My bucket list progress

Heyy! Let's not even talk about me not posting for over a month - busy times, but let's just jump right into the post :)

So I created a page on my blog called Before I Die about half a year ago. Since then I've had the joy to cross down quite a few goals from there and in today's post I thought I would talk about the experiences and just overall me gradually completing my bucket list. It can actually be counted as a tag too or something, so if you would like to make a post like that then I tag you

The first thing on my list that is crossed down is "Win a giveaway" And that came to me so unexpected. I just entered myself in a random competition, not even hoping to win and then one day I get a call from private number telling me that I have won. First I thought it was a prank call or something haha but then they also emailed me and basically I had won a box full of some kind of sweets. So that was a lovely suprise :)

Next one is called "Have a BBQ with my friends" and by now I've had quite a few of these and I really enjoy doing it. I actually have another one planned for tomorrow as the weather is already getting really nice in Estonia.

"Go on a long road trip" Me and my class went to Germany by bus and it took us 2 days to get there. I don't know, I count it as a road trip and I had fun during this week :)

"Lose my MAC virginity" I actually made a whole blog post about it haha, so here it is.

"Make a giveaway on my blog" and "Have 50 followers on my blog" I hosted a giveaway when I got 50 followers on my blog, it was a big milestone for me :)

"Help out a random starnger" I remember the day when me and my friend were walking in the woods and suddenly we heard...not like screams but some bizarre noises. At first we couldn't figure out what it was but then we saw an elderly woman who had gotten lost in the woods. We guided her all the way back on the main road and waited for her to hall her friends to come pick her up. The lady was very grateful and she thanked us kindly :)

"Go running every day for atleast a week" I attended this facebook event called 100 days of morning run. At first I did really well and I managed to get myself out of bed at 6 am every morning for 18 days in a row but then we went to Germany and that's when it all stopped :/

"Get a part-time job for summer" well...mine was kind of weird. I got work in a local flower shop, I even have a few posts about it on my blog somewhere. But I only went there for like 3-4 days and I didn't get any money for what I did there. The woman was supposed to call me back and when she didn't, I called her myself, several times but she never picked up. And that's kinda where things were left. Kind of a rip-off for me but also I was late for work for 4 hours one day haha.

"Go canoeing" Another class trip when we drove to Latvia and I think we canoed either 12km or 24km :D But it was really fun and I enjoyed it very much. Although the person I was sharing my canoe with wasn't really a person that I got along with, but hey, it was a great experience :)

"Read a book in english" As you may know, english is not my first language but I really wanted to read a book in English. So I immediately turned to the infamous The fault in our stars. I reallllly enjoyed it and in the future I'm definately going to read more from John green and overall other books in english. 

I actually can't believe the TFIOS movie is coming out on june 6th this year! I absolutely can't wait for it, I saw the trailer and it looks amazing!

"Eat outside my comfort zone"  When we recently went to Sweden with my family we went for a lunch at a chinese restaurant. I ordered a bufee table which meant that I can eat anything I want, as much as I want from that restaurant. At first I tried all the normal stuff, you know, rice, pasta, sushi. and then I saw scallops and I thought that I just have to try it! It looked really discusting and slimey but it was actually really delicious. I also decided to try tofu for the first time. That...wasn't such a good experience, gross, horrible, jiggle-wiggely and discusting, to say the least. 

But that is all that I've completed from my bucket list, I hope you enjoyed reading it and...

Have a beautiful, magical, wonderful day!

Merilin xx

Dancing in flour // a lifestyle post

Heyya, so today I decided to write a little lifestyle post because today I got to experience something pretty cool and quite unusual ;)

So a few weeks back our hip hop group was told that we're going to take part in a little video that we are filming for an estonian singer who is now living in America and is making a career over there. Her name is Kerli Kõiv if you're interested :) It was very exciting news as we were also told that we're going to be dancing...in flour. Yeah, our hip hop crew is pretty weird but all that in a good way ofcourse.

Well today was the day we went to the capital to start filming for the video. We had to dress all black and do some crazy makeup, which I really enjoy doing, I'll put some pictures below here of different kind of looks that I tried out but unfortunately I forgot to do a close up of the makeup that I had when dancing. 

Anyway, when I walked into the sudio where the filming took part I was wowed, it was so cool. And then I saw the flour, it was literally all over the floor. When I saw the other group on the shoot it was really cool to see the effect that flour gives when you throw it all around, in the air and everywhere. I just couldn't wait for it to be our turn to go on that stage. 

We still had a bit time to warm up and to go through our moves and then finally we started filming. It was just awesome, a really cool new experience, the photographer was filming all these crazy angles that you wouldn't see in a normal video. When our time was up we had to get ourselves clean and then we could go home. We were all obviousely covered in flour and the clothes that were all previousely black were then grayish-white hahah, it was really hard getting it all off. The flour was everywhere, in my eyes, in my ears, in my hair!

I really can't wait for the video to be ready and the pictures to be released, I know they're gonna be awesome :)

But now I'm going to leave you some pictures that I took, you can see the makeup that I tried to do and the stage and all. 

well that was the stage

Also did my sister's makeup

The messed up makeup that I tried at home

After filming and attempting to get the flour off me..

You can kinda see my performing makeup here

Have a beautiful, magical, wonderful day

Merilin xx

My current favourite nail polishes

Heey!

Long time no see. I have another nail polish themed post today. I have already made a post about my whole collection, since then I've bought quite a few new ones and now I just really wanted to post about my favourite of all polishes :)

Starting off with a polish that isn't an actual colour but a mattifying coat. It really does a good job making my nails matte and also keeps the nailpolish looking good for a lot longer than a normal top coat would. 

The swatch here is my favourite technique to use with this polish, which is painting the whole nail matte first and then making the tip of the nail glossy with a normal top coat. (I'll put the swatches to the end of the post)

This one is kind of embarrassing to show, all of the writing has rubbed off and I can't remember the name of the shade. But it's a gorgeous coral colour by Wet'n'wild. Adore the colour and the staying power with a good top coat is quite good. 

This is a delicious strawberry colour by MUA, I was stunned when I realised it's the 8th day with that polish and it hadn't chipped at all! And the colour is such a cute, classic pink. 

Lubu heels by china glaze is a kind of colour that you either love it of hate it. I personally love it, it is more of a wintery-christmassy colour and I did get a lot of wear out of it in the Christmas time. It is opaque already with the first coat although then it is more of a gray colour. When you add the second coat you will see the beautiful red flecks that the polish has in it. In the swatch picture you can't see the red in it, they just don't really want to be captures in a picture..

This is the most expencive colour from my collection and I'm really happy I decided to buy it. This is The classic red colour that goes with every outfit, every time of the year, when I really don't know what nail polish to wear then this is usually what I end up going for. 

Finally some 'colour' in my favourites. I admit, I tend to go for safe choises of colours like reds and pinks but this mint green is a kind of shade that I just can't go past from. It looks so yummy, I love the idea of pastel colours on nails and when it's a mint green one then how can you say no?

Lastly I have another pink shade, suprise, much? But it isn't the most ordinary pink, it's more on the neon side, it definately isn't the most neon pink I've seen as a nail polish but it's quite a close one. Although this is a gorgeous colour, it does require at least 4 coats to actually look neon which is kind of a down side I guess, especially for really unpatient people like myself. The end result is worth it though.

And now here I have the swatches.

Okay, I hope you found this post helpful and I'd really like to know, are you a girl who goes for safe colours, like I am or do you like to have bold, bright nails? And as always

Have a beautiful, magical, wonderful day

Merilin xx

January favourites | Beauty & Random

Hey there! 

I hope you had an awesome first month of 2014, wow, already this year is rushing by! 

So I haven't done a favourites post in ages and I was just looking through my desk and I saw some products that have been a staple of mine recently. But then I realised that I haven't really talked about them on my blog, so that's what I'm doing today :)

As you can see I have also 2 random favourites but I'm gonna start off with my beauty faves.

In terms of face moisturiser I've always been kind of a Garnier lover but in the beginning of January when I finished my Garnier moisture match moisturiser I thought it's about time for me to try something else. And I'm really glad I did. The Lumene Arctic Aqua cream feels so nice when I apply it on my face, it's so light yet it still does a good job moisturising my skin It also has so much less artificial ingredients than Garnier does which is a massive plus. To be honest I was a little sceptic when I first tried it at the store, the scent isn't the most pleasant and also the packaging isn't that inviting but obviousely I can look past these minor mistakes.

Now the next thing is an old favourite of mine but as I said I haven't done a favourites post for a while so I had to include it in this one. I'm talking about the Lush lip scrub in popcorn, I reviewd it on Becca's blog a while ago and I still absolutely love it. It's such a saver if you get chapped lips easily like I do, especially in winter time.

Moving on to makeup I also have an old favourite and it's the Rimmel stay matte powder. This is a great product to put over your foundation, it really does keep your face matte basically the whole day, it's really important step when I do my makeup. Now one thing that I do not like about it is the packaging, it just feels like it's gonna break any minute. Also the lid isn't really doing it's job, when I put it in my purse then I'm very likely to find it lidless next time I open my purse.
When I got the Maybelline super stay better skin foundation tester along with a magazine I didn't have any high hopes for it since the Fit Me foundation was kind of a let down for me. I still decided to try it and I was really positively suprised! It has a medium to full coverage and I really like this type of foundation. First I just have to talk about the smell again, it's definately a lot better then the usual foundation smell and I just love it so much...is it weird that I like the smell of a foundation? It leaves a perfectly matte finish, I didn't have to use my Rimmel stay matte powder with it, and as I said, the powder is usually a very important step for me. I'm so sad that the tester is all empty now and I'm pretty sure that this will be my next full-size foundation.
Also one of my beauty favourites of the month is Bourjois cream blush in 02. I had never owned a cream blush before this one but I really wanted to try it. I kinda fell in love with this shade from Bourjois and now it's in my favourites. This cream blush gives such a natural pinched-by-cold look and I think it looks absolutely gorgeous!
The second to last beauty favourite is from Manhattan and it's called couture carnival eyeshadow cream. This is perfect when you're in a rush but you still want to have something on your eyes. You just pop it on your eyelids, smudge it a little bit with your finger and you're good to go, simple as that! I also really love the colour, it's such a nice dark bronzy colour, mine is in the shade 03 Ballroom Babe and I got it on sale for only 2€!
And my last beauty favourite of January is Mua lipgloss...I don't think it has a specific name. This is the one that I got from Lola and I'm loving it so much. It's kind of a natural pink and it's really glossy. I like to use it any day when I want something going on with my lips but don't want to wear lipstick. It smells absolutely amazing, so delicious!

Now I also have 2 random favourites, first being The fault in our stars by John Green. I knew this book was on such a hype so I asked it for Christmas and when I got it, it literally took me I think a bit more than 2 weeks to read it all the way through. I've never been so obsessed with a book before, infact, I've never been obsessed with a book. I'm usually the last person to read on my own free will but this book really got me. I'm not gonna tell you the ending of it becuase maybe some of you haven't read it yet (if you haven't then you have to!) but basically it's about a boy and a girl who are both very sick and they meet at a support group and fall in love.
And finally my last favourite of this month is a chai latte by drink me chai. I'd never tried chai latte before but my friend talked about it and said that she really loves it. I bought the spiced version but it had many other flavours too. So after buying it I went home and immediately tried it with boiled water as the package says and I actually didn't like it at all. But then next day I tried it with milk and from the moment I took the first sip I was obsessed. Like this is not a healthy obsession, sometimes I drink more than 1 or 2 cups a day!  So yeah, I'm obsessed.

Now that's about it for my January favourites, I hope you saw some things here that got you interested :) Let me know in the comments what do you think of my favourites, I'm going to leave you with some of my recent favourite songs.

Have a beautiful, magical, wonderful day!

Merilin xx

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams // Catching your dreams

Hey there!

As you can see then this post has quite a deep title so I recommend you to get your snorkels out, just kidding, stop it, you're not funny!

But first of all, new year's resolution fail! One of my resolutions was to blog more often, and also in my mind I told myself that I'll make atleast 1 post per week. *Checks the blog homepage* last post was made on 2nd January! But that's not entirely my fault, my computer is pretty much on his death bed right now which means that there's very limited list of things I can do with it, uploading/saving pictures isn't one of them and since most posts that I want to do come with pictures then you can kinda figure it out from here. I know it's a poor apology but that's all I got for now really. This is also the reason of this post, I can't publish any reviews or anything and I've actually wanted to talk about this subject for quite a while so yeah :) On the other hand I've been pretty good with keeping my other resolutions so I'm not gonna beat myself up for that one fail. 

Onto the main theme now. I've been working with my biggest dream for the past months now, and that dream is becoming an exchange student. I suppose that some of you have never heard of anything like this? 

Well to make a short summary then it is a year (or well, 9 months) of studying, meeting new people, experiencing new things, learning a different language and lots of other amazing stuff, ABROAD. 

For a long time I thought I can't do this, I'm gonna say right away that it is not easy, you have to really want to do this, that's what it's all about - wanting all that and working for it. But it all pays off since after you've gone through the technical or hard things you can literally go and enjoy life :) And the actual journey until the day you step on your plane is really fun too. In Estonia and lots of other countries (60 in total!) there's this amazing thing called YFU (youth for understanding) which is mainly organized by girls and boys who have been through this amazing year, and they're not old people, more like 17-20 something, I suppose. I'm not gonna write anything else about YFU here but I might do a whole seperate post on it some day. But basically I'm going to Belgium in 2015/2016 (that is if I get the money)

Now more about following and catching your dreams. Besides becoming an exchange student I have had and I still have lots of other, smaller dreams. Coming back to the exchange student theme. From when I first heard about this opportunity I have always dreamt that one day there will be an exchange student in our class too and now quite recently I found out that there is a girl from Sweden who wants to join our class, so I guess I can kind of count it as a dream come true (feels good to say that, doesn't it!)

And also you can call things on your bucket list as your dreams, and if you'd now click on my bucket list (before I die) then you can see that I've had the joy to cross down quite a few from there :)

I've also always wanted a friend from some other country and now I have quite a few that I talk to, but there's one girl who I have grown quite close to :) 

All these things seem like small dreams but once you fulfill them, you feel like you've accomplished something big, wether it's buying an expencive lipstick or making a new friend.

So what I'm trying to say here is never quit on your dreams. As life has taught me, everything can happen (unless your one and only dream is to become a unicorn or something, which is also perfectly fine, just...you get my point)

You never know what tomorrow brings but you just have to sprint after your dreams. Don't just follow them, when you follow something, you will always see it but never catch it but when you go after something with a determined mind and no intention to stop then you're gonna most likely to catch it :)

Ofcourse I have many other drems that still need catching and this is what I try to do, even the smallest steps build the way for you to eventually catch your dreams. 

Have a beautiful, magical, wonderful day!

Merilin xx

Review: Lush shower jelly

Hello! Quite a while ago I picked up this strange looking thing from Lush. It stayed untouched on my table for a good several weeks because I honestly didn't know what to do with it. 

I'm talking about the Lush shower jelly called sweetie pie. 

When I finally decided that I want to test it out, I started looking for some reviews to find out how to use it. Turns out you have to take a little chunk of the jelly and rub it over your body, so, to start the review, I don't really like the application. And the application turned out to be the only con about that product.

I absolutely love the smell, if you're not a fan of (really) sweet scented stuff then this is most probably not for you because it really smells like candy, and I personally like it!

Also, if you're a fan of glitter and all sorts then this will be your bestest shower mate. The picture quality is really unflattering but the jello like thing is actually really glitterly and sparkly and it's really a party in a pot, as the package itself says. 

As you can read out then the scent is cherry and coconut. I can definately smell cherry in it but I'm not too sure about the coconut, it's still good though.

This is what the jelly looks like from top and from the bottom after I've used it about 5 times. It's quite hard to get an exact amount of jelly for one use, I always end up having a bit left over and then I just have to throw that bit away. I also tried using the whole thing at once but then it starts to melt in your hand and gets all slippery and falls down etc.

I wouldn't normally capture the package from every possible angle but with Lush products I just feel like I have to. I find Lush descriptions really unique and cool, especially on this pot of jelly, if you now scroll back to all these pictures here. It's like a sweet cherry on top of a really good cake :)

Overall, I really like the scent and it also does a good job cleaning my body. I was hoping that the sweet smell will stay on after showering too but sadly enough it didn't. As mentioned earlier, the application is the only con about this product, for me, some might like to mess around with it in the shower. I probably won't be buying it again but I'll definately use up the one I have.

Have a beautiful, magical, wonderful day!

Merilin xx

365th Page.

Hey there! Welcome to my last post on my blog this year. This is actually the year when I started blogging, yet it feels like I've been doing it for ages!

So, as usual, I'm gonna TRY to make some resolutions for the next year which in this case is 2014. Whoa, what the heck, how is it time for a new year again, it feels like just a few weeks ago I was shooting fireworks towards the sky to celebrate the beginning of 2013 and now I'm sat here, thinking of all the good stuff that happened in that year and how did it all went by with a blink of an eye.

Coming back to the resolutions, I tend to fail at most of these, like in the beginning of 2013 I said that I'll blog atleast every other day(in my lifestyle blog that is private) but about 2 weeks ago I discovered the same blog that was started in January and saw that I stopped blogging in March, whoops.

In the beginning year though I'm going to try my very best to stick to atleast half or more of my resolutions. So, long story short, here are my 6 resolutions for 2014.

*Start writing a notebook. I mean this kind of notebook where you write what have you planned doing at this date, this is going to be like my planner and I think it's going to be very helpful because I forget stuff so often! Also in this notebook I'm going to write what happened that day worldwide. Like on 25th August 2013 I would've written that Miley twerked at the VMA's with Robing Thicke. 

*Make atleast 5 good deeds.

*Travel as much a possible. I already have one trip planned in March when I'm going to Germany with my class and I'm really looking forward to this!

 *Study better. Since I have 3 exams in June I really need to get my s**t together and study. study. study. I really don't want to end up getting a 3. this resolutions also applies for the next garde.

*Write my blog. Once again I bring up the blog thing again, I really enjoy blogging but sometimes I don't make any posts for a while just because I'm lazy, this needs to stop.

*Eat healthy and work out. Yes I too, like every other person on this earth, have this resolution in my list. Every. Year. Let's just hope for the best I say!

So that is all for my resolutions this year.

Have a beautiful, magical, wonderful day and an amazing new year!

Merilin xx