Hello there darlings and loved ones,

I must admit it is kind of late (or too soon) to think about advent calendars, but I actually wrote this post on the 24th, but had to rewrite it, because I wasn't in the best mood when I wrote it and then the whole review turn out to be just wrong.


I wanted a beauty advent calendar for at least two years now, but I couldn't get a grip of one because most of the companies do not ship here to Slovakia or they were too expensive to just think about. But this year, thanks to my beautiful and awesome cousin I was able to get one from Germany - that being the ArtDeco one, which cost me around 35-40 euro.


I didn't know the brand before, but the price was best and I liked the design so I thought - well I'm gonna try it out if I even like the idea of beauty advent calendar. I loved it I must say. I felt like a little kid again waking up each morning rushing out of the bed to find out what's in the calendar.


Calendar had mostly full size products inside. There were few samples and a bit of baby size products but mostly there were full size products. As for which products, I got mostly eyeshadows, then there were few eyeshadow boxes to put the shadows in, abut three tiny brushes, an eyebrow powder, eyebrow pencil, two nail polishes, lip balm, lipstick and lip gloss, make up samples and baby mascara.


But there was one brown and one really pretty shimmery gold one that I am completely crazy about so I am pretty much all right with the turn out of the calendar. On the other hand all of the shadows were pressed powders so the staying power isn't really the best. The nail polishes weren't in christmasy colors either and they didn't last too long either. One of them around three days and the second one not even a day. For a special occasion, the second one is completely prefect because the color is really pretty silver color.


If I end up buying a new beauty advent calendar next year I will still consider this one, because the price compared to the amount of full size gifts I got was pretty great. And well I am not the one to give too much money for something like this, and I do think that paying over 70 euros for an advent calendar is just too much.


Do you know the brand? What do you think about them? Did you buy an advent calendar? Were you pleased with it? I'm thinking about the Loccitane one, they had a pretty one this year, and I am all about the bio beauty products for now.

Don't think binary.
Whitelilit

Hello,

I may have written few tips on how to prevent the crisps cravings and what to do when you get them, but in the end I kind of gave up and decided to try out my own turn out for crisps. And they are healthier, awesome and so so yummy.



Some people like to do the extra step of soaking the potatoes in water for around half an hour, but I haven't see too much of a difference. It is said that it removes starch from the potatoes and they are more crispy this way, but I am a lazy person and I usually avoid any extra steps.


Then you put them on baking tray, lined with baking sheet I advise and sprinkle some salt and some olive or coconut oil on top and put them in the oven for about 10 minutes until they're golden brown. The slices should be spread out on the baking sheet and none of them should be overlapping, because by the time the potatoes are golden brown, the overlapping ones would be cooked through but not crispy at all.



And that is it. And awesome a pretty potato crisps. If you do not have oven, I once fried mine on some coconut oil and they were delicious as well. They just take a bit longer and make more mess this way.

Hello there darlings and loved ones.

As you may see on my blog, I have updated the layout to new and clean one. I will be doing few small changes later maybe but for now I am pretty excited with it as it is.


This means that I will be blogging again. A lot has changed last year and it influenced everything in my life and this blog as well.

I finished school and that was a gigantic step for me last year since going to school was my thing for good 18 years. So I had to put myself together and it took a while to do so. I started working a full time job and I am really happy with what I do. I love my job. I also had to move out to a temporary location and that took the wind out of my sails because living in a place you know you'll be moving out soon isn't really calming. In the end, I ended up coming from work just going straight into bed and watching videos online until I fallen asleep. I even got really bad with my healthy lifestyle.

I used these few free days to reboot and reload and get some motivation up again. And I knew that if I wanted to continue blogging - which I do - I had to change the layout to something completely different to what it was.

I spent some time working on new layout but in the end it never did look as I wanted to - mostly because I am no good in design. Luckily I found this amazing page, that has ton of awesome free templates and I must say I am in heaven. I would never make something this pretty yet simple and I am OK admitting that because, well, I am still good in ton of other things.

To sum up what I want to say. Hello 2016 and hello everyone here. I am really happy to be back and blogging and I will be saying hello a lot more this year than I was last year. And hopefully, the next few years it will just get better and better.

Love you all and I hope you're all having an amazing start to your year.

Don't think binary.
Whitelilit

Hello there darlings and loved ones,

I had an english class yesterday and the tutor asked us the typical question for this part of the year. What are your new years resolutions? And she did not asked us do you do new years resolutions? Nope, just expected we do them and follow along the same path as all the people do.



I have heard many people saying I don't do new years resolutions because you just get an unreasonable goal and are expected to fail it really quickly so there is no point. And that is mostly the case, at least was with me.

I did the worst types of resolutions when I was young. Like exercise, go to sleep sooner, be healthy, learn more. And none of them didn't really mean much to me so, as expected, I failed horribly at making them a reality.

Then I told myself that why should I do something that stupid. Instead I made my own tradition. And no one knew about it until now, because I am still kind of ashamed about how lame it was. I told myself that the 24 hours of the 1st of January count as 12 months of the year. So two hours always counted for one month. And whatever I felt in those two hours of the day will I feel on the month that befits to that two hours. And considering I slept through most of the day it was kind of funny. But also those hours I slept through, I do not remember the months, what I did or what happened, they just flew by. So in a way it was working.

I stopped that tradition few years ago,  even though it lasted long enough to become a tradition, and I still kind of think about it. But I realised, that one year is a pretty long time. A lot can happen in one year. You can be madly in love in January and with someone else in December. You can tell yourself that you want to sleep more and then get so much learning and stuff to do that you start counting nights as another days to convince yourself that you have more time (Friday, Friday night, Saturday and Saturday night and Sunday counts as 5 days. Look how much time I have to do this assignment. That's gonna be allright.) You can tell yourself that you want to do yoga and then find out that your true calling is running. A ton of stuff happens in one year.

Good resolutions, in my opinion, are I am gonna graduate this year. That was my last years. And when you say something like that and convince yourself that is gonna happen, not in a wishful way but in a real this is reality way then it's going to be a bit easier to do so.

But no resolutions are what works best for me. I just look at another year as I look at any new day. It is just 365 days that can bring you nothing or everything. That can bring you new challenges,  new memories, new friends, old friends, new loves and new experience. And nothing you want to do now should be stopped by something as stupid as a new years resolutions. If you want to start exercising, start now, when you are motivated. If you wanna learn new language start now when you can. Now is time as good as any other. Do not stop yourself from doing awesome things just because tomorrow is a new day.

Hope you all have a great christmas time.
Don't think binary.
Whitelilit

P.S. I had some troubles with internet connection so I could not write new posts and it frustrates me really too much. But over the holidays I have some free time so I hope to get into a lot of writing and maybe even a new layout? So expect lot from me, I hope I can earn that expectations in the next few weeks.

Hello there darlings and loved ones.

Today I bring you a bit of christmasey DIY. I did not ever intended to create something like this, because well I found the idea of pinning pieces of ribbon into a styrofoam ball kind of silly, but once I started I could not stop. So here I have a photo - step by step manual in case you wanted to give this a try for a kind of cheaper christmas gift or decoration.




Lay the center of the first ribbon piece next to the center of the ball, in a way that it is touching the center, or laying over the half of the center hole, if you pinned it before and pin the top of the ribbon down.


Then take the top corners of the ribbon (top meaning the side where the pin is pinned) and turn them down to the lower middle of the center. The bent fabric that you turn over the bottom layer will come on top and hide the pin. The pin will be located in the top corner of the triangle and covered by the fabric that you bent over. Do this process one corner after other pinning each corner in place properly before moving on to the next one.


Take second piece of ribbon and put it across the ball right opposite to the first one. The top pins should be right next to each other and the middles of the triangles should create a line. Bend the top corners of the ribbon downward and pin in the down middle of the ribbon.


Here you can see how the two pieces create a line together as they are matched opposite to each other.


Next step is to put the third ribbon piece in between these two. I used the line that the previous two created and located the ribbon in a way that it is aligned with the center of the created line and centered with the middle of the ribbon to the center of the ball.


I then pinned it down and repeated the process with the fourth one creating a cross on the top center of the ball.


Last step I did was to pin down the outer edge of the triangles making sure that the sides are touching and none of the ball is showing. With some ribbons you can not match them perfectly and there are tiny openings in between the triangles. These will be pinned down in the next steps so don't worry too much about them.


For the next rows of ribbon you need 8 pieces. Start with 4 of them and pin the 4 triangles matching the four that are already pinned on the ball. Meaning, you repeat the orientation of the triangles, and match the middle line of the new triangle to the middle line of the first one, only moving the second one a bit lower on the ball so that the top one is showing.



Here is a picture of the two rows done. Also I love this colour combination!



Here is a picture of the first half done. Again I love this colour combination, Also if your fingers hurt by this time, try to find better pins. But my finger are still aching so don't worry it will get worse even with the best pins. Try using something sharp and flat to push the pins down so that they are not pushing against your bare fingers. I use ine of those three sided big pencils that I found laying around.


After the first half repeat the process, and probably also the colours on the other half.


It is also great to mark the lines that the triangles created on the first half so that you can be sure that the lines will match properly once they are connected at the half line of the ball.




And that is your ball done. Hope you enjoyed your tutorial and I hope you try this out if you were wondering how it is done. It was actually a great way to just stop thinking and relax for a while, and that was a great thing after a really exhausting work week I had.

Don't think binary.
Whitelilit

P.S. Also these photos were taken on my mobile phone. I really enjoy the quality of them, the look awesome!

Hello!

This post is yet again not a recipe or a life advice. This one is my story of sugar and me in a nutshell.


I have an open window and I am getting really cold but I am too lazy to get up and close it.

Since I was a kid I always used too much sugar when I could. And my parents stopped me most of the time, but when they could not see me, I was able to put 6 teaspoons of sugar into my cup of tea. And it was honestly the best thing ever when I was a kid.

As I grew older I used slightly less sugar, but still an alarming amount, so that when anyone saw me adding sugar into tea, they were horrified. That was 3 teaspoons up until I was about 23? Since then, I have gotten ashamed by the amount of sugar and tried my best to lower it down. Until few months ago I was at 2 teaspoons and 2 and a half when no one was watching. And I wanted to change that.

Closed that window, now it's better.

Don't get me as a freak, when I cook I use half the amount of sugar that is prescribed, because that is how we did it at home and I honestly think that the cookies taste better with half the amount of sugar than prescribed. Also if there is more sugar than flour I know something is wrong with that recipe. But I always had a sweet tooth, and since high school I basically lived on sweet sodas and I loved my tea sweet.

What I started with was drinking more water less sodas. That started a few years ago, when I was in uni and I was broke and really tired from taking all those sodas home with me over and over again. They were heavy as hell! But I can say I mastered the water drinking about a half a year ago and now I am happy with the amount of water I drink (I had an app reminding me to drink every day and that helped a lot!). I now got to the point when I can't drink too many sweet sodas because I get a headache - and a massive one.

I did not need to worry about the pre-made foods or anything like that because I love cooking, so I do know what I eat when I eat. That counts for most of the food, of course I do buy chocolates or stuff like that but that is not too often or too much so I can live with that.

The last thing that concerned me was my tea. My sweet sweet tea. And I thought oh, I will just start by using 2 teaspoons instead of 2.5 and then slowly get it down. Did not work for me. Slowly never does for me, I am not a patient person. But, about two months ago a colleague had a story about that he cut his sugary drinks and how much better he felt. And I was like - I drink water all the time, I don't drink sweet drinks. And he was like "Well, but I always hear you stirring something. Some coffee or a tea." And I was like, okay I will try to stop that and see how it goes. And I did. And the last few weeks I realised I made my tea, added lemon and got back to work. No sugar needed.

Also, with my husband we moved locations recently and moved to a hotel until my parents house is renovated (or ours is built, but that is a longer time coming), and when we bought sugar we made a deal that we would not open that pack of sugar until we need it and see how much sugar we eat. That deal was to see how much sugar we use, because if it was only a small amount we could substitute it with more healthy but more pricey sugar substitution. And we actually did not need sugar until the other day when I was baking the cacao-chocolate-nutella cookies. That is for about three months. So I will certainly be switching white sugar to some other substitution.

Also it got to the point when my dearest was making us a pudding and he did not used sugar, because he didn't want to open the pack. I think it is ridiculous, and we both laughed, but I discovered I love chocolate pudding with no added sugar. It gets the really intense chocolate flavour. Yum!

Don't think binary.
Whitelilit

Hello there darlings and loved ones.

I have been fairly sick last three days, that is the karma back for that boy that tried to cut in line for popcorn at cinema last Saturday that I kind of made fun of, but than the guy in front of me took too seriously and stated his opinion loud and clear. You probably don't know what I'm talking about but I am still sorry I started that mess right out then.



This post is for all of you who have long hair and are sick of that hair and are thinking about that pixie cut, or a cute bob for winter. It is also for me in future when I have those kinds of thoughts. And I feel this would be a long post so I will make it really simple and state the reasons right away, without rambling on any longer:

Don't cut your hair. Just don't. I know that feeling when you are sick of long hair because I have been there. And the urges of cutting my hair got me and I went and did it. I went from long and amazing hair that I loved and cherished and took great care to get into the state it was and cut that into a short around the ears bob. I was lucky enough that the hair stylist knew what she was doing and it looked kind of good. I considered it all right and was happy with my newly found freedom for exactly a week. And after that came 10 long months of suffering and waiting for this to grow out. It is now November and I can barely braid this thing on my head that calls itself hair.

Here are the top reasons why not to cut it:

• It will take a century to get back to the way it was before if you change your mind. 
• It is not easier to take care about short hair. It needs a lot of styling and tools to get to the point when it is presentable
• All the hair in eyes always. None of it will fit into elastic or a pony.
• No ponytail in summer means sweaty neck.
• No braids.
• Lots of styling products.
• Lots of heat you have to put on your hair since all the non-heat ways include braiding.
• The hair will live its own life. Does not care what you think it's just suddenly wild and free.
• You will need to cut it again when it grows out because that cute pixie you had looks disgusting when it's growing out. Do not trust pinterest, it's just not presentable.
• Think about a hairstyle you would like to wear with short hair? Are you sure it will suit you?
• Also there is less to do with short hair. I personally found myself going for the same hairstyle every day. 

Find a good and trusted hairstylist. Be sure he knows what he's doing. Or she, that does not matter. Bring multiple pictures and make sure you're on the same page with the style and the length. I can not stress this enough since I did not listen to this advice in February and instead showing a picture I just said I want it to be just to the shoulders. Well after a good three months I finally had the hairstyle I was going for in the first place.

Take it slow. If you just want a change and have really long hair, saying goodbye to it can be hard. Try chopping up few centimeters first and see how you feel about it and if you want to cut more cut more. Just don't do drastic changes without a proper thought because that is what makes those awkward pictures from our young years so awkward.

I hope this article helped anyone. Also again, do not trust pinterest. Think about it this way. On this one picture it looks great, but am I that lucky that this is how it's going to look like every day? Even on bad hair days? And when I don't want to wash my hair? Does this girl look like this every day? Is that good or bad?

Don't think binary. I hope my hair grows out back to long one day. Soon. Love ya all. Good night.
Whitelilit