What I got for Christmas xx

Hey guys,

So I didn't  know what to post and I have swapped with Summer this week and will post today as she's so busy! I decided to write a list of what I got for Christmas so you can see what I got!  I went to centre parcs for Christmas and it was brilliant, we went swimming, played badminton, pool, crazy golf and bowling. 

Seeing as we were there for Christmas Santa arrives at centre parcs to drop off mine and my sister presents, I got;

House, second series 

Big Bang Christmas special

Nativity 2

Supernatural 7&8

Dawn of the planet of the apes

Divergent

X men

Magic Mike

22 jump street

Gavin and Stacy- complete box set 

Who framed roger rabbit 

Cake pop moulds

Two scarfs

Four pairs of socks

Two Christmas decorations

Zoella body moisturiser and make up bag

Ella Henderson chapter one CD

1989 Taylor swift CD

Snow angel bath bomb

Two lip balms

A pink long sleeve top  

Hair chalk

Fake nails

A watch 

A green glass jar with a butterfly on it

Headphones

Three electric candles 

Ghost perfume 

A cook book

Girl online

A sewing book

Cookie and cream lindors

Chocolate lindors

Rolos

Love hearts

Chocolate orange

Santa sleigh chocolate

Vaseline

A pair of earrings

Real techniques stippling brush

Real techniques pointed foundation brush  

Real techniques detailer brush

Real techniques contour brush

Real techniques buffing brush 

Two nail polish

Laptop tray

A phone case

£180

And as my main present a Swarovski bracelet.

I have been very lucky this year and I'm very grateful,

Today is actually my dads birthday and we went to see the hobbit! I love that film and I just want to sit and watch it again and again, 

Bye,

Belle x

Merry Christmas Guys!

Hey guys!

So first things first, Merry Christmas to you all, hope you've all been spoilt and have a lovely day! Its been a great morning so far, I woke up and went for a wander round the beach, went for a quick surf then came back to open my presents!

Im now sat in my pyjamas with my coffee and Christmas morning inspired muffins. These muffins are super quick and easy and taste delicious, so I thought I'd share the recipe with you all!

So first of all, you will need:
•250gramsplain flour
•2 ½teaspoonsbaking powder •½teaspoonbicarbonate of soda •100gramscaster sugar •1teaspoonground cinnamon •¼teaspoonground nutmeg
•2clementines
•approx.125mlfull fat milk
•75mlvegetable oil
•1large egg
•175gramsdried cranberries
•3teaspoonsdemerara sugar(for the topping)

Now to make the muffins, you will need to:
•Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6/400ºF.
•Line a 12-bun muffin tin with muffin papers.
•Measure the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, caster sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg into a large bowl; grate the zest of the clementine/satsuma over, and combine.

•Squeeze the juice of the clementines/satsumas into a measuring jug, and pour in the milk until it comes up to the 200ml mark / halfway between the ¾ cup and 1 cup marks.

•Add the oil (or slightly cooled, melted butter) and egg, and lightly beat until just combine

•Pour this liquid mixture into the bowl of dried ingredients and stir until everything is more or less combined, remembering that a well-beaten mixture makes for heavy muffins: in other words a lumpy batter is a good thing here.

•Fold in the cranberries, then spoon the batter into the muffin cases and sprinkle the demerara sugar on top. 
•Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until light and springy to touch and serve warm.

I hope you enjoy these and have a lovely Christmas!

See you nex week,

Love Maya♡

It's Christmas Eve Oh God (Hobbit spoilers ahead) - Wednesday's Child

Greetings Y'all!

And I should probably also say Merry Christmas Eve too. What are you guys exited for? Personally I'm exited for my eight season box set of House MD, which I've been waiting patiently for for about two months now. I'm also getting converse, but when it's a toss up between shoes and watching eight seasons of this, I'm totally picking the TV show. (There's also a super cute Australian doctor but we'll move past that.)

So, what have you been up to in the past week? Get up to anything interesting? Why am I asking questions? This isn't a conversation this is a blog post??

Anyway, I'm gonna tell you what I've gotten up to in the past week. And lemme tell you something, friend... It's been heartbreaking. 

Let's do a timeskip from my Wednesday post to Friday, shall we? Let's do a timeskip all the way to when I watched the line of Durin literally get wiped out in the Battle of the Five Armies. Let's talk about the fact that they all deserved so much better dammit. 

Alright, to begin my rant, let's talk about this little angel. Fili was the first of Durin's line to die, as he was killed by Azgog. Now this is the first little thing I have a problem with. Personally, as someone who is yet to read the book (it's on my New Years list, don't worry) Fili's death wasn't too bad. Used as an example by Azgog and a way of enraging both Thorin and Kili to fight hand to hand, Fili's death was heartbreaking. But after a little bit of thought on it, if Fili wasn't going to be given more than five minutes screentime before this point, he should have at least been given a more prominent role in his death. 

When Azgog tosses him down in front of Kili to see, there's no mourning. Kili just draws his sword and rushes up the stairs like the adorable Dwarf/puppy he is, before promptly slashing his way through Orcs and meeting his own demise (more on that later.)

Does Fili not deserve any mourning? As the older brother, and the heir to the throne should Thorin die, should he not have had some form of mourning? I would have expected Kili to be shocked, maybe go to his brother and... Gee, I don't know, cry perhaps?? Instead he charged off to fight, and ended up getting stabbed in the chest. 

Now, next we move on to my adorable Dwarf/puppy. I literally thought I was going to cry at his death, except I have a little problem with it. Tauriel. 

Now don't get me wrong. Tauriel (who I'm going to name my awesome Elven princess) kicks ass. I love her by default as I've been a fan of Evangeline Lilly's for a long time, but I think the romance between her and Kili was a little overplayed. Kili entered his final fight against the Orcs fighting to avenge his brother, but he ended it by rushing to Tauriel's (a woman he'd known for less than a week by now) defense. The way I saw it, he died for Tauriel, and not for Fili. Now for me, that was wrong. Fili was his brother, and as much as he might have thought he loved Tauriel, he'd spoken to her maybe twice (one time she made a dick joke and the second time she saved his life so I think they're basically even). And up until this point, I had been so on board with the Kili/Tauriel romance. Just... In the midst of it I felt like the scene lost the point of why Kili had rushed into that fight to begin with. 

I will now redirect you to this little angel his brother.

Okay, long rant short, the Hobbit actually broke my soul. The line of Durin deserved so much better.

So that's me done for this week (BOTFA has basically been the only thing on my mind since Friday), and I'll see you next week. Stay safe this holiday, Merry Christmas, and remember:

I'm with you 'till the end of the line, folks ♥

Writing Tips - Tuesdays with Ash

Heya guys! =D

As I promised last week, this post is going to be about writing tips. Blimey this week has flown by!

I suppose that most of these tips are focusing on fiction stories, but that doesn't mean that they can't be applied to other genres as well!

1) Read, read, READ!

This is probably the most common tip you will ever hear about writing, but it is completely vital. Reading regularly will help to widen your vocabulary range and may also help improve your writing style. It is also a lot of fun! However, if you wish to extend your vocabulary even further then don't just read the same genre over and over again. Have a stab at reading something different for a change! Always hoarding up on fantasy books about superheroes or mythical creatures? Try reading books about a modern day teenager or about police forces solving crimes. I have to tell you that I'm a sucker for fantasy books *cough* Harry Potter *cough* but recently I've been giving crime books a whirl, mainly books by a guy called Clive Cussler. It isn't something that I would usually read but I am really enjoying his books! I'm reading Cyclops at the moment and I just cannot put it down!

This rule doesn't just apply to novels either, it can also apply to magazines or newspapers or whatever takes your fancy. However, if you are happy with the genre you are reading at the moment then stick with it! There are some types of genres which people can't agree with and I understand that. Just read whatever you like to read and I sure that you'll be coming up with story ideas in no time! Here's a very true (but quite blunt) quote from a famous author:

'If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time — or the tools — to write. Simple as that.' Stephen King

2) Keep a notebook for your story ideas

Having a notebook for any ideas that suddenly pop into your head I think is extremely important. This means that you have plenty of space to develop your idea which will lead into making up characters and devising plots. I find this period of story writing is the most fun as you have complete control over this story and you have the power to make as many plot twists as you like. Cool huh? Also, if you are someone like me who is forever coming up with new ideas (I really need to think up a new word for 'idea') then a notebook is the perfect place to jot them down where you come back to them later.

3) Don't let writer's block get you down!

Ah, yes. A writer's worst nightmare. This phase happens to every single writer and unfortunately it will happen more than once. This can strike at any moment and can carry on days, weeks and even months. However, just because you get a writer's block doesn't mean that it's the end of your story! There are quite simple ways to get around this obstacle. One of the main ones is to leave that story and write something completely different. Doing this will help to get your creative juices flowing and hopefully you'll be back to finishing your story in no time!

However, if this doesn't work for you then just skip that section of the story and concentrate on another bit. For example, if you cannot work out how to get a particle scene going then just skip over it or write the very ending of it. Once you've done this then you should hopefully be able to fill in the missing pieces! One way or another you will get over your writer's block as there is nothing but your lack of imagination stopping you. Seriously though, don't give up on one story if you can't figure out how to continue it. Who knows, maybe one day that story will appear on bookshelves in W. H. Smiths and you'll become world-famous just like J. K. Rowling.

4) Don't overuse 'fancy' words

This tip might sound strange but I find it to be entirely true. I have this one friend who I won't name (they are not one of my fellow bloggers by the way) who does this frequently but refuses to drop the habit. Of course, it's good to use a few long words in your story as it helps to add flavour to it but don't go over the top. For example:

I hasted through the morose woods, my feet were pulverising the bifoliate floor and my heart felt like it was going to extravasate out of my chest.

If I'm honest I would have no idea what some of those 'fancy' words mean if it wasn't for my trusty thesaurus. If you don't know what those words mean exactly then how do you expect some of your readers to know? Anywho, here's another version:

I ran through the dark woods, my feet were hitting the forest floor heavily and my heart felt like it was going to break out of my chest.

Even though it is now kinda plain it is an improvement as now you can understand what is going on. Here's the finished piece:

I scurried through the sinister woods, my feet pounding against the moss-coated ground and my heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest.

There are still a couple of 'fancy' words in this finished piece but this time they are more understandable and now they also make sense in this context. Once you get this under wraps your story will be a lot more enjoyable to read. Just make sure that if you do use 'fancy' words that you know exactly what context and tense they go into and most importantly, what they actually mean!

5) Get someone else to read your work

Once you have finished a chapter, a section of your story or indeed the whole entire book let a friend read it. When editing your work or rewriting sections it is very hard to do on your own. Getting another person's point of view can be a tremendous help as it can help you to see your story from another angle. For example, when I finished a chapter of a recent story I let a friend read it and they noticed a part of a paragraph which I hadn't noticed that didn't really fit in so I deleted it, which made the paragraph a hell of a lot smoother to read.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope these tips will help you in your story writing and good luck with it! Just remember: don't give up as one day you might see your book in a book store one day =D

On a side note, I hope you guys have an absolutely wonderful Christmas and that Santa got you what you wanted! I'm not sure what I'm going to post next week topic wise so that'll be a surprise for you =P Also, sorry that this post was quite long as I might have gotten a bit carried away with examples or explanation XD Leave me any questions in the comments and I would love to know if these tips have helped you in any way in your creative writing =D

See you guys next week and have a very Merry Christmas! <3

Ash xx

The life of Lollie - your Friday blogger

Hello everyone!

I'm Lollie and welcome to The Seven Sweethearts blog. By now, you will have had 5 people talking to you about what this blog is about... but just in case you still don't get it - we are The Seven Sweethearts and we will be posting a blog post each day full of thoughts, advice, reviews and much more about our day-to-day lives. I'll be posting to you all on Fridays which is good because Fridays, happen to be my favourite day of the week.

This Friday happens to be very good because we have now finished sixth form for Christmas! Yes, for us 7 it is officially the Christmas holidays and as always, I plan on sleeping, eating and having some Christmas fun with my family... Oh wait, hang on - I do A-Levels now. No break from work for me.

I take four subjects at A-Level: Performing Arts, Travel&Tourism, Business and Psychology and all of them are A LOT of work, they take up most of the free time I have.

When I'm not doing work, like Ash, I spend countless hours fangirling over people who don't know I exist (many boy bands, actors and youtubers). I also spend any free time I have watching Doctor Who. A little fact about me: I have all 8 series of New Who (Whovians understand) on DVD. I love it that much, so expect some Who-related posts on my days (There will definitely be a post on boxing day about the Christmas special). I think there is a small nerd inside me somewhere...

Facts about me:
- I'm a Whovian
- I've been too more concerts than I have fingers and toes... I think
- You can't see my walls because I have too many posters at the moment
- I love baths
- My biggest fear is Feet... I have a fear of feet, yes
- There's something about spiritual things and anything different that I'm attracted to
- I study Wicca - Google it
- I live and breathe quotes from movies and TV series - if there is an opportunity to quote Doctor Who, I will, even if no one around me at the time understands
- In this group of seven I'm probably classed as the crazy one
- I like reminiscing in the past
- I Freaking love Disney
- I sometimes watch Anime
- I like to write fanfics and stories from time to time

Posts
- Reviews 
- Lollie's brain (My thoughts and feelings on anything and everything)
- Monthly favourites 
- Quizzes and tags
- How to become a better Human (Advice and Tips)

I''m very excited that this blog is starting and I really hope that all you in the world enjoy it as much as we like writing it!

Thank you for reading, until next Friday - Allons-y! 

Lollie xoxo