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We live in an era where we are told to love the skin you're in and are constantly being given tips on how to be body confident - great right? Well it is some of the time, because along side the positive vibes we are also bombarded with how to clean eat and exercise to get that summer body. So which is it that I am meant to listen to. I am trying to love my body but I find it very difficult sometimes because lets face it I love food and that certainly has a knock on effect. It also doesn't help that it seems impossible to find a consistent dress size when out shopping. So I thought I would share with you some of the issues I have with my body in the hope that I am not the only one that thinks this way, but also share some of the the things that I have found help me stay body positive.

THE ISSUES

Let's start with the negatives as I feel it's always better to leave on a positive note. The issues I have with my body constantly change, often depending on what kind of mood I am in, what kind of day I have had or even what time of year it is (summer is a big problem for me). However there are three main issues that I can't seem to shake off and remember that thing I said about summer it effects each one one of them.


NUMBER 1 - MY SKIN:

From a very young age I have had problems with my skin and it is a problem I have carried with me into my adult life. In my teenage years I was very self conscious about it as acne was not only on my face but on my shoulders and back making me not want to wear things like vest tops (again making summer a difficult time. This also included bathing costumes which meant swimming lessons were a no go for me. Where as now acne is not a huge problem, yes I get the odd spot now and again but nothing as bad as it was. Now I just have to deal with large pores and very oily skin which leads to blackheads. For anyone out there who suffers from the same don't buy into the myth that is is caused by your skin being dirty, no matter how much you keep your skin blackheads are going to want to be your friend. Now I have tried every lotion and potion there is available and nothing has helped me, i now just stick to a simple skin routine that involves tea tree facial wash and moisturiser. So if any of you oily skin girls or guys have any suggestions please send them my way. I think my skin will always be the biggest issue I have with my body.

NUMBER 2 - MY BOOBS:

I am just going to be blunt I am a pretty busty girl and although I don't hate them my boobs bring more problems that I wish to have. Firstly, finding a bra that fits well and is supportive and doesn't cost me my life savings is an impossible task. What I would give to walk into Primark and pick up a cute little bralet for £4. Which brings me on to the fact that bras for DD and up are never cute, there are three colours to choose from, black, white or beige and most of them look like that they are made to be deliberately ugly. I am 27 years old and I want to look sexy in my underwear. And if you thought buying bras was difficult finding any kind of swimwear that covers more that your nipples is just impossible, adding to my problems with summer.

It is not just underwear that causes so much stress, clothes in general also do not want to co-operate with my boobs, forget about if anything is backless for instance. Button up shirts are another nightmare and I have to wear one for work, in order to get one to fit my boobs i had to get one that looks like I am wearing a tent, very unflattering. I am pretty certain that shops like H&M and Topshop forget that when sizes go up so should the area around the bust. I can not count the times I have tried on the biggest size they do and for it still not to fit across my chest and if it does, more often than not it hangs like a maternity dress, not really the look I am going for when I am not with child.

My last complaint on this matter is the pain it brings with it. Constantly I have niggling back and neck pain to only be told that I should try yoga or swimming to relieve it by my doctor. Swimming? I felt like screaming 'do you know how hard it is to find swimwear' at her and her tiny boobs.

NUMBER 3 - MY WEIGHT: 

I have never been stuck thin but since leaving uni I have definitely put on a significant amount of weight. I know most of this is down to the simple fact that I love food and hate exercise, but I also noticed this influx since I one started and office job and two since I learnt to drive. I know body confidence teaches us that you should love yourself no matter your size, but sometimes you can't help feel a bit down about it. What I would give to buy any piece of clothing from any shop and not worry about my weight. At least in winter I can slim down in black or cover up with layers, in summer everything is exposed. Finding cute shorts for thick thighs is difficult enough, that's even before the issue of chub rub.

I find it hard to find the motivation to do something about it and you know what? Eating healthy is expensive! And unless you like running, which I don't, so is exercise. However I know my weight is something I can aim to control if I feel so inclined to do so, my skin and my boobs are not so easy to control.

THE POSITIVES

So I have talked a lot about my body issues, lets make things a little more positive. There are a few ways in which I try and tackle the negatives and let myself love my body a little bit instead of giving it such a hard time.

NUMBER 1: FIND SOMETHING I LIKE 

I try and focus my attention on the parts of my body I do like. For me my favourite part of my body is my eyes, therefore I really got into ways of enhancing them, learning as much as I can about make up and in turn I have found a new interest in beauty. Another I try and enhance my body is I have decorated myself with tattoos, I have chosen art that I love and used it to empower myself, and they really do make me feel better about my body. I realise tattoos are not for everybody but for me they make me feel so much more confident about the way I look.

NUMBER 2: IGNORE STORE SIZING 

Dress sizes don't mean a thing, they differ in every store you go into and are never consistent. So my tip to anyone is just to ignore them completely, just buy the size that is most comfortable for you.

NUMBER 3: I HAVE SOMEONE WHO THINKS I AM SEXY

This might be a little soppy but I have found my other half that not only tells me I am beautiful but also that I am sexy. This has to be the ultimate confidence booster, because no matter how you are feeling about your body that day to hear that is something that will make you feel instantly more positive. I am very lucky to have this in my life.

I apologise that this has mainly been a very long rant, however I feel that it is important to talk about this. To know that even amidst the bombardment of body positivity it is still OK to have a few issues. Don't get me wrong I am all for body confidence in every aspect and I adore the fact that we are steering away from the one size should fit all mentality, but we also shouldn't be ashamed if some days we just don't like our bodies, its only natural as a woman I feel.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this post, please let me know your thoughts on your body positivity and feel free to share any issues you may have.

Thanks for reading x 
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As always Lush have created some amazing seasonal products especially for Valentines Day. Whereas all the products they have brought out for the day of love look fantastic, I have never really been a fan of heavily floral scents and there are a lot of rose scented products this year. So if you are like me and prefer something that is not so floral the Love Boat Bath Bomb is definitely the Valentines treat for you.

The first thing that drew me towards this particular bath bomb is its shape, I mean come on how cute is that. The fact that is smells incredible is just a bonus. It is a little pink and blue boat with a heart feature, and when you turn it upside down it has little red heart confetti imbedded in it that will be released as it starts to fizz.


The Love Boat is a slow fizzer but the wait is totally worth it, the colours in the water were a stunning mix of purple, pink and blue. The scent was a awesome mix of orange and lemon citrus, sweet but not overpowering and sickly. It is definitely one of the best bombs I have had from Lush, and I have tried a lot of them.

If you are a Lush fan I would 100% recommend the Love Boat, it looks and smells amazing and overall is just fun to watch the little boat chug around your bath as it turns the water a perfect shade of pink.

All Aboard the Love Boat!

Have you tried anything from the lush Valentines collection? Let me know what you think.
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I bet more that one have you have read a few Tinder horror stories online, and I bet a few of you have even lived one. Don't get me wrong it took me a while to find success, I gave up on the app more than once but it managed to keep sucking me back in, and in the end I am glad it did. I ended up meeting someone who has become a huge part of my life and someone who I now can't imagine living without. So come with me as I take you on my Tinder journey which lead to my success story, I will try to keep the soppy stuff to a minimal, I promise.

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Last year was the first year I really started using a Bullet Journal to help organise my life, I was new to the concept so there were a lot of things I found that worked and a lot of things that didn't. This year I am fully embracing the Bullet Journal lifestyle. You may be sat there thinking that this kind of thing is just wasting more time and it would never work. But in all honestly trying a Bullet Journal is one of the best things I have ever done and I can't see myself ever turning back. Not only does it help you organise your life better but it also a nice way of documenting special events in your life, something you can look back on once the year is over and remember good things. Also the sense on achievement when you can tick off all of your tasks or see a full page complete is great self motivation. I would highly recommend Bullet Journaling to anyone, and the great thing about it is it can be as fancy or a simple as you want it to be, it is completely up to you.

When I first started using a Bullet Journal I had no idea where to even begin. I was one of these things I had seen on Pinterest and thought 'hey I want a go at that', I have that thought pretty often and very rarely follow through with it, but this time I did and I am so glad for it. It was also an excuse to watch countless YouTube videos about it, everything from what materials are best to use, what pages you could include and how to decorate it. While I took many of those ideas on board and some of the pages I include in my journal are standard for many other Bullet Journal lovers, I feel I have really found my rhythm this year and it seems to be working well for me. On that note i thought I would share my Bullet Journal set up with you and hopefully inspire some ideas too. I will also be sharing by setup month by month, discussing what is working and what I have improved etc. So come with me on my Bullet Journal Journey. Word of warning this first one is going to be long one, so go grab a cuppa and lets get down to it.


First of all lets talk about the materials I use. The journal itself is a Leuchttrum 1917 A5 Notebook with numbered pages, dotted, this year I was gifted the yellow book for Christmas and I love it, but it does come in a huge variety of colours. I would highly recommend this book as it is perfect for Bullet Journaling. All the pages are already numbered for you, the dotted pages instead of blank or lined make it so much easier for page layouts and it already has a large index in the front already. The book itself is a hardback making it very sturdy, as in my experience my Bullet Journal goes through a lot throughout the year. My pens of choice are the Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Superfine Point Pens, 0.3 mm, at the moment I have the pack of 20 in assorted colours. These pens are great, so nice to write and do simple designs with, the best thing is that they don't bleed through the paper. I made the mistake of trying to use Sharpies when I first started. Other than that the only other writing materials I really use are regular graphite pencils and some coloured pencils, whichever ones I have lying around. I haven't been brave enough to try other markers or watercolours yet. To decorate I tend to use stickers (mainly because I am too lazy to do elaborate designs) with stickers I get a fancy design with minimal effort. You can see in the image above that I have used a super cute Disneyland sticker to decorate the front, this sticker is from Redbubble and I buy all my stickers from there (shameless plug but you can check out my Redbubble shop here) you will see more stickers throughout my journal.


See didn't take long to see another sticker, and there has never been a sticker that has summed me up so well 'First I drink the coffee, then I do the things'. The key is a very important part of a Bullet Journal, essentially it is the way you are going to keep track of all your events and tasks through out the journal, so have a good think about how you want to do this. In all honesty I have found that a pretty traditional Bullet Journal set up has worked well for me, keeping it simple is key, don't over complicate it. As you can see I use the traditional Bullet Journal Symbols but I change the colour depending on what the task is related to, for blogging its pink, for general everyday tasks its black etc. I have found that this way I can see very clearly where my priorities lie that day.


Next is my Future Planning Page, this is basically the whole year at a glance where I can write in major events such as holidays, gigs, weddings etc. I like to have a little fun with this page as I keep the rest of my journal pretty simple, this is probably the most elaborately decorated page, the amount of colour just makes me happy.


The next two pages are pretty self explanatory, a page where I can log all of my friends and families birthdays and a page for my yearly goals. Now the yearly goals is a new addition to my Bullet Journal this year, I felt if i had them all written down it might motivate me to stick to them more, so far it seems to be working. Boxes with striped colour in them is a theme I tend to use throughout the pages, its quick, easy and simple and yet it adds a little decoration and colour. You don't need to be super fancy for it still to look pretty.


Next are the financial pages, or in my eyes the boring pages. I have never really kept track of my finances, which could be the reason why I have got myself in a little bit of debt. But now I am in my late twenties, almost touching 30 I thought it was time to start and take control. My aim is to be debt free as fast as I can and to start saving. So I am going to attempt to use these 2 simple trackers that don't look to daunting to help me do this. I love the look of the savings jar, but I found this idea on Pinterest, I can not take credit for it. But if you are ever stuck in a Bullet Journal rut Pinterest has thousands of great ideas.


Two of my goals for this year (which you can read all about here) are to take better care of my body and to read more. The body tracker is just to keep track on my progress and hopefully act as a motivational tool. My books to read page is another idea I essentially stole from Pinterest, but I think it looks super cute. I have set myself a challenge on goodreads.com  to read 30 books this year. On this page I have listed the book titles I am going to aim to read and when I have finished a book I will colour in the spine.


I wanted to catalogue every film that I watch this year, mainly for my own curiosity sake and partly because I also am part of the team over at thefilmagazine.com so it always helps to keep track of my film watching activity (if you love anything to do with film you should check it out). The next few pages are just a space where I can empty out any ideas that come to me, so I can come back and refine them later, this particular one is for blog post ideas...


...One for ideas for The Film Magazine. One for Etsy ideas...


...and finally one for Redbubble, notice that each title is in the colour corresponding to the key. Then we get into the main bit of the Bullet Journal, the main reason that we take so much time and effort setting it up in the first place. The monthly and daily planning. Shown here is my title page for January, to be honest I didn't really have many ideas. I use a sticker on the title page of every month and January was no exception, and I thought this was a nice little quote to start off the year, then I just tried my hand at a little hand lettering, not well I might ad but I tried. I will aim to make more of an effort as the months go on.


Here is how I set up my monthly spread each month. I have a little traditional style calendar showing the days of the week and the dates, a long list of the dates where I can write important events and a monthly to do list. I try to give each month a colour scheme, Januarys is blue and I decorate it with a little doodle. Nothing fancy, simple is the way forward for me. As you can see I made the rookie mistake of using a Sharpie on the previous page and it has bled through, I will never learn. Next is my habit tracker. Those of you who are new to the Bullet Journal life may not have come across this yet, but if I have learned anything from my Bullet Journal research it's that a habit tracker is a must have page. The way it works is that you write the days of the month along the top, with a list of things you want to track down the side and when you do the thing that day you colour in that days square. In the past I have been a bit lazy when it comes to filling this in but believe me when I say they work and the beauty is you can track whatever you want. For me I use mine to keep track of how much water I am drinking and if I am eating breakfast everyday, as well as blogging and social media stuff.


Two more monthly trackers, another to help me keep on track of my finances with an expense tracker. The other is to keep track of my blogging and social media progress as well as a little monthly blog planning page.


Lastly is my dailies (Bullet Journal jargon for daily to do list). My dailies look the same each month apart from the colour in the little flag like design changes to correspond to the colour theme for that month. This design served me well throughout all of last year so I thought why change it, it is quick and easy to set up and I still think it looks cute. As you can see I use different symbols (or bullets if you will) like I set up at the beginning in my key and the colour of the writing changes depending on what the task relates to. 

Phew, breath we are done. I hope this was somewhat helpful, inspiring, interesting or just fun to have a peek at my Bullet Journal. I will be keeping you updated showing my new spread for each month and letting you know what is and isn't working for me and anything new I decide to add in.

Are you a Bullet Journaler? If so please share with me anything you like, the materials you use, the page you have, I am fascinated by it as it has honestly changed the way I live my life for the better. 
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You may or may not know, depending on how big of a Mickey Mouse fanatic you are (for me its all about Mickey as he is where it all started) Disney store are launching a limited edition set of Mickey merchandise each month this year to celebrate decades of the true original Disney icon. The series is called Mickey Mouse Memories and on the 18th of each month in the UK Disney Store in store and online are launching the limited collection.

Each month in the collecting there will be a limited edition plush toy, mug and a set of pins (I will try and link them all below, if they are not sold out). Let's face it I wanted them all, however the plush was quite big and if I collected all twelve it would take up a lot of room. The mug was amazing, a really good size and a really nice design and I love a good mug, but I have a rather substantial mug collection, something my boyfriend is not a fan off as it takes up a lot of room in our very small kitchen. Twelve more mugs would not go down well. Therefore I opted for the pins. 

I already collect Disney pins from the Disney parks, no I am not a hard core pin trader....yet! I tend to just buy the ones that I like and I have a few from some independent shops, like my Jack and Sally coffee cups from Park Bound Buttons which were shown in my Disney Christmas Haul. So I thought the pins would be a nice addition to the collection. I am going to attempt to collect the pins from each month and I will share them with you. Let's take a look at January.



First things first they are a set of three pins, naturally this is set one of twelve and they are £15 for the set, which is a pretty decent price I feel as the pins from the Disney Parks are sometimes £15 for one pin. The pins are the official Pin Trading pins so the quality is very good and they have the official stamps on the back and the Mickey shaped rubber backs. 

The back of the packaging explains a little bit about the Mickey Mouse Memories collection and reads: 

Celebrate the everlasting memories of Mickey Mouse with our monthly limited release collectible series of twelve unique designs inspired by Mickey's experiences through the years. Revel in the happiness Mickey has brought to generations by collecting them all. 

For January the theme is Mickey's Silver Screen Debut, so all of the collection is based around Steamboat Willie and Plane Crazy. All black, white and sliver and all super cute. I am a sucker for anything old school Mickey so I love the theming this month, really classic designs and perfect for any Mickey Fan. 

Are any of you collecting Mickey Mouse Memories? If so what part of the collection do you like the best? 

You can buy Mickey Mouse Memories January at Disney Store Online here (I think the limited edition plush has sold out)

You can see my Disney Christmas Haul here 
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I know we are almost at the end of January but it feels like Christmas was only two minutes ago, there has been so much going on for me. So finally I am sharing my Disney Christmas haul with you guys. For Christmas I was incredibly lucky I am very grateful for everything I received from my friends and family, and my boyfriends family, they clearly know me very well as my Christmas was a Disney fans dream. I love having a nosey at what other people got for Christmas and I thought I would have a go at a what I got for Christmas post with a Disney twist, and with that comes the very much needed 'I am in no way bragging' disclaimer. I am just a huge Disney fan wanting to share with other Disney fans the cool stuff that was gifted to me. I will try and link the items where I can.

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I hate the term resolution, if I make a resolution I feel a lot of pressure to keep to it strictly and I usually fail at this within the first few weeks. With this failure comes great frustration and annoyance at myself for not being able to stick to something I had set for myself. In the past I have made the typical 'New Years Resolutions' of going on a diet, not spending any money etc etc and not one of them stuck for more than a month. So this year I have set my self some goals, working towards a goal sounds so much better, this is not really 'New Year New Me' this is New Year with a slightly improved way of living my life. So here are my 8 goals for 2018.

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About Amalie

Giant Nerd, Coffee Junkie, Beauty Lover, Film and TV Fanatic, pretty much a little bit of everything.

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      • Let's Talk Body Confidence: How I Feel About My Body
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