OOTD: Rolling Stone!

Bruges is such a beautiful place. I've lived here for a year now and I'm still exploring. There are so many beautiful places to discover! 

I'm finding new spots everytime I hang out with my friends. Recently my friend and I tried out a new sushi restaurant and we decided to shoot outfit pictures afterwords. 

 

My outfit is pretty simple. I like wearing T-shirts with funny quotes or them or band tees. Today I'm wearing a Rolling Stones T-shirt with a leather jacket, black jeans and white Converse All Stars.

Pretty rock 'n roll if you ask me!  

Even though it's a very basic outfit, I feel very good and very comfortable in it!

What do you think?

Thanks for reading! Have a lovely day!

Festive make-up inspirations

Everyone needs something in their life that makes their soul spark. A passion. Something you love so much that sometimes you lose yourself in it.

My passion is my blog, my make-up, my fashion. I can't get enough of make-up or beauty related pictures. These past few weeks I have been browsing the Internet and I found a couple of gorgeous pictures. all of these pictures are rather festive make-up looks. I thought I'd share them with you, because everyone can use a bit of inspiration at times! Enjoy!

Why so Sirius?! - Part 1

Hi there!
Today's post is a little bit different. As you might know, if you read this blog once in a while, I'm in college. I'm studying English and history and I absolutely love it. Our English teacher is a little bit weird, but he's such a nice person. He can teach really well but he also makes it interesting. I like coming to class. I've often said that if there were more teacher like him around, the kind where you can see the passion in their eyes, everybody'd like to go to school.

For our English oral exam, he challenged us. He had us think of a talent, and link that talent to British culture. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, you can't just make up a talent, so I decided I'd write a little piece. Writing is something I love, and aside from the blog, I don't do it often enough!
And because I like to review books on here as well, I decided I'd post my own short story as well. The way I linked it to culture is that I just took three ideas from writers and created a kind of "spin off".
I hope you like it!
If you enjoyed this post, let me know! I'll be putting out more content later!

A soft wind whispered past him. He swore he had been in a forest a minute ago. Now he was standing in front of a small pond.
The water flowed softly down the rocks, coloured grey in the light of a constant moon. As the water echoed in his mind, he forgot there had ever been a forest and wandered further.
Even though he had no idea where he was, it didn’t really matter. Everything here looked so magical, so out of this world, he didn’t think of how he was going to get back to the forest.

The moon had turned everything grey and for a minute he stood there, trying to imagine how breathtaking it would look in colour.

As Sirius looked around, he noticed a deer on the other side of the pond. The creature looked so majestic, so innocent. His lips curled into a smile. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he could just stay here? Suddenly he felt so calm. For a minute, it seemed like there was no wrong in the world. There was  no evil. There was only this moment, the beauty, the inner peace that he had been looking for for such a long time. Maybe his rough journey was meant to end like this. Maybe life would get better now.

Sirius looked up to the sky and saw a thousand stars. They were shining bright and there were so many of them. Not like the ones you saw where the Muggles live. Slowly Sirius sat down in the soft, moist grass. A few seconds later, he found himself laying down in the grass, humming a peaceful melody. He couldn’t remember all the words to the song, but he knew it was a song filled with positivity.

Sirius took a deep breath in and closed his eyes. After a few minutes, he felt something on the back of his right hand. His heart started beating fast and loud, but he demanded himself to stay calm. He opened his eyes to see what could possibly interrupt his moment of rest, and found the deer by his side.

It looked at him with eyes so bright and beautiful, unlike anything that he had ever seen before. All this, he thought, was a reason to believe in the good again. Pure and unconditional love, magic, family. If he could keep this feeling, he might even be able build a whole new life for himself.
Sirius decided to close his eyes again. He felt the deer licking his hand again but didn’t panic, after all, this beautiful animal was harmless.

Its tiny hoof brushed the palm of his hand. It stroked across the skin, barely touching it until his hand felt numb and formless. Sirius smiled, his mind went blank. The deer came closer, breathing warm wet air upon his face. It calmed itself until its breath matched his. Then it gave him a soft lick. Sirius didn’t how much time passed. It also didn’t matter.

Sirius heard the sound of a giggle in the woods. Playful and childish, it danced along the trees singing a soft rhyme. He didn’t know the words. It occurred to him that no man had ever known them. Yet he knew exactly what they meant. He saw mountains, rising and decaying through the ages. Rivers bursting through rock like veins through flesh. Bodies hanged in trees to rot and be forgotten. The rhyme went on, each word a more disturbing image than the last. Until he was left with the image of a snake, silent and smooth, but oh so deadly. Then he lost control of his body.

OOTD: Pastel blazer

Hello everyone! How are you?

Today's post is another outfit of the day! I have been posting a lot of those lately but I love it!
Summer is by far my favourite time of year to take outfit pictures!

Last July, we had sales here in Belgium. It used to be my favourite thing to do when I was younger: hop on the bus and go shopping all day.
To return with so many bags that you can barely hold all of them, ahhh, those are some good memories! I would save up money all year round to just be able to go shopping twice: once in the summer and once in the winter.
This summer, I didn't have the time to shop a lot due to work, but I did find some items here and there.

One of the favourite items that I got during the sales is this pastel yellow blazer. I instantly get a happy feeling when I see or wear it!
Here, I paired it with an owl T-shirt that my sister gave me for my birthday. I decided to wear black jeans and black shoes.
My shoes have some fake snakeskin print on them that is actually the exact same colour as my T-shirt, so that's a nice match.

Blazer: Moggy's
T-shirt: Primark
Jeans: H&M
Shoes: Shoe discount
Purse: H&M
Watch & armcandy: Claire's & Six
Nailpolish: New Look

Thanks for reading! Have a lovely day!

EOTD: Big blue eyes

When I first started using make-up, I didn't know about some of the tricks that I know today. One of my favourite tricks is to use eyeshadow to make my eyes look more blue.

 

You can make any eye colour pop with eyeshadow. What you want to do is use eyeshadow in the opposite colour of you eye colour. For example, the opposite colour of blue is orange. When you use bronze/orange/tan tones, you'll see that your eyes pop more. 

I inserted a picture above that has all the eye colours next to eyeshadow colours that will make them pop - just in case you wanted to check which colours would work great for you!

Moving on to the look! Here it is! 

This look is a little darker than what I normally wear on hot summer days. I smoked out my crease a little bit using my Nude 'Tude palette by The Balm. Since the eyeshadow was a little darker, I felt this was a great day to night kind of make-up look.

I used gold as my lid colour because... who doesn't love gold? The eyeshadow that I used is called "Amber lights" by MAC. It's such a gorgeous colour! I use it all the time. To be quite honest, I'm surprised I haven't hit pan yet! 

As always, I did a little winged eyeliner! The liquid liner and mascara that I use are by Essence.

I hope you like this look, let me know what you think! 

Thanks for reading! Have a great day!

Bookreview: Elite

Goodmorning everyone!
It has taken me a while to pick up a book again, but recently I've been reading a lot more than I have in the passed months. I've been so busy that it felt a bit weird to just lay down all day to read, but I've gotten used to it again, haha!

I recently finished reading "The Elite", which is the second book in Kiera Cass' series called "The Selection". You can read my bookreview on the first book in this series by clicking here.

America found herself in a contest called "The Selection". She's competing with a bunch of other girls to win Prince Maxon's heart and become the next Queen. This contest really means a lot, because America grew up rather poor and this contest could change her whole life - and her whole family's life. It could help all of them to escape the conditions that they live in and America is struggling - does she really want this or not? Because if she wins, it'll be for life.

Even though she wasn't really in it to win it at first, she is now amongst the six last girls.  In this book, America still hasn't decided if this is what she wants. Should she trust Maxon? What about her boyfriend at home? What if she wins, and what if she doesn't?
Aside from that, the political situation hasn't been too steady either, which makes everything much more difficult.
America is much more different than all of the other girls and sometimes it is an advantage, but sometimes it's a really big disadvantage...

I enjoyed reading this book a lot! Some of my friends were kind of laughing at me because they thought I was reading a book about princesses - and I must admit that it looks like I am - but if you can read between the lines, it's about so much more!
I'm very excited to see what happens in the next book. I'm for sure rooting for America!

Thanks for reading!
Have you been reading any books that you'd like to recommend? Leave a comment!

Essence mosaic compact powder review

When I was younger, I limited myself to eye make-up most of the time. I never really thought about the rest of the face, except for blush maybe.

Since then, I've learned that the face is also important. I started with concealing and right now I bronze, highlight, contour, the whole lot.

 

I have used my bronzer quite a lot recently, which led to serious pan at first, and empty packaging later. I went out looking for a new one and found something that I thought looked decent. This is the Essence mosaic compact powder.

The packaging of this product is rather normal and average, but I love how they made it 3D. Some parts are "sticking up" a little more. The way a product looks doesn't define the quality, but it sure is nice to have a product that looks special.

This bronzing powder is made of darker and lighter parts. I just mix all the shades together.

This mosaic compact powder is just the right colour for my skin. I was afraid it'd be too light but it's good. The powder is very nice to work with, it crumbles a little bit but not to the point where it's disturbing. As with all Essence products, it's affordable! I use this powder for bronzing and contouring.

This is what the powder looks like on my face. As you can see I used it to contour my cheekbones and my forehead a little bit.

 I like this product! 

OOTD: Bright 'n blue

Hello everyone! How are you?

I've been doing very well. I spend a lot of time  with friends this time of year and I've been really taking the time to enjoy my life.

Now that I have red hair, I tend to wear more white. I find that too many bright colours clash with my hair. I don't know if that's just me, or if there are any other redheads out there who feel that way, but I do. I can't, however, always wear white.

Last week was such a sunny week, I decided to wear something colourful. I went for my teal maxi skirt. I've had this thing for about a year and I've never worn it out before. I'm quite happy I did this time! This outfit makes me feel so crisp and fresh.

(Click the pictures to enlarge)

 

I wore a lace white T-shirt and a rather formal looking white blazer. The pop of colour in this look was my teal maxi skirt from New Look and my statement necklace by H&M. 

Watch by Claire's

Pearl earrings by Claire's.

Statement necklace from H&M.

Statement necklace by H&M. I used a Babyliss curling iron to get these curls.

Sunglasses from Claire's

Hair clip by Claire's

I certainly enjoyed my day, I hope you have been enjoying summer a little yourself! 

Have a good day! Be kind!

My summer so far!

I have been putting a whole lot of different kinds of posts out here on the blog. You might have noticed that personal posts were not among them.
Have I been living under a rock? No, I haven't. Although I wouldn't blame you if you thought I did!
As you might know from previous posts I have been through a little bit of a rough time and I just didn't feel like sharing any of it on the Internet. I have also been working for a big part, which isn't really interesting to see anyway.

Summer started off with a Big Sean concert. Ahh, that gave me such a rush. I'm going to be honest, almost everything I did this summer was new to me!

I have been spending a lot of time at the harbor here in Bruges. It's a beautiful place to relax, to come and think and I met a lot of fun people there.

I've been blogging, reading ànd writing a lot more. Basically, I'm just doing more of what makes me happy! I got myself a cute notebook and I try to write something everyday. Even if I have nothing to say. It's a challenge, but I'm trying to make it work. I think - well, I hope! - that in the end, I will have improved my writing.

I changed my hair colour. Twice. and I also cut it short.

I like reinventing myself and I felt like it was time to do something else. Blonde was great, but it was too damaging for my hair and the ombre was fun for once, but it wasn't something that I wanted to keep for years...

Just before the summer break I befriended these amazing girls who literally just show up to my house and take me on adventures. A few weeks ago they took me to the Gentse Feesten. If you are unfamiliar with de Gentse Feesten, I'll explain it to you:

Basically, for a whole week, you can come to Ghent (a well known city here in Belgium) and you can party. There are stages everywhere, DJ's are playing music, people are just dancing in the streets, enjoying the whole atmosphere. It's like a festival, in the center of Ghent.

I spent a lot of time with friends. Hanging out. Dinner dates. Going for a drink. Going to the movies. Anything is good for me, as long as I'm with my friends. I was scared I wasn't going to see them during the summer break, but they didn't disappoint me!

These girls get me through everything! I couldn't ask for better friends. Honestly. 

And of course I also celebrated my 19th birthday this summer!

I can't wait to see what August and September still have in store for me!

I hope all of you are enjoying your summer as well! Don't forget to take a break and relax a little every once in a while!
Have a good day!

King

I have said it so many times before, I am a lucky little girl.

No, life isn't always good to me and yes, I too have known bad times, but I have always found a way to fight back and I always made it through.

I am very lucky to have a father by my side who supports me no matter what and will always do the best he can. I hope you have someone like that in your life as well! 

 I can't tell you how good it feels to know there's someone there to catch you when you fall, someone who has your back. For me, that's my dad. It has been this way all my life and I know I will be able to count on him for the rest of my life.

I have been thinking about getting a small tattoo for quite a while now and a few months back I decided I wanted something to honour my dad.

 Sure, I've heard about how risky a tattoo is because it'll always be there. But guess what? My dad has always been there for me and he will always be my dad, so it fits! I don't know who is more honoured to be quite honest; I am so proud to have a dad like this, so of course I have no problems with showing it to the world!

I didn't want to go for "dad" or just his name, because I feel like a lot of people have that. So I went for "King". I think it's a word with power and it is definitely how I feel about my dad: he's my King.

I was actually going to get this done on my birthday but my tattoo artist had to close the shop due to some medical problems. Anyway, he got better and I finally got my first tattoo!

I'm quite proud of it, I love the fact that this tattoo is especially designed for me (by a good friend of mine) and nobody else has it - it's truely original and has a very personal meaning.
As a blogger you write about things you love and... you guessed it: I love this tattoo so much that I just hàd to write about it! So, here it is!


Thanks for reading!
Tell someone you love them today!

OOTD: Birthday bash on the beach!

It's surprising what a little sand and a little water can do for you. Going to the beach is something that I haven't done in a long time, I actually don't do it often, but going to the beach sure makes me happy! 

I went to the beach a little while ago to celebrate my birthday and the birthday of one of my good friends!

 

When she showed up to my place, we were actually wearing thesame playsuit (but in a different colour)! Total coincidence because I didn't know she'd be wearing hers and she didn't know I'd be wearing mine! 

This playsuit is from a shop called Moggy's. My ballet flats are by H&M and my sunglasses are from Claire's.

I had such a great day and was so satisfied when I got home!

I'm blessed to have amazing friends who always take me on trips and adventures! 

As always, thanks for reading and have a great day!