Cat eyes

Still having no colorful makeup at home, just my very natural eyeshadows, I decided to play with the eye liner first. Instead of the very modest thing that I usually do, I decided to try a thicker, bolder lining this time. Real cat eyes ;)

Kittycat

I used a light beige eyeshadow on the entire lid and applied a little bit of sparkly light eyeshadow in the inner corner of my eyes and right below the eyebrows. After that I grabbed a hold of my eye liner and drew a line that is thinner in the inner corner but gets thicker towards the outer corner. I also made a bolder winged-out edge, which I usually never have in my makeup. Also, I put neither any eye-liner on the lower lid nor mascara on my lower lashes. It's weird, I feel half-naked :D But the cat-eye line is intense black and thicker than the usual, so I guess it would just look ridiculous on me if I had more makeup on.

This is something that I could try for an occasion for which I would have to dress up a bit more. For going our or for a nice dinner. There's no vivid colors in this look - just the bolder line - so I could try to combine it with red lips, if I dare.. :))

Colored up

I've started to get bored with my usual eye makeup and I feel like I need some fresh ideas. I don't like to play with colors so I usually stick with very earthy and natural shades. I do have an eye-liner and if I feel like having some effort, I might use it, but it's a very basic thing that I do. I begin with a thin line in the inner corner of the eye and make a little thicker when I reach the outer corner. It's like a very modest version of cat eyes, I think. For going out, I use darker eyeshadow but it's always the same - gray smoky eyes - and that's it.

I would like to try something new, maybe a new color, but I'm not sure what would suit me. I've always thought that purple would be 'the color' for me if I ever decided to use any brighter-colored eyeshadow. But after randomly coming across with some pictures, I got inspired of other colors too. Maybe a darker shade of green or gold - or maybe even blue (which I've always hated) ?? Maybe I could try bolder cat eyes as well.. hmmh.

EDIT:

Which of the above colors would best cheer up the dull, usual thing?

The usual, with purple-gray eyeshadow

A new friend for my Paddington coat

My wardrobe had been missing a simple, feminine black jacket that I could wear on the chilly days in the fall. You know, when it's too cold for trench coats but still too early for winter jackets. I have one in red and I love it, but I can only wear it with something very casual. It's exactly like the coat that Paddington the bear has and somehow it just looks ridiculous combined with feminine clothing like dresses and skirts. 

My mom gave me a hint to go look for a coat in a store called Halonen that I would usually never enter. She had seen some coats there that were similar to what I had described I'm looking for. So on Saturday I randomly went in, spent 15mins there and walked out with a big smile on my face. I found a nice jacket at a decent price, and to my surprise, they happened to have some kind of a campaign on. When I went to the cashier, they told me to go choose a scarf that I would get as a gift when I buy a coat from them! :) Yay!

The new coat

So when I bought the coat, I chose a furry, grey tube scarf that actually goes quite nicely together with the coat too. I haven't worn it yet but I'm guessing it'll come in handy in when the weather gets a little colder. I think the coat is practical because it seems ideal no matter where I'd go; for the university, work, movies, for a night out with friends etc.

Havin a bad hair day? Me too.

Do you know those mornings that you get up and look in the mirror and see something that really is not supposed to be you. The sight reminds you more of a troll or a scare crow. Something happened to your hair while you were sleeping - it's like, a child had played some hairdresser games with your hair and you went to bed with all sorts of ponytails and braids on. And the result is difficult to tame. The problem is that the hair is frizzy and has these uneven waves, but you wouldn't necessarily have to wash it.

I discovered an easy trick for those mornings. A simple bun that doesn't require any - I mean ANY - expertise.

First you tie your hair on a 'low ponytail'. Then pull your hair through the elastic so that you get a loop.

Then grab a hold of your hair, right above the ponytail, and pull the two sections in your hands apart a bit, so that you have enough space and loose hair to press the loop in.

You just kind of press the loop through the rest of the hair and hide it there. Done. Ta-daa, nobody will see the scare crow or troll in you anymore ;)

Easy eh? Probably not, since I'm no pro and can't even explain the simplest thing here. So here's the video that I found and took hints from for my simple version of the bun :)

House warming (burning) party

On Saturday me and Ilkka finally had our house warming party. It was about time for that since we had already moved in two months ago. The furnishing and decoration were almost completed - we got the couch and the glass cupboard a couple of weeks ago and we also bought some extra chairs for the party and painted them black so that they would match better with everything else. We're still missing one big thing - light in the living room :D We haven't found a suitable lamp here and I couldn't buy a temporary one just for this occasion! I don't think anyone would? But we got a lot of compliments on the apartment and I guess people liked it here. Or maybe they're all just being overly polite :D

Cupcake recipe

Anyway, I owe my sis big time for all the arrangements. She's one hell of a baker and makes miracles in the kitchen. I've seen her creating the most delicious treats and I knew she would be of a great help in preparing the things I had planned to serve for our guests.

Ingredients: chocolate, chocolate and ummm? Chocolate!

I've been wanting to make cup cakes for a long time so we decided to give it a try now. My sister makes delicious muffins so we thought it can't be too hard to make cup cakes either. Oh well..

Dough ;)

The dough was easy - a piece of cake! Exactly like in the case of muffins, we just added some french creme and honey to it.

The making of chocolate chips

For the chocolate chips I had to use a bit of imagination, but this step wasn't too difficult either.

Getting ready for the oven

 After one layer of dough, we put dark chocolate chips in the dough and added the second layer of dough.

Baking time!

Baking the cup cakes in the oven.. oh my. That was troublesome. The first set was a disaster. We had too many cups in the oven at a time and as the cup cakes started to heat up, they became three times of the original size. The mess was horrible. It was like one giant piece of..well, I don't know what.. a pancake?? :D so we opened up the oven and the raw cup cakes went all flat. Fail. The second set was a lot smaller but we kept it 15 mins in the oven. Clearly that was too long - everything burned. Epic fail. The fourth and fifth were ok, but still we succeeded with only 80 out of 120 cup cakes so I wouldn't exactly call this process a success.

It's all about the icing

Luckily for us, it's the icing that counts so I guess we were able to fool our guests big time ;) Hehe. Besides, 120 cup cakes would have been too much, since there were quite a lot of them left even though we only had 80 to serve.

sis <3

So thanks to my sis, we got everything ready in time and managed to hide the evidence of any trouble in the kitchen. By the time that our friends got here, the horrible mess and the smell of the burned cup cakes were gone ;)

The Blue Coffeehouse

On Sunday, me and the friend that I got to know in Dublin went for a nice long walk around the bay of Töölö. It was a bit chilly but since we were on move the whole time, I didn't get cold and got to enjoy the sunny weather - there were practically zero colds in the sky. The fall is here and you can cöearly see how the leaves on the trees have already started to become yellow, orange and red. The park surrounding the lake is slowly turning into this parade of colors!

Walking in the park

I haven't been to the area too often, even though I know it's nice, and apparently I've missed a lot. My friend told me about a café located on the opposite side of the bay to where me and him live and he said that the view from the terrace is supposed to be breath-taking. I wanted to see it and we got lucky since now in October it's open only on good weather during weekends.

Sinisen talon kahvila - the Blue coffeehouse

View over the bay of Töölö

This was my first time in the 'Blue Coffeehouse' and I can't believe I had no clue that this kind of a place even exists in Helsinki. We had a cup of coffee there and just chilled out for a bit before continuing the walk.

The Blue coffeehouse from the opposite side of the bay

As we were walking back from the coffeehouse, me and my friend started talking about the house warming party that me and Ilkka are throwing next weekend. My friend gave me a lot of good hints and one of the most important things was that I should have more chairs for the party. I hadn't even thought of that! I only have four chairs and even with the couch and the bed there are not enough seats for the people that we have invited. I need to get everything ready for next Saturday!

Ducks :)

Looking at these pictures now makes me  a bit confused. I really can't understand the fall in Finland - how is it possible for the weather to change so radically? Yesterday it was all sunny and today pouring with rain. Ugh. Maybe the fact that it's a Monday today has some kind of an influence here...

Early birds and shuttlecocks

In the end of the summer, me and a friend of mine that I got to know through work got a random idea that we should start playing badminton together. We've both played before and wanted to start again, so it really seemed worth considering. My friend soon discovered that we could get a serial ticket to this recently opened badminton hall via Citydeal practically free, so we decided to get all wild and actually buy the card.

My super racket

We knew that there would probably be some restrictions on when we could go play because the card was so cheap, but after a quick check on the website, we both thought that it's just the weekends that the card is not valid on. Boy were we mistaken :D The first time we went to play was late on one evening during the week. We went directly to the reception and showed the card to the staff. A lady behind the desk was looking at us like we were insane and after an awkward silent moment she finally let us know that we're in the wrong hall. Great. She charged us 12 euros for one single hour, the same amount of money that we paid for the whole serial ticket, haha. Also, we noticed that it says on the card that it's only valid between 7am and 3pm during the week. Obviously, the only time that would suit us would be at 7 in the morning - before she has to go to work. For a moment I felt desperate - I'm no morning person, I can't do this! But we decided to give it a shot since we had already bought the card.

Team Frontside Ollie ;)

It's been three weeks now that we've managed to get up early once a week for badminton, and I love it. At first I'm always dead tired and so is she, but it's so much fun to play that it doesn't take long before we're already bouncing around the court filled with energy. Well, at least moving our bums a bit ;) Oh, and there's a nice sauna too! Like I mentioned in the beginning, the sports hall is brand new so its nice to go to a sauna that gets properly heated and is all neat. So after the game, we always go bathing in the sauna and have a nice, relaxed start for the day. Me likey.

My new take-away mug

I guess the whole badminton thing is more about just meeting the friend and catching up with her. It's so nice that we've stayed in touch, even though we're no longer working for the same company. My working contract ended in August and I continued with my studies as the fall semester began, but we still talk and meet up every now and then :)

Last night I was on the phone with her and started complaining how I envy her for her handy take away mug for coffee. She always has an easier start for the badminton mornings - a mug of delicious hot coffee on the way to the sports hall. I've been looking for a mug like that too, but they don't sell proper ones anywhere! So today at 6.30am, as we were sitting on the bus on our way to play badminton, she grabbed a second mug of coffee from her bag and gave it to me! And told me that I can keep the mug! What a luxury :)) I need to figure something nice for her too! :)