Stop Invalidating Online Relationships

Hey guys! Apologies for being so quiet on here for a week or so, spoonie life was really taking it's toll on me. My insomnia was a lot worse than usual, causing me to sleep a lot of my days away and then wake up exhausted as a result of non-restorative sleep, an very stressful symptom of fibromyalgia. I was feeling so drained that I didn't get much of anything done for days, although I did get to see one of my lovely friends from university. We went for a meal together on Sunday and had a brief catch up, as she was over my way for something and wanted to see me before she headed back home. It's such a shame that we don't live close to one another! So one with today's post... 

A couple of weeks ago, I came up with the idea for this post. It was during the time that my internet was annoyingly off for a week and I was having a stressful time not being able to talk to all of my friends or check my social media. I was expressing my feelings of internet withdrawl and lonliness, and well I was faced with many irritating comments about being 'addicted' to the internet and the likes from my family. I was concerned that some of my friends would be worried that they had not heard from me at all for days, and most of my family just didn't seem to understand why I was so affected by having no internet access. 

It got me thinking about all of the times that I've heard people invalidating online relationships, both platonic and romantic, saying judgemental comments about friends made online not being 'real friends' or stereotyping the people who have online friends. It really needs to stop! It's great to have friends outside of the internet, to spend time with and share memories with, however not everyone finds making friends easy and so its wonderful that the internet connects them with like-minded people. I wanted to share this post to get people who have ever judged others for spending a lot of their time on the internet talking to their online friends, to rethink and understand that some of the greatest friendships can be made online. I know for me personally, this is definitely the case. Enjoy reading! 

There are a number of awesome things that the internet has made available to us, from educational resources to news updates to online gaming, and of course the opportunity to talk to lots of different people from all over the World. There are so many positives to this and I wanted to discuss some in this post. 

As a spoonie, a term used by people who have a chronic and/or invisible health condition, it can be difficult to get out of the house or to attend social events and such. Many people are even housebound the majority of the time. For those of us with mental and physical illnesses that can't get out as much as I'd like to, the internet offers a place for us to communicate with fellow spoonies, to chat to people who can really understand what it's like. It's great to be able to share advice and personal experiences with others, and really comforting to connect with people who we can relate to. I know for me that this has been one of the most helpful and catharic things that has helped me through tough times. I have met so many wonderful fellow spoonies, especially amongst the blogging community, and being able to be open about my struggles and chat about them with people who 'get it' has been amazing. 

There are lots of reasons that can make it difficult for people to make friends, especially with people who have shared interests, hobbies and opinions, even more so when what you're into is pretty unique. Some people may live in a remote location or they may not have been able to meet anyone with similar interests to them in their hometown. Others may be very shy or introverted or struggle with social anxiety, making communicating with people face-to-face extremely daunting. 

Online, people can search for blogs/forums/fan pages for any particular interest of theirs and through it connect with people who share their enthusium for whatever it may be. It's fantastic to find fellow hobbists who are into the same things that you are, to share tips and ideas, and meet people who appreciate what you do. The internet was fantastic for me in this regard when I was teenager. I was really interested in learning more about different cultures and languages, and wanted to find penpals to write letters with. I came across websites that allowed me to find other teens overseas who wanted to write letters too, and over 10 years later, I'm still snailmailing with two of my penpals from abroad. As well as having an interest in letter writing, I've been fascinated by postcards for as long as I can remember. I wanted to collect postcards from different countries to learn about all of the beautiful places and traditions there are out there. Via the postcrossing website and instagram, I was able to find a massive network of people who were also into this hobby. I now have a huge collection of postcards and lots of new friends! For people who are trying to learn a new language, being able to chat to people from a country that speaks the language is great too and over the internet, you can make friends whilst also practicing the language :)

Due to the my anxiety disorder, I really struggle with social interaction and find it a real challenge to miggle and chat to people if I go to events and such. This definitely hinders my ability to make new friends outside of the internet. I created this blog as an outlet, to help me focus on other things in my life that made me happy, as I was stuck at home due to my mental health and unable to get out of the house much. Blogging, and connecting with fellow bloggers with internets and hobbies similar to my own has had so many benefits for my anxiety recovery. Although I still have a long way to go, it has helped me open up about my personal struggles and has got me more comfortable conversing with people. As well as through blogging, I've also found lots of likeminded people through tumblr and some of them are now very close friends. They've also had a big influence on my anxiety and I'm so thankful to have met them :) In addition, exchanging video messages via snapchat with my online friends is helping me make steps towards overcoming my telephonophobia (read more about that here).

Something that I have found to be a pro of online friendships is that it can be easier to talk about personal and more sensitive things when you're not face-to-face. Not that you can't find people who you can chat with in person about these kinds of things, but lots of people online are more open because it's not as daunting to talk about certain topics when you can't see the other people. I have found this helpful when I am really struggling with my depression, as talking about the thoughts and feelings that are caused by mental illness can be extremely hard in person. I have online friends who also struggle with their mental health and so I can really open up them and discuss more sensitive things. This has been something thats gotten me through some of my worst days.

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll probably have seen my post last year about being into BDSM. This used to be something that I was uncomfortable sharing with people, due to it being a taboo in society and the fact that I grew up being embarrassed about people finding out what I was into in the bedroom. Over the last couple of years, I have been really trying to work on my confidence and trying to challenge some of my self-image issues. I have been learning to accept myself and my many quirks, and be more unapologetic about who I am. In doing so, I decided it was time to stop allowing societal stigma to make me feel ashamed of something that was a huge part of me, which meant being more open about both my mental health and my sexuality/sexual preferences. It was time to connect with fellow kinksters online, and for the last year or so its been a great journey of self discovery and I have made such awesome friends along the way.  

As my fellow bloggers will understand, there are lots of wonderful advantages to having online friendships. Why not utilise all of the amazing features of the internet, such as being able to connect to so many awesome and interesting people from far and wide? As I've discussed throughout this post, there are loads of reasons why some people find it so much less stressful to socialise online, and that it's not something that should be judged. Internet friends are 'real friends' just as much as the friends you meet at school or work. It doesn't matter how people met or if they have never met face-to-face... all online relationships are just as valid! I have met the most incredible people both online and offline :) It doesn't make a friendship more important because you've hung out in person. My online friends have been there for me in lots of different ways, and with the advancement of modern technology you can interect with online friends through gaming, videochatting, skype calls, etc, so you feel even more connected than ever.

The stigma against people who prefer chatting online needs to stop! It's 2017 guys! A lot of people from older generations who maybe do not understand the internet may be voicing judgemental opinions, when their true feelings come from a place of concern rather than disapproval. It can be hard for people not to worry when they watch shows or read articles about people being victim to a 'catfish' (a person who pretends to be someone they're not) online, so talking to them about who your friends are may help. However, in the majority of cases it's likely that your loved ones online friends have very active social media accounts and there's nothing to worry about. Online relationships really are marvelous and I hope others can relate to what I've said :)

Thankyou for reading!

 ♥

Have you ever heard/experienced stigma about online relationships?

Tell me about it in the comments  

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Doki Doki Box Update

Happy Saturday Everyone! Yay! It's the weekend and I'm going to be spending most of mine celebrating the Eurovision Song Contest at my friend's Eurovision-themed party!! I can't wait for tonight :) If you follow me on twitter, expect to see a lot of excitable live-tweeting, haha. I'm pretty obsessed with the show (pretty is most definitely an understatement, haha). So, for today's post I wanted to show you all the last few Doki Doki subscription boxes that I received during my blogging break. The last box I blogged about as the December one (read here), and since  then I've received three more boxes before having to cancel my subscription. I really miss getting this adorable surprise box in the post every month, especially since the boxes were really starting to improve! I keep seeing posts about the lastest boxes on social media too *insert sobbing emoji*. Anyhow, be prepared from extreme cuteness & I hope you all enjoy reading!

Each Doki Doki Box has a specific theme, and the theme for the three boxes I received are as follows, January: New Year, February: Valentine's Day, and March: Girl's Day (Hinamatsuri). Keep scrolling to find out what was inside each month's Doki Doki Box :) 

 ♥ January Doki Doki Box ♥

The January 'New Years' Box included: a Macaron Case, a Relax Panda Hand Rest, a Biscuit Pen, a Mount Fuji Hoppe Chan charm, a plush called 'Julie: Shogatsu Edition', a Nekomimi Headband, and a selection of Japanese snacks/candy. 

When I opened the box, I was greeted by a little flyer which told all of us subscribers about a problem the company had had with US Customs, as they randomly selected one of their items for checks. Originally, the box would have also included an 'Higemanju Gamaguchi Coin Purse' by Amuse, but so that there would be a big delay with everyone's boxes, Doki Doki decided to remove this remove and instead give us all some Japanese snacks. We were sent some Genji Pie Cookies, some 'Nyusankin Ikitekimasu' Yogurt Candy and some Fortune Candy. The description for the Fortune Candy sounds really fun! Each individual sweet in the packet is labelled based on different fortunes, e.g. Popularity, Health, Travel, Future and Love. When you pop out each candy, you'll reveal a shape and they've given us a little key to tell us whether the shape represents a fortune of very good, good, not good or bad. This should be interesting! The snack I'm most looking forward to trying are the Genji Pie cookies. 

I really like the Macaron Case, as it's quite big so there's a lot more options for what you can store it in. It would be a handy case to take them when I go out on a day trip or when I'm staying over at a friends house to store things in like medication, small hygiene products and make-up, etc. The Julie plushie is super cute; I love the detail of her face and even more so her little cross nose as it reminds me of the bunny character Miffy.  Julie is designed in the style of a 'Daruma' which is a traditional Japanese doll that people make wishes for their New Year on :) 

So here we have Flamey, my Charmander Build-A-Bear plush modelling my new Nekomimi Headband. It's so cute, and I think I'm going to use it as a sweatband for when I'm exercising. I love the little cat ears so much :)

 ♥ February Doki Doki Box ♥

Inside the February Doki Doki Box, which had a 'Valentine's Day' theme, there were some Totoro Chopsticks, a Chocolate Pen, a Valentine's Day Hoppe Chan charm, a Cherry Hair Clip, some Sanrio Character Fluffy Socks, a box of 'Meltykiss' Japanese Candy, and a Mango or Berry plushie. 

There were several character socks you could have recieved including My Melody and Gudetama according to the illustrations in the monthly magazine. I'm really glad I got Hello Kitty, although my favourite Sanrio character of all time is Kuromi. Fellow kawaii fans, who's your favourite Sanrio character? Another item that had more than one style was the little bird plushies, which had two characters available. I received Mango (I think), however I would have preferred to get the Berry plushie. They are Lovebirds, how cute!

The Meltykiss Japanese candy that subscripers were sent is a limited edition 'Intense Strawberry' flavour. I'm not a fan of strawberry flavoured chocolate so I will probably give these to a friend, but it's a nice item for them to add to the box as it suits the theme with both the name of the product but also because, who doesn't like getting chocolates on Valentine's Day!? I actually really likethe Cherry Hair Clip, and I will happily rock it in my hair.Although I like the chocolate pen that I received in the February Box, they've made several items in previous boxes that have this chocolate design and I'm getting a little bored of it. 

Something different about the Doki Doki Box is from February, the company moved their shipping to a Japanese address so that they wouldn't be faced with anymore US Customs checks and such. One fabulous thing that changed for me was that I no longer received a handling fee from customs, which used to cost me so much! So yay!

 ♥ March Doki Doki Box ♥

The March Box was the final Doki Doki subscription I was sent before I had to cancel :( However, what a fantastic box to end on! This is definitely the best Doki Doki box I've received in my opinion! I loved every single item in the box!! Inside the 'Girl's Day' Box was: a Pote USA Loppy Clip, a Disney Cup, a Neko Atsume Earphone Jack Charm, a 'PuniPuni PyonPyon' plushie, a Slim Pen Case, a 'Hishimochi' Hoppe Chan Charm and finally, a 'Sasurai No Tabineco Fuwa Mocchi' Plushie. This box was just so amazinly kawaii!

Hinamatsuri is a Japanese Festival, which translates to 'Girl's Day' or 'Doll's Day'. It is celebrated on the 3rd of March each year, and is a special day where people pray for the health and happiness of the young girls in their family. People decorate their homes with traditional dolls on a red 'carpet' display, and give offerings to these dolls. I've been in love with Japan and it's culture since I was young, and I always remember being fascinated by these dolls. It would be lovely to visit Japan around this festival and see all of the celebrations at the temples. All the young girls are dressed up in the cutest traditional kimonos :)

Who else joined in with the Neko Atsume trend when the game first came out? I did, of course, so this charm was a brillant surprise! I can't wait to show it off on my phone :) How adorable is the rabbit plushie we received!? Puni & Pyon are designed with inspiration from the Hinamatsuri dolls, with Puni being an Empress and Pyon, an Emperor. I received Pyon (I think?). I love the bright pink colour of him, and that he's sitting on a leaf. He feels so smooth and soft too :)

There were a few items in this box where subscriptors had a chance of getting one of various different styles/colours including the Loppy Bunny Clip, the cat plushie, the Slim Pen Case and the Disney cup.

 I was very please with my pretty Snow White cup, even though my favourite Disney Princess is Belle from Beauty & The Beast. My sister also fell in love with the cup and kept asking if she could steal it, haha. I haven't had a look yet to see which cat plushies or pencil cases other people were greeted with in their box, but I'm super happy with the ones I got. The pencil case is lovely, but very thin so I'm not sure what I'm going to use it for yet. Maybe some makeup brushes? What would you use it for? I have far too many pens and such to fit into such a small case! 

 ♥ My Favourite Items ♥

  

Since I'm blogging about all three boxes at once, I thought it would better to talk about all of my favourite items at once, and so the photo above shows all of my favourite items from three months worth of boxes :) From the January Box, my most loved item was the Panda Hand Rest. It's for wrist or hand support when you are using a computer mouse so it will definitely come in handy for me when I finally get a computer! My fibromyalgia causes me to constantly have painful wrists so I'm hoping it will help relieve some of that. Pandas are adorable!

From the Februay Box, I really loved the Totoro Chopsticks! A) because i'm a massive fan of the Studio Ghibli movie 'My Neighbour Totoro', B) How awesome is the design of these chopsticks!? They have little Chibi-Totoro's and hazelnuts? on, and C) They are plastic instead of wooden, which I really like. I still need to learn how to actually eat with chopsticks though. I also love the socks because as everyone knows, I'm obsessed with Hello Kitty.

It was really hard for me to settle on just one or two favourite items from March's Doki Doki Box, and it was a struggle to restrict myself to three! haha :D I LOVE the 'Sasurai No Tabineco Fuwa Mocchi' plush! It feels incredibly soft and squishy, and reminds me a little of a Disney tsum tsum so it's impossible for me not to love it. I also really like black cats! The Disney Cup is so cute and is actually a great quality, hardy cup too so I'm impressed. I'm over the moon that I have a Neko Atsume item too, because they are quite pricy to buy. 

Finally, here's a close up of all of the Hoppe Chan charms! This little bunny character charm is a feature of every Doki Doki Box, and it's really interesting to each how they've designed her to fit in with the overall theme of each month. January's charm is Mount Fuiji, and the magazine description says that's because its a tradition in Japan on New Year's Eve for people to climb up the Mountain in order to watch the first sunset of the year! How lovely is that? I like how Hoppe Chan's hair looks like fluffy white clouds with a sun and mountain popping out of the top :) 

The Valentine's Day Hoppe Chan is a typical Cupid's Arrow design, but it's still nice and I like the glitter details as well as the big pink bow on Hoppe's head. The March charm is a 'Hishimochi' which is a popular type of mochi eaten during the time of the Girl's Day Festival in Japan. I love all of the layers of colour in this charm and the flower decoration, too. My favourite charm of the three though has to be the Mt. Fuji one, mostly because I love the shade of blue they've chosen. 

Overall, I'm really happy with the last three boxes that I received from Japan Crate, and I can't wait until the day I can re-subscribe. Let me know which was your favourite box and why in the comments. 

Thankyou for reading!  

♥

Which is your favourite item featured in this post?

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Eurovision Song Contest '17

Hey lovelies! I hope you've all had a wonderful day. The weather has been beautiful here in the North West, but I had so much to check off my to-do-list today that I've been stuck indoors! How have you all spent your day? If you follow me on Twitter, you'll likely have spotted my live-tweeting on Tuesday night along the Eurovision Song Contest! Yes, it's that time of year again, when several European countries come together to put on an amazing music show packed full of the most wondeful and also wacky performances. There is always a mix of different genres of music as well some elaborate displays of costumes, dancers, instruments and stage design. I absolutely love the Eurovision Song Contest! I've been a fan since back in 2006 when Finland won with Lordi's 'Hard Rock Halleujah', a song that I still listen to now over ten years later! I have Eurovision on the brain right now, and I can't get the songs in this year's line up out of my head, so I couldn't not dedicate a post to it. Enjoy! 

If you are a fan of Eurovision, you'll already know that there are always two semi-final shows that take place in the week leading up to the main finale show. Fourty plus countries usually enter a performance into the Eurovison line-up (this year, 42 countries to be exact. Originally 43, however due to some sort of conflict with the hosting country, Russia were pulled from the show), but only 26 countries can qualify for the final. Six of those countries are automatically through to the final stage of the Eurovision Song Contest; those including, the country who won the previous year's show and thus hosts the contest there, and five countries that contribute the majority of the money to pay for the show. These are known to Eurofans as the 'Big Five': United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain & France. With six countries automatically taking up spaces in the final, only 20 countries can win a spot. This is where the semi-final come in. 

Semi-final One took place Tuesday with 18 countries performing for one of 10 places in the finals which will be held in Kyiv/Kiev, the capital of Ukraine this Saturday. Out of these countries, I was personally routing for Montenegro, Sweden, Greece, Azerbaijan, Finland, Moldova, Slovenia, Cyprus, Latvia and Australia (yes, they are also allowed to enter the Eurovison Song Contest, due to being members of some sort of European Broadcasting thing, I think). Me & my best friends are all major Eurofans and so we've started a tradition last year of celebrating together, since I was now back home from studying at university in Nottingham. We obviously go together for Semi-final One which ended up turning into a drinking party, haha! It was a wonderful night, a mix of excitement and disappointment with only some of our favourites from the night's line up making it through. Joining the final on Eurovision will be Australia, Cyrpus, Moldova, Belgium, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Sweden, Portugal, Greece and Poland. I was gutted that Montenegro didn't qualify, and my friends were really not impressed that Finland didn't make it. 

Tonight on BBC4 you can catch the Eurovision Semi-final Two. Don't watch if you would prefer a surprise on Saturday though! I'll be with my friends again, and tonight is going to be a tense one for sure! There are even more of our most loved performances in tonight's show so we are super nervous about what the results will be. Plus the United Kingdom could only vote in Semi-final One so we can't help out our favourites :( Performing for the last 10 places tonight are F.Y.R Macedonia, Romania, Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, Austria, Malta, Serbia, Bulgaria, Israel, Lithuania, San Marino, Norway, Belarus, Switzerland, Hungary, The Netherlands and Croatia. You'll be able to catch me live-tweeting tonight! My absolute favourite competitor this year is Estonia, so everyone cross your fingers and toes for them tonight for me! My top ten to qualify are as follows: Estonia, Austria, Denmark, Israel, The Netherlands, Belarus, Norway, Bulgaria, Switzerland and San Marino. Norway & Belarus also have my other favourite songs of the year! So fellow, Eurofans... who is your favourite to win? Let me know in the comments. 

 Souvenirs from last year's Eurovision hosted in Sweden!

Me and my best friend are such Eurovison nerds that last year we actually went to watch the final live in Stockholm, Sweden. It was such an epic experience, like nothing I've ever done before and although, my favourites from 2016 (Bulgia, Austria,The Netherlands & Belgium) didn't win the show, it was still fantastic to be part of the celebration. The hosts, Mans Zelmerlow and Petra Mede, performed an amazing song called 'Love Love Peace Peace' and I still can't quite believe that I was actually there to witness it. Due to this performance, I also got to be in the same arena as Lordi!! as well as Alexander Rybak who is adorable and won for Norway in 2009 (just to rub it in for you, Jess if you're reading!) If you would like to read all about my time in Sweden last year, check out this post.

Bring on Saturday! It's going to be a fabulous show and I'll be over the moon if either Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Italy or Norway won! It would be amazing for the UK to take home the winning trophy, however then I wouldn't be able to travel to a new country for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2018! We had our reasons for not wanting to visit the Ukraine for this years finale so instead my best friend Aaron has organised a Eurovision party. It's going to be so much fun!! He's decorated his living room with all of the 43 countries flags and it looks really cool, and he's got party accessories in the colours of the UK flag too. We have beer pong games planned as well as a Eurovision drinking game! Everyone who's coming to the party had to choose one of the countries and dress only in their flag's colours. I obviously picked my favourite and so I have to wear an outfit in black, blue and white like the Estonian flag. I seriously can't wait!!

Thankyou for reading!

  ♥

 If any of my readers are fellow Eurovision fans, I'd love to know who is your all-time favourite winner of The Eurovision Song Contest?

 Curious about my trip to Sweden? Read all about it:

| Sweden Part 1: Exploring Stockholm| Part 2: Museums | Part 3: Skansen | 

 

May Wishlist

Hi Guys! Yesterday I realised it's been a ridiculously long time since I last shared a monthly wishlist with you all. As you probably know by now if you're a regular reader of my blog, my start to 2017 has been filled with financial problems and with the impact everything ESA-related on my mental health, writing a wishlist of all the things I definitely couldn't buy was something I thought was best not to do. I'm in a much better mindset now, and I've been getting more active on social media again so of course I'm spotting things that I really want and well, it seemed time to get back to writing my wishlist posts. I hope you enjoy reading through my May Wishlist :) 

 1. Dream Catcher Pendant Necklace I have always loved dream catchers; I used to collect them when I was a teenager. They are just so pretty! Of course, I really love the look of dream catcher themed jewellery because of this, and since I already have a couple of silver dream catcher necklaces, I'd like to add a gold one to my collection. I'm not a huge fan of gold jewellery but this one, as descriped on the website, is a 'gold-tone' and appears to be quite a pale colour, which suits me :) 

2. Rimmel London Lasting Finish Primer At the moment, I don't use any primer and I want to start using it as the skin on my face is quite dry. I really like Rimme's Lasting Finish foundation so I thought I'd give the primer from that line a try. Has anyone else used this product? What did you think of it? 

3. Bunny Patchwork Duvet Cover ASDA make some of the loveliest duvet covers! I'd love a spring-themed duvet cover right now, and I recently spotted this pretty duvet in one of their spring catalouges. I fell in love with it right away... a) RABBITS! & b) I think patchwork style designs are so nice. This bunny patchwork duvet has a very pretty design, and I need it!

4. GTFO Enamel Pin Badge This pin badge is awesome! That is all :D

5.  House of Disaster Origami Fox Lamp I've been after a funky animal lamp for a while now, and this is perfect! I love foxes and I love origami art (I can even make an origami fox myself!). I love the design of the neck/chest of the fox as well as the position it's sitting in. It's super cute! Even though I think it's supposed to be a red fox, the animal nerd in me can't not see a Tibertan Sand Fox, and seeing photos of them always make me smile because of how square their heads look. I don't know why it makes me smile, but it does haha This lamp has been reduced from £35 to just £21 so I'm pretty gutted that I can't buy it right now.

6. Paperchase Floral Scrapbook I've been wanting to make a scrapbook for my mental health recovery achievements to both keep me motivated but also to document my progress in a creative way. I was impressed by the quality of the last scrapbook I purchased from Paperchase to fill with university memories, so I'd like to get another from there. I love how bright and inviting the floral cover of this scrapbook is. The design makes me think of the doodling I did on my notebooks in high school... I think some of the flowers look like they've been drawn using a highlighter and pens. I really like that about it. I also prefer scrapbooks with blank square pages, so this one is great for me.

7. Yankee Candle Medium Jar 'Cuban Mojito' Yankee Candle has released a new range from Spring/Summer called Viva Havana which includes some candles that sound lovely, a mix of floral and fruity scents. I'm not really into floral fragrances, so the candles that appealed to me were this Cuban Mojito one and also the Delicious Guava one. I love mint so I'm interested to find out what this candle smells like, and I think it will be a nice, refreshing change from the scents I usually go for (e.g. vanilla frosting, cappuccino truffle, etc.). 

8. Library of Fragrance Vanilla Ice Cream I've featured some Library of Fragrance perfumes on my past wishlists and still haven't gotten around to buying one! With British Summer Time fast approaching, I'm in need of some seasonal scents. Most of the perfumes that are popular in Summer are floral ones and as I mentioned, floral fragrances are not for me. Real flowers I love to smell, but I'm just not overly keen on perfumes unless they contain fruity notes too. This Vanilla Ice Cream scent sounds like a lovely alternative as ice-cream is one of the first things that pops into my mind whenever I think of Summer. I think I'd smell delicious, haha, and hopefully all of the insects don't agree and annoy me when I'm out and about! 

9. Suedette Floral Embroidered Boots How pretty are these boots!? I love all of the floral embroidery fashion that is available right now, especially the traditional folk look ones. I seriously need some new black boots, because mine have almost seen the end of their days and will need to be thrown out soon :( I've never worn heels because I'm ridiculously clumsy so I've always been nervous about breaking my foot or something, haha. However, I wanted to give heeled boots a go instead, and these Floral Suedette Boots are fantastic for Spring/Summer. New Look are always my go to for boots.

10. Fold & Fly Gratitude Journal The Fold & Fly stationery range from Paperchase is so so pretty! It's nature and origami combined so it's right up my street. I think that gratitude journals are great, and I like that this one is not one of those diary style ones that's dated and has a page for each day of the year. I've tried to stick to those types of journals before but I just can't do it. This one, I could find in when I have a brillant day and feel the need to document it. I love how it has several questions to answer about the day too, and it's a bonus that the pages have a lovely design too. 

Thankyou for reading!

♥

What's your favourite item on my wishlist this month?

I'd also love to know what's on your own May Wishlist?

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My New Heart Shelves

Happy Friday! I am so glad to be back online! If you follow me on social media, you'll know that I've had no internet access for a week now, and it's been super stressful. I have been so bored that I've been constantly tidying for the last few days and have found lots of random things that I'd bought and forgotten I had, so thats a bonus I guess haha. I didn't realise just how realiant I am on the internet until I was without it, for what seemed like so much longer than a week. I've had so many people make comments about how young people are glued to their technology in response to me talking about how much I miss it and it's been really quite annoying. The internet can be a wonderful tool and especially with the fact that I'm a spoonie so I spend the majority of my time at home, being online allows me to connect with my friends, to educate myself on whatever I fancy reading about, to share stories and photos with people who share my interests.... The internet is fantastic and I have met so many lovely people through it that have helped me through some very hard times, so I am thankful for the internet everyday and I'm not ashamed of how much I rely on it at all. 

With all of the stuff I've been going through so far this year, I'm forgotten that in January after saving up for a while I'd managed to buy myself some shelves that I'd had my eye on for a while. These gorgeous heart-shaped shelves filled with lots of little 'compartments' are just perfect! I'd come across them quite a well ago when I was searching for ideas on pinterest and elsewhere on how to display my evergrowing Disney Tsum Tsum collection. Someone had shared a photo of their own collection on these shelves and it looked fantastic! So finally a couple of days before my internet was cut off, I'd put up my new shelves on my bedroom wall and filled them with so much cuteness :) I've been so looking forward to showing you guys! 

How pretty are these shelves!? I absolutely adore all of the different sized compartments, and just think it's so cool that you can fill it with different sized items and such. These shelves are from The Range, and are available in this almost 'distressed white' colour or in a dark brown. They were priced at around £50. Anything colourful looks really pretty and eye-catching against the white background too :) Check out how my tsum tsums look displayed on my new shelves....

Can you guess how many I have now? (without counting haha)! My collection is far from complete yet; there's so many more characters I need to add. I'm so happy that I've finally been able to stack my tsum tsums as their design intended, and I love how two of the compartments are the perfect size to fit in my Easter addition tsum tsum basket :) There's two little plushies hiding at the bottom of the heart, which where the first of many other items to join my tsum tsums, as I had lots of spaces to fill in. Keep scrolling to see what else I chose to display :) 

It was really quite fun (and tiring... so tiring!) to shuffle around all of my tsum tsums to find the best fit for everything else I wanted to display. I'm really glad that I now have somewhere to keep my Japanese plushies, mostly made by the company Amuse that I'm kind of obsessed with! Also, I can now show off my Funko Mystery Mini Disney Princess figures, as well as some of my Funko Pop's. I chose to put my three favourite Pop vinyls in the centre of my shelves, and I couldn't be happier with the way it all looks. 

Ta-da! How awesome do my new heart shelves look all filled!?? It's so vibrant and really stands out against my pale wallpaper. I would love to get another one of these shelves to display more of my mini plushies (Yes, I have A LOT more, oops!) and also my Tokidoki Unicorno figures. Oh by the way, I have 63 Disney Tsum Tsums!! How close was your guess? Let me know how many you though I had in the comments. I hope you all have a lovely weekend :)

Thankyou for reading! 

 ♥

 What do yo think of my new heart shelves?

If you had some, what would you display on them? 

 Love all of the kawaii goodness featured in this post? 

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