My Current Favourite YouTubers

Hi everyone, this week I have been really looking forward to telling you all about some of the new youtubers I have been sitting down to watch of late to help me relax, it's actually been a really long time since I last did one of these posts so I thought it was about time I updated you.  As well as that, I thought it would a nice way of sharing the love and getting the word out about some of these lesser known youtubers and I really hope you'll go and check out these lovely ladies channels.

First off, this particular lady has been entertaining me so much over the past year and has now become one of my all time favourite people to watch on youtube, and since I watch so many different people, that's saying something!  And she is, Lucy Wood :-)

I can honestly never watch her videos without feeling the need to leave a comment because it's so easy to want to chat and have a conversation with her and it means such a lot that she always takes the time to reply too.  She is so witty, and sweet and pretty and so 'relatable'.  I just enjoy watching her videos so, so much and always save them to watch when I need a pick-me-up!  I love her 'Average Girl Tries' series as well as all the chatty ones, her monthly Primark hauls where you just know there's always going to be an adorable new pair of pyjamas!  And I love watching her vlogs too.  But honestly this video 'The Power of the Teenage Girl', that she did back in May this year, is quite possibly one of my favourite ever videos on youtube, it's so well worded and so true, just amazing.  She may say she's an average girl but she's definitely cool in my book :-)

Next up is Alice (AliceTheBee)

Alice is honestly a total sweetheart, she's always so positive and full of energy, she's sassy and hilariously funny.  An absolute joy to watch and I love settling down to watch her videos with a cuppa and having a dam good laugh.  I first found her channel about 5 months ago when Marcus Butler did a video reacting to his 'fans' youtube channels and she was featured on there, I just immediately found her so interesting to watch and so enthusiastic.  I went straight over to her channel, watched another video (just to make sure) and subscribed there and then.  We now follow each other on the usual social sites and I really enjoy our friendly chats.  I've also discovered whilst watching her vlogs, she has a dam fine singing voice, one I can honestly say I'm quite jealous of!

I can't pick just one particular video to tell you to go and watch because they're all so good, so just click on the main link and go and see for yourself :-)

This next youtuber is the beautiful Cherry Wallis, now she already has quite a decent following but I have only been watching her channel for about 4 or 5 months and I actually found out about her through watching a zombie apocalypse film that she had stared in, along-side Bethan Leadley, another youtuber who I also now subscribe too. Cherry is a hugely in to all things Harry Potter and I love seeing all the new HP bits that she buys, she also does the most amazing makeup tutorials, fun hauls, craft diys and various other interesting videos.  I love that she's so classy and eloquent and her makeup always looks beautiful.  I was also amazed to find an old video on her channel of a song she recorded back in 2013 called Hero, it is so lovely and has a really catchy chorus, is there no end to this girls talents!  So if you are a fellow 'Potterhead', you will definitely enjoy her channel.

And lastly, is the very creative Hermione Chantal.  As many of you will know, I love crafting and making things, I'm extremely in to all things homeware and I could happily live in Ikea, and Hermione's channel pretty much combines all three!  She comes up with the most amazingly creative crafts and diys for making really adorable homeware on a budget.  She also uploads really great videos on ways to be more organized which are really helpful and is something I certainly need all the help I can get with!!  Aside from being really sweet and very pretty, she's a real pleasure to watch, her instagram feed is just beautiful, her videos are always bright and very well edited and the diys are really easy to follow (plus I just absolutely adore her name!)

Of course I've also been watching all my old favourites like Gabby, Jodie, Zoe, Hannah and Chyaz as well as a few other new ladies including Naomi Hallcro who I've had many a long chat with, the lovely outspoken Binky and the brilliantly funny Lilly Singh aka 'Superwoman' (how I've only just discovered her, is a mystery!)

***********

I hope you liked this post.  Leave me a comment below and let me know of any new youtubers that you've been loving lately for me to check out.  Don't forget to enter the giveaway I have ongoing at the moment to win yourself the new Tanya Burr Christmas Advent calendar, as it ends in one week today.  And if you fancy watching a chatty old-style 'What's in My Handbag' video while you have your cuppa later this evening, you can head on over to my channel and watch my version on there :-)

Until Next Time Stay Happy ♥

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Crystal Sparkly Dreams 4th Blog Birthday & Giveaway

Hi everyone, yesterday was the 5^th of November 2017, a very special day for me, no not just Bonfire Night, it was my blog's 4^th birthday!!  How it's been that long since I sat down and wrote and uploaded my very first blog post, I'll never know.

But as always, to mark my blog's birthday, I'm doing a giveaway, because without my lovely readers, there would be no one to read my ramblings and to show my appreciation I like to give a little something back to you!

So this year, I am giving you all the chance to win the new Limited Edition, Tanya Burr 2017 Christmas Beauty Calendar :-)  You know how much I love Tanya's beauty products and you guys seem to love it too and as it's now that time of year again, I thought it would be the ideal gift to give one of you.

As always, to enter use the Rafflecoper widget below and the giveaway will last for 2 weeks from today.  You can find my YouTube video here.  Please read all the T&Cs below and I can't wait to read your answers to my question.  Good luck :-)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Rules:

©    To be in with a chance of winning my 'Blog Birthday Tanya Burr Calendar Giveaway', enter via the Rafflecopter widget

©    Please make sure you leave your first name and email address or twitter name in the comments, so that I can contact you if you win

©    There will be only one winner

©    This giveaway is open internationally

©    You must complete all 3 mandatory entries before you can access any of the extra entry options

©    This giveaway will run for 14 days from Sunday the 6^th of November 2017 until Sunday the 20^th of November 2017, 12.00am gmt

©    Once the giveaway is over, I will contact the winner directly via email or Twitter, once the winner has been contacted they will have 72 hours to reply or a new winner will be selected.

Until next time, stay happy, thank you for entering and good luck ♥

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Easy Autumn Decor DIYs

Hi everyone, so I have really been getting in to the autumn vibe lately and I've been loving all the different seasonal decorations that people have been having around their house.  But despite my best efforts I haven't found any in my local shops, so I decided to make my own!

The first thing I did was take to Pinterest for some Autumn craft inspiration and there were so many lovely ideas, but I thought the ones featuring real leaves were the prettiest.  I wasn't able to get hold of any real ones and I didn't like the idea of the gorgeous colours fading and going brown after only a few days.  So I printed my own!

The first item I wanted to make was a little decorated candle, this was probably the easiest of all. 

After several hours (or more) of cutting out all the leaves, I just picked out a couple that seemed to look the best, stuck them on and added a length of string around the candle, done!

For the second decoration, I wanted to make a lantern.  

I had a nice jar left over from my fairy light lantern that I made last Christmas, so I carefully stuck a few dozen leaves that I'd printed on slightly thinner paper, over the main body of the jar, then added the fairy lights inside.  Voila. 

However after careful consideration, I decided it looked far better with a battery tealight inside, the gentle flickering glow looked far cosier that the bright fairy lights (and it photographed better, gotta get those insta pics!)

Lastly, I had the idea of making a lovely leafy garland to hang under my bedroom shelf.

Using the largest leaves, I simply pegged them to some micro fairy lights.  Adding smaller leaves in front of the larger ones to add depth. 

I then was able to just hang the garland on my shelf brackets and that was it finished.

  

These pretty decorations were so, so easy to make and (apart from cutting out all the leaves) only took about half an hour to create.  I'm really happy with how they turned out too :-)

If you would like to have a go at making them, just click on each of the links below to open and download all the leaf pages (don't worry, they're free) –
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
If you do make them, don't forget to tag me in the pics as I'd love to see your creations. 

Also if you would like to see me making them, click here to watch my video :-)

I hope you liked this post and don't forget to check out next week's post to be in with a chance of winning yourself a prize in my Blog Birthday giveaway :-)  And Until Next Time Stay Happy ♥

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

A Fresh Start & A New Beginning

Hi everyone, as I mentioned in my last post, I want this to be a new fresh start for my blog and along with that comes a few new and exciting things that I have been working really hard on over the past months, one of them is my YouTube channel.

I first started it back in December last year, just uploading little vlogs, I've also added a couple of other random bits like a mobile phone review.  Even though I feel that was a good way for me to start off and get my confidence in front of the camera more, I still had a long way to go before I felt happy to start proper 'sit-down, main channel' style videos.  But now I have and I'm really happy with them and I'm really excited to share them with you at last!  I was originally waiting for my room to be finished and look all pretty in the background but sadly at the moment that's been postponed for a while, so I didn't want to keep waiting and waiting, I wanted to get on with it here and now.  I have pre-filmed a good batch of videos ready to upload as I didn't want to run out too fast and not have chance to film more if life got busy again, so they're not very 'seasonal' but I thought just go with it and I'll gradually catch up as I go along.  So if you have any Christmasy video ideas or videos you'd like to see, please let me know.

I would absolutely love it if you would pop on over, have a watch and leave a comment letting me know what you think; did I do a good job, do I sound daft, do I waffle too much etc!  Any feedback would be really gratefully appreciated. Also let me know on there if you found my video through my blog, that would help me a lot too.
Since I've started doing videos, I can already see a difference and an improvement in the way I speak, the style and quality of them, so I'm really happy I making progress and learning so quickly and hopefully over time I'll be able to make even better videos for you guys to watch :-)

And finally, I really, really hope you like the videos I upload, I have quite a lot planned and, like with my blog, I want my channel to reflect all the things I love talking about so the videos will be quite varied.  I want to cover all kinds from tags to favourites, hauls to craft diys, baking and decor etc, etc, you get the idea!  So if you would like to keep up to date with everything I upload, I will of course post about new videos on here or on my various other social media sites – Twitter, instagram.  But also please feel free to subscribe to my channel and click the little bell icon, so that you get notified as soon as I upload anything too.  I would love for you guys to join me on this new journey and I would be incredibly and eternally grateful for your support ♥

Click Here to Watch :-)

In my next post I'm going to be sharing with you some of my absolute favourite youtubers at the moment, gotta share the love :-)
Until Next Time Stay Happy ♥

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Hello, I'm Back!

Well hello, how are you all, it's been a bit of a while!

In fact it's been exactly 5 months and 2 and a half weeks since I last uploaded a blog post.  It wasn't exactly a planned break, it just sort of happened.  Things were pretty crazy and busy at the time, and then they got even busier and then even crazier and then before I knew it, it had been a long time since I'd had chance to sit my bum down and write anything. 

The more time went on, I just didn't know what to write about or how to come back and for a while there I wasn't even sure I wanted too but then I remembered how much I love writing and how much I love getting your comments.  So for the last couple of weeks, I've been putting pen to paper and really trying hard to come up with some good stuff to write about.  Life is still a bit crazy and soon it will be getting very busy again but I've decided, no matter what, even if I just upload a little post sometimes, I won't be leaving this little corner of the internet again if I can help it.  I've missed it and you too much! :-)

Also I just want to add to that, a huge thank you to all my lovely followers that have stuck with me, I've even had several of you asking where I've got to and if I'm ever going to upload a post again.  So thank you so, so much, it means such a lot that you've kept me in mind and you've stayed around.  I hope you'll like the posts I have planned and don't forget it's soon going to be my forth blog birthday (wow that's gone quick), so I will be doing my annual birthday giveaway for you and I have a cool prize all ready for the lucky winner.

If you have any particular ideas blog posts that you'd like to see, please let me know in the comments and I will reply to everyone as always :-)
So, until next time, lots of hugs to you all and 'Stay Happy' ♥

Follow my blog with Bloglovin