Home Décor Wishlist | Lifestyle

Ever since I moved into my own flat last spring, I've been really into interior design. And by really into I mean that I collect magazines and browse IKEA's website for hours on a daily basis. I sound like a teenage version of my Mom, oh my life.

And because I love comming up with new ideas and concepts on how to decorate my small space, I was very excited when I was contacted by UncommonGoods to check out their products.

UncommonGoods, for all of you that don't know, is a New York based retailer that features unique jewelery, designer décor, tabletop items and handcrafted gifts - most importantly, all of which were created without any harm done to either animals or people.

Ever since the company's launch all the way back in 1999, they've been following their mission of providing a platform for artists and designer - half the products they sell are handmade.

I was amazed by the concept behind this company - they offer gorgeous, cruelty-free decór items, most of which are handmade and include recycled materials.

The best thing about their products, however, is that there is a story behind each and every one of them, which you can read up on while browsing their website!

While doing exactly that, I stumbled upon so many amazing décor pieces that I felt like I couldn't not share them with you guys - if you, like me, are looking for some inspiration on little pieces that'll add a lot of personality to your flat, you're in for a treat!

1. Boquet Wall Print (140,95€)

I feel like, out of all the different categories of products UncommonGoods offer, their prints definitely stand out the most - if you're interested in seeing more of them, you can check them out here.

I fell in love with this one right in the moment I saw it - I've been looking for a world map to cover a huge bare wall in my bedroom for some time now, and this one featuring flowers as countries is absolutely dreamy.

2. Giraffe Family Bookends (61,49€)

For someone who owns as many books as I do, bookends are such a sweet, creative way to display them - how come I don't own more than one?

I was actually overwhelmed by the variety of bookends I was greeted by when browsing - you can check them out here - but this one that includes a mother giraffe and its baby was just too cute to pass up. It actually made me squeal out loud.

I need it. Desperately.

3. Vintage Camera Pillows (52,03€)

Now, my inner blogger definitely urged me to put these three pillows into the shopping basket right away, chanting "buy them, buy them", but I stayed strong. Mostly because my bank balance wouldn't be able to take any more damage this month.

Now, joking aside, this trio of pillows is absolutely adorable, and for sure an eyecatcher! They'd sit super nicely on my sofa, adding a bit of my personality to my living room.

4. F-Bomb Paperweight (42,57€)

This actually made me laugh out loud when I first saw it - have you ever seen a décor item that is any more me?  In case you don't know, I have a bad habit of swearing a little too much in my free time - I somehow manage to control my toungue while at school and work, but once I come home, it sort of does its own thing. Whoops.

This would come in really handy for my desk because I constantly have several sheets of paper floating around there - and it definitely is a hilarious conversation starter!

5. Deep Sea Sand Art (80,40€)

This piece of art is nothing short of breathtaking.

It contains light and dark sand which shifts into all kinds of landscapes once you rotate the glass ring - that's one of the most innovative décor items I've ever seen!

It also appears to have a very calming, natural presence, according to people who have bought it, so this would be a really nice addition to an office space.

6. Cork Globes (75,68€/113,51€)

Picking back up on the travelling vibes I started off with when I added the world map to this list - how adorable are these cork globes? There's a mini and a large size to these, so you could make use of these in smaller spaces as well!

They don't just look cute, though, but you can also actually track your travels in three-dimensional style with color-coded pushpins, so this could come in really handy as I'm travelling more than ever this year!

7. There Are Always Flowers Print (35,95€)

If you follow me on any of my social media, you will know that I'm a very positive and optimistic person, so this lovely print here is right up my street.

I love the way this saying is fittingly framed with pretty flowers, and I'm a big fan of its message - that one should always look for beauty, no matter one's surroundings.

8. Indulgent Food Pillows (61,49€)

Yet another item that very much fits my personality. These pillows are made by the same lovely lady as the camera ones I mentioned earlier, and they are equally adorable. There were actually quite a few other ones that I adored, but this list would have been absolutely endless - you can find all the other cute pillows they offer over here.

I'm now having the internal struggle of trying to work out which would go better with my living room's color scheme. I want them all. Dang.

9. Record Bowl (23,65€)

While it is specifically stated on the website that these should not be used to serve food, how great would this be to display little knick-knacks or to keep all of your jewelery in one place?

What I love about these bowls is that you can actually chose the record your bowl will be made out of, so this would also be a perfect option for a personalized gift!

Now that's quite the long wishlist I've managed to mount there, huh?

Obviously, I could never cover all of the amazing products I stumbled upon while browsing UncommonGoods' website, but if I got you interested in their décor items, you can go here to check them out.

Have you picked up any decorative items for your home lately? If so, make sure to share them with me!

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*This post contains sponsored links, however, all of the opinions I voiced are completely my own.

What I Got For Christmas

So, it's been quite a while since I've sat down and written a blog post. Over a month, actually. I almost feel a little weird typing away at my laptop again. It's been way too long!

I know that I promised to write more, but then finals came in crashing over my head like a wave and left me struggling not to drown in them. Seriously, I was so stressed and emotionally strained that by the time I finished the last final before Christmas break, I went to the bathroom and cried. Nice.

Anyways, now that I'm on a break and have more time to look after myself, I found my fingers aching to write more - and as the Christmas holidays are now well over, I thought it'd be a fun idea to share what I got for Christmas with you guys!

Just a quick disclaimer - I in no way intend to brag about my presents, I now that I was spoilt rotten this year, and I'm eternally grateful for everything. I'm just a seriously nosey person myself, so I thought there'd be a few people like me out there who'd like to have a snoop.

I sadly couldn't take a photo of my main present, which is an iPhone 6s in gold because I was actually taking the photos with it. But look at the quality! Compared to this one, the photos my trusty old Samsung took are dust.
I totally wasn't expecting this one as I didn't even wish for it as I assumed it would be way to expensive for my parents, but thanks to a few good connections, this miraculously landed under the Christmas tree. Again, I might've shed a few tears. I weep easily, alright.

These two presents also made my heart leap in joy. I had more than once mentioned to my Mom how whenever I'd wanted to purchase MAC's 'Velvet Teddy', it had been sold out - for what felt like the entirety of 2015. Again, I don't know how she managed to do it, but she got both herself and me one of these bad boys. 

In addition to that, my parents also got me Urban Decay's Naked 2 Basics eyeshadow palette, which I have also been eyeing up for ages. I already used both this and my new lippie to create a look for when I went to visit my aunt on Boxing Day, and the quality of the shadows is definitely as great as I expected it to be.

Gifting perfume has become a tradition in my family, and so I watched in awe as my Mom unwrapped the new Dior parfume my Dad got her, but when it was my turn, I was equally as excited - Lancôme's 'La Vie Est Belle' has been on top of my 'to-try' list ever since I found a sample of it in a Cosmopolitan magazine, and my Mom even got me the largest bottle available!

I love the scent of this as it's quite unique, it's both sweet and also floral and has notes of vanilla, pears and pralines to it.

This is already sitting on my dressing table as well after I first wore it out on Boxing Day, looking absolutely stunning.

My Dad really did suprise me this year, as he got me another perfume totally out of the blue. He stumbled upon Santini's 'Miriam Modemoissele' when he was in the Czech Republic for work and picked it up for me on a whim - and it turned out to be a total success. It's totally my kind of scent - flowery with notes of roses and freesia, but also sort of wodden with notes of amber and cedar.

In fact, it smells so good that my Mom secretly sneaked a few spritzes onto herself - that didn't go unnoticed though because the scent is damn strong and persistent!

My little brother might often sometimes be a pain in the ass, but look at how sweet he can get! He got me KIKO's Romance & Desire Scented Set, which includes a roll-on perfume, a body lotion and a candle. All of the product share the same scent of vanilla, passionfruit, caramel and cedar.

The scent is subtle yet absolutely amazing, so for a candle (and perfume, for that matter) lover like me, this is an ideal gift set.

On a total different note,  with the next few presents my inner geek really comes to show.

As for this one, I've been a fan of the Sims franchise for as long as I can remember - I think I got The Sims 2 soon after it came out, which means that I must've been around five or six at that time!
And in the decade that followed that faithful day, these games have not lost the ability to get me absolutely hooked. In all seriousness, ever since I got The Sims 4 for Easter, I have played it for over 2000 hours in total. That's over 80 days. See you guys in rehab, huh?

My growing addiction has been fueld even more by the new expansion pack 'Get Together', which came out mid December - and it really lived up to my expectations and even exceeded them by a lot!

My family know me too well. Seriously, my Mom probably monitors me when I'm oooh-ing and aaah-ing at books while in the bookstore downtown because I've wanted to read all of these for soo long but never really had the money to get them or the time to acutally sit down and read them.

'The Rose Society' by Marie Lu might be the one book I was the most excited about - it is the sequel to 'The Young Elites', one of the best books I read this year (it's actually so great that I wrote an entire review on it) and as the first book ended on quite a cliffhanger, I was aching for answers to the thousands of questions inside my head.

This fantasy triology (with the final book in the making) tells the story of Adelina Amouteru, a sixteen year old girl living in Kenettra, a city that is losely based on ancient Venice, in 1361 and how her life changes when a plague sweeps across the country, leaving its children with weird marking and even weirder powers.

'The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire' by Dan Howell and Phil Lester is technically not a book in the traditional sense, but more of an autobiography mixed with comical elements and the like.

Part two of my confessions - I love these two. I've been subscribed to their YouTube channels ever since early 2012, so you could say I did kind of grow up with them, and as cheesy as it sounds, they did help me become who I am today.
And if you're thinking "They're just some silly guys who think they're famous" - they're very much the opposite, they're down-to-earth, relatable dudes who never fail to make me smile.

I honestly don't know why I didn't already own 'The Bane Chronicles' by Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson. Fun fact, if you need to know anything about me, it is that I love Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series to death. As in, throw a quote at me and I'll tell you in which book you'll find it, the context and who said it. I'm serious about these books.

This book however is not part of the series but rather a collection of short stories about one of the serie's characters, the warlock Magnus Bane, who is an absolute babe and has a sense of humor that sometimes leaves me speechless, so this'll be a trip and a half.

Rainbow Rowell's 'Carry On' is actually a companion novel to her much hyped novel 'Fangirl', which I too loved. While Fangirl revolves around Cath, a struggling college student who is a huge fan of the 'Simon Snow' book serious and writes fanfiction about said series, this gem right here is the actual fanfiction Cath was writing throughout the novel. Rainbow Rowell actually sat down and wrote the whole damn thing. I squealed when I saw this because even though I have not read a single page yet, I know that everything she does turns out to be amazing.

Lastly, another long awaited sequel I got was 'Girl Online On Tour' by Zoe Sugg, also known as Zoella. Now, while I used to watch Zoe's YouTube channel sort of religiously last year, I don't really anymore - I still make time to read her blog from time to time, though. But I loved what she did with her debut novel 'Girl Online' so much that I read it in less than a day and then was left aching for more.

The protagonist of the story is a teenage blogger called Penny - can you see why I found this intriguing? - who meets a young rock star called Noah and eventually falls for him. As the sequel's name suggests, Penny now joins Noah for his Euorpean tour and is faced with a lot of difficulties on the way.

To close it up, my lovely aunt got me a mini cake stand along with some of my favorite chocolates from Ferrero - yum!

I think I'll use the cake stand for displaying jewelery rather than actually cakes though.

So there we have all the gifts that I got for this year's Christmas. I don't deserve them, really. I know how annoying, stubborn and skittish I can be; and that makes me appreciate all of this even more, especially as I've also experienced very different Christmasses in the past.

What did you get for Christmas?

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Making A House A Home | Lifestyle

As some of you may know, I'm actually moving out of my parent's place and into my first very own apartment at the moment!

I feel like I'm actually doing the adult thing - well, at least kind off. I'll still live in the same building as my family, so I'm not completely out of the nest just yet, but I'll live a few stories down from them and, well, have my own space to deal with.

Now, while most of my friends find that incredibly exciting - I mean, I do too, obviously - they probably haven't realized what comes with moving out.

And I'm not only talking chores like cooking for yourself or having to do the dishes every single day because you can't afford a dishwasher (be still my beating heart).

The most exciting (and at the same moment, at least to me, insanely stressful) part of this entire project is getting to pick what I, and only I want my apartment to look like.

While most of my furniture has already arrived and even been built, for the artist inside me, the decorations are what either make or break the atmosphere of an entire room.

I've been window shopping for decorations for a few weeks now, eyeing up some different ways to add that finishing touch to all the empty spaces, and I want to share a few of my favorite items with you!

1. Wall Art

1. Tina Crespo Salt Water Cure Art Print; Urban Outfitters 31,20€ | 2. Smile by Seventy Tree, made.com 91,20€ | 3. The Telephone; made.com 66,90€

I used to be completely oblivious as to how people could get so super fussy about stuff like wall art, but I've got to admit that I've actually become one of those people, because looking at the completely empty wall space in my apartment makes me feel awful, haha.

I was looking for art to go with the colour scheme of certain rooms, so obviously, not all of those might be the ones for you, but the places I found those have so, so much more incredible wall art that you're bound to find something you like.

I am so in love with the wall art Urban Outfitters has to offer, most of them are more on the simple side, but still incredibly beautiful. They're pretty cheap as well!

The art over on made.com however, is a little more on the pricy side, but still a rather fair price (believe me, I've seen plenty, cough, atrocious works for three or four times their price). If you're looking for minimalistic art, definitely check the one made.com has to offer out!

2. Pillows

4. Sports Luxe Geo Cushion; made.com 20,50€ | 5. Magical Thinking Good Vibes Pillow; Urban Outfitters 35,80€ | 6. Stockholm Pillow; Ikea 14,99€

I feel like pillows are a cute way to spice up a room without being too out there, while also donating to your comfort.

There's a lot of different variations, and while I'm more of a monochrome kind of gal, made.com has a lot of very pretty colorful patterns available, while Urban Outfitters are rocking the black and white ones. Both of these are a little more pricy, however, you can expect pretty darn good quality for your money.

If you're looking for some cheaper options, you should go hit up Ikea as they have a huge variety as well!

3. Candles

7. Yankee Candle Vanilla Cupcake, Amazon 23,40€  |  8. Tealight Holder; XXXLutz 2,99€  | 

9. Moroccan Embossed Metal Candle; Urban Outfitters 23,90€

It's not like I already own four or five candles - is that bad? Nope, because in my opinion, you can never have enough of them.
I love the atmosphere a lighted candle creates, especially if it gives of a scent - that's why I'm all about Yankee Candles!
But there's also a few candles that go through as decorations because of their super cute packaging, like the Urban Outfitters one- if you're wiling to pay the slightly hefty price tag.
If you live in Germany, XXXLutz has got your back on this one, though. They've got lots of pretty little tealight holders like the one I picked out, and they all cost less than a fiver!

Fake Flowers

10. Decoflower Tulips; Amazon 9,99€  |  11. Leonardo Mangolia; Höffner 6,95€  | 

12. Mini Sukkulente XV; Amazon 8,05€

My love for fake flowers might have developed while admiring other blogger's interior or looking at inspiration posts.
I, like most people, probably wouldn't be able to keep a bunch of flowers alive for more than a week, but all of these are cheap and stay pretty for as long as you feel like keeping them!
I feel like these tulips I found on Amazon would go well on either my dressing table or bedside table.
The Mangolia is available at Höffner, so if you're from Germany, you will probably have one of those near you - so there's no excuse to not pick them up, they're a bargain!
Last but not least, I stumbled upon the miniature plants a lot when I went shopping last week, and I absolutely adore them. They would definitely spice up a shelf in my kitchen or living room!


Obviously, there's so much stuff I could talk about, but this post has gotten pretty long already.
I'll try to keep you guy updated with the process I'm making at making my house apartment a home!

What are some ways you like to spice up your room?

Thank you so much for reading!