Crochet blanket

I will be moving to our first official apartment tomorrow, so I have decided to start a DIY project to celebrate this. Buying something ready-made is too easy, and self-made things give the apartment more character. Lace and crochet have always been my favourite materials. I get cold quite easily and when watching TV I love wrapping myself inside a comfy blanket, so a blanket is my next project.

from Gant

from http://www.free-crochet.com

Previously I had almost a hatred for Gant's star pattern blankets and pillows. I don't know the actual reason, I just thought that they were too plain and the prices were too much for me. I can pay for quality, but when and if I can do something myself, I will. The star pattern is really youthful, in my opinion and the more "plain" fabrics have started to interest me. Funny how my opinions about clothes and interior design stuff changes every now and then. I will be doing the blanket myself using crochet, so my blanket consists of same size granny squares (unlike the Gant blanket).

(from Dailymail.co.uk) My Dream bed

Our sofa is beige/sand coloured and our bed black, so I figured a black blanket will go with everything and not look too "granny-like", I don't think that's my boyfriend would appreciate that :) My granny squares are black.

One square, now only about a 100 to finish :D

What the pattern will more or less look like. The squares still need to be ironed and stretched so that they will be even.

I still don't know if I want to crochet my white stars, or would it be easier to just sew them. I might also do a few different pattern squares. I guess I will decide while I'm crocheting. My goal is to do at least 2-3 squares per day, so the blanket should be ready in about one month.

Beauty haul

I received an order from Sleek MakeUP yesterday, and I'm so happy about it, they turned out to be even better than I expected. I also purchased some products from Turku.

I've read many positive reviews on this tinted lip conditioner  so I had to try it.

942 Powder pink. Smells like candy vanilla and slides on like butter. Perfect for a smokey eye look!

This is definitely my new lip gloss favourite! I haven't tried such a smooth,non-sticky lip gloss in a while.

I really like brush applicators, and this had it.

This came as a free gift

I love tinted lip balms because sometimes my lips get really dry. Loved the berry taste and the fact that it's not sticky

Many people have been talking about this so I had to try. It's a good option for a regular foundation during the summer. It has a medium coverage and makes the skin "glow".The only minus was that after a long warm day my skin started getting really oily.

Clarins, a favourite brand of mine for many years. The hydra matte lotion and Gentle  foaming cleanser are perfect for oily combination skin. The Cleanser goes a super long way, because you need to apply just a tiny amount.

Beetroot-goat cheese salad that I ate today :)

Turku & Naantali trip

Anne & Tina almost matching ;)

I spent 5 days in my hometown Turku and also Naantali. It was lovely to see my friends, but the whole trip's purpose was to find an apartment for me and my boyfriend. And we did! We've both been living with our parents after the exchange period in Toronto. It has felt weird after living so many years by ourselves...  

We actually found the apartment by accident; We were on our way to our 3rd or 4th apartment viewing when we walked by an ad about a perfect apartment. The problem was that no pets would be allowed in the apartment, but we decided to ask about it anyways. And good that we did! Now we have the perfect apartment for us in the centre of Turku :) And the most important thing is that as we both have quite a lot of clothes and shoes there is an actual walk in closet as well as a lot of space for all our stuff. It's funny how much space a "music freak" and an occasional do-it-youself/painter/craftsperson need. Next weekend will be the moving day, and we still have a lot of things to do... I didn't think that returning home would be this hectic!

Here's some pictures that I took during the 5 day trip;

At the riverboat Donna

The best board game ever :)

Afrikan tähti and a really strong Irish Coffee at Bar4

Naantali

Katinhäntä= Cat's tail

Celebrating the fact that we got the apartment

Wanted to try something else than the regular beer. This was good,especially when it was a warm summer night on the patio

A lovely day for travelling

I started my day with this delicious strawberry-mint-ginger-soymilk smoothie and a jog. I'm still feeling a bit jet lagged, it's a weird feeling... I woke up already at 8 o'clock, I guess my body hasn't yet gotten used to Finnish time and the amount of sunlight. It's amazing how bright it is here even during the night! The whole day I've been feeling so energetic. Maybe it's because I know that in a few hours I'll see my Turku  friends, finally :) It's been almost 5 months that I last saw them.

Yesterday I went to a flee-market and here's some stuff I found:

hippie-dress :)

At the moment I'm sitting on the train from Helsinki to Turku. I'm too excited so the time is going by very, VERY slow! It's a lovely weather tonight so I will be going to some nice restaurant and afterwards to the river boats.

Back home with a Jetlag

Today at 2 AM I arrived to Finland. And boy, the travel experience was by far worst I've ever had! First we had to fly from Toronto to Bruxelles. This took about 6,5 hours. This part of the trip was alright as there were many movies to watch during the flight. I'm not a big Twilight fan, but I still ended up watching the latest part! After this flisg came the worst part of the whole trip;We had stay at the Bruxelles airport for 12 hours. Brussels Airlines for some reason stopped flying to Helsinki so we  had to fly to Frankfurt to catch the Helsinki plane. We had originally planned to fly from Bruxelles straight to Helsinki, but our travel agency had to change it. I still can't believe they coulnd't find a better option than a 12 hour wait... All in all the whole trip from Toronto to Helsinki took about 35 hours(without sleep) so now I'm suffering from a pretty bad Jetlag.

I must admit, it's pretty nice to be back home. Toronto was great, but I think 4 months was just the right duration for my exchange experience. It's funny how I really started missing certain clothes,shoes etc. while I was there. I have always loved painting, arts and crafts, but I wasn't able to do anything without my stuff! At the moment I don't have an apartment so I have to stay at my parents' house. The problem is that my parents are renovating their "regular" house, meaning the house I grew up in, so my parents, my 2 cats and I are living in a pretty small apartment at the moment. However, it feels like home because some of the furniture are the same "old" ones.

The greatest part of staying at my parents' is that I don't have to pay rent and the fridge is always full of yummy food :) This will do fine before I find a new place in Turku :) As soon as I move into the apartment, I can start doing clothes and other projects, hooray!

Something I had waiting for me :)

Yesterday's outfit,new hair and more

This was my outfit yesterday when we went to the city to have "the last dinner" and drinks with our exchange student friends. I put a coat on, but it was a bit too warm for it. It's Nice that the final days in Toronto have been super warm! I finally got to cut my hair and colour it as well, it was in such horrible greenish and super dry condition after all the swimming. The colour is pretty close to my own hair colour so it will be easy to just let it grow.

Day 4 in Miami Beach

Yesterday was Cinco de mayo, a Mexican holiday. There was so much people in town and it ended up being quite crazy! First we had dinner and after a few drinks. The "few drinks" ended up being HUGE, 1,2 litres per drink. I took a strawberry daiqiri and the second round was free so beer was my second choice. I couldn't finish either one! When we were waiting for the bus to go to the hotel, things started going wrong; apparently the bus was 1,5hours late, and there were a lot of very aggresive people at the bus stop. It was nice that I got to sit down because my heels were killing me. I didn't know at that point that I was actually sitting next to some older man who had been acting crazy and pointing people with a knife... The cops came to the bus stop and started searching the guy's stuff in order to find a weapon. Thank God he hadn't gone crazy while I was sitting next to him! In the end we took a taxi because people were staring to get angry at each other and because of all the fuss.

Today It was the hottest day today so far, and I actually got a bit of a sunburn. We decided to go shopping in the evening, but in the end I didn't feel like shopping. We just walked a while in town, bought some food and came to the hotel.

People celebrating

Searching for a weapon

Healthy breakfast

Mr. Pink

Ourfit of the day

Trying darker make-up than usually