Setting Goals And Actually Persuing Them

I have talked before about my new years resolutions very shortly here and I want to review those and some of my other unmentioned resolutions here.

• Buy no/less "new" clothes

I can't actually remember supporting fast fashion chains exept from (what feels like a decade ago) a band tee from... *yuck* Primark and I think it was late 2015 or really early 2016? But then the guilt was just overwhelming and that really helped me to step up my game of only shopping ethically. I have just recently faced a huge struggle with my shoes (like even more than usually I am picky when it comes to them) because I really don't know what the stores policies are and the cheaper ones seem bad quality but I also don't want to promote brands like Nike which I know have bad work circumstances. I have also been way more conscious about if I really needed the clothes > I have an actual hole in my old shoes and that was a definite yes. Nowadays everything new in my closet is handmade by meee or thrifted.

• Travel by myself

The actual plan was to visit one of my best (internet) friends in Ireland preferably in this summer vacation but she got a job with a busy schedule now so that is changed to a solo travel abroad. I will be booking with an organisation that even picks out a destination for you and also decides on where you will stay. You can choose what kind of accommodation/trip you want depending on your budget. I haven't booked yet but I'm going with the cheapest one where I stay in a hostel for 4 nights end August. I also have a small annual 'camping' trip coming up this weekend but we're staying in one of those camp buildings schools often use. It's an event centered around Korean culture organised by friends of me and we play a lot of games at the location and in the woods.

• Make my own costume

My original plan for this was Rey from Star Wars because I am a major geek. However I have such a lot of trouble even finding materials that I most definitely won't even finish for comic con so I have to pause that for now. As a back-up plan I will now go with a simple outfit Clary Fray from the netflix-show Shadowhunters because my sister wanted to cosplay one of their characters too. I got a 5 euro second hand dress that I will alter and it is currently in pieces oops, but I will put it back together before the 28th of August and post my process here.

• Challenge myself

I think my new goal in life is to do/see/learn as much as possible and just to try and step out of my comfort zone. As you all have probably seen I am doing two reading challenges this year. I have stopped the updates as I kind of switched a lot to online books too but I will make an overview soon I think. I'm also going to try this kind of happiness challenge I found on pinterest and treat it more like a bucketlist and try to cross something off daily and write about that particular thing.

• Explore The Netherlands

Even though travelling abroad is really exciting with my travel pass I am able to go everywhere in the weekends and I feel like mostly I am not getting enough out of it. With my new Youtube channel I got back into making videos and I can use some new content. Soon I will make a list of places I still want to visit and cross it off one by one each weekend hopefully.

You can check out my general bucketlist here and don't be afraid to let me know what your goals are or if you have any suggestions.

Stay adventurous and determined you all <3

Xx

Inspiration From Narnia?!

Haaiii!!

So yeah normal people totally judge me for it but confession time: I still absolutely adore the narnia movies. A while ago I watched all three movies in a row and they made me so happy and I felt so inspired by the costumes. Years ago I have made designs based on the movie and they would be kind of hard to actually recreate but I needed an outfit that made me feel like I was a queen of this magical land behind the wardrobe (I looked in mine but didn't find anything but socks with holes)

 I made a very simple pants using the pattern of an old pajama pants. It has an elastic waistband and I added cross stitches to the bottom for that fantasy look. I combined the pants with a second-hand top that has a lot of lace which isn't so visible in the pictures (believe me it's there) and since a lot of the costumes were accessorized by big belts I pulled out my favorite one. I haven't worn these boots a lot because the heel doesn't make them extremely comfortable but no shoes fit this outfit better than they do.

Xx

Haulternative: Clothing Transformations

So, a while ago I heard of this "Haulternative" thing it's basically a movement against the fast fashion industry and the pressure of constantly buying new clothes and stuff to fit in. I haven't bought from chain stores for so long (which was my new years resolution) I also limited my thrifted purchases since I really don't need new stuff anymore. But well I just want to show a bit how items in my closet have been changed recently. Because well why spend money on new clothes when you can recycle your old stuff right ^^

I have always loved this cardigan from H&M so much just the material and the fit but I think it was a size small or medium so it hasn't fitted me very good and it was super tight around the arms. I was really hesitant cutting it up but I also wanted to keep on wearing it. I just removed the arms and made the armholes a bit bigger. I like how it turned out the asymetrical silhouette is way more visible this way and a great piece for layering without much extra warmth. This outfit gives me quite a dystopian feeling I love it.

These two pieces started off as dresses as you can see. The fit of the top part didn't make me feel confident and I was constantly pulling at it, I felt it was also quite unflattering. I gave both a good second life as skirts. The floral skirt was supposed to be knee-length but I measured the elastic for around my waist instead of it's original height but for now im keeping it like this ^^

I bought this tulle (bit overpriced) skirt at Forever 21 quite some time ago. It went unworn ever since it landed in my closet. Their sizes only go to L which is a bit too small for my fat ass apparently... The lining was really tight and uncomfortable and I was fooling around with making it shorter and a slit but it all didn't work out that well so I just cut it off completely. It is now great for layering and dressing up any plain dress even though that might be a little bit too fancy for normal occasions but I love the way it looks!

This was all for this post I have another one coming up with my vintage dress alterations. Hope y'all stay creative and are able to drink loads off tea~
Xx

Mori Lesson 1

Hello!!!
I don't know how much people would learn from this but it can maybe be useful as inspiration I hope? I want to show you some of my Mori Kei looks and the seperate pieces I used to put the outfits together. I'm planning to make a few more in the future ^^

1st Dress: Market
2nd Dress: Forever 21
Kimono: Handmade

1st Skirt: Market (altered)
2nd Skirt: H&M (altered)

Shirt: Primark
Cardigan: Thrifted

 Skirt: Market
Dress: Market
Top: Market
Cardigan: H&M

This was my first attempt at Mori disneybounding this is already a sneak peak for a disneybound post I plan to do in the future.

Tank-top: H&M

Skirt: H&M (altered)

2nd Skirt: Forever 21 (altered)

3rd Skirt: Vintage (altered)

Hope this helps some of you all <3 Xx

Self-Made Mori Outfit

Helloo!!!

It's been quite a while again <3 Yesterday there was an anime convention in the Netherlands. I took part in the Japanese fashion show and had a blast! It went way better than the other ones I was in I was way less nervous. For months even I was unsure what to wear since I always decide very last minute but once again 3 days before the event I got tons of inspiration and motivation to make something myself so after I got the materials I sew it all in the remaining 2 days. I drew my inspiration from Star Wars this is what I'd wear if I would live on Jakku. I also went with a little bit of a post apocalyptic feeling. 

Since the main pieces are completely made out of old clothes I'm gonna talk a bit about the process. Note that I layered this with a tank top and leggings I didn't make myself haha. I dressed it up with a thrifted belt that I tie up with some ribbon since I didnt like the original closing.

The top was probably the hardest and longest from all three. I bought an 2 euro XL shirt at the thrift shop because I didnt exactly like the color combination of my original top. It was on the verge of a disaster and thought I was going to be unable to save it after I cut a major deep neckline for my off the shoulder idea. But to be fair it was the first time I did something off-shoulder and I solved it by a rectangle with elastic at the top two rectangles as sleeves (they were part of the actual sleeves) and added 2 meters lace and whoop I got myself a 4 euro shirt that's honestly perfect in my opinion.

These shorts were originally a skirt, I didnt like it anymore because it felt really plain and the waistband was getting too tight. I tore it apart and re-patterned it with my favorite (pj) shorts and sew elastic at the top with a zigzag stitch. I added embroidery to the bottom and it didnt go that neatly because of the knit fabric but I'm still pretty pleased with the overall look of it.

In it's last life this was a pencil skirt that got super unflattering on me. I cut it up asymmetrically and I was pretty s(cr)ewed to find out I ran out of thread for the embroidery I was meaning to do. I mixed it up with two rows of cross stitching in another shade of brown and I think I prefer this. At the back there is only one row of cross stitching. The skirt is tied with a green ribbon I originally wanted to use a sand coloured one with a golden shimmer but it turned out to be bias tape after I bought it (check better next time!! ahh) But this saved me since all my other options were pink.

I am really happy with how this all turned out and it was really worth all the work and stress even though if I'd wear this in public I'd get major stares and weird reactions.

Xx

I am back on youtube!! It's been ages but if you want updates on my life and adventures please go to my channel I am planning to post all kinds of stuff that also goes well what ive been always blogging about on here so check it out please xxxx

Reading Challenge - February

I am really behind on my reading challenge post but ill do this one and upload a march/april one in 2 weeks. In February i had a bit of a hiatus and didnt read extremely much. I included 2 fashion books that dont have that much text but I liked them a lot the pictures were very inspiring.

The 5th Wave: This book was an utter disappointment for someone who really likes dystopian stories. I think that the concept was really nice and interesting but the execution was so poor that I thought the writer was an inexperienced/unschooled 20-something person - which he wasn't really... The writing is bad and I was majorly confused when they changed the narrative's perspective the first time because I thought the whole book was told from the view of the main girl. Also like practically all the dystopian stories: complete unnecessary heterosexual love story and I hate the way the writer describes the guy as some kind of perfect god. At first I liked the references to my favorite movies later on I felt like they were a lack of inspiration. I found so many things wrong with this book and there is a sequel (which i'm not gonna buy)

The Mortal Instruments: I have been a fan of the movie since I saw it in the cinema then they made it in a tv show and because I couldn't wait for it to finish I started reading the books in between. I love the depth of the characters and the demon-world combined with the mundanity. There isn't much to say about this except that everyone needs to start reading this series or well maybe not... if you want to have a life.

This was it~
Hope you all are better on track with your reading resolutions than I have been haha

Xx

Sewing projects

Hi!!
Lately ive been quite busy with finishing some clothes and I want to show you what I made ^^

This might be my favorite piece I made in my life~

I made it especially for an event for Japanese fashion and I couldnt decide what to wear.

I did 3 days over this the embroidery was a lot of practice and the total product could have been neater but I plan to remake it in other colors someday ^^

I didnt quilt the left skirt all by myself it was like that when i bought it at the thrift shop.

I love the mushroom fabric too they are just very simple skirts but I like them.

I embroidered a second-hand jacket with stars 

and glued some non-sticky cheap patches on it too 

Xxx

Ikea

Haaii!!

It has been some time but I still want to share this. A while ago I went to Ikea with my sister we finally have one in the city now and it's the second time we went there. I absolutely love to ride my bike and its half an hour away from my house and the landscapes outside town are absolutely stunning and so relaxing. I needed a new lamp because my old one was completely ruined and some organizers to show off my bags so i didn't need to stuff them away under my bed anymore. We also heard there was this new vegan dish and we just had to try it out, turned out it sucked since it was pretty tasteless and it wasn't even extremely cheap. It is still great they now have a vegan dish but next time we will just stuff ourselves with snacks, the bread and (fruit)salads there and of course a big glass of coke (secretly one of my biggest addictions even though I can't handle caffeine well) 

I was seriously so amazed with their plant collection, such beautiful creatures picked up just these two cuties <3

I present the new lamp~ it makes my (messy) room look wonderfully pink

I want to plant some herbs in this maybe??

I absolutely adore raspberries and big towels no surprise i didnt have to think of the combination

The hooks to display my bags, they are multi-functional if you screw them on a wall you have two hooks but im not really allowed to damage the walls :( but these are enough to hold my (favorite and most used) bags

Xxx

Reading Challenge - Jan

Hello!!
This year I decided to do two reading challenges, yes two, because i wanted to do one last year but i horribly failed but now I am reading books like crazy so im doing this one and this one. Even though I am quite late this time I want to kind of review the books I read after a month and show my progress. I am the kind of person that reads more books at once sometimes so I will only write about the ones I finished. At the end of the year I will post the pictures of the lists with crosses or something to show how I did. So here are the books I read in January:

Alex Rider - Scorpia
While basically everyone I know has Harry Potter as their childhood book-series this has been without a doubt the piece of magic in my life. The Alex Rider series written by Anthony Horowitz has 9 books and the first one has been made into a movie, Stormbreaker, I really recommend it. It made me sad to finish this. I put it away after I didnt like a certain part but i still picked it up (courageously) again.

Aesop's Fables
A book with a lot of short stories that have a deeper meaning and a moral. Most of them have non-human characters. The themes deceit and trusts are used a lot. This book is perfect for people with less concentration like me.

Politically Correct Bedtime Stories
This book was absolutely flawless!! I got it as a present from my twinsister and its overloaded with humor and satire. The writer has altered stories like Cinderella and Rapunzel to a version that would be politcally right hence the name. If you are into political issues and fairy-tales it's a must-read.

The Sense Of An Ending
An absolutely beautiful book. I started reading it once but somehow I never finished but it was so long ago that i barely remembered the parts I did read. It gives a great new perspective on time and memories. It's written really well and I really increased my vocabulary with this.

Stay warm y'all and keep reading
Xx

Adventure's Of This Week

Hello!!
This week was fun overall Monday I went on a bike ride to get out of my house. I visited 4(!!) thrift shops, a fabric shop, the dollar store and a bio-grocery store. I went to get a special kind of black tea I've run out of and normally i really can't handle that much caffeine but when I've slept bad its a perfect boost in the morning. Sadly enough they didn't sell it anymore or not at the moment :c I ended up seeing a lot of things at the thrift stores that caught my eye but when i tried them on they just weren't right sadly enough. I ended up finding a black cardigan with lace that i saw earlier but didn't bought back then and I ended up regretting it but I guess luck was on my side this time :D it is a few sizes bigger than me and now it doesn't look very good but once I alter it it will be fine ^^

Wednesday they showed my all-time favorite movie 'Labyrinth' at the cinema I have a subscription to because David Bowie passed away. Sadly enough I totally got the time wrong because i was so absent-minded and i had to rush to the station because it was only in the bigger cities. Luckily I went with my twin-sister and we were only 5 minutes late or so. I loved watching it on the big screen it was so amazing and magical and a dream come true.

Saturday I didn't want to be stuck in the house all day so I went out with the intention of buying a few necessities and get a (fake) hamburger at my favorite place in the city. I ended up finding my twin at the market instead and i went grocery shopping with her and eating pizza at her house which was also really good. I spend the rest of my week resting/reading and sewing mostly.

Casual Weekend

Hello!!
Since my day-to-day life has been super hectic with quite some unfavorable occasions I tried to slow it down a bit this weekend. I spend my Saturday in town getting some pattern paper for my sewing so I could finish my pj pants and trace it so i have the paper version around in case i want to use it in the future. I went to a new bookshop that's (i think?) linked to the bookstore next to it but in comparison also has used/damaged books and is somewhat cheaper. I still find that most bookstores in my town don't have a great variety of English books just a lot of translated stuff which is a pity since i have to order it online instead (I don't like the idea of being locked down in my house waiting for my package even though i'm like always at home) I ended up being just one book called 'The Mind Game' by Hector Macdonald it sounded very dystopian and screwed up (which i adore in books) reviews are a bit mixed I found out afterwards but I will found out for myself since it was only 5 euro and still in very good condition. Today was just really lazy and I got around to folding my laundry (finally!!) and cleaning a bit while listening to Avril Lavigne (childhood sentiment much) and taking some care of myself. I'm currently brewing a tea that has orange, papaya, melon and aloe vera which sounds really interesting, my twinsister gave me a bag to try because she really recommended it so I'll see.
Saturday I wore a sweater with I <3 Paris bought well you guess where and lots of layers underneath to keep me warm from all these freezing temperatures!! I made the skirt myself and it has a mushroom pattern on it which I totally fell in love with~ Today i have just been wearing my Pj's all day around the house. Xxx

My Vintage Collection

Hello!!

Since I have been going to an event that sells (used?) vintage clothes I want to show off what I got so far. I really dig the prices since you pay 15 per kilo it's very affordable. The clothes are still in very good condition despite it being vintage and not just regular second hand clothing. It's just a fun and cheap activity with your friends for the weekend. I actually made some changes to the first and third dress already which I will show in another post. I am still working to find a fabric that fits with the fourth dress since the top part was quite small for me but i couldnt leave this dress hanging! Xx

I went shopping! (again)

Hey!!
This is my first 'real' post after my hiatus i guess!! It's a short one but I just wanted to show of some jewelry and products I got this Monday when I went out to eat with my twinsis in the mall > we found out there were some sales here and there so we both made good use out of it. I got 2 pair of earrings and they were both 3 euro and the necklace and all the rings only 5!! All were from 'six'. I was especially happy with the rings since rings never fit my since my hands and fingers are apparently way smaller than everyone elses but like half of them fit very well on my pink at least so thats something im very happy about. We also went into some shop that has a lot of natural products and the couscous and naked bars were on sale and I grabbed a yogi tea package because I absolutely adore the little messages on the tea bags (they are indeed enough reason to buy a package for me) The 'bad' thing was that we found out the bakery didnt sell that vegan bread with hummus and grilled veggies like they advertised they did so we went for some fake hamburgers at our favorite place.


   
                              

It's Been 2 Years!!

I doubt that there are people that followed me in the beginning are still regularly checking up on this blog since ive deserted it since March 2014 but if you did or if you are just finding this blog now then expect new posts.. Back in time I decided that this platform wasn't the best for extreme personal blogging and a space to express myself in a very personal way because so many people have access to it and I switched to Tumblr which was great for the time being. Now I am getting more into crafting and sewing and I am willing to learn more and I want to share my working process not just the result (I put that on deviantart) I have also made the goal to buy less to none 'new' clothes this year and budget more (I will also be writing about that i guess) and keep everyone updated with my thrifted/second hand/vintage transformations in the hopes to inspire others to stop supporting mass production. I think it will be hard for me to get this started up because i have a tendency to go in a lot of clothing stores and then find something i like anyway. In the last year I have become vegan and very involved in environmental issues like pollution and waste and I really want to stop contributing to that as far as I can. Also nowadays I think clothing quality is really really bad I prefer the boys section for that reason too also for the price (really I recommend it) My style has become quite diferent than when I started this blog. It is now a mixture of mori kei and some days just quirky outfits with my vintage finds or weird color combinations that make me happy or it's extremely casual for school. Even so, I still feel very Mori-Girl at heart because for me the lifestyle is just about having fun and doing what you like and loving yourself along the way.

Xxxx