Girls Night Out

Tonight I pulled on my most comfortable Lorna Jane, glammed it up with a sweet little lip stain and some pretty little flats to watch the way too funny, The Other Woman. 

This is definitely the best all girl empowering film I've seen in a long while, mind you I could have watched it again on repeat once the credits started rolling! A girls night out for an all too funny film such as this is such a fun and affordable way to spend your evening that I can promise will give you many laughs throughout. 

I would love to know your favourite gal films, this one now takes out my top spot. Leave yours in the comments below. 

Jacqueline xx

Ballet Beautiful

Hi there my pretty-little-blogettes, 

It is no secret that the Victoria Secret Angels' favourite workout is the infamous Ballet Beautiful Barre workout according to their overloaded instagram accounts. Historically ballerinas have such long and lean physiques, these women are just captivatingly beautiful due to their hard work and dedication. 

Xtend Barre uses the techniques of ballet and principles of pilates to create a thorough full body work out. To my surprise a studio was built in my local area, today being open day so I went along to the studio this morning to see what all of the fuss was about, and let's admit in hope to walk out with a body similar to that of below. 

All hail the mighty Lily Aldridge's curves in all of the right places! 

Okay, now that we're all done drooling over the above, I would love to share my experience with you all. I attended the Xtend Barre studio in Miami, previously a wedding gown designers work shop it adorns beautiful big windows for the sun light to filter through, with mirrors and ballet bars fit to the remaining walls. Once all of the ballet terminology was explained we began the class with a 'warm up' and by warm up I mean, in all of my life I have never sweat so much in 10 minutes. 

The class went for an hour, however I had so much it felt like much less! We did a lot of lengthening exercises, turnouts, pliés and work with the ball along the barre, along with planks, push ups, weighted ballet exercises and made use of the pilates band. 

All in all I would highly recommend heading down to your local barre to give it a go! For those of you who don't have a barre in your local area here is a really easy to follow at home barre workout by VS Sport

Until next time ...

Jacqueline xx 

Happy New Year Youtube!!

2014 brings with it many new adventures, goals and much more happiness in my life, this year also brings new changes on the blog. New Years is a time for reflection upon the previous year and celebrates the coming of a New Year. 2013 for me has been filled with laughter and many highs, I have experienced the world and grown as a person and am very glad to have been able to share many of these things with you all. 

For this blog and my readers I am very happy to announce that I am now delving into the world of YouTube! My first video for you all is a beauty how to on cleaning your makeup brushes! 

I hope you all very much enjoy it and am excited to film more, I would love to hear your thoughts!! 

Jacqueline xx 

Book Club #1

Hello fellow-book-worms! 

Nothing brings people closer together then the love of great literature! Today I would like to start a series of posts labelled; you guessed it.. Book Club!! For our first time I would like us all to bury our noses into a fantasy novel (one of my favourite genres) by Patrick Rothfuss The Name of the Wind, the first in the Kingkiller Chronicles. This story is told in the voice of Kvothe and is said to be considered one of the best fantasy books in the 21st century, behind Harry Potter of course. I have buried my nose into the first few chapters and can safely say that ladies and gentlemen this is a good one! 

I hope you all enjoy this read as much as I am and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the novel in the comments below. Don't fear, if fantasy is not your forte this is the first of a number of posts and I hope you can join me soon on this book club adventure! What is your favourite novel? 

Jacqueline xx 

My Pretty Little Jewels

Hi Girls,

Today I wanted to share with you a review on my favourite European purchase, my Swarovski jewels. Mid August I was strolling the streets of the town square in Krakow, Poland, the most impressive square I have ever been too and something sparkly caught my eye in the window at Swarovski. Now previous to this I had never purchased from Swarovski as I am a big believer in the whole 'diamonds are a girls best friend' thing and really prefer quality over quantity. While browsing the store I kept being drawn back to these beautiful earrings I caught a glimpse of in the window. 

Needless to say I took the plunge and I couldn't be happier. The quality of them is great, I'm constantly getting compliments on them and Swarovski provide an international warranty on them, which includes replacement of any crystals if they were to fall out. For any girls out there who have thought about their beautiful pieces but are too scared to take the plunge as I was you will be impressed as I was. I am already contemplating my next purchase! You can purchase these earrings here 

Jacqueline xx 

Pumpkin DEElight

Happy Friday night blogging world! 

If you have been reading my blog for a while now, you would have learned that I am a massive foodie, however I do care for my health (although I do wish I could eat macarons everyday for the rest of my life). Pumpkin soup is one of my very favourite dishes - I love that rich, thick pumpkin consistency and the warmness it leaves in my tummy after a steaming hot bowl full. 

Today I want to share the most amazing pumpkin soup recipe I have had in a very long while. I used Donna Hay's recipe, however modified it so there was no lactose (I'm intolerant) which in turn gave me less calories and fat. I hope you all enjoy xx

Ingredients

1 x 2kg whole butternut pumpkin 

1 x onion 

Olive oil for drizzling

Sea salt (I used himalayan rock salt)

3 1/2 cups of chicken stock

1 x cup of cream (I used zymil cream)

1 x tablespoon honey

Sour cream to serve

Method 

1. Preheat oven to 230 cut the pumpkin in half lengthway's and scoop out the seeds. Place the pumpkin, cut-side up, and onion on a baking tray. 

2. Drizzle with a little oil and sprinkle with salt. Bake for 55 - 60 minutes or until the pumpkin is soft and starting to brown. 

4. Scoop the pumpkin out of the skin into a blender. Also scoop the onion flesh away from its skin and add to the blender. 

5. Add 1 cup of the chicken stock and blended until smooth or to desired consistency.

6. Put the mixture into a saucepan, add remaining stock, cream and honey. 

7. Place over medium heat until soup is heated through. 

8. Serve with sour cream. 

Bon Appetit 

Wedding Stationary

Happy Saturday dolls!

Today I wanted to share with the intrigued bride to be's, stationary lovers and organisational freaks (I fit into all of the above categories) my perfect wedding stationary.

Let me start by saying that I did not go crazy and purchase wedding things as soon as I got engaged, to be honest with you I want to savour every moment of being engaged, lusting over my perfect wedding and planning every little detail as let's be honest you are only engaged for a little while. However it is no secret that pretty little wedding details pop up and innocently surprise us, this is when you need somewhere  to put all of your pieces and great ideas together ready for your wedding timeline of purchasing and creating.

One fine Sunday I was innocently strolling through Robina Town Centre and came across Kikki k only my most favourite stationary stores. I wandered around landing up at the wedding section and at first glance fell in love with this wedding notes book.

If you have no idea where to start with your wedding planning this is the notebook for you. It features a wedding countdown checklist and tabs for budget, guests, stationary, attire, beauty, flowers, ceremony and vows, transport, reception, venue, cake and caterer, entertainment, photography, gifts, honeymoon and miscellaneous. Within the pages the book goes into such detail and has pockets in the hard cover for things like business cards and paper samples for your invitations. This book is honestly my lifeline!!

I also purchased the everyday ballpoint pen in cute which is bright and fun. I prefer to write with the same size ball point and ink throughout something special to keep it looking nice and consistent throughout, not to mention this baby is refillable!

You can purchase the ball point pen in cute Here and the wedding notes book Here

I really hope you all loved this post on wedding planning and stationary in general. Please leave a comment with anything you would like to see on the blog whether it be organisation or wedding related, also if you have found that perfect wedding organiser and where your purchased it.

Lots of love

- Jacqueline xoxo