Florida | Scrapbooking

"Boredom ignites your creativity" - Aaron Benjamin

My trip to Florida was one of those trips I had dreamed about for years so to finally be there it was a dream, over a year on and I still can't believe it. No I will never shut up about it. During the first lockdown I was unfortunately, like a lot of people in the uk furloughed from my job and although I was feeling extremely lucky to still be employed I was left with the feelings of how the fuck am I gonna entertain myself?

I always knew I wanted to create a physical space for my memories, not just social media. Yes I have this blog that I rarely post on and every year tell myself "jess this year you're gonna post at least once a month" and I usually start off pretty well and then come April I've stopped again. I needed something to entertain myself whilst I wasn't working and I've always wanted to have these photos in a physical form to look back on. 

That's how I fell into scrapbooking. 

I like to think of myself as quite a creative person, but a digital creative person. I can create artwork in a digital format but on paper I don't even like my own handwriting. I had seen a lot of Tik Toks about people scrapbooking all kinds of things and I was inspired to say the least. So way too much money later, I was ready to go.

I got a lot of my materials from the range and hobby craft. I can't go into a store anymore without looking at their craft aisle. Some pages are a lot more experimental than others but my favourite pages are Gringotts and the Harry Potter portraits, I'm obsessed with how they turned out.

I used the free prints app to print off all of my images (this isn't ad although I wish it was) you get 45/50 free prints per month just have to pay a couple of quid for shipping. All images are printed 6x4.

I wanted to just insert some pictures of my scrapbook to hopefully inspire someone to push themselves out of their comfort zones this lockdown and create something new. I found so much peace and joy making this scrapbook I've already planned the next one I'm going to make! 

Harry Potter Studios 2.0 | Pandemic

As I write this I should be living it up in Disneyland Paris with my best friend but due to COVID-19 that has not happened, yes I am very sad.

Last year myself and Molly planned this trip to celebrate her birthday at one of our favourite places but just days before we were meant to set off all 6 Disney Parks closed. I accept that it's for the best but it still sucks. I am trying to keep a positive mindset throughout this entire lockdown situation.

We were determined to make the most out of this trip so we decided to go back to the Harry Potter Studio Tour in Watford. We went last May for my birthday (post) and weren't planning on going back until the summer as they are showcasing the Slyherin common room and we need to show our house pride. Both Molly and I are big Harry Potter fans so it might not be Disneyland but there's still plently of magic.
We also decided to extend our trip an extra night and go and see the West End show Jamie. I personally have never seen it but Molly loves it so I was excited.

My trip started on Saturday, I jumped on the train down to Derby to meet Molly and her family for her birthday meal at Pizza Hut and starting off the trip well I had to pay £110 on the train as my railcard had expired (who knew they had to be renewed thought after I was 25 I couldn't use it anymore apparently not). As you can imagine I was thrilled.

Once I arrived in Derby we went for a lovely meal and then I got to hang out with Molly's dogs Paddy & Seamus who I love very dearly and miss so very much.

The next day Molly and I travelled down to London where we followed our tradition of having a Nando's every time we see each other. Nandos baby I miss you. We then went back to our hotel chilled and watched Tik Toks and chatted all night.

Althought we had been to the Harry Potter Studios only last year it is still so interesting and fun to be there. We got extremely lucky as the studios was closing at 8pm that day, so although Disney let us down Harry Potter did not! 

We spent the day going around the studios being idiots and getting our fake passports stamped (low key so fun & free highly reccommend) which was something we didn't do last time.

I have so much love for Harry Potter so going to the studios is one of my favourite things in the world and one of my favourite places to visit! I can not wait until we get to go back and celebrate Slytherin in all it's glory.

I didn't know what to expect walking into the studios but it was relatively busy. No where near what I have experienced before, we got the first avaliable slot of 10am to make the most out of the day, I highly reccomend this as you can stay at the studios until it closes if you wished. Jumping on the train from Euston to Watford Junction at 9am and waited for the hogwarts express! 

The shuttle bus from the train station to the studios is a £3 return which I dont think is bad. It's always exciting seeing Warwick Davis talking to you about the studios as you drive through Watford.

After a day at the studios we headed back to our hotel to collect our belongings and move to our second hotel in covent garden. We decided to move hotels to be closer to the theatre and it was cheaper.

We sanitised every inch of our souls before getting on the tube (Corona tings you get it) and ventured to Covent Garden. 

We checked in to our hotel and went out to meet Becca who I have known for years and years but never met (Vamps friends who lives at the opposite end of the country problems) before we were going to go to see Jamie on the West End.

We had a lovley Bella Italia, it was so nice to finally meet Becca! Make sure to check out her Youtube Channel - Link
Then 40 minutes before the show was meant to start the tories started acting up and the show was cancelled. That was fun. 

Mol & I really went through it this trip all we have ever wanted was to go to Disney together but we can go next year and we will go Florida together. I still had a lovely time even if I did complain the whole time about how much I hate Corona. 

I hope everyone is staying safe, regularly washing their hands and self isolating where possible we can get through this! Can't wait to be in a GCSE text book. 

Here is a collection of images from my few days off work before I was furloughed: 

love ya mol cya after Corona

Is PhotoPass Worth it? | Disneyland Paris

I have only been to Disneyland Paris twice so I am not yet an expert but I have been once with PhotoPass and once without so I feel like I at least know something.

In January of 2017 Amy and I didn't know what we were getting into so we didn't want to spend the extra forty odd pound on something we weren't 100% sure on. However, in September we decided to purchase PhotoPass and in my opinion it was a great decision.

PhotoPass tends to be a lot more common on DisneyWorld trips as you're there for longer and there is more photo-ops however in Paris we were there for 4 days and came back with a lot of photos.

What does PhotoPass include?

• Ride photos 
• Meet and Greet photos 
• PhotoPass photographers around the park 

Which may not seem like much but I tell you it is. One of my favourite things about the PhotoPass is due to their only being two of us without asking random strangers like we did in January to take a photo of the two of us in front of the castle we got a professional photographer to take them.

 Another benefit of PhotoPass is ride photos, unlike in January where we bought photos in a frame 2 for twenty euros I do believe in September with PhotoPass we were able to access every single ride photo we wanted downloading them to the app. It was so simply we were go to the preview and scan the code or go to the desk and they would crop it to just us. This is possibly my favourite part of PhotoPass as both Amy and I love rides and roller coasters so to be able to prove we road space mountain 5 times in extra magic hours was just a funny bonus.

 Although Amy and I aren't massive character meet people it is always super exciting meeting your favourite characters, for Amy it was Jack Sparrow and for myself Darth Vader. Luckily for us both characters had PhotoPass photographers, the best part of that is you get to enjoy meeting the character without worrying about getting pictures of your friends. I got to enjoy the interactions we both had rather than worrying about getting photos. Meeting Darth Vader really proved how amazing PhotoPass is as when we were inside it was bright red lightening whereas on the final images they had been edited to normal colours which we couldn't have done if we took our own photos. The only negative is that not every character meet has a photographer but it makes all the difference in lightening such as the Princess Pavilion.

If it was up to me I would get PhotoPass every single time. I do think it's worth the money if you can afford that bit extra. Do I think its absolutely vital to your trip? no. Do I think its worth the money? Yes. If anything its worth it for the convenience, you get someone to take high quality fun images of your party and you get all your meets and rides. The main negative is that there isn't that much you can use PhotoPass for in Paris, there isn't a large amount of photographers just walking around or in photo ops I only saw them at certain character meets and outside the castle. Whereas on my trip to Florida there was photographers all over sometimes two or three in busy areas such as; down Main Street or in front of the castle.