Making Memories \\ #ALittleMemory

Hello my lovelies and welcome back (or hiiii for the first time) to A Yellow Brick Blog!

Today I'm going to talking about memories.

 Memories, memories, memories and my total love for them, especially when it comes to photos. 

My home is surrounded in photos of my friends, family and events from throughout my life and it really is true when people say a picture holds a thousand words.

I have been very lucky over the last few years to have made some of the most incredible memories - from travelling the states with my best friend and seeing things I never dreamed I would be able to, to moving out for the first time and having the holiday of a lifetime with my boyfriend and I am so, so grateful to have had these experiences. 

Solopress have recently partnered up with Little Havens Care for a really lovely campaign in which I am so happy and proud to be a part of.

 LHC is a children's hospice based in Essex who specialise in making special memories for children with life threatening conditions, something I think we would all love to get behind, help and support with.

Solopress were kind enough to create a gorgeous photobook full of photos of some of my favourite memories for me along with an amazing new diary and a selfie stick! (Yay I finally have one now!!)

I was overwhelmed when this little box of goodies arrived and looking through the book put a smile on my face from ear to ear, so many happy and fun times all in one pretty place.

The diary is such an amazing idea aswell - each page has a day of the year and there are 5 sections, so you can write in it for 5 years! I can't wait to start it now and see what I get upto and what memories I can make!

Now onto how YOU can help raise money for the amazing Little Havens Care...

All you have to do is upload a special photo of yours to Twitter using the hashtag #alittlememory  and nominate a friend to do the same!

Example : CLICK HERE TO SEE MINE :)

For every person that tweets a photo using the hashtag the awesome people at Solopress will donate £1 to the children at the hospice to help them create their very own special memories.

Get that chain flowing by tagging a friend and watch the money build and build! It is literally THAT simple!

Please, please, please get involved guys - it is so easy and you really will be helping the children of the hospice in making amazing memories with their loved ones.

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LOST IN A MAZE HOTEL & SEEING MY FAVOURITE GIRL T-SWIZ

Vlog time! Although this actually turned out to be a bit of a disaster to begin with.
 I spent HOURS the other night editing this only to have it taken down by YouTube less than 12 hours later... devastated wasn't the word!
So I've removed all the concert footage and now we should be good to go! 

Hit like and subscribe :)

Enjoy xoxo

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48 Hours In Berlin : OOTD's

Hey guys, I'm back! Sorry for the lack of posts the last few days but I've been away in Germany so have been super busy and you know... sometimes actual life comes before blogging #sorry!

Three friends and I went to Berlin Thursday - Saturday and had the best time, we actually went to see Katy Perry on her Prismatic World Tour (again) but also found time to do lots of sight-seeing whilst there too, which was great!
Today's post is just a quick outfit post of 3 of the outfits I wore when there, I'd put up a few photos on both Twitter and Instgram and actually had a few people ask me where things are from so I thought why not pop it into a post for you all!

Sorry the photos aren't that in depth, I'll be honest and say my blog wasn't the first thing on my mind when away - which was actually really nice as I normally put way too much pressure on myself so it was good to just relax and enjoy everything while I was there - so the photos are just quick shots but hopefully you can get the jist and see everything!

Thursday Evening - Walk & Dinner (Me & the Berlin Wall!)

Jacket - New Look

Roll Neck - New Look

Skirt - New Look

Boots - New Look

Bag - H&M

(I like New Look.....)

Saturday Day - Bus Tour & Exploring

Hat - H&M

Jacket - New Look

Shirt - New Look

Jumper - Primark

Necklace - Primark

Bag - H&M

Jeans - New Look

Boots - New Look

Saturday Evening - Katy Perry At O2 World Berlin

Tiered Playsuit - Fashion Union 

Jacket & Boots - Same as above

Necklace - New Look

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Pins Of The Week

I have an addiction. A Pinterest addiction. 

Like I said in a post earlier this month I have suddenly discovered the love of Pinterest! I've had an account for a while now but it has only been the last month or so that I have dedicated my spare time morning, evening and night to making boards and pinning until my hearts content! 
It is brilliant for killing boredom (and time) and I am constantly thinking of new things to search and new boards I can create!
I thought it would be fun to share with you guys a few of my favourite pins that I have found this past week - a nice visual post for everyone :) MY PINTEREST ACCOUNT

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My Hand Luggage Essentials

Today is the day I'm off on a jet plane and going on my holiday! Yay! After annoying veryone for 9 months it is finally time for us to leave!
Along with a holiday comes packing... and as much as I like to think I'm good at it ... I'm really really not!

I always seem to pack 99% of my belongings and only use about 4% of them - you'd think by now at the age of 24 I would learn but nope... I definitely need those 34 pairs of pants and 57 tops "just in case"! (and that's for a weekend away!)

It's not just my suitcase I seem to overpack but I have always seemed to find space for the randomest things in my hand luggage. 
Saying this, this time I feel like I done quite well to be strict when packing my hand luggage! So I was thinking that today on A Yellow Brick Blog I'd show you some of my favourite essentials that I've popped in my backpack.

 Keep your eyes peeled here on the blog as even though I've popped away for a little while it will still be live and kicking for you all to read and hopefully enjoy!

First up - the apple shrine. Yup, my iPad mini, iPod & my iPhone. I couldn't leave the country without these little connections to the outside word, is it sad that they a like an extra limb? I'm looking forward to having my iPad for the plane journey, hopefully with that, the in-flight entertainment and my kindle I'll be able to keep myself entertained!

A little bit of reading material to get me super duper excited? Why yes I have that covered! The Little Book Of MAgic has anything and everything you need to know about Disney in it! I think I'll be doing alot of planning with this thing! Plus my Tangle Teezer.... I can't go anywhere with this hair saftey blanket!

My kindle is my little baby, like carrying around a mini library with me 24/7! I'm currently reading the Vampire Academy series so I'm hoping t get in lots of reading time whilst away!

A few beauty essentials now. I couldn't  be a so-called 'beauty blogger' and not have some form of girly products in this post could I?

1. Mirror, obvious really, a great size to take with you, especially as our hotel probably won't have them in helpful places! 2. Lip butter, you can't travel, go on a plane or even really leave the house without having a lip product with you! My skin and lips sometimes feel really dry and thirsty when flying so keeping them hydrated is key! 3. Anti-Bac... public transport is dirty with a capital D, this make me slightly more comfortable with it! 4. Hand cream is a lovely little pick me up I like having in my bag and it's under 100ml so perfect as a backpack item! 5. Wet ones... I don't know why I feel the need to have these, but I do. 

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Kirstie's Travel Diaries #18 : Tram Riding & Fisherman's Wharf

Catch up with #17 here.

Day 18 (17/03/12)

Our last day in San Fran before we headed off on our travels again! Today the sun was actually shining - woohoo, we had hardly seen it since landed here so we were so excited to get out of the hotel and enjoy our last day!

(Not sure why the flags say 2013... because it was 2012!) Something we still hadn't yet done was ride the famous trams so it was on the top of our list of things to do!

Once again we had missed breakfast in the hotel so we got ready and left and joined the queue down the hill for the Powell & Market tram!

The queue was definitely longer than we were expecting - we hadn't really noticed it before... maybe it was because of the weather though - everyone had the same idea as us!

We probably queued for half an hour or so, maybe longer, but it didn't seem that long - I can't remember where we got our tickets weather it was before or once we had boarded the tram but I think it was about $6 or so for a return to Fisherman's Wharf and back!

We luckily got seat on the way there - being a first timer I didn't fancy standing, especially when this thing came so close to other traffic - people were literally high-fiving bus drivers! 

It was so nice to get out of the main square and explore a bit more of the city! 

There were so many things to see whilst on the tram journey down the Fisherman's Wharf and you can seriously see how steep the hills are too - no wonder the queues were so big for this thing!

San Francisco is so beautiful - it's one of the places I want to re-visit most!

 I can't really remember how long it took down to Fisherman's Wharf but it can't have been longer than 30/40 mins! Once there (it was the end of the line) we hopped off and had a little walk around!

There was a Starbucks just by the tram line so we went in there and got a drink and had a sit down! Whilst in there we checked-in for our flight the next day - because we had booked things separately we wanted to make sure we'd be sat together on the flights. (even if it was only an hour and a bit!)

After a little while we decided to head back on the tram - we weren't sure how often they came so and we knew we had to pack so we went and waited for one to take us home!

This time it was busy again and we actually had to stand up and hold on - which thankfully I wasn't as scared about now!

We were stood next to a lovely couple who we ended up chatting to most of the way back! I can't quite remember where they were from ... possibly England now I think about it and they had just been on a cruise and were telling us all about their adventure and we did the same about ours! They were lovely and really helpful as they popped our bags between their feet so we didn't have to hold them and still had a free hand to snap some photos!

Back at Powell & Market we had a couple of hours to spare so we thought - let's go to the cinema again! Haha, we are the coolest right?

This time we decided to see The Lorax - something we both had really wanted to see after "meeting" him at Universal Studios Hollywood. I am such a HUGE Dr. Seuss fan so couldn't wait to see it!

Slight problem after purchasing the tickets though.... we went to get some popcorn and my friend suddenly realised - she's lost her bank card. After going through her bag 3457 times it was official - her card was lost/had been taken. HELP. 

Queue calling England and our parents to help us out! We are 8 hours behind remember so that was a bit of a pain! Thankfully after just a few phone calls home we had sorted it - the card was cancelled and a new one would be sent out to Florida for when we arrived there in a week's time.

Panic over - slightly... my friend was now cardless!

After the drama we had luckily only missed about 10 minutes of movie so sat down and enjoyed the rest of it! ( Bloomin' brilliant movie that I could watch over and over again! )

After the movie we made our way back to the hotel and started packing up our life's once again because tomorrow ..... we were off to Sin City.

NEXT TIME - We fly to Las Vegas!

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Kirstie's Travel Diaries #18 : St. Patrick's Day, Cinema & Cheesecake Factory

Catch up with #17 here.

Day 18 (17/03/12)

After a long, long catch up on sleep and a lazy morning, we are into day 3 of our stay in San Francisco and although the rain had stopped .... it was still cloudy and a bit chilly! 

It was St. Patrick's Day so clearly green was the colour of the day! 

We had missed breakfast in our hotel every morning for some reason or another and today was no different! So we decided to head out and go and find somewhere for a nice mid-morning brunch!

We found  a Denny's - which I was super excited about as I'd always wanted to go there.... it's the little things isn't it haha! Pancakes, bacon, toast, hash browns and more later - we were full for the day and headed back towards town!

It was then that we noticed the parade! Because it was St. Patricks Day there was a parade with floats and things all through the streets - I loved this as it really reminded me of home as we have so many carnivals here! 

Where the weather wasn't great we decided to head down the nearest cinema, which was luckily only a few blocks away, and see 21 Jump Street seeing as we had been outside the premiere just days before we were dying to actually see the movie!

Now something I wasn't prepared for in an American cinema.... no.sweet.popcorn. - WHAT?! They only did salted... totes weird right?!

The movie was of course hilarious and if you haven't seen it yet then you are 1. seriously behind in the times and 2. missing out!

Our day was of course not over here, there is always time for shopping! We headed to all the stores we hadn't yet checked out (spent way too much money) - this including Macy's WHICH had a Cheesecake Factory at the top of it - amazing!

My jaw dropped when I saw everything they sold but with the queue to be seated being an hour long we decided to just get some cheesecake to takeaway each!

This was just round the corner from our hotel so it was time to head back, get in some comfy clothes and eat cheesecake!

 NEXT POST : Tram riding, Fisherman's Wharf and.... yup we head to the cinema again!

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Kirstie's Travel Diaries #17 : Alcatraz and San Francisco City Tour with Viator

Catch up with #16 here.

Day 17 (16/03/12)

Man this was an early start, Way too early for two girls who had been to a gig the night before... not the mention the 'couple' of vodka we had downed! But we had a trip planned and it was booked and paid for so we solidered on!
When we added San Francisco into our travel plans we knew we wanted to go to Alcatraz and well the Golden Gate bridge is just an obvious thing to want to see right? 
We had imagined cruising along the bridge in shorts and a t-shirt on bikes taking in the California sites............ well this did not happen! The weather was horrendous so it was blooming well lucky we had booked this city coach tour!
 This was the Alcatraz and San Francisco City Tour from Viator if any of you are wondering and at under $50 each it is a total bargain that I would recommend to anyone!

Anyway - we were up early and waiting patiently for our coach to come at pick us up! We were lucky enough that they picked us up from our hotel - which was really great because the weather was not the best. (basically felt like England!)

We were then taken to the main office of the travel company and told which group we were in - either tour then Alcatraz or Alcatraz and then the tour. 
As we were both a little sleepy still I was so glad to find out we were heading on the city tour first! A nice sit down on the coach, feet up and take in the sites!
First stop the Golden Gate Bridge!!

We parked up in a nearby car park and were offered the choice to get out and go for a walk upto the bridge - now some people turned this down because of the weather but there was noway we were missing out on this chance, especially as this was probably the only time were going to be able to get to the bridge!

So out we went, prepared to be wind swept and with an umbrella in hand - and it was hilarious! I hadn't been in that much rain in a long long time - and that says alot for someone who lives in England! We only had 20 minutes or so that I remember but we didn't need alot of time out in that crazy storm!

We were literally soaking after this - everyone on the coach actually laughed at us when we clambered back on, make-up down our faces and drenched clothes!

Needless to say that woke us up! 

We then popped to a local supermarket so we could get some food for the morning ahead! All I remember buying was a creme egg -- I'm sure I bought like a bag full of food though!

We then had the tour around the city which was awesome! We learnt and saw so much - the only downside was the weather - but what can ya do?!

Before we knew it it was nearly time to head to Alcatraz but we were reocmmned a restaurant by the ferry port before we did... it was rubbish don't go there (Butterfly!?)

Poncho's on, we headed to the ferry! I was really looking forward to this, I find things like this so interesting and couldn't wait to go on the tour and hear all the stories that came from this place!

I highly recommend if you ever get the chance to go to San Fransisco to go to Alcatraz! It is one of the most interesting places I've ever been! 

The tour is so well organised, you just get your own headset in your chosen language and it just guides you round the prison - narrated by former inmates and officers! 

So many stories and it really is an eye-opener! 

This trip was a total bargain - under $50 to do and see everything - fantastic!!

NEXT POST : ST. PATRICKS DAY 

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