Being Busy

I haven't had time to even open my computer for a while now, so that's why there's been no updates. But hey, here's some pictures I've taken during my silence.

Bubble tea <3

Blogging is hard

I haven't even had a good start at blogging, and I've already encountered some difficulties.

I am writing this with all honesty and I have no intention to keep it pretty. You have been warned.

Evolving the blog

The day before yesterday I worked almost the whole day to make every bit and piece to work. 

My background on coding isn't as strong as some of you out there, but usually I do have a clue on what I'm doing. 

When I was 9 I actually made a whole website from top to bottom all by myself with some help from internet guides on coding. We're talking about a good looking website here, not a freewebs base layout or a background with only text on it. I remember it took me over a week to get it done and all. 

However nowadays I'm no longer that patient nor I have the time to study code languages in whole, so I just mainly fix the little things.

Social media buttons on blog

I edited some social media buttons and tweaked the main page a bit. Several times some itty bitty witty thing went wrong and things I did or coded turned out to either not work or go all over the place. 

I had bits and pieces of code hanging everywhere, and when the buttons finally worked, I decided to change their color after few hours of wondering. Then they ended up on top of the page, but after bouncing them around I decided to leave them at the bottom of my blog posts. 

I guess they're fine for now.

How did I do it?

1. I uploaded the icons I wanted online on an image hosting site. I used imageshack.
2. I opened the blog post writer thingy on blogger, clicked the "add picture" icon, put on the picture url and added the picture. I did this for all my icons.
3. After having my icons on the blog post writer I removed the links attached to them by simply clicking them and the link tool button one by one. 
4. Then I clicked on the icons again, one by one, and added the links I wanted on them. (pick the icon, click the link tool, write the url, click ok)
5. change into HTML mode (top-left at the blogger writer)
6. copy all the code, don't publish the text but you can save it as a draft
7. go to blogger layout settings and add HTML/Java widget
8. paste your code to the widget and save. 

I originally found these instructions in Finnish here .

Link colors & color changing links

The next trouble I had was with my background color, which I wanted to change in to grey, but ended up not doing so since I couldn't find a way to how. 

However soon I became irritated by the blog headings. 

Mainly the H1, blog post header. It has a nice color changing effect on it, but for some reason I had picked a super bright blue as it's link color. So every time someone moved their cursor on it, it would move wider nicely and slowly change it's color to.... super stingy blue. That had to change. 

Me being a tech wizard and all (read: not) it took me a good half-an-hour or so to actually find the right code line. 

My favorite color at the moment is lilac, so that's sort of the theme I have been going for here.

This is what I ended up with.

The slow color change & widening link code

The code I have for example is 

a:link {

  font-family: 'Verdana';

font-size: 12px;

text-decoration:none;

color: #eb99ff;

transition: 0.6s;

-moz-transition: 0.6s;

-webkit-transition: 0.6s;

-o-transition: 0.6s;

What makes it what it is is bolded. I'm not an expert enough to explain more about it, 

so I would advice you to google it for more information.

Promoting the blog

Last but not least; what would a blog be without readers? A private journal, probably. Since that's not what I'm trying to write here, I had to tell people about my blog. What is it, where can you find it and so on.

That's the hardest step to me, since I am a Finn trying to write in English, and have yet to make any post showing myself or doing DIY stuff, which seems to be a popular thing online. 

The reader base I have easiest access to happens to be Finnish, but due to the amount of blogs here in Finland a blog written in another language probably isn't the most popular option among Finnish readers who already have a wide variety of blogs to choose from, written in their native language.

(Still, if you are a Finnish reader reading this, I salute you! It's wonderful that you are interested in what I have to say and I'm very thankful and honored to have you as a guest.)

All that aside, I found a nice blog link party to join in, and I did. 

Patient, but excited I waited for the results. And waited. And waited.

Then, I realized my blog settings had been switched private by mistake. Nobody has been able to enter my blog. 

Just my luck, haha.

IKEA, Sweets and TV

Excuse moi for my long-ish silence, I happened to catch a cold this week and haven't had the energy to do this earlier.

On the weekend I finally had some time to go to IKEA. I've been meaning to go there for a while now, mainly on a search for a new bed. Well, I didn't find a bed, but I found few other things. For my surprise I left the place without any candles...

First things first: New curtains. I have had a pair of green curtains for way too long now, and it had to change. Though I'm not 100% sure will I leave the green curtains on my bedside. Anyways, I bought these ridiculously cheap LILL curtains to go along with my VILBORG curtains. To get more volume I put 2 layers of the LILL curtains together. 

The second thing I bought were some new cutlery, which happen to be too normal and dull looking for my blog erm....

Last but definitely not least I bought a table lamp! Besides the bed (see what I did there haha) this was on my to-buy-list. The lamp is called ÅRSTID. I'm super pleased with it.

American candy & movies

After the trip to IKEA me and my other half found our way to the grocery store, and realized they had an international aisle. I have lately been noticing similar aisles appearing on other stores as well, which in my opinion is great. 

Since the American, English and other countries treats are still quite expensive here, I haven't yet tasted most of them. I only have experience on Reese's buttercups, Jellybeans, Sour patch kids and Three musketeers, and all of them I have liked so far. 

A Three musketeers bar from last summer

This time we decided to try out a Butterfinger bar and some Nerds.

The bar was too peanut buttery and sweet for my liking, but the Nerds we both enjoyed. 

As a sugarholic I have to say that I think most of the foreign candy differs from our local candy A LOT. We often have a much more natural ingredients and taste in our sweets than American or English candy, and a lot less sugar.

At home we opened up HBO as usual and picked a movie to watch. This time it was Sliding Doors starred by Gwyneth Paltrow. It was worth watching, not a huge wow but it didn't feel like a waste of time either. As an older movie (by now) it was still very watchable and relatable.

On Monday we began the day by watching HBO's West World, which at the moment is our newest and biggest tv-series obsession. Go watch it if you haven't already, it's AWESOME. The latest episode blew my mind completely. 

HBO overall is quite good, so far I have watched all of Game of Thrones, Magicians and just started watching 12 Monkeys.

That's pretty much all I have to share about my weekend and week 'till this day, thank you for reading! :)

Ps. Who else is excited about the J.K. Rowling's new movie AND the trailer of Beauty and the Beast? It's going to be a great year for entertainment industry!

Snowday

Affordable ways to make your home seem more expensive

1. Tiny details

You can add more life into things by adding something unique to it. As an example here I have a tiny Swarovski cat (I got it from my special someone as a Christmas gift) put on a tray full of candles. On the other picture I have wrapped a cheap H&M bracelet around an Ikea candle leg.

2. Keep things in control

Find a way to organize your stuff more efficient. Also don't just let the heavy curtains hang all over the place, keep them in place by wrapping something around them. In the picture I have used an actual curtain tie from Zara, but a DIY way to do this could be a robe, a chain, a necklace... choice is yours. In the past I have actually used a chain necklace myself, and it looked pretty.

3. Make it cozy

More blankets, pillows and other warm fuzzy things you have, the better. I, being stingy myself, have always waited until sales, and then done the shopping. The golden pillowcase pictured below cost only 3 bucks in H&M Home, the darker, beyond huge blanket was 24 bucks and the lighter blanket cost me only 15 bucks at my local discount store.

 4. Adjust the lighting

In my opinion what makes the home in the end is the lighting. At your working space you probably want it super bright, but elsewhere you should most likely keep it softer. Every space should have a bright light source in case it's needed sometimes, but the everyday lights should be used to make the home seem welcoming. At my home I have a bright ceiling light with which I can light up the whole room, but I often only use other light sources such as my floor lamps and candles. 

5. The positioning

If positioned on the right way, small amount of objects can easily seem more and vice versa. Often leaving some empty space between furniture makes the place seem cleaner and bigger. Remember to acknowledge the lighting as you decorate, and take breaks just to see it all from a distance.

6. Keep it whole

Choose a color theme. Or at least a certain color hue, pastels for example. That way it will all fit together. You can also do this with textures and patterns. Keep in mind that sometimes less is more, and patterns especially should be used carefully. 

Unfortunately I still haven't decided of what carpet to buy. Help me. :D

7. Improvise!

Best ideas are found by just trying everything that comes into your mind.

Lazy diaries: Shopping and sleeping

I know, I know I said I wouldn't blabber nonsense here, but right now I'm actually in a mood to do so, sooo here we go. Oops.

Due to the lack of photograph and my recent silence, I decided to tell you about my weekend.

The clothing industry

How do you do this? Let's start with friday. I had a day off. Half a day I recorded myself reading a history course book to my phone, and the rest I spent rushing through the nearby shopping mall trying to find a perfect pair of leggins.

Pictured my lunch, a feta-cheese patty. Here it doesn't look that good, but I can assure you it was.

Some blah blah you can skip unless you're really interested:

At fall/winters I soak in a freezing despair. Literally. I HATE cold. Sadly I happen to live in a country where most of the year it's cold, no, COLD. Our summer lasts around 2-3 months IF we are lucky. This year the winter came early even on our scale. It's barely November and it's snowing a lot. Last year the first snow came after christmas.

So every winter I get this unknown need for super comfortable clothes, and luckily this year it's actually popular to wear skin-tight, suuuper comfortable leggins'. The exact model I have in my mind is warm, cozy, not too tight and reaches high on my waist.

My search for high waisted, comfy leggins began at H&M and after few other stores I ended up back there again. This time I actually found some proper candidates to try on, though not the ones I was hoping to find.

These were a shocker to me. At first I tried pants from the "trendier" more "youthful" collection in a size 36 (EU), which usually fits me just fine, and sometimes is even a little bit loose. THEY DIDN'T FIT AT ALL. Even though on the label it says "super stretch". The leggins from other collection I tried were size S and they were too big.

In the end I went and had to try the pants in size 38 and leggins in size xs. Quite a contrast, isn't it? I think there's something wrong with making a collection for teens/young adults that runs atleast a size smaller than a normal collection. It can cause a real issue to someone who isn't as fine with their body as I am. Not cool H&M.

"We went to see an adult movie" as my mom said by mistake

The next day I met with my mother at the city central and we went to see a French movie called L'Avenir or Things to come in English. It was rather artistic experience. I enjoyed it, but I think I could have gotten more out of it if I had similar experiences as the main character whom basically renewed her entire life starting from a divorce.
Still, it was a nice experience.

After that we were about to go shopping in Zara, only to realize it was a holiday and pretty much every store I had planned to go to was closed. So no leggins that day either. I did find a pair of cute legwarmers though and had wonderful quality time with my mother.

After she had left I was rather tired and it was only six o'clock then. Few hours later I fell a sleep.

Take it easy.

On Sunday I didn't lift a finger. Which, after all my studying on the week, was just what I needed. I was exhausted and my darling wasn't feeling like getting up either, so we just didn't. We watched a Jurassic Park movie, downloaded bunch of phone apps and just giggled at dumb things. Time to time we fell a sleep cuddling. Happy feelings.

It was a good weekend.

I hope yours was too. :)

Here's a picture of my legwarmers and a delicious doughnut. I've been working on a bigger post about decorating, so stay tuned!

Winter is coming

I used sleek makeup solstice highlight palette; i-Divine Del Mar Vol II and i-Divine Storm palette , Kat Von D white Tattooliner, We Care Icon Magnetic eyeliner