Sugar Factory: My favourite tea room in Madrid.

Hello, everyone! 

Where have I been this February? Have I been abducted by aliens? You wish!

No, actually, I am back home after our holiday in Spain to see friends and family. This was a truly special trip, as my sister and brother-in-law came all their way from Japan to visit us and surprise my parents, but that´s a different story I might tell you later. 

For now I am going to let you know The Gentle One and I took the chance to stay in Madrid for a couple of nights. We like to spend some time there once in a while, and generally we use that extra spare time visiting museums, eating good food or simply having a walk through our favourite places.

Victorian deviations

One of my favourite deviations hobbies consists on looking for places where I can sit, have a good cup of tea, and pretend I am the first beta-tester for a time machine prototype to be successfully transported to some point between 1900 and 1929. Well, yes, that can be considered a little weird, but you weren´t expecting anything different from me, were you?

Enchanted

I managed to collect all the wonderful pictures I could find about the great Lolita event from the oficial photographers. It looks like somehow all my own photos looked blurry and quite dark.

But the important thing is that here they are: FINALLY.

I do hope you enjoy my lolita adventures as much as I did, darlings!

Pre-Enchanted brunch

On Saturday morning I woke up at my friend´s place in London, got ready and took the underground to Liverpool Station (as a matter of fact, I usually call it Loverpool Station, but that´s a different story and it would deserve its own post), where I was picking up some girls for brunch. I have no idea of how this happened, but at some point between January and last weekend, I realized I knew hardly anyone attending the big Lolita convention and figured out it could be super nice to arrange a pre-Enchanted meal, so I would have the chance to make new international acquaitances.

Five O´clock Tea at Phileas Fogg´s place

This has been a very long and nice weekend.

The type in which you make so many things that at the end it looks it has lasted ages.

On Friday afternoon, The Gentle One and I decided to spend the day together as on Saturday I was busy by developing a second brain plus a second pair of arms in order to organize and attend a Lolita meetup in Bucharest (but that´s another story... and I´ll be telling later).

The Secret List

I have a secret list.

I am sure many of you do, but maybe you don´t call it a secret list (indeed, mine is not secret neither but I like to call it that way, just for the shake of keeping the mistery around). 

What I really have is a DO list or a wishlist, a list about all the places I wanna go and the things I want to do.

Late Christmas Loot (second edition)

It begins to look like a tradition to me posting about my Christmas presents when the new year has already begun. 

But you know, I´m the kind of person who spends the holiday jumping from one to another, so planning a proper blog entry during Christmas is actually difficult.

So here I am again this year, merrily showing my Yule loot to you in the first fortnight of January.

I hope you enjoy it!

Small vices (and some afternoon tea)

First goes first, so Happy New Year everyone.
I hope you all had a memorable day accompanied by your beloved ones.
The last few days of the year have been a relaxing balm of happiness to me and my partner as long as we decided to leave stress behind a have a good time together.
These pictures are an illustrative example of it.

Its beginning to look a bit like Christmas

Instagram pictures: 1) Snowflakes on my tree. Those are the first snowflakes I could find onn my entire life/ 2)Wrapping The Gentle One´s presents/ 3) Huge Christmas Day dessert/ 4) Sparkling red nails/ 5) Nut latte at Starbucks/ 6) Early gifts with black orchid scent.

'Cause, you know, baby? Life is my palette

There are many bloggers I love out there.

 One of them is the gorgeous Magda, whose last post made me think about what products I would choose in the case of someone asking about my favs.

I am not a favs person. 

I mean, I like many films, books, writers and music bands, but it is truly difficult to me selecting the very best. Indeed, I always feel a little weird when people ask me about it: 'What´s your favourite actress?' or, 'What about your fancied food?' are just not a good way to start a conversation with me (and sometimes people can become very insistent about this type of things). 

As a logical consequence, I have chosen the cosmetics that I use currently, rather than my front-runners (because well, I simply don´t have a clear list of them).

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my top ten in cosmetics!

♥ Eyelashes. I don´t really care about brands as long as they feel cozy. The ones here are a cheap pair from Primark Beauty. They are called 'Full Look Lashes'.

♥ Nail polish. A very basic, right? I am in love with a relatively unknown brand. Leticia Well offer a stunning finish with these raven black (colour #227) and sparkling ruby red (# 231).

♥ Eyeshadow. I have never been a huge fan of eyeshadow, but pigments are a different universe (and I am on the boat of liquid eyeshadow too). Right now I am very fond of Detrivore´s Livor Mortis (a very dusty purple with powerful undertones).

♥ Enlightening concealer. Totally sold to the natural look you get by using it. When I want to keep it simple, this is always my first choice. I use Softfocus Concealer by Kiko Milano Makeup.

 
♥  Liquid black eyeliner. Kind of my personal signature, I'm sure you've already noticed that. The bottle in the picture belongs to H&M cosmetic line and I bought it last week during an eyeliner urgency. Usually, I prefer Yves Saint Lauren Eyeliner Effet Faux Cils Shocking, but as I mentioned I ran away of it in the last minute before an important event.

♥ Vegetal moisturizer cream. Nothing like vegetal oil to keep your skin silky. The specimen here is Yves Rocher Organic Vanilla Lotion.

♥ Lipstick, lipstick, lipstick! My current two favs are Kiko´s  Rouge A Lévres, and Revlon´s Va Va Violet (ey, ideal name for me!). 

♥ Fluid Comfort Foundation. Don´t try to look for it in the picture, I totally forgot to include it! However, it´s the very basic product I use everyday. Yves Rocher makes a fantastic product called Couleurs Nature. My tone is Teint Trés Clair.

♥ And of course I had to include the main tool that helps me with the basis of my everyday look. That´s the Real Techniques Stippling Brush by Samantha Chapman. Ok, it´s not a cosmetic itself but, what could I do without it?

So tell me, darlings, what are your cosmetic favs at the moment?

Born under a Bad Sign

Do you know those days when you realize how lucky  you are?

Yesterday was one of them, The Gentle One was turning thirty two.

 Yes, you guessed: he shares his Birthday with Edgar Allan Poe, so maybe that constitutes a clue about how special he is.

I thought about posting a few pictures of my outfit for such a lovely night, but then I reconsidered the whole situation and decided to keep it in the charming zone of the little impressions.

So there you have just a couple of snaps of our lovely date in a romantic restaurant, as well as the post-celebrations-Sunday-breakfast.

♥ Adorable detail of the lillies in our dinner table last night.

  ♥ Sushi is alway too good.

♥ I am trying not to eat too many treats this year but, who can say no to clover-shaped waffles?

I hope you are as happy as I am, sweethearts! ♥

Another Year in the Jar

Now the candles are extinguished and the golden days and nights full of champagne, roses and treats are over, I can sit down and think.

It looks like magic how fast this 2012 has flown away.

Sometimes I wonder if, by some dark spell, I am sleeping in a high tower as the time goes by. 

But ey, that would mean that I am not getting older anymore (and unfortunately I am, that´s for sure darlings).

No regrets, though.

Glancing back,I can see how many things I´ve done this year without even noticing:

• I passed some tedious exams, so I am really close to get my degree now (in the past some subjects were pretty much a bunch of Horror Cruxes to me). 

•  I found a great job that helps to mantain this gorgeous apartment and my quiet lifestyle together mith my better half.

•  I met new friends. It´s so nice when you are able to connect with people who are just your cup of tea.

And what do I wish for this new 2013?

Good question, indeed. I´d like to think that I will be totally finished with my degree and my academic research by the end of this year.
I also want to find a good opportunity to move to the UK (my boyfriend and I have several projects about this).

Adulthood is a funny moment in life, because basically you never know what you are going to find in the path, right? I hope all of you find your own destiny this year.

I send you all my love.

                                                               

Please, don´t forget to check charming Victorian Kitty´s blog as long as she is organizing a month event about New Year! 

My life lately (and giveaway winner)

This is a very vague testimony of my few last days this week.

As they were full with lots of twists I just could capture a couple of little impressions.

Be sure you fasten your seat belt! 

♥Last week has been kind of a madness since many changes burst into my life. 

The plans that I had built around a new job position collapsed, but a new (and unexpected) project showed up. 

Tarot is always a lighthouse in those ocassions.

 Well, I don´t trust it like an infallible orable; however, it always help to meditate about all my options.

♥As a consequence of those crazy news, now I have to deal with a narrower schedule 

which basically means a series of racing all through the city to be on time both at job and university seminars.

 On a practical level this means less time for lunch, so I try to ensure I have vitamins enough in my diet.

♥My seminars have already started but I refuse to admit that summer is over, so I keep

 reading child books just for pleasure.  

The Wind in the Willows is one of my favourite children´s literature classics ever.

Someday I´ll make an entire post about it! 

 ♥Beside all this, this week I started my pre-Halloween annual research.

 What does it consist on? Good question!

Every year at the beginning of the month I put my comfy shoes on and wander around the city

 in the want of cute stuff that I can use as Halloween stuff. 

At the moment I have been sneaking a peek at candy stores.

                 ♥I also tried to improve my origami skills with no success (the beautiful butteflies above are 

my friend Elisa´s old creations), and made lots of smothies for an extra energy dose. The smoothie in the picture was made of frozen blueberries and raspberries (no chance to get them fresh here). 

 ♥ And finally: the very expected winner of the Giveaway event.

Corresponding with the original order of participants the lucky lady is (drumroll, please):

Aoife

Congratulations, dear!

And to the rest of you, Thank you so much for participating.

I am sure you´ll have more opportunities in the future.