Super fun giveaway! On an amazing blog!

The story - Sara ramirez

Recovering an old box

I turned an old box into a box for my masking and deco tapes. I love masking tape I use it for everything lately! And I added some flair by using a blythe postcard as a top image. I added the little iron bits from a roll of tinfoil so i can rip my tapes easily.

OOTD

Outfit of the day.

Shirt: H&M

Necklace: etsy

Purse: I am

Skirt and belt: JBC

Cardigan: JBC

Body: mine XD

my jury exhibit for painting class

Here are some images of the little exhibit of my work for one of my courses, Painting and picture analyses. Also the same course I wrote the Ensor essay for.

Better images of the actual paintings will be coming soon.

Finished my ensor paper!

Proof! Some of the pages from my paper, yes I write essays in indesign XD I'm a bit of a graphic nerd like that!

One of my favorite things in the world is this baby tea! You can drink it hot or cold and it's suposed to be for 4-36 month olds, but this 23 year old loves it too! This is the camomile flavor.

Favorite dress and to do list

First of all we've been having some gorgeous sunny days, and I always think Belgium looks better when the sun shines, sadly enough we don't get sun that often....

This is a picture of my school, KASK (royal academie of arts) in Ghent, it's actually an old hospital that they have recently renovated for us. I love this school so much, this is a picture of the old renovated part.

Other then that I love the sun because I get to wear some of my favorite dresses <3 Like this dress from who's that girl! See the small picture below And a bonus a picture of Egon and myself chilling in the sun!

To do list

- Finish my Ensor essay

- Finish my paintings

- Draw my handdrawn/digital book pages for zine book

- Finish my track and trace project

- Start studying for my exams!!!!!!

- Find tutorials on bookbinding that might actually help!

Martina Mail

I wanted to share a very fun piece of mail I found in my mailbox this year! A little letter/package by Martina from Croatia, one of my favorite and at the moment also one of my only penpals. I love LOVE receiving mail from her, and thought she was worth a blog post!

I actually like not having too many penpals, I feel it's easier to reply in a true manner better, then if you have a gazillion of them. Also my health doesn't allow for too many anyways. So I am very gratefull to have found such a creative and lovely penpal as Martina <3

Pippo's cupcake/cookie workshop

Today me and a friend and her sister ( and a fellow blogger) went to a cupcake, cookie easter design workshop! We actually had never worked with roll fondant before so we wanted to try it out before we bought the stuff and this workshop seemed perfect! I had been looking forward to it for weeks and it was defenitely worth it! I loved !!!!!!!! it.

here is the result! I'm mostly fan of my hippy bunny!

The cupcakes and cookies where pre-baked and we had to pay 5 euro's in advance to enter. I think it's a great way to spend a few hours, I am thinking about organising days like this with some of my own friends. I think it would be great fun!!!! We could pitch together to get more colors and it would be awesome!

Virgin#2

Yet another zine related topic ! Sorry folks but my life is all about zines right now!

I got a mail this week from the author of Virgin zine, saying that she finished Virgin#2

Of course I got really excited since this number has the first piece I have ever written for a zine submission before and I couldn't wait to get it, and the post didn't fail me 2 days later I got it! And here it is VIRGIN#2 an issue full of people's stories on how they see Virginity. I am very proud to be a member of this zine, since it gives a true unique view on the subject of sex and virginity. I am glad I did a piece for it, and I loved reading other people's stories too!

If you want an issue please contact

virginzine@gmail.com

Chronic fatshionista #1

My zine Chronic fatshionista #1 seems to be going okay. I even got a distro offer that I'm working on right now to round up that deal, and I've had some other people show interest in it. For me it's important to get this issue out there because it deals with the beginning of the diagnose of FM and EDS and I think for my of us out there it's a long road to travel before you can find someone that believes you! And that says " hey! We can't heal this bitch, but we can sure help you tame it down"

So anyone else interest in this zine ? Or updates on the next issue please just contact me, I don't bite, specially right now. (Toncilittis)
I'm thinking of either making the next issue about what went on the six years I went without a proper diagnose. The way doctors treated me, friends, family. How I dealt or better how I didn't deal very well with the disbelief, that SURELY will come your way when you have FM.

Wish me luck, that the next issue wont take me months to complete! Also I just got word that Virgin #2 will be coming out soon, I did a little piece for that zine about how I don't think I actually lost my virginity , since it was taken from me at such a young age, I never felt like I had it go give, later in life.

swapbot swap

I am a member of a swapping community called swapbot! if you like swapping, mail packages! Go check it out

And I am involved in a swap to get more viewers on your blog.

Visit my blog & blog about it - Max 20 partners!

This posts is my review post for that swap. it featered a great range of different bloggers! If you're interested in them go check them out! there are some great bloggers on swapbot!

http://consciousness-collection.blogspot.com/
Crafting, traveling, MASKING TAPE!!!!!! do I need to say more ? This is just a very fun blog about bits and pieces, crafting and live! I especially love all the paper references to decotape, ephemera…. A very nice blog go take a look!




Recipies! Fun to read, mom, crafting tips and tricks, swapbot swaps.

http://www.betwixxt.blogspot.com/

A very fun blog, from the layout to the content. A lot of different topics, inspiration , a little herb garden inhabited by a lovely gnome!











A very useful blog! She shows a lot of offsite links to great causes, products, swaps etc. And tutorials people! We all love those!



A great blog for family people and mom's out there! I love that she puts up links for products on diaper covers and cute baby pictures! I'm not a mom myself but I would love blogs like these once I am. And just a great all around life blog!







Giveaways, 5 question fridays, Book reviews <3 Another great blog for a fun read!

http://nasreensthisandthat.blogspot.com/
A very nice and lengthy blog, but a south african blogger! I love that she really puts a lot of effort into her texts, i enjoy reading her entries and I also love the the crafty items she blogs about. It's also nice to read about the life of someone living in south africa! PLUS AMIGURUMI people!!! go read!

http://bpositivebfree.blogspot.com/
I love love love the vintage layout of this blog! Again this is a blogger who puts a lot of effort into her text posts and again i really enjoyed reading some of her entries!

A little quote from her blog that I loved
'When you stumble and fall there's always some way to get back up again. It's just up to you to decide what you will do when you're back on your feet again? Will you succumb to pity or own the situation with strength? My humble stumble really taught me a lesson yesterday. It reminded me that I do have the option to keep going and to push right to the finish. Things may not be perfect. I may fall sometimes. But I don't want to feel sorry about that. I want to be thankful for the opportunity to become stronger because if it.'

http://beastybeast.blogspot.com/
A blog after my own heart, one that speaks the truth and doesn't filter anything out! Speaks about depression, life, tattoo's and baking! I think this blog is high on my love list, just because it reminds me a bit of many per zines out there! A great read!








Voor mij een heel leuke blog omdat ze zowel in het Nederlands als in het Engels blogt!
For me this is a very fun blog because she blogs in dutch as well as english!
Blogging about swaps, recipes , product reviews and creativity!

just a quick outfit update, threw this together to go out shopping, having icecream, enjoying the sun int he city yesterday.

Lush review: mask of mangaminty

Everyone who reads my blog, will probably know that I am a huge fan of lush products! Not only are they good for the enviroment, they don't test there problems on animals and it's just really good for your skin! Especially, people like me who have a sensitive and difficult skin.

Mask of magnaminty

Boy does this mask stick to it's name, it smells like the most delicious peppermint scent. At first it feels really cool on your skin. i keep mine in the fridge, but since this isn't a 'fresh' mask, you can keep it in a normal place as well.

Slowly you'll start to feel the tingle and burn of the pepperminth and you can just feel your skin getting treated by this wonderfull mask.

You'll look like a monstor of the lagune, but for me this just ads to the apeal of the mask. After rinsing it off with luke warm water, and making

circles on my skin, since this mask has a bit of a build in scrub as well. I felt my skin and it's

extremely soft now, and it feels so clean! Defenitly worth it to check it out! And since t

his isn't a mask you use everyday, it's a nice buy and lasts a long time. I bought the small pot. Since I am only using it on my face, but it's also great for your neck and back! I might try this out on a really warm day to cool down my skin!

All in all another great lush product to add to my growing lush collection!

Bag love

As many of you, I am a bag NUT I love bags! I love them in all sorts and sizes. And when I find one it's usually love at first sight! The same with this little beauty it's a tiny bag, 25 cm long, from I Am. I love love love it! Only 19,95 € of course I had to buy it! After I kept fluttering back to it while being at the store. I literally hugged it all the way home!

My perfect little, summer bag, It holds my wallet, cellphone, lipstick, ipod and medication purrfectly ;)

Lecture by Rob Hornstra

Just got home from a lecture by this man (see above) a Dutch artist, from the Netherlands, that does documentary photography, combined in books, with several different , graphic designers, writers etc... It was an interesting lecture since he spoke a lot about how he got to be a selfpublishing author, he talked about crowdfunding and also about in-takers.

So he would just ask people in advance if they wanted to take part in his book before it was published, he got the money for the book, managed to get a fund to publish it and the people in return got there names published in the book itself. It's actually a very smart way to work if you think of it. You reward the people that believe in your book, you boost there ego, and in the mean time you gather the neccesairy capital to get your book out there!

He also talked about his work as a photographer, the different projects he was involved in and how he worked. What he said about not wanting to please his subjects was interesting. He gave the example of a famous Dutch actor, that he wanted to get photographed in a certain angle, but that Rob wasn't interested in those kind of pictures, so he actually pissed the man of to get the photograph he wanted. Arogant people need to be photographed arogant... it's how he sees it. And as an artist point of view I do agree, but my human side isn't so much into that way of working, I do believe in building up a relationship with your subjects /Clients.

http://www.borotov.nl/ ------ His website

He also talked about the importance of blogging in the artist industrie, and this I am a huge fan of, getting featured in a blog is so much better, publishing wise, then getting featured in a local newspaper, blogs just reach a bigger public.

Blog readers

Hey followers, readers, hidden creepers....

I have noticed a lot of new faces around here lately, this has something to do with a swapbot swap I am doing, more about that later. I just wanted to say " Hi" And tell you a bit about this blog. On the outside it looks like a very fun and normal , craft/food/shoplog/fashion blog, but you'll learn that there's always more then meets the eye with me. You will find posts about FM and my battle with chronic illness, or the fact that I had a rough childhood. But all in all i try to keep the 'heavy' stuff for my zines. And keep my blog happy , but real!

I hope you enjoy reading and fell free to get in touch me with about anything and everything you want!

Love
Kaatje

cupcakes

These cupcakes where so yummy, I should make them again! I just made some normal vanilla cupcake batter and added some almond powder and almond essence. Then I put a layer of the batter in the cup and then added a teaspoon of peach marmelade., filled the rest with batter, baked for 25 minutes and then let cool, adding a icing of powdersugar and a little bit of lemon juice.... DELISH!

ZIne update

I finnaly finished my new zine, chronic fatshionista, and I have reprinted Tired eyes #2, If anyone is interested in copies of these zines, please contact me (tired.eyes.diy@gmail.com) and I will give you my paypal adress. Copies are 1,5 dollars/each plus 1,5 dollar shipping.

Tired eyes #2 : Perzine, that deals with several topics, feminisme in my family, fear of commitment, art school,...

Chronic fatshionista #1 : This zine will always have just 1 topic, this first one deals with my year of getting diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, CFS and EDS. It shows you what I went through, how I felt about it ... it is not a guide on how to live with these things, just an insight in ONE patients mind.

chibi's

Today I made some chibi's one is KLAINE, because let's face it it's on my mind all the time these days, the other is a custom I did for my soulmate Egon.

ZINE VICTORY!

I finnaly FINALLY finished my new zine ' Chronic fatshionista 1' All I need to do now is go to the copy center, rpint up copies and hope some people will be interested in reading it!

I'll take pictures once it's copied!

kunst in vision part

As you can see I started a video project for one of my new art assignments

I decided to videolog it in English since most of my followers aren't from

Belgium and it's easier to reach more people this way.

Sorry about the bad lighting and everything but it's just an intro. Also those photographs aren't mine they where found on flickr. So if anyone knows any of the artists I would love to say thank you to them for inspiring me.

Let me know what you guys think and if I should do more video logs like this ?

sunshine lollipops and ... owl necklaces!

I want to share one of my favorite things of the moment with you guys and it only cost me 3 euro's!!!!!!!!! So here it is my new favorite necklace an ow necklace I found on etsy! (scroll down to get the shoplink)

I always wanted one of these, but let's face it I'm cheap and I didn't want to spend over 10 euro's on a necklace! So I went etsy hunting knowing that if you can get a reseller from China you can make very good deals! This is how I found this little fellow and a buddy octopus to join him! The shop is called Life little, only positive etsy feedback and the shipping took one week and ahalf wich is normal for China to Belgium. The shipping cost was around 3 euro's as well and if you combine shipping with multiple necklaces you really get a good bargain!

Also a bonus Chinese shipping is almost always tracked so where my necklaces so if anything goes wrong just contact the seller and she can help you out by tracking your package. All in all a great experience and I will surely buy from her again!

+ you get the chain as well included in the price!

Life little etsy shop

nailpolish

A couple of weeks ago I was in the mood for a new nailpolish color. I go with periods of hating to wear nailpolish to periods where I am obsessed with the stuff. Lucky me there was a sale on one of my favorite brands it was 1,49 € per bottle in Kruidvat. So I decided to buy a few colors. The pinkish looking one on the right is actually more of a brown/purple color.

left to right

Hip queens wear blue Jeans, it blue my mind! , Poison me poison you, From dusk to dawn and I sea you.

I love the names they give these colors! I do need a few more red ones... although I hardly ever wear any red nailpolish.

Ukelele

My newest love my UKE (still needs a proper name) Lately I've been seeing people play ukelele all over the place. I used to learn how to play the guitar but because of my fibromyalgia I couldn't keep up the weight of the guitar so I gave up and sold it. untill I started thinking about it... and the ukelele is a perfect instrument for me!

Who's that girl dress

Do you have this problem. You buy a great dress! You love it! You want to wear it only it's the wrong season for it! And normally I am a fan of layers but this dress just screams Belgian Spring! I have bought the perfect leggings for it and I stare at it every once in a while when I open my closet to get out some wintery outfit. Which I love as well. But I am dying to wear this dress!

I do need some shoes to go with it! But I need to go to the hospital first to get my special orthopedic soles since yes having EDS means you can't even wear normal soles you need 'special' ones.

What kind of shoes do you think would be good ? For spring I am thinking a brown/caramel color, closed toes , ancle model, no heel since i can't wear heals.

http://www.whosthatgirl.eu/

shop in Antwerp and SOON! in Ghent!

mother daughter sewing

My mother and I are starting a little project together. I bought way too much fabric for making myself some summer dresses and she came to the rescue she's going to be making herself some shirts out of it. So we decided for fun to just do it together. She can teach me some new techniques and I can enjoy some precious alone time with my mother. I think it's fun that in the 21st century that my mom and I can still do things together that most girls don't do with there mother anymore. My grandmother taught me how to cook and my grandfather taught me how to DIY anything in wood and how to fix things in the more unconventional ways. My grandpa and I also lay my floors here in our new house, wich is amazing, my cousins never had time like this with there grandparents because they just can't be bothered. They're a generation younger then me and I can tell the difference. I love the fact that I am being thaught some things first hand and not out of books or online.

Do you guys have a good bond with your mother ? Any projects you did ?

Work area and Typo

A work area is a very important place for any designer. As you can see mine is dominated bij Apple hardware, a very important backup disk! Since I had a misfortune with loosing all my work a few years ago so now I use timemachine to backup my work every 116 seconds or something. Also my illustrator wow book in the far right corner, my two free font index books ( A must have! ) and my sketchbook and of course post-it reminders of the work I still have to do.

Free font index books

Free font index contains a cd-rom with all useable free fonts to help you in your work. i love these books they offer so many fonts and you have a clear printed view on them in the book itself and some info on typografie and the person that designs the type.

Happy Love day!!!!

Speaking as a single blogster I decided not to wish you guys a happy valentines day but a happy love day! Whomever you love deserves the attention , your best friend, pet, loved one, family member, partner.... love isn't limited to a partner but is all over the place!

Graphic design tip

Colourmod is a widget that I use a lot while graphic designing.

You can pick a colour on the right and it shows you the Hex number, the cmyk value, the RGB value the Hue and saturation... everything you need to identify and correctly use this color again and again.

Also you can do it the other way around you can put the numbers in and a color will apear.

Very handy for designing websites or just altering your blog no need to go on the web or open a programma to find the number for your color just open your dashboard pick a color and there is all the information you might need!

Download here

Please grab my button and share it on your lovely blogs, sites,....

<center><a href="http://wallflowerdiy.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="wallflowerdiy" src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y162/Kaatje_love/blog_button.jpg" /></a></center>

Outfit of the spring glimps

Today is the first sign of spring creeping around the corner very very slowly!

Product review 01

I want to share some of my favorite products with you! Today I will be showing you 3 items I cannot seem to live without the last couple of weeks!

from left to right

1. GOSH effect powder : I have several colors of this powder I use it for mascara or highlighting, it comes in these very small glass jars and costs 7,95 euro's which I think is a lot to be honest but it seems to be lasting me a long time.

2. GOSH soft'n shine lip balm : it's a very soft lipstick that really hydrates your lips. the colour doens't last very long but it's still worth it. I use a mocha tone for my lips to keep them natural looking. this was about 8 euro's.

3. LUSH color suplement : I love this as a foundation I use it pure to hide my dark circles under my eyes and I mix it with my day creme as a light foundation. it looks very natural as you would expect from a lush product and it comes in a small glass jar with the typical lush styling. It costs about 15 euro's and it does last a long time. I think this is my favorite make up item so far.

jury

My jury is done and I have no idea how it went, as alwaysI wasn't very satisfied with my work and I feel like an empty vessel at the moment... like they drained all the creativity out of me and I want to find a stupid desk job for the rest of my life.... of course this feeling will pass in a day or two after many hours of watching brainless tv shows and listening to fun music....

and for my typo loving friends heres a fun site that shows several font types used in the real world.

http://fontsinuse.com/

And my newest addiction lomography-style pictures taken with my ipod!