My Favourite Things #17

Red Shoes
I got these shoes for my birthday which was back in March and I hadn't really worn them much as I thought they didn't really go with most of my clothes.  One day I decided to wear them and I swear they're one of the most comfiest shoes ever.  Usually after a day of walking around uni my feet start to feel sore but in these shoes I kind of feel like I'm walking on pillows. They're also soft on the outside and I always find myself stroking them... and of course they're pretty.

End of Semester half

Today is the last day of the first half of the semester and I am sooo happy.  I get to sleep in, not have to catch the train and walk around Auckland when I have nothing else to do.  I do have a couple of essay's I do need to work on but I can deal with it as long as I can stay in my pyjamas.

 

Shopping

Shopping and being able to take the stuff home just instantly makes me feel better.  Farmers were having a one day sale yesterday so my Mum and I went along.  My aunt was there as well and we all found some great stuff especially in the clearance section which was full of gems including a denim jacket which I may of got... Expect to see a post next week! 

 

Hope you all enjoyed this post and have a great weekend!



Cecilia Gallerani - Leonardo da Vinci

Hey

It's been awhile since I've done an art post, when I'm in the middle of uni I get a bit sick of writing about it in essays that I just can't be bothered doing a post about it. I'd either have to be in the mood or be inspired by a painting.  During last weeks lecture when we were introduced into Milan I was inspired by a painting that I had studied before in high school so I was excited to see it pop up.

 

Lady with the Ermine, Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1489-90

 

When I first studied this painting she was nameless but on Friday I learnt her name was Cecilia Gallerani and she was the mistress of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan.  She was from a well connected family, was smart and a musician.  She has on two veils, her hair is pulled back and is holding an ermine with her hands being very prominent.  Her clothes are in a Spanish style which was fashionable at the time but is not encrusted with jewels such as the clothes the Duchess of Milan would be portrayed in.

 

The ermine is an important symbol with it representing purity and chastity and also because its fur was highly prized and used to line expensive clothing.  While she was the Duke's mistress she was chaste in the fact she loyal to him.  It's thought that the ermine is a substitute for the Duke with it blocking her off from the viewer.

 

My lecturer really likes this painting, she said it's more beautiful than the Mona Lisa and not worth being one of many trying to get a look at it. I still want to see the Mona Lisa but Cecilia is also on the top of my list.

 

Hope you all enjoyed this post! 

Hair Inspiration - Short Hair

Hey

This week is the last week for the first half of the semester which I am really excited about, no more early mornings and trains! However I do have a test on Thursday which I am not looking forward to :/

 

I've mentioned how annoying I find my hair, it's long, flat and boring to put it bluntly.  For a long time I've been wanting to get it cut but I've just been unsure on what style I'd like it to be.  Cue the inspiration!

 

 

 

 

I just love how effortless and messy their style is and the length of course.  For a long while now I've been thinking of bringing my fringe back.  Whenever I see someone with a fringe and they look amazing it just makes me want one so much.  I have a long oval-ish face and I think my forehead is quite large so having a fringe might balance out ma face.

 

So yeah, let me know what you think and I would love to know what your hair inspirations are :D



My Favorite Things #16

Nivea Vitamin Shake Cranberry and Raspberry Lip Balm

I got this while at Rotorua, it was $2 at the Warehouse and was too good to pass up.  I mentioned in Monday's post how chapped my lips were so I really needed to get a good lip balm.  I really like it, I put some on whenever I feel my lips are too dry and I have noticed a bit of an improvement of the state of my lips, they're no longer disgusting especially in the morning.  It does smell fruity but not as good as the Strawberry one and the balm itself is pink with fused hints of white which I love, it's just pretty to look at.

 

Essie Button's Nordic Vlogs
Essie and her boyfriend Aslan recently went on a trip to Denmark and Norway and vlogged their trip.  I've been obsessed with these videos, I find it fascinating seeing and learning about different countries and what cool stuff there is to do.  Watching these definitely makes me want to go to Europe and just travel around. It would be cool/freaky to just drive to another country.  You can watch her amazing vlogs here, here as well as right here.

Bloodlines - Silver Shadows
I've mention how much I love the Bloodlines series before, you can see a brief summary of it here.  The latest book, Silver Shadows has recently come out and I got it as soon as I could.  I'm trying to take it slow and not read it all at once but I'm kind of failing, oh well.  The previous book didn't end so well for the characters so hopefully things get better for them, i.e Sydney and Adrian find each other and have a sort of happy ending. I might of read the last page of the book... I tend to do that a lot, I'm not patient in finding out how it all ends *sigh*.

Hope you all enjoyed this post and have a great weekend!

Escape to Rotorua

Hey

Over the weekend my family and I went to Rotorua because my sister was doing the Tough Girl and Guy challenge for school and we ended up staying for the rest of the weekend.  It was amazing, it felt like we were there for a whole week and was nice to just relax and not stress about uni stuff.

 

We went down early Friday morning as the challenge started at 11 and my parents wanted to watch my sister race. It was FREEZING, the sky was clear but the wind was icy cold and I felt sorry for the racers who had to jump into a pond and race around wet.

 

My sisters friends family also went down and they and my sister did the Zorb on Friday afternoon and on Saturday went to Agroventures and did the Swoop and the Bungy. My sister was going to do those two but she decided against it and did the Shweeb instead.  I took a video of my sister's friends doing the Swoop which you can see here. It's safe to say I will not be doing that ever.

 

At Agroventrures there were animals that really caught everybody's attention...

 

They were pretty huge

 

On Sunday there was a Fair/Craft market and there was the biggest inflatable slide I've ever seen

 

 



My sister went on it on Saturday which was ironic since she didn't want to do the Swoop... 

 

Of course I took some pretty pictures of the lake

 

 

Like I said I really enjoyed the trip and was sad to come home and face reality.

 

Hope you all enjoyed this post!

Lime Crime - Glamour 101

Hey

Not too long ago Pagan Marie Boutique announced they were having pre-orders for all their Lime Crime products.  I of course couldn't pass up this opportunity and quickly went on and bought another lipstick.  This is my third time buying from Pagan Marie, it's an amazing online store and sells awesome clothes as well and the best thing is shipping is free for NZ orders and delivery is very fast.

 

This time around I went for Glamour 101 which as you can see is a dark, wintery almost brown red.  It's been on my wish list for a long while but was always sold out so when I saw it I put it in my basket with no hesitation.  Like with my other Lime Crime lipsticks it's very creamy, smells nice and the colour is very pigmented.  My lips are really annoying in that there is no clear 'line' between them and my face so when I put lipstick on it tends to bleed and just looks messy so the use of a lip liner is a must.

 

I really love the colour, I think it really suites me.  My lips have been really bad this winter, very dry and chapped and the state of them can be clearly seen when I have this lipstick on :/ It just doesn't look good. I really need to invest in some lip scrub and be very liberal with the lip balm.

 

Hope you all enjoyed this post!

My Favourite Things #15

Shaaanxo Vlogs

Shannon recently went on a Contiki trip with some other YouTube stars and this week she uploaded some vlogs about her trip. She went around Europe to a number of countries which is something I really really want to do.  I especially love the videos which included Italy, it's one of my dream destinations and would love to see the Colosseum and the Vatican some day.  You can see all of her vlogs of the trip here.

 

Vatican City - St Peter's Square

 

Trip to Rotorua

Tomorrow/today when your all reading this I will be on my way to Rotorua.  My sister is doing this Tough Girl and Guy challenge (I think that's it) for here P.E class so we're all going apart from my brother.  I am so excited, it's like a mini little break and Rotorua is one of my favourite places to visit.  I'll try to take some photos so I can blog about it next week.

 

Chocolate Sundae

Last night/at this very moment as I writing this on Thursday my sister just drove off to McDonalds and got dessert YUS! I always get a chocolate sundae, always have and always will. It's one of the most delicious things ever and I'm always sad when I've finished it.

 

Hope you enjoyed this post and have a great weekend :D

Arts and Crafts

Hey

Another exciting thing that happened on Saturday (well for me at least) was when my Mum got me a wooden block thing that says Paris.

I have mentioned numerous times how much I love Paris even though I have never been there so I was excited when she gave this to me.

 

When I was younger I was very creative and always wanted to paint things and make them pretty.  Getting the wooden Paris cut-out kind of sparked back up the creative side of me that's been dormant for the last couple of years and I've been trying to think about how I could decorate it. 

 

So far I think I want to paint it white first (this might change) and I want to have a pretty little delicate decoration on it like flowers or maybe infuse the white with hints of pink.  I dunno, I don't have an idea set in stone and would love to hear any ideas you might have.  I'm pretty sure of the location I'm going to put it, above my canvas's of the Eiffel Tower and once painted I think it would look nice against the blue wall.

 

Hope you all enjoyed this post!

Chocolate Truffles

Hey

So it was just another Saturday afternoon when I went down to the kitchen to refill my glass of water.  My brother who was also in the kitchen at the time asked me to make him some chocolate truffles, it was the second time he asked me and I didn't really have anything else to do so I made them. I started without really checking if anything was there (I do that a lot) but I made do and I thought I'd share the proper recipe that's in the book as well as what I just chucked in.

 

 

These are the finished product, they just look like balls of dough but my brother says they're good which is nice seeing as I spend a good amount of time on them and made my arm sore.

 

The recipe comes from 'The Best of Alison Holst, Over 1000 Recipes and Tips'. I'm pretty sure my Mum has had it for a while and has a variety of recipes.

 

The Recipe in the Book

1/2 packet (125g) wine/plain biscuits

100g soft butter

1/4 cup cocoa

1 cup icing sugar

1/2 coconut

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1/4-1/2 tsp essence

 

First thing I like to do is soften the butter first and then crush up all the biscuits and add them to the butter and mix. Next I add the cocoa and icing sugar and mix, you want the mixture to be stickyish so add some water if it's too dry.  Then just roll them into balls and put them into the fridge, they're really easy and there's no need to use an oven.

 

For the batch in the picture I left out the coconut and the walnuts as my brother doesn't like them but you can add anything else you want.  There wasn't much cocoa left (I should've checked...oops) but I just added in a Dark Mocha coffee packet to make up for it.  He wanted me to add some of his protein powder stuff which I'm not really sure works with chocolate... but oh well and I just added in icing sugar till he liked the taste.

 

Hope you all enjoyed this post, it's a bit different to what I usually do but I do love to bake, I find it fun to make something from scratch.

My Favourite Things #14

Tartan Skirt

I did a post on this skirt as well as some other purchases a while ago which you can see here. It's one of my favourite pieces of clothing ever, I don't know why but I just have a thing for tartan and I really really want a tartan dress, I'm on the look out.  I haven't worn it as much as I would like, it's been really cold at the moment and my default is jeans which is a bit boring. 

 

 

Chocolate Biscuits

Lately the cupboard has been stocked with some very delicious chocolate biscuits. This is both good and bad.  For someone like me this really bad as once I see a packet open I just have to have a couple which then leads me to have a couple more and so on.  I acknowledge I have a chocolate problem, I however have no plans to fix it.  So with that said I am going to have another biscuit...

 

Beauty Buys

This week Pagan Marie Boutique had pre orders open for Lime Crime lipsticks which I am obsessed with.  When I saw the pre orders were open, I couldn't resist and had to get another one.  I bought Glamour 101 which is a rich, wintery red.  This one has been on my wish list for quite a while so I headed straight to it.  I can't wait till it gets here and be sure there will a post on how gorgeous it is.

Hope you all enjoyed this post and hope you have a great weekend! :D

 

Straight(ish) Hair

Hey

In the last couple of days I've been compelled to straighten my hair after not doing it for months.  I have quite thick hair so it does take a while to get it somewhat straightened. Usually my hair is very bushy and messy and having it straight kind of calms it down somewhat (I still however get knots in my hair thanks to the wind)

 

 

I get my hair somewhat straight, naturally my hair is wavy and I still leave some wave in it.  Most days I just wear my hair down, it's easy and unimaginative and on weekends I might tie it up when I'm at home. I mostly do this down to laziness and also to hide my ears, they stick out a lot so I prefer to keep them covered.  I tried doing a plait to make it more interesting but was an ultimate fail so yeah.

 

As you can see there is quite a bit of regrowth and my natural colour is starting to show (I've dyed my hair for so long I've forgotten what it was) I dyed it black after watching the Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence looked amazing and I wanted that hair colour!  Instead of dying it again I just decided to let the colour grow out.  I also really need a haircut, my hair feels longer than it looks and it's just getting annoying.

 

Hope you all enjoyed this post. Yesterday I took the plunge and make a Facebook page for the blog. There's a link in the sidebar and like it if you want :D

Home Inspiration - White

Hey

I wasn't really sure what I wanted to blog about but as I was going through my Bloglovin feed I recalled being inspired by a certain bloggers posts about interior design which then lead me to create a board on Pinterest dedicated to it.

 

Kate from Gh0stparties has done a series of posts on design inspiration and pictures of her new place.  As you can see from this post on her bedroom and her home mood board she is fond of the shade white.  I've never really thought as to how I would one day style and decorate my future home but after seeing her posts I'm now really obsessed with the all white look and as I've mentioned I've create a whole board on Pinterest.

 

You can have a look at all my Pinterest boards by clicking the link on the sidebar but here are a few images I found that I really love.

 

 

 

 

 

I love how simple and elegant these rooms are and I especially love how striking the black and white striped wall paper is especially in contrast to the rest of the photos.

 

Hope you all enjoyed this post! I would love to know what kind of home designs you like, I love finding new inspirations.

My Favourite Things #13

Collection Cosmetics Lasting Perfection Concealer

I've had this for about a week now and it has quickly become my favourite thing ever! I just always seem to have dark circles under my eyes which do not look nice at all.  The shade I have is in Fair and it is like magic, it instantly brightens up my eyes and makes me not look like a zombie and overall just brightens up my whole face which is a plus.

 

 

Yesterday's weather

I'm not a fan of winter, I hate the bitterly cold mornings when I have to wake up early for the train.  The last two days however have been really warmish and Spring like especially yesterday.  I was debating whether to wear my big coat to uni but decided against it and hoped it wouldn't get cold.  It didn't, the sky was clear and there was no wind which made the day warmer. It was really nice to just sit outside in the sun and soak in the warmth.

 

August

Today is the first day of August which is weird as July went by really fast, probably due to the fact that I was on break for most of it.  August is the last month of winter which means four weeks till Spring! Hopefully the days will get warmer as the month goes on.  I don't really have anything exciting planned for this month but of course you never know what will happen.

 

Hope you all enjoyed this post and have a great weekend! :D