Winter in Paris : Goodies and Souvenirs Haul.

Whoops! That was a bit of a bigger delay than I had in mind between posts there. My adorable fluffy hoppy bunnykins Remy has been all sorts of hormonal on me recently, and over the last few days has been experiencing a phantom pregnancy. In bunny-land this is a big and distressing deal for everyone, but she's getting back to her normal self now. Phew!

So now that is all over and done with, i'm finally going to show you all what I got in Paris!

Personally, I love hauls/birthday/Christmas gets types of posts, especially from travel shopping! I'm going to try and let you know how much everything was, as a budgeting aide for anyone planning a trip to Paris soon! But if haul posts aren't your kind of thing, you may want to click away now.

‣‣Souvenirs
I'm making it my mission to bring back a little trinket from every 'place of interest' I visit, no matter where in the world I go, museum or monument, even if its just a postcard with a place on. The first souvenir we bought on our trip were these Eiffel Tower mugs. They were pricey, at 12€ each, which was to be expected from a shop up the tower itself. I got the black one, and my friend picked the white one. I'm really glad we got them when we did as we didn't see them anywhere else until we were at the gate ready to come home!

Dotted about at all the main tourist places of interest are these interesting medallion machines. For 2€, the machine pops out a commemorative coin, a bit like those machines you feed a penny into and it stamps a new image on top... But better. The coins I picked up were from the Catacombs, Notre Dame and Disneyland Paris. They are stamped with the date, but for some reason one of them has 2015, not 2014 when I visited. Strange!

I have a few shot glasses as souvenirs that people have brought as gifts for me from their holidays, so I figured it would make a nice collection to start with places i've been. So, one of the things I was happiest with was this Metro map shot glass, nabbed in the Monoprix on the Champs for about 2 or 3€. We were constantly on and off the metro, and I've actually come to quite like underground train systems, so this sort of doubles as both a city and a travel system souvenir! I might start trying to collect train line themed bits too. Quick, let's go to London for some Underground stuff!

Souvenir shops are everywhere in Paris, and we found one offering 6 postcards for 1€. I planned on picking up postcards whenever we went somewhere of interest anyway, so I could make a pretty scrap book when I got home. I picked Sacre Coeur, Opera Garnier, the Louvre, Notre Dame and two featuring the Eiffel Tower. Notre Dame is my favourite, because of the interesting colouring of the sky.

I picked up two more postcards at the Catacombs gift shop, and one more at Sainte Chappelle of it's gorgeous windows. These cards were 1 to 2€ each, and are thicker, better quality cards. The two cards I chose for the Catacombs, one featured a picture from inside the ossuary with Catacombs written on it, and the second pictured the sign above the doorway into the ossuary, that reads 'C'est ici l'empire de la morte.' This is the empire of the dead. Reading that when below ground gave me a bit of a chill and really made it hit home where I was, and what I was about to see.

‣‣Shopping
‣Chanel. I'd have loved nothing more than to walk into Chanel and spend hours browsing the shoes and bags to chose something for myself, but a part-time workers budget won't stretch that far just yet. So we made a beeline for the make up. Eventually I chose the Alchemie shade, and I haven't seen it at any Chanel UK counters yet, so it was definitely a good choice. Part of my Christmas gift from my brother was £20 in euros, which worked out to be about 28€. This little gem set me back 23€, and left me change to take to Disneyland for more goodies! Considering the mini Chanel boutique exclusive perfume that was popped in the bag, and the full 'Chanel' treatment, I think the 23€ price tag was an absolute bargain! Claire also bought a gorgeous lipgloss, which I think was 25€.

‣Ladurée.
Ladurée was great! I wrote more about it in [Paris : Part Two] if you fancy a peep. While we were there, we both picked up a boxed bag charm/keyring. These were pricey, and if memory serves me right were a whopping 32.50€! But, they are absolutely adorable. There are six different macaron and ribbon colour options, all with a gold tone charms. I'm not a huge fan of gold, so i'd have preferred a silver one being totally honest... But it is gorgeous anyway, so I don't really mind. I think my friend got the green one, and I chose the reddish, raspberry one. I'm debating whether or not to actually add it to my bag! It's so perfect I kind of want to keep it boxed and perfect forever.

‣La Cure Gourmande.
La Cure Gourmande is a French biscuit, chocolate and confectionery company. We visited the shop near Sacre Coeur in the Montmarte area, but there are more about the city. We were each given a biscuit to try when we entered and they were really yummy. They have many different sized tins that would be great gifts to bring home. I picked up a few lollipops, that were 1€ each. The flavours are aniseed and apple. Yum!

‣Sephora.
I was very well behaved in Sephora, and I even surprised myself with my low spend of around €20. It might have had something to do with how busy the store on the Champs Elysees was. I think if we'd have had more time to shop in the smaller Bercy village store, i'd have bought a lot more there as it wasn't as swamped.

I picked up a mango Eau de Toilette mini sprays, for 4.95€ which I thought was a bit of a bargain. I wish I bought more, as I love layering them with some Library of Fragrance scents, or keeping it in my handbag. From the same range, I grabbed some of these cute shower gel capsules Shower Gel Capsules. They were less than a euro each so I grabbed a few to add as small Christmas gifts and then kept a few for myself to go in my box of travel goodies. The scents i've kept were Mango, Vanilla and Lagoon. 

I also picked up a few Face Masks, and some for gifts. They are great fun and each mask can be used at least twice, which I think is pretty good deal for 3.95€. I'll definitely grab some more as my skin felt really soft after using the Green Tea version! I've also had reports that the Pomegranate one was great. The last thing I got to try out was a Lipstick Remover  7e . I love liquid mattes and figured i'd give this a try for getting the stubborn buggars off.

I've saved the very best 'til last!
‣‣Disneyland
It's Disneyland. I needed Minnie ears, right? I was expecting to see loads of people wearing them, but we actually didn't. I was expecting a sea of Minnie and Mickey ears around me, although the parks were quite quiet, so that could have been why. We bought ours at the end of the first day in the Walt Disney Studios park, to wear in Disneyland the next day... But we left them in our hotel room. Whoops! Oh well! At least they still have the tag, and I can confirm they cost 13.99€.

I couldn't leave Disney without a pen, right? I knew I wanted the shaped ones. I remember one of my friends went to the Florida parks when we were in school and bought back a Mickey pen, and it was adorable. Although the Minnie and Mickey pens are cute, I chose Donald. It just kind of drew me in and I had to have it. I also nabbed a Pluto to go in with my friends Christmas present, and they were both around 5€ each.

I got even more post cards from Disney Village! The Parisienne themed Disneyland print is on a lot of merchandise around the parks, and it is really cute but nothing really drew me in until I spotted the card. I liked that it was shaped and a bit different, so grabbed it straight away. This was 1.50 to 2€, so a bit of a pricey postcard. These would be great to send out in the post as they are such an interesting shape. The Walt Disney Studios card was a more reasonable 80 cents, and I picked this up as it was the only one I actually found! The last card features the castle, and a few of our favourite prince and princess combos. I actually bought it with the intention of giving it as a souvenir for my mum, as it had her favourite princess (Belle!) on it. Buuuuut... Then I kept it. Whoops! Again this was a pricey card, coming in at 2€... But isn't it pretty?

One of the things I had hoped to bring back was something from the Tower of Terror after seeing the awesome retro hotel style keyrings in some other haul posts. I was really hoping to get the room key tag on its own, but there weren't any so I got the key and tag combo instead. This was one of the pricier keyrings around at 5.99€. I was also hoping to get a castle keyring, but I only saw it once and I couldn't remember where to go back and get it! :( So I settled for this interesting Mickey keyring. There were a bunch of variations of this, and now i'm home I really wish i'd got the Stitch version too. There was an adorable Aristocats one with an Eiffel Tower, and I did pick that up as a gift for a friend. There were also loads of cute plush keyrings, and they were more expensive, but key rings like this ranged from 3.99€ to 5.99€.

I thought I wasn't going to be able to get this next item after the park closed, and then after scouring Disney Village I finally spotted one. I don't think i've ever been so relieved in my life as there were only a few left and I reallllly wanted it. I loved this gorgeous Thumper mug, as I thought it was a nice size, and was sweet and simple without being plain. This came in at 9.99, about mid range for a mug. I think the most expensive I saw was 12.99 and that was this funky Alice mug, that I now regret not buying. But at least the Disney Store has got us covered.

Finally, the other two additions to my little shot glass collection. I thought these were a really great price at 3.99€ and 2.99€. They are both the long shooter style shot glasses but they're gorgeous and are going to look great if I ever decide to display the collection. Currently they are wrapped up nice and safe while I figure out exactly where to put them.

I didn't actually get this last thing in Paris... I hunted everywhere for it, but it had either already sold out, or wasn't available. Dumbo 'Tsum Tsum', translating from Japanese as 'Stack Stack'. Small, medium or large flat bottomed plushes that are designed to stack on top of each other to build little towers of cuteness. There were a bunch of these I wanted to get my paws on, like Elsa, Jiminy Cricket and Thumper. The Tsum Tsums will be launching soon at the UK Disney Store, but a small selection can be found in Clinton Cards! These are £3 in the UK, or 5€ in the Disney parks.The best part? It doubles as a screen cleaner!

So there we go! I think I was pretty well behaved with my spending, especially in Sephora and Disneyland! There was so much more I walked away from because I couldn't chose between two variants, and now i'm home i've made a decision! AAARGH! Next time, i'll be prepared!

Have you been buying anything cool on your travels recently? I'd love to see if you have posts about it! If you missed my other posts about Paris, you can check them out here!

[Highlights] [Paris : Part One] [Paris : Part Two] [CitizenM Hotel] [Hard Rock Cafe] [Disneyland]

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