15 Random Facts Tag!

I received this tag from the lovely CookingChinchillas, and I really like it, so here are the rules:
Mention 15 facts and tag 5 other bloggers. Sounds simple enough, so here goes:

1) While I love snakes, I'm absolutely terrified of spiders.
2) I'm a nerd, and quite proud of it to be honest.
3) I spend my entire day today with watching a show that's as old as I am (both made in 1984 ^^)
4) I have watched all three Lord of the Rings movies about 15 times without cast commentary, and about 5 times with.
5) While red is my favourite colour, I love green nailpolish most.
6) My cats are named after famous Romans; Julius Ceasar and Marcus Brutus.
7) One of my snakes, a Bloodred Corn Snake, is named Mary for obvious reasons (to me, atleast ^^)
8) I think corsets and hoop skirts are sexy clothes.
9) I have created an army of female Bloodelf characters in World of Warcraft.
10) One of my favourite writers is Marion Bradley.
11) I love watching movies/tv series and/or reading books about either Robin Hood or King Arthur.
12) Sometimes I secretly listen to pop music.
13) My camera is my precious.
14) My Christmas tree has black decorations in it.
15) My favourite fruit is raspberry.

Hm, that wasn't as easy as I'd thought it was! Was fun though :)
Anyways, here are the 5 bloggers I tag:
Ultimategothguide
Beautytas
Morgaine
Jasmine
Evil Angel

Have a nice evening ladies! :)

Merry Christmas everybody!

As the title already says, I want to wish you all a very merry Christmas! Enjoy the company of your loved ones, the food, and the presents ofcourse! :)

Photo post 2

Today I wanted to quickly share this photo I took a few weeks ago, here in Holland, at the Waterleidingsduinen.

I personally really liked the spooky effect the combination of the trees, cloud and the sun gave to this shot, and have named it Eerie Days.
What do you guys think of it?

Lush

Most of you probably will have already read about a thousand articles about Lush, and, well, this is another one I guess ;)
Difference is I haven't written anything about their products before, because these were the first products I've ever bought at Lush. I was in The Hague last month, and because my phone died there (yes, the glass-breaking incident) I decided I needed to visit Lush to get myself a nice smelling present.
I bought these two lovelies:

Whoosh Shower Jelly and Up You Gets Emotibomb.

I absolutely love, love, love the shower jelly. It smells delicious, and to be honest, I think I might buy three more pots of it next time I visit Lush, just to have some spare ones, haha!

I wasn't too excited about the emotibomb though. It smelled great, but was gone too fast for me to really enjoy it. Maybe that's because we have a huge showerdrain, with a matching huge showerhead, so the amount of water that came crashing down on the poor little bomb was rather huge as well. Who knows :)

I did visit the store again yesterday, but forgot to buy the extra Whoosh, so that gives me an excuse to go to The Hague again soon ;) I did buy a solid shampoo bar, and Lemony Flutter yesterday. 

Finally, a small update about the promised brushroll giveaway: it will come, I've already bought some pretty lace and tiny satin roses to put on the brushroll, but haven't had time to create the roll itself. I've been too busy with my starting business, sorry! I will still make it though, so keep checking back :)

Tiny Sunday update

Good morning all!
As the title suggests, just a tiny update from me this Sunday.
Yesterday I got my iPhone fixed, so that's one problem out of the way, yay!
Julius is also feeling a lot better now, so I'm hoping I won't be having to go to the vet anymore this month (= more money for Christmas presents, yay!)

And (I think you will probably like this part the most, haha), because I've gotten such awesome replies to my handmade brush roll, I've decided I'm going to make another this week, which I'll be giving away here.
I'll probably start working on it tomorrow, and will have the giveaway online somewhere around next weekend. (As soon as I'm not swamped in work anymore, and able to first breathe freely, lol, and then have some time to make the brushroll :) I don't want to rush it, I want to make a pretteh!)

That's all for my tiny Sunday update, have a great Sunday everyone!

Handmade Brush Roll

Good morning all!
As promised, a happier blogpost today :)
As some of you might know, my mum-in-law gave me a whole lot of really dark blue cotton fabric a while ago, and while I'm planning on making that dress you ladies chose for me out of it, I knew I'd have more than enough fabric to make some more things.

I've always kept my brushes in a cup I got at Ikea, but I didn't like it much. They would always get dust on them, so I decided I needed a brush roll. On Youtube I found this tutorial vid, which I followed roughly. I did add my own little changes to the design, to really make it my roll :)
Anyways, here's a few pics of my new pretteh:

I'm so happy with it!
What do you guys think of my handmade brush roll? :)

Oh crappy days

Yes, that's the happy days theme turned crappy, and what a crappy day it's been today!

(image source)

I won't bother you with all the details though :) Let's just leave it at dead iPhone, emergency visit to the vet for a non-crapping cat, and various other things.

I had wanted to make some photos of the brush roll I made yesterday, but by now it's gotten dark, so I'll make them tomorrow, and will also make a blogpost about it tomorrow :)

I promise you guys a cheerful post tomorrow! Really! :)

NOTD - Stargazer 308

Hey everyone!
Today, after a week of silence (sorry about that!) a new NOTD post from me.

I decided to use Stargazer 308 today, and this is three coats. The photos are a bit crappy, that's because the weather absolutely sucks today and I didn't get good lighting. I didn't want to use flash, so this is what I ended up with.
Stargazer 308 has a pretty, near black, purple base, with tiny purple glitter in it.
Below is a cropped close-up shot of my ring finger, to show the glitter a bit better:

Gorgeous, isn't it?

I bought this polish at BeautyFocus, for €3,99. They're giving a 10% discount on all Stargazer this week though (untill the 21st of November), which makes them only €3,59! Pretty nice for 14 ml :)

First photography post!

In the comments on my previous post, some of you suggested I should post some of my photographs on this blog.
So here's my first photography oriented blogpost :)
I have three photo's I wish to share with you today. All of them were taken on festivals in 2009, the first at the Elf Fantasy Fair, the last two at Castlefest.

 

I don't know these people, I just asked them if I could take their photo, and like most people on these events, they loved to pose :)

Just a small warning, I forgot to resize them, so if you click them, they'll be rather huge xD

I love visiting these kind of festivals, where people really make an effort in creating awesome costumes, and most of the time, I do too. Problem is that I'm always also the one with the camera, so there aren't many shots of my costumes! I will try to find some older shots this week though :)

Some personal stuff

Hey all!
This is going to be just a small, quick post.
As some of you might know, I'm in the process of starting my own business as a professional photographer. This is a lot of work, and to be honest, it's quite a stressful period for me.
I've been working around 50 to 60 hours a week lately, and I'm afraid I've neglected my blog because of this.
Fact is that all this stress isn't healthy, and I've already noticed that from some migraine attacks the last few days.
I have therefore decided to take things slowly with this blog, because if I'm honest with myself, my career in photography is far more important than Morrigan's is. I will continue to post articles on this blog, but probably not as often anymore. I won't quit entirely though! Just taking it down a notch.
I hope you guys will understand and respect my decision on this :)

My first Eyeko Ambassador sale!

Last week I received an e-mail from Eyeko, stating that I just had my first Ambassador sale, meaning that someone bought products in their webshop, using my Ambassador Code at checkout.
Because of this, they sent me this ultra-cute package, containing some business cards I can write my Code on, a postcard, and one of their new limited edition London Lips lip glosses in the colour Shoreditch.

The gloss is a really pretty pink colour, I swatched it on my hand for you:

It does smell a bit like bubblegum, but not that much that it irritates me. The packaging is, like with most Eyeko products, super cute. It has little buses, phonebooths, and the Big Ben on it. Which reminds me, I really need to visit London again sometime ;) During my first visit I fell in love with Camden Town, and I really need to go shop there again!

I would like to thank Eyeko for my Ambassador gift pack, and the person who used my code for using it!

Review - Catrice Multi Colour Compact Powder

This is one of the new products from Catrice that will hit the stores in November. It's available in two versions: one for light skin, and one for darker skin. The one for light skin is the one I've tested, and it's called Rose Beige.

Here are some product shots Catrice provided of both colours:

NOTD - Catrice Run Forest Run!

Hey everybody!
Seeing how I told you yesterday that my absolute favourite of the three new Catrice polishes is Run Forest Run, I guess it's not much of a surprise I chose this lovely green colour as my NOTD today :)

I'm a sucker for green nail polish, so when I saw this colour, my first thought was: 'Ooh, pretty!'. When I then heard what the name was, I loved it even more.
This is two coats, and I'm sorry about the lighting, it's extremely crappy weather in Holland today.
Applying is like most Catrice polishes, no problems with it whatsoever.

Some other little thing I wanted to tell you guys about is the fact that eleven years ago today, my boyfriend and I got together. So it's a special day today for us :) Why celebrate at eleven, and not at ten, one might ask. Well, I guess I'm just weird like that ^^

Have a great weekend ladies!

Catrice Preview

Today, me and a bunch of fellow beautybloggers went to the Catrice Preview in Amsterdam, to see what Catrice has in store for us with their new product looks. We got to see, and try, some pretty cool new products!
I had a blast! It was so much fun to finally see some faces behind the blogs :) And everyone was so sweet!

NOTD - Catrice Wine-Tastic with Nfu-Oh 51

Hey everybody!
Just a quick post today, with some shots of today's NOTD, which I did with Catrice's Wine-Tastic, and Nfu Oh #51 layered on top:

I absolutely love Nfu Oh 51! It's so gorgeous, and combined with the dark, almost black Wine-Tastic, this makes a perfect Autumn mani, in my opinion!
Here's a close-up shot of my ring finger:

 

Gorgeous, isn't it?

I bought Nfu Oh 51 at NailXL, which can be found here :) I bought my oh-so-awesome holo there too, #61.

NOTD - Barry M Indigo

Hey everyone!
Today I'm wearing all grey and black clothes, so I decided I needed some colour on my nails :)
I chose Barry M's Indigo for this, a pretty colour that also somehow reminds me of those blue bic pens, haha!

This is two coats, photographed in sunlight.
It's a bright colour, but not too bright, and it's exactly what I needed today :)

What do you guys think of this colour?

EOTD - Green (and swatches of the Original Palette)

Hey all!
Today I decided to play around a bit with my new Sleek Original Palette, which I ordered from BeautyFocus earlier this week, and this is the look that I ended up with:

Products used:
Hema eyeshadow base
Sleek Original Palette (colours 6, 11 and 12, see below swatches)
Etos Ultra Curl & Lift Mascara

Update on The Dress

Just a short post today, because I'm very busy with the process of starting my own photography business.
I wanted to inform you guys that I will be making Dress B (here's the original post), because most of you guys voted for it :)
It'll be a very dark blue dress, and I'll line it with silver, to give it a bit of a Moon theme. I'll start on it as soon as things get a bit more relaxed with regards to before mentioned business, and of course I will post updates with pictures often!

Thanks a lot for voting ladies! Much appreciated :)

BeautyFocus Haul

Goodmorning everybody!
A new webshop opened it's virtual doors last week, called BeautyFocus. They sell products from Sleek and Barry M, and I just couldn't help myself. I had to order :)

Since I absolutely love my Sleek Circus palette I decided I needed more of those palettes, so I ordered the Original palette. I also ordered a brush set from Sleek, and a Barry M nail polish in Indigo.

I'll post some swatches and perhaps an EOTD done with the Original palette later, and I will also post a review of the brush set once I've used it for a while.
Here's a shot of the inside of the palette:

The palette was €6,99, the brush set €6,95 and the nail polish was €3,99, pretty decent prices in my opinion.

Making a new dress, but I need your help first!

I've decided to start on a new medieval/fantasy/gothic type dress, and I had this pattern laying around my sewing stuff for ages. But now I can't decide which dress to make!
So that's where you guys come in :)
This is the pattern:

Dress A is the white one (it has a built in cloak, which I kinda love), Dress B the brown one (it has awesome long sleeves). I will be making whichever dress you guys choose from a very dark blue (nearly black) cotton fabric I've gotten as a gift from my mother-in-law a while back.
I will also regularly post updates on the process of creating the dress :)

Please help me out ladies, should I be making Dress A or Dress B?

Happy Award!

The lovely Guida from Lazy Daisy tagged me with this award, thanks sweetie!

The rules of this award are as follows:
1. Copy the award image into a post
2. Then list 10 things that make you happy
3. Tag 10 bloggers who brighten your day
4. Put in a link to their blogs
5. Notify the award receivers
6. Award recipients must link back to sender’s blog

Ten things that make me happy are:
1) My boyfriend
2) My family
3) My pets
4) Photography
5) Playing around with make-up and nailpolish
6) Music (Nightwish FTW! :D)
7) Reading a nice book (reading one about Robin Hood atm)
8) Watching a good movie or tv-show (just watched episode 5 of The Vampire Diaries; <3)
9) Going for long walks in nature
10) Playing WoW (yes, I'm an addict :P)

Now comes the extremely hard part, and I'm gonna cheat a bit :) Since tags travel so extremely fast around the interwebz, and I have no idea who has already received this award and who hasn't, I'm gonna tag all my readers who have not yet posted it on their blog!

Go ladies, looking forward to reading your 10 things that make you happy! :)

NOTD - Eyeko Vampira Polish

Eyeko's polishes come in such cute bottles! Today I'm wearing Vampira Polish, 'For Gothic Nails', and I absolutely love it! It's a black base, filled with pretty little red glitters:

This is two coats, and that's enough to get an opaque coverage, which is pretty nice in my opinion!
I did use a topcoat on top to get a bit more shine, because on it's own, it's not shiny enough for my taste ;)
Here's a close-up of my ring finger, to show you all the red-glitter-goodness:

Isn't this just the best fitting polish for my blog layout? lol! :)

If you don't own this polish yet, and wish to order it, you can do so here, on Eyeko's website. They ship for free within Europe, which is awesome, and if you use my ambassador code E10776 on checkout, they even throw in a free gift for you :)

World Animal Day

Today is the 4th of October, meaning it's World Animal Day. Because I love animals, I decided to make today's post a bit larger than usual.
Since I've posted photos of my two cats Julius and Brutus before, I guess you all know them a bit by now, but what most of you probably don't know is that my house somewhat resembles a zoo. Specifically, the reptile house at the zoo :)
The Man and I keep and breed snakes. Ball pythons, boa constrictors and corn snakes. And because today's post is animal oriented, I decided it might be cool to post some photos of my pretties:

This is Pinkeh, our Albino boa constrictor, he's 6 months old now

This is Spidey, our spider Ball python, he's 2 years old now

Pretty, aren't they? More information about them can be found here, at our snakes' website.

Ofcourse I also did a NOTD today, so this post won't be all off-topic :) I chose China Glaze's Gussied Up Green today, a beautiful forest green colour from the 2008 fall collection Rodeo Diva:

 

I love this colour! This is two coats, photographed in natural light.

Finally, because it's World Animal Day, I'd like to give some attention to my two favourite organisations, who are fighting for animals year-round:

Sea Shepherd

World Society for the Protection of Animals

Give your pets an extra hug today!

NOTD - Gosh Ocean

Today I was in an oceanic mood, so I put on this polish ^^

This is a very pretty turquoise/blue duochromy, metallic polish. The duochrome effect is most visible in the bottle, but it does show up a little on the nails.
Here I'm wearing two coats, with CG Fast Forward op top. Photographed in sunlight.
I know it's more of a spring or summer colour, but hey, when I'm in the mood for a colour, I'm gonna wear it, regardless of the season, lol!

Have a very nice weekend everybody!

NOTD - Catrice Wine-Tastic

Todays NOTD is this awesome Catrice colour called Wine-Tastic, and I love this colour! Just love, love, love it!

Wine-Tastic is a very, very dark purple colour, but on first sight it looks black. This is two coats, with China Glaze's Fast Forward top coat on top.
On below close-up you can see that it actually does have purple shimmer in it:

Pretty, isn't it?

NOTD - China Glaze Ick-A-Bod-Y

I'm back! Not entirely feeling great yet, but good enough to do some new posting here :)
For today's NOTD I chose China Glaze's Ick-A-Bod-Y, from the Halloween collection.

While I love the colour of the glitters in this polish, I'm not as much in love with this polish as I am with the other colours from the Awakening collection, especially Zombie Zest, which I adore :)
Anyways, as I said, I do love the colour of the glitter in this polish. It's great for Fall, in my opinion. The green base isn't very visible, except on my little finger, where it shows a little if you look closely.
This is three coats.

What's your opinion on Ick-A-Bod-Y?

The flu...

I apologize for not posting these last few days, but as the title already suggests, I have a serious case of the flu, and have therefore not been in the mood for doing my nails and make-up.
And seriously, you do not want to see me without make-up right now, lol!
Anyways, I hope to get back to posting as soon as possible, just wanted to explain my absence to you guys.
Hope you can understand! :)

In the meantime, I leave you with one of my favourite shots of Brutus, one of my cats:

NOTD - Bourjois 1 seconde n°24 Black

I couldn't find a name for this polish on the bottle, and when I looked on the Bourjois website, this colour was just listed as n°24, so that's what we'll go with. It's a very pretty black polish with green and purple shimmer.
It's a bit on the sheer side though, so on below pics I'm wearing three coats. It did dry pretty fast, which is always nice.

The shimmer isn't too visible in above pic, so I cropped it to a close-up of my ring finger:

Here the green shimmer is quite visible, and you can see the purple shimmer at the edges. Pretty!
I bought this polish at a Dutch drugstore called Etos earlier this week, along with a Khôl & Contour Minéral eye pencil in the colour Vert mousse, because Etos had all Bourjois 2 for 1 this week.

EOTD - Brown and Black

This was actually yesterday's EOTD, and I photographed it about 10 minutes before my driving instructor picked me up for this week's driving lesson. I didn't check the photos then, which is very much unlike me, but anyhow, that's why they're not the best pics ever. Sorry!
I used the colours from the Catrice LE Caramé Smokey Eyes Kit for this.

And a shot with my glasses on:

Products used:
Catrice LE Caramé Smokey Eyes Kit
Etos Eyeshadow Base
Etos kohl liner in black
Etos volume mascara in black

All in all a nice enough look for a driving lesson, if I may say so myself :)

99 Things Tag

I saw this tag on Beautytas.nl, and since Natascha tagged all her readers, I decided to place the list on my blog as well.
You have to bold the things you've done in your life, so here goes:
(I put them in Italics, and in red, as well, since just bold doesn't show up very well on my blog layout)

1. Started your own blog

2. Slept under the stars

3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Given more than you can afford to charity

7. Been to DisneyWorld

8. Climbed a mountain

9. Held a praying mantis

10. Sang a solo

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch

15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

18. Grown your own vegetables

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitch hiked

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill

24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset

31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been transported in an ambulance

47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling

52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud

54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China

57. Started a business

58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching

63. Got flowers for no reason

64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades

75. Been fired from a job

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London

77. Broken a bone

78. Been a passenger on a motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem

84. Had your picture in the newspaper

85. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year’s Eve
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

88. Had chickenpox

89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury

91. Met someone famous

92. Joined a book club
93. Got a tattoo
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit

98. Owned a cell phone

99. Been stung by a bee

Looking at it, there's still quite a lot I want to do in my life, especially a lot of the travel things, and I still want a tattoo! Oh well, lots of time left :)

I also tag all my dear readers! I'd like it if you'd comment below that you'll place this list on your blog too, because I'm very interested in reading your lists :)

Robyn's First Giveaway

The incredibly lovely Robyn over at Starring Indie is hosting her first giveaway! And the prizes are so nice!
Have a look at them here:

NOTD - TB Edition

In honour of the True Blood finale (which sneaky me has already watched, but will watch again with The Man tonight when he's home from work), I decided to go with a bloodred polish today.
I tried to do some stamping with the Essence stamping kit I bought recently, but I seriously suck (lol) at it, so I decided to go for just the red polish.
I chose Catrice's Caught on the Red Carpet:

This is three coats. It's quite a sheer polish, so three coats is kinda necessary, but since the colour is pretty, I don't mind that much ;)

Have you guys watched the True Blood finale yet? I for one can't wait for season 4 to start, lol!

NOTD - China Glaze Wagon Trail

Now, let me start by saying that this polish did not want to get photographed today. It's very crappy weather outside, so I couldn't get the lighting right. I tried my best to show you the black/golden goodness that is Wagon Trail though :)

This is two coats, with the Fast Forward Top Coat. Wagon Trail is a blackish base with golden shimmer in it. Beautiful colour, I absolutely love it! It's from the 2008 fall collection Rodeo Diva.
Here's a close-up of my ring finger, where the golden shimmer shows a bit more:

Pretty, isn't it?

EOTD - Purple

This is my first attempt at the whole EOTD-thing, so I'd appreciate it if you're gentle with me, I'm still a noob ;)
Products used:
- Etos Eyeshadow base
- Sleek circus palette, both purple colours and a bit of black
- Chanel Inimitable Intense mascara black (sample I got with this month's Glamour Mag)

NOTD - Essence Glisten Up! over Movie Star

I used Glisten up! to spice up Movie Star, and I've got to say, I'm quite pleased with the results! Glisten Up! is a very sheer turquoise blue polish with flakies and glitter in it. Layered over Movie Star it resulted in a greenish grey colour, which I actually like a lot!

What do you guys think of this combination?

Circus!

Yesterday, when I came home, a very cool package was waiting for me. It was send to me by Suzy, from Simply Suzy. Last week she held a contest/giveaway with the prize being the Sleek LE Circus Palette, and a Gosh lipstick in the colour Darling. And I won!
I'm so happy with my prizes! The palette has some very strong colours in it, but in my opinion, that's what makes it so awesome.
Here's some pics of the pallette itself:

Fashioned in Finland's New Giveaway!

The lovely Nea, over at Fashioned in Finland, is hosting a great giveaway with some pretty awesome prizes, so what are you waiting for? Go to her site, follow her through GFC (if you don't already) and enter!
Here's a peek at the prizes she's offering:

NOTD - Essence Movie Star

Today I chose to wear this colour from Essence. It's a very pretty dark grey crème, not very original, but pretty nonetheless.

This is two coats, with my new China Glaze Fast Forward top coat. Movie Star applies very easily, and two coats is enough.
After all the glitter polishes from last week, I was in the mood for a crème, so that's why I chose this one. It's the first time I've used it, and I'm quite pleased with this polish, especially considering the price (€ 1,29 at Kruidvat here in the Netherlands).

What do you guys think?