Toys For A Pound Haul

Hi guys! Here I am again, bringing you a post about another thing that I should have written ages ago. Story of my life... better late than never should be etched on my tombstone some day XD Oops, getting a little dark there... a little too much spirit of Halloween, haha! Talking of Halloween, I can't believe it's only 4 days away. *cry cry* I don't want my favourite month to end! Should we start a petition to make every month Halloween? :) My entire year is filled with lots of spooky goodness anyhow, but I want to hold off the colder months a little longer. As much as Autumn is my favourite time of year, the latter part of the season is usually dreary, the trees loose all of their fiery foliage, and the colourful leaf-littered ground becomes coated in brown, decaying sludge. Oh, and Seasonal Affective Disorder comes along just as I begin to mourn the crisp, crunchy piles of colour underfoot whenever I venture outdoors, making it easier to brave the cold. Well, this is becoming a miserable intro XD I'm sorry guys, but I'M REALLY GONNA MISS ALL THE PRETTY AUTUMNAL VIBES! T_T

So, on a brighter note, today I want to tell you all about a fabulous little online store I stumbled across earlier this year, thanks to an Instagram ad. As you have probably guessed from the title, the website is effectively a pound store, however it has some great bargains on there, a lot that I personally haven't come across in any pound stores I've visited before. I thought I'd share my haul/review with you guys and bring Toys for a Pound to your attention :) Enjoy! 

Toys for a Pound is such a great website for picking up stocking fillers or small gifts for your loved ones. I mean, the intended audience/recipients are children, so it's mostly got toys that cater towards them; however, there are some gems on there that kids who've never grown up, like myself, will love! The standard shipping is £2.99 so it's best to only do an order if you are buying several things, in my opinion. I personally find it a great resource for when I'm looking for some goodies to fill the Christmas shoeboxes I put together for charity each year. Plus, it's nice to have access to a virtual pound store when you're living with chronic illnesses/ disabilities and don't get out as much as you'd like. 

Almost everything on the site is £1 each, although there's sections of items up to £5, but they are such brilliant deals that should be snapped up and put away ready for December :) Just a heads up... they update their stock pretty regularly so it's best to pop anything that catches your eye into your basket as soon as possible. Most of the items I'm sharing in this haul are no longer available (sorry for my delay in posting!). Nonetheless, they have many wonderful items at the moment. I actually placed another order the other day, which I have to thank for giving me the kick up the butt to finally get this post up. Proof that retail therapy has its benefits! 

Well, here's what I picked up from Toys for a Pound... 

Look at all of this adorable stuff that I managed to get for only £10!!! How could I pass up Funko products for only a pound each... that's amazing!! I have seen a few Funko products here and there popping up in my local Pound stores and B&M for the same price but they are few and far between, as well as being for franchises that are a lot less popular nowadays. However, the ones I found at Toys for a Pound were fantastic!! And they even had Pint Size Heroes, another Funko product, too! I've never seen these in pound stores before. Have you? 

As much as I adore Funko, which you'll know if you've been a regular reader of my blog for a while (I own well over 200 products by them now, 107 of them being Pop! vinyl figures... I have a problem XD), my favourite find has to be these Eevee ears!! As someone who enjoys cosplaying, these are perfect! And Eevee is one of my all-time favourite Pokemon. They were an absolute steal at just £1... they are made by TOMY (so they are great quality) and usually retail at around £8.99+. 

So these are all of the blind boxes/bags that I bought; they were the main reason that I visited the website in the first place since the fact that Toys for a Pound were selling Funko products is what popped up in the ad I saw, whilst scrolling through Instagram. Some people get annoyed by ads, but to be honest, I love that they keep bringing products to my attention based on the things I search/buy online. They seem to be a lot more tailored over on Instagram, VS other platforms like Youtube. I respect why people have ads on their videos, but oh my gosh, do they get annoying! Before I go off topic, haha... I was delighted to find that Toys for a Pound had such a variety available, because I honestly expected to find maybe five products at the most. 

Since getting very into my toy photography... I mean I've always been into it but ever since finding the toy photography community over on Instagram and setting up my own dedicated account (find it here), I have found that I am happy to collect figures from franchises that I might not have bothered buying otherwise. This is because it's always nice to have a varied collection of figures to use for different photography themes, etc. I'm finding a lot of cool new figures this way, but my bank account isn't impressed :D My addiction to buying blind boxes has intensified, oops! 

Here are the Funko Mystery Mini's that I found inside my boxes. This post is apparently also an unboxing, as well as a haul and review... but I couldn't not show you guys what I got! I am a big fan of fun surprises so I wasn't too bothered about which of the figures I got. Nonetheless I still had my favourites and least favourites. I am very happy with my finds when it comes to the Warcraft and Barbie boxes, but I did get the figure I liked least of all from the Suicide Squad box. Nevermind, that's the nature of blind boxes! 

I was never much of a fan of Barbie growing up, although I did love the horses and would always ask for the sets with them and then just ignore the barbie doll to play with the horse :) I did love the 'working out' barbie that I had when I was around 6 or 7, but that came with a soundtrack tape and so I was bound to enjoy it. Did anyone else have this? But yeah, I was still intrigued by these mystery minis because a) they are adorable, and b) because they have an interesting history based theme. Each of the figures in this collection are themed around a date, and are designed to resemble a barbie doll that was popular in that particular year. 

The ones I loved most were 1971 (which is the one I got!!) because she's dressed in hippie fashion, the 1980 because she is designed after the first Black Barbie doll, 1986 because she's lookin' fabulous in her 80's outfit that makes me think instantly of Cyndi Lauper, and 1992 because it would be cool to have a figure designed after the year I was born :) I feel like I'm rambling... I just get so excited about toys! 

As for the Warcraft blind box, I am super happy with the figure that I got because he looks wicked! If you haven't seen the movie (and played the World of Warcraft game that it was inspired by), this character is Blackhand, he's an Orc and is a warchief known as The Destroyer. The mystery mini of Blackhand is so detailed; I absolutely love it! I think it is brilliant that one of the dragons skulls on his armour has a septum piercing like he does :) I'd love to add more Warcraft figures to my collection because in my opinion, they all look epic! 

I was hoping to get one of the badass women from the Suicide Squad: Harley Quinn, Katana or the Enchantress (I like the Captain Boomerang figure, too), but I got Diablo and I just don't like his design at all. Oh well! Hopefully, I'll be able to trade him for another figure some day :) 

I couldn't not get a couple of pint size heroes. There were a few different ones available at the time but I opted for a Power Rangers bag & a Street Fighter one. These two franchises are super nostalgic for me! I had a lot of fun playing Street Fighter on my PlayStation back when I was a kid, and loved the Power Rangers as well. I absolutely adore the design of Funko's Pint Size Heroes! They might be one of my favourites of all the figures that he brand has brought out, and would love to see more in the future! 

So the figures that I wanted to get most from these blind bags were the yellow Power Ranger as she was my favourite. There's two versions of the characters available... in their full suits and also without their helmets so you can see their faces. I would have been happy with either versions of the yellow ranger. I got the green guy though, which is still cool. Green is my favourite colour at least :) For the Street Finger figures, I wanted Chun-Li or Ryu the most as I always played as them in the games. I got Guile, who I didn't really care for as I think his design is the worst one from the collection. But again, that's the catch with mystery toys, and he'll still be fantastic for photography, especially when I get some of the other characters. 

It was lovely to find some other non-Funko blind bags on the Toys for a Pound website. As soon as I spotted these Super Mario keychain/dangler charms, I immediately popped one into my shopping cart. I was trying to keep as close to a tenner as possible or else I would have bought more of these cuties. I wish I had now! Out of all of the available keychains, I wanted Toad in the Tanooki (Raccoon/Raccoon Dog) outfit, Mario riding Yoshi, or Tanooki Mario. Toad is my favourite character from the franchise so I was over the moon that I got him!! 

Awww, how sweet is he!!? I really love his design with the Racoon ears and tail, and he is surprisingly detailed for such a tiny figure. I am a little scared to actually attach him to my keys or one of my bags because I feel like he'd be so easy to lose. Those chains with the little balls aren't very sturdy either. He's just going to live on one of my shelves :) Which figure would you have most liked to get in this blind bag?

The Toys for a Pound website even has a party supplies section, which is where I came across packs of the prettiest confetti ever!! It's table confetti so it's a lot bigger than other types of confetti and is made from cardboard so it's more sturdy and durable to be used on a party table where there are likely to be lots of mayhem, such as spilled drinks! I just had to get a pack of these mermaid ones (they also had fairy and unicorn themed packs), because they are so colourful and cute! You get lots of confetti too, and I've seen similar packs in craft stores for £3+.

I'm going to using them in both my photography and also to add a pinch into any snail mail I send :) I say that, but then I don't know if I'm going to be able to bring myself to use them as they are so gorgeous!! I also picked up the unicorn pack in the recent haul that I mentioned earlier... it was a bargain that I just couldn't ignore, especially after seeing how much more pretty the mermaids confetti was in person. I even picked another mermaid pack for my sisters birthday as she's a mermaid lover! 

So that was my entire haul from Toys for a Pound. I was very impressed with the products that I received. They all arrived in great condition, however I feel like I was just lucky because there wasn't any protective packaging inside the box such as noodles/bubblewrap/ brown packing paper, and in my latest order, my items were sent in a much bigger box and one of the item's packaging arrived all squashed, which wouldn't have been great if it was intended for a christmas present. But based on my first order, everything was fine and I was pleasantly surprised that the Funko mystery mini boxes were in such excellent condition considering they were being sold for £1, when their RRP is anything from £4.99 upwards. I was super happy with everything I received and I would certainly recommend them! I will definitely be doing more orders in the future :) 

Oh, as usual, I forgot to individually photograph an item, and this time it was the Triceratops figure that you can see above. This wonderful little dinosaur is an official Jurassic Park figure, and sort of arrived like a mystery bag considering you couldn't choose which dinosaur you wanted on the website. I wanted a Raptor because those are my favourite species. Nonetheless, I'm glad I got a Triceratops because they hold a nostalgic place in my heart, due to the amazing Land Before Time movies. Even though Cera the Triceratops wasn't my most loved character, I loved that she had the same name as me! Although, I know now as an adult that it was spelt Cera, I didn't at the time so I thought it was fantastic! Maybe I should start spelling my name as Cera….. 

I'll finish up today's post now before I get carried away even more than I already have! Thankyou to everyone who reads my posts because I know they are long! I can't help it, it's so hard for me to stop writing once I get going :D Anyhow, I hope you all enjoyed reading all about my haul. Let me know if you place an order with Toys for a Pound, I'd love to hear all about what you buy :) Also, let me know in the comments guys.... which were your favourite items from my haul? Which of the mystery figures would you have liked to get? 

Thankyou for reading! 

♥ 

What have you been buying lately?

What's the best bargain that you've ever found in a pound store? 

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Things I've Been Buying Lately | Blogmas #5

Hi to all of my wonderful readers! Thankyou to you all for following my posts and for leaving me lovely comments, for chatting to me on social media and just for making the whole blogging experience so great for me. I feel so blessed to have so many lovely people in my life :) I am feeling very emotional today, about so many things! I came very close to not blogging today. Some of you may have noticed my twitter post earlier, but I have so many things going on in my life right now and I just feel like I want to do nothing at all. Blogmas is a really tough challenge when all you want to do is snuggle up in bed with Netflix and snacks and not have to think about all of the things you are supposed to be doing. So yeah, the post that I had originally planned for today just didn't happen, because I can't even brain today :D I decided to share a different post, one that I would enjoy writing about so much that it would be easier to do, if that makes sense. Everyone loves having a nosey at a good haul post, right? Well, I know I do! I like checking out what others have been buying, and since I've bought some awesome things lately, I just had to show you guys! Enjoy :) 

I'm going to be featuring items I've bought from two different online stores, Punky Pins and Veronica Dearly. I took full advantage of various Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals with both of my orders because they really were fabulous offers, that I just couldn't ignore when I'd had my eyes on these products for ages!

I absolutely adore pin badges from Punky Pins; there is so much variety and they are really great quality. So colourful and bright too! It really wasn't long ago since I did my last Punky Pins haul, but when I got an email about the amazing deal, I had a mighty need! I even kind of wish that I'd done two hauls for the same offer, haha! When it comes to Veronica Dearly, her artwork is just brilliant. She designs all sorts of products with important messages and comical slogans, which always make me smile. I had really wanted to own something with her artwork on ever since I followed her over on Instagram, and I'm so happy that I now own more than one item by her! Yay! I'm gonna talk about the latest Punky Pins additions to my enamel pin badge collection first :) This post is gonna have a lot of photos, oops! 

As you can see in the first photograph on my post today, there are five little paper packages, sealed with the cutest festive Punky Pins stickers. This is because the offer that was on around Black Friday included any five pin badges across the entire store's range, with free shipping for just £20. Not only was that saving you £15, as individual enamel pins are usually £7 each... Punky Pins were also offering a free surprise gift with every purchase! Oh my gosh, it was fantastic... can you see why I couldn't say no to that! So, I treat myself to four new pin badges plus I bought one for my dad for Christmas :) How beautiful is the Bunny Hearts enamel pin above!? It reminded me of a vintage-style tattoo because of the floral pattern, and I just love how pretty the colours are. Rabbits and flowers are two of my most favourite things in the world so this is the perfect pin for me!

As for the 'Call Me Maybe' pin, it's such a clever design! It's a mash of the popular hit by Carly Rae Jepsen and Ghost Face from the horror movie franchise, Scream. I love the Scream movies, well mostly the first one, so I thought that this pin was very creative and awesome. If you've seen the movie, you'll understand the reference with the character on the phone and the song lyrics. Everytime I look at it, I hear 'Hello Sidney' in my head XD This pin is available in two variations, a more horror-themed colour scheme and the pastel version that I chose! 

The gorgeous floral Fox Enamel Pin is the one that I have purchased for my Dad, who is also a bit of a pin badge collector. I thought that it was beautiful and so cute! Plus my Dad loves gardening and used to be a professional gardener so flowers are his thing too. I'm sure that he will love it! He has a hat that he shows off all of his pin badges on :) Maybe when I'm his age, I'll follow in his footsteps and rock a woollen hat covered in pins everywhere I go! Apologies for how blurry my photograph of the Cute Kitty Enamel Pin is... I didn't realise until later when all of the daylight had faded so I couldn't re-take the photo :( You can see a better photograph here on the Punky Pins website. This pin is too adorable! I've been after it and also the bunny version, that's made in the same design, ever since I first spotted them! I love the chibi appearance of the cat and it's very anime-esque eye :) It's little winking expression just makes it even more sweet!

The final pin that I chose in my haul had to be a Christmassy one! It's a penguin in a christmas jumper, omgosh!! It's super cute and I love the colour scheme. This little guy seems so sweet until you see the 'Festive As Fuck' slogan across his jumper, I just love it!! I didn't realise when I was ordering that there are two versions of this pin... a bold one with the slogan very visible and this 'pleasantly polite' version... which makes the slogan very faint to see so you don't offend anyone when you're wearing it out and about. I'm kind of glad now that I didn't see the options when I was ordering because I totally would have got the loud and proud version! But honestly, this is probably the best option because my snakebite piercings already get me enough stares from the elderly people, haha! 

So, here is the free gift that I received!! It's a really cute pupper holding a slice of pizza :) I checked out the standard price of Punky Pins patches before writing up this post, and they are £6 each! So not only if I get £15 off my items, I also got a freebie worth over a fiver. Wow, thanks Punky Pins!! The only shame is that I personally don't like pizza so even though this patch is adorable, it doesn't appeal to me much (Yes, I know that I'm very weird for not liking pizza! Everyone tells me so :D) so I'm gonna pop it in with one of my loved ones Christmas presents this year. I really love the mini bones print all over the presentation card! 

Keep scrolling to see what I ordered from Veronica Dearly's store... 

So let me tell you all about the offer from Veronica Dearly... it was a mystery box/package! She was selling a bundle worth £30 for just £15, and another for £5 containing £15 worth of items. Seriously though, how good is that!? I opted for the first of the two, a box worth £30 which would be filled with stationery items, pins, greetings cards and more. I was so looking forward to finding out what I got, and I certainly wasn't disappointed! I'll show you everything that came in the box before I share my thoughts on the items themselves :) 

Okay, LOOK AT ALL THIS AWESOME STUFF! My favourite item is most definitely the 'Don't Be A Dick' list pad! As my regular readers will know by now, I am an avid list writer. List writing is life! So, I was really happy just to have another to add to my collection, since I go through them so quickly. I am a little tempted not to use this one, or at least save it for super important lists because it's gorgeous. I love the spacing of the sections, you can easily fit two sentences in there, and there's so many sections too. I adore the shade of blue that Veronica has chosen too, pale blue is one of my favourite colours. Of course the 'Don't be a Dick' slogan is fabulous, and it's been a personal favourite of mine for a while. I neeeeed the pin badge to match! The pencil is great too :) The print that you can see in the first of my Veronica Dearly photographs is the same colour (or at least very very similar) to the list pad, so I can't not love it too! It's going to be displayed in my bedroom as soon as my decorating is completed; it will be a nice reminder to see each day. 

It was tough to choose what my second favourite item was... the pin badge or the 'I'm always here for you' greeting card. But... I think the pin wins simply because I am obsessed with pin badges!! I love the message 'Quit Playing Games' as I am someone who prefers people to be upfront about how they feel about things, etc., because it's hard on my anxiety when I don't know what peoples' opinions or intentions or whatever are, and also how the design matches it, with the little dice. I like the gold lining, it's very eye-catching :) The sticker sheet is another very noticeable item, with the colours being so vibrant and all that thick black outline. The stickers are cute AND quite funny, the perfect combination! I really like the I own you cat, the don't touch me goldfish & the donut be sad ones. I just need to decide where I'm going to stick them, probably on the front of a pretty notebook or folder. The last items are the four greetings cards, which are such fantastic quality! I love the feel of the card they are made with, I have a thing for certain textures of paper/card, haha! I've already mentioned how much I love the 'I'm always here for you' card; I think that the little location pointer thingie that you usually see on google maps or sat-navs, is such a clever little touch! The Get Out of My Life card makes me laugh everytime I look at it! I can't wait until one of my friends moves house so I can make their day with the new home card. The feminism themed card is amazing and no one can have it, haha! It's going onto my art wall :) 

Oh, I almost forgot! I got a discount friend code thing when I made my last Punky Puns order. If you click here, you get a code for 15% off your order and I get 15% off mine too apparently :) I hope you've all enjoyed today's post anyway. I only knew about these delightful offers because I signed up to the newsletters/email updates that both of these website offer, so it's worthwhile doing that too. Tomorrow my friend & I are going to a gig full of 90s nostalgia! We are off to see Steps and Vengaboys, and it's going to be fabulous! I'm so excited! Thankyou to my wonderful friend for treating me to a ticket for my birthday :) Be sure to check back here for Blogmas Day 6 because I'm doing a collab with one of my favourite bloggers, and her post will be on here tomorrow! 

Thankyou for reading! 

♥

What have you all been treating yourselves to lately? 

Fellow bloggers... if you've shared any haul posts, share a link in the comments so I can check it out too :) 

Things I've bought this month | April

Happy Tuesday everyone! I can't believe it's the last week of April! This month has flown by so fast! It's been such a busy month for me with lots of medical appointments and planning for my little trip abroad next month. One of my best friends & I are heading off to Sweden for a few days and I'm super excited! I'll blog all about our plans very soon :) Over the last month, I've done quite a bit of online shopping and I thought it would be great to show you all in one big post. Be prepared for lots of photos!

I've had my eye on this fantastic brooch for ages now! I featured it on my monthly Kawaii & Geeky wishlist back in November and I am so happy that I've finally got it! I think the overall design of the brooch is so pretty. I absolutely love how well-detailed the T-rex skull is! I've been after some awesome feminist merch for a while to wear on my jackets and bags, and I can't wait to show this one off! 

 I purchased the 'Dinosaurs Eat Man' brooch from Kate Gabrielle's fabulous etsy store sweetandlovely, and it came in such nice packaging! It was lovely to be greeted by a bright pink padded envelope when the postman arrived. The brooch was packaged inside a cute box with a lilac band wrapped around it... I love how it was tied into a little bow! I also love the tiny card that came with my brooch, which has the most adorable 'Cutie Pi' illustration on it! I'm looking forward to buying more items from this great shop soon. 

How gorgeous is my new phone case!? It's such a lovely shade of blue & the puffin print is adorable! I've not seen any animal designs that are similar to the ones from the etsy shop where I purchased this phone case, with realisitic illustrations VS cartoon ones, and the animal nerd in me much prefers the realisitic designs. I think this phone case is just wonderful and I've already got more from this seller on my wishlist! I purchased my puffin case from Clorty Cat Crafts. 

I absolutely loved the packaging of this item. It was my favourite of all the orders I received this month! Inside the box, the seller packaged my phone case in a striped blue and white paper bag, and also included the yellow and white paper bag (shown above) which contained my order details, a super cute cat postcard and a caramel biscuit in the most adorable blue polka dot wrapper. The seller wrote a hand-written note on the postcard thanking me for my purchase, which I thought was really sweet. Another addition to the packaging that I loved was the colourful tissue paper circles sprinkled inside!

I am really over the moon with my order from the Candy Doll Club, an amazing etsy shop run by Jade Boylan. All the items I bought are gorgeous, so eye-catching and colourful! I mean, look how pretty this Selfie Girl postcard is! It's such a fantastic illustration and so detailed, especially her tattoos and hair. Her eyes look amazing and the entire postcard is just so bright! The Selfie Girl instantly reminded me of one of my favourite singers, Melanie Martinez. I'm really looking forward to finding a pretty frame so I can display it on my bedroom wall. These fabulous patches are the reason for my order. I kept spotting them on instagram and I just had to have some! There are really great especially with their awesome feminist slogans and are so well-made and soft! 

Something I really enjoyed was the presentation of my order. My items were sealed inside a lovely pink and white paper bag. I just love receiving items in these paper bags because it always makes me think about buying penny sweets when I was little :) There were some lovely additions found inside this paper bag, including a little membership sticker for the Candy Doll Club's Girl Gang and a print covered with the cutest illustrations. I think it's really sweet when seller's add little freebies in with their orders.

At the beginning of the month, I was browsing the new products on Tofu Cute, which if you haven't heard of it is an amazing UK store that sells items from Japan & other East Asian countries, and as usual this always ends with me having a shopping cart full of items! haha They sell much awesome items so I just can't help myself. This time, my order included an adorable neko atsume memo pad, some kawaii wrapping paper with gift tags, some delicious milk chocolate pocky (which I ate before taking my photos, oops!) and a packet of Japanese candy that I've been wanting to try for years! I've been a little obsessed with the neko atsume game for a while now and have been lusting over all the adorable merchandise since the very first time I played it. I'm so happy to finally have my first neko atsume product, this lovely A6 memo pad. It has four different page designs inside and the pages are a great size. It's just amazing. 

I actually squealed when I set eyes on this Pastel Alpaca Skies gift wrap, it's perfect in every way. The lilac background colour is so pretty and all of the kawaii pastel cartoons of alpaca, sheep, hamsters, tofu and shooting stars are gorgeous! I don't think I'll ever be able to use this wrapping paper to actually wrap presents because I want to keep it forever. The tofu cute gift tags are really cute too. 

I can't believe I actually have these sweets! If any of you are fans of the Studio Ghibli movies, you should recognise them straight away. They are the colourful star-shaped candy featured in Spirited Away, the ones that Lin feeds to the adorable soot sprites in Kamaji's boiler room. They are traditional Japanese sugar sweets called Konpeito and they look so yummy and pretty! I'm a massive Ghibli fan and I was so giddy when these arrived in the post! Not sure if I'll open them any time soon though, because I just want to treasure them *my precious*. 

Of course I had to include a gif of the soot sprites scrambling to collect the Konpeito! I absolutely love this scene :) I hope you all enjoyed today's post! I actually have a few more items to show you all but I'll save them for tomorrow's post for World Stationary Day. If you love stationary then be sure to check back tomorrow evening (hint: STICKERS!). 

Thankyou for reading!

 ♥

What's your favourite item featured in this post? Have you ever ordered from the shops I've mentioned? (if so, what did you buy?). I'd love to hear all about what you've been buying this month, let me know in the comments. 

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Blogmas Day 9 | What I bought in Manchester

You may have seen yesterday's Blogmas post all about the Manchester Christmas, which I visited with my mum on Monday. I wanted to show off some of the beautiful stalls and the lovely Christmas gifts they were selling so I made the post quite pic heavy. Because of this I decided to plan a seperate post about what I bought whilst I was there (I hope you are all enjoying pic heavy posts haha). I really look forward to going shopping in Manchester as I can visit all my favourite stores that we don't have in my local town centre. I purchased most of my shopping in the Arndale, but picked up a few things from the Christmas Markets. I was determined to come home with one of the mugs, so I'm really happy I now have one of my own to feel even more Christmassy when I'm drinking hot chocolate & marshmallows. I'll show you all what I got from the Markets first; the stalls sold an array of quirky gifts and traditional decorations but were quite pricey and as I had a budget to stick to, I couldn't spend too much. 

How cool is my new handcrafted dragon pencil!? It was from a stall selling lots of wooden carved items and traditional wooden instruments. I almost bought a peruvian wood flute but this was the last stall I visited before going to catch the train home and I'd ran out of money by this point.  I love dragons & this one reminds me of Drogon from Game of Thrones. I love the detail of the head especially the teeth and the colours used, and I also really like how the pencil looks really rustic. I couldn't resist getting some German treats whilst I was at the Christmas Markets and since I love original Lebkuchen (a traditional German gingerbread-like biscuit), I thought I'd try a new flavour. I was told this variety is coated in dark chocolate with a layer of rice paper underneath and bits of orange throughout the biscuit. I'm looking forward to trying them! I love my new wooden tree decoration! I think the detail is amazing and I loved the little doll decoration too because it's just so so cute.

  

 I couldn't resist buying this gorgeous alpaca plushie! It was from a stall selling jumpers, blankets and other items all made from Alpaca wool. Alpacas are sheared just like sheep and their wool is used to make clothing and other things. The companies listed on the bag were 'Cosy by De Luciano' and 'Alpacapaca'. This adorable plushie feels so soft and I'm in love with it (it was also the most expensive item I purchased all day). Hugging this will have to make do until I'm rich and can afford to buy land to have some pet alpacas of my own! ♥ I've named him Alfonzo.

I wanted to try a traditional macaroon, even though I still haven't tried French macaroons yet :( It was filled with mushy coconut and was hard & crunchy on the outside. I do like coconut flavoured things but now I've tried them, I probably won't eat one again because I didn't really like the texture. The other treats shown above tasted awesome!. They are called Schokoküsse, a German treat that is basically chocolate-coated marshmallow. We thought they would be firm inside but they are actually like those snowball treats we can get here in England... the ones that are covered in bits of coconut. It was a shame that they gave them to me simply in a paper bag, because they were crushed by the time I got home... because we thought they were like traditional marshmallows we didn't take care not to squash them *oops* I loved them! I paid £5 and got to choose 6 flavours (£1 each & one for free when you buy 5). I picked: After Eight, Marzipan, Cappuccino, Orange, Vanilla and Coconut. My favourite was the After Eight one. The gooey marshmallow inside was really flavoursome. I recommend buying some if you get the chance! 

I wish my local town centre had a Yankee candle shop! I can still buy some of their products at Clinton Cards and ASDA but they don't have all the range so I usually can't just pick up my favourites when I've ran out of them. I've wanted a wax melter for ages now but didn't want to get one online in case I didn't like it when it arrived. I loved this one when I saw it in store and since I'd asked for one for Christmas, my mum treated me to it and also let me have it early. Let me know if you'd like me to do a review on these votives and wax melts. I'm really looking forward to using it!

I literally can't go shopping without coming back with some form of stationary and it's usually stickers that I end up buying. I feel like I'm becoming a sticker hoarder haha I really like the stickers available from Accessorize and I've had some of the owl ones before, just in a different colour, and they are really good quality and puffy which I like; some of the owls also have googly eyes! How cute is that? I was in need of some mini stickers to use on postcards so I purchased the panda ones from Accessorize and the fox ones from Paperchase. I was so excited to go to the Paperchase in Manchester. I've never been to it before and it's such a huge store! I'm going to go back soon when I've got more money to spend. This time I just picked up the stickers and some of their awesome postcards, which I've wanted to get my hands on for ages.  I purchased the peppermint chocolate bar and the little Hello Kitty charm from the Christmas Markets :) 

The first store I shopped at on Monday was the Disney Store. I'd seen that the new Winnie The Pooh Collection & the Jiminy Cricket tsum tsums had been released online so I knew exactly which ones I was looking to buy before I set off to Manchester. I'm really happy to add more kawaii tsum tsums to my now massive collection! I'm disappointed that Disney UK have ran out of the gold limited edition collectors pins and so have stopped giving the tokens when you purchase tsum tsums because I have more than enough for a silver pin. I hope I can find a way to get one! I also went into Lush to get a few items but I've decided to show you them in another post. 

I hope you all enjoyed today's post. Sorry it's not very Christmassy!

♥

Have you bought anything nice this week?