Oh Ikea. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

Seriously, though, I love Ikea. A trip to Ikea is my idea of a dream day out. Hop in my little car, poodle down the A40, join the North Circular and boom. A vision of blue and yellow smiling down at me, promising an Aladdin’s Cave of reasonably priced and surprisingly good quality furniture and homewares.

And bloomin’ good breakfasts.

With my Ikea Family card, we bought two breakfasts, with extra mushrooms for my mum, two rolls and two drinks, for £6.85 ish. I mean, seriously. Less than seven quid for both of us, all in? You can’t beat it! AND because I’m a veggie I got two little omelettes and an extra hash brown. Aww yeah.

Anyway, we were there mainly to write down measurements and size up two different pieces; a cabinet/shelving unit for the extension, and another little bookshelf for my room. The cabinet is for a bit of a sad reason, as now my little gecko has gone to live in the great big vivarium in the sky her earthly viv is currently sat empty and useless under the window in the extension. Therefore my mum has decided to replace the table and viv with a cabinet or shelving unit, which we can also use to tidy away the DVD boxsets and my PS3 games and paraphenalia that are currently piled by the wall and the TV, making clutter. I also need another new bookcase because my book collection has expanded to ridiculous levels and my room is a state because I have bag upon bag of books in there, with nowhere to put them. Pretty sure I know what I’m going to go for, but we just have to make sure it will fit in my room first! Another great thing is that (as we all know) Ikea stuff is easy to take apart and put back together again so should I ever manage to raise the funds to fly the nest, it’ll be easy to move between places.

I did buy a couple of things, though; some new Skubb boxes for one of my drawers, as my job over the next weekend is to sort through and de-clutter and streamline my wardrobe and drawers and I thought this would be handy to help organise things, and I also bought a really beautiful smelling rose-scented candle in a little glass jar.

I put some slap on because, you know, you have to sometimes. I’m going through the process of using some of the least-loved products in my drawer to find out if there’s a reason they are gathering dust, and then get rid of them, or to reignite my love and bring them back into rotation. I only really used one such product today, and I’m sorry to say that it’s probably going to be laid to rest in my waste basket before too long.

I used:

• Bourjois 123 Perfect foundation in 52 Vanille
• Maybelline Matte Maker in Classic Ivory
• MUA Mosaic bronzer in Natural Glow
• Benefit Bella Bamba
• Soap & Glory Supercat eyeliner
• Collection No Clumps mascara in Ultra Black
• Collection Volume Sensation lipstick in Tea Rose
• Benefit Browzings in Medium
• Benefit Fake Up in Light

I knew I would have forgotten to include something in the photograph, and of course I did. I also used my MUA eyeshadow palette in Dusk Til Dawn.

I think the Browzings will be going, if I’m honest. Even though I am planning on dying my hair red (more on that at a later date!) it’s far too red-toned for my ludicrously dark eyebrows, and I don’t think that the tinted wax actually did much to tame them and keep them in place. I’m tempted to try the new Benefit Gimme Brow, but at the same time I’m more than satisfied with my usual combo of L’Oreal Superliner Brow Artiste and Maybelline Browdrama so not sure if it’s worth it. I am also a bit ‘meh’ about the Dusk Til Dawn palette, I went mental over tracking it down before I bought it but I just haven’t used it much. It’s a nice enough palette with some good shades and they’re typical MUA quality, I’m just not sure about it.

I must, however, declare my love once again for Bella Bamba. I have this one rather than Coralista and honestly I love the shade, I think it really brightens my complexion without looking clowny, so long as I apply it carefully.

Tomorrow will be the next installment of my budgets series, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what I can put together, but also a little afraid of trying to whittle down my cheek and lip products and choose just one of each for day and night respectively. Wish me luck!