Christmas entertainment

Hello Heather here. So in the month of December I have set myself the task of watching a Christmas movie or TV special each day, as long as the movie/TV show contains Christmas then it counts. Then each weekend I will do a roundup on the 7 movies / TV shows. Here I will post a list of all of the things I watch so you can watch them too :)

 Christmas Movies and TV shows

-1st December - Elf

-2nd December -Arthur Christmas

-3rd December - Harry potter and the philosophers stone

-4th December - Harry potter and the chamber of secrets

-5th December - Harry potter and the prisoner of Azkaban 

-6th December - Outnumbered - Broken Santa 

-7th December - Outnumbered - The sick party

-8th December- Miranda - A prefect Christmas

-9th December - Miranda - It was panning

-10th December - Harry potter and the goblet of fire

-11th December - Harry potter and the order of the phonex 

-12th December - Harry potter and the half blood prince

-13th December - Harry potter and the deathly hallows part 1

-14th December - Harry potter and the deathly hallows part two

-15th December - The nightmare before Christmas

-16th December - Home alone

-17th December- The Grinch

-18th December - A charlie brown Christmas

-19th December- A Christmas carol

-20th December- The lion the witch and the wardrobe

-21st December - Home alone 3

-22nd December - I saw mummy kissing Santa clause

-23rd December- A fairly odd Christmas

-24th December- Frozen

99 days :)

Heather

:)

30 Songs to get you in the Christmas Mood

Hello there chaps! It's me yet again! I'm back! 

*Large crowd sighs*

This weekend I spent a good 2-3 hours going  through ze internetz trying to remember and also find my favourite Christmas songs that I either forgot about, listen to every year, or simply love and cherish so much... I didn't know about it. So, since I'm such a nice Christmas elf I am going to share this list with you since they are truly the best songs (in my opinion) out there. As a little early Christmas gift, I have also put all of these onto a Spotify playlist (if you don't already have it, you should get it because it's free if you don't mind the adverts) so you can listen to it everywhere! As long as you have the wifis....

So let us begin! 

All I want for Christmas is you

Mariah Carey

Fairy Tale of New York

The Pogues

Merry Christmas Everybody

Slade

Wonderful Christmas Time

Paul McCartney

Last Christmas

Wham!

Santa Claus is coming to town

Jackson 5

I wish it could be Christmas everyday

Wizzard

Sleigh Ride

Ronettes

Driving Home for Christmas

Chris Rea

Rockin around the Christmas tree

Brenda Lee

2000 Miles

The Pretenders

I'm gonna be wam this winter

Connie Francis

Let it snow

Dean Martin

Stop the calvary

Jona Lewi

Frosty the snowman

Gene Autry

White Christmas 

Bing Cosby

Christmas Song

Nat King Cole

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Andy Williams

Santa Baby

Eartha Kitt

Christmas Wrapping

The Waitresses

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Frank Sinatra

Lonely this Christmas

Mud

Mistletoe and Wine

Cliff Richard

Blue Christmas

Elvis Presley

Rudolph the red nosed reindeer

Gene Autry

Winter Wonderland

Perry Como

I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus

Jimmy Boyd

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Bing Cosby

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Dean Martin

Silver Bells

Dean Martin

Pipes of Peace

Paul McCartney

*sobs* Sorry I was just listening to pipes of peace :)

So if you have the online player for Spotify, all you have to do is enter this URL:

https://play.spotify.com/user/captainscrapbook/playlist/1lE9Du1ocTSQy6Zgyc6yZ6

Happy listening!

Cheer up!

It's only 100 days until Christmas!

~ Lena

Fairy lights and other decor

Hello there and happy Sunday! So fairy lights, possibly my favorite decoration as they are suitable for all year use. Right now I own two pairs of fairy lights in my room however I am ordering some nice warm white ones for my bed. Fairy lights are great as in your room they add so many different changes to your overall room atmosphere. 

Sorry for the blurriness of the photos. I have one strand of white fairy lights with like pink leaf things on them which gives them this really warm glow about them. As I mentioned I have 2 strands of fairy lights and am getting one more, I do think that there is such thing as too many fairy lights as they will make your room look cluttered.

Fairy lights can go anywhere though, when I decorate my house I put some in the kitchen so EVERYWHERE can be christmassy :)

As well as fairy lights another less christmassy decor is bunting which I like to pair up with my fairy lights.

These are the lights in the daytime, I like these lights as they still look decorative. If you get fairylights make sure they will look nice in your room in daytime and nighttime

Happy decorating

Heather

101 days :)

Christmas-ish Brownies

Hello yet again! I hope you're having a fun weekend so far.

Sorry about the late night post but I got hooked onto Sherlock's third season.

However, I did manage to...

Bake brownies!

I found a recipe on some internet site since I'm terrible at baking but the brownies came out quite nice soooooo... Why not share my achievement!

Let's get cooking!

• Grab a bowl that the butter and chocolate will fit into and a sauce pan that is able to contain the bowl. Pour water into the sauce pan, heat it then cover it up with the bowl on top. Make the butter into small pieces and crush the chocolate, then tip it onto the bowl. Stir it occasionally until to mix it until its all melted. Leave it on the side to cool but not solidify.
• While you're waiting for the mxture to cool, stop looking through your Facebook feed and preheat the oven to 160C/gas mark 4 and choose a tin you think fits best (depending on whether you want thick or thin brownies). Cut out a large-ish piece of non-stick parchment to cover both the walls and the base, this will help you lift the brownie out of the tin later on.
• Sieve 85g of flour and 40g of cocoa into a large-ish bowl. Next goes in the 275g of caster sugar and the 3 whole eggs.

• Take out a mixer and mix the mixture (see what I did there) on the highest setting until the conception is mixed completely (all the same colour).

• Next goes in the melted chocolate. Pour it all in and mix with a rubber spatula until, like before, the mixture all has the same colour.

• Throw in the chocolate chips. If you have a whole chocolate bar, then chop it into chunks with a large knife. Mix it again to spread them through.

• Pour the mixture on your parchment paper (which should be in the tray by the way) and even it out.

• Now all you have to do is put the tin onto the middle shelf of your pre-heated oven. I left my brownie in my terrible oven for about 20 minutes, and it burned slightly at the top. I suggest you leave it in for roughly the same amount of time but keep an eye on it. However, the baking time depends on the thickness of your brownies.
• Cut them up in either triangles or square (or circles because yolo) and serve them with christmasy things.

All in all the brownies came out alright they're really soft on the inside but the chocolate chips really add that nice touch of crunch. Of course, me burning them made them dry instead of crispy so that sucks.

One thing I'd change is adding in less sugar just to be able to change the dark chocolate into milk chocolate because they came out quite bitter.

I'm also disappointed that I forgot to buy decorative things to make them more suitable for Christmas but then again its September. 

One thing I have to note is that I have taken this recipe from this site:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1223/bestever-brownies

However I changed it up a bit to make it more straight forward. 

I hope you enjoyed and that you will try out this recipe because it is fun baking, for those of you who never tried, and brownies are super Christmasy especially when you decorate them.

See ya'll soon

 102 days!

~ Lena

PS These go really well with milk

My Cd wishlist

Hiya everyone and happy Friday :) 

Just saying, this took me FOREVER 

Yesterday Lena did her Christmas wishlist so I thought I would write mine, however my wishlist so far just contains Cd's as I have decided to stock up as I mainly listen to music on itunes which I have downloaded or on spotify. There are many Cds that I have loved for quite a while so I will do a sentence or two about each one.

-A fever you can't sweat out - Panic! At the disco - I fell in love with Panic! When I heard their newest album so I have listened to all their music and I love them

-Vices and virtues - Panic! At the disco - 'The ballad of Mona Lisa' Is one of my favorite Panic! songs so naturally I will get the whole album ( I love all the other songs too)

-Pretty. Odd - Panic! At the disco- So yeah I am getting all the panic! cds I dont already have although I doubt I will get them all. Yeah I love this one too

-Riot - Paramore- My favourite paramore album. I really got into this one after Hayley Williams did that song with B.o.b. This is my favorite Paramore album and I do have it on my itunes

-Brand new eyes - Paramore- I don't know if I have this one or not. If I end up having two copies I will give one to a friend for a present as this is a great album

-Three cheers for sweet revenge - My Chemical Romance - ' I'm not okay - I promise' was the first mcr song I listened to and I loved it however I must have been about 6 and didn't remember the band but I rediscovered mcr in about 2010.

-Welcome to the black parade - My Chemical Romance- My fave Mcr album I love 'welcome to the black parade' and all the other songs too

-Danger days. The life of fabulous killjoys - My Chemical Romance - The first Mcr album I properly got into. I remeber hearing 'Na Na Na' on sims 3 so I know the sims 3 version too.

-May death never stop you- My Chemical Romance -  So I wan't going to get this album due to it being a sort of compilation but I love 'Fake your death' so why not

-Hesitant Alien - Gerard way - I am still holding onto hope that mcr will get back together but in the mean time this is a great album. I think the songs are different to the mcr sound yet similar ( I know that doesn't make much sense

-Black veil brides - Black veil brides - Their new album comes out in October and I cannot wait, I love the black veil brides they are one of my favorite bands and I am probably going to get this as soon as it comes out ( but just in case)

-Kids in the street- The all american rejects -  I love every song on this album especially 'beekeepers daughter'. I really like the all american rejects and this is a great album

-The all american rejects- The all american rejects - 'Swing swing' Is another All american rejects song that gets me every time . I love all the albums

-Move along- The all american rejects - Move along by all american rejects is one song that I listen to everyday, it is like me in a song and I adore it.

-When the world comes down- The all american rejects -  This album has 'Gives yu hell' on and whenever I introduce 'The all american rejects' to any of my friends they all know this song

-Sonic Highways- Foo fighters - I love the foo fighters and cannot wait for their new album, I have all the others and I adore 'the colour and the shape' ( 'Hey! johnny park' intro is amazing)

-Hybrid theory - Linkin park -  So I am not really a fan of other Linkin park albums and also I grew up watching the official rock chart and I surprisingly know all the words to a few of these songs

-Suicide season - Bring me the horizon- So I got into Bmth and sepiternal over the summer and I really like this album too

-Wierd kids- We are the in crowd- 'Best thing that never happened' Is one of my favorite songs and I listen to it all the time.

-Best intentions - We are the in crowd - I love bands with a female singer, I mean it is good to have an awesome band with a female in as I find there are little that I like.

-Cavalier youth - You me at six- So I sort of only liked certain 'You me at six' songs but I like a lot on this album so I thought why not?

-Selfish machines- Pierce the veil - So I kind of had an on and off like with Pierce the veil, I like their hevier songs and I sort of started liking them because of king for a day, this is my favorite album by them.

Woah thats a lot and they are only the albums I really would like, I was going to add the mainstream coldplay albums ( viva la vida to present ) and a few more . I will leave it with these few ... Lot.

103 days

Heather

My Bottle-List

Hello again! How have you guys been?

In my previous post I mentioned something about giving you a tip about not knowing what you want for Christmas? #firstworldproblems
Well in today's post I decided to expand a little on that one idea. Please buckle your seatbelts because we're about to go on a ride on a stegosaurus!

This will seem like a crazy obvious thing to you, but it wasn't to me. If you always seem to have a mind block when it comes to Christmas wishlists then start writing a list a few months before. This has really helped me out since almost every day I come across an awesome thing I want. Let me give you an example:

So the Mario pillow picture kinda failed but anyway.

The awesome thing with doing that is how you can pick out what you want and what was a terrible idea at the time. To give you a perspective of how it changes things: I've been collecting my wishes for not even a month and I have 31 ideas but giving myself a few weeks to think about them in the previous weeks earned me under 10. 

Ok. So now you might be thinking, "What on earth does the title have to do with this?". 

Well my pals! Let me explain to you now!

All the ideas I've gathered so far (31) have landed inside this glass bottle:

NOTE: It's a bottle from lemonade, not wine. My teddy is NOT an alcoholic. 

I call it the Bottle-List (Bucket-List see what I did there) and like I said, each idea is written on a post it note and rolled up so that the glue keeps it together, and stored inside this bottle. Even if you have been collecting ideas and still only have a handful, then feel free to take some ideas from my wishlist, although there arent many that would be appreciated by many people :P so here be mah wishlist ^.^ :

• Mario Fleece Blanket + Pillow 
• The Fable Novels (At the edge of the world, The Balverine Order, Blood Ties)
• Vampire Knight Volumes 3 - 5
• The Sims 1 - 8 in 1 (See, a good idea at the time, 30 ideas in total)
• Stationary "Duh"
• Naruto Manga Volume 3 in 1 (vol 1)
• Pyjamas
• Manga (Kinda counts with the other titles)
• Rilakuma Bento Box
• Elvis Presley CD *sound of youth judging me*
• Hyrule Historia
• Pillows :3
• Harry Potter Book Box Set
• The Best Depeche Mode CD (Not exactly actual, I listened to them for a whole week without break and now I detest them in a weird way)
• Legend of Zelda Monopoly
• Coloured Sealing Wax
• Fable Anniversary Game Guide Hardcover
• Mystery Jets Twenty One & Seratonin CDs
• T-shirts
• Cath Kidston Hand Cream
• Dan & Phil Stickers
• Dharma Initiative Magnets
• Magnets
• Dharma Initiative T-Shirt
• Calendar
• Dharma Initiative Button Badges
• Adventure Time Stuffs
• Cuddly Jumpers 
• Favourite Movie DVDs
• Lost Season 1-6 Box Set
• Markus Zusak The Underdogs
• Christmas Themed Bedding

Wow that took a while. So now lets say I thought of a really cool idea all I have to do is:

I hope you enjoyed and sorry if you didn't (I'm not the creative one on this blog).

See your faces later ^.^

104 Days 

~Lena

Playlist present ideas

Hiya everyone. So each year I always struggle to get my friends awesome presents on my tiny budget. I want to get them something awesome yet I cannot afford it, this is also a problem when you are in a big group of friends ( I do not come across this problem ) but I have a good cheap/free idea that is super personal and you can use as a main present or as something extra

Playlists

Sort of inspired by mix tapes back before the time of the CD. I think making a playlist of songs is super personal because you can change it for each friend, you can add songs you both like, songs with memories or even songs you like that you think they will too.

You could use songs on your computer and burn them on a CD which will cost a bit but you can get loads of CD's really cheaply however burning a cd takes a while so don't do this one last minute.

Or you could use spotify or some other music program and make them a playlist on there but I personally prefer using an actual Cd because I think it is that bit more thoughtful and also it is nicer to have a physical copy.

I have already written out all my playlists and am waiting until I have enough time to burn my Cds. Another thing is if you get a cd marker you can design a pattern on the Cd ( I honestly don't know if you could do this with a permanent marker or if it will rub off ). I think it would be cool if al my friends did this for each other s I am trying to start a trend :)

Happy playlist making

105 days!

Heather