It Is Almost A Real House Now

The house is coming together nicely! I have been very busy decorating, painting and assembling furniture, there is still loads more to do but I am enjoying it :) I still haven't got round to taking actual good quality pictures of the house, but I made a collage of some of the ones I took on my phone.

 Left to right: 

1. Wrapping paper from Paperchase I used to line the inside of my kitchen cupboards

2. Kitchen window with flowers my mum got me (from their garden!)

3. Sofa cover, I went for off-white instead of pink in the end

4. Curtain between the living room and bedroom, you can't see the leaf print very well but it looks amazing!

5. The table! I love it so much. It folds out twice as big as this. The little stool is also new, the colour fits perfectly with the rest

6. Wardrobe. I bought it from a charity shop, it was dark brown wood which was super depressing so I painted it mint with coral details :)

7. Book case and birdie chair. This isn't new stuff, I've had these things in my old flat for ages but they look so much nicer now that they have more space

8. Owl-shaped drawer knobs I found in Paperchase. I love them so much.

9. Teapot that I bought today at the Emaillekeizer on the Albert Cuyp market :)

10. Lamp in the corridor

11. Fabric for the living room/kitchen curtains :D I had been struggling to decide on a fabric for a few weeks, I thought a plain colour would make the house too serious but at the same time I didn't want to a print I might get tired of. These retro trees have a bit of a Scandinavian design feel about them which is exactly what the house needs

12. And what will truly make my house a home, my girlfriend who I have known for exactly a year and two days today :)

Eyebrow makeover

I am having some trouble getting started on my Creative Writing assignment, so I decided to procrastinate by reshaping my eyebrows. I used to pluck them to death into two tiny stripes, but the past two years or so I had pretty much just let them grow into their natural shape and only plucked a few stray hairs. They had been bothering me a little lately though, the shape just wasn't quite right and they were looking kind of boring to me. So I spent the entire day browsing (haha BROWsing) beauty blogs and pinterest photos to get some inspiration, and I decided that what I wanted was just eyebrows that were pointy but not too thin. So I plucked and pencilled away and there they are :D They could be a little bit more even, but I will hopefully get used to the shape and be able to draw them more perfectly.

 As most people who know me will confirm, I loooooove make-up and can talk about it for hours (luckily I have a girlfriend and a bff who share this obsession) so here are some products that I like:

1. Sleek Storm palette. This is one of the best things I've ever bought, all of the colours are just gorgeous and you can use it for simple every day looks as well as more dramatic ones. I plan on buying their Original palette as well before I have to leave the UK aka Land Of Amazing Make-up Brands.

2. Hema Foundation, shade 01. (Hema is a Dutch department store where I used to work, they do loads of really good reasonably priced make-up). I have a hard time finding foundation that I like because my skin is extremely white and anything that's too dark will make me look like a complete idiot, but I also don't want to look even paler. This Hema one in the lightest shade is not too thick so my actual skin can shine through a bit.

3. Barry M Lip Paint, Sunset (shade 151). I love coral lipstick because it's slightly more original than plain red and it matches my extreme paleness a bit better. Barry M is another UK brand that I will miss terribly next year and I plan to buy as much of it as possible in the next two months.

4. Rimmel Extra Super Lash mascara. I could never really settle on a mascara, each one I tried was a little too lumpy, not thick enough or it'd get all over my face. But then Cécile recommended this one and it is seriously fantastic. If want my lashes to be, as someone on tumblr put it, 'as black as my soul and as long as the list of people I hate', and this mascara is perfect for that worthy goal.

5. Topshop kohl pencil. This is a really good pencil, it's not too soft and it stays on really well without going all over the place. Also it looks cute with the polkadots :D

6. Barry M Liquid Eyeliner. To be honest this isn't a perfect eyeliner as it could be a bit blacker. I usually need to layer it a little to get my cat-eye stripe to be perfectly black, but it does stay on pretty well and dries quickly enough, and I haven't been able to find one I like better yet.

7. Maybelline Dream Touch Blush, shade 05. I love this blusher! It's the perfect colour and if you blend it well enough it looks just like natural rosy cheeks. It looks like a tiny pot but I've bought it last August and it is not even nearly half empty and I use it almost every day.

8. Etos Eyebrow Pencil, shade 002. The only eyebrow pencil I've ever been able to find that has just the right touch of ginger to match my hair. Etos is a Dutch drugstore that does pretty good make-up, their moisturising lipsticks are also really awesome.

Let's Do The Time Warp Again

  

I finally acquired a time machine! I can't go into specifics on how it came into my possession, but I've certainly been making the most of it. The first thing that I did was of course take my girlfriend and my best mate to see David Bowie in the 70s. We wore an appropriate amount of glitter:

The 70s are an excellent era, I took Cat again the next week to go and see T.rex.

Then I went to see Cécile in Brighton and we went to an underground party in the 80s:

 

 And to get a milkshake in the 50s:

The next stop is going to be the 1880s because I want to meet Oscar Wilde!

Everybody have a good time, everybody have a crush

I reckon it's time for an update with pictures! And the best kind of picture is a slightly creepy, heavily edited webcam selfie.

As some of you may know I have acquired a girlfriend:

 
 Her name is Cat and she is amazing. Basically I'm one of those annoying happy people who is in love now

Also, I went to see The Darkness 3 times! Do I even need to tell you that it was amazing and worth flying home to Amsterdam and driving all the way to Manchester in an English car?

I had a nice chat with Justin in Amsterdam. Note the fist of Queen.

Then I went to Manchester and was finally reunited with the amazing Dan Hawkins

And then I went to London and drank wine on some steps with my friend George and then Ed Graham showed up. My face has disappeared unfortunately.

Manchester was not only a Darkness adventure, it was also an Anna, Cécile, Babs and Rose adventure (the theme of this post is pictures of me with beautiful people)

And this is me and my housemate Melanie at a really cool 60s-themed party called Itchy Feet. I seem to have taken some bad acid and turned blue.

 

And last and also least this is me in Paris before Christmas, photographed by Lisa. My outfit is semi-awesome if I may say so myself.

My face needed a change

This has been the week in which I've changed two significant things about my face. One thing has disappeared, and one thing has returned.

What has returned is my straight fringe. I had been entirely unsatisfied about my hair for the past few weeks, it was just never right and I even started to think that perhaps the magic of the top knot had worn off and I'd need to find a new signature do. But luckily I realised in time that all I needed was some scissor action. (Haha lesbian sex joke) I think my face somehow looks thinner now that the long asymmetrical fringe isn't framing my cheeks so much.

BUT WHAT HAVE I GOT RID OF BESIDES 3 INCHES OF HAIR?

 Lip piercing. I got it done when I was 19, my parents were on holiday and I went to the tattoo parlour with my friend Florien who was getting a butterfly tattooed on her wrist. I'd been toying with the idea of getting my lip pierced for a while, and decided to just go ahead and get it done while I was there anyway. It hurt like an absolute motherbitch and I had to rinse my mouth with listerine every time I ate for about 2 weeks. For the first few years I was really enthusiastic about the piercing, I bought a huge amount of different jewellery for it like several different coloured 'diamonds', and I remember having a plastic rainbow heart (dubious to be honest) and a yin-yang ball on it sometimes. But then I kind of forgot that it was there, I mean I still touched it with my tongue a millions times a day (once you start doing that you can NEVER unlearn it) but I never really thought about it at all. A few days ago I had a conversation with Cécile about piercings and said 'you can always take them out if you don't like them anymore'. Mere seconds after saying it, I realised that the time had come to part with mine.

I will start February afresh, with a new face. Well, not entirely new obviously. More like face 2.0

You should care about what I carry around in my bag

I am actually out of things to blog about. I was going to do a serious post about feminism but it needed a picture of me as Rosy the Riveter and I couldn't find a polkadot scarf to wrap around my head. So I decided to go for a good old classic: what's in my bag!

-The bag itself: ugly beautiful dog tapestry bag I bought on the Christmas market in Winchester

-Yellow tube of anti-age hand cream because I am obsessed with not aging

-Mirror with London-themed design

-Leopard print box for my contacts

-Pink vaseline case

-Orange/nude-ish lipstick

-Floral print purse, I really like this purse because my dad bought it for me after I had my previous one stolen

-Purple and blue pens to make my notes look pretty

-Gold glittery notebook to write important, interesting stuff in like poems and shopping lists

-MP3-player in little case with a face on it

-Coral Barry M lipstick that you can't see because it's black

-Blue tube of anti-age day cream

-My trusty Samsung Galaxy Y

-Tissues in cute Accessorize sleeve

-2013 Diary I bought in an attempt to be more organised this year. It's worked so far, as I've kept my promise to blog everyday for a week!

No blog tomorrow, but I definitely keep it up and write again very soon!

Quick pre-Jesters blog

I hardly ever just leave my hair open, I always either wear it in my massive signature top knot, wrap a scarf around it, or at least put some kind of ridiculous feather accessory in there. I tend to feel a bit witchy when my hair gets too long. But not today, today I'm a glam witch.

Then I thought about this song which by a Dutch glam rock band, and it's about letting your hair hang down.

Yes, this post was really just a picture of my face and a Catapult song but I consider that pretty interesting.

An ode to my friend Cécile

 

The daily blogging has so far brought about two changes: 1. my pageviews have skyrocketed, and 2. I procrastinate on something that I love to do. I just realised that it was getting rather late, and that I needed to write something. So I decided to write about my friend Cécile.  

I met Cécile in the first week of university, September 2010. I didn't really like her, she seemed overly enthusiastic about reading a poem in class in a slightly fake English accent. But then a few days later she sat in front of me in a lecture and wore a Franz Ferdinand top. Now, she is the first person I talk to about literally anything. 

Awesome things that happened involving Cécile:

- In the aftermath of a rather sexually confusing party, we went on a road trip through Amstelveen and had Chinese take away in front of Patty Brard's house. We then slept in my childhood room in Uithoorn and read magazines from the early noughties all morning. What you don't understand is that this was awesome because it was with Cécile.

- She is the kind of person who sends me this for my birthday.

- She has a furry black coat called The Monster. 

- We once painted our faces like Mexican skulls and tried to get into Jesters but it was full so we went to Sobar and danced with straight gay men and then when we went home I fell into a ditch full of nettles and she had to ask two random Asian people to help pull me back out.

- She once let me help her bake chocolate banana bread to eat on our holiday to France to cheer me up on a shitty day. It was a nice moment.

- We formed an 80s disco DJ team with Eva called the Damsko Disco Dolls and then had an 80s party as an excuse.

- Sometimes she tells people that she hates them and then pretends it's a joke when it's actually true. It confuses everyone. 

-This is (probably) the first photo of us together. In a phonology seminar. 

Oriental Prince In The Land Of Soup

 
Yesterday I went to London with my housemate Daisy. After a few hours of snowy shopping in Camden Town, we decided to go and drink some orange juice in Pret A Manger to get away from the cold for a bit. A man came in, and I saw him from behind and thought 'what an interesting-looking festive coat he's wearing'. Then he turned around, and I saw his nose and realised it was NOEL BLOODY FIELDING! Now you have to realise that this wasn't just a case of spotting a random celebrity, I am FUCKING LOVE Noel Fielding. I have annoyed literally everyone I know by constantly imitating Mighty Boosh characters, I have once taken a picture of Noel Fielding to the hairdressers to get my hair cut exactly like his, I have folder on my computer called 'Fashion Inspiration' and roughly 80% of it is pictures of Noel Fielding. I went to see his art exhibition in Maison Bertaux in Soho a few years ago and wanted to stay there the whole day in case he showed up. Whenever I try to write something funny, I watch a few episodes of the Mighty Boosh first in the hope of soaking up even one percent of their genius. If I had to name one person who has inspired me the most it would probably be him. So while he was looking at the different soups Pret had to offer, I went up to him, tapped him on his shoulder and said 'You're Noel Fielding. I... am a big fan.' He shook my hand, and then Daisy's, and then I asked if we could take a picture. Which we did. And then he GAVE US BOTH A KISS ON THE CHEEK, NOT JOKING.

Unfortunately/luckily it didn't occur to me to initiate the soup crimp (which would have been totally appropriate since he was LOOKING AT SOUP) or make a lame Old Gregg joke. And maybe, JUST MAYBE some of his amazingness rubbed off on my cheek with that kiss ❤

I care more about shoes than I do about people

First day of the daily blogging! I wanted to write about fashion and then I found this thing where you're supposed to post pictures of specific things every day but it is impossible for a commitment-phobe like me to actually finish those things so I just randomly picked a few.

A cute outfit of yours: 

 

 ♥ Top: Primark ♥ Jacket: H&M ♥ Skirt: Primark ♥ Beret: H&M ♥

I bought the top and the skirt last week when I went into town to buy an electric blanket and could not resist the pull of the almighty Primark. I haven't actually worn this outfit yet as I spent all of my time inside due to the snow but there's finally some night out coming up!

A piece of clothing or jewellery that was a gift: 

 

I got this dress for Christmas from my mum. I love how the bright blue clashes with my hair.

An article of clothing you like but don’t wear often enough:

I bought this AMAZING top at the fleamarket in the IJ-hallen in Amsterdam for only a few euros, it must have been about a year ago because it was snowing really badly and after the market we went to a café and spent the entire day there drinking hot chocolate. I've worn it to Lisa's glamrock party, and I think one other time also with Lisa when I was dressing up as Ola Salo. I will definitely wear it again VERY SOON. It deserves it.

Shoes you love but hardly wear:

 I bought these shoes in Paris, which sounds fancier than it was because they're from H&M. First I thought they were really weird, in a cool way, then I tried them on and decided they weren't really all that weird and were actually just simply divine and they made me feel like I was in Velvet Goldmine so I needed to buy them. The only reason I haven't worn them that much is there hasn't been an opportunity! I've worn them once to the Rocky Horror Picture Show participation night in Paris, but soon they will need to be taken on some other dirty glamorous outing.

Bonus:

Another insane pair of shoes! a few months ago I became obsessed with inward-curve heels so I bought this pair from Missguided. I have never worn them... I do think they're amazing and they will definitely get their moment to shine soon. After I learn how to, you know, keep my balance in them. THEY DO NOT HAVE A HEEL.

Your favourite pair of shoes:

 THAT'S LIKE MAKING A MOTHER PICK HER FAVOURITE CHILD! But it has to be my Litas. I was literally in love with Jeffrey Campbell Litas for over a year before I bought these babies, I looked at pictures of them online every day and talked about them to a lot of people who do not give a shit about expensive impractical shoes. Then I went on a uni trip to Edinburgh, and completely unsuspecting I took a walk through the highstreet with my friends. And then we went into Office. AND THEN I SAW THEM. Actual Litas, in real life. I tried them on 'just to see how they would feel', but I knew the moment my feet were in them that they were meant to be mine. 

A very lucky find:

 

This may not seem like an especially lucky find because it's just an H&M bag, but I had my eyes on it for absolutely ages but didn't buy it because I already way too many bags. But then I found THE LAST ONE in the sale reduced from €25 for €7 AND I had a €5 giftcard so I ended up spending €2 on it!

SEE YOU TOMORROW BITCHES!