Instagram 006: Strawberry Buttercream

1. Hair bow inspired by Emmerliejay 2. Autumnal Impress nails 3. Outfit of BFW12 4. New outfits 5. TGI Friday's cocktail 6. Boux Avenue opening 7. Birthday Cake 8. Making Mojitos 9.Strawberry Buttercream yankee candle 10. Milkshakes with my bestie 11. BFW with Milly 12.New missguided jacket

13. My Tattoo 14. BFW notes 15. Shakeaway Milkshakes 16. September She Said Beauty box 17. Nail Foils 18. Cybercandy goodness 19. Original Source strawberry shower gel 20. Molly and I winning a trophy! 21. Cookies and Creme Pop Tarts 22. Cocktails with Milly 23. Peanut butter milkshakes at Atomic Burger 24. Las Iguanas Mojitos 

25. £1.99 Essie Nail polishes 26. Starbucks salted caramel hot chocolate 27. Boux Avenue goodie bag 28. Birthday money cupcakes 29. Outfit with my ECCO shoes 30. New skull bracelet 31. Forever 21 Earrings 32. Peanut butter chocolate heaven! 33. Peach and Green tea 34. Starbuck Refresha's 35. Batiste dry shampoo 36. Birthday cupcakes.

These past couple of months have contained a lot of milkshakes and tasty drinks! I didn't realise until i clumped all of these pictures together. Although the Starbucks salted caramel hot chocolate is most definitely my favourite thing to drink at the moment. I hope you guys like these little updates, it's almost like a picture diary. I've been using Instagram a lot more recently and have tried to get into the habit of posting at least one picture a day so head on over and follow me, my username is @sleepwakehope

Do you have Instagram? What have you been up to recently? What's your favourite autumnal drink? Don't forget to enter my giveaway!

Studded Camouflage

I have LOVED the wardrobe transition from summer to autumn/winter and i've particularly loved the military trend at the moment. If you saw my latest wishlist post, you will know i was obsessing over this beautiful army styled jacket from missguided and i loved it so much, i just had to buy it. 

I've literally been wearing this jacket with almost every outfit recently, i feel like it's a really versatile style and can look good with most other clothing. I particularly like wearing it with my leather look leggings to match with the sleeves and my favourite khaki hat from Forever 21 which hasn't yet left my head since the first leaves of Autumn fell! I've seen a few alternative of this jacket floating around but what I love about this one is all the little detailing including the studded pockets and zips on the sleeves. This is definitely a staple piece in my wardrobe this season and such a reasonable price too.

Hat - Forever 21 (Sold out online)

Jacket - Missguided

Top - Primark

Leather Look Leggings - New Look

Nails - Impress Nails

Rings - LLYMRS & Vintage

Shoes - Forever 21

Another trend i've fallen in love with is this gorgeous deep shade of mahogany or "oxblood" as i've heard. It's a really vampy look and i think it looks perfect for the autumn/winter seasons. I particularly like wearing this colour on my nails and lips as you can see! On my lips i've been wearing the Revlon Lip Butters, "berry smoothie" being a favourite or I've been using the 17 cosmetics lipstick in "pink posey." For my nails i've invested in the impress nails which have been floating around the bloggersphere for a while now. I love how quick and easy they are to apply and i absolutely love the colour however they don't seem particularly durable in my opinion. I've been wearing them for 2 days and have already had to replace a fair few. I'll let you know when i've made my mind up about them!

In other news, i've been super busy recently with work. As some of you may know i work 2 jobs, in the daytime I work in a store pretty much full time and by night i work in a club behind the bar. Therefore with the little free time i have i'm either sleeping or catching up with friends! With the run up to Christmas, things have been much more hectic than usual so that's why sometimes things get a little AWOL on here. I'm very much looking forward to Halloween and sharing some spooky stuff with you guys though so keep a look out for that :)

What's your favourite Autumn trend? Have you entered my giveaway to win tickets to the BBC Good Food Show?

BBC Good Food GIVEAWAY!

Am i the only person who is totally addicted to watching the Food network channels? Cupcake wars? Great British Bake Off? Man V Food?! Well, last year I attended the BBC Good Food Show at the Birmingham NEC arena. It was a really fun day where we scoured around all the different stalls trying out new and exciting foods. There was everything from chocolate flavoured cheese and toffee flavoured vodka! I enjoyed it so much that i plan to attend this November also with my mum. This year, special guests Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood are attending, and being a Great British Bake Off fan i am very much indeed looking forward to seeing them!

"The BBC Good Food Show is the biggest and best food Show in the country and this year the line up is just as stellar as always. Top foodie faces including John Torode, Gregg Wallace, James Martin, Gino D’Acampo and The Hairy Bikers plus many more will be taking to the Supertheatre. There will be hundreds of exhibitors from Cornish Cheese Co to David’s Chilli Oil and Luponde tea plus BBC Good Food Show regulars including Foxes Spices and The Curry Sauce Company. With Christmas just around the corner it will be the perfect place to pick up inspiration to make your Christmas stand out from the crowds this year and try something different!"

The lovely people over at the show have given me 2 pairs of tickets to give away to my lovely readers so you and a friend can go too! All you have to do to enter is:

• Be a follower of my blog
• Leave a comment telling me your FAVOURITE food & an email address so i can contact you if you win!
• For an EXTRA ENTRY you can tweet about the giveaway and be sure to include my twitter @katiefhowell

I must let you know beforehand, these are general admission tickets and cannot be used on a Saturday. These are also for the Birmingham NEC arena and you would be in charge of arranging your own transportation. If you'd like to buy a ticket they are selling for £21.50. 

I'm SO EXCITED you guys! Can't wait to maybe see some of you there :)

Giveaway ends Sunday 28th October at 9pm 

The Accessory Stand: GIVEAWAY

Hey Everyone, I'm super excited today to bring you another giveaway! In case you missed my recent collaboration with Delilah Dust, I have now teamed up with The Accessory Stand to bring you some stunning prizes that I actually picked out myself, thinking it was something you'd like. The Accessory Stand have been really generous and let me give away two beautiful rings pictured below.

Don't you just love the cat ears ring? I want it for myself it's so adorable! As always, there are a few rules and options for extra entries.

• First off, you must be a follower of sleep.wake.hope on GFC and comment below. Don't forget to include a contact email in your comments.
• You also must follow TAS on twitter.

If you'd like extra entries (pfft who wouldn't?) there are a couple of things you could do:

• Follow sleep.wake.hope on hellocotton  (let me know you've done this in your comment)
• Tweet about the giveaway (include @accessorystand and @katiefhowell in your tweets and leave a link below)
• AND/OR you can like TAS on facebook. (also, let me know you've does this in the comments.)

So that's a total of 4 possible entries, i wish you all the best of luck!

This giveaway will end on Monday 18th June at 9pm GMT

How to: Create a Top Knot

Some of you may have noticed that lately i've been sporting the top knot look, and i've had quite a lot of people asking me how I do it, so this is my first little blog tutorial and i hope you enjoy it! Please leave me your thoughts below.
So to begin with, i'd just like to point out that I learnt how to do the basics of this top knot from Kate's youtube video, so you may want to give that a little look and i'll try to explain it in photos :)

So first up, the obvious. If you want to add volume to your hair which is really good for when you want a big fluffy topknot, use products like volumising shampoo when you're washing your hair. I currently use the Philip Kingsley elasticizer followed by Herbal essences or whatever else is in the bathroom. Next, i tend to blow-dry my hair upside-down because i find that really helps to make my hair stay big and full of life.

Next, with your fingers, tease your hair into a high pony tail. If you have short hair use bobby pins to clip in loose ends. Next, back comb the hair in the pony tail, especially if it's short because this will give the illusion that you have lots of long, volumous hair.

Next spread the pony tail out over your head and choose a strand about 1-2cm thick to begin with.

Now for the tricky bit. Get some bobby pins handy and fold over the strand of hair, pinning it near the base of the pony tail. This creates a sort of loop, bear in mind, top knots are supposed to look effortless so keep it loose and messy, don't try and make it perfect.

Continue creating loops all around the ponytail until you have the look you're happy with and spritz on the hairspray!

This is such a fun and easy style to create for the day time, and if you're going somewhere special you can add flowers or a headscarf for more detail. 

Let me know if you try this out and leave your feedback on this tutorial! 

Lots of love xo

*P.S There's just a couple of hours left to enter my giveaway!*

Moonstone

Woah, i just realised how long it's been since i did a wishlist post! At the moment, there isn't loads of things that i'm really lusting over which is weird for me, but these are a small selection of goodies i have my eye on.

1. To begin with, My Neighbour Totoro is one of my favourite anime films, so when i saw this on Temporary Secretary  i thought, *swoon!* I can't think of many places who sell this type of jewellery actually, so check out Sarah's shop for some cute and fun pieces. (Plus she's lovely!)
2. Spring is well on it's way and so many people are rocking the pastel trend at the moment. Personally i love the idea of coloured jeans and i think the mint green and baby pink colours in Topshop at the moment are so versatile, yet cute and summery so i'm yet to get my hands on them.
3. Also from Topshop (most of my wishlists are!) i spotted this cami, firstly through fantasy shopper actually, and i love it! I've been really enjoying the crosses trend and i really like how it's subtle in this piece. I think the shape of the cami is really cute too, nice and loose and flowy to hide my constant food baby!
4. I'm not really a perfume junkie, but recently i've been sooo into scents and i've wanted to try Loverdose for ages now. I had a sample ages ago and just loved it, it's a sort of vanilla-y and liquorice scent which sounds like a weird mix but it's just lovely. Somehow i never manage to part with my money over perfumes!
5. I've seen these Charlotte Olympia styled shoes everywhere recently too and i'd just love a pair! They remind me of my dad's new kitten and they'd match my iPhone case so well! I found these on Daisy Street who i've heard many good things about :) They're definitely really affordable.
6. Finally, i couldn't leave this without mentioning the new collection at topshop, Sisters Of The New Moon. Not only does the packaging look adorable, but i LOVE the mystical vibe they have going on, especially in the form of nail varnishes. The shade i've chosen to include in my wishlist is "Hypnotic" but they all look amazing so check them out!

I love reading your blogs, especially wishlists, so please leave them in a comment below! Or let me know what's on your wishlist at the moment :)

P.S Don't forget to enter my giveaway here!

Paprika

I wanted to post this at 7, earlier this evening but my boyfriend treated me to a lovely meal out, so now i'm writing this tucked up in bed with a full, content tummy. 
So anyway, I came home from sixth form to a lovely exciting parcel from Sarah over at Temporary Secretary. A few weeks back, she hosted a fabulous giveaway and i was the lucky winner of the floral blouse by Paprika fashion so here it is!

As you can see, it was a nice enough day to wear my sunglasses, Yay!
Sunglasses: Accessorize
Blouse: Paprika 
Cameo: Accessorize
Skirt: New Look
Belt: Primark
Tights: Sainsburys
Shoes: Topshop


The blouse itself is a size 10 and it is slightly on the baggy side so for a more formal look, i decided to tuck it into a black body-con skirt. For sixth form, i'll wear this outfit with a smart black blazer but today i opted for sunglasses and a denim jacket which made me feel really summery! I really love the pussybow style neck tie as it adds a lovely bit of detailing to the outfit, so all in all a big thank you to Sarah!
Just to update you guys, i'm working really hard with my sixth form work at the moment which is why my posts have been fairly sparse, but i am trying! 


Hope you guys like the outfit and catch you in my next post!

*p.s Don't forget to enter my giveaway here*

Arcadia Giveaway - Closed

Hey guys, hope you're all well!

Just a quick post to share a giveaway with you all! This is to celebrate a recent landmark in my blogging journey as sleep.wake.hope has recently reached 100 followers! So thank you to everyone, it's much appreciated.

Now, i'm a poor student so i couldn't afford to go "the whole hog" so i am simply offering the chance to win 1 x £10 arcadia gift voucher which can be spent in any of the stores listed above.

*The voucher was bought with my own money, this is not a sponsored post in any way. I'm also not holding this giveaway in a desperate attempt to gain more followers, i simply just want to say a big thank you to you all :)*

To win 1 x £10 Arcadia voucher you must be a follower of sleep.wake.hope via GFC and comment below linking me to what you'd spent £10 on in any of the Arcadia stores. Please remember to leave an email address so i can contact you if you win.

*The winner will be chosen at random*

FOR AN EXTRA ENTRY: 

• You can follow me on bloglovin' but make sure to let me know you have done in your comment.
• You can follow me on twitter and tweet "@kfh34163 is having a giveaway on www.sleepwakehope.blogspot.com" Again, please let me know you've done this in your comment.

The giveaway will end on Saturday 31st March at 9pm GMT and is open to UK/Ireland only. If you follow me but live outside of the UK, thanks for following and i'm sending virtual hugs to you!

Good Luck!