Xantier nail polish

The last brand of nail polish that I got in Thailand was Xantier. I got a few colours of every brand, but most of them were really summery and will probably have to wait in that cute cabin for yet a few weeks. With this one I have tried all the brands though, with was my first priority. 

Love the colour of this one. It's good for spring, but it's not too much colour, which is a good option for work. Two coats made the trick and I think it looks really beautiful. Both the other brands lasted quite long, so I really look forward to see how this works out. 

Outfit of the day

The outfit of  the day posts seems quite popular. Both post have sailed up to the top on the view list. So, here we go again!

Today I'm wearing a lace skirt from JC, a golden tank top from Gina Tricot. That top can be the oldest garment in my closet, but after 8 years (I think. I know I wore it on a school photo) I still love it, so it will hang on for a while longer. The cardigan is from Primark, and one of the most used garment in the closet. Tights 120 den. Necklace from Topshop (check out the OOTD-post from yesterday for a closeup)

Now; Time to run of to work!

Outfit of the day

Before I run of to take the bus to that meeting, I thought I'd show today's outfit.

Today I'm wearing a fine knitted sweater from Primark. I have never been a fan of red, but I really fell for the wine shade. The skirt is my very much used from H&M. It just works to everything. The tights I bought at work this fall, and they are not in store anymore. Ring and necklace is from Topshop and the bracelets I made myself. I will share a post about the nail polish tomorrow.

(Watching these photos I notice someone should clean their mirror)

Nail polish storage

When we were out walking today we stopped by at a supermarket close to where we live to buy some eggs. The thing I like the most about this little store is that from time to time they get quite fun things, it can be anything from cell phones to interior.

I've been thinking about a better way to store my nail polishes than the big glass bowl I've had for the past year. I think it looks pretty to have them there, but it's usually impossible to find the colour you're looking for without emptying the whole bowl. (Also I tend to forget which shades I have since I don't really see them)

When we got in to the store I found this cabinet that was just calling my name and saying "Please take me home! I'm made to take good care of your little babies". It wasn't like I had any choice to take it under my arm and carry it home.

I only wish there were one more shelf so there would be more space, but at least I could get two lines of polishes on every shelf. There are still some more space next to this cabinet where I can put the stands I bought in Thailand. Think I might use them for my most used shades at the moment.

Hopeful Kiss

I was surfing around the internet, with hopes on finding some interesting blogs to read and follow. I ran into a blog filled with beautiful lipsticks. Just couldn't help myself from sticking around for a bit.

At the moment Galaxia is having a giveaway, which I totally think you should check out. I, myself, would be very happy to win this since I love trying new brands. I haven't tried UD yet, and the drugstore lipsticks I've never seen around here!

Make sure to check it out here: Hopeful Kiss | International giveawa

Coffee time

Another wonderful day of spring. Or at least it was this morning, now it's getting a bit gray again. Me and my sister planned to go to the gym this morning, but she wasn't feeling very well so we settled for a walk instead. It ended up being two long walks, one by ourselves and one with the dog. Two hours of fresh air was a great start of the day.

After lunch it was still sunny outside so we brewed some coffee and sat outside for a while. Love the combination of sun and the smell of coffee. It really fells like spring to me.

Tonight it's time for another meeting with work. Love the beginning of a new season when all the suppliers invites us to hear more abut their new products!

Sister looking fresh with orange spring nails

Hanro

The meeting today was about Hanro. I had never heard of them before, and must admit I was quite skeptic when I just looked at the boxes and saw the price. That opinion changed quickly when I learned more about it and had a close look at the garments. It's an old brand, that's very successful in other parts of Europe and in USA. In Sweden it's quite unknown and we just found out we're the only ones in this part of the country that's selling them. (Hopefully that will change if we do a good job with it)

We got to see a video from one of the factories where the garments are made, and it was amazing! I didn't know that kind of places still exist. A lot of things are done by hand, like cutting the fabric, make sure there isn't any flaws in the fabric and sit by a sewing machine to do some very fine work. I also appreciates that everything is produced in Switzerland or Portugal, which means I know for sure that the condition for the workers are really good.

The materials are very exclusive, like Egyptian cotton and mercerized cotton. And the fact that they use viscose, instead of polyamide, in the petticoat is perfect since that doesn't create any static electricity between the garments.

With all this new knowledge I will be happy to sell the products, because I really believe in them myself. Will be trying this Cotton Seamless tank top first, but I believe my closet will expand with a few more Hanro garments in the near future.

Outfit of the day

Hey there!

Productive day so far. Meeting at work in the morning (will tell you more about this tonight), got home and took a PW, cleaned all my makeup brushes and now I'm waiting for my lunch to get ready before I need to go back to work for the night shift. Amazed I even have time for blogging! Guess this is what happens when you learn to get up early in the morning. 

Thought I would show you my outfit of the day, which I like quite a lot. Sweater from Topshop (the one that I bought the other day), my most used skirt from H&M, 80 den tights from DIM (new brand in our store that I'm getting to know). Love the red nails to ad a touch of colour.

Shamballa style bracelets

Tomorrow morning we're going to have a meeting with one of our suppliers at work. The girl that's coming is really sweet and stop by more than any of our suppliers do, and when she does she is always very helpful and stays to fix with their things in the store. We want to show her that we appreciates this, so my boss asked me to do a bracelet to give to her. I made my Shamballa style bracelets to everyone at work for Christmas, which was very popular. 

The bracelet on the top is for her, and the other one is my boss's that I took home to fix.

 

Day of the walks

Just woke up. Ready for a power walk with sis

First ladybug of the year. Spring is here!! 

Afternoon walk. Third of the day. Slow walk with
doggie this time

More signs of spring

A nice surprise

When I got home from work today I went into the kitchen, as I always do. My brother was standing by the table, which isn't very common but yet not very remarkable. What was very surprising though was what he said when I got in.

"I've got a gift for you."

"What? What is it? And how come?" I asked, quite chocked.

"No special reason. I got a panting for Fia and this for you" (Fia is our younger sister)

Two Body Butters and some bubble bath. Such a sweet thing of him to do! Totally made my day!

Na Na Nail polish

The Na Na Nail Polish was the cheapest brand of the polishes I bought in Thailand. This was only 19 baht, which is close to nothing compared to Swedish budget prices. My expectations for this was never really high, I just went for some cool colors to try it out. The Sheene polish that I showed a few days ago was really impressive though (price 30 baht), so now I hope this one can be as well. The Sheene lasted for five days, and I could have worn it for at least one or two more days if I wasn't so eager to try the other ones that I got.

First impression of Na Na is good. Two layers made good coverage and it dried quickly. Time will tell how long it lasts. As usual I used it with China Glaze First & Last coat.

Cozy evening

Time for a cozy evening! The room is finally clean after being a space for unpacking the past few days. I have taken today's clothes off and jumped into my Pj's. Makeup is removed. A cup of tea is made and candles are lit. Totally ready to crawl up in bed and read a brand new issue of a magazine.

Favorites!

I used to be quite comfortable in high heels, but unfortunately that has changed. I'm working on changing that now, so I put a pair of heels at work so I can walk around in them for at least a few hours everyday. The goal is to be able to wear a nice pair of high heels at my friend's wedding in the end of June.

The biggest reason I don't trip around in my old beauties is that I discovered Converse. It was about nine years ago when I started a new school and chose to be in a music class that these shoes came to my attention. They were very popular (I think everyone in my class owned a pair, most of them didn't use anything else). It wasn't a choice for me not to try them. Once I did I was hooked. I have quite a few different colours and patterns by now. Not sure yet if the collection will grow this season though. That depends on how my high heel-project end up.

Last year's addition to the collection

Inspired by spring

Hey there!

Today spring came to Sweden! Or at least a taste of it. The sun was shining and it wasn't terribly cold outside. The clothes in all black that I had picked out for today felt in no way right, so I ran down to my closet and found a nice green tank top that I haven't worn since last summer. The floral necklace that I found on Topshop yesterday fit perfectly together with the feeling of spring inside me. 

For makeup I was inspired by Tanya Burr's spring makeup tutorial, with bronzer and highligter as eye shadow. The picture doesn't show the nice shimmer (will try to capture that better next time I go for this look), but I totally fell in love with this so I will probably do this a lot this spring. 

Blog hunt

Hey guys!

I'm looking for some new blogs to follow and I want your tips! Do you know of any blog that I shouldn't miss out on? Don't be shy to recommend your own - If you think it's worth writing about it's probably worth reading.

Hit me with your best shots!

Beauty Cottage

The last day in Thailand we found the Beauty Cottage store, with makeup to fall in love with. I needed to buy a highlighter and I had just enough money left to buy the Bronzer & Highlighter from them. Oh, how I wish that I would have found them earlier so I could stock up a bit more. My sister bought the eye shadow-palette and I can't say I'm not jealous of that. The packaging was very beautiful and now that I've been able to try what was inside that little box I'm even more in love. The pigment is good, and the shimmer is fantastic.

If you get the opportunity to lay your hands on these beauties I would suggest you do! 

Ooops!

I was planning to save money for a while now after the trip, but when I got back to work I was told that the Topshop store at our shopping center is closing. It wasn't optional to skip their sale, so it wasn't my fault! There wasn't much things left, but I did find a lovely sweater and some nice jewelry so I was happy!

More Thai food

My last post about Thailand for now will be full of pictures on food, just because it was so awesome!

Smoked duck sallad

Lobster with saffron rice

Tuna steak

Sushi

Oreo Brownie sundae

Mango sundae

Beef with aspargus

Rice in a pineapple

Details

Good morning! 

The time difference between Sweden and Thailand has given me brand new routines. I'm normally a night person, but now I wake up early in the morning (without alarm clock) and can barely stay awake after dinner. Interesting to see how long it will be like this.

Today's details looks like this.

  

Batman earrings from Thailand

Shamballa style bracelets made by me 

Ring inherited from Grandma. Nail polish Sheene in color P13

Shenne Nail polish

Hi there!

Tried one of the polishes I bought in Thailand. I really like the colour. I pained two coats as always and I found the coverage very good. I used my China Glaze base & coat and I can't complain about the hold. Considering the price of 60 Baht for two I'm very satisfied with this one. Almost wish I bought one more bottle of the exact same colour. I will have to use it carefully so I don't run out to quickly! 

Thailand Shopping

Hey there!

So as you may have figured I did quite a lot of shopping in Thailand. I decided to make two Youtube-hauls, one for beauty products and one for clothes, shoes and such. I couldn't show everything there, so I'm making this blog post as wall to show you everything else. What's posted here is not in the videos and the things in the videos are not shown here, so make sure to watch all of them if you want to see everything.

I will make a post with links to the hauls as soon as they are uploaded on Youtube.

This is what my bed looked like when I spread everything out

All of my Maybelline Baby Lips. 80-90 Baht each

100 baht for all

1. 150 baht 2. 79 baht 3. Free gift 4. Free gift. 5. 199 baht 6. 69 baht

1. 59 baht 2.199 baht 3. 59 baht 4+5. 59 baht 6. 150 baht 7. 49 baht
8.199 baht 9. 44 baht 10+11. 49 baht 12. 60 baht

1. 60 baht 2. 45 baht 3. 120 baht 4. 200 baht 5. 60 baht
6. 25 baht/each 7. 90 baht

1. 45 baht 2. 159 baht 3. 60 baht. 4. 60 baht 5. 30 baht 6. 60 baht
7. 60 baht 8. 200 baht

1. 19 baht 2. 19 baht 3. Four for 100 baht 3. Two for 60 baht

1. 60 baht 2. 22 baht 3. 27 baht 4. 60 baht 5. 60 baht 6. 21 baht

The Family tree

One of the days me and my sister went strolling a bit. I don't really know what made me see it, but there was a tiny store that caught my eye. It was called The Family Tree. (Which felt special since we were in Thailand to visit our relatives) I told my sister I wanted to have a look inside so we went in. Inside we found every thing from soaps to jewelry and mugs. We met an old lady, and an Englishman. The Englishman told us that everything in the store was handmade from local produced raw materials. Parts of the profits made along with donations from costumers were used to plant trees to help the environment.

We found some soaps that smelled really nice and smelled them  all. The Englishman approached us again, this time with a story about the soaps. These were made of three women that lost their homes and everything they owned in a big fire. They were taught how to make soaps and sell them to earn money to get back on track with their lives again. This story really touched me so I was happy to buy both soaps and a salt scrub from them. I paid a total of 500 baht, including a small donation for the tree planting.

Salt scrub Vanilla, Honey & Ginger. Soaps Cinnamon & Milk, Vanilla, Honey & Ginger, Peppermint & Lemon

The Nightmare Experience

One afternoon in Thailand me and my sister went to buy some snack and something to drink. Across the street from the supermarket we used to go to there was a 7 eleven, so we thought that we should check it out to see if we could find something new to try. When we got there we saw an adorable dog laying inside the door. There were a lot of dogs everywhere and they were extremely calm and nice, so I wasn't even surprised to see it there. 

We looked around for a bit and found some Thai snack to try and tweezers that looked really good. When we turned to go to the cash desk the dog has gotten up. That's when we noticed he was missing his left front leg. A guy in the store had picked up a long stick and started to poke the dog, and while doing it he was laughing. It wasn't like he was trying to get it out of the store, but more like pushing it in. Me and my sister looked at each other and felt like there was something wrong. Then he started to hit the poor dog. There were a lot of girls in the store and they were laughing at his action. I really wanted to tell him to stop, but being in a different country, where they don't understand what you're saying, being numbered down I got to chocked and to scared to do something. We didn't know about the culture and what was seen wrong and right there, and to get ourselves in to something we didn't know seemed to be a bad idea. We just put our things down and left, giving him some murdering looks. Which just made him laugh even more.

When we got out of the store my sister broke down and cried for hours. I tried to hold back to be the strong one and try to convince us both that it was the right thing to do to leave. Even though I know both of us regrets not doing something more. 

My mother told our relatives that we visited about what happened. He was very chocked as well and said that he had never been in a place where people cared so much about the animals. All of the street dogs gets food and water from everyone that can help them. It was quite comforting to know that this isn't happening very often, but it made me regret even more that I didn't say anything.

Believe it or not, there is a happy ending to this story. A few days later we went to our supermarket again (we never went back to 7 eleven). We saw the dog laying in an open-air cafe, having food and water by his side, looking just fine. It was such a pain relieve to see him there. In my mind he's staying there and never sets a foot on 7 eleven again, living happily ever after!

Home sweet home

Finally!

This has been one of the longest days ever. The alarm clock rang at 4:45 this morning, but I had time to snooze for 30 minutes. We had arranged for a taxi to pick us up at the hotel LATEST 6:00 to get to the airport in time. After having the receptionist calling for the guy that should pick us up three times he finally arrived at 6:20.

The ride to Bangkok took about three hours. He was driving really fast to make up for the time we lost, but of course we had to fill up gasoline and have a few coffee stops on the way. We did arrive just in time for check in and running trough the airport to the right gate. Luckily the driver was used to Scandinavian tourists so he knew just were to drop us off. Thumbs up for us that could check in without overweight! It was really close!

The flight from Bangkok to Helsinki was delayed with 20 minutes and took about 11 hours I think. (I'm too tired to double check if my calculations are correct) This was probably the worst flight I've ever been on. There were a lot of kids and babies, so it was really noisy and a lot of screaming. The lady in front of me fell her seat as much as she could and laid there the whole time, so I had minimum space for my legs, and it felt like I had her in my lap. I don't get claustrophobic easily, but this was really close to it. I managed to focus on two movies to make the time pass a little faster. Both Rio and 500 days of Summer was quite good.

Since the flight from Bangkok was delayed we really had do hurry in Helsinki. The boarding was already on the final call when we got out of the plane. Of course the security was annoyingly picky when we had to go through the control. Even though we went though the control in Bangkok, and couldn't possibly get anything more on the plane that we weren't allowed to bring, they emptied two of our bags completely. Just to find out there was nothing wrong!

From Helsinki to Copenhagen we had 1,5 more  hours to go. Would have wished for a calmer flight, but most of the kids were also flying to Copenhagen and now they were even more tired, and so was I!

When we got all our luggage we went out to the arrival hall and found Daddy waiting for us. He was kind enough to pick us up with the car so we didn't have to take the train the last part of the way. The first stop on the way home was to drop of Grandma and say hi to Grandpa. We must have looked like zombies when we got there. At least I felt like one.

When that was done we got back into the car and drove the last 15 minutes of the trip. After about 20 hours trip and 12 days away from home it felt awesome to roll up on the driveway and see Max through the window and meet the happiest dog I've ever seen. Oh, what I've missed that little fellow! On the inside my brother was waiting for us with open arms and it was quite good to meet him as well (Hey, don't tell him that).

Now, 23 hours after I got up this morning, I've left Thailand, spent an hour in Finland, arrived in Denmark and gotten home to Sweden. Can't wait to get a long night's sleep in my own bed, in my own room.

Nighty!

Reclaim of my laptop

Hello there!

The past few days Mum has been steeling my laptop to prepare for the big 3x70:th birthday party tonight, but now that that's all done I've reclaimed, which I'm very happy about. I will share some of my stories from here, but I need to get some sleep before the party as well, so time will bring them to you. 

The day so far has been great. We got up really early to go on a boat trip. We had lunch on the boat, and did some fishing, but the main destination was Monkey Island. What an experience! When we got to the beach the monkeys were waiting for us. Our guide gave us fruit and vegetables to give to the cuties. Oh, the feeling when that tiny hands carefully took the fruits from mine. They were really comfortable with people and gladly jumped up on peoples backs. I want to build a little house there and live with them! 

Monkey Island