Hey guys!
Today, I decided it was about time I did a favourites blog
post! I didn't realise how long it'd actually been since I last did one, so I
checked and apparently I haven't posted one since June 2014! Nearly a year and
a half, oops!
These have always been one of my favourite type of blog
posts to do, as I always really enjoy watching monthly favourite videos on
YouTube - I find it interesting to see what other people are liking, and very
occasionally I've actually gone out to get something that looks good, or I've
downloaded an app or some music or something, so it's always pretty good for
that! I like the ones that cover more than just one genre - for example, I like
people who include beauty, stationery, music, candles, etc, rather than just
something like a clothing favourites (although sometimes I quite like makeup
collections, haha!)
I decided that I’d make this into a yearly favourites post
for 2015, rather than just a December favourites, as I didn’t really have
specific favourites in December and it’s been so long since I did a favourites
post that I’ve probably got quite a lot to talk about now!
DISCLAIMER - EVERYTHING I TALK ABOUT IN THIS BLOG WAS EITHER BOUGHT BY MYSELF OR LENT TO ME - I WAS NOT SENT ANYTHING BY ANY OF THE COMPANIES MENTIONED IN THIS POST. I AM NOT BEING PAID TO WRITE ABOUT ANYTHING FEATURED IN THIS BLOG POST, AND ALL OPINIONS ARE MY OWN.
So, without further ado, let's get started!
* BEAUTY *
URBAN DECAY NAKED SMOKY PALETTE
I'd always lusted over the Naked palettes, but I don't
really wear nude colours and warmer shades on my eyes - I prefer either colour
or darker colours - so when I heard that Urban Decay were bringing out a
palette for smoky eyes, I was thrilled! I treated myself to it as a slightly
early birthday present, and I'm so glad that I did! There's so many beautiful
shades inside - some more matte, some more shimmery - and the packaging is
beautiful too! (the actual palette itself is designed to look smoky, which is a lovely touch) Also included in the box is a little card showing you a few
different smoky eye looks, and how to achieve them, which is very handy if
you're not sure how to go about creating a smoky eye! They're really pigmented,
so a little goes a long way - definitely one of my new favourite things!
ESSIE BIKINI SO TEENY NAIL POLISH
My nails are fairly thin, so I find that nail polish chips
off really quickly – I
think I get around a day or two with no chips, if I’m lucky – and it’s really
irritating! However, I tried this last year, and it’s amazing! It’s such a
gorgeous cornflower blue shade with some subtle shimmer running through it, and
with 2 coats and a topcoat, I found it lasted me nearly a week with minimal
chipping! I actually liked it so much that I actually got some other colours to
try!
* FOOD AND DRINK *
HOT MULLED APPLE DRINKS - STARBUCKS
These are just amazing! I was a bit wary of trying them at
first, as I'm usually a hot chocolate girl in winter (side note - if you like
hot chocolate, the almond and honey hot chocolate from there is SO GOOD, it
tastes like marzipan but it’s oh so sickly if you have too much!) but I decided
to take the plunge to try something new. I'm really glad I did, as these are
now one of my favourite things! They remind me a little bit of a freshly baked
apple pie, and they put a stick of cinnamon inside the cup, along with some
dried apple, which I like - give it a try if you haven't already!
GINGERBREAD GREEN TEA
I've been trying out a few different kinds of tea lately, as
I'm getting bored of only drinking normal tea. Previously, I've tried fruity
green teas (which I found still tasted too bitter for my liking, even with
honey) and normal green tea, as well as various fruit teas. I was in Tesco
recently, and I spotted gingerbread green tea, as well as salted caramel. I
love both of these things, so I decided to grab a box of each to try them!
The salted caramel one was slightly disappointing to me, as
I was expecting it to be a bit sweeter and more caramelly, not so overpowering
with the green tea. However, the gingerbread one exceeded my expectations!
For starters, they smell delicious! You can kind of smell it
through the packaging anyway, then when you add the water it smells so tasty!
It tastes like a slightly sweeter ginger green tea, which I quite liked - my
only complaint is that it got really strong towards the bottom of my mug, so it
caught in my throat a little bit and made me cough! I'd still recommend it
though, as it tastes really good and may convert me into drinking it more!
SUSHI
I love sushi. The majority of my friends don’t like sushi,
which means that I don’t really eat it very much when I’m out with friends
(apart from Jen, who likes it as much as I do so we always grab it when we meet
up!) but it’s definitely my go-to happy food. I don’t know what it is about it
that I like so much, I just really like it and I recommend that more people
should give it a go because you don’t know what you’re missing if you’ve never
tried it!
* GAMES/GAMING *
ANIMAL CROSSING - HAPPY HOME DESIGNER
I actually did a fairly in-depth blog post about this at the
beginning of Blogtober, so I won't go into it too much here, but I really like
this game.
It's a spin-off of the Animal Crossing series, and the aim
of the game is pretty much to decorate various animal's houses! If you've
played the games in the main series before, you'll know that you cannot do very
much to an animal's house - you can never change their exterior (which never
bothered me that much because most of them have pretty nice ones anyway) and
it's really hard to get them to change things in the inside of their homes -
also, a thing that annoyed me a little bit about New Leaf is that they removed
the feature when you could change their wallpaper and flooring, so most of them
had terrible ones you couldn't change!
So, whether you're like me and you've been frustrated at
never being able to do what you wanted to villagers houses in your town, or you
just enjoy interior design and cute animals, this game would be perfect for
you! You can eventually use play coins on your 3ds to unlock some lessons in
decorating, which will include being able to hang lights from the ceiling
(something else you can't do in main series games) and being able to choose a
floor plan (another new feature). There will be some kind of theme in place -
whether they want something like a cafe in their house, or a winter wonderland
- and there will be at least one item you have to use, but otherwise you can
just let your imagination run wild!
XENOBLADE CHRONICLES
Okay, so this game popped up a LOT in Blogtober (oops) but
it definitely deserved all the attention I gave it, I promise!
Not only does it have a beautiful soundtrack (which I'm
listening to as I'm typing this blog post, incidentally) which fits perfectly
with the game, but the cut scenes are amazing - they could practically be a
film.
Truthfully, I wasn't expecting to like this game at all. My
brother bought it when it came out, and he was always going on about it and
telling me how good it was. I'd never even heard of it - the first I heard
about it is when Shulk was in Super Smash Bros for the 3ds and Wii U and my
brother had to explain who he was because I had no idea - and it took me a
while to decide I wanted to play it, as I was also playing through a couple of
my own games at the time (I think it might have been Fire Emblem Awakening,
actually - also an amazing game). However, one day I picked it up, and I loved
it!
There's some people who say it's boring, or that nothing
happens - that is crazy, as there's actually quite a lot that happens in the
first hour or so of gameplay. In fact, the beginning of the game has a lot of
backstory, which explains a lot for when you start playing, and within around
an hour of playing, unless you spend AGES exploring, you should have found some
interesting quests, on top of the epic story!
This is one of those games that you expect to pick up for half
an hour, then you go to save and you've somehow ended up playing for hours
(this happened to me a lot, so I managed to somehow get into the habit of
saving regularly, as such a lot happens) and it gets so gripping that you don't
really want to put it down because you just want to keep going until you reach
the next part.
Plus, no spoilers, but the whole game, from beginning to
end, is beautiful. The music is perfect, the scenery is gorgeous, and
everything is explained so well throughout. If you have a new 3ds or a Wii U,
and you like epic adventure games with amazing stories, I'd definitely
recommend buying this!
FIRE EMBLEM AWAKENING
I got my New 3DS this year, and I wanted to treat myself to
a new game with it too. After a lot of deliberation, I narrowed my choices down
to Kingdom Hearts or this, and my friends who had played Fire Emblem told me to
buy this! (I also downloaded the demo from the Nintendo 3DS eShop to try it out
to see if I liked the battle system before I bought it).
I’m so glad that I took their advice/tried it out before I
bought it, as I loved it pretty much instantly!
People have been known to call it “Shipping – the video game” as you can
marry people of the opposite sex in game if you raise your support high enough
with them. I was actually unaware of this fact when I started playing – in fact, I only actually
noticed when my character married a certain someone (this apparently happens
automatically when you reach a certain stage in the game, if your support with
him is the highest and neither of you is already married)
I love the battle system on this game, and the graphics, the
music, the characters, the story –
this instantly shot into my top 5 games list as soon as I started playing it.
If you like games with a good story full of plot twists, turn based battles,
cool graphics and the ability to ship people and actually marry them off (haha)
this is the game for you!
NINTENDO NEW 3DS - WHITE
My old coral pink 3DS has been pretty messed up for a while
now – it’s survived a
few drops since I got it, plus general daily wear and tear – and the right shoulder
button hasn’t actually worked for a long time now, which is a hindrance for
games like Super Smash Bros, where you need to be using it. It also meant that
I couldn’t take screenshots in games like Animal Crossing New Leaf – which was fairly
irritating to me too.
When I saw that Nintendo were releasing the New 3DS in
February, it was a no brainer that I was going to try and get one – I really wanted/needed a
fully functioning console, plus I really liked the idea of being able to change
the cover plates! (You couldn’t do this with previous models)
It comes in black or white, and as my old phone/iPod were
white, I went for that so my gadgets would match! (The irony of this is that I
upgraded my phone about a month ago, and my new phone matches my old 3DS!) and
I could also get a free set of cover plates, as I pre-ordered a bundle, so I
chose the black ones with gold stars! (There weren’t many options available at
release)
I’ve loved it ever since I got it – it’s so nice to have a console that works
properly, is slightly faster than my old one and that I can change to match my
mood (I also now have some cardboard effect Kirby cover plates, the greyish
white ones that came on the console, the starry ones and some Animal Crossing
ones)
CHROM CHARA FORME FIGURE
I’ve wanted one of these ever since I played through
Awakening and first saw one on eBay, but they were always based in the US/Asia
and they were always at least £60, not including postage, which is a lot more
than I was willing to pay. One day, however, I was browsing eBay late at night
(I do this a lot when I can’t sleep and I probably need to stop) and I found a
UK based one for a lot less! So, even though I couldn’t really afford it, I
bought it, as it was a pretty good deal in the long run and who knows if, or
when, another person in the UK was going to be selling one?
He’s a cute little figure –
bigger than an amiibo, but smaller than a proper statue or action figure – and he’s like an adorable,
scowling version of my favourite Fire Emblem male, and I’m very happy to have
been able to add him to my collection!
* OTHER *
IPHONE 6S - ROSE GOLD
I got to upgrade my phone last year, in between my birthday
and Christmas. I, like many other people, had my heart set on the rose gold
iPhone 6s, and luckily I managed to get one!
The camera on this is a lot better than the one on my old
phone (I used to have a while iPhone 5c) and I like the fact Apple moved the
lock button from the top to the right side of the phone – I find it a lot easier to lock my phone when
I’m holding it now, as it’s a more convenient spot! I also like how much
thinner and longer it is than the 5c –
I feel like it fits in my hands a lot better and is lighter as well – and it’s nice being able
to unlock my phone with my fingerprint too!
I was also given a free phone case when I upgraded, which
was lovely of them to do (even though it was grey toned so you couldn’t see the
colour of my phone through it) but at the moment, I have a clear deer case on
it, so you can see the gorgeous colour!
XENOBLADE CHRONICLES - OST
This is actually something that my brother bought, not me, but he let me borrow it to put onto my iTunes so that I could have it too!
Seriously, I know I've mentioned it SO much, but the soundtrack to this game is beautiful - it's so beautifully written and composed, and you can tell that each track was meticulously planned so that each song fits the story/area of the game perfectly. For example, they have the epic battle music, which changes according to where you are in the story or who you're battling, the music in one area which will change as the game progresses (no spoilers here) and the beautiful, relaxing title song, which sets the scene for the whole game!
It's definitely one of the best gaming soundtracks I own/have ever heard, without a doubt, so I'm really happy that I was introduced to this game and the soundtrack! (some of the track titles would be spoilers if anyone wants to play the game, so if you're planning on playing the game try not to look up the names of songs on the soundtrack!)
There’s probably a lot more things that I’m missing out from
this list, but I feel like 12 is probably enough, plus I think this blog is
already going to be far too long!
What are some of your favourites from 2015? Let me know!
