A Day Out At Bicester Village + my Kate Spade purse

Waking up at 9:30 this morning, I was excited for the day ahead - my first time at Bicester Village, a designer outlet situated in Oxford. My mum, two brothers and myself bundled ourselves in to the car and the 1.5 hour car journey began...

We spotted this very freaky figure on our way 

Walking in to Bicester Village

Bicester Village is a very cute little place. Most of the shops are shaped like little houses. 
The only problem was that it was very busy - due to it being Bank Holiday Weekend - with many people queuing up outside eagerly waiting to get inside the shops. 

My brothers who tagged along found it very boring as all we ended up doing was going from one women's shop to another! In the end, I was pretty bored too, as it was so busy it was almost impossible to relax and enjoy the experience! We stayed for a couple hours, ate at Busaba Eathai and then headed back home! And boy am I glad to be home for once! 

I did pick up a little thing on the way though..

I was excited to visit the Kate Spade store, as I've seen their items online but they're very hard to get hold of in the UK. I've been looking for a card purse for the longest time and when my mum spotted this one I knew I had to snap it up! I

The cute box it comes in

I also love the size of this, it's very small and holds all of my cards

The front of the purse

Inside of the purse

My favourite thing about this is the colours. It's times like this I wish I had a better camera because my phone doesn't pick up the gorgeous colours. From the pictures you can tell the front of the purse is a lovely bright pink and the inside a fluorescent orange colour. This is definitely a very bright and funky piece - a nice alternative to the usual dull colours some purses come in. I *think* this is the 'Meaghan' purse as that's what the label said but looking online I can't find the purse in the same colour I have. 

And as it was from Bicester of course it was reduced. The original price was £65.00 but it was in the outlet for £39.00 which is still pretty expensive but I thought I'd treat myself after my GCSE results! 

Also sorry about the lack of pictures of Bicester Village itself, it was so busy it was hard to take decent pictures :( 

Thanks for reading. Please take out a couple seconds of your life and leave me a comment below ; ) 

Maryam 

Twitter: @dimples4evr
Instagram: @m4ryam


: )

My current favourite Mascara - YSL Waterproof Purple Mascara

Last month, my aunty, mum and I hit Oxford street, when we stumbled in to House of Fraser and came across this beauty in the Summer sale. I love checking out high end beauty sales because you can find great products for great prices (well, not as overpriced as they originally are) 

The mascara tube looks like this. I actually spent half an hour trying to get a good picture myself but the iPhone camera does not do this thing justice! Here, I had to 'borrow' a picture from the John Lewis website. I also could not find a decent picture of the purple so here is the black. 

Here are some creepy eye pictures showing the mascara before and after application:

Before mascara application! 

Post Mascara application

I love the way the purple colour makes brown eyes 'pop' as they all say, but I really do find that purple is such a lovely shade not only on brown but almost every eye colour. 

The mascara itself is very lengthening. It's not as volumising but I love the overall effect it gives. I also love that it does not clump my lashes together because I HATE that look!! (On me anyway) 

I applied some top winged top liner, I love this overall look. 

If you have brown eyes I would definitely recommend a purple mascara to you. It's a different and more exciting take on the usual black mascara. 

All the pictures were taken with flash as it is curently very dark and the colour only shines through lots of light - perfect for Summer. 

It is also waterproof which makes it longer lasting but also harder to take off. It comes off easily with an oil based cleanser but not so much with a water based one. 

I bought mine for around £15 at House of Fraser on Oxford Street, reduced from £23. 

It's not a massive reduction but better than nothing right? ; ) 

My favourite thing about blogging is reading your comments, so please leave me a comment in the section below. Let me know what you think of the purple mascara and what your current favourites are!

Thank you for reading

Maryam 

: )

Reminiscing: Two days in London with Tayyibah.

Last month on Wednesday 3rd July my good friend Tayyibah and I met at Picadilly Circus, excited for the afternoon ahead as we had never hung around together in London before. From Picadilly Circus, we walked to Selfridges, where Tayyibah experienced her very first Pinkberry! 

Yummy *drools*  Tayyibah's Mango flavour on the left and my Strawberry flavour in the right

I think it's safe to say she enjoyed it... I hope you did if you're reading this Tayy : ) While walking to Selfridges we also popped in to a couple of shops to check out the last of the Summer sales. 

From Selfridges, feeling lazy we caught the tube to Leicester Square and headed to M&M's world - which was my first time there. It was overwhelming and the scent of M&M's just oozed throughout the whole store. I saw some amazing mugs, PJ's and chocolates, but they were so overpriced I decided to leave it. My highlight of visiting the MnM's store would probably be getting whacked in the nose by a giant MnM! 

From MnM's world we checked out the Trocadero, and had so much fun in there. We started off playing Air hockey (we drew by the way ; )) 

Then we got more competitive in a car racing game... You wouldn't believe we were a couple of girls if you had heard us.. haha : ) 

I also couldn't quite believe that Tayyibah had beaten me by just a fraction of a second!!!

I am Player Two and Tayyibah is Player 1 :( 

After feeling pretty exhausted from the Trocadero, Tayyibah treated me to a Costa, and we sat in Leicester Square for a while when we spotted this very ordinarily dressed man with a very extraordinary triangular shaped 'thing' in his head. If you zoom in to this picture, you'll see what I mean ; ) 

We relaxed in Leicester Square for a while and planned to meet up again the next day

 

Selfies! 

We actually did end up meeting the next day. This time we met up at St. Paul's station as I was working just round the corner from that station. We took the Central Line straight to Stratford, I was amazed at how fast we reached Stratford. From St Paul's, the journey was around 15 minutes. I was excited as it was my first time at Stratford Westfield and Tayyibah and I made it our mission to cover the whole of the shopping centre - which we actually managed to do. 

We came across some very annoying perfume sales assistants & awkward Hollister bags but overall it was a lovely day, we both nabbed ourselves a few bargains and managed to get from one end to the other ; ) 

Westfield Stratford is a lovely mall, with a lot of shops that you can't get around most of the UK. Here is a random picture of the station connecting to the mall (I think?) and mainly snapped it due to Tayyibah's obsession with moustaches (now that sounds weird doesn't it!?) Haha..

Overall we both had fun, exploring London together, lots of walking, shopping and eating ; ) I think next time we will hit Westfield Shepherds Bush as Tayyibah hasn't been there. What do you think Tay? ; ) 

Until next time...

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What have you guys been up to this Summer?

Maryam 

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Moi: @Dimples4evr

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x

My Eid Day: Thursday 8th August 2013

With each year that Eid comes around, there's always the confusion of which day it is on. Since my family follows Saudi Arabia we celebrated Eid on Thursday. Even though some of my relatives/friends did not celebrate on the same day I hope everyone had/has an amazing day. Eid is supposed to be a happy time so let's not quarrel just because we are celebrating Eid on different days ; ) 

Every year, Eid is pretty much the same in my family. My brothers and father get up early to pray the Eid Salaah, when they come back I'm still doing my hair and makeup! My mum is in the kitchen making the 'Semiya' and 'Halwa' while the rest of us scoff our faces with sweet treats!

This year we were all up early which was a huge change considering our very bad sleeping patterns during Ramadan. My brother and cousin had stayed up all night - crazy nutters! ; ) 
At 10am, we left our parents at home and headed off to my uncle's house, where we would spend the rest of the day. 

There's nothing much exciting to tell you, other than spending 90% of Eid on the trampoline, playing different games - including dodge ball with about 10 of us on the trampoline at the same time and generally having a fun, chilled Eid. And of course Eid would not be the same without the FOOD! Just like every year, we had the brown rice, Samosas, Kebabs, Spring rolls, roasts etc etc. Dessert was great too, my brother made a fab chocolate cake and my aunty made a Victoria sponge and carrot cake. 

Victoria sponge (front) & Carrot cake (back) 

This was my Eid outfit. Just a simple crochet/knit dress, cardigan, black jeans and tan studded wedges, I don't normally do the whole Asian clothes look as my family is so small, nobody dresses up that fancy (apart from the little kids). All the boys looked dapper (MashaAllah) in their blazers and shirts. 

Sorry about the picture quality - bad lighting and my iPhone

My younger brother using his calligraphy set to write Eid cards :)

I hope you all had a lovely Eid! Please comment below letting me know what you did/what was the highlight of your day?

Thanks for reading.

Maryam

Twitter: @Dimples4evr

Instagram: @m4ryam

First Post!

Hello there humans, 

This is my very first blog post with hopefully many more to come *fingers crossed* people will actually mull over my nonsense ;) 
My blog will be a whole mashup of beauty, fashion, food, travel etc etc. This is just my personal space to ramble on about things I'm loving, recipes, my hobbies and other exciting stuff. 

I hope you will take the time to follow my blog or leave comments - they would make my day, especially knowing I'm not just rambling on to myself :)

You can follow me on Twitter or Instagram for daily/weekly updates

Thank you for reading!

Maryam