Turning 21!

Well I've been meaning to try out the blog for ages but I've only just got round to it, so best to start as I mean to go on - with lots of FUN!

My name is Sophie and I live in Kent, which is very close to London in England. First of all can I just say that like many of you I am obsessed with Hello Kitty. I love her. So with this blog I hope to share with you the Hello Kitty related things in my life! There will also be a lot about Jewellery and Cakes I imagine as these are some of my other passions! And I will probably tell you lots about my boyfriend Tom as I will be moving to the south coast of England to live with him later this year when I finish university. He is one of those special men who put up with Hello Kitty being everywhere and is even ok with the fact I am going to take over the house with it! But more about him in another blog. I might even tell you some things about when I used to work for Sanrio!

But today’s post is all about the tenth of may. For many of you in Europe and across the world this would mean Mother’s Day, but it’s also my date of birth, and this year I reached my milestone 21^st birthday! In the United Kingdom Mothering Sunday is towards the end of March.

I awoke to find many PINK presents wrapped and waiting, and lots of cards too. I thought I would share some of my cute gifts with you (especially the Kitty ones!) – want to see?

First of all was the best balloon I have ever seen in my entire LIFE.

If you live in the UK then you can get it from MATALAN and it comes with stickers so you can spell out your desired name. It is a foil balloon made by anagram so I suppose you can get it elsewhere too!

I didn’t get loads and loads of Hello Kitty presents this year, but I’m not complaining because all my gifts were wonderful!

It’s a tradition in the UK to get a key on your 21^st birthday – I don’t know about anywhere else. I think it comes from receiving the keys to your first adult home, I’m not too sure. But seeing as nobody really gives a house as a 21^st birthday present anymore, we usually give a giant plastic silver key with 21 on it! Which of course I got. I also got my Mum’s heavy brass key that she was given on her 21^st birthday – I can’t believe she kept it for so long!

you will have to excuse all the cups, plates, food and kitchen stuff in the background here – we are having our kitchen rebuilt and we had to move it all to our lounge!

One of the Hello Kitty presents I received this year was also a key, one that my parents had brought me all the way back from Miami!

It’s too pretty to put my keys on though. I like the enamel diamond shaped pendant and diamante charm. Very cute, and quite grown up, too!

I also got this great little keychain, which came from Miami as well.

Sorry about the picture quality – it’s a birthstone key ring in Emerald (plastic of course).

I got some great presents from Mum and Dad. There was a lot of cake related stuff too:

A special electric mixer with rotating bowl and detachable handheld whisk section!

And this box was full of cake making goodies like tins, cooling rack, cookie cutters and piping back, apron, cupcake cases – there were lots of little bits and bobs all lovingly collected! And some excellent recipe books too – I can’t wait to get making (although at this point we still have no kitchen, therefore no oven!).

Then there was my Harajuku Lovers fragrances from Gwen Stefani’s label!

Mum bought them as soon as they came out, when I mentioned that I wanted them weeks before! How sweet – and again I can’t believe I got all 5 of them!

They all smell amazing and G reminds me of Hawaii. Although the bottles are small you don’t need to spray loads so as a set, if you chop and change, they will last a long time. And how adorable are the bottles?

One of my favourite labels is Betsey Johnson. Every time I am in the States I try and get to one of her stores or a concession – I just love it so much! It’s so quirky and girly. So how lucky did I feel when I got some of my coveted pieces this year?

Stripey make up bag and polka dot with pink bows see-through handbag (which I am using already). Sooooo gorgeous!

But then, combining two of my favourite things; cake and jewellery…

How beautifully kitsch is this set? Although the ring on the left is a little big – I will get a rubber grip to tighten it up. These are by far the best Betsey Johnson jewellery pieces I own now! And all the BJ presents were from Miami too.

Keeping with the jewellery theme I also got some beautiful elegant birthstone earrings.

They are emerald and Swarovski on silver, although they look blue in the picture they are actually VERY green. Also hand made from Miami!

Speaking of Swarovski, look what my best and oldest friend Emma got me!

So pretty! AND IT’S PINK! You can’t really see it but the central pink stone is flower shaped.

And there is the trademark swan logo as a charm on the clasp with more crystals (not pictured). I love Swarovski! It’s also much much sparklier in real life…

Speaking of sparkly things, my wonderful boyfriend Tom gave me the most romantic and unique gift I’ve ever had:

That’s right, he named a star after me! Isn’t that so sweet? What an honour! The pack came with a certificate, maps of where my star was, a tool to help you find the star, and a book on stars and astrology. The best bit was his personal message, which made me cry happy tears:

We’re going to look for it when I move to his town where the skies are much clearer. He is my soulmate!

And being the attentive and observant boyfriend that he is, he made sure he include the second instalment of my Hello Kitty Gift Quota:

We saw these Hello Kitty fragrances when he took me to Southampton last time I visited him. Luckily he is patient and doesn’t mind me going mental over Hello Kitty things that I see in shops! We think I have an in-built radar, I can trace HK from miles away and hone in on it like a magnet. It’s very weird, almost psychic. Anyway we saw these and lots of other pieces and being the complete sweetheart that he is he wouldn’t let me leave until he’d bought me something. He got me a gorgeous pyjama set and some lipglosses but I was having trouble deciding which set I liked. Because he is clever and always knows what I want he went back to get the other set for my birthday but they had sold out, so he got me another one which was equally as gorgeous (I’ll take anything with Hello Kitty on it but it was especially nice). Unfortunately I’ve worn it and it’s in the wash so I don’t have any photos of it, I will do a blog one day about my Hello Kitty pyjamas! Oh and I bought the other set later at my local H&M with my birthday money!

Although I had a lot of birthday cards instructing me to become inebriated to the point of damaging my health, I had a very quiet and reserved birthday. First came the cinema – Tom, Emma, her fiancée Alex and I went to see Coraline in 3D at our local cinema. Absolutely stunning and very charming characters – please go and see it if you haven’t already! Oh and then Tom bought me a Hello Kitty magazine. Then we went to the pub where we chatted in the sunshine

[Emma and Alex, she’s still wearing her 3D glasses!]

[Tom and I, he’s wearing my glasses! Which had to be pink – obviously!]

and played musical chairs when Tom got a round in.

[where have they gone?]

Then we met up with Mum and Dad again and went for a meal!

[l-r] Emma, Alex, Tom, Me

note delicious chocolate Thornton’s cake!!

Quite boring to some people, but I had all my most important people around me so I couldn’t have been happier. I had a great time. Plus it was in the middle of a huuuuuge pile of university work, so I will be partying in a month or so to make up for it!

Thank you to everyone who made my day so special!