Book Haul

I have a confession to make: I am obsessed with books. I love to read and I want to buy books all the time. If I didn't have to spend money on food and clothes, I would just spend it on books. Since my study finances came in last week I decided that it was time to go and buy new books. So me and my friend Cora went to lovely Waterstones in Amsterdam to indulge ourselves.

Sigh, I want to live in Waterstones. I hadn't been there for quite a while so I was excited to go. What more ways to enjoy the day than to buy books right?! When I lived in England we had a Waterstones in our town, which was good for me but not so good for my bank account. And the books are so much cheaper in England than The Netherlands as well. I cannot buy new books every two weeks anymore, sad times. However, now buying books is a trip for me and that is also exciting. I ended up buying four books off my to-read list.


I look way too excited in this picture. But these are my lovely new babies! I bought:

• William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair. A classic that I haven't read yet.
• T.H. White - The Once and Future King. A book retelling the stories of King Arthur and Merlin, one of my favourite tales of all time.
• Jasper Fforde - Shades of Grey. This book explains a dystopia where people are ranked by seeing colours. The more colours you see the higher ranked you are. Seems interesting enough for me.
• Margaret Atwood - The edible woman. I love Atwood's poems so I though I gave her books a try. This book summary starts with: 'Marian is determinedly ordinary, waiting to get married.' Well, I think I will like this book just by this sentence since I'm an romanticist by heart.

I'll let you know how I get on. If you want to follow me on Good Reads, you can :)

Have a good week!

Inspirations

All images belong to the Julian Bialowas website.

So it's snowing. SNOWING. Even though I really like snow, I think it is time for the winter to go away and let the spring do its thing. And with thing I mean warmth and sun. I need warmth and sun in my life because I am so stressed out with school that it would be nice to see the sun outside and remember that the world is nice and good instead of stressful and headache-y. So for this post I'm going to give you all the inspirations that I've found over the past week:

• This website has the most beautiful and healthy dishes ever. I want to try them all!
• This story made me smile so much. It's nice to see kindness sometimes.
• It's good to remember this once in a while.
• He shoots such beautiful frames! Love his photography.
• These made my laugh to much. 
• Also, this photographer shoots lovely people and landscapes. I always want to move to the place she shoots because it looks so lovely.
• I want to try out this body lotion but I was afraid I wouldn't sell in The Netherlands but I found it in Sephora the other day and I'm so excited to try it out. The smell is just lush.
• I want this Topshop dress pronto.
• Look at this beautiful shop on Etsy! I seriously want all of their bracelets. 
• These backgrounds are stunning to put on blogs/websites or your listography.
• I bought the Naked 2 Palette from Urban Decay the other day and the palette is my all time favourite already. The colours are just dazzling. Luckily the palette is much cheaper in The Netherlands than on this site! Good for me.
• And last but not least, nail polish. I think I might try out this colour - it's so spring-y! Coral is definitely one of my favourite spring colours this year. I've decided to wear more nail polish because it's the only way for me to not bite my nails and it's working! A plus for me.

Have a good week!

Pamper evening

Happy Sunday! Since I'm beginning to feel more and more stressed about uni, I decided that pamper mornings/evenings should become a regular thing. I have done so this morning and I feel reborn. So this is a little post of my favourite products and how to have a good pamper morning or evening!

1. Run a bath or shower and use a douche gel or bath cream first. The one that I used for my bath this morning was Yves Rocher's mûre savage brombeere bain douche. It smells so good!
2. After you soaped yourself and washed it off again, use a body scrub. I like to use scrubs since my skin can become very dry and the scrub also scrubs all the filth right off your body! I got a travel one from Rituals for my birthday that I'm trying out now; I absolutely love the smell. It's the Wai Wang Organic White Lotus & Yi Yi Ren body scrub.
3. If you take a bath, now is the time to put on your face mask 1 (I like to use two kinds of face masks when I have a pamper evening) and read a book/play some games or listen to music. My first face mask comes from the body shop and is the aloë protective restoring mask for sensitive skin.
4. Try to relax (very important) or wash you hair if you feel like it.
5. Then it's time to do something again, dry yourself off, rinse off the face mask and dry your hair. Then use a hair mask for full potential of the hair. I like to use the Charles Worthington salon shine results hair healer. It's a leave in conditioner since my hair is very fine and thin and normal conditioners make my hair very... blah.
6. I like to use another face mask afterwards since my skin needs a lot of products otherwise it remains a right mess, I bought the Sephora's double duty exfoliator and mask. It's a mask and scrub in one and I love it.
7. Then use a body cream. I like to use the body cream from the same Rituals line, since I don't like my body using many different fragranced products in one. The one that comes with the body scrub is the Mei Dao Organic White Lotus & Yi Yi Ren rich nourishing body cream. Oh the smell!!
8. Rise off the face mask and use your daily/evening face cream (if you use one) I use the Lacôme hydra zen neurocalm. 
9. If you like, paint your toenails and fingernails as a final touch and voilá you are ready to go (to sleep)

All the things you need for the perfect pamper evening! Try it out if you feel like it, but I'm tell ya: every girl needs her pamper evenings. Also drink a lot of water during this evening to keep your body hydrated and fresh. Have a good week!