Breakfast Granola | Recipe

Hello,
It's exam season at the moment, which means everyone I know and I are completely snowed under with revision. There aren't many things more depressing than cutting a lovely pub trip short because you know you've got to be up at 7 if you have any hope of getting a space in the library!

So because of this I've become a little bit obsessed with breakfast recently. It started with an unnatural addiction to cereal and then quickly progressed into a need to make my own granola. I looked up loads of recipes online but loads included honey (yuck), weird nectar substances or a thousand different types of nuts.

 I decided this was all too much. I made up my own granola recipe and it was so delicious that I've since worked my way through two big batches of it. Thought I'd share the recipe because it was just too good to keep to myself.

So first, I put 125g of butter and 100g of brown sugar in a pan. I melted them together until I had a nice caramel-y syrup.
Then I took that off the heat and stirred in about 250g of porridge oats, give or take a few handfuls
Once all the porridge oats were coated in the syrup mixture I added a few decent handfuls of raisins. You can add as many or few as you liked but I added quite a lot because I love them!
I also stirred in a few mixed, dried fruits and nuts. I bought them in a pack that said "breakfast mix" on it but really you can add whatever you like (I bet dried apricots would be really nice!)
Then I smushed all the porridge mix into a oven dish, I pressed it down quite hard so that the oats would bind together.
I put the dish in the oven at 200 degrees for about 15-20 minutes, every 5 minutes or so I stirred the mix around in the dish so that the oats at the bottom would get the same amount of bake as the ones at the top.
And there you go, wait for it to cool, pour some milk over and enjoy!

Cup of tea is mandatory.

This granola is so, so delicious! It fills you up for the whole morning because of the porridge oats and the dried fruit makes it super tasty. As well as this I think it's really cheap, much cheaper than buying boxed granola. I really don't think this cost me more than £3 to make and it lasted ages.

Give it a go, tell me if you like it. Or do you have a different recipe? Let me know and I can add it to my cereal obsession!
See you soon, Maisie x

MUA Lipsticks | Review

Hello there,
I recently indulged in a little bit of retail therapy. I'd read one or two reviews of these lipsticks and so decided to head into Superdrug and pick them up for myself.

I love the MUA brand. It's so affordable and is surprisingly good quality. These lipsticks came in at around £1 I think, which I was more than happy to spend. Usually I'd consider three lipsticks on one day a bit extravagant (I'm a bit of a scrimper) but when they're so cheap it seems rude to only pick up one!

I chose three colours. I'd been on the hunt for a nice orange lipstick for a while so I got Shade 16 Nectar in the original formula. I'm a big fan of matte lipsticks too so decided to pick up a couple of those. I bought 'Pouty Pink' (a sweet, bright pink colour) and 'Totally Nude' which was pretty much exactly what it said on the tin, a totally nude colour. I always just stick to red lipstick to I wanted to branch out and get some different colours that I usually wouldn't consider.

Oil slick orange - not my best look (MUA Lipstick Shade 16 Nectar)

I really have to say I'm not impressed with these lipsticks. I know they were only £1 but I've bought lipstick from Poundland before (yes really) and it was much, much better than this!

The orange colour is far too greasy. It looks like an orange oil slick right across my mouth. I would never wear it outside the house I'd be far too worried about spreading it all over my face and looking like a clown!

(MUA Lipstick in Pouty Pink)

The matter lipsticks are completely different. I really like them on first application. However, after time they stick to weird bits of my lips and end up giving me a really "bitty" look. I love the colour of the nude lipstick which surprised me as I usually hate that 'foundation lipstick' look so I was really disappointed. The only way I've been able to get it to work is by applying really thin coats really regularly - I mean like every fifteen minutes regularly.

My favourite of a bad bunch (MUA Lipstick in "Totally Nude"

I'll put a little disclaimer on the end of this post...I do struggle with lipsticks generally. I have kinda big lips. I never know how to explain it but quite a bit of my bottom lip is actually like "inside mouth" lips. So it's really difficult for me to ever find a lipstick that will stick to my lips and not give me a weird pink stripe across the top of my mouth. That means, if you've got smaller, less pronounced lips then maybe these would work a treat for you. Unfortunately they're not for me.

Love, Maisie