment

Before I go on my summer holidays I like to make sure my feet are in tip top condition for being shown off in strappy, summer sandals. I've tried a few of the Montagne Jeunesse face masks but I'd never seen this 2 part Montagne Jeunesse Cool Banana Buffer and Hot Banana Butter before. I found it in Home Bargains (a bargain store in the UK) and they were 3 for £2. A real bargain! So, I piled my basket full of different ones to try.

I was excited to try this foot treatment.  It's in two parts.  You first use the Cool Banana Buffer to exfoliate, then the Hot Banana Butter to moisturize.

Before using the Cool Banana Buffer I placed the Hot Banana Butter in a small bowl of hot water to heat up as per the instructions. The buffer has exfoliating apricot grains.  It smells divine. 

As you can see, I had a little helper in my 2 year old niece who wanted to join in the fun so my sachet was shared between one and a half pairs of feet and there was more than enough to go round.

I tried to take photos of the buffer and the cream but with a very boisterous and enthusiastic 2 year old in tow it just wasn't happening I'm afraid. 

After exfoliating for a few minutes with the banana buffer I rinsed it off and dried my feet. I then applied the hot banana butter.  It smelled delicious and almost good enough to eat.  I love the fruity smell of bananas so this was an ideal product for me.  There was an awful lot of moisturizer in the sachet.  At first it was an odd sensation for me rubbing warm cream on my feet but I soon got used to it and absolutely loved it.  It has the calming effects of aloe vera and shea butter. It didn't feel in any way greasy and was absorbed into my skin quickly. 

It's been a few days since I used this pack and my feet are definitely smoother and that horrible dry skin around my heel has pretty much vanished.  I'm amazed at how well this product has worked and I'll definitely be purchasing it again.  I would really recommend it to anyone whether you have particularly dry feet or not.

Have you tried Montagne Jeunesse?

What's your favourite mask?

Awesome Bloggers | August

Oh. My. Goodness. Where do I start?  Last month seems to have been filled with so many fabulously, amazingly awesome new blogs to explore. 

I love discovering a new blog and spending time ages and ages trailing through it, looking at all the photos and finding out little bits about the blogger.  I become an almost mini stalker for a short time.  Don't judge me - I know you do it too!

Some blogs I discover are nice just to look through once, others I find, I know I'll be reading their future posts for at least the next few months, and that's what this little space is for - a look back on the blogs I've recently discovered that I'd love to share with you.

 

Rosy over at A Joyful Kind Of Life has a wonderful little lifestyle blog that I simply adore.  My favourite feature on her blog has to be Sunday's Letters.  In fact I'm thinking of pinching the idea for over here on Gemzicle Sprinkles (hope you don't mind Rosy). There's a bit of everything on Rosy's blog so if you're like me and enjoy cooking, crafts, bits of fashion I'm sure you'll love Rosy's blog.  There's also some fab links to lots of blog hop parties if you have a blog you'd like to try and grow using parties.

Formerly Army Ever After, Elizabeth Loves is a place where Elizabeth shares so many aspects of her life with us.  She's a military wife living in Hawaii.  I literally drool when I see her photos in her recipe posts.  I love the way she writes and  I find myself grinning to myself as I'm reading as I feel like she's really talking to me.

Papervein

Papervein is the works of the lovely, self confessed crazy cat girl Amanda.  Any girl who is a crazy cat girl is a winner in my book as I'm kinda one myself.  She shares her thoughts and experiences on many different topics.  I've realised that this is what I like in a blog.  I love it when there's a variety of posts as it keeps my short attention span focused.

 

Kitchen Meets Girl is, as the name would suggest, a foodie blog.  Written by Ashley, a married mother of one who didn't always love to cook.  Her recipes are simply delightful with something for everyone including breakfast ideas, slow cooker delights and healthier option ideas.  But, the thing I love the most about this blog is that if you fancy making one of the recipes you can create your own shopping list.  It's cool. You'll have to go and check it out.

The Official Blog Guide is different from the others as you can probably tell from the title and only really of use if you're a blogger.  As a relatively new blogger there's so much for me still to learn about the technical side of blogging.  I find this blog really informative on lots of different aspects of blogging, it has daily link up parties which are growing in popularity and it really visually appeals to me.

Linky time

An InLinkz Link-up

What I Ate Wednesday | Family Fun or Food?

 

Ooo my head hurts this morning. It's my own fault and entirely self inflicted so I ask for no sympathy but more on that later.

 

This #WIAW is on odd mix of healthy, new recipes and a plate of random stuff so lets crack on with it.

 

 

 Breakfast

 

I recently bought the Breville Blend Active which I'm absolutely loving btw. It's just so handy and convenient which is not something I've tended to think about smoothie makers in the past. My breakfast for the last few mornings since I bought it has been a delicious mix of fruits.  This mornings smoothie was 2 bananas, a splash of almond milk and 2 handfuls of frozen blueberries. O how I love them so and I find they really fill me up for a long time. There's something about smoothies and juices that just make me feel really wholesome.

 

Do you have smoothies for breakfast? What's your favourite concoction?

 

 Lunch

 

Now I love, love, love a pizza! But as part of my 'trying to cut back on carbs' thing I'm always on the lookout for things that kinda have the pizza flavours and concept without all that heavy doughy base. So when I saw this recipe the other day I knew it was something I had to make myself. Ooo it was delicious. Props to Jenn for the idea.  You'll have to go and check out her page for some much nicer photos of how this recipe can look. It's simply a pepper chopped with a spoonful of tomato salsa inside, topped with some cheese and beautiful sliced yellow tumbling tom tomatoes that I hand picked from my greenhouse. There really is nothing like picking and cooking your own veg in a recipe.

Tea

Ok I admit tea was a shambles. My sister arrived with my niece (see this adoption party post) to spend a few days with us and my mum cooked tea. She made a chicken casserole, jacket potatoes, cauliflower cheese and veg. A typical British tea. As a veggie, I would normally have made something for myself in place of the chicken casserole but I just couldn't be bothered. I was enjoying spending time with my niece and food just wasn't on my mind. If I'm honest I was enjoying (ahem) one or two cheeky vodka and cokes and a good chin wag. Which is where the sore head comes from.

Do you ever do that? Catching up with friends or relatives and kinda forget to eat. 

Tea consisted of half a jacket potato, a bit of cauliflower cheese and a few peas. Kinda a weird tea but tasty none the less.  When I look back at these photos I realise I didn't really eat a whole lot so it's no surprise my head hurts this morning!

 

Do you have any special dietary requirements? (I'm a veggie) Are you catered for at family gatherings?  I always feel that as a veggie I'm such a pain for people to cater for and I feel awful that they have to make a whole other thing just for me.

Fashion 5 | New Look Sale Must Buys

So what's better on a Sunday morning than browsing the internet doing some sale shopping?  Nothing I hear you say.  I couldn't agree more.  The only problem is where to sale shop.

I sat up in bed (yes that's right, it should definitely be done in bed) and wondered where to start first.  Then New Look popped into my head.  Now I hadn't shopped at New Look for quite a while but I went in the other week birthday shopping for my sister and there were so many pieces I'd love to have bought for myself. (I behaved and only bought my sister a present - I have willpower!)  So there it was, my answer.  I'll sale shop at New Look.  It's already cheap as chips anyway so the sale stuff must be a bargain I thought. And I was right.

I'm clearly feeling very pink / peachy today as these were my top 5 picks. I bought my sister a skort in the same pattern as the dress which I didn't realise until afterwards but never mind.   

 

1 Wedges was £27.99 now £13 | 2 Dress was £22.99 now £15 | 3 Kimono was £24.99 now £12 |

4 Skirt was £12.99 now £6 | 5 Top was £29.99 now £12

 

 

Where's your favourite place to sale shop?

 

What do you like to do on a Sunday morning?

Why I'm No Longer Weighing Myself

Let's talk about The Scale. Argghhh nooooo. Stay. Stay. I promise it's not that bad.

 

Are you a slave to the scale?  How often do you weigh yourself?  

 

Way back in May I started a Shape Up For Summer feature in which I weighed and measured myself each week in a bid to get my 'bikini body'. After a few weeks I decided to stop the whole shape up for summer idea. I don't want to shape up for summer. I want to be fit, healthy, eat clean, enjoy exercising for life, not for summer. 

 

What do I need for a bikini body? A body. Check. A bikini. Check. I already have a bikini body and so do you. Is it the best bikini body I could have? No. Do I love the idea of walking around in a bikini for all to see my lumps and bumps? No. But that's kinda ok.

As women we all have body issues/hangups/things we'd like to change. I am currently the heaviest, most out of shape I've ever been in my life and I don't like it and I'm consciously making an effort to change that. 

We give the scale so much power. Getting on a scale and seeing that number alters how I feel about myself. My mood, my happiness, hell even my self worth. The crazy thing is it doesn't really matter what the scales say - I'm never happy with it. I have never been a body confident woman. I scoured through my personal facebook and old photo albums and could find only 2 photos of me in a bikini.  In these photos I was 116lbs (I know that because I weighed myself everyday). Was I happy when I stepped on the scales and saw 116lbs? No I wasn't. 

They were taken 4 years ago on my annual summer holiday to our family villa in Spain. I was around 30 lbs lighter in these photos than I am now and hell, I look ok in my bikini. I vividly remember that holiday and period of my life. I was still trying to deal with a relationship breakdown, I'd quit my job, I was desperately unhappy, had incredibly low self esteem and, if I'm honest, really hated myself. I looked in the mirror and saw a big, fat whale of a woman.

My point being, rarely do we look as bad in a bikini as we think we do.

No longer will I allow that number on a scale to dictate how I feel about myself. I will wake up every morning and take little steps towards being a healthier me.

I want to be the best version of myself I can be.

Do I want a flat stomach, inner thigh gap and lean, toned arms? Of course I do. But most of all I want to be happy, I want to laugh with friends and family, I want to enjoy every precious moment with my son and I don't want to be a slave to The Scale.