My Favourite Swimwear Trends for 2017

Everyone has their favourite swimwear style – be it a bandeau bikini, a tankini, one piece, itsy bitsty teenie weenie polka dot bikini or padded swimwear... but the question today is not one of form – today I'm talking the hottest colours and prints for swimwear in 2017...

Animal Print
It was a big trend last summer and it looks as though animal prints are here to stay, which is nothing but a good thing. Popular options for this look include exotic animal prints such as zebra, tiger and others – expect traditional animal print shades as standard and keep your eye out for metallic shades too, tiger prints look so hot in gold and black. It’s not just about the daring, exotic animal prints this season either. Look out for delicate animal patterns like butterfly and birds too for a flirty, feminine feel.

Geometric
Gorgeously geometric styles promise to be a huge hit this season – they’re smart, sophisticated plus there’s more choice of prints than you can shake a stick at. Think square colour block and complex symmetrical shapes. As well as perfectly balanced prints you can expect to see lots of neon-inspired palm-tree and sunset scenes forming part of this shapely trend. Just take a look at the latest swimwear range from Gottex, available here from UK Swimwear, to get more of an idea of what I mean.

Nicely Neon
As well as the prints being bold this season, you can expect the colours to be just as eye-catching. Exotic, neon brights are totally in. Fresh, tropical shades like cobalt blue, fiery fuchsias and zesty lemons will make a huge appearance on swimwear – these colours look fantastic with a tan so will be popular towards the tail end of the season when you’ve been a little sun-kissed.

What trend will you be donning this season? If you like the sound of any of these trends set to be big for the season, you should check out the swimwear from UKSwimwear.com. Not only do they stock all these trends (and more), but they also have a wide array of beachwear accessories from you to choose from as well. So get ready for the beach now by visiting UKSwimwear today.

A floral treat from Blossoming Gifts

There's nothing I like better than having flowers/plants in the house. They're perfect for brightening a room up and bringing a little sunshine to it. If you saw my five simple ways to cheer yourself up post then you would have seen me mention that having flowers in the house is a sure fire way to lift your mood.

Usually my flowers come from the local supermarket but I was recently asked if I'd like to try a Blossoming Gifts bouquet and of course I jumped at the chance. I definitely wanted something summery looking but nothing obvious like sunflowers. I had to steer clear of the bouquets with lillies in because I have a cat so settled on the gorgeous Orangery bouquet, which is made from pretty coral/pale orange germini, white chrysanthemums and teeny tiny daisy-like tanacetum with tufts of delicate greenbell.




I'm a huge fan of the germini - they come in so many colours but I love the contrast of the pale orange/coral against the white of the chrysanthemums and daisies.

As I mentioned, I usually get my bouquets from the supermarket and they're usually under a fiver. This bouquet starts from £21.99 depending on what gifts (little box of chocolate etc), if any, you choose to send with it. The price is pretty reasonable for a special bouquet like this, it would make a lovely gift for a special occasion or if you were feeling particularly down you could cheer yourself right up with this one.




The risk with ordering flowers online is that they may not look like they do in the picture on the website but there was no problem with this as it looks exactly like the image online. The bouquet arrived next day, in great condition and came with special feed and instructions to care for the flowers so you can keep them for as long as possible.



They lasted pretty well too, almost reaching two weeks and the smell filling my room for those two weeks was glorious! I so didn't want to throw these away when it was time.

*This post contains PR samples.

Letting go of blogging

I started blogging around about 2009. I've been doing it ever since and I've never been more unhappy with it than I have been this year. Towards the end of last year I was thinking about giving it all up but my boyfriend bought me some camera lenses for my 'blogging' camera and I felt a bit like I had to carry on. I must admit after using the lenses I really enjoyed taking photos and I feel like they improved a little bit (despite finding out I'd been transferring minute size copies of the images onto my laptop for years) but this year I've just lost all interest.

I don't really care about the latest lipsticks and I even got a bit fed up of Manicure Monday's and felt like spending my money on nail polishes was a bit of a waste. I got fed up of pressuring myself on a weekend to get blog photos taken and posts written when I'd already spent a whole week working 9-5.30pm in front of a computer.

I'd taken multiple 'blog breaks' through the year but nothing really helped so I finally decided that was it a couple of weeks ago...so I'm not quite sure what I'm doing here now to be honest. I feel like completely taking the pressure off has allowed some words to just flow freely from my fingers. I don't have anything to review/promote this time and I'm just getting things out of my brain. I don't even know if I'll publish this but it feels good to be writing something down.

During the past few weeks I've had lovely relaxing weekends. I've spent an entire Saturday doing my housework without worrying about having to slot in some time to take photos. I even spent a Sunday or two on the sofa and I got through the entire new Harry Potter book within two hours. It was magical (lol, sorry!).

It's nice to say I don't have anything planned on the weekend. It's nice to pop out to town or if Vince has the day off from work it's nice to spend it together and go somewhere without having this nagging in the back of my head about having to get blog photos taken.

I don't think I'll go back to blogging like I was before on a regular basis. Sometimes I do get the urge to get all the pretty blog props out and start shooting away but then I remember I want to keep all the pressure off. I don't want to worry about comment numbers and who is or isn't reading and I don't want to keep comparing my blog to the thousands and thousands of other perfect ones out there so instead I think I'll just use this as my little space on the Internet where I can jot down thoughts and let words spill out spontaneously.

Until next time...