My Pointsetta, Munchies for the girls night in, Bright lips for the impromptu night out, Pornstar Cocktail choice, My hair being perfect when I have done nothing too it but it had to go in a pony, Why I love make up - It covers circles and bad skin, A touch of craft work by making peppermint creams and hand made marzipan roses and finally all the lovely presents and not a single one is mine!

I have had a very busy week since the last post, I have been for a meal with family and at a church, Watched a Choir, cleaned, Worked, finished shopping for Christmas, cleaned some more, wrapped more presents, Made a few presents, Put my car in a Garage, cleaned yet again! met up with friends, done a secret santa (first one ever), had a girls night in that turned to a girls night out and killed my back in the process and finally cleaned and then spent all of sunday watching fantasy movies, hoping to watch some Christmas movies this week!

for anyone out there who has a bad sleeping pattern, I feel with you. I never have a good night sleep, I'm always trying to catch up or oversleeping to compensate.

I've been a bad sleeper for as long as I can remember, It normally takes me anywhere from 45mins to 2hours to fall asleep at night. I normally wake up at least 3 times a night and average about 6 hours sleep (when you minus my wake ups its prob more like 5 hours). At least once a month i will have 4-6 days of only getting 3/4 hours of sleep, so being constantly tired is a part of my life.

Not many people in my life realise that I sleep so bad, and prob think I'm exaggerating. I have been to doctors and gotten sleeping pills and found that they don't really make much of a difference and to tell the truth I felt so much worse after taking them than dealing with the lack of sleep.

Generally lack of sleep can make you groggy, irritable, drowsy, have trouble with memory and basic function. When talking to me you will find a lot of the time I struggle to think of basic words or remember the name of obvious things like the bathroom. It may all seen funny and trivial, but I can tell you that it is irritating and sometimes makes you feel stupid!

For anyone out there experiencing some bad nights or have patterns like mine I just wanted to share a few little things that I do to help me, they don't always work, but sometimes is better than never.

have a hot drink before bed, some milky hot chocolate or just hot milk. try and stay away from tea, coffee or any caffienated products within 3 hours of going to bed.
Take a hot water bottle to bed with you, maybe even put it in the bed 10 mins before you get in, heat can make you sleepy.
if you have not fallen asleep withing an hour (an hour and a half tops) get back up and do something, watch some tv, read some pages of a book. there is no point in lying in bed if you are not sleeping, and sometimes this can cause a psychological effect.
Try and avoid watching tv or taking you laptop into the bedroom, try and keep your bedroom as a calm, dark and quiet place.
If you have a brain that wont ever shut up, try and force it to think about nice things instead of the day, eg, what would you buy if you won the lottery, planning your dream holiday. This may sound strange, but 50% of the time by doing this I force my brain to start day-dreaming and eventually will drift off to sleep.
try and make your bed as comfortable as possible, make sure the sheets arn't creased and the bedding is soft, once again it sounds strange, but if your uncomfortable then you won't sleep.
Also set your alarm and get up no matter how tired you are and don't take any naps, try and set you body back to normal on its own.
If you do have a really bad bout and need sleeping tablets, try no to rely on them, only use them every other night for a week. It's a lot healthier if you can get back to normal on your own.

Christmas is coming fast and every year Christmas is getting more and more expensive, so I thought that I could share a few things that I do or have done in the past, to try and help cut the costs.

Cheap Christmas Present Ideas:
If you have the time why not make something simple, like gingerbread men, all that is really needed is ingredients that will prob be in your cupboard and some ribbon to tie around the gingerbread men's neck, this is a cheap but personal gift. You could also make a batch of Mince Pies or a Christmas cake and personalise it.
Seperate things that are in packs, for example, socks (i'm not talking about a normal pack, more the big fluffy Christmas pairs that tend to come in packs of two) or lip balms. by seperating you can give something that would normally only be for one person and make into two or three presents, most of the time all you need is a little ribbon to retie the socks and viola extra presents. This can also be done with earring, provided you have a spare box.
You could just buy a Pointsetta (aka the Christmas Rose) they are pretty and cheap, ranging from £1.50 for a small to £4 for a large (well at Tesco anyway) and this is a good way to give something nice, festive and not break the bank.
Shop online or on Ebay, a lot of the time you can find the same things as in store and it most of the time it comes in cheaper, and that's including posting to you door. I have saved a lot over the years doing this as the pounds will start to add up.
For anyone with children there are free services that give your child a letter or a video call from Santa (yes free, beats spending £10 for a crappy postcard), making them feel special and all it cost you is some time, Here is the link and information if your interested.

General tips and tricks:
Reuse any bags given to you, all you will need to do is tear of the old label and attach a new one, as labels are cheaper than bags this will save you a few pounds.
Don't throw away tinsel if it has gone ratty, if you have children they can use it in craft projects or you could use it to tie around cheaper crackers to spruce them up. if your really crafty I have seen people turn old tinsel into garlands that are amazing, its really up to you.
Turn last years Christmas cards into decorations such as these amazing baubles. Or cut off the back and turn them into Christmas Postcards, save on buying lots of cards and maybe even the postage costs as larger cards may cost more to send.
If you have some baubles or ornaments that are slightly damaged why not make them into a table centerpiece or a wreath (as shown in pics above).

Food Tips:
When making your Christmas dinner, if there are only a few of you in your household and have bought a load of vegetables, then I would sugest that you freeze what you havent used in the mean, this is a good way to save money and have more food in the house for future meals.
Also unless you are having a huge party with lots of people I would not suggest buying a huge turkey, My husband and I have bought a large turkey crown for £10 that would easily feed 6 people with bits left over for later. No need to be extravagant especially if you spend loads and it ends up going in the bin.
Whatever is not eaten, put in the fridge and make a fry up the next day, Trust me Bubble and Squeak is amazing with all the bits and pieces of a Christmas dinner in it.
start your Christmas pop/munchies shop in September, If you buy bits and pieces that are on offer early, you have a whole heap of goodies by Christmas and you wouldn't have noticed the few extra pounds a week split over the 3 months before. Of course fresh has to be done closer to Christmas. But brand items are not always better, Aldi and Lidl offer some amazing like for like product at half the price. Also I suggest going to your local market, you can get twice as much fruit and veg as you can in a supermarket for around half the price!
Deserts do not have to cost the earth and I can tell you that just because the product may say 'Finest' does not mean that it is better. Go to Iceland or if you have time make your own with ingredients in your kitchen, after a large dinner it may end up being left, so don't wast money on products that are anything but fine!

I (personally) can not give enough credit to the whole experience of ordering a wedding dress online. The dress I ordered (even with my Uhum Larger than normal size) came to £120 with P&P. I was wondering how it can be made so cheap, but in china material is pennies. I think they get away with free P&p because its marked as gift and for some reason for international shipping that is cheaper. Also as your actually getting it direct from seller and not shop, so there isn't a 500% mark up. Also, as sad as it is to say, but its prob made in a sweat shop, but they prob make more from selling this way than via Primark who pay them pittence!

TBH the quality wasn't quite as great as in a shop but where as shop quality is say 100% i'd still give my dress 90-95%. the only problem I had was the bust on the dress, as I Was only asked for the measurements of the largest part of my boobs and not the top part I ended up with it in a straight line instead of curved and form fitting, I had to have it taken in a little bit, but then again, i do have some large assets! lol.

I also had a lot of beading on mine and I did notice that a few strands had started to come loose at the end of the day (not trying to put you off, just being honest). For me it did not matter as I wanted my wedding dress but refused to pay £500-£1000 for something I was going to wear for a few hours (it costs at least £150 to hire a dress for the day, and this way you get to keep it). My mother had a seamstress friend who did my alteration for free, and she said that if she had made the dress, or if you bought it in a shop it wouild have cost £600-£700, so all in all, if you willing to sacrifice a tiny bit of quality I'd say do it.

If you do it order one of ebay (or any site), just a few pieces of advice;

1) give plently of time. (mine said to allow 6-10 week, I had it within 4, but when I ordered it, it was 14 weeks to the wedding meaning I had time to sort something else out if things did go wrong, or they could double speed to make a new one) you can pay more (I think £40) to gurantee you'll get it in 6 weeks.

2) As you have to do the measurements youself, measure everything at least 4/5 times to make sure you have it correct. It will cost a lot more to get it altered here than to have it made right, be especially careful with length from hip to floor, make sure you are wearing a pair of heels similar to the height of wedding shoes you intend to wear. (if like me you wanted heels for ceremony and flats for night, I look the measurement with heels and minused half the heel height. I had a little dragging on the floor in the night, but as I was in a hall it did not bother me). However if the length wasn't right to make alterations to lengh is somthing stupid like £130, other alterations are cheap enough, but better to try and get it right.

3) Try a similar shape dress on in a store to make sure that its the style for you, wouldn't want you to spend that money and then find the dress is not what you thought it would look like.

4) Always check feedback, not only looking at the stars, actually go through and see comments and look at people (if any) have been unsatisfied and if so why. I think the one I ordered from had about 50 ok's out of thousands of feedback and only maybe 10 bad's. (Can't beat odd like that)

5) Just a warning really, it's all vacume packed so when you recieve it, it will be crinkled to hell! You may know someone who has a steam iron, all it takes is a good steam ironing and it's fine. I had a friend who did mine so I can't tell you cost.

6) weigh up the pros and cons, yes its cheaper, but a lot of shop dresses do ateration free. you also have to get is steam ironed and there is no guarantee that you will love it. however when it turns out right it turns out right! I have a friend who ordered her dress via e-bay as well and she loved it too.

As long as your careful about the seller and take as many precautions as you can to ensure it's right for you, then its a great way to have a lovely dress, for the perfect day, for a fraction of the price.

happy hunting!

My week has been so busy that it hasn't even been a week since my last post. First of all I actually figured out how to do a screenshot on my phone, YAY! I could have found out months ago if I had spent 3 seconds looking on the net but I didn't.

The store where I work had a fire, I was off the day it happened, but my facebook page was covered in updates, Thankfully no one was hurt and the store is ok, no structural damage as the staff were all let back in, if there was damage surely no one would be allowed back into the building. I have been told that it was a bunch of kids who set fire to a car in the underground car park! little shits, I sometimes hate the youth of today. I know that not much has Changed, things like that happened when I was a child, but it does seem to happen more now. I wish I could shout 'GET A HANDLE ON YOUR BRATS!' to the parents.

Me week has consisted of decorating for Christmas, I had lots of fun doing my tree and My husband was having fun being silly in amongst all the decorations. As soon as we had found our Christmas hats, We had to try them on, hehe. I bought a Noel sign and as it came out of the box i put it up the wrong way round. I have two advent calenders this year and they are both malteaser ones, I used to always love the Cadbury, but I had one of these little babies about 3 years ago and nothing else is better now. What can I say I am 26 with 2 advent calenders, a stocking and a big grin!

I made a Sunday Roast on Thursday and bought a ankle length dress that I am using as a nightdress in this cold weather! brrr.

I also had my nieces 1st birthday party, it was the first time I has saw her as they live away. I didn't manage to snap a pic but she has the biggest bluest eyes I have ever seen on a baby, Honestly they are just startling and almost unreal! I have a meal with the family tonight and a Christmas meal at my mother in laws Church Monday evening.

I will be doing these weekly posts as up to Christmas I have lots and lots to do and places to go and people to see. busy time of the year!