Introducing Muzikool!

Morning ladies! A few of you will have noticed me mentioning Muzikool on Twitter or Facebook last week, and no doubt most of you are still wondering what the heck I am on about...well here is a post to introduce Muzikool properly to you all.

So most of you know Spotify, which is a free music streaming site, Muzikool is similar to Spotify in the sense that you can listen to chart music for free through your computer or other internet connected device. 

But there are a few big differences:

1. With Muzikool the music video is also streamed alongside the track. I love music videos and often like to have them on in the back ground when I am working. I usually use the music channel but find it repetitive and I hate all the adverts (that goes for Spotify too!)

2. No adverts! Muzikool doesn’t have any audible adverts during or in between the tracks! There is sometimes google ads on the video, the same as there would be on YouTube

3. You can choose the mood of your musical journey. The Mood Map is one of the special features on Muzikool. You can adjust the chart from upset and sad round to exciting and wild! Therefore tailoring the type of music you want to listen to. The automatic music selector will tailor the music to your choices and have the music gradually move between the moods so it won’t jump about in tempo and volume.

4. The other Music Map is the Artists Map. This gives you the 6 most popular artists of the moment and you can chart your journey through their tracks, in a similar way to the Mood Map.

5. You can choose a decade of music to listen to, or multiple decades! Meaning if you don’t fancy listening to something new, you could choose to just listen to 80’s tracks, (or any other decade!)

Still Confused? Check out this quick video and it’ll all make a bit more sense.

Muzikool from Muzikool on Vimeo.

The site is on an invite only basis, so why not sign up today and get your free invite!

*This is a sponsored post, but all words and opinions are my own*

Recipe Review - BakingMad.com

Today I bring you a recipe and site review for BakingMad.com! When the lovely PR girls got in touch and asked if would like to try out some of the recipes and the products they use I thought it might be a bit of fun, and something a bit different for you, all my lovely readers out there. So when they sent me this parcel of fun baking items I had to decide which of the 100's of recipes off their site to make with them.

The most obvious thing that came to mind was cupcakes!! I decided to use this recipe for Crown Cupcakes. But altered it so they weren't just plain vanilla cupcakes... they were Pastel Rainbow Cupcakes!! Well I had to use all those pretty food colourings, didn't I? Then Jon could have some fun helping me decorate them too!

Now, I'm not really a baker so this recipe had to be pretty simple! So this is what I managed to bake in the end! We did double the quantity as there were lots of us home to eat them afterwards. 

Pretty aren't they!

The ingredients and recipe for the basic cupcake on on the link above.

Here is what I did:

 Mixed the sugar and butter, till smooth

Slowly added the flour

Keep mixing till it's all nice and combined, add vanilla extract - or another extract you fancy!

Then the fun part. 

Split the mixture between 4 bowls and add drops of food colouring to each, mix and add more until you get desired colour. I kept one plain, until I found some red dye in the cupboard and added that to the last bowl, just to add more fun to the mix!

Place a little of each colour in each cupcake wrapper, and gently shake the whole tray so the mixture settles into the moulds and flattens out. Then pop in the oven.

 tick, tick, tick...20 minutes later...ta da freshly baked coloured cupcakes now to decorate!

 Some got blue icing treatment and some snowflake toppers c/o JustBake.co.uk (there will be a review of them this week) others got traditional butterflied with butter icing.

 Others got butter icing frosting and sprinkles or grated chocolate flakes. The dark chocolate flakes are from a caramel and sea salt bar I got sent by Miki from Miki's Scrapbook and were so tasty!!

 And this is what they looked like inside - the photo doesn't do them justice, they were a bit brighter than they look. And oh so yummy!

Bakingmad.com has literally 100's of other baking recipes and I will be trying out a few more on the lead up to Christmas

*I was sent the items free of charge in exchange for this post, but all opinions are my own*

Review - Holga Lens Case for iPhone 5

The guys from Three Mobile got in touch recently to ask me to test out the Holga Filter Lens for the iPhone 5. As I am a bit of an Instagram and Twitter fanatic I figured it would be a bit of fun, I take lots of pictures with my phone, as most of you know, so why not add a little effect to a few of them.

So this is what it looks like, most of you will have seen one or something similar. You can get it on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

It fits my phone nice and snuggly, and I was surprised it was so light. It is a little bulky at the top but wasn't too much of an issue in my pocket or handbag. I have actually left it on for the last 3 weeks without any problems

Even without using any of the effects the plain lens gives you a nice little vignette, which I really liked on my pictures. 

So here are the effects you can produce:

2 lens splitter

3 lens splitter

 4 lens splitter

Had some fun with the heart frame in work, it was a little hit and miss on how clear the heart showed up.

 Blue spot lens, good for putting a focus on something

 Yellow Spot Lens, wasn't really as obvious to see, the colour wasn't really bold enough

 Green filter, does what it says

Red filter, again self explanatory
Now all the lenses above are just a bit of fun and not something I would use all the time. But what I was really impressed by was the Macro lens, as a blogger I often want to take close detailed shots of things, especially my nails for a mani of the week post, and the general phone camera just wont allow you to focus that tight to the nails themselves. This macro lens is simple but very effective, I was able to get so much closer to the nail, really show off the colour and quality of the polish, and the polish label itself as we all know how tiny the writing is on those bottles. This is something I have been finding very useful over the last 3 weeks and think a lot of beauty bloggers and crafters who write tutorials would really find it an advantage. Here is one of the detailed shots I took this week.

Now the photo below is the one they use to advertise the lens and you can see how much closer you can get.
So I may not buy this lens just for the fun factor, whilst it is good I don't think I would use it much or often, it would be a bit of a fad for a few months I think, although I think it might be a fun gift for someone who loves taking images on their phone. But I would genuinely buy it as a macro lens, even if I just put it on when ever I needed a detailed shot of my nails or something else, it has been so helpful for some of my blog post!
Have you tried this lens or something similar? What are your opinions?

*I was sent this lens from Three Mobile to review free of charge, all opinions are truthful and my own

Outfit Post - John Lewis Christmas Event Outfit

 Well here is the outfit post from the John Lewis Christmas PR Event I blogged about yesterday. I didn't want to look to eveningy or to casual, so I potted for my new Zalando Jumper over a dress with some nice warm knee high boots. And this was how my hair turned out after the Kamagata team had curled it using the new Babyliss Pro Curler, it didn't really hold very well sadly, so all the cute curls had fallen by the time I got home!

Jumper: c/o Zalando

Dress: Dorothy Perkins

Boots: c/o Shoe Zone

Hat: H&M

Tights: TKMaxx

Loving my new winter boots from Shoe Zone! They have sherling lining so are nice and warm and cozy! Plus really comfortable!

Warren Evans Clocks Go Back Giveaway

The clocks go back on sunday this week, so we will be getting a whole extra hour in bed, or maybe you will spend your extra hour doing something else. And that's just what Warren Evans wants to know...what will you be doing for your extra hour on Sunday? Warren Evans is a bed and mattress specialist and will be giving one lucky winner a free handmade double bed and a luxury mattress. Who could't do with a new bed, I know me and Jon would love a nice new luxury bed! Liking this rustic one at the moment

And this chic minimalist white one. 

To enter the giveaway just visit the Warren Evans Facebook Page on Sunday and leave a comment a comment saying 'when the #clocksgoback...' telling them what you will spend that extra hour on. It's really that easy, and you could win an amazing handmade bed and mattress. Simple!

Events - John Lewis Christmas PR Event

Last week was the annual John Lewis Christmas PR Event - I must be honest, it is possibly the best PR event of the year in South Wales for the local bloggers. It is always a great, fun event, lots of nice drinks, tasty food and some great products and demonstrations!! This year it was held in the Park Plaza's Koko Club, it's a really cool wine bar in the centre of Cardiff.

The venue was amazingly decorated and laid out with all the top new products and christmassy items. There were a great mixture of people there from local bloggers, PR people, brand reps, local press, local stylists and other fab people. Here is how it all looked. Downstairs were the decorations, foods, technology, hair and fashion items.

 Some of the great food samples laid out in the centre of the room. I had a try of the crackers, biscuits, jams, pate and a few other nibbles. Plus some champaign and marmalade vodka - Champaign=good Marmalade Vodka=not so great!

These cheesy xmas tree crackers were really tasty though!

 The christmas tree and decoration displays were beautiful. I'm still loving the glass reindeer below, they had these last year and I just love how delicate they are, so pretty!

 Gift tree, covered in Jelly Belly Beans in cones. They were yummy! As usual there were lots of little treats we could pick up to bring home, mostly food based but also some cute little tea candles and xmas decoration things.

Next I checked out the new technology items.

 The orange case is an iPad waterproof case, that is half submerged in water!! The other i... items are all for budding musicians.

I'm a little in love with these awesome phones! The purple one is so cool! There were also funky radios you can just see on the side of the picture.
I also had my hair curled by the Kamigata team using the new Babyliss Pro Perfect Curler, which is amazing, but sadly my hair just doesnt hold curls, you will see it in my outfit post tomorrow! 
Upstairs was a beauty bloggers paradise with Liz Earle, Laura Mercier and Nars -

 A little in love with that Laura Mercier eyeshadow trio! Beautiful colours!

 Steph from Cowbiscuits getting herself a Liz Earle hand treatment, I also had one and it was lovely and relaxing!

 And lastly the haberdashery department, where you could try your hand at making your very own Christmas card.

 Ella from Hello Ella had a go, and she wont mind me for saying this but she is a bit artistically challenged! Hehe! After getting tangled a few times she managed to create this cute simple Owl card!

So that was the event, there were lots of other great bloggers there and a fun time was had by all. Almost getting into a Christmassy mood thanks to John Lewis, and I am never christmassy until at least December! Thank you John Lewis for all the lovely items in the gift bag, and the samples I got to try whilst there.

Anyone else been to a fun xmas event yet?