Stripy gift guide | Christmas 2025

I promised the gift guides would be quite niche this year - so I'm back with another one, full of stripy gifts. Stripes are a really popular pattern right now, and you can find a ton of really cute gifts below for the stylish friends or family in your life who are all into the striped vibe!

Monty Shoulder Bag

I love the design of Monty bags - they're so simple but really cute, and they're handmade in India from recycled nylon. We love a sustainable option, and the red & pink of this particular bag is a gorgeous combo.

House of Hetty Striped Earrings

I already own some House of Hetty earrings and the quality is great - these striped ones are really cute, and they're not too big or crazy so you could get away with them day to day for sure.

Habitat Stripy Photo Frame

Can you ever have too many photo frames? This striped one is so cute - Habitat do home decor *really* well.

OHS Stripy Pyjamas

Pink and red again - they just go together so well. Online Home Shop products are great quality but really affordable, and these PJs are so cute.

Stripy Mug & Coaster

I love love love this set - they come in a few different colours too, so you could mix and match! The shape and design is just adorable.

Primark Striped Rugby Polo

I'm never sure if these shirts really suit me, but they're super popular and the stripes are lovely, of course. Perfect with jeans and Uggs for a casual daytime look!

Gisela Graham Striped Vase

Glass vases are out, ceramic patterned vases are in - I absolutely love the little handles on this one too. It's just absolutely charming and would look gorgeous with some contrasting sunflowers in it.

M&S 3 Wick Candle

Candles are another classic go-to gift for Christmas, making an ideal stocking filler or secret Santa present. This one is stylish and sticks to the stripy theme without being too bold. I love it!

Juniqe Vasenliebe Notebook

As a writer and serial list-maker, there's nothing I love more than a new notebook. The design on this one is just too cute.

So many cute stripy gift ideas! I mean honestly this is mostly just a wishlist for myself because I love every single thing, but I hope it's given you some inspiration during your Christmas shopping...

Gingham gift guide | Christmas 2025

This year, having been so busy, I've not been focusing on Christmas as early as I usually do - especially in terms of my little old blog. I thought I'd do something different and put together some super niche gift guides, focusing on fun and whimsy and really quite specific vibes. This particular Christmas gift guide is full of gingham - one of my favourite patterns!

2026 Daily Diary - Papier

I'd never be without a diary now, and what I love about Papier is that you can personalise their products with your name. This one is just super cute.

Pink Gingham Make Up Big - Amazon

Can you ever have too many pouches and make up bags? Personally I think not, and this is gorgeously girly.

Green Gingham Bedding - Online Home Shop

I'm a huge fan of Online Home Shop (I'm actually now an ambassador for them!) and I have this exact bedding in our spare room. It's great quality and really affordable.

Yellow Gingham Bag - Uniqlo

These bags have been everywhere the past couple of years, and the gingham ones are SO sweet - plus they're currently reduced so hop on quick!

Pink Gingham Earrings - Etsy

I'm a big fan of novelty/oversized earrings and these ones are just adorable.

Caudalie Travel Essentials - Escentual

It wouldn't be Christmas without new skincare, and this travel set is such good value - with a lovely gingham bag to keep it all together.

Gingham Mug - Amazon

I don't drink hot drinks but this shape of mug is my absolute favourite, and I love the gingham design.

Oversized Gingham Scrunchie - Etsy

How cute is this massive gingham scrunchie?! Perfect for slick backs if you ask me.

Chelsea Peers Gingham Pyjamas - John Lewis

The quality of Chelsea Peers pyjamas is unreal, and this design is one of the cutest I've ever seen!

Gingham Bow Bag Charm/Keyring - Etsy

Love love love a bag charm, or of course you could use this as a keyring - either way, it's adorable.

There you have it; some adorable gingham gifts for the girlypops in your life. From cute stocking fillers to securing your secret Santa, I think all of these make for ideal Christmas presents.

October 2025 reading round up

October has been a BUSY month for me - I got married this month! But despite all the chaos and excitement, I did manage to read a good few books. I'm aiming for 100 this year, and I'm getting pretty close now. A lot of these are ARCs, as I was out and about a lot this month with my kindle in hand. Anyway, here's my quickfire reviews of everything I read in October...

Ask Me Anything by Bethany Rutter

I adore Bethany Rutter, having followed her on IG for yearssss before she ever started writing books. I've read her YA books and I was overjoyed to get an ARC of her first adult book, Ask Me Anything. This is a romance set at uni in London, following a girl on the magazine staff as she navigates family drama, terrible boy issues and the joy of female friendships - she writes the agony aunty column, so the book is peppered with sassy advice too. It's well-written, relatable and a lot of fun, handling delicate topics with grace. 4 stars from me!

The Obsession by Natasha Preston

Where do I even begin?! I was excited about the premise of this, which was another ARC; it follows a young girl who's mum is a youtuber, putting her daughters' lives in danger by exposing where they live and a lot of details of their life. Our main character starts to feel terrified that she has a stalker, and the danger becomes even more real when her mum and older sister go away, leaving her home alone. The tension is high and the pace is fast - but ultimately what could be a great book is absolutely ruined by a dreadful ending, where there is no conclusion to the dramas, issues, deaths and fallouts. It literally just ends. I was so disappointed and as such, it's 2 stars.

The Phone Swap by Lia Louis

Lia Louis is an autobuy author for me, so I was made up to get an ARC of her upcoming release. This is a super cute dual-POV romcom where the two main characters end up accidentally swapping phones on a flight, and get to know each other while they look after each other's devices; they end up falling in love, but it ends terribly. Years later they're thrust together unexpectedly, which can go one of two ways... It's funny, it's emotional, it's adorable. The characters are well-rounded and the settings are fantastic, and the storytelling is (as always) brilliant. 5 stars from me!

Who Did I Marry? by Sara Pucci

This was yet another ARC, and it's a thriller following a family who find a dead body on their doorstep - it turns out to be a relative, which leads to the unravelling of a LOT of dark family secrets. However, it's just not that good; it's dual-POV, but it switches rapidly between each character, all of whom are deeply unlikeable. The pacing is so strange; there's a murder trial which only lasts a day??? Anyway, it all just felt a bit off. I gave it 2.5 stars.

Her Maine Catch by Sophie-Leigh Robbins

This is actually a book I got on a recent Stuff Your Kindle Day; it's a small town summer romance, and I'd probably class it as a novella - it's super short and I read it in the time it took us to wait for our flight home from Poland, in the airport. It's cute and fluffy with zero spice, and very much insta-love, but it's very nice and of course, a good quick easy read! 3 stars from me.

It's All Greek To Me by Andra Christodoulou

Another day, another ARC; this is another romance too, but quite a long one - longer than most romances honestly, and the final third did drag a fair bit with the conclusion being sprung upon us in the final few pages. But overall it's nicely written, and the FMC is very funny, and overall it's a good story with a lovely mix of Greek and Scouse culture throughout. Our main character is Greek but living in Liverpool with an overbearing mother, a best friend she can't decide if she has feelings for, and stuck in a job she hates with a dream of being a full-time baker - a summer at a villa in Greece could change everything... I gave it 4 stars!

Journey Back To You by Leigh Shalloway

Another romance ARC; this one follows a character who's rich father is the bane of her life, and she can't wait to escape her small town (named after her family) to go to college. Trying to help her community before she leaves leads to meeting a hot guy, who she strikes up a friends with benefits situation with. When she goes off to college this kind of falls apart, but years later they have a second chance to make things work. The book deals with some difficult topics, which it handles okay but not amazingly... It's all very surface level throughout, but it's not necessarily a bad book. 3 stars.

A very mixed bag this month in terms of ratings - here's hoping November is an overall better reading month! I've got 4 trips to London, so plenty of reading time on all my trains...

My wedding weight loss journey

Over the years, my weight has fluctuated a lot - I've been as small as a size 10, and as big as a size 18. I've always been confident and relatively happy, but in the past couple of years I had noticed I wasn't feeling quite so healthy. With my wedding coming up in October 2025, I knew I definitely wanted to lose some weight, just to feel the very best version of me on the big day.

Exercise and healthy eating, sadly, does not come naturally to me at all. But I was inspired by one of my close friends who has lost 10 stone over the past few years through a calorie deficit. I decided this would be route I would try, and when you actually start doing it, it's really a no-brainer for anyone looking to lose weight easily.

What is a calorie deficit?

Put simply, you will be in a calorie deficit when you expend more calories in a day than what you consume. This expenditure comes in the form of resting energy, active energy and also the thermic effect of food - meaning the calories your body uses while digesting and metabolising food. So you need to be eating less than this number, ideally.

I used the TDEE calculator to figure out how many calories I should be eating; you input your age, gender, height, weight and exercise levels, and it calculates your basal metabolic rate (the bare minimum number of calories your body needs to perform basic functions) as well as your maintenance calories - e.g the number of calories you should consume per day in order to maintain your current weight, based on the information given. This is calculated via the Mifflin-St Jeor Formula.

To be in a weight loss deficit, you need to eat less than your maintenance calories; 500 less per day is the recommended, but you can start by eating 200 less and seeing how you get on, as then you have wiggle room to decrease your calories if you're not noticing much of a difference in your weight.

Where did I start?

When I first decided I wanted to seriously lose weight, I knew I was 100kg exactly - I'd been weighed at the hospital prior to an MRI when I was poorly in 2024. So I put this information into the TDEE calculator and took my maintenance calories, then reduced them by 500. 

I also bought myself a weighted hula hoop and did 30 minutes of this every morning, which frankly I hated but I did become pretty good at it. I tried to increase my steps around this time, too; I had previously been quite sedentary, as I work from home in a 9-6 office job. On top of this I was going swimming once a week, but this is actually not very easy when you a) don't drive and b) work the hours I do, because the pool is only open at certain times, but I absolutely adore swimming and definitely want to get back into it.

I weighed myself once a week from the get go, every Sunday, and I did start to notice the weight dropping off relatively steadily for the first 6 months at a rate of around 0.5-1kg per week.

How did I do it?

So alongside the slightly increased exercise levels, food was the main key in my weight loss journey. As I had cut my calories, I really needed to build a new relationship with food - throughout my time losing weight, I really haven't denied myself anything. I simply eat less of it, and use the free version of My Fitness Pal to track.

I bought a good set of digital scales, and weighed everything so I could ensure I was eating the right number of calories per day. You soon realise the handful of cheese you usually add to your spag bol is actually hundreds and hundreds of calories! I've definitely been eating smaller portion sizes, less carbs, more salad and so on - but I still have chocolate, sweets, cake and all that good stuff.

A typical day of eating in a calorie deficit for me looks like:

• Protein pudding (100g) with chia seeds, 2x rich tea fingers and some chocolate chips for breakfast
• A picky plate (think cocktail sausages, cucumber, tzatziki, crackers etc) for lunch
• Salad with 3-4x Iceland chicken strips for tea
• Low-calorie snacks in between like 10cal jellies, 'Skinny' bars or fruit
• Increased water intake but also lots of Pepsi Max oops

I also don't drink, as it flares my eczema up terribly; alcohol is full of calories, so I definitely think cutting it out has given my weight loss a huge boost!

Where am I now?

I am currently sitting at 77kg, meaning I've lost 23kg (around 3.5 stone) - I tentatively started my journey in November last year but then paused everything over the festive season, so I consider my real 'start date' to be January. I'm so happy with how my journey has gone over the past 10 months; I really wanted to lose 1-2 stone, so to have lost as much as I have is amazing. I'm now really eating at my maintenance calories, trying not to put any weight back on but not actively losing weight either.

I feel so much healthier, I'm more active, I enjoy a better variety of foods and so on. I feel SO happy and confident going into October, the month I get married - my dress looks amazing, and I can't wait to share all of the photos!

If you are looking to lose weight, a calorie deficit is definitely the easiest way to do it - and you don't need to pay for subscription fees, medications or apps or anything like that. Do you research and ensure you're doing it healthily!

September 2025 reading round up

So, at the beginning of the month I published my August 2025 reading round up and I completely missed out two of the books I read in August - I'd been slacking on updating my Goodreads, clearly! Anyway, I've included them here along with everything I read in August 2025 with quickfire book reviews and ratings for you to enjoy...

family of liars by e. lockhart

One of my forgotten August reads! I read we were liars way back in lockdown, and I adored it; I went on to watch the TV adaptation this summer, which I also enjoyed a lot, so I thought it was definitely worth continuing with the book series. The sequel is actually a flashback to the liars' mums' childhood on the island, and the events that shaped them into the three very different women they are in the timeline of the first book. While I didn't love it as much as the first, this was still a great read and I'd recommend this series for sure. 4 stars!

we fell apart by e. lockhart

Another forgotten August read - this time an ARC and the third book set in the we were liars universe. This one is set during the same summer as the Sinclair fire, and honestly the whole book felt like a fever dream - with an 18 year old girl searching for her estranged father at his coastal commune, trying to unravel the mystery of her family history. It's an intense but interesting read with some wacky characters, plenty of drama and a captivating plot. Also 4 stars from me.

Mile High by Liz Tomforde

That brings us to September, and I finally went over to Liverpool to spend all my birthday book vouchers. One of the books I picked up was Mile High by Liz Tomforde, having heard great things about the Windy City series. And this did NOT disappoint - it's long for a romance novel, but it was worth every single page and I loved it. Hockey romances just hit different and this one has a really nice amount of spice balanced with yearning, family dynamics, hockey and fun. 5 stars from me and I cannot wait to continue the series...

Accomplice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

I love this series, and I was fully expecting book 3 to be the conclusion to the narrative - but it's definitely been left open for a fourth (and hopefully final...) instalment. The characters just charm me so much, and I love the universe it's set in, but I don't think there's really anywhere else to go with it and I do wish it had been wrapped up in this one. While trying to solve the riddles to save the kingdom and avoid falling further in love with each other, our protagonists deal with drama after drama - and now everyone around them seems to be falling in love, too. Honestly I do love it, but I hope book 4 wraps everything up as I fear anything else would just lead to boredom and an unsatisfying ending... 4.5 stars for this one!

Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson

Big fan of Holly Jackson's YA thrillers, so I was eager to see what her first adult thriller would be like. This follows Jet, a young adult who ends up getting attacked on Halloween - she survives, barely, only to be told she will certainly die in the next week. This gives her the perfect chance to solve her own murder, which she attempts with the help of her best friend Billy. The whole time I was thinking "this girl has a brain aneurysm, should she be doing that?" as she runs around Vermont confronting people and looking for evidence. That aside, though, this is a really enjoyable read that definitely still leans more towards YA. I gave it 4 stars.

The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore

These books are everywhere and as we're now officially in autumn it only felt right to pick up the first in the series - especially given as I'd bought a few of the other books already. This is your typical cutesy small town romance: they meet, fall in love, something goes wrong and threatens to cut their happiness short, then everything works out and they run off into the sunset. It's a tried and tested formula, and it works. What got me with this one, though, is that everyone says it's spicy - and I don't know if I just read *really* spicy books but genuinely I did not see anywhere near the level of spice I was expecting based on comments and reviews I've seen. Overall though, a nice and cosy autumnal read which I rated 3 stars.

The Cows by Dawn O'Porter

I have a mini book club with two of my best friends, and this was our most recent pick - I expected great things from this and sadly, the book did not deliver. Funny but almost accidentally (there are lines you think are jokes but then there's no punch line and you're left feeling baffled) this is a story of three women navigating modern life. One's a mum, one is a desperate to have children, and one is happily child-free by choice. Their lives overlap and intertwine in various ways as they battle the pressures of womanhood; it felt like this could have been such an interesting book with so much to say, but honestly it fell so flat and overall it was a disappointing read. Clunky writing, characters who aren't fully fleshed out, just meh. 2.5 stars from me.

The Cinnamon Bun Book Store by Laurie Gilmore

Continuing the Dream Harbor series with book two, it was of course much of the same - a cutesy romance with very little spice, a third act 'conflict', and a happy resolution. This one is of course focused around a bookshop which is a lovely element, and there is a bit of a mystery going on too which was fun. I did enjoy getting to know the town and the whole cast of characters a bit more, and I will definitely continue with the rest of the series because I can read one of these books in around 3 hours. But is it as good as people make out on TikTok? Definitely not. I gave this one 3 stars.

What the Wife Knew by Lia Middleton

I've been slacking with ARCs lately, and this was actually the only one I read in September (oops)! A courtroom thriller focusing on a murder trial, we follow a KC who is defending his client while also navigating a rocky time in his own relationship - is it all connected?! Honestly I guessed what we going to happen pretty early on which is unlike me; nevertheless it was an interesting and enjoyable read, especially if you like courtroom/law-based stuff. But yeah, nothing groundbreaking and 3 stars from me.

The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas

This was the October pick for the other book club I'm in, and I really enjoyed it - it's a thriller about two sisters who swap lives, and something devastating happens during the process which was really aimed at the other sister. What follows is a twisty narrative as the family reels from the shock and tries to figure out what happened, why and who did it... some excellent plot twists and a really well fleshed out story. 4 stars!

So that's everything I read in September 2025, some newer releases and a wide mix of genres. Let me know if you've read any of these, I'd love to hear your thoughts...