#LauraAshleyCrafts blogger event!

On the weekend I headed down for a weekend of shopping and blogging in Bristol, it's only 2 hours on the train from Plymouth and when a blogger event comes up that isn't in London, then a) it's a miracle and b) something that cant be missed! Joe Blogs Network organised the event, you've probably spotted @joesbloggers on your twitter feed at some point, they are a great network for bloggers and have lots of fab opportunities and events always in the pipeline, I've always had to turn down invites before as the locations of the events have been too far for me to travel. However, this time I was in luck, and a day of crafting with Laura Ashley and their beautiful fabrics and wallpapers were in store for me and all of the other lovely bloggers that attended the event.

The event was held at At Bristol which is like a massive science museum really, so much fun and definitely worth a visit if you ever get a chance. 

I headed into the lift and was transported upstairs to the room that the event would be held in. It was such a great venue, and I had fun as soon as I stepped into the lift, does my head look big in this? We were greeted by the Joe Blogs team, Laura Ashley and The Crafty Hen who organise crafting workshops and were running the #LauraAshleyCrafts workshop for the day. 

The first bit of crafting for the day was decorating a notebook with Laura Ashley summer fabrics and wallpapers, and adding embellishments with all the other pretty ribbons and buttons that they had laid out for us.

 The Crafty Hen team were on hand to guide us through each step and to step in and help with any tricky techniques!

 I've never seen a room full of so many pretty 'Laura Ashley' esque dresses, there was a quick rush to the fabrics to choose which ones we wanted for our notebooks, it was one of those bees swarming to the honey pot moments!

 I opted for pink (of course!) stripey fabric and a lovely floral wallpaper, as well as the cutest pastel pink buttons.

 The bloggers were all hard at work, doing their thing - Instagramming, chatting and crafting!

 My finished notebook!  I added a little corsage to it that I made with a simple running stitch on some lacy ribbon and attached some ribbon onto the notebook too, I think it looks so cute and is very 'me', I'd like to think I would resemble something pastel coloured if I was an object.

 I think its definitely going to be my new blogging notebook, I have so much catching up on blogging to do!

All of the bloggers finished notebooks, so many pretty pastels and florals, and I love everyone's different takes on decorating their notebook. There were also Laura Ashley prizes for the most creative notebook and accessory!

We had a quick break for lunch and we were then onto creating Suffolk puff accessories! They are sooo easy to make and you really didn't need any previous sewing skills to make these.

We were all fully immersed in crafting, I absolutely love crafts but with work/blogging and every day life I just don't have any time to enjoy it anymore so it was amazing to be given the opportunity to have a day devoted to it, with the help of Laura Ashley and The Crafty Hen!

 I made this adorable suffolk puff brooch which is just the cutest, I love the matching ribbon and button! It will take pride of place on my notice board where I keep all of my blogging bits to look back on. Some bloggers made some fantastic hair pieces which would definitely not have looked out of place in their hair at the races!

Having the pleasure to use such beautiful fabrics and wallpaper was generous enough, it was so kind of them to also  put together a little goody bag for us each to take home, which contained a lovely soap and hand cream stand and their catalogue, my mum was ecstatic when I also brought her home some of the leftover Laura Ashley material! 

It was then time for a group picture with everyone and I left with a big smile on my face having made some more blogging friends and had the chance to use some beautiful materials to get creative with! A massive thank you again to Joe Blogs Network, Laura Ashley and The Crafty Hen for such a fabulous crafternoon and for inviting me along! Laura Ashley have also written a great blog post on the day too that you can view here. It wouldn't have been the same without meeting all of these other lovely bloggers too, I'm really looking forward to more events like this in the future, that are slightly closer to home! Did you attend this event? (Link me up to your post if you did, I would love to have a read!) Do you like Laura Ashley fabrics? Would you have a go at making these things?

Follow me on Bloglovin , Twitter , Instagram

St Helen's Farm - Why not give Goats' a go?

A few weeks ago I was sent this amazing hamper full of St Helens Farm goats milk products*. Goats' milk products are something that I have never tried but also something I had heard a lot about in relation to helping your digestive system. With someone that does suffer from digestive problems I was really excited to try out the full range from St Helens farm. The reason these products are much better for your stomach than cows milk is because they contain easily digestible fats and proteins, they are lower in lactose (something in dairy products that is usually the main suspect in digestive issues), it also has many other health benefits, to name a few it's naturally lower in cholesterol, a good source of key vitamins and blood pressure friendly. If the benefits alone don't make you decide to give goats a go I don't know what will!

It arrived in the cutest cool bag, definitely going to proudly use this for picnics in the summer!

The hamper also came with its own little goatee beanie baby awww! I thought this was the cutest touch,  I still have a basket full of beanie babies I used to collect when I was younger, anyone else?!

The packaging is just super!

St Helens Farm whole, semi-skimmed and skimmed cartons of fresh goats' milk *

Milk is something I use every day for breakfast to make my porridge. In the past I thought dairy really was causing me problems so I switched to soya milk for about 2 years, I really didn't notice much difference and if you aren't used to it soya has a really unusual and acquired taste. With the goats' milk I didn't notice much difference in taste at all, I felt the taste was much purer and less sweeter than cows milk. If you're looking to switch from cows milk I would recommend goats' milk over soya milk any day, when I switched to soya I also worried about not getting enough calcium too and with this I didn't have to worry about that.

St Helens farm delicious flavoured yoghurts*

I'm not too much of a fan of flavoured yoghurts but found these delicious, especially the blossom honey! They are much thicker than dairy yoghurts and helped fill me up for longer. Needless to say I just cant get enough of their gorgeous packaging!

St Helens farm natural and fat free yoghurts*

I eat natural yoghurt every day anyway as it's such a good probiotic for your stomach, I definitely recommend anyone to have a spoon a day if you have digestive problems, it really helps to line the stomach. This was one of my least favourite products as to me it just tasted a bit unusual, but then it is one of those things that you have to adjust to and get used to the taste, it's just like switching to anything though that is a healthier alternative.

St Helens Farm Goats cheese*

The cheese went down particularly well in my house and I love nothing more than some cheese and crackers as a snack! The thing I noticed most about the goats milk products is that everything is a lot whiter in colour. The cheese itself has a lovely smooth and fresh taste, the mature cheese has a much stronger flavour so either one of these is suited for peoples preferred taste.

St Helens Farm Goats butter and spreadable goats cheese*

I usually stick to a normal spread for my bread etc and haven't used butter for a long time! I really enjoyed trying out the goats' butter, it didn't have any strong taste to it at all and would definitely use it again. The spreadable goats' cheese is a great alternative to Dairylea which is a cows milk version, it has a great texture and is very similar in taste to the cheese itself.

So, what was our overall opinion on trying Goats milk products? Myself and my whole family loved testing out all of the St Helens Farm goats milk products. From the moment the hamper arrived I fell in love with the beautiful packaging, with the bright colours and cute iconic goat picture. I definitely did have misconceptions before about trying goats' milk products and had an image of it tasting farmy (if you know what I mean?!) in my head, how wrong could I be! I loved all the products, especially the milk, flavoured yoghurts and hard cheese. I didn't have as many digestive problems as normal but would need to keep it in my diet for a bit longer to give definite results. St Helens Farm really has changed my view about goats' milk products and I will definitely be repurchasing in the future, the benefits of these products are commendable, but does not in any way deter from the great taste of the products!

Would you give goats' milk products a go? What alternatives have you tried to dairy products? Do you like their packaging?

*Products marked with an asterix (*) have been sent to me for review. However, all opinions in this post are 100% my own

Follow me on Bloglovin , Twitter , Instagram

How to save money in all aspects of your life!

You might remember my top 10 money saving tips whilst at uni, well I thought I would do an updated post on saving money as they always seem to be popular posts! Even though I now work full time and don't have the money worries like I used to I still do love a good bargain or discount, I mean you all know how much I love my Primark clothing hauls! Being a student opens the doors to Unidays which has a whole host of amazing discounts for some of my favourite shops, unfortunately all good things do come to an end and I'm still getting to grips to losing my student discount.. But don't despair as there are lots of other ways that you can save money to help your money go that bit further and to be able to enjoy everything in life at a discounted rate!

Shopping online - I absolutely love voucher code websites and will always find myself searching for ones before going through with an order as you will normally always find one voucher code floating about the web! I came across VoucherBin quite recently and it is one of the best voucher codes website out there as it contains lots of different categories for codes such as clothing websites, hotels, travel and so many more, you can also easily search different things that you are looking for and you will almost always stumble across a code. Websites such as VoucherBin really do makes our lives so much easier as you can find it all in one place and I have saved a fair amount of money with using websites like these. It's an easy way to save with online discounts and it doesn't exclude anyone unlike student discount codes which I can no longer use (*sobs*), thank god that VoucherBin still exists though!

Eating out - I am such a foodie and I love eating out and trying out new restaurants. An app that I use on my phone for certain deals like this is Vouchercloud and one which I mentioned in my last money saving post and still use now. The app on my phone is so easy to use and there is always a number of different codes for restaurants in the area, being an app it's so easy to find a code whilst you're out and about and even tells you the offers available in your local area. Needless to say it's best if you go during the week as vouchers usually aren't valid on the weekend. Many other restaurants also do great deals during the week during their quiet periods, off the top of my head Revolutions and Slug and Lettuce do a massive 50% off food on Mondays and on some days also do 2 for 1 desserts, shop around online before you go and there is always great offers during the week like this. There really isn't many times I go to a restaurant and pay full price nowadays! It's also worth following restaurants on twitter as they almost always run retweet competitions on a Friday, I've won a few so its definitely worth entering!

Buying a house - Since finishing university I am back living at home which is great, but not something I want to do forever, I'm still only 22 but I am already thinking about saving up for a house. These days mortgages are so hard to get and as for deposits you need at least 10% of the cost of a house so we are talking £10,000 and above in most cases, which is a lot of money (and designer handbags) !! I actually read about a scheme in the newspaper a few weeks ago called the Help-To-Buy scheme which is being introduced shortly and is designed to help young buyers get onto the housing ladder. In short it's an Isa (aka savings account) that you set up to save money in specifically for a house deposit, for every £200 that you save for a deposit the government will add a further £50 and depending on how much you save they could add up to and additional £3000, which you will receive when your first buy a house (you don't receive it if its for another purpose) and it's the same for each individual person, so if a couple both save for the house they can both gain the free money from the government. Like I said I'm not planning to move out for a while yet but this scheme would be too good to miss out on, even if you just put a small amount away to start with it's a great way to start saving for a deposit, and lets face it everyone loves free money!

Travel - It's getting to that time of the year when everyone is booking their holidays or jetting off on Easter holidays and we always try to save as many pennies along the way as we can. Most people usually do go with travel agents to book holidays and although some last minute deals are complete bargains if you don't mind organising everything separately then you should do so independently because it can work out a lot cheaper. Skyscanner is something I use a lot for flights, it's a bit like comparethemarket but for flights, and you don't get a cute meerkat for doing so! Sites like Groupon also do some amazing holiday deals which include flight and hotel packages, they are limited availability so it is best to book as soon as you see it. The picture above is just an idea of one of the amazing deals they actually do, it's well worth a look if you're looking for a cheap city break. In relation to foreign currency I would really recommend getting a travel card, Caxtonfx is one that I used when I lived in Finland, it was so easy to top up straight from my English bank account and you get a much better exchange rate than if you went into a travel agent or the post office meaning you get more for your money!

I think that's the main aspects of life covered in this post, shopping, eating out, buying a house and travel! Every little really does help whether you're a uni student, on a budget or a full time worker - great deals like these mean that you can basically still have your cake and eat it!

What do you think of my money savings tips? Do you have any other tips to save money?

Follow me on Bloglovin , Twitter , Instagram

OOTD | Waterfall coat

Coat - Jovonnista

Jeans - Topshop

Shirt - George at Asda

Shoes - Office

Sunglasses - Guess Via TKmaxx

This seasons clothes are some of my absolute favourites! I am obsessed with waterfall style coats, and whilst this is also a trench coat that I picked up last year, undone it acts as a waterfall style jacket, I am loving the khaki and black ones in the shops too. They are the perfect lightweight cover up for this time of the year despite it still being freezing!! This shirt is another bargain buy from Asda that I picked up a few weeks ago, it's the perfect pastel coloured floral shirt for spring and it's great for wearing to work too with a smart skirt. Oh and these lace ups have not left my feet by the way! I've just spotted a very similar pair on the Primark Instagram page which are probably a 1/3 of the price so its definitely worth checking them out if you don't fancy forking out for a pair like these!

What do you think of this outfit? Do you like waterfall jackets? Do you shop at Asda for clothes?

Follow me on Bloglovin , Twitter , Instagram