My Bag Addiction - Current Favourites from the Wardrobe!

I have a confession. I am addicted to bags. It's a problem I have which has been steadily growing over time but I fear I may soon be headed towards an intervention. My shoe collection, conversely, is probably much more modest than most, I have two or three sets of heels, some trainers and some flats, which is fairly practical right? But my bag collection on the other hand is a vice, it's overgrowing, so I may need to move into larger premises if I don't get a handle on it soon! I basically turn into a magpie when I see a good bag (much to Trig's dismay as he's dragged on an impromptu shopping trip) because accessorising is what makes an outfit! A good bag can give a new lease of life to a dress you've worn too many times instantly, and it can make all the difference when its coordinated right.

Here are a few of my most recent favourite bits of arm candy.

1. Light Blue Bag - Primark £5.99 - I bought this a few months ago and I love the baby blue colour! Currently jazzing it up a bit with a scarf tied round the handles that I got from last months 'My Little Box'. Love the fact that this bag has a mini satchel vibe going on and that it was such great value, too.

2. Flamingo Bag - Asylum, £26.99 (I bartered 10% off :) I love this because not only is it from one of my favourite local small fashion outlets, it's pretty unique and funky.

3. Peacock bag - Bought in Singapore for $50 (£25) - I saw this in a shop window and basically fell in love with it instantly and marched straight to the counter. It's shimmery and made of a plastic material, and is my current absolute favourite for jazzing up an outfit in the most effortless way. Everyone keeps asking me where I got it from, shame the boutique is thousands of miles away or I'd be back in there buying more!

4. Red bucket bag - this was free as an Estee Lauder gift after buying £40 worth of makeup in Boots. I got this offer this month - and I love this bag! I can fit everything in it, including my laptop, and it's a real rich and glossy red colour which goes really well with work outfits.

5. Accessorise bag - a gift (so no idea on the price tag!) - Trig knows how much I love bags, so he chose me this as a Christmas present! And it turns out he has good taste! Lucky me :o)

What's your worst fashion vice? x

500 followers giveaway and Blog Anniversary

Wooohoo! I've been blogging for a year now, plus The Thrifty Firecracker just reached 500 followers on Bloglovin, so I thought I'd celebrate with a giveaway. I've got a Tarina Tarantino bundle which I know one of you will love! I've been a bit of a fan of Tarina Tarantino ever since I was introduced to them through Wantable.com.

Disclaimer: this post isn't sponsored by Tarina Tarantino and I'm in no way working for them/affiliated with them. I'm just a fan! 





Tarina Tarantino Dollskin Cheek Palette (worth $45)


Personally I love the colours that come with this palette, it really allows you to go from subtle to evening, and has a great mix of pink and peach tones (I love a good peach blusher!) I have two of these now so I'm more than happy to give one away so that someone else can get the benefit from it too! Plus it's really wearable and lasts for ages :)


From their website: 

This silky powder blush imparts skin with a natural glow with true color payoff that wears all day long! This formula has micronized powders (also known as “HD” or “High Definition”) which blend over skin evenly and easily. These 4 beautiful shades are housed in an incredibly luxe gunmetal casing with an iconic Tarina design detailing.


And to add to that, I've also got a Tarina Tarantino Eyelicity Glitter Liner (worth $16) too!


I love a bit of glitter liner to add a bit of sparkle to your eyes on nights out :)

From their website:


This Eyelicity Glitter Liner is a micro-glitter liner saturated with a burst of pigmented color that gives you lustrous sparkling eyes on days you want to be a little glamorous! This amazing formula is long-lasting and quick-drying once set. It is also smudge resistant and will keep the gorgeous glitter on your eyes and not your cheeks!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck! x

Giveaway Directory

New Blog Design! And Brighton adventures..

So I've decided to streamline my blog by adding pages along the top bar to separate out my posts, seeing as I blog about various topics. I'd love to know what you think!

I happened to come across an amazing blog designer on Twitter called Trisarahtops Smiles, who did me a swift re-design for £20!! I'm so happy with it - it's pretty much exactly what I wanted and she managed to work that out without much prompting from me either, which must either make her a psychic or a genius. Anyway, I would recommend you check her out - not only did she do a fab design, she also installed it for me too.

In other news, lately I've been doing a bit of travelling for work across the Country, which has enabled me to catch up with a few friends whilst I'm off the clock! Last week I covered Norwich,  Cambridge and London all over the space of four days so it was certainly an adventure. I also popped over to Brighton in between all of this for fun to see my friend Nansi, after I managed to get a cheap bus ticket on the National Express. We've been cooking up a madcap business idea that I hope to be sharing with you in the near future, which we're both very excited about. Hint; if you're a dog lover you might love this!

Anyway with business planning comes the need for creative prompts, and by creative prompts, I actually mean prosecco. We may have had some prosecco.

I helpfully forgot my ID and it turns out they ID check everyone in Brighton, so we slunk into a bar in the early evening with a lady on the door who took pity on me, and could clearly see I wasn't a teeny bopper trying to sneak in. I cheerfully ordered us a bottle of wine, and they looked a bit shocked to be honest (perhaps that doesn't happen often) and ushered us into our own booth.

Unfortunately, said bottle of wine turned out to be the worst thing we had ever tasted on earth to date, (here is me looking very sad about having to drink the offending article).

So this is where we decided to up our game and splash out on some bubbles. This practically in-sighted a fanfare from the staff, who asked us three times if we were sure we wanted it, and that we generally understood it was £35. We re-assured them repeatedly that we were okay with this, so they brought the much anticipated bubbles out with sparklers, which was good fun.

Anyway - one thing led to another and we may have accidentally ordered a third one. I can't help  but think that this decision may have affected the business planning talk somewhat.

Still, it's always nice to catch up with friends! Even if that does mean a slight headache the next day :)

Alice x

Kuala Lumpur - Unexpected Adventures

It's been quite a few weeks now since I returned from my little stint around Asia, and the all too familiar nostalgic sense of what already feels like some sort of past life carefree adventure has already piqued my deep set desire to explore the world even more. In other words, I'm itching to get out of here, but my worldly responsibilities and the voice of reason in my head reminding me that I have a tax bill to pay by the end of the month has thus far stopped me from booking some new flights. It's all far too easy when you know how to get them on the cheap! But enough about my desires for new adventures. I've yet to update properly on the last one!

Kuala Lumpur was only ever meant to be a three day stop, but it ended up being so much more. It was our crossover point between Singapore and Thailand that would be 'kind of nice to see' on the way to our island hopping adventures, but what I didn't realise when we were planning was just quite how much I would fall in love with Malaysia in such a short space of time. This has resulted in me promoting it to near the top of my travel list, in order to explore surrounding areas and Borneo too.

 We opted for an Airbnb and rented a really luxurious apartment in a condo, which barely cost us anything. One of the best things about it was its incredible view infinity pool, which was on my list of things to tick off as we traversed through a number of hotels across Asia.

Kuala Lumpur is a city undergoing a lot of regeneration, and never have I quite been in a place which looks so destitute on one street and so cosmopolitan on the next. We met a lovely man called Colin in (our new favourite) bar in Istanbul, who told us we needed to visit an Irish pub in KL called 'The Green Man'. He told us a story about the owner, a Scottish man who had been offered millions to give up the pub because they wanted to regenerate the area, but refused to budge. So effectively his little run down Irish bar was surrounded by swanky venues. It sounded perfect for us as we love little bars with character! More about this later.

The first thing that we discovered really was that the food in KL is incredible, if not a little too deep fried after a while. There aren't many vegetables in sight, but if you're only there for a few days a little indulgence isn't a bad thing! We stumbled across a restaurant called 'Opium' in a plethora of classy establishments along the lit up, newly renovated side of the city, and it ended up quite possibly being one of the best places we have ever eaten in. I'm never one to go into too much detail about food in writing, I believe you have to taste it to believe it, but you'll just have to take my word for it on this one. We ordered food of a Chinese/Malaysian fusion menu that just completely blew our little minds. Drinking beer out of a bowl also amused us greatly.

What followed this was probably some of the most 'random' and 'spontaneous' days of my life to date.  We started off by looking for this 'Green Man' establishment that Colin had told us about. We found it, but there was no sign of a Scottish man in sight, so we wandered further up the road to see what we could see.

Settling at a bar, I noticed there was a Scottish man sitting on a bar stool next to us and struck up a conversation. We'd come all this way, so I had to know if it was him! Turns out it wasn't, but he ended up telling us about his huge multi million pound water project that he was running for Shell. His name was George and he was such an interesting man, it ended up being one of those encounters that we'll probably never forget. He wiped our bar tab (despite my protests) and had the sambuca and rum on a constant supply from the bar whilst we chatted about our lives, his project, our lives in England, his family in Scotland, and his life in Malaysia. It was fascinating.

The next day, feeling a little worse for wear, we booked a tour to visit some of the local sights. Our tour guide took us to the Batu Caves, a local sacred beautiful temple. On the journey up the steps (which believe me, was not easy considering the amount of rum we had consumed the night before) we encountered quite a few monkeys, who were not shy creatures. One tried to steal my bag! We were warned that they were vicious and prone to attack, and I don't think I've ever run up so many steps that quickly before in my life.









Inside the Batu Caves, I felt really peaceful. Our tour guide really kindly took us to a few other temples on the way to our next stop, and the intricacy in their architecture was just completely stunning.





















Luckily we had a tour arranged for the evening, and met some much more friendly silver backed monkeys at that one who were more than happy to make friends in exchange for a banana or two.

Later that evening, we went on a boat ride alongside a river which was surrounded by fireflies. It was pretty magical!

The next day we visited a converted Helipad bar to try and catch the sunset. We missed it, sadly, but struck up a conversation with two really lovely people. Andrea was visiting her friend Souna from Chaing Mai, and Souna was a local who had lived in KL for the past 6 months. Our conversations ended in Souna offering to show us some local secrets, which we gladly took him up on! He took us to see some dancing lights and a water show in KL, and showed us a great spot in front of the absolutely stunning Twin Towers where we could get a picture.

By a stroke of complete luck and synchronicity, it turned out that one of my best friends from the UK and her brother had travelled to KL at the exact same time as us, on a pre adventure stop before moving to Australia for the year. We'd told them to meet us at The Green Man, and Souna and Andrea offered to walk us there. On the way, we bumped into a group of Irish people who were a bit lost and were heading a a bar right next to the Green Man, so we offered to walk with them. You can probably imagine what happened next. I'll blame it on being half Irish! Now this may be generalising, but it is widely known that the Irish, like the Scots, can really drink. The problem with KL, and equally the great thing about KL, is that the drinks are actually very reasonable. Having travelled from Singapore, where the drinks cost us the price of a small mortgage, we were really ready to take advantage of cheap beer. Julia and John joined us later and we ended up sharing travelling stories as a big group, laughing lots and just making some great new friends. They had to catch a flight at 6am the next morning - we were praying for them!

We never did find the Scottish owner of The Green Man, but thanks to Colin, we met some amazing people and created the best memories in Kuala Lumpur!

A Week in Singapore

It has always been on my dream travel list to go to Singapore. I had a friend at university who used to live there and seeing her photos was enough - but something about the small, relatively new little Country has always intrigued me. We managed to score plane tickets to Singapore (via Istanbul) and back from Bangkok for £490 each, which is unbelievably good, through the wonderful STA travel.

Singapore was therefore our first stop on our recent Asia 'tour' - we opted to spend almost a week there to recover from the jet lag and get our bearings properly. Because the Country is quite small, this allowed us plenty of time to get to know the different areas within it well. 

All I can say is - Singapore didn't disappoint. We spent the first few days exploring Chinatown, Little India, Downtown, and discovered the wonderful drinking district of Clarke Quay. We also met up with Trig's friend Theresa who lives out there (I swear he knows someone everywhere in the world!) who gave us a great local tour of street food places and took us to the best view in Singapore at the Sky Bar, and we visited the nicest little haunts. Local secrets are always great. I will say that Singapore isn't the cheapest, a few drinks in Clarke Quay can set you back a bit - roughly £9 a pint, but the atmosphere is great and if you can get past that, it's a great place to party. We saved money by drinking 2 for 1's during happy hour, between 8-10pm, although this seemed to vary right up till 2am in some places, which made it a little more bearable on the bank balance!

We learnt a lot about the way Singapore has been built and has become prosperous whilst we were there. You could really see the difference between the financial district, where Theresa informed us that the average wage was around 13k (£6000) per month, and in some of the poorer areas, where there was no minimum wage. We met a new friend in our favourite Chinatown bar (which had nothing to do with it being called 'Knobs and Knockers') who informed us that in many places in Singapore didn't have employment rights for the worker, which he knew from experience working on a market stall in Chinatown. Poverty seemed to be relatively hidden, but it seemed that there was a disparate and vast disconnection between the working class and the prosperous. It was interesting to glimpse at the two very different ends of the scale.

Another highlight was definitely the 'Alive' museum - which puts you in various different scenarios. We spent a really great afternoon here in fits of giggles.

We stayed in an Airbnb off the beaten track, which saved us lots of money, but wasn't easy to navigate around. We arrived late in the evening on our first night and google maps took us miles away from where we lived. Luckily a kind taxi driver rescued us 2 hours into our expedition, when we were on the brink of melting in the humid heat - (we British don't get any of that) and took us to the right place. Our airbnb host, Gwen, was absolutely lovely and had a beautiful home with a huge swimming pool, so we soon adapted! We then found some local eateries hidden off the beaten track, which although we were initially skeptical of, I think were much better than the main places we found in the city centre. It is certainly true that everything is very clean in SP, the fines were stern and people seemed to obey the rules. People also seemed ridiculously polite everywhere we went, too, which was really lovely.

We also visited Singapore Zoo. I never know how I really feel about zoos, though it seems to be the thing to do when you're in a new place. I felt that they did seem to really care about their animals, and had large open spaces for them to roam.  We had breakfast with the Orangutang's, and they seemed utterly unfazed around people. They also had a river safari which looked fantastic, but we had no time left to go!

On one of our last nights we took a visit up to Universal Studios in Singapore to see Halloween Horror Nights. This was absolutely amazing - with monsters and scary creatures roaming around a ghost town. People were hanging off buildings and zombies were roaming the streets. Halloween Horror Nights was split into 'zones' - from a scary clown house zone, to alien UFO abductors and scenes based on Horror movies, such as Bogeyman (complete with that all important never ending hanging clothes scene). There was a New York zone which was overrun by demons, a Forest of Disenchantment with the re-telling through screens of fairy tales with a twist, the characters are now trapped in their bad endings. We queued up for two hours to visit 'Jings Revenge' - an Asian horror themed haunted house, which takes place in a Chinese secondary school. I was jumping all over the place, Trig, however, was less easy to scare.

We opted to fly out a day later because there was a Queen tribute band at the Expo. It would have been Trig's dads birthday, it was also nearly the anniversary of his death, and his dad was probably the biggest Queen fan, so we thought it was fitting to stay. This was a really touching way to end our stay in Singapore. Though there may have been a tear shed or two we also found some fake moustaches, so all in all a great Saturday night!

Singapore, we will be back!

Have you been to this part of the world before? I would love to hear your stories!

Alice x

5 Reasons why I used to hate Christmas, and 5 reasons why I now love it

Merry Christmas!

It finally feels like the festive season! I know this because Trig and I managed to get our first Christmas tree up the other day in our flat and, within 24 hours the cat had smashed 80% of the glass baubles, all around the house. He'd hidden glass in some areas too. That was excellent.

I am being somewhat reflective this year. I have in the past been a bit of a yoyo when it comes to my feelings about Christmas, as a child, obviously, it filled me with excitement. My dad used to type up letters from Father Christmas at his work and post them through the door, and that to me was sheer evidence that he must exist, as who else in the world had a computer when I was five?

But into my teens and early 20's, there were a number of things that did used to bother me about Christmas.

1. You couldn't leave the house. No one was around and - dammit, and (God forbid) I'd have to spend time with my family and watch re runs of 'A Miracle on 34th Street'.

2. Jumpers. So many jumpers.

3. Seeing the scales and feeling guilty. Actually this one still gets me, but also the guilt that a large percentage of this world is currently starving, and I have just eaten my weight in cheese and crackers.

4. The whole extended family would come to our house on Boxing Day and there would be nowhere to run or hide, especially with a raging hangover.

5. Too many parties, too little time.

It's interesting now how the tables have turned. I genuinely do believe I might be becoming a grown up. Here's why;

1. My life is now so busy and I work a lot, so one day a year in 'housebound' mode is actually amazing.

2. We have no central heating in my flat, so, this year I actually asked for jumpers.

3. I have started to really care much less about what the scales say and more about how I feel. I do try to eat food that makes me feel good, and I'm more conscious nowadays about the nutrients I'm getting, but regardless I'll definitely be tucking into the mince pies this year.

4.  I miss those family get togethers. Took me years to realise that not everyone has their families travelling all the way to see them on Boxing Day, and now that it no longer happens. I rarely get to see them, I really really miss the yearly get together. Most importantly, now my Grandmother is older and less mobile and lives quite far away, it's so much harder to see her. I have realised that she is the linchpin that brings everyone else together, too. Food for thought.

5. All my friends who once lived in one place now live in separate parts of the Country, so once a year it's really really great to get together and be festive. Though this year, I'm attempting to do so without drinking alcohol. Lemonade can be just as fun as cava, right? Hmm.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Alice's Adventures in Istanbul

Hello,

I have been very much enjoying a month away - which means I have so much blogging to do now! My plan was to blog on the move but unfortunately my tablet helpfully self destructed, which means I now have a LOT of catching up to do.

Our first stop on our travels was Istanbul. I had heard so much about Turkey and the capital before I went, including that it was listed as one of the most beautiful places in the world. What started out as a brief stop off on our way to Singapore, actually ended up being a highlight of our trip away.

We stayed for three nights in the little district of Taxsim, which just so happened to also be the modern end of the city and its party central to boot. We opted for an Airbnb, and stayed with a lovely man called Melik and his girlfriend, who made us feel really welcome and included unlimited free tea! There are lots of cafes and bars around Taxsim square, and the area really comes alive at night. We found  solace in a little Irish bar called U2 (we didn't judge based on the name) whilst lost looking for our Airbnb, and ended up subsequently spending most of our evenings there. The bar owner was a lovely friendly Turkish man called Leo, who bought us stuffed mussels, local street food, and kept us stocked up with bar snacks. Leo generally gave us a great insight into what it was like to live in the city, and by the end of the three days we were all good friends, he even invited us back to stay with him whenever we wanted to! We also met lots of friendly Irish people, almost all of which seemed to have somehow originated from Tipperary (the same place as my Grandparents). It really is a small world.

Central Istanbul has so much to offer, including the Grand Bazaar in Sultanahmet, the Blue Mosque and the Spice Bazaar to name a few. I was really in awe of the buildings and architecture. You can do some serious shopping there too, which tons of knock off brands if that's your kind of thing, particularly around the Grand Bazaar area. Trig hated the Grand Bazaar as he said it was just full of bags and jewellery, which is conversely my idea of heaven, so we had to agree to disagree. It is absolutely huge, and to step into a side alley can easily mean hours of being lost. This reminded me a bit of the souks in Marrakech to me with the bartering and trading,  although it did seem slightly more structured. Although the drinks prices were similar to the UK, everything else seemed to be a lot cheaper and quite flexible, we found that with the exception of bars and restaurants, there often wasn't a fixed price for anything.

We really wanted to catch a Turkish show on one of our evenings but couldn't manage it. I was also very disappointed that we didn't make it to the Turkish baths! However if there's one thing I won't miss out on, that is sampling the local cuisine, and I have to admit doing so turned the whole concept of kebabs (pronounced 'kebabs' there) on its head for me. If you buy a kebab in the UK, it's usually because its 3am and you've had a heavy night drinking, followed by waking up by a greasy wrapper and a feeling of deep regret in the pit of your stomach. Not so in Istanbul. We had some amazing grilled food with incredible seasoning, which I think may have been some of the best food of the whole holiday for me!

Istanbul was just intended to be a short stop over for a few nights, that we took because it was on the way to Asia, and not necessarily to visit in its own right. However after spending the few days there, I did fall for the charm of the city and would now quite happily go back and visit Leo, do some budget shopping and eat some amazing 'kebaps' again in a heartbeat!

Alice x