Do I lift light/several reps or heavy/few reps

You are not going to get a lot of muscle / bodybuild look unless you really, really want to and put in a lot of deliberate, focused effort.

Whether you're lifting at around 5 reps or up to around 12 - 15 you're probably fine given your aesthetic goals.

Best recommendation is to find a proven, structured, regular program (there are tons of examples routinely recommended around here) rather than trying to kluge together your own.

Good luck!

Look into strong lifts 5 x 5.

The general rule of thumb (gave or take a few reps) is:

- 1-3 reps builds strength
- 12 reps builds muscle
- 15+ reps improves conditioning

You ask 10 different, people, you'll get 10 different answers on the ranges (some might say it's "3-5" as opposed to "1-3"), but the general consensus is somewhere around those ranges. The next thing that I've seen trip people up is someone grabbing a weight, performing 3 reps (no more. No less), and then dropping it in order to rest saying:

"That's one set completed. I'm only doing 3 reps. I'm trying to get stronger."

That's not the way that it works. If I'm holding a pencil in my hand, curling it 3 times won't make my biceps get stronger because I'm "working out in the 1-to-3 rep range." The rep range means:

"Lift a weight so heavy that the most times that I can move it (with good form) is 3 reps."

If you're holding a weight that you can move for 30 reps, moving it for 12 reps is not going to building muscle because I'm "training in the muscle building range."

Something that I think a lot of women (in my experience) find difficult to believe is that in order to get "toned," you need to lifting in the 12 rep "muscle building" range. I've made several female friends at the gym, or at work that ask me about the gym, and the general consensus seems to be:

"I need to use light weight, and do a lot of reps in order to get tone, right?"

One friend in particular drives me bonkers because she keeps saying:

"I just want to get toned. I don't wanna get bulky. I don't wanna look like a man."

Lifting heavy weights won't make a woman end up looking like a man. Lifting heavy weights, and taking testosterone, will make a woman end up looking like a man. On their own, women do not have enough testosterone to "end up looking like men" by lifting heavy weight.

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You’re a woman. You’re likely eating at a slight deficit in calories. You will not put on any noticeable muscle regardless of how you lift. But what you should focus on is not losing muscle as you lose fat. To do that, you’ll want to increase your strength through weight lifting.

New Rules of Lifting for Women and strong lifts are two programs I think beginning to intermediate trainees can use for good results. Both go on the premise of going heavy and ensuring you’re getting progressive resistance.

You’ll get stronger, you’ll retain more muscle, as you lose fat, you’ll look much more toned.

ETA: Since a lot of folks don’t seem to think rep range matters, I thought I’d share this link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18787090. You’re going to get more strength and muscle mass at lower reps with higher weight.