2015 Wedding inspiration with Lover.ly

Dear readers,

I never had the chance to shop for a bridal dress as we both agreed on having a small and intimate wedding with a very casual dressing code. The hubby wanted me to make a statement on my cultural heritage so I borrowed a gorgeous two-piece Indonesian batik dress from my mum.

When Lover.ly asked me if I was interested in participating in their Dream Day Style Challenge I jumped at the chance. Who doesn't like to play dress up?

Lover.ly is the bride's digital BFF for inspiration and planning. It's a one stop shop for everything wedding related, it's like having your own wedding planner on call 24/7.

I went for a winery wedding as we are both into wines and enjoy visiting wineries. One of my best friends got married in a gorgeous winery in the La Rioja region in Spain and it was such a gorgeous scenery that I think many of you would enjoy a romantic wedding surrounded by vineyards. Plus you have an unlimited supply of wine for the dinner banquet, lol.

For that wedding my friend was wearing an unusual pink dress and her twin-sister was dressed in white: most confusing! I think you shouldn't wear a white dress as a wedding guest in general terms but this totally depends on each particular situation. You'll only need a bit of common sense and always ask for the bride's approval first.

Wedding inspiration by eli-dumas

I think that the dress that I picked out from Lover.ly's website pairs perfectly with the venue as it seems like someone splashed a glass of wine over it. This perfectly reflects my personality as I don't take weddings too seriously. You should have fun preparing your wedding and not stress out too much about things going the "wrong" way. The only thing that matters is looking in the eyes of your loved one and hear him/her say these two words: I do.

And, of course I added some inspiration for make up and accessories. I went for a nude make up with a tiny bit of shimmer and a very simple hairdo with romantic curls.

Tiffany & Co. diamond earrings
€7.555 - tiffany.com

Charlotte Tilbury highlight makeup
€64 - net-a-porter.com

Vegan makeup brush
zoeva-shop.de

Lips makeup
€27 - theiconic.com.au

Hourglass cosmetic
€33 - net-a-porter.com

Christian Dior ivory foundation
€46 - johnlewis.com

Lancôme mascara
€30 - neimanmarcus.com

Nars cosmetic
€27 - sephora.com

Laura Mercier face powder
€23 - bloomingdales.com

Anastasia makeup
€22 - sephora.com

NARS Cosmetics camouflage mask
€30 - selfridges.com

MAC Cosmetics mineral makeup
€21 - bloomingdales.com

Waterproof makeup
€18 - makeupforever.com

Face powder
€13 - camerareadycosmetics.com

Lottie
row.jimmychoo.com

Wedding Day™ : Samplers® Votive Candles : Yankee Candle
€1,88 - yankeecandle.com

Vintage engagement ring
indulgy.com

Ombre Tulle Ball Gown with Pick Up Skirt
€1,348 - lover.ly






Happy wedding planning and don't forget to have fun!

Long-term spending ban

Dear readers,

After running out of space for all my beauty products I've willingly decided to put myself on a strict spending ban. A second goal I wish to achieve is to save some vacation money and finally be able to go to the Canary islands as I've never been there before... I know, shame on me!

image taken from someecards

Last year I tried following this challenge for a month but I simply ended up spending twice as much the following month.

This time I'm going for a longer run, hopefully 6 months will be enough to cure me from having too many spending sprees in the future. Let's see how that works out...

The only purchase I'll allow myself will be to refill any true empties, that is, no more backups left either. Believe me when I tell you that this is almost a new installment of Mission Impossible, lol.

One thing I'm doing already is deleting all mailing offers aka temptation. I can't bring myself to cancel all my mailing subscriptions as I love all the online stores I'm subscribed to but I don't allow myself to open up any of those alluring emails.

Physical stores I don't have much to worry about as I almost never shop there, 90% of my purchases are done online so that's one problem less.

What about you? Do you like challenging yourself to see what you're capable of?

Reading Challenge

Dear readers,

In March 2014 I started a Challenge of my own, well not entirely. I stumbled upon a blog post about a challenge that was going around. It was very straightforward: to read one book per week, that is 52 books in a year.

As I love reading books and magazines and articles and blog posts and even boring stuff for work I thought I'd give it a go and put myself in a serious reading mode.

I took my trusted old Sony E-Reader PRS-650 that the hubby gifted me many many Christmases ago and went down to business.

1. La mano de Fátima
2. The Host
3. Divergent
4. Insurgent
5. Allegiant
6. Eve
7. Rise
8. Once
9. Rivers of London
10. Moon over Soho
11. Casper, the Commuting Cat
12. Whispers under Ground
13. The Fault in our Stars
14. Broken homes
15. The Transfer, a Divergent Story
16. Micro
17. The Maze Runner
18. The Scorch Trials
19. The Death Cure
20. The Kill order
21. Slated
22. Fractured
23. Still life with Crows
24. Shattered
25. The art of racing in the rain
26. Seda
27. El tiempo entre costuras
28. Delirium
29. Pandemonium
30. Requiem
31. Heat wave
32. The Fault in our Stars (yep, I read it again)
33. The Night Circus
34. Legend
35. Prodigy
36. Champion
37. Naked Heat
38. Life after Legend
39. Last Light
40. After Light
41. The Wheel of Darkness
42. Relic
43. Reliquary
44. The Cabinet of Curiosities
45. Brimstone
46. The Dance of Death
47. The Book of the Dead
48. Cemetery Dance
49. Fever Dream
50. Cold Vengeance
51. Riptide
52. Mount Dragon

The start was a bit boring as I didn't much enjoy the 2 first books. After that, I devoured the Divergent series in less than 10 days, although I have to say that I'm not a big fan, but well they were very easy to read and they helped me get in the reading mood.

If you are familiar with some of the titles, you'll see a trend during the first part of the year, inadvertently I started reading a lot of dystopian novels or maybe it was because most of them were made into movies and there was so much talk of them on the blogosphere... I'm so weak-minded.

I very much enjoyed reading the agent Pendergast series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child but I couldn't find the last 2 or 3 books so I switched over to their regular books (Riptide and Mount Dragon).

As for the Rivers of London series I started reading them on recommendation of Tanya Burr and I'm eager to continue reading them as the 4th book just came out in October, if I'm not mistaken.

About the challenge itself I'm very pleased with myself as I started off well in March and I managed to finish it, I even got ahead of myself and had a more chilled December. I'm very glad it's over, though as it took much of my spare time and I won't be following this challenge this year. I want to concentrate more on improving the quality of my blog posts and spending more time with the hubby as I feel I've neglected him quite a bit this past year.

Just this morning I stumbled upon another great challenge that I've decided to follow this year: the #take12trips Challenge, I'll keep you posted on this one throughout the year.

For the love of challenging oneself,

#2014BloggerChallenge in retrospect

Dear readers,

This year has turned out to be a successful blogging year for me. I've made a lot of new friends along the way and I've managed to keep up (more or less) my blogging schedule.

I'm especially thankful to Gaby from EtcGabrielle and her 2014 Blogger Challenge series. It's been great being part of this and I'm very pleased with myself that I've kept it up for the whole duration. I very much enjoyed having a set uploading schedule and the topics given beforehand. It also has helped me to write about some non-beauty related posts and to have more confidence to include some selfies here and there.

When I went back to My summer bucket list post I saw that I've managed to follow steps 1 through 6 from my 10-step blogger plan for this year. Not too bad, I think.

As my goals have remained more or less the same since writing that post I'll just continue and try to accomplish those last 4 and add one: spend more time with the hubby. I've been so busy with my blogger-related life that I've barely had time for him, love you honey bunny :)

Goodbye #2014BloggerChallenge and happy 2015, who knows what the new year has in store for us?

Post 1: New Year's inspiration
Post 2: Skin care routine
Post 3: Book review
Post 4: High end vs Drugstore
Post 5: All about nails
Post 6: Nom nom nom!
Post 7: Jerusalem in photos
Post 8: OOTD
Post 9: Music
Post 10: Hair tools
Post 11: My sample collection
Post 12: Meals
Post 13: My summer bucket list
Post 14: Guess the film
Post 15: Perfect pairs
Post 16: Beginnings
Post 17: Mac & Cheese recipe
Post 18: Consumer friendly packaging
Post 19: I don't like Autumn
Post 20: My fave beauty shopping sites
Post 21: Pampering
Post 22: Holiday gift guid
Post 23: This one

Happy holidays y'all,

#2014BloggerChallenge: Holiday gift guide

Dear readers,

Here I'm leaving you with a few of my favourite Youtubers' vids on ideas for Christmas presents. I hope you find them useful like I did.

As for my own recommendation, I'd have gotten this amazing offer on Cult Beauty. That way I'd have killed two birds with one stone: get some Christmas presents and keep the goody bag for myself :)

But it's too late now as they have run out :(

If I could only pick one Christmas present it would be this gorgeous coat by Topshop:

I was hoping on getting it on Black Friday but it had no discount so I'll keep on dreaming...

And finally I'm leaving you with the cutest Christmas advert ever:

Who doesn't love penguins?

Happy December y'all,

#2014BloggerChallenge: Pampering

Dear readers,

We're thinking about renovating the bathroom and I always wanted to get rid of the bathtub and put a shower instead. We only have one bathroom in the house so it's a big decision and I've finally decided against it.

It all started when I first entered a LUSH cosmetics store when on vacation in London a few years back. I became obsessed with their bath bombs and such.

Now I can't imagine living without having a bathtub where to soak in and relax once in a while -not very often as the hubby cringes at the sight of water and gas bills...

So my pampering moments consist of soaking in my bathtub with any Lush bath product after having a facial deep cleanse followed by a face mask of some sort.

I wrote an entire post featuring my favourite pamper products at the beginning of the year, click on the link if you want to read more. It practically has remained the same except for my newest addition: the fresh BB Seaweed mask by, you guessed it: Lush.

If you are on a budget I also have a post on DIY masks, just scroll down to the mid part.

Happy pampering!

#2014BloggerChallenge: My fave beauty shopping sites

Dear readers,

I'm a huge online shopper, I find pleasure in hunting down the most perfect deal and trade in any coupons I can get my hands on. My greatest hero is Tati from GlamLifeGuru and I love watching her Madness Monday haul videos.

Here are my top 5 online stores for skin care and make up at the moment:

1. Look Fantastic
2. Feel Unique
3. The Body Shop
4. Lush
5. Perfumerías IF 

Next are some less visited sites although I used them a lot in the past:

1. Yves Rocher I'm very fond of this brand as I started using it when I was a teenager
2. Strawberrynet I find better deals elsewhere but I still keep an eye open for special deals
3. Adam Beauty they only accept PayPal payments so no shopping here until they accept cards
4. Sasa I like Strawberrynet better but they have a wider selection of asian brands
5. Perfume's club I'm trying out other brands that aren't sold here

And lastly, some sites I wished offered international shipping:

1. U.S. Sephora (we don't have an online store over here)
2. Ulta
3. Target
4. Boots (they started shipping to Spain but only certain brands)
5. Bath & Body Works

What are your favourite stores? Do you rather shop online or in store?

Happy shopping,

#2014BloggerChallenge: I don't like Autumn

Dear readers,

I've never liked the cold but I can't wait for those colder months to come so I can cuddle up in my new bed with a cuppa and a chocolate bar/muffin/biscuit/fill in your own preference...

I recently purchased an electric adjustable bed, that's to show you just how committed I am to staying in bed for the longest possible time.

Since I was a child I like doing everything in bed: read, homework, watch tv, listen to music, daydream, eat and of course, sleep.

What I especially don't like about autumn is this:

        7:30 AM before going to work - 16:00 PM arriving home after work

Like, really? Are you kidding me? What should I put on these days? A swimsuit with a winter coat on top?

So this is the reason I'm running late lately, I'm showing up at work like 5-10 minutes late as I keep looking at my wardrobe waiting to have an epiphany that tells me how to dress for the day.

All right, lets end on a more positive note and show you this morning's sunrise:

I'm afraid I only had my iPhone with me so it doesn't show the true burning red colour peaking above the sea line. 

How about you, are you an Autumn lover yourself?

#2014BloggerChallenge: My own version of Mac & Cheese

Dear readers,

As we were given quite an open ended topic for this 2014 Blogger Challenge post I decided to give you this pasta recipe/tutorial that's very easy but also very tasty. You can make a load full because it still tastes delicious when you warm it up the following day.

First you'll need some eggs, one or two will do depending on how much pasta you're preparing. I usually take two.

Some milk, from 1 to 2 litres. I start off with 1.5 litres and add more if I see it doesn't cover the entire pasta mix.

Grated parmesan cheese, this is were the tasty flavor comes from so I use two 100gr bags.

Of course, some pasta. I always use maccaroni but you can choose any other kind. You start boiling the pasta as usual for as long as the package says, I think 6-7 minutes for maccaroni. 

In the meantime you fry 400gr of bacon in a pan until they are crisp and golden brown, you don't need to add any oil or butter. You can use less or more, that depends on your personal preference, I started using 250gr but I love me some bacon so I kept adding more and more over the years.

While the bacon is in the pan you take your baking dish, mine is 35cm by 25cm and 5cm deep and put a layer of butter and some sprinkles of stock cube. You can use a smaller one if you're just making a few servings and adjust the amount of pasta, cheese, milk and bacon using only one egg. It's pretty easy just to eyeball it as you can never go wrong with this.

In a bowl you mix the egg/s with the milk and add some salt and pepper.

Start layering the pasta, the grated parmesan and the bacon, it usually takes 3 layers until I completely fill the baking dish.

Pour the milk until the pasta is almost completely covered, just add more plain milk if needed. Last step is adding a bit more grated cheese on top.

Finally you put it in the oven at 180ºC for about 20 minutes. You can leave it in for a bit longer if you feel the mixture is still too runny. And if you like a very crispy top layer you can switch your oven to the grating setting for a few minutes. You'll also need to leave it to cool off for about 5-10 minutes so that the egg mixture will completely harden.

I like pairing this with a fresh green salad and I love to sprinkle some tabasco on top, yummy !

For the love of comfort food,

#2014BloggerChallenge: Beginnings

Dear readers,

You'll have to excuse the lateness of this post, it's the first time I've missed my blogger challenge deadline but I was so caught up in my braincation that I just went along with it and thought to myself: "I'm blogging for fun, just chill and post whenever you feel like it".

For me the end of summer means the beginning of dieting.

I'm quite petite (1.60m or 5'3") and I've always had a perfect weight of around 51-53Kg. Over the years I've been gaining on some weight but nothing too alarming. After I got married my body shape shifted and I'd to get a whole new wardrobe that would fit me, but still I was happy with my weight.

As I turned 40 my tummy has been growing and my upper arms and upper legs have started to expand so I'm worried this will go on and on if I don't start doing something about it. I'm not overly worried about my weight as 60Kg isn't that alarming but when I'm wearing dresses I don't feel like my body shape is so flattering anymore.

I try doing more exercise and eating healthier but it's difficult to maintain these habits when you're on holidays or like me, you live in a coastal town where lots of friends come visit over the summer. I usually go out to dinner more often or simply have a few drinks with tapas and all of this keeps adding up and when the summer is finally over you find out you've gained like 3 or 4 kilos :(

Writing a blog however has helped me keep my promises and visualizing my goals, be more strict with what I want to achieve and following the rules I put to myself, so as of today I'm beginning to cut down my intake of unhealthy food and, most difficult of all, alcohol. Bye bye to my refreshing beers, shandies, wines and mojitos.

I'll start again with my daily one hour walks along the seaside and try to eat smaller portions and more veggies.

Maybe I should purchase a scale so I could monitor my progress. I've never wanted one because: what you don't know won't hurt you, don't you think?

Bye bye summer, hello diet!

#2014BloggerChallenge: Perfect pairs

Dear readers,

I wasn't much of a lippy kind of gal but I've embraced the bright lips trend as of lately.

These are my perfect summer pairs at the moment.

I'm featuring 6 lip products, but I have to say that I do not own many more that this.

Bright Fucsia: I'm loving this shade for a pop of colour when my clothing is more dull and neutral. I can wear the NYX matte lipstick (right) in Shocking pink on its own or toned down with the Lasting finish Rimmel lipstick (left) by Kate in Rosetto

From left to right: NYX, Rimmel and both.

The same applies to a beautiful coral-y-orange tone by NYX (right): lip smacking fun color in 643 Femme is gorgeous on its own or toned down with my only high end lipstick by Dior Addict (left) in 433 Délice.

From left to right: Dior, NYX and both.

And finally my favourite nude lip combo: it's not exactly nude, you may think, but it is for me as my lips are kind of pigmented and more mauvy-toned so this is my go-to lip combination when I'm going for a more subtle or everyday look.

From left to right: CK cream lipstick in 31119 Rose berry, NYX butter gloss in Tiramisu and both.

These are the shades I'm going for this summer but I can't wait to try out some different tones I have reserved for autumn and winter.

Have a look at Gaby's post on this topic and scroll down to find the links to all the other participant's entries.

Good reading to y'all,