the ingredient list: jewelry collection

this is the second post of my ingredient list and you will get to see some of my favorite - and in my opinion basic to every jewelry collection - bling pieces. this is not all "real" jewelry and most of it didn´t cost more than 10 euros (except for my pearls, they are all real and all gifted by lovely people). 

but what all of these babies have in common is the classic touch. whenever i started blogging and reading a lot of blogs, i saw thousands of trendy statement necklaces, neon earrings and armparties everyday and i started shopping way too much because i thought i had to incorporate every single trend in my blog if i wanted to be part of this community. but after a while of blogging i came to realize that this is very dangerous and expensive shopping behavior, it leads nowhere, you chase trend after trend and you loose the sense for what is your own style. so i started reflecting on what i really need, what i really like and what i really dressed like before starting my own blog - and the answer is that i always find classic styles to be the most appealing. that is also why the neon earrings and all my other hip and trendy pieces eke a miserable existence at the dark bottom of my jewelry storage and my classic pieces are on current repeat again, because nothing is as beautiful as staying true to yourself.

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outfit planning - a favorite ritual of mine before i go out (seems i love my leo pants).

omg, this häagen-dasz ice is soooo yummy! middle pic: amerlingbeisl in vienna, cutest place ever! and of course: sushi, love of my life!

things that made me happy: good music, lovely invitations and birthday celebrations.

girls night out at the COS store opening - too much fun!

legs only pics when my face isn´t presentable :)

things i love: my pearls, the scented candles that i did myself, mr. moustache shirt

trying to create at least somehow stylish outfits for work (really not that easy, always thankful for inspiration)

not so business-like outfits.

in celebration colors.

on tuesday, we celebrated the birthday of our good friend judith, whom i grew very close with over the last couple of months. she is just such a warm, independent and caring person and i´m very thankful for everything that she has done for me since i moved to vienna. judith celebrated her special day by inviting a couple of friends over to her place and prepared the yummiest snacks and drinks. we had a really nice evening at her apartment but somehow i felt so incredibly tired the whole time and now i now the reason why - i´m lying in bed right now having a cold. enough of the whining, let´s move on to the outfit.

i really wanted to wear my new glitter flats from forever 21 and paired them with my glittery sequin clutch and a sheer chiffon blouse with ruffles on the front. to dress the whole look down a little bit, i then decided on two denim pieces - red jeans and a short denim jacket. 

(as always, thank you so much vicky for these pics)

glitter flats: forever 21 (very similar here)

sequin clutch: lookbookstore (similar here)

red denim pants, chiffon blouse: zara (similar here and here)

recipe: feta with figs

today i want to share one of my alltime favorite recipes with you my dearest of all readers!

my auntie showed my another variation of this super easy meal during our last barbecue session and i´m hooked! here is what you´ll need for this delicious dish:

1. some feta cheese 

2. figs

3. pine nuts

4. olive oil

5. aluminium foil

should be real fun to cook a meal with that little ingredients, right?

take one piece of feta cheese, put it on top of the foil. cut the figs and spread them over the cheese.

wrap the package, take it into the stove for about 25-30 minutes at 180°C.

in the meantime, open a glass of wine and decorate your plate nicely because there is not much else to do.

when you feel like your cheese is almost ready, start roasting the pine nuts until they have a golden color. but be careful, if you roast them too long they´ll become bitter and dry - i left mine in the pan just a little too long (should have stopped at the middle picture).

if you used too much oil for the roasting process (like me), that´s no problem - dump the nuts on a bit of kitchen roll, this will soak up the spare oil.

take the cheese out of the stove, open the foil package, spread the nuts over everything and tadadadaaaa - easy, fun, creative and delicious dish is finished! you can try the same thing in many combinations like peppers and onions, olives and tomatoes...the list goes on - whatever you can think of!

start wrapping today!

50 shades of leather

i´ve been spotting leatherpants everywhere lately, in the form of leggings, in black, silver, gold, red...the variations and combinations are endless! i love to style them with feminine accessoires like this sparkling statement necklace and soft materials to create a contrast to the harsh leather! since there are so many possibilities on how to wear leatherpants, i´m really looking forward to try out some new combinations over the next time! 

for the night out with my lovely friend vicky (we went to "motto am fluss" for dinner and drinks) this was the perfect outfit - nothing too fancy, but comfortable and stylish enough to spend an evening in this really great bar! also, it got really cold real fast in vienna, so the time for ballerinas and light blouses is over! you might have noticed how often we girls meet up since i moved to vienna and the weekly meetings (sounds like a therapeutic session and it kind of is actually haha) really mean a lot to me - chatting the night away while sipping on yummy drinks - is there anything better?

(thanks to vicky for those wonderful photos)

Pants: Pimkie (similar here)

Boots: New Yorker (old, similar here)

Jumper: Zara 

Denim Shirt: Topshop

Bag: Louis Vuitton

Glasses: Oliver Peoples

Jewellery: Forever 21

starting today: the ingredient list.

i want to incorporate a new category in my blog: the mid-weekly ingredient list for a beautiful, happy, sparkling, fit, decorative, fashionable life. mainly it will consist of to-do-lists, wishlists, shopping lists, fitness lists, try-out lists or don´t-try-out lists! the things that i want to show you are/will be parts of my everyday life or things that i dream of! since there are so many things that are important to me and i write lists everyday in my personal and my business life (couldn´t survive even 5 minutes without writing a list), you will get to see what i eat, what i wear, what music i listen to, what i wish for or what is missing in my life/apartment/wardrobe.

with that being said, i want to start with something really important - this was something that many of my readers requested, a list of healthy food and what i eat on a regular basis (what i DON´T eat will get it´s own post sometime). many people ask me how it´s possible that i don´t weigh about 100 kilograms and how i stay skinny even though i eat honestly more crap food than most people do and was NEVER (and won´t ever be) on a diet in my whole life. a diet for me is a pass on something i love, it´s associated with negativity - not being allowed something, staying away, keeping control.

in my opinion, one should never ever associate food with bad feelings, it should make you happy and it´s the fundament of all of our lifes, our energy and health.

i am aware that i have very good genes and i want to be honest with you, i can really eat almost everything i want to and not gain any weight - BUT i also know how important it is to stay healthy and to fuel your body with the right food if you want to live a fit, sportive lifestyle.

so here is a list on what i try to integrate in my regular eating routine and what dishes you could incorporate these ingredients in:

i eat sushi on a regular basis, meaning AT LEAST! once a week. to me, this is a perfect way of getting saturated while eating something really delicious and healthy - no bad conscious here!

yoghurt is very important to keep your stomach healthy , so try to have it every second day at least - i eat bircher müsli every morning!

i love love love mango - it´s sooo versatile and healthy! try out a rocket salad with mango, avocado and prosciutto - delicious!

cereal delivers a lot of energy on tired mornings, try the birchermuesli with apples and other fruit. also, it is very very important to eat in the morning - otherwise your body will think he has to face a hunger phase  and will save every gram of fat that you eat later on twice as much!!!  (that´s really not a joke guys, it´s something i heard from a doctor)

no matter what you are cooking or planning to get while your next shopping trip, always keep up a good amount of fresh vegetables at home - and try to cook meals where vegetables are not only a side dish but the main point of the meal!

in general, i try to stay away from carbohydrates and white bread, but with whole wheat bread it´s different and i just love it!

eggs...i love them! some people say they are not really healthy but i don´t care - low on fat and superyummy. i love ham and eggs with avocado on the side...which leads us to the next ingredient:

the avocado. i think i could never have too much of it and try to work in avocado in every single meal i make. avocado is high on fat but it´s saturated, so no hard feelings towards avocado my dears.

as for chocolate, if you have read the entire story that i wrote above you will know what my opinion is when it comes to abstinance. chocolate is healthy when you don´t eat too much of it and i just need it to make me happy. 

my babe and i both love prawns and because i don´t eat a lot of other "fishy stuff", that´s a regular meal of ours: prawns with tomatoes and whole wheat noodles. YUM!




just a few last words concerning my overall opinion to food: eat what makes you happy, even if you are on a diet right now. craving noodles? then make some whole wheat pasta with fresh tomatoes and basil. want something sweet? get yourself some chocolate with a high part of cocoa. when it comes to drinks, i only drink still mineral water during the whole day - it´s just the healthiest way to hydrate your body. i used to drink lots of sparkling mineral water and didn´t really like the taste of water without gas, but once you get used to it it´s the best thing you can do for yourself. also i have to admit that i was one of those girls who were counting calories when i was in my teens to maintain a skinny body - but fortunately i stopped that a few years ago and really nothing has changed except that i live a happier life with less worries and a body that actually looks like one of a grown-up and not from a child.
also i want to stress that this post is NOT ABOUT being skinny, it´s just about eating the right food for a healthy lifestyle.

BON APPETIT GIRLS!

how to...recycle an old candle.

today i want to show you guys some crafty stuff - how to recycle an old, burned down candle and save a lot of money instead of buying expensive perfumed candles. just make your own! so here is what you will need for this SUPER EASY DIY!

1. some wick (shouldn´t be too short, i bought 4 about 12 cm wicks)

2. preserving jar, water glass, metal bin or any other container for your new candles (i got these cute jar glasses from butlers)

3. scented oil (you get it at any regular drugstore, i chose spruce and lemongrass as flavors)

4. either an old candle that you want to recycle or some new, big and cheap ones that you want to convert into perfumed candles

 i started by chopping my big old candle into pieces.

the bottom of the originally white candle turned grey because of the smut but i really liked that and decided to make three candle tones: grey, white and a mixture of both.

i melted my candle by putting a metal bowl into a bigger pot with boiling water. my recommendation is to take a bowl that you won´t be using much after that because it´s really hard to get it clean again.

when the wax has melted, add a scent of your choice - don´t be afraid of using too much, the scent easily evaporates because of the heat.

in the meantime, cut your wick to the desired length. don´t cut it too short, you will need the length while the candle is hardening. 

when the wax has fully melted, fill it into your containers. after that, add some scent again and repeat it a few times during the hardening process. as for the wick, fix it to a wooden stick with scotch tape or something similar, otherwise you will be standing in front of the candle for an hour, holding the wick straight while the candle is hardening.

i repeated the steps above for each "color" and waited for an hour or so.

be very carefull with filling in the hot wax and do it rather slowly so that the glass won´t break because of the heat.

finish! this is how my candles turned out!

i think this is also a perfect, personal gift - will definitely do this again and try out other scents and bins.

now you can go ahead and have fun making your own scented candles!

cos store opening.

i already told you last post that i was invited to the opening of the first cos store in vienna.

cos and i don´t have many similarities other than that we both have just arrived in this city - but the hype wasn´t as big when i came here :)

when i took a first look at the homepage, i wasn´t that impressed with the stuff - it´s just a little too unshaped, colors are too muted and prices were too high for my taste - BUT that was only my first opinion. when i got there, i happened to like the high quality materials that were used on the clothes, the extraordinary cuts and very clean and straight design of everything - including the store itself.

also, there is a certain type of girl that would look really good in cos but i just don´t know how they do it. 

anyways, we had lots of fun - who could have known that a store opening would end up in a huge dancing, disco-like event? one of the best nights out i had in a long time!

(vicky and sonja)

(from left to right: sonja, judith and lovely victoria)

(favorite drink of the night)

cos store opening - what i was wearing

lucky me was invited to the opening of the first cos shop in vienna yesterday night.

since it was raining cats and dogs, i decided to put on something really cool but casual, wore my hair in a high ponytail (it´s a disaster when my hair gets wet - i look like a poodle after one drop of water touches my head). 

cos is not a very girly company, so i thought a simple outfit with a touch of rocker would be fine.

although i have to admit that after entering the store and seeing the clean lines and fine materials of their clothes, i wished i had thrown on something more chic and straight - just like the overall look of cos.

you will see all the pics of the opening in a separate post.

Bag: Zara

Pants: Guess (similar here)

Jacket: Zara (similar here)

Top: H&M (similar here)

Necklace: H&M

Shoes: Zara (similar here)

the vienna experience. Kurt Frozen Yoghurt

today i want to continue with my posting series about cool locations in vienna. i think my readers who are from vienna are laughing everytime they see another "hotspot" that i present on my blog because most of these restaurants/bars are very well known around here - but for me, even after 3 months living here, more or less every single spot that i discover is new and exciting. what i love about this city is that everything seems so cool here, so different from what i was used to (i come from a small town originally) and the gastronomy scene has figured out very creative ways to stand out from the millions of bars, restaurants and fusion stores.

so far, so good.

KURT FROZEN YOGURT

as for kurt frozen yogurt - i love the concept of having something super super yummy but at the same time not too unhealthy, that´s if you make the choice to have some healthy toppings and not brownies and caramel sauce like me :) 

you can find kurt at three locations in vienna, at the schultergasse, krugerstrasse and ferstelpassage (that´s where i went).

i recommend taking a small portion, i had the medium one and it was the size of my normal dinners, especially with the sauce and brownie topping. you can choose from a wide range of toppings and pair them however you like. 

will definitely be a returning - this time more cosmopolitan and cool because i already know the place :)

this was our choice:

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