Christmas Playlist

One of the things I love about Christmas (although I actually like everything about it, to be honest) are Christmas songs. I even have a music playlist with only Christmas music, so I decided to share it with you.

The Christmas Tag

I saw this tag in Milk Bubble Tea and I knew I had to do it! I love Christmas, and I love tags so... this was perfect! I'm so in the Christmas spirit already but nobody around me seems to be too, so I'm hoping this will also help to spread it a little bit! Feel free to tag yourself, and if you do, leave me the links in the comments!

DIY Washi Tape Reindeer

For me, the moment Halloween is over, it's time to start getting crazy about Christmas! However, nobody here seems to think the same way, so I was trying to wait until Christmas is a bit closer, but... I'm sorry, I hate waiting. Today I was really craving a DIY so I decided to do this, which is slightly Christmassy, but not too much.

22 before 22

Today is exactly one month to my birthday, so I wanted to make a birthday-related post. Today last year, I made a birthday wishlist, which I considered doing again this year, but the truth is... I actually have mostly everything I want, so the list would have like 3 items top (I'm a pretty lucky person, I know). So... I decided to think of 22 things I'd like to accomplish before turning 22. (I have 13 months for that).

Halloween makeup ideas

Halloween has never been a huge thing in Spain, but this year, being in Belgium, where it is actually celebrated makes it so exciting! For the first time in my life, I can consider dressing up without embarrassing myself.

For this reason, I've recently been pinning a few make-up ideas that I loved on Pinterest and I wanted to share them with you in case you liked them too...

Daytrip to Lille

Last weekend, we visited Lille (France). It's so cool and weird going to a different country and coming back the same day! It felt totally unreal. I would say we had a great time there but we always to!

And you know I love sharing my travel experiences with you, so here are some photos I took.

Finding time to blog when you're an exchange student

This is a short of personal post, but I feel like it's something I needed to do, both for me and for you. Since I arrived at Belgium (actually, before even arriving), I have been struggling to find the time to work on posts. Not only do I find it hard to find the time to write the actual post, but also for all the preparations, thinking of posts ideas, and promoting my blog.

I no longer have time to contribute to twitter chats for bloggers, or leave comments on other blogs, which means my visits and comments are dropping down, which is pretty discouraging.

However, I do not want to quit blogging, because I love it, and even if my blog is not a really big thing, I'm still quite proud of what I have accomplished and I don't want it to get wasted, so I decided that I'm going to try to do my best to continue blogging every Sunday.

I used to blog 2/3 times a week, and I would love to continue to be able to do so, but I simply can't. So my weekly posts topic will be a bit random. It could either be personal, or lifestyle, or travel, or recipes... you never know, just as I never know what I will have the time to do that week.

And that's it for today. These weren't exactly some pretty exciting news, and I'm sorry for that. But as I said before, it is something I wanted to share with you.

Travel Tuesdays: Living in Belgium #2 - Featuring Antwerp

My adventures in Belgium continue and I get more and more excited to share them with you every day. 

This is Leuven, the place where I'm studying.

DIY Safety Pin Necklace

First of all, I want to thank Leire and Luz for inspiring this post. The other day, I was chilling out with some friends at one of their houses and one of them (Luz) was wearing this gorgeous necklace that I still can't believe she made herself. Another girl, Leire, suggested I wrote a blog post about it (yes, they found out about my blog) and I just cannot believe I didn't think of it! So thanks a lot to them.

Room Tour

I absolutely love my new room and I wish I could have it in Spain, and I just couldn't not share it with you.

Travel Tuesdays: First days in Belgium

Last September 11th (great day to fly, I know) I moved to Belgium, where I will be studying this year.

Even though I'm studying in Leuven, I also visited Brugge and Brussels (and Ghent, but I was exhausted that day and didn't take any photos. I will next time I visit it. Pinky promise) and I'm loving my stay here so I wanted to share it with you.

DIY Entry organizer

Since I moved to Belgium I had a brand new room to decorate, so one of the things I did for my new room that I've been absolutely loving was this entry organizer.

Life update #2 : Living in Belgium

Hello! It's me. Again. And guess what? I'm in Belgium! I'm so excited to be finally here! And, specially... I'm so excited to finally have internet access, which I didn't have when I arrived! Crazy, right?

Coming to Belgium has been so exciting, and scary, and nerve-wrecking, and even exhausting, but I think things are finally settling down and it was time I got back into my blogging routine.

I decided that I'm going to create Travel Tuesdays to share with you my experience here in Leuven, or, if I travel, I will show you what I visited. But I just couldn't wait until Tuesday to get back to blogging, so I'll show you a little sneak peak of Tuesday's post...

Bruges

Spice up your cords

In my family we are Apple lovers. We all have Apple products, which means we all pretty much have the same cords. I started doing this becauseI thought it would make my cords look cuter, but it ended up being a must-do when I noticed my family kept taking my cords, and sometimes changing mine for other ones that were about to die, as if I wouldn't notice.



What I did is I painted the ends of the cords with nail polish. Easy as that. For this one, I used a bright pink nail polish and some glitter nail polish on top.

I hope you like this idea, and make sure you show me if you try to do it!

College essentials

I used to absolutely hate Back to school season. Summer coming to an end is already depressing enough. Last thing we need is for back to school commercials to come up on tv as we try to make the most of those last few days we can spend doing nothing but sitting on our couches, watch tv, use our computers, sit on our beds...

But there as much as I hate those commercials, I just love back to school posts and videos. I don't even know why, but I love them. I know I'm a bit awkward, but... that's the truth. And right now all my back to school preparations are basically packing for Belgium. I already have a lot of clothes I want to take with me so I can't do any back to school shopping or DIYs or anything fun. But I wanted to do a back to school post too, so I decided to share with you my college essentials.

Agenda

My agenda is my life-savior. I have everything written on it: from exams and projects, to birthdays, blog posts, plans with people... everything! My memory is... nonexistent so I rely on this completely. I've been using the same color code since high school and it's been working pretty well for me. If you're curious, this is what I use:

• Blue: Birthdays
• Green: Exams (because green is the color of good luck)
• Yellow: Random things related with University
• Pink: Plans
• Purple: Projects
• Orange: Blog (this one is new)

Colors

I gave you a little spoiler describing my agenda, but I'm a fan of using colors. I have colored  highlighters, pens, post-it's, papers... I like to use colors to highlight the most important things and to brighten up my notes to make studying a bit less boring.

Post-it notes

Or may I say "colorful post-it notes"? This is another thing I use for EVERYTHING! I use tiny ones as bookmarks, or to write things on my agenda that are very important so writing them in its color is not enough, or when the date of something may change, because I don't like crossing things out.

I use bigger post-it notes to write things I forgot to add or to summaries the most important things in my notes, seeing them in another color helps me focus on what's truly important, and the reduced size of the post-it note makes sure I don't write anything but the most important stuff on them.

Water

Well, human beings need water. To keep hydrated, and avoid those super uncomfortable moments when you're very thirsty and can't stop coughing in the middle of a class. 

Hair ties

How many times have you read or been told that you should study in a tidy place? Well you shouldn't only get rid of any distractions from your desk, but also from any distractions in general. And these include your hair. When I'm working on something important or need to concentrate a lot, I need to put my hair away so it doesn't bother me if it gets in my face, or so I won't get distracted by it and start playing with it. I always need to have a hair tie in my wrist.

Music

I don't need to explain why I love music, do I? Music is always the best solution. You're going to need some relaxing moments and music... music is music. Who could live without it?

Sugar

Sugar stimulates the brain and helps you think better. Eating a million pounds of sugar is definitely not good, but eating a few before an exam is! Don't cut it out of your life because you're going to need it.

Sleep

Sleep is very important. I'm always super busy and I don't sleep as much I should. Maybe that's why I know not sleeping is definitely not good for you. You're much more productive if you sleep enough. Trust me, not sleeping enough is not going to help you at all.

Question of the Day

Which are your college/high school/school/whatever essentials?

Note. I also decided to use this post to make a little experiment. My camera is very old and heavy and takes A LOT of space so I don't know if I should take it to Belgium with me, so I did this whole post with my phone's camera because I wanted to see how I'd do next year without a camera.

The big guide of blog design

As I was doing my Makeover Mondays series, I started to get asked quite a lot about blog design tips, so since I no longer have the time to design your blogs myself, I decided to make this super extensive post for those of you who want to give your blogs a brand new look.

I'm going to share with you some pretty basic (and hopefully useful) tips and some of my favorite resources and tutorials.

Makeover Mondays #7: Brunette in black (LAST ONE)

Today I'm showing you the little makeover of my Makeover Mondays series, at least for this summer. However, I decided to do one more thing for you, which is... THE BIG GUIDE OF BLOG DESIGN. I prepared a pretty extensive post with a few blog design tips, resources, and tutorials so you can give yourself a blog makeover!

And now... let's talk about the makeover I did. Last week's winner was Monica of Brunette in Black. And this was the description she left:

Blogging has been a passion of mine since 2009 and this year I wanted to take it further. I wanted to share what I love, inspire people and be inspired, to share a little bit of myself with the rest of the world.
I would like to win the makeover because I want my blog to have something unique and special, the personal image of the blog itself and me.

She  asked me to try to incorporate a little illustration she found online on the blog design, and I struggled a bit at first since I didn't know how to, but this is what I came up with...

All good things come to an end, and I wish you thought Makeover Mondays was a good thing. Good or bad, that's it for this summer. I loved getting to do your blogs, and I wanted to thank you all for trusting me to do this for you. I hope you all enjoyed this!

Recycle your bottles

I don't know why, but I just can't throw bottles away. I always think they're too cute and just want to keep them forever. So today I bring you some ideas on what to do with them for those of you who have the same problem.

Fill them with candy

You can fill them with small candy like m&ms or gummy bears, or with candy that sticks out.

Paper stars

If you don't know how to make a paper star, it's actually very simple. You can watch a video here. You can even add a motivational quote inside each star and open them when you're feeling down.

I didn't fill the whole bottle because I'd just done my nails and... oops! 

Bracelets holder

You can use it as a jewellery display. It will help you keep organised and it looks nice.

Fake flowers

Just insert some fake flowers in the bottle and you've got a pretty decoration. If you have tiger stores in your town, you can actually buy some pens that look like flowers, like the brightest one in my photo.

They don't really require any extra explanations, so I hope the photos were enough to give you some ideas.

Question of the Day

Do you feel the need to keep all your bottles? If so, what do you do with them?

My Belgium wishlist

I'm a big fan of lists. I'm always making lists of just anything, and wishlists are the easiest ones for me, because I always want a lot of things. I'll be moving to Belgium in less than a month (OMG) and these are some of the things I want right now:

1. White heart cushion (Primark)

I am absolutely in love with this heart. I have the classical one from Ikea, but this... omg! It's so pretty! I really want it for my room.

Link here.

2. Bicycle spoke beads (Tiger)

In Belgium, I will rent a bike for the year, because that's what everyone uses to move around. I saw these at tiger and I loved them! I actually saw some star-shaped ones (but they didn't have the photo on the website) and I knew I needed them inmediately.

Link here.

3. Longchamp Le Pliage

I have been in love with this bag for such a long time and I can't wait to own one. So maybe this year is the year... 

Link here.

4. Steam case (Leuke)

This allows you to cook a lot of meals in a healthy way, in the microwave. I think this would be perfect for me, since I can't cook, cause it makes it really easy and you only have one thing to clean afterwards. 

Link here.

5. Rain Boots (Hunter)

It will rain a lot in Belgium and I don't have any shoes for the rain. I have loved Hunters so I've almost completely convinced my mom to buy me a pair for next year. Fingers crossed.

Link here.

6. Printed Tablet Lapdesk (PB Teen)

I love Lapdesks. I have one at home, but I don't really want to take it in my suitcase cause it takes a lot of space. This one is super pretty and I love the fact you can also store things inside. And it would allow me to hold my iPad!

Link here.

7. Candle Holder (Ikea)

Even though I wouldn't use it as a Candle Holder, I really want this. It's sooooo pretty and you can use it for many things. I have a larger one at the moment and I use it to display my earrings and I keep a few mini perfumes inside. I think I would use it as a pencil holder, as a beautiful pencil holder.

Link here.

Question of the day

What's in your wishlist at the moment?

Makeover Mondays #6

I have a short of bad news today. If you didn't notice, summer is coming to an end, and Makeover Mondays were only meant to last for the summer, which means... they're coming to an end too. In fact, this week I'm doing the last makeover of the summer, who was chosen from last week's comments, so... there are no more chances to enter, sorry.

I felt so bad that I couldn't do more makeovers for all of you that I decided to do something crazy last week and I did... TWO makeovers. And it was insane. I can barely keep with one makeover a week. Two was totally exhausting...

So even though I couldn't give everyone their makeover, I do think I did all I could, so I hope you understand and you still liked this idea. And now... let's move on to this week's makeovers!

Basically alice

The first person I chose was Alice of Basically Alice. I knew Alice from Instagram and she's a really sweet girl with a great taste, so when she said she wanted to start blogging I was totally in. This is the description she left:

Hey, my name is alice and my blog name at the moment is @pastel_bows with the URL http://pastelbowss.blogspot.co.uk, however I might change this as they cannot be the same. I've only just started my blog so I haven't posted anything yet but in the future I will be posting things including fashion, beauty, photography, food and lifestyle. Your designs are absolutely amazing, I would love to win the makeover as at the moment my blog doesn't look good enough to post anything. I feel by having a blog it could help me escape from the world for a bit and hopefully give advice to other people who may read my blog:)xxx

This is what her blog looked like:

And this is what we came up with:

Broomfie

The second person I chose was Rachel of Broomfie. This is the description she left:

Hi, my blog is Broomfie (www.broomfie.blogspot.com) and is mainly concerned with my move from the UK to Vancouver in a few weeks. I'll hopefully be travelling quite a bit, but in the mean time I'm posting about what travelling I am doing now, beauty, fashion and quite a bit about books! 

I would love to win the make-over because, plainly, I cannot make any sense of html and other coding. It took me all evening to figure out how to get my photos without a white border! I have been putting so much effort into my blog since I started it 3 weeks ago but I really feel like it's my layout that is holding me back. It's the sort of style I want but it's really not quite right. It doesn't look too professional in my opinion but I don't know what else to do! Your designs (that I have seen) are much more like I want and I really, really wish you could be lovely and help me out (please, please, please!)

Rachel wanted a simple black & white template. If you've been reading every post you may know by now how much I (don't) love doing these because they're so tricky and hard. So doing 2 designs at the same time became extra challenging because they were super different from each other and super different from what I usually do. But I must admit I'm pretty satisfied with the result...

Teeny tiny bows

In case I hadn't made it clear enough, I'm a fan of girly things, including... bows! I decided to make some the other day and I came up with this idea for some really cute and tiny bows.

To make these you need:

• Ribbon
• Scissors
• Thread
• Needle
• A loom band

How to make them

1. Cut a piece of ribbon 
2. Burn the ends. 
3. If you can sew, sew the ends together. If you can't, pass a thread through both of the ends and make a knot. 
4. Fold it flat and tie the loom band around it.

I made a few pink ones (because you know I love pink) and I made one with a yellow center because it reminded me of princess Aurora. 

I also decided to hot glue one of them to a hair clip.

My travel makeup essentials

When you travel, you want to take some makeup with you that doesn't take a lot of space, that's not very expensive (you don't want to be upset if you lose it, or forget it), and that lasts all day on your face.

I have finally managed to find the perfect makeup products for this. Trust me, I'm from Spain, and this makeup will definitely resist anything. It's water-proof/heat-proof/melt-proof/Spain-proof.

Rimmel's Stay Matte Primer *
To be honest, this isn't completely necessary, but if you have room in your bag, I totally recommend bringing this.

Maybelline's Dream Pure BB Cream *
Maybelline's are my favorite BB creams. I cannot live without them. They are what helps me look like a human, instead of a zombie. One of my favorite products ever.

Rimmel's Stay Matte Powder *
This is my favorite face powder. I love how it feels, and it works amazingly.

 * As you can see, I use a few mattifying products. I wouldn't be able to judge the mattifying power of each of them separately, but my face has been incredibly matte since I use the three of them together. I sometimes get home after a long ride in the subway and I feel my face all sweaty and disgusting, and then look in the mirror and you can't even tell. At all. So as I said, I don't know if one of them is amazing and the rest don't do anything, but I do know that by using the three of them... you get amazing results.

Maybelline's Color Tattoo Cream Eyeshadow: Pink Gold
I love Color Tattoos eye shadows for many reasons: they are incredibly long-lasting, they are pigmented, and you don't need any brushes to use them. I love this shade for the summer.

If you don't trust me on how good they are, I remember I wore this to a theme park last summer. We were out all day, and it rained sooo much. We were soaking wet  and when I got home I was so tired that I just went to bed without removing my makeup. And when I woke up the next day... this was still on my eyelids!!

Maybelline's Colossal Volume Waterproof Mascara
Maybelline's Colossal Volume is my favorite mascara in the whole world. I use the waterproof version in the summer because it's incredibly hot in Spain and I want it to be able to resist any sweating. This mascara will give me amazing eyelashes and will last all day.

Sephora's Khol waterproof eye pencil
Maria spent some time at my house last year. We went to sephora one day and they had these on sale, so she bought one. I loved it! So I had to get one for myself too! I can't believe what a good deal we got for just 5€. It lasts all day, it resists everything and it is SUPER pigmented.

Maybelline's baby lips: Strike a rose
I love baby lips. They have done miracles to my lips. Ok, this won't last all day, but you can keep it in your bag and put more on when you need to. I've been loving this shade this summer. It's like a bright beautiful pink, and it smells so yummy.

Maybelline's Dream Touch Cream Brush
This brush is super long-lasting too. It may not last 24 hours like the other products, but it's the best I have tried and I love it. I use the shade 05, but my skin is super pale, so you may need a different shade.

Question of the Day

What's your favorite melt-proof product?

Makeover Mondays #5 : Cristy Nottingham

Last week's winner was Cristy of Cristy Jade Lydia, and this is what her blog looked like:

She has an absolutely gorgeous blog. I'm so jealous of her photography skills, so if there was anyone who really deserved the makeover, that was her. This was the description she left:

Hello, my name is Cristy and my blog is called Cristy Jade Lydia and I recently started blogging more frequently. I have Had my blog for about a year now but was never happy with it and didnt post frequently, but now i post about all things beauty, fashion and lifestyle. I really enjoy blogging and have found that its a great hobby of mine. i would love to win the blog make over because Im never fully happy with how i design my blog because im not very good with all this designing malarcy, and would love to have my blog looking fab like all the other winners.

I fell in love with her blog as I was doing the makeover and all I could think was "why wasn't I following her?", so I'm seriously telling you: you have to check out her blog!

She wanted a girly and pastel blog so this is what I came up with...

Do you want to win next week's makeover?

Rules

• You must be following me on bloglovin'.
• You must be a blogger user. I don't know how to design anything for wordpress or any other blogging platforms... Sorry.
• I will contact the winner on Monday, and you have 24 hours to reply to that email. 
• If you don't, I will choose someone else.
• All the designs will include a little credit (it will be small, I promise) that you cannot remove.
• I only have one week to work on the design.
• I won't just copy someone's template. When I used tumblr, I remember being asked to make a theme like the one some other user had. Please don't ask me to do this. You can send me blog designs you like for inspiration, or you can tell me you like certain elements in their designs, but please don't ask me to completely copy the whole template.
• Please do not enter if you are going to unfollow me afterwards, or if you won't use the template.

What must the comment include?

• Your blog's name
• Your blog's URL
• A brief description of your blog
• Your e-mail (so I can contact you)
• Why you want to win the makeover

Remember 

• You have until Sunday (included) to leave your comment. 
• I will choose one winner and send him/her an email next Monday. 
• If you don't answer in 24 hours, I will choose someone else.
• We have until next Sunday to work on the design.

If you have any questions, leave a comment below or send me an e-mail to lovefrombe@gmail.com.

Have a nice day and good luck!

DIY Photo Garland

I was cleaning my room right before and found a bag of foam stickers, and I've been trying to hold myself from doing a lot of DIYs since I'm going to Belgium soon and I won't be able to take them with me but... I couldn't this time, so I did this.

I was actually going to post something else tonight but I really liked how this turned out so... the other post will have to wait.

I used to have a heart-shaped collage on my wall, but I recently decided to take it down because it started having so many gaps that it didn't make sense any more, so I had a lot of polaroid-sized photos lying around, a lot of foam stickers, and a lot of mini clothespins... so there was no way I could continue cleaning without doing this first.

You will need

• Foam stickers (or just use felt and cut it into whichever shape you want)
• Mini clothespins
• Thread

I started off by finding 3 hearts in different colors, and then looking for 3 identical hearts to pair them with.

My clothespins also had like mini hearts. I put one foam heart between each pair of clothespins. I only used 4 clothespins and 3 foam hearts because I didn't want it to be very long (and it actually turned out quite longer than I expected it too).

Place your photos by the clothespins to see how far apart from one another they would be.

Get your thread and calculate how long you need to cut it. I held the roll on one hand and the end on the other hand and just opened my arms, and that's the length I used.

To make sure the heart of the thread was indeed the center of the garland, I folded the thread in 2 halves to find the middle, and placed the middle foam heart there.

Then, I placed one of the other foam hearts at the distance I considered appropriate, and folded the thread again to make sure the other heart was at the same distance from the center.

Then just pin your mini clothespins with your photos and you're done!

I think this is a really cute decoration and it would also be an adorable gift for a friend. I will definitely be hanging one of these at my room in Belgium.

Question of the day

Do you print your photos? Or do you just keep them in your phone and computer.

Super Quick, Easy and Affordable Dramatic Eye Look (By Daisy Drops)

Today's post was written by Lauren, of Daisy Drops. I have mentioned her on my blog so many times, so I'm sure you already know this, but I absolutely adore Lauren and her blog, so if you're not following her, you totally should. I personally think Lauren has a gift for makeup, so I'm sure you're going to enjoy this tutorial as much as I did.

Super Quick, Easy and Affordable Dramatic Eye Look

I often find myself rushing my make up when I'm getting ready for a big occasion (such as my cousins wedding) so I end up not being happy with the end look. I've been experimenting with ways to speed up the getting ready process so that it is as stress free as possible. I'm a huge fan of eye make up, I feel like it can completely alter your overall make up look, so I've found a way to create the dramatic eye make up I love in under 10 minutes.

It's super quick, easy and affordable as you only use 3 products and 1 brush. The 3 products I used are the Maybelline Colour Tattoo in On & On Bronze, L'Oreal Superliner Perfect Slim and Maybelline Falsies Mascara. To apply the eyeshadow I used the Real Techniques Base Shadow Brush which comes in the Starter Kit.

To create the dramatic end to the eyeshadow you're going to want to use tape, this is an optional step but I think it gives the best results. Since the colour tattoo is cream based, a primer isn't essential as cream based shadows tend to last long on the lid anyway, but if you want to use a primer you can.

So to create this look you're going to want to apply the Colour Tattoo using the Base Shadow Brush. I like to pat it on and keep building it up until I get the desired effect, then I blend it using my fingers and remove any shadow from places I don't want it to be using a cotton bud. You then want to apply liquid liner just above the upper lash line and wing it out, I use the L'Oreal Superliner as it is really easy to use since the tip is super thin. This takes quite a lot of practice (I'm still not very good at it) so be patient. Finally, you want to apply mascara, I love the Maybelline Falsies Mascara as it makes my lashes extremely long and voluminous. You can add false lashes if you want too, but I'm so bad at applying them so I just use mascara.

As you can tell this is quite easy to do and is super quick, so is great for when you're in a rush to leave the house. All the products I used are drugstore products, so it's also a really affordable look.

I hope you like this dramatic eye make up look. What products do you use when you're in a rush? Share them in the comments below.