Makeover Mondays #3: A drugstore addiction

Last week's winner was Jemma of A drugstore addiction. Jemma has a gorgeous beauty blog, which made working on her design both exciting and a bit scary, because I really wanted to do a great blog design for her. This is the description she left:

I run a beauty, fashion and lifestyle blog (but mainly beauty) called A DrugStore Addiction

This is what her blog looked like at first:

When I first started working on her template I felt super bad and helpless because I couldn't manage to do anything I liked. I really hated how everything was turning out so much I felt too ashamed to even show her, but I finally did so she could give me some feedback and I wish I'd done it before, because after Jemma started giving me suggestions on what she liked/dislike things starting to really come together.

Building her template was a bit of work, I'm not going to lie, and we had to change a few things a few times, but I'd rather work a million hours and make something the other person is going to like, than give them something they won't like and won't use, or will been pressured to use when they don't even like it.

But enough talking. I guess what you want to see is what the final result looked like, right? Ok. Here it is!

If you want to win a blog makeover like Jemma, you have a new chance this week! For those of you who have been entering every week, don't give up. Keep copy-pasting your post. Remember summer has a lot of weeks and you never know which may be your week.

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!

Recent music discoveries

As you all know by now I love music. But actually, who doesn't? I seriously love discovering new artists, specially the ones that are still starting cause you get to talk to them and I love that. Recently, I was followed on twitter by two super talented boys and I decided to make this post to share them with you.

Chris Bullard

He was the one who followed me first. You can listen to his original song Breakup Song here. Unfortunately, he only has one song in his website, but it's sooooo good! I love his voice and I love his style. I seriously cannot stop listening to it, so you should all check it out.

If you like it (as I'm sure you will if you take 3:22 minutes to listen to it), you can follow him on twitter here.

Joel Bernstein

This is another super talented boy. I also was lucky enough to talk to him and he's super nice and I honestly think he deserves nothing but the best. Not only does he sing and write his own song, but is also self-taught in A LOT of instruments. And by "a lot", I mean A LOT.

You can listen to his original songs here. He also was a YouTube channel, if you want to see some of his videos, both of his original songs and of some covers.

Aaaaaaand it's his birthday today so make sure you leave him a happy birthday message either on one of his videos or on twitter.

Question of the Day

Did you discover any music recently?

Ontologías de metadatos y su fusión y mapeados de ontologías

Oreo brownies

Two weeks ago, my best friend Maria was here and we decided to make some brownie. But we didn't have enough ingredients for my usual recipe so we had to improvise a little. And this is what our little experiment turned out like:

Not that bad-looking. Right? 

Ingredients

• A lot of oreos. We used about 40 I think.
• 1 stick butter 
• 1 cup sugar 
• 2 eggs 
• 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract 
• 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cups and 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF (180ºC)
2. Place the oreo cookies in the bottom of the tin you're going to be making the brownies in.
3. In the bowl of a electric mixer, beat the butter.
4. Add the sugar and beat again.
5. Add the eggs and the vanilla extract and mix everything again.
6. In a separate bol, mix the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder.
7. Add the flour mixture into the butter mixture and mix everything.
8. Put the batter in the pan, covering the oreo cookies.
9. Optional: break some cookies and put them on top.
10. Bake brownies for about 25 minutes. 

WARNING: This is best made with a friend ;)

Question of the day

Do you have a favorite type brownie?

For those who don't, I'm giving you some ideas: chocolate chip, m&ms, oreo, slutty brownies, white chocolate brownies...

Makeover Mondays #2: Counter Pretty

Guess who got a new computer last week? ME! I'm so in love with it and thank goodness it arrived soon cause my old computer is still dead and I wouldn't have been able to do last week's makeover otherwise.

Last week's winner was Catherine of Counter Pretty, and this is the description she left in the comments:

I started this blog as my corner of the internet where I could ramble on about my makeup addiction and general chatter but on a student budget as so many bloggers seem to have thousands of expensive products that I just can't afford. I absolutely love blogging and all the beautiful friends I've made from it.

Catherine's template was really nice and she told me she only wanted to customize it a little bit more, so that's what we did. I forgot to take a screenshot of what it looked like before the changes (I'm so sorry), but this is the template she had:

link here

The first thing I did was change some things I didn't like a lot, like the date header and the sidebar, which was a bit too pink for my taste, so I decided to make it white and keep only some things in pink.

I then moved on to the graphics. I think I did like every single thing I could think of. And this was the final result:

If you want to win a blog makeover like Catherine, you have a new chance this week! For those of you who have been entering every week, don't give up. Keep copy-pasting your post. Remember summer has a lot of weeks and you never know which may be your week.

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!

What's in my office bag?

As I told you in my life update post, I got a scholarship for the summer and it started this week. I'm loving it (ok, that sounded like McDonald's) and I think you should expect to see quite a few posts about it, like this one.

I already showed you once what I usually have in my bag (you can read the post here), and today I thought I could show you what I have in my office bag.

First of all, my bag is from a Spanish store named Paco Martinez. And I actually bought it this week because I wanted a nicer bag to take to the office and I was going to use the same one I use for uni but I thought it was too big for what I wanted to take with me now and this one just seemed perfect.

What's inside?

iPhone and headphones

Predictable, right?

Wallet

I don't usually need it, but... just in case.

Lip balm

I am absolutely addicted to lip balm. I always, ALWAYS take 2 with me: one tinted and other one with no color. And baby lips are my favorites at the moment.

Hand sanitizer

This is another thing I'm addicted too. I always use it after we go get some food, but I also like to have it in case I accidentally touch something that turns out to be dirty, specially since I have to use the public transport to get to work and you never know what you may find there.

Tissues

With the air conditioner and the different temperatures it's very easy to get a cold so this is something I need with me too.

Notebook

You may need to take some notes of things you don't really want to forget. Specially during your first days.

Pen

Well, you obviously need a pen to write in the notebook.

Pendrive

To be honest, I haven't used this yet, but I like to keep it in my bag in case I have to save something from my computer.

Agenda

I'm a bit in love with my new agenda. I have my whole life planned inside, so I need to take it with me all the time.

Perfume and lip gloss

You may remember this from this haul. It's a roll on perfume that also has lip gloss on the other side. I think it's perfect because it smells great and doesn't take a lot of space. I keep it in my bag in case I forget to put perfume on before leaving my house and so I can put lip gloss on too.

Water, food and chewing gum

I spend a lot of hours there and it's summer, so you should totally keep hydrated by drinking a lot of water. I also tend to get hungry, specially when I leave and it still takes me an hour to get home, so I take some food with me for those moments. And chewing gum because you sometimes get hungry or start craving food and this helps me ""lie"" to my stomach.

Extra battery 

As you know, I'm addicted to my phone. I spend a lot of hours in the office and the battery always dies, so I totally need this. Specially for that hour going back home in the public transport I mentioned before. I need my phone to be alive so I can listen to music.

As you can see, my bag is not very big but I think that has some benefits: 

• It's super light.
• It helps me to only take the necessary things. Like, for example, if it was larger, I would take my iPad with me every day, which I would never even use.
• The best way to make everything fit is to place them vertically (as they are in the photo) which also helps me keep it tidy and allows me to see everything I have.

Question of the day

Do you have a summer job? If so, feel free to let me know what's in your bags.

Makeover Mondays #1 Crumbliest

It's that time of the week again! However, I have bad news today. My computer screen is not working, so I don't think I will be able to do a makeover this week. I did however, pick a winner any way. If you didn't get it, don't worry, summer has a lot of weeks! Just copy last week's comment and paste it again on this post.

But now... what am I going to do? Well, if my computer decides to magically start working again, I will do the makeover, but if it does't, I will have to do TWO makeovers next week. Yes, two: one for last week's winner, and another one for this week's winner.

And now... it's time to see what I did last week. Last week's winner was Rose of Crumbliest. This is the description she left:

I have a beauty blog called Crumbliest where I review products, diy projects and basically write about beauty :)
I want to win, because my blog is rather new and I don't know a lot about blogging, and I'd like to improve my blog condition.

And this is what her blog looked like:

I e-mailed Rose and asked her what kind of blog design she would like for her blog and she wanted something pretty simple, black and white. Everyone wants a simple and clean template, but it's so hard to make it simple yet not boring, specially when the colors are just black and white. We then decided to incorporate just a little bit of pink to the template, and this is what we cam 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 Headphones holder

As you now know (because someone I know you really love told you) I was in Belgium last week. I am absolutely addicted to music, so there was no way I could travel without my headphones. So I decided to make this to carry them in my bag and keep them from tangling.

All you need to make this is 2 clothespins and hot glue.

Glue the two clothespins together, making sure they're in opposite positions like shown in the photo.

If you want to, you can decorate it to make it look cuter. I used washi tape for mine, but you could use paint or stickers, or even paint them with nail polish.

To use them, insert one end of the headphones into the gap of one of the pins, then roll the headphones around both of the clothespins and insert the other end into the gap of the other pin.

And you can now carry your headphones with you without them getting tangled!

Life update

As you may or may have not noticed, I was absent last week. Well, there's a very good reason reason for that, and that is... I'M MOVING TO BELGIUM! So last week I decided to travel there to start looking for housing and see the place.
Como puede que os dieseis cuenta o no, la semana pasada estuve un poco ausente. Bueno, pues hay un buen motivo para eso, y es que... ¡ME MUDO A BÉLGICA! Así que la semana pasada viajé allí para empezar a buscar alojamiento y conocer el sitio.

Ok, so it's only for a year but I'm very very excited!!!! I got an erasmus scholarship and I'll be studying abroad the whole year next year. As you may have guessed, my first choice was obviously the USA, but I didn't get in. So... Belgium it is!
Vale, es solo un año, pero me hace muchísima ilusión. Me voy con una beca erasmus y estaré fuera todo el año. Como puede que hayáis adivinado, mi primera opción era USA, pero no me lo dieron, así que... a Bélgica se ha dicho.

The truth is, the town is a bit small (hey! I'm a big city girl) but it's so pretty and... oh dear! Let's not mention the chocolate.
La verdad es que la ciudad es muy chiquitita (¿Qué se le va a hacer? Soy una chica de ciudad...) pero es bastante bonita y... ¡Dioses del Olimpo! ¡No hablemos del chocolate!

This is Leuven (that's where I'll be studying):
Esto es Leuven (Lovaina) (donde estaré estudiando):

And since I was already in Belgium, I visited Brussels too.
Y ya que estaba en Bélgica, aproveché para visitar también Bruselas.

I just can't wait! I'm so so excited I just can't think of anything else. I've known since like February but I wanted to wait until it was 100% official, and I guess it is now! Yay!

No puedo esperar. Tengo tantísimas ganas que no puedo pensar en nada más. Lo sé como desde febrero, peor quería esperar a que fuese 100% oficial y supongo que ya lo es. ¡Wee!

Also... second life update: I got an internship for the summer (which is exciting and scary and I don't know... A lot of feelings mixed up) so be expecting to see some posts related to that ;)

Question of the day

Do you have any big news you'd like to share with me too?

Makeover Mondays #0

Today is the week zero for Makeover Mondays. I have already sent an e-mail to last week's winner, so make sure you all check out your mail inbox. Remember that you have 24 hours to answer or I will choose someone else.

If you don't know what Makeover Mondays are you should read last week's post where I explain everything about it. Long story short, you can win a free blog makeover by leaving a comment in this post.

The reason why this is the week zero, and not the week one, is because I still haven't done any makeover as part of Makeover Mondays, so I decided to show you some designs I did before, in chronological order.

Daisy Drops

Lauren and I did her design together. You can read her whole post on the update here. She did the header and signature. I did the navigation ribbon, which she used to create the sidebar titles. I also did the Hello banner in her sidebar, and the social icons. 

Em has red nails

Emma's design was the first design I did starting from nothing. This is what it turned out like. You can read her blog update post here.

Miss Cosmetic Blogger

When Beth asked me for help her template was already super pretty so we decided to use it as a base for the new one. However, I started changing so many things that it doesn't look at all like the previous one. You can read her blog update post here.

Suitcase and Sandals

This blog was a bit difficult because it was a completely new blog so it was hard to tell what style Hannah wanted, but I'm pretty satisfied with the result. You can read her blog update post here.

Katie's world of beauty

I love Katie's blog, and she's such a lovely girl. I'm so glad she asked me for help with her design because that allowed me to know her. And doing her blog was such a privilege. Visit her blog here. I didn't make the header on her blog. Katie's header was super cute so we decided to leave it, and we used the teapot to create other elements like the favicon.

Sophie Ballinger

Sophie's blog is personally my favorite blog design of all the ones I've done. You can read her blog update post here.

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.
• As I said before, I will contact the winner on Monday, and you have 24 hours to reply to that email.
• 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!