Hello & 5th Blog Birthday

 

Hi everyone, some of you may not remember me and some of you may have wondered where I'd gone, since I haven't uploaded a blog post in forever!  So if you did happen to wonder, thank you!  I have been away for quite a while, taking (this time) a planned break from blogging and youtube, while I get my life a bit more organized including moving house (twice)!!  But I wanted to write this quick post today to let you guys know I've not forgotten about you my readers, that I'm longing to properly get back to blogging and filming (hopefully by next month) and also to commemorate my little blog's 5th birthday :-D

I can't believe it's been five years since I sat down and wrote and uploaded my first ever blog post and it does make me feel sad that I've missed so much time when life has taken priority and I've not been able to keep up with posting regularly like I always used to.

I'm also sad to say that this year unlike all my previous 'blog birthdays', I'm not running a giveaway this time.  However, DO expect one in the near future!!

I have MANY future plans for my blog and for my youtube channel, which I also can not wait to get back to, just know that it is all going to be 'new and improved', and I'm very excited!!!

So if you did stick with me, or if you're new here at Crystal Sparkly Dreams, Welcome and a HUGE thank you!! :-)  And as always until next time, Stay Happy ♥

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R.I.P. to the Naked Palette!

Hi everyone, earlier today I found out that the most loved eyeshadow palette around is being laid to rest, yes after 8 long years, the famous Urban Decay Naked Palette is being discontinued!  I couldn't believe it when I heard the news, there were a few rumours going around on Twitter, then I saw it for myself on UDs Instagram.

The Naked palette was the first 'high end' palette I ever bought, about 3 and a half years ago, thanks to so many youtubers recommending it, I have sworn by it ever since and quickly came to love the whole UD range.  I could soon see why everyone raved about it and held it as such a 'holy grail' item in their makeup bags, and now I certainly do too!

I won't waste my time telling you how gorgeous the shades are, how versatile and how perfectly blendable because if you own this palette then you'll already know but if you don't, I suggest you buy it quick and guard it with your life because you will honestly never want to be without it.  Seriously, if there was a fire/earthquake/zombie apocalypse and you could only rescue one of your palettes, this one would be it! :-D

In all seriousness, I am absolutely amazed that Urban Decay have decided to discontinue this palette because it is such an icon and such a loved product and I as will we all, be very sad to see it go.

How long ago did you buy yours and do you still love it?  Let me know in the comments.  Let's all commiserate together and show our love for this beloved product that will be severely missed!

RIP to the dear Naked Palette

Until Next Time Stay Happy ♥

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5 Things That Make Me Happy

Hi everyone, I've had the most stressful busiest time of my life recently, it's put a massive hold on my social life, my blog and my youtube but now things have gradually calmed down, lately I've been feeling a lot calmer in myself and I find I'm slowly getting back to being productive and feeling ambitious and generally feeling a lot more positive about things.  I've also found that I've been feeling a lot more appreciative of things, little things and it feels really great!  So I thought I would share my top 5 things with you that make me feel happy.  I think it's so important to take a minute and really appreciate the little things in life, it might sound like a quote-of-the-day from Pinterest, but it's true!

One of the nicest things for me is grabbing a nice chunky sweater and getting completely wrapped up in it, and then snuggling down on the sofa with a hot drink (yes even in summer).  It just feels so comforting and wonderful.

Long sunny evenings, looking out the window at a beautiful sunset and even at 8pm at night, feeling the breeze and the warm sun on my skin :-)

Cuddling my Poodle babies, enough said!

Getting a parcel through the post.  It doesn't matter if it's big or small and even though I end up with slight 'buyers-guilt', when I see a parcel put through the letter box with my name on it, I cannot tell you how excited it makes me feel lol

Watching the birds, I've always enjoyed watching all the little birds as they feed in the back garden, but lately I just feel that I'm taking so much more pleasure in it.  I just love sitting and watching them, they're so tiny and cute and as we put a lot of food out for them and fresh bread daily, we get absolutely loads all throughout the day :-)

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I hope you like this post.  What things make you feel happy?  Tell me in the comments :-)
Until Next Time Stay Happy ♥

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#happy #positive #feelinghappy #happiness #happyvibes #positivevibes #5things

A Fun Day at Wales Comic Con April 2018

Hi everyone, first off, this post was originally due to go up over about 2-3 weeks ago but I have just moved house this week and everything is chaos, so even though it's a little late, here's my post, hope you enjoy it!

A couple of weekends ago (on the 21^st of April) I went to Wales Comic Con, it was my fourth time going to this convention in the past three years, and it certainly won't be the last!  I can easily remember the very first convention I went to back in 2016, it was most definitely a 'new experience', there was so much to see and it was a very unique event to suddenly be involved in.  But now after 6 different conventions, 15 photo ops (not many I know compared to some but well, they ain't cheap you know!), 16 autographs and meeting over 20 celebrity guests - Walking past a cartoon character, a guy dressed as a Disney princess or spotting an exact look-alike of Negan from The Walking Dead and chatting to actors like you've known them for years, just feels completely normal really!

Going to conventions is honestly one of my absolute most favourite things to do.  It's definitely not a cheap hobby and I've found myself constantly saving all year round for one con then another.  I have another three planned at the moment that I'm currently saving for, it never really stops.  And that's just the ones I go to, there's so many others going on and some that I would so desperately love to go to, the Walker Stalker convention in Atlanta!!!  Oh my goodness, talk about a life-goal!  That one is so high on my bucket list but sadly I think a good sized lottory win is the only way I'm ever going to be able to afford to get there.  Oh well, one day!

At least I am lucky enough to have a great convention practically on my doorstep twice a year, where loads of cool guests come to my home town and so do many of my online friends too, this last comic con was no exception.  Sadly I was quite disappointed that 3 of the Walking Dead actors, that I was planning to meet cancelled but I did get to see several of my Walker Stalker friends which was so lovely.  We rarely get to meet up what with living all over the UK but of course that's just another added bonus to going to conventions!

And I did get to meet two other guests that I have been dying to talk to, 'Buffy' actress Juliet Landau who played slightly crazy vampire Drusilla, who was absolutely lovely and Rupert Giles himself, Anthony Stewart Head!!  I was in awe!

I also had a photo op with Juliet, I got there a little late and was told she had just finished doing the photos and had gone back to the autograph room, but one of the members of staff who was really helpful, told me to wait in the photo area.  He came back a couple of minutes later with Juliet for my photo, it made my day, it was SO lovely of her to agree to come back just to do one more photo! :-D  I thanked her many times when I got to meet her later in the afternoon, as well as give her a necklace that I had made especially for her.  Thankfully she loved it, so much so, she took a photo of us together while she held the necklace, for her 'fan book'.  Another awe-inspiring moment!!

The rest of my day was spent catching up with my lovely friends, seeing all the amazing cosplayers and having a good look at all the merch stalls.  And yes, I had a very naughty spend but I am so chuffed with everything I bought, especially my Daryl Dixon cushion, oh my!!!  I will most certainly enjoy keeping that on my bed and giving it a good squeeze every night.  If only it were the real thing!! ;-)  (And believe me when I say he is a very lovely hugger, I know, I've had the pleasure 5 times now!)

All in all, I had a really fun day and I'm already looking forward to the next one in December, just keeping my fingers crossed for more TWD guests!

I hope you liked this post.  If you would like to see what I got up to on the day, I've uploaded a little video of all the photos I took at the convention, which you can find here.  Please give it a thumbs up if you like it, it would make me happy :-)

Let me know in the comments if you've ever been to a convention, did you like it, who did you meet?  Are you a con-newbie and need some tips?  Let me know and I will do a post about it :-)  Until Next Time Stay Happy ♥

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10 Things You Can Do to Get Inspired

Hi everyone, it has 100% been 'one of those weeks' and by that I mean one of those months!  I haven't been well enough to film any videos, I'm completely out of ideas for blog posts and I'm generally feeling very uninspired all round!  So I thought what better way to get my mojo back, than to share with you some of the actual ways I get ideas, here's 10 things you can do to get inspired :-)

1. First off, put that phone down!  You're never going to get your thinking cap back on if you're too busy scrolling through facebook!  And avoid Pinterest, great as it is for general inspiration, it's not going to help you think up actual blog post ideas if you get side tracked laughing at minion quotes! (*note to self, I must not do that!)

2. Look around your room, what new things have you bought recently, been enjoying using recently, products you've been really loving or hating, did you go crazy in the January sales?!

3. Look through Bloglovin, see what other bloggers are writing about and what's popular right now.  It doesn't hurt to get an idea from someone else, just put your own spin on it.

4. It's January, what goals have you planned for the year ahead?

5. Do you have your schedule all sorted, are you an organized person?  Share how you do it.

6. Any big events coming up soon or later this year, are you excited, talk about it.  Are you going away, what are you taking with you?

7. Did you have a good year last year, what were the highs and lows, how do you plan to improve or what are you going to change this year?

8. Do you have the January blues (like me), talk about ways to sort yourself out, share some of your favourite positive life quotes, it might help!

9. Think outside the box, have you had any weird dreams lately you fancy sharing?  Imagine your dream job/man/day out, tell us about it.  Write a story or poem.  If you could go anywhere in the world for a trip, where would you go and why?

10. Do you have an interesting hobby; explain all about it, how did you get interested in it?  Do you do crafts and make things, show us!

Just get your notebook out and write down as many things as you can, write down the type of posts you like to read.  Sit and concentrate for a solid 5-10 minutes, even a couple of times in a day and I guarantee you'll end up with loads of ideas.

I hope this post helped some of you, it certainly helped me.  Let me know in the comments if you liked these ideas, if it did help inspire you and any other tips you can think of too.  How do you get ideas? :-)  Until Next Time Stay Happy ♥

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A New Year Catch Up

Hi, happy new year!  It's freezing today and currently snowing again.

Since I haven't uploaded a post since just after Christmas, I thought it was a good time to have a catch up with you all and tell you what's been going on in my life lately.  Everyone seems to have ill on or around Christmas this year, I'm a little late to the party but my Fibro has well and truly kicked in and I've honestly just been feeling horrible the past couple of weeks, this past week especially.  If you don't know what I'm talking about or if you're new here (hi), I have a health condition called Fibromyalgia and also EDS, if you would like to know more in detail, you can read my health post here.  Basically if I over-do things I get flare ups and by the feel of it, that's exactly what's going on right now.  I also still have anaemia at the moment, so I feel like I'm fighting my health all ways round lately.  I'm due to speak to my specialist this week, after 3 months of waiting for an appointment, about finally sorting out some iron treatment for my anaemia, so fingers crossed I can finally start that and I'm praying it kicks in soon!

I've even felt too rough this week to film a video which is disappointing as I've really been enjoying making videos over the last few months.  Kind of disappointing that not many people see them as I put sooo much work in to them and like with my last video 'What I Got for Christmas' I only had 7 views! But I guess perseverance and time will help.  I have another video planned to film later this week, I thought I would have a go at doing monthly favourites.  If you're a long-time reader of my blog you'll know I usually only ever do seasonal favourites, but I thought it might be nice to give it a go and there's been quite a lot of little bits and bobs I've been loving so why not do a favourites!

As for resolutions or goals this year, well one was to regularly upload videos and posts (going well so far I don't think) but we're still only in January so I'm not feeling too guilty yet.  I also would love to really try and get out and about more this year.  I have a couple of big events coming up in March and April, which I am SO excited about but then nothing else, so I want to try and get out of the house and actually go places, maybe just on a train a go to a new town or go and visit one of my friends and vlog the trip later in the year.

And finally, I have really gotten in to bullet journaling, wow have I got into it, pinterest has been my best friend this week.  While I've been feeling too crappy to do anything, I've been really enjoying scrolling through all the ideas and saving image after image, as well as watching countless 'bu-jo' videos on youtube.  I was given a really lovely plain notebook for Christmas and after investing in many new stationary bits (very naughty I know), I now am the proud owner of a lovely set of colour pencils, brush pens and fine liners to help get me started!  I have also been learning how to do some nice little fancy fonts and cute little doodles, I've already started on my index page, calendar page and main January layout, as well as figuring out the various themes I'm going to do for each month.  So far I'm not finding it a quick process which doesn't really work with the whole 'bullet' idea but I'm new, I'm still learning and I'm enjoying it, so that's good enough for me for now.

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Well, that was a lot more than I planned to write, well done if you made it this far, if you did write in the comments what your favourite colour is :-)  Also, let me know any particular posts or videos you would like to see from me this year and until next time, lots of hugs to you all and 'Stay Happy' ♥xx

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