TrendLife Product-Lover's Blog

The cute and quirky Hello Kitty Patio Set from Very is perfect for when the little ones have friends over. This fun set is great for summer entertaining in the sun and kids will love the chance to play at being grown up on this mini garden furniture set.

Hello Kitty Patio Set - £35.00

www.very.co.uk

This pretty Navy Anchor Print Maternity Dress from Red Herring Maternity at Debenhams is perfect for mums with growing bumps. Featuring a scallop trimmed peter pan collar, a shirred, elasticated waistband and an A-line cut skirt with two drop pockets to the front, you'll be not only comfy but really stylish. The nautical anchor print is quirky and fun while the cut of the dress is really flattering.

Navy Anchor Print Maternity Dress - £22

www.debenhams.com

It may be rainy and grey but we have some news that may make you smile: it's National Chocolate Chip Day! Hoorah! Have all those childhood memories come flooding back yet?

So first a fun fact and then a classic chocolate chip cookie recipe to mark the occasion.

Chocolate chips were invented in 1933 when Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in the town of Whitman, Massachusetts added cut-up chunks of a semi-sweet Nestlé chocolate bar to a cookie recipe. 

Simple but perfect chocolate chip cookies:

 Ingredients:

• 350g of flour

• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 1 tsp salt

• 225g butter

• 175g caster sugar

• 175g brown sugar

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 2 eggs

• 350g chocolate chips

   

  Let's Bake:

  Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5.

  In a bowl mix the flour, baking soda and salt.

  In a second bowl, mix the butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract until creamy. Beat in the eggs. Slowly beat in the flour mixture & then stir in the star of the show, the chocolate chips!

  Halve the dough and roll them into sausages. Cut them into 2cm thick slices and place on a baking tray. Let everyone know they were lovingly made by your fair hands by stamping each cookie with the "Home Made" stamp from GettingPersonal.co.uk.

  Leave plenty of space inbetween the cookies as they will expand when they cook.

  Bake for 9-11 minutes.

  Devour with a glass of cold milk!

   

OR if you're feeling lazy and indulgent you could use Triple Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix from Prezzybox. It makes chocolate cookies with creamy Belgian milk and white chocolate chips, making this product a dream for any chocoholic. 

For those fashion-forward, fortunately-footed fillies and fellas amongst us, the sole of one’s shoe is coloured with the most coveted shade to grace the ground of Planet Earth. Whilst the likes of Princess Caroline of Monaco, Carrie Bradshaw, Elton John, Lady Gaga and Kanye West all stride with pride clad in Louboutin’s red-bottomed shoes, for the rest of us, it’s a different tale entirely. Paul Simon boldly once chirped that the gal of his affections roamed the streets with diamonds on the soles of her shoes - silly lass, as if diamond’s really are a girl’s best friend, then she was clearly in need of learning a thing or two about friendship, trampling on her top pals would do her no favours. Simon’s soulmate aside, for most of us, it is not a red-lacquered sole upon which we put our best foot forward, but sadly the remnants of chewing gum and litter that bond to the beneaths of our footwear. In extreme after-dark cases, the all too commonly sighted trail of toilet roll affixed to a shoe during an evening out on the tiles well and truly sets us worlds apart from the Louboutin lot, leaving a cheek or two a little Louboutin-red flushed with embarrassment at such a bona fide blunder. 

With the recent news that Louboutin is to launch a make-up line, it’s simply surefire that womanhood will be lusting after a Louboutin induced pop of colour ‘pon the visage. Teaming up with Batallure Beauty, CL is now set to transform the lives and looks of women from head to toe, bar one’s pins and torso. Whilst the deets have been scarce surrounding Christian Louboutin’s foray into beauty, what we can expect is to be Loubeautifying ourselves by AW 2013. Indeed, a lengthy period to wait, but with Louboutin himself lipping that ‘the beauty adventure is a natural extension for someone like me, who likes to empower women.  To be a part of creating beauty seems like the right next step’, the wait will certainly be worth every minute. 

Keep the little ones dry in summer showers with this beautiful Kids Button Rose Umbrella from Cath Kidston.

Little ones will be so stylish with this retro style birdcage brolly, while the pretty floral design is perfect for summer.

Kids Button Rose Umbrella - £10

www.cathkidston.co.uk