My Top Three Musicals | Lifestyle

My blogging schedule is all over the place this week, and I apologise for that! I'm not very well right now, I've come down with a chest infection which combined with my asthma has meant that I've not been able to do much more than lounge around on the sofa, wrapped up in a blanket, watching TV. In an attempt to perk myself up a bit yesterday afternoon, I decided to listen to all my favourite songs from the musicals I love and it gave me the idea for today's post.

I have loved musicals for as long as I can remember which probably stemmed from my love of Disney movies... I used to love singing along whilst watching (I still do, of course! I'll be a huge Disney fan forever). I think the first musical I watched was The Wizard of Oz and I was around 5 years old. After that, I was hooked and would watch any musical movie that was on TV. Who remembers watching Joseph and the Tenchicolour Dreamcoat around Christmas time? One of the many things I love about the time of year are all the festive movies & musicals aired on TV :) Well, before I get carried away, here's a list of my favourite musicals...

Cats the Musical 

Cats is my most favourite musical ♥ It's just fantastic! It's a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber & T.S. Eliot and is based on T.S. Eliot's book 'Old Possoms Book of Practical Cats'. I first watched it on TV when I was 8 years old, and I remember dancing around the living room pretending to be a cat and attempting to copy some of the gymnastics! I think the makeup & costumes are awesome. My favourite songs from the musical are Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat and Mr.Mistoffelees, and I'll likely name my own cats one day after them! I finally got to see the musical live this year with my best friend on 15th July. It was beyond amazing! It was originally performed in 1981 so they added a few new songs, but I still loved it! Me & my friend sat right at the front, and whenever the performers came on and off stage they would interact with me! I was so lucky! :)

Little Shop of Horrors

I love the sci-fi, horror & hints of comedy theme of this musical & Audrey II is a great character! The songs are awesome, and one of my favourites to sing in the shower :D haha. Seymour Krelborn (played by Rick Moranis) is an adorable guy and I love all the scenes when he's raising the plant and struggling to deal with all attention and popularity once the plant is noticed. Steve Martin (well known for his role as the dad in Cheaper by the Dozen) is also in the musical. He is Orin Scrivello, an evil crazy dentist and even though his character is mean, I've always found him attractive! My favourite song in this musical is Skid Row. I would love to watch a big stage performance of it. I once saw it at my local library theatre and they did a great job of re-creating Audrey II. 

Lion King the Musical 

I went to see this fantastic musical on 4th April 2013 at the Palace Theatre in Manchester with my mum, and it was truly breathtaking. It was even more of an amazing experience because it was my first time watching a live musical, and what an incredible first musical! The costume designs were the best I've ever seen... they managed to bring the African savanna and its wildlife to life on stage. The performers had magnificant masks and wooden animals incorporated into their costumes, which moved as they did! I especially loved the cheetah ♥ I'll go back and see it again every chance I get. The music for Lion King the Musical was also wonderful! It actually made me cry at one point :) (I'm really overemotional; crying is practically my default response to almost any situation!). They sang some of the old classics that we all adore, but also new songs. I really recommend going to see this musical whenever you get the opportunity. Oh, and my favourite song is Grasslands Chant. 

I hope you all enjoyed my ramblings about my favourite musicals. 

 ♥

Who else loves them? Which is your favourite?

Birthday Celebration Outfit | Fashion

I had such an awesome night on Friday! My best friend & I celebrated our 23rd birthdays with a joint party. Our lovely friend helped us plan our night and since he studies at UCLan University & lives in Preston City, which has a great night life scene, we started the celebrations at his place. He always hosts the best pre-drinks, which never fail to get everyone in the partying spirit! It was also great to meet two of his friends from Preston and with an awesome playlist and lots of drinking games, the five of us had a fantastic time. Afterwards, we all headed to my favourite nightclub in Preston, The Warehouse. I have a very varied music taste and each floor in this nightclub plays a different genre (Rock & Emo, Pop and Indie) which is fun! It has a great atmosphere and the majority of people who go there are friendly so I'd really recommend going for a night out at The Warehouse if you're ever staying in Preston. It has been a while since I'd gone on a night out so I'll just say I got very merry, but it was all worth it and I thoroughly enjoyed my night :)

So anyhow, here's what I wore on Friday...

(1) Dress from Yours Clothing

(2) Boots from Deichmann

(3) Leggings from Select Fashion

(4) Lipstick by Maybelline New York

(5) Cardigan from Yours Clothing

Being plus size, I used to find it difficult to get pretty dresses that were not too pricey and both fit comfortably and made me feel great, until I discovered Yours Clothing. I absolutely love their clothes, especially all the different styles and colours of dresses they have available. My favourite type of dress is the skater dress, so this purple sleeveless skater dress caught my eye as soon as I saw it! I also really like the lace detail on the dress and the feel of the material it is made from. I've had the boots for a while now (purchased last year) to wear for nights out at uni. I don't wear heels because I have weak ankles & I'm ridiculously clumsy, so I don't want to risk injuring myself! I have too many pairs of these simple black leggings from Select, and they are more suited for chilly nights or cold times of year because the material is quite thick. The lipstick is from the Maybelline Colour Sensational range, and the shade is called Plum Passion (365). It's a lovely colour and even though it's more of a pink than a purple, it still went well with my dress. And lastly, the cardigan is nice, buttonless and not too thick so I didn't feel too warm in the nightclub. 

Thanks for reading everyone!

♥

Who else loves Yours Clothing? What's your favourite Maybelline Colour Sensational shade? 

My Best Friend ♥

If you read yesterday's post, you'll know that me & my best friend Jess are having a joint celebration for our birthdays this year. It's so exciting....we haven't been able to celebrate our birthdays together in what seems like forever since I'd have to move back to uni around this time for the last 3 years, so it's been great spending so much time together now that I've graduated. Another reason why this year feels so special is because we have now been best friends for 10 years! We met in high school; we were in the same set and shared our lessons together and once we started hanging out in Year 8, we were inseparable!

Time has flown by so fast & I have so many awesome memories!  I have to thank the band 'Busted' for the start our friendship. Back at the beginning of high school, everyone loved Busted! Who was your favourite member? We had a mutual love for Matt Willis :) Jess had a Busted keyring on her school bag, which gave me the inspiration to start a conversation with her about the band & this was enough for 13 year old me to decide this girl was going to be my new bestie, hahaha! We soon found out that we basically had the same interests in almost everything and we were both shy kids wanting to express ourselves and go against the social norms around us! We brought out a confidence in one another & began to explore more things. Meeting her was truly one of the greatest things that ever happened to me ♥

 At 14, we were both in love with My Chemical Romance & Green Day (but to be honest, I'm still in love with Green Day!). This is when we discovered our alternative side and started to hang out with a massive group of people every weekend. Together, we met lots of awesome friends & had great fun; I have so many amazing memories of this time and for both of us, it was when we 'found ourselves'. It sounds so cheesy but it's true, our personalities really blossomed back then! On November 11th 2007 we went to see My Chemical Romance & Mindless Self Indulgence in Newcastle with Jess' mum and our friend Emma, and it was my first ever concert. One of my favourite memories from high school was the first time I went abroad. In 2008, we went on a trip to Belgium & France with our GCSE History class and it was a fantastic, yet emotional, trip since we visited the monuments and tributes to WW1. Me, Jess and Emma shared a room throughout the trip and it was just such a great experience that I will never forget. 

The end of high school was another very emotional time! After spending 4 years together every day, we were going to different colleges and it was so scary to think about not being together. Since I wanted to work with animals, I went to an agricultural college outside of my hometown whilst all my friends went to the local college. I remember towards the end of the summer holidays, we were hanging out in the park with a group of our friends and we were sitting listening to Jess' iPod and like most best friends, we have a song that we have coined 'our song'. With the iPod on shuffle, our song came on & we started crying as though we would never see each other again! It was so dramatic, but we were so apprehensive about the change. I don't know what we were scared about! It's been 6 years since we left school & although during that we've had very busy lives, made new friends and studied at different universities, we've always been there for one another through all our struggles, heartbreaks and life's general up's and down's, and we are even closer than ever now! ♥

I know this post is something more personal than I've posted before, but I just wanted to share with you all how much my best friend means to me. I hope you've enjoyed reading & seeing the mixture of new and old photographs. Bring on tonight! I'm so excited! 

Thankyou for reading!

♥

What's one of your favourite memories you have with your best friends?

Do you have an 'our song'? 

Little Shopping Trip | Haul

So yesterday I went to my local shopping centre with my mum to have a look around and to pick up a few things I wanted. It was nice to get out of the house because I haven't been feeling very well for the last few weeks, and I also had a nasty chest infection >.< so I've been wrapped up indoors, spending most of my time watching movies & catching up on TV shows. Luckily, the weather was nice for most of the day and I came home feeling happy with what I'd bought. My main agenda for the shopping trip was to get a new lipstick that goes well with the purple dress I've bought for my birthday celebrations and as you can see in the photo above, I looked at ALOT of different shades! I went into Debenhams looking for MAC lipsticks, but they didn't have any :( I also looked in Boots & Superdrug, and eventually decided on a lovely plum shade by Maybelline. I promised myself that I'd explore using more lipstick colours this year and other than red, I've never worn any bold colours like this, but my friends liked it on me so I'm excited to start wearing it. It's called Plum Passion.

My shopping budget was not as much as I'd have liked because most of my money is going towards the birthday celebration I have planned for this Friday. Me and my best friend are having a joint birthday party, which is exciting! We've been friends for so long & have never thought of having one big celebration for the both of us but with her birthday being only a week before mine and the fact that this is the first year we've been able to spend our birthdays together since I left for uni 3 years ago, it seems like a great idea! 

Whilst I was out shopping, I also got to see one of my closest friends who was popping into town to meet his brother and decided to join us for dinner at El Greco's cafe. For anyone who lives in and around my hometown, this cafe has always been one of the best. I remember going there with my mum when I was little, and also as a teenager with my friends. I had chips & a bacon sandwich, it was delicious! It was lovely to have a catch up with my friend and chat about how excited we both are for this Friday!

After saying goodbye to my friend, me & my mum went to the market :) I love markets! I really enjoy looking around all the little stalls and finding things that I wouldn't in the shopping centre. I was looking for another birthday present for my best friend but I can't tell you all what I got yet because she reads my blog (Hi Jess!) From the market, I picked up this adorable mystical hare magnet, a dragonfruit scented yankee candle, some cheap purple nail vanish in preparation for Halloween & some map postcards showing some of the towns in the county of Lancashire (where I live)...  map postcards are very popular when swapping postcards with people from other countries :) I always have to get my rabbits a treat when I go to a market; they'll be very happy with these banana chips ♥

Lastly, I couldn't go shopping without having a nosey at all the Halloween stuff! The £1 stores seem to be as excited as I am about Halloween approaching! As soon as autumn begins, I'm constantly thinking about Halloween. It's my favourite holiday of the year, and you can get so many cute things. I got some pumpkin tinsel to put up somewhere in my bedroom to add to the autumn decorations that I already have up. I spotted this Candy Corn scented yankee candle in Clintons. It smells yummy, but not as yummy as the pumpkin gingerbread I got at Morrisons!

  

I had a great day shopping yesterday and spending time with my mum :)

 Hope you're all enjoying your day, wherever you are & whatever you're doing.

  ♥

Did anyone else go shopping this week? What did you buy?