Looking back on: Things I want to do this summer

Hey everyone, I hope you are doing well!

Back in May, I posted my list of things I want to do this summer. I guess it's safe to say that we're currently halfway through summer (already - where has time gone, seriously), so I figured that I should look back at that list and see how I'm getting on :)

And as today's (only ever so slightly related) picture have …A DUCK :)

You can find the whole blog post here, but in short I wanted to do 5 things this summer: go outside more, do some DIY, do some exercise, eat ice cream and go on picnics. 

So here we go…

1. Go outside more: I have definitely made an effort to do this and I think it is going quite well so far. 

2. Do some DIY: I have done one DIY project. One. Well, that is better than none, but not quite at the 'some DIY' level yet…

3. Do some exercise: I never thought I would be able to say this, but YES, I am in fact doing some exercise. I've really been enjoying Lucy Wyndham-Read's youtube channel recently, where she posts a lot of short, fun fitness videos. In particular, I'm loving her 100 reps workouts which I've been trying to do every day. They are super quick to do, yet really make you feel like you've done some exercise! So definitely check her out :) 

4. Eat ice cream: Again, not something I ever thought I would say, but I have been slacking a bit on the ice cream front. There's still some summer left for that though ;)

5.) Picnics: I wouldn't say that I've had a 'traditional' picnic, but I have been going to the beach quite a lot, with some cookies and cake, so I will let that count.


So it turns out that I've actually done quite well! 

Have you achieved your summer goals so far? Let me know in the comments xx

TAG: I'm the kind of girl...

Hey everyone, I hope you are doing well!

wagamama's chocolate cake..mmhh… 

I was tagged by the lovely Catherine (smiley central) to do the 'I'm the kind of girl tag' which sounds like a lot of fun, so thank you for tagging me :)

These are the rules:

- thank the person who tagged you

- include a link to their blog

- write five statements beginning with 'I'm the kind of girl'

- tag five or more people

So here we go:

I'm the kind of girl… who really disliked the colour pink growing up. (that has changed 

                                  now)

I'm the kind of girl… who cannot say no to chocolate cake. (or chocolate ice cream)

I'm the kind of girl… who loves watching random documentaries. (deep sea fish     

                                  documentaries, anyone?)

I'm the kind of girl… who loves beach walks.

I'm the kind of girl… whose favourite food is pan fried salmon.

Instead of tagging 5 specific people, I would like to tag everyone who would like to participate :) 

I hope you have a wonderful day and as always, feel free to leave a comment below :) xx

Decisions

Hey everyone, I hope you are doing well :)

Voltaire once said that 'the most important decision you make is to be in a good mood'. This quote really speaks to me because I've made a lot of 'big' decisions over the past few years such as going to university and it's ever so easy to just be a bit worried sometimes - about whether I've made the right decisions and whether everything will turn out okay. 
So I would love to share some of my thoughts with you. 

If found this little flower in the garden the other day and it was so tiny that
I almost stepped on it! I just thought it was too shiny not to share :) 

There are loads of decisions that need to be made, by all of us, pretty much every day. They can be small, or big, but what they all have in common is that they will have some sort of impact on our lives. That is without doubt exciting and fascinating, but it can also be a little bit overwhelming at times. 

I quite like to imagine that every time I make a big decision, I step onto a new path that goes in a slightly new direction, so that I'm constantly moving but never ever stopping or going backwards. I also believe that everything happens for a reason. If I make a decision now, and it turns out to be a not so good one, then that isn't necessarily something to regret but more something to learn from. 
Life isn't like a video game, where we can save our progress and then, if we don't like how something turned out, start all over from the last save. Instead we learn. And every path will lead to new paths. 

If you have recently made a big decision and are about to start something new, let that be going to university, going to a new university, starting a new job or even a new school year, then try not to be too worried and doubtful of the decision you have made. Fact is that you have made that decision and you are yet to find out what exactly will result from it. That's something exciting. 

Instead of worrying, try to make that one decision that will for sure make you feel more positive: to be in a good mood. 

Let me know your thoughts in the comments, I would love to read them xx

A bit of DIY: Inspirational Quote on Canvas

Hey everyone, I hope you are doing well!

Although I've never been the greatest at Art, I've always loved painting and doing some DIY. So a few months ago, I got lost in the depths of the Internet (probably during a revision break) and found this really cute idea of Quotes on Canvas. To find out exactly what you will need, a detailed description of all the steps and what the optimal outcome looks like, definitely check out this blog post on it. 

Put very briefly, you choose any old canvas you might have lying around (mine had a very abstract looking red rabbit on it - probably stemming from my 'books about rabbits are the best thing ever' phase). You then glue pieces of newspaper all over the canvas, stick your letters on it and paint all over it. Once the paint has dried, all you have to do is peel off the letters and you should be left with a quote on a canvas. 

A few weeks ago, I decided to give it a shot myself and this is what my attempt turned out to look like:

it's definitely not the most perfect looking one, but, hey - DIY hahah

Although it doesn't look nearly as incredible as the one in the blog post, I'm still very happy with it. It took me a lot longer than expected, mainly because I really wanted to be careful when doing it and made sure to follow all the steps. 

The hardest part - by far - was actually choosing the quote - I had so many floating around in my head that it was super difficult to pick just one. In the end, I went for 'Let songs be the bodyguards of your dreams' - In May, I watched the BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend live stream (sadly, I couldn't go to the actual thing because I had a uni exam the following Monday), and in the middle of their set, Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy said that he hopes that their songs will be the bodyguards of our dreams. I thought that that was an absolutely beautiful thing to say, so I modified it a little bit (just to make it more quote like) and decided to use it as my inspirational quote :) 
But of course, you can choose anything you like, which I think is the best thing about this kind of DIY.

Things I learned in the process:

1) It's not a very good idea to start painting when it's 30+ degrees out there. The paint will dry a lot quicker than you will want it to, and this might lead to cracks.

2) It's an even worse idea to try and stick bits of newspaper on a canvas when it's very windy. I spent A LOT of time chasing rampaging pieces of paper and whilst it had the nice side effect of making me exercise, it probably wasn't ideal.

3) On the subject of newspaper, try and rip it into smaller bits to stick onto your canvas. That way, you will have more exciting looking letters. 

4) Make sure to get those self sticking letters, if you can get hold of them. I couldn't find them anywhere, so I cut my letters out of an old wall sticker (which wasn't actually the worst idea since the letters were sticky enough not to move when I painted over them, but not too sticky that they would rip off the newspaper when peeling them off the canvas.) However, it took a very long time, and let to some of the letters turning out a bit wonky. 

5) MIND THE INSECTS. I had to rescue a lot of flies that had decided to land on the freshly painted canvas. 

Let me know what you think! And definitely try it out if you feel like you would enjoy doing this kind of DIY :) xx

The Versatile Blogger Award!

Hey everyone, I hope you are doing well :)

I woke up this morning to find out that I have been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award by the lovely Rainbow from Rainbow-Rose Blossom which is so so exciting! Thank you so much for the nomination :) Definitely check her out, she spreads so much positivity which is just awesome.

I got this button from the versatile blogger award blog :) 

The Rules:

1) Thank the person who gave you this award.
2) Include a link to their blog.
3) Select 15 blogs that you've recently discovered or follow regularly.
4) Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award.
5) Tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself.

Who I'm nominating: (just like Rainbow, I'm not going to nominate 15 blogs. Instead, these are the 8 blogs that I've discovered recently and have been loving!)

1) Aubrey from Girl Meets Blog - apart from her blog looking super pretty, I love the way she writes and how versatile her blog topics are!

2) Iris from Get Up And Out - Iris only started her blog very recently and she has such an awesome concept. Every week, she wants to try out something completely new and share her experience which I think is incredible.

3) Daniela from Honey Just For Me - I love Daniela's blog because she takes the most incredible pictures. She also posts about so many different things including family, traveling and how she is going to get married (exciting!)

4) Charlotte from Life Begins Now - Charlotte recently blogged about confidence and it was an amazing post. I love the way she writes!

5) Bobo from Meet Me in Melford - Bobo blogs about beauty, lifestyle, her favorite songs and so many other things and I love how bubbly and positive her posts are!

6) Paige from Paige Elizabeth - I love Paige's blog because she has amazing pictures on there and because her style of writing is so genuine and positive.

7) Jessica from Perfect Fixations - Jessica mainly blogs about beauty and I absolutely love her reviews. They are always helpful and honest and so lovely to read. 

8) Jade from Accidentally Jade - Jade's blog is exactly what she describes it as: energetic. It cannot not put you in a good mood!  


7 things about me:

1) I'm very clumsy. I constantly walk into things, trip, fall over or scratch myself when getting my phone out of my bag. (seriously, how.) Once, I wanted to go and leave the house to go food shopping (I'm not even kidding, my laptop auto corrected this to 'woodchopping', go me proof reading what would have been a slightly different fact hahah!), grabbed my shoes, walked towards the door, opened it, then tripped and fell right out of the door (and people walking past saw.) Go clumsiness. 

2) I love music. Everything music any time of the day everywhere.

3) My favorite animals are sheep because we had to paint an animal in Year 11 and it got me my first ever A in Art.

4) I would always choose a night in playing monopoly or just chatting over going out to clubs or bars. I'm yet to find a group of friends who feel the same though, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually :)

5) I'm afraid of dogs (of them barking, specifically) because a dog barked at me when I was very little and daydreaming and it must have scared me a lot. 

6) I speak both German and English fluently. 

7) I'm not very sporty. However, I absolutely love watching sports: any big sporting event, football, formula 1 - I'm there. No one ever believes me when I tell them that though and the most common reaction seems to be 'Really?! I thought you would be a ballet dancer or something' which COULD NOT be further from the truth. I can't even touch my toes let alone do an elegant twirl. I would probably step on everyone's toes or accidentally punch other ballerinas in the face if I were required to dance ballet. 

Wow, that was a long post. But here we go. I hope you enjoyed it and have a lovely day xx 

The 'A GLIMPSE OF YOU' tag

Hey everyone, I hope you are doing well :)

The other day, I found my friendship book from when I was about seven, and apart from seeing a photo of myself in a lion costume (I have no recollection of this whatsoever), I also discovered that the 'best things ever' for little me were - apparently:
- rabbits
- all book about rabbits
- pancakes.
(that pancakes are pretty much the best thing ever is still very accurate, not too sure about the rabbit books though)

I found it so fascinating to have that little glimpse of me saved to look back at now, in a decade or when I'm eighty. And this is exactly what this tag is about. It's designed to capture what makes you smile, a 'glimpse of you' right now, so that in a week, a month, a year or a decade you can look back at what you wrote and hopefully smile at what the past you loved doing. 

'A GLIMPSE OF YOU' tag Questions

1) Post and explain a picture that makes you remember a happy memory.

A few months back, I got to see my first ever football match live. This was a big big moment for as I've always loved watching football and it was made even more special by this mini rainbow in the middle of the stadium! This photo just captures a very special and happy day and I want to treasure that memory forever. 

2) Who makes you smile?
There are a lot of people out there who make me smile, including my friends and family of course, but I have to pick the youtuber amazingphil for this one. There's not a single video of his that does not leave me with the biggest smile on my face, no matter how down I was feeling before.

3) What song makes you want to sing along and dance?
It's really hard to pick just one, but right now it will probably have to be be 'Shut Up and Dance' by Walk the Moon. I find it insanely catchy and it does make me dance (although not shut up because I will sing along to it). 

4) What joke makes you chuckle?
I'm very lame when it comes to jokes. VERY lame. The one that has recently made me laugh is this one:

'The past, present and future walk into a bar.

It was tense.' 

(yep, okay, I'll leave)

5) What do you want to ask your future self?
Are you still as clumsy as you used to be? If yes, has it EVER come in handy?

6) Finally: What is the BEST THING EVER?
For me, the best thing ever is the feeling you get when you've worked very hard for something and it turns out just like you wanted it to. (Pancakes are pretty cool, too, though)


I TAG EVERYONE WHO READS THIS. Feel free to take these exact questions, or maybe modify or add to them a bit. The goal is to spread a bit of happiness and a big smile because that would just be awesome. Also let me know what you think in the comments xx


(I thought of all the questions and the name of the tag myself. If a tag like this already exists then I'm very sorry but that was not intentional)

Dear London.

Regents Park yet again

I can picture exactly what you must look like right now. One of those cities that never sleep, your lights will only yield to the eventual sunrise tomorrow morning.

You are busy. Ridiculously so. I cannot even recall the amount of times that I had wished for more space to walk down your busy streets, without some person in front of me deciding to stop to take a selfie. 

You have many faces, many places. The tube map sits like a spider, reaching out its arms all across you. Taxis and busses stuck in traffic, people crossing streets with no green lights, cyclists speeding past as if they were riding something bigger and much more protective. 

Your streets can be scary. Your anonymity can give way to loneliness. With business turning into nightlife, into pretty sunrises and early risers, joggers and dog walkers, you are never truly quiet. People, drills, ambulances, cars. Walking down the same street every day, yet never recognizing a familiar face. 

You are not always pretty, not always glamorous. Grey at times, rainy and cold. Yet never boring. There's your music, your fashion, business and art. Your buildings, history, your Queen. Your people. 

And then there's the constant change. That what it takes to keep that spark and buzz surrounding you alive. You never sleep, so you can never stop. And don't stop. Don't stop changing.

You have a special place in my heart, London.

And when the street lights turn off to welcome the next day, when lonely stations become platforms during rush hour, when your people write the history of another day, you will still be special to me. 

There you have it. Something you cannot change.

xx

Glittery sandals and I'm melting

Hey everyone, I hope you are doing well!

ahhh the glitter (also just imagine what they look like in the sunlight
- it's like having a mini disco ball on my feet hahah)

I guess it's safe to say that summer has finally arrived. And I'm melting, so I'm giving myself a bit of a break from the sun to type a short summery post. 

Whilst I love shopping and trying out new styles, I do tend to stick with the same colors that I love - i.e. whites and blacks, cream, navy, stripes and pastels. Anything too bright just doesn't really find its way into my wardrobe. Looking for sandals was going to go along the same lines; I wanted to find a nice pair that would go with everything and was pretty, but not too exciting. And then boohoo happened.

As soon as I saw these sandals on the website, I was drawn to them (most likely due to the sparkliness of them even online) and although they are very out there and not exactly what I had expected, I just had to order them. At the time, I didn't have the biggest expectations, just because sandals rarely fit me (thanks, narrow feet), so I was surprised when they finally arrived and turned out to fit perfectly. They are also quite soft which again, I didn't expect from the look of them and are definitely, as with most boohoo things, very good value for money! 

I've fallen in love with them. They are something I never thought I would wear and that's what makes them so awesome and cool to me. I know that they probably aren't up everyone's street, but I love how happy and special I feel when I put them on. That's why I love clothes and shoes and shopping: finding something, however small it might be, that makes you feel confident and happy. 

Also, they do actually go with pretty much any outfit and make everything you wear so much more interesting, glittery and summery!

Have you bought anything recently that makes you feel special when wearing it? Let me know in the comments! 

Have a lovely time in the sun (if it's shining where you live!) and stay hydrated xx