I received an amaryllis bulb for Christmas (also known as Queen of the Night!) and decided I would take a photo of it's progress every day. It's so surprising how fast it's growing! It doesn't need much water at all but grows so fast that you can see the difference each day. The tallest stem is now starting to open so it should only be a couple of days until I have my first flower :)

I like to make my own Christmas cards, and for this year I decided to draw some images on Procreate and get them printed out. I loved doing these and they were super easy, even for beginners who claim they can't draw, like me!

You can even combine your artworks or add brushes/stamps as you like, for example I added some stag brushes to the Winter Landscape below.

I followed tutorials from Art with Flo, you can find the links below if you're interested:

Click here for Aurora Borealis
​Click here for Winter Landscape

I've recently got into experimenting with Procreate on iPad - it's am amazing program which you can create all sorts of artwork on! I felt like I kept seeing people share their own works of art online so I just had to have a go myself. I'm not very good at drawing but with Procreate, there are tips and tricks which make amateurs like myself feel good about their drawings! There are also lots of great (and free!) tutorials online from some fantastics artists to help you create your own works of art.

The succulents below were the first ones I tried and honestly, I was shocked at how easy it was. Don't get me wrong, it did take a few hours, and for me probably a bit longer than a more experienced Procreate user, but it was really fun and I was super proud of my first Procreate artwork! I followed a tutorial on Skillshare from Jennifer Nichols.

Quite opposite to the succulents is the cute halloween kitty, I really enjoyed creating this one too, I followed a tutorial on YouTube by Art with Flo. Both tutorials I followed were suitable for beginners (like me!) and both employed quite different techniques, so it was great to learn a variety of skills from both of the artists although I have a lot more to learn.

I'd recommend buying Procreate if you have an iPad or tablet and a stylus, it's around £10 for the programme - not a subscription, just a one off payment. Ideally you need a stylus too, I don't have an Apple pencil but I bought the Adonit Dash 3 stylus from Amazon which is just as good if you don't have an Apple pencil compatible iPad or the budget to buy the Apple pencil.

​A few minutes down the coast from Albir, is the quite similarly said but differently spelt, Altea (I used to think it was Albea and Altea haha). Although similar in name, these two little towns are pretty much opposites. Albir is a modern and relatively lively town laden with shops and tourists (but not enough tourists to make it a pain!). Altea is a sleepy town with classic whitewashed Spanish buildings and a beautiful blue-domed church in the centre. The Virgin of the Consol church is the focal point of the town and can be seen from miles away. Altea itself consists of the sea front and harbour area, and then behind this, up a hill (or steps if you're on foot) is the rest of the town backing onto the mountains. This means that the church is elevated and can be seen from miles around. If you're at the opposite end of Albir and look down the coast, you can still see the blue dome in the distance!

Due to Altea's slight elevation, you get fantastic vistas of the turquoise bay and surrounding towns, you can even see the skyscrapers of Benidorm in the distance. It's a very nice walk along the sea front from Albir to Altea, with plenty of places to rest for a drink en route - although make sure you take your hat and sun cream as there's no shade.

Over the Summer I spent a few days relaxing on Spain's Costa Blanca. I flew out from Stansted into Alicante to meet my parents, who were already there. They were staying in Albir for a couple of weeks, so I went to meet them for a short break. We were staying in a friend's apartment which we've visited before, it's great as it's really close to the beach and within a very short walking distance to the town's restaurants and shops.

Albir is a nice little town on the coast, in between Valencia and Alicante. It's also not far from Benidorm if you're after a trip to Little England ;). But Albir isn't like Benidorm, it's a lot more residential, and far quieter - but not in the sense that it's sleepy, because it's far from it; but it's a nice level of peaceful with some lively spots. It's a very picturesque little town, with a long beach, plenty of restaurants and bars, and some really beautiful spots, including a cliff which you can walk up to see the lighthouse which stands on top.

So I'm not really one for sitting by the pool all day, I get too hot! And I'd much prefer to be sightseeing and looking for pretty scenery or views. So, I went on a few walks in the town, and also spent a bit of time in the local area exploring, I'll put separate posts up about those because I have a lot of photos.

On my first day on holiday, I walked along the beachfront, (partly hoping I'd get a bit of a tan), and then to "Camino de l'Albir" (basically Albir walk). I'd seen this online and it seemed a great opportunity to see a lovely view, and I'd read that if you're lucky, you can sometimes see dolphins in the bay - I was sold! So off I went up the hill - I'm no good at walking up hills especially in the heat, but it was quite a slow incline and there were a lot of shaded parts, so it wasn't too bad at all - in fact the worst part was in the streets below where it was steeper with little shade. The views from the walk were lovely - you could see all the way along the coast, out past Altea. Unfortunately I didn't see any dolphins though :(

Once I'd had a little rest, drink (there were free drinking water spots too!) and taken in the view, I headed back down the hill and had a walk around the main town. I'd been to Albir before but it was a few years ago, so I was familiar with the place, but it was nice to see if anything had changed, and not much had apart from a few new restaurants and pubs. After my wander I headed back to the apartment for a shower and to see what my parents had in mind for dinner.

Over the course of the trip we went for dinner in a few different restaurants, but the best one in the town which always came up trumps was Patagonia Steak House (http://www.patagoniasteakhouse.com/albir.php). It's not on the beachfront and slightly off the beaten track, but it's fantastic and has a massive variety of steaks alongside whatever else. The staff in there are great too and we loved it so much that they got to know us. We made it a regular occurrence that after dinner and drinks, we'd go for a walk along the beach front, which was gorgeous at sunset, and just as nice after dark. It was mostly quiet, and the beach was illuminated by the moonlight.

Albir is a great little town to stay in. It's safe, the locals are friendly, and it's got good links to the major towns in the area (Alicante, Calpe, Valencia, Benidorm etc.), you can get a train from here all the way along to Alicante if you like, it's really cheap too.

Over the rest of the week I went a few other places in the local area, and had a few more wanders around Albir. There are some cute market stalls on the beach front, full of handmade trinkets, there are also loads of places to eat and drink, and some of them are fantastic value for money. For a relatively small town, there's a lot of choice for you. There's also a couple of big supermarkets (Aldi... my favourite) so you can get everything you'd need.

Sidenote: is it just me or are sunsets in Spain so much nicer than anywhere else? Every time I go to Spain I see beautiful sunsets.

My parents go on quite a lot of holidays to Florida, and growing up we all used to go as a family. Now their kids are older they go on their own, but I decided to fly out and join them for a bit. I love everything about the Sunshine State, it's so diverse, probably as diverse as US states come; you've got the orange groves which are pretty much all over the place, the alligator infested swamps of the Everglades in the middle, beautiful white-sanded shorelines all of the way around, tourist haven in Orlando, and the arty, trendy city of Miami in the South East corner. I know the first thing everyone thinks about when they imagine a holiday to Florida is a package deal trip to Disneyworld, but there's so much more to it than that; and when you've done all the tourist sights, there's a lot of beauty off the beaten track.

I'm going to write a full on guide to my favourite parts of the State later on, but for now I'll focus on my most recent trip. It was more of a relaxing stay, as we've been to all the theme parks numerous times now, although at the grand old age of 27 I still LOVE a day out to Disneyworld! The Magic Kingdom never gets old and no matter what age, or how many times I've been, it never fails to fill me with wonder - I truly am a big kid when it comes to all things Disney. Of course, I dragged my mother along with me for the day out (my Dad chooses to stay at the house) and we spent the day in the Magic Kingdom. We always head there mid afternoon, and then stay until closing as we get to see the fireworks this way. It also happens that most of the time I'm in Florida, it's around Halloween - my favourite time in Disneyworld! Everything gets decorated for the occasion, and it looks amazing, the Americans don't half put their all into it.

Apart from Disney Halloween festivities, I always do a lot of shopping when I go to FL (hello Sephora), but other than that we spend most of the time relaxing and going out to dinner etc. Unfortunately this trip was in the midst of Hurricane Irma - the biggest hurricane to ever grace the Atlantic Ocean. So we were on lockdown in the house for almost three days - all of the shops were shut, and there was a curfew put on residents by the government - you weren't allowed to leave your house. It was a pretty big downer on the trip as it meant we lost out on days, but some people in the state had it so much worse, so we were lucky. The news was filled with hurricane warnings, and how to stock up for emergencies - the way it was broadcast you'd have thought an apocalypse was coming. It truly was scary and really did cause mass panic; all of the supermarkets were out of water and bread, and we were advised to fill as many containers (and baths!) as we could with water in case it got cut off. When the hurricane hit, I've never felt or heard anything like it, and we were also unfortunately in Hurricane Katrina a few years back (we counted ourselves lucky, as thousands of people lost their homes in this tragedy). I tried to go to sleep but it was as if the roof was going to fly off. You could hear bins and parts of trees blowing around the street outside, and smashing into buildings, cars and windows. Tiles were flying off rooves and sheets of rain were lashing every surface imagineable. When we thought we were in the worst of the storm, it only escalated further, until we were under the eye. This was the creepiest part as everything fell silent - no wind, no rain, it was eerie - then half an hour later the eye of the storm passed and we were back to the pelting downpour and 180mph winds. For some unbeknown reason our electric managed to stay on - reportedly 70% of the states electricity was lost (apparently anyway).

When Irma left us, everything went back to relatively normal in our area, we were extremely fortunate that we managed to keep power and water, a lot of the state had outages that lasted weeks! I would recommend not visiting Florida in hurricane season!! Although the likelihood of getting caught up in such a mammoth storm isn't that high. Wet season in Florida is just that, extremely WET season - but because of the heat, the rain dries up as fast as it comes, so it doesn't affect your trip too much.

Aside from hurricane planning and Disneyworld, I like to peruse the malls and outlets a lot - I find things are so much cheaper in the USA than at home. My number one spot is of course Sephora, I'm addicted to buying make up. If you're into it, Ulta Beauty is also a great shop, and a little cheaper than Sephora. Luckily for me, there are Sephora branches all over the place - there's one in the JC Penney near where we stay, and there's a brand new store in Disney Springs (the refurbished Downtown Disney - it has a lot more shops now and is weirdly very quiet, which is good!). I also like to go to Florida Mall, the Mall at Millennia, and Prime Outlets on the end of International Drive.

For eating, there are countless places to eat and drink, there are the obvious chains like Denny's, Olive Garden, Perkins and Applebee's, which are all pretty good, but my favourite places to eat are Bob Evans and Cracker Barrel. They sell real hearty, home-cooked food, they don't do anything fancy but it's that farm fresh feeling that is really appealing. I'm sure I'll think of a hundred more restaurants after I've finished writing this, but I'll list them later on in the guide.

Lastly, if you want a chilled day out which includes a glass bottomed boat trip, head up north to Ocala, and visit Silver Springs. It's a nature park which the Silver River flows through, and you guessed it, is home to many springs. The park is beautiful and you can see wild alligator and manatees (not that I ever have seen manatees!), alongside an array of birds and turtles.

There's not much better than a Sunday spent going out for a pub lunch and then for a meander through a nice part of town. We had a wander to Putney, along the river and then up through Barnes. Luckily there are a lot of nice areas close to where I live :)

So, after our visit to the Behind the Seams exhibition, we had a wander through the Victorian Street at Preston Park Museum. This brought back a lot of memories as I hadn't been since a school trip, probably 15 years ago!

There was a lovely atmosphere as it was the run up to Christmas, and the street was decorated with trees, wreaths and lights. There's something about a Victorian Christmas which feels a lot more Christmassy than normal.

I've put a few photos below. It's well worth a visit if you're in the area, or even if you live round and about, it's a nice idea for a few hours out.

Preston Park Museum, Stockon on Tees, is currently hosting an exhibition, "Behind the Seams," which is showcasing a selection of costumes from some of the biggest films and TV shows around.

The exhibition is a glimpse into the world of Angels Costumes, the world's longest established, and largest, professional costume house. It features pieces from Downton Abbey, Peaky Blinders, Game of Thrones (one for you, Jon Snow fans!) Only Fools and Horses, Titanic, Bohemian Rhapsody, amongst many more.

Tickets to attend are only £5 which is fantastically cheap, and after going here myself over the Christmas period, they definitely could have added a few quid onto the entry price - you will definitely get your money's worth!

My mam actually found the exhibition somewhere online and suggested it to me, it was a delight to go and see something like this on Teesside as it's not often our area is lucky enough to have exhibitions, never mind a costume one, which happens to be one of my particular interests. My favourite costume from the collection was a dress worn by Claire Foy in The Crown, it was embellished with thousands of crystals, and took a crazy number of hours for them all to be hand glued on. Even more mind boggling is the fact that this one is a near-exact replica of one which the Queen herself wore, and the embellishments on the real dress took far longer to HAND STITCH on! Fascinating really, but I do feel sorry for some poor person who most likely had sore hands for a while after. There were a couple of other regal costumes, such as one worn by Dame Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love, and one from the ITV series, Victoria. I think extravagant ball gowns are my thing, maybe it's the sparkle that grabs my attention, I'm like a magpie!

Another highlight of the collection was the famous Batman and Robin costumes from that classic episode of Only Fools and Horses - everyone has seen that episode! It was also great to see some of Rami Malek's outfits from the recent Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. It was very fitting for the moment as the film is getting so much press coverage lately (deservedly!).

I've put a few of the best photos I took below, hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I did at the exhibition.

For more info or to book tickets visit:
http://www.prestonparkmuseum.co.uk/behindtheseams/