PERSONAL: Another year has passed

NL: Wat is 2015 weer omgevlogen. Het lijkt wel alsof we gisteren pas afscheid namen van 2014 en nu is het weer zover. 2015 was zowel op mijn blog als privé een super jaar. Als ik snel eventjes nadenk waren er hoogtepunten zoals de Chanel party, het Luisa via Roma feestje, de Zalando blogger Awards,... En zo kan ik nog wel eventjes doorgaan.

Tijdens de feestdagen komt er ook een extra gevoel van dankbaarheid in mij naar boven. Allereerst wil ik alle merken en PR bureaus bedanken dit mij dit jaar gesteund hebben en samenwerkingen zijn aangegaan. Jullie zorgen ervoor dat ik elke keer weer gemotiveerd achter mijn laptop kruip. 

Daarnaast wil ik natuurlijk ook jullie, mijn lezers bedanken. Jullie zorgen er telkens weer voor dat ik betere content wil leveren en deze blog wil verbeteren. Ik kan alleen maar zeggen: blijf mijn blog volgen want het begin van 2016 beloofd ook heel wat in petto te hebben. Ik wens jullie een fantastische avond morgen!

ENG: 2015 went by in a heartbeat. It seems like only yesterday that we were saying goodbye to 2014 and now another yeas has almost passed. 2015 was an amazing year both blog and personal wise. I few highlights that pop into my mind: the Chanel party, the Luisa via Roma party, the Zalando Bloggers Awards... and so on. 

During the holidays this feeling of gratitude takes a grab over me. Firstly I want to thank all the brands and PR agencies that supported me and cooperated with this blog. You guys are the reason why I remain motivated and spend so many hours on my laptop.

Furthermore I'm very grateful that I have you, my readers. You make me want to improve the content of this blog all the time. The only thing that I have left to say: keep on following my blog because I have some very exciting news that I will reveal in the next few days. Have a great evening tomorrow night!

Dress by Dry Lake 

Cava by Freixenet 

LIFESTYLE: Dove Choose Beautiful

Nowadays there's so much pressure on people, especially women, to be perfect. They have to be the perfect mother, perfect employee at work and look amazing as well. And let's be honest girls, it's often a pressure we put on ourselves as well. Nothing can ruin a day more than having gained a pound or a tiny, little spot on your face. Why should we continue doing this to ourselves? Ok, I'm not going to lie. I'm quite a vain person: I go to the hairdresser every week for a blow-out, I spent quite some money on beauty products and I go to the beauty parlour every month. Nonetheless I regret having spend most of my youth feeling insecure and not living life to the fullest. I did let other people keep me down with their negative comments. Every now and then these insecurities still kick in but I'm glad to say that most days I'm quite pleased with the beautiful person I've become.

Dove has realised a new campaign: "Choose Beautiful". This campaign wants to encourage women all over the world to see themselves as beautiful and not average. In the movie below women from all over the world are asked to choose between beautiful and average and it's really sad to see how most choose average. Let us help Dove drive this problem out of the world and support #choosebeautiful.

NL: Tegenwoordig rust er zoveel druk op mensen, zeker vrouwen, om perfect te zijn. We moeten de perfecte huisvrouw zijn, de perfecte werknemer en liefst er ook nog eens elke dag even geweldig uitzien. En laten we eerlijk zijn dames, deze druk leggen we ook vaak op onszelf. Niets kan een dag meer verpesten dan een kilootje meer op de weegschaal of een klein puistje op je gezicht. Waarom doen we ons dit zelf aan? Ok, ik ga niet schijnheilig doen. Ik ben zelf ook best een ijdel persoon: ik ga elke week naar de kapper, ik spendeer veel geld aan make-up en ik ga één keer per maand naar het schoonheidssalon. Maar desalniettemin heb ik soms spijt dat ik veel tijd van mijn jeugd verspilt heb aan mijn onzekerheden en mijn leven toen niet voluit geleefd heb. Ik liet andere mensen me kleineren met hun negatieve commentaren. Af en toe heb ik nog steeds last van onzekerheden maar gelukkig ben ik meestal toch wel trots op de mooie persoon die ik geworden ben.

Dove heeft nu een nieuwe campagne: "Choose Beautiful". Deze campagne wilt vrouwen over de hele wereld aanmoedigen om hunzelf te zien als "mooi" en niet "middelmatig". In het filmpje hieronder wordt er de vrouwen gevraagd om te kiezen tussen mooi en middelmatig en het is triest om te zien hoe de meesten kiezen voor middelmatig. Laten we daarom allemaal Dove helpen om dit probleem uit de wereld te helpen en ondersteun #choosebeautiful. 

Instalab #18

Another update about my personal life! I'm just back home from Sunrise Festival. I usually visit a lot of festivals every summer. My favorite stages are the hardstyle stages, I love this kind of music. It gives me energy to keep on going the whole day. I tend to avoid the stages with commercial music since I can just listen to that while going out.

NL: Weer tijd voor een update van mijn privé leven! Ik ben net terug thuis van Sunrise Festival. Ik bezoek elk jaar best veel festivals. Mijn favoriete podia zijn dan hardstyle stages. Geloof het of niet, maar dit is echt mijn favoriete soort muziek. De beat geeft me energie om de hele dag te blijven gaan. Je zal mij dus niet snel terug vinden bij de commerciële muziek want die hoor je altijd als je gewoon op stap gaat.

Cooking time. I never cook so preparing a three course dinner for my friends was a real challenge.



My dessert: pizza dough with chocolate sauce, red fruits and ice cream



A friend of mine performing as a dj at the Tongerse Feesten.



Dessert at my friend's place: strawberries with chocolate and ice cream.



My view from the terrace of "Chateau Neercanne".



Party time at Ipanema, the beach club from Versuz.



The dress I bought for my godchild's birthday.



Cocktails with my best friends.



Cheering for the Red Devils during their first game at the World Championships.



Triple J Bar in Bilzen, a pop up cocktail bar/terrace.



A super delicious penne Toscane with parmaham, mozzarella, tomatos, rucola and pesto.



One of the pictures I took at Sunrise Festival. My favorite dj Mark with a K performing together with Mc Chucky.

Instalab #17

Today I'm going to provide you with some updates on my private life. You might have noticed that I'm terribly quiet the last couple of days on my social media. There's a reason: unfortunately my phone died this week. May you rest in peace. The upside is that I finally have a good excuse to buy an IPhone. Tomorrow I'm going to pick up my new baby. I have been without mobile phone for 2 days now. On one side it's very annoying but on the other hand it's also liberating to be not reachable for a while.

I have also been stuck at home for a week with the flu. At first I was over the moon to have an extra week off from work and thought I could use this extra spare time to work on the blog. But I underestimated the flu big time. I was so tired that I exactly worked less on the blog.

Last but not least I'm really counting down to my holiday in Tuscany in a month's time. It's so close that I can't believe that I'm going. And I might be going on a second holiday in August although the plans aren't really definitive yet. My and 3 friends want to go on a sunny and lazy holiday, probably to Bodrum. I have been to Bodrum two years ago, staying at the Hotel Isil Club Milta. This place is really heaven on earth. We found a good promotion on the internet for this hotel. Somehow I just have to scrap the money together :) I have often been to Turkey (Belek, Kusadasi and Bodrum) and Bodrum is by far the most beautiful destination in my opinion. The city center is really authentic and really pretty in comparison to other Turkish cities.

Would you like me to write some personal posts more often? Anyway here are some of my latest Instagram pictures.

I received some lovely gifts through a give away from



On a lazy afternoon I had this lovely Italian burger at Shoko. It was a hamburger between a focaccio bread and french fries.



I'm not a person to sit around all the time so being ill was a really hard time for me. My best friend and I made a quick visit to Primark and had this delicious dessert at Häagen-Dazs.



I finally had the time to check out Sofie Valkiers' Little Black Book she presented during her Ladies night.



A while ago I had the honor to work together with Zalando and as a reward I got these amazing shoes.



I had the honor to attend the I love Fashion Bloggers Q&A. After a long train ride these little bites were very welcome.



The NHow hotel in Rotterdam was the location for this event. Don't you just love this view?



I was so glad to meet my Dutch blogging frieds Esmeralda and Kevin again, I met them at a previous event.



Me joined by some blogging legends: Negin Mirsalehi, Yara Michels and Linda Toll.



An upclose from the outfit that I wore to the event.



The occasional selfie.

Liebster Award

I just found out that I have been nominated for a Liebster award by Kevin from justKVN. Kevin and I met at the Blog Class Event from This chick's got Style and have been following each other ever since. Definitely check out his blog if you want some male style inspiration!

Apperentely the Liebster Award is to focuss on beginning bloggers like myself. You have to give 11 facts about yourself and answer the 11 questions your nominator asked you. After that you create 11 questions as well and nominate 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers. Bring it on!

11 facts about me

• My dreamjob is being a flight attendant.
• I love chocolate above anything else in the world.
• Well that's not entirely true, I love fashion and makeup above anything else in the world. Although I swear about 500 times a year that I'm going to quite shopping, it never really works out.
• My dreambag at the moment is the Antigona from Givency.
• I love Sci-Fi and Fantasy books and movies. Yes, I adore Harry Potter, Twilight, Divergent, Star Wars,...
• I'm in love with the big city life and wouldn't doubt once second if I had the chance to move to cities such as London, Paris or Berlin.
• The top three on my wishlist of cities I still have to visit are: Paris, New York and Istanbul.
• I'm a real party girl and go out at least 2 times a week.
• My favourite drinks are champagne, vodka redbull and Cosmopolitan.
• I still live at home with my parents. I mean I have to save all my money for my wardrobe ;)
• I have shoe size 42 which is super annoying. All great shoes are excluded from me. Anyone tips for me?

The questions I got from Kevin

• Has blogging affected your personality and your daily life? If yes, in which way?
  
  Thanks to my blog I dare to experiment more with my style both fashion wise and beauty wise. I try out new things which I wouldn't wear before such as a maxi dress.
  Further more I also try to "watch" the world more and suck in inspiration everywhere that I possibly can: looking for new trends, beautiful places to shoot pictures,...
• How do you use the social media to promote your blog?
  
  I have a Facebook, Instagram, Bloglovin and Twitter account. I'm mostly active on Facebook and Instagram.
  
• How do you react to negative comments in real life and blogging life?
  
  In real life, I will react on most of the occassions. I have a really hard time keeping my mouth shut and I will always try to defend myself.
  
  In my blogging life I didn't have to deal with negative comments yet but I think I will try to be more tactful.
  
• Which is your favorite season?
  
  It's summer by far. I hate having cold and summer time also means some time off from work and great outdoor parties. This season is also the easiest to get dressed definitely because I have a lot of dresses in my wardrobe.
  
• What/Who inspires you?
  
  A lot of fashion bloggers inspire me to go after your dreams and that if you don't try, you'll never know what you're capable of.
  
• What makes you laugh the most?
  
  My best friends.
  
• What is the best and worst about blogging?
  
  The best thing about blogging is getting invited to events and meet amazing people that you would otherwise never have met. You get in touch with people who are as passionate about something as you are.
  
  The worst thing about blogging is finding the time to write a decent article. I'm a social butterfly so I'm not at home that often
  
• What makes you different than other bloggers?
  
  I don't have the perfect figure so it's sometimes harder for me the put together the perfect outfit. Still I hope I can prove to everybody that you can have curves and still look great.
  
• If you can do anything you wanted for one day, what would it be?
  
  I would want to live in the shoes of an extremely rich person and spend an aweful lot of money.
  
• The best movie you’ve ever seen?
  
  Most of the movies with Leonardo Dicaprio: Titanic, The Great Gatsby and Inception to name a few.
  
• Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate? This is clearly the most important question!
  
  Hot chocolate.

The blogs that I nominate:

• Sparklesofmakeup
• The Dutch Dauphine
• Rebellious yet Romantic
• Big City Life NY

My questions for the nominees:

• Why did you start blogging?
• What's your guilty pleasure?
• What's the craziest thing you have ever done?
• Who's your style icon and why?
• If you could keep only item from your wardrobe, which would you keep?
• What's your favorite tv show?
• Who's your celebrity crush?
• Which restaurant is your favourite?
• Which is your favorite cocktail?
• If your boss asked you to move to a city permantly, once one would you choose?
• Describe your perfect date night. 

Instalab #15

At Par Fête, a local afterwork party, I had these lovely pastas. 

At the Geox Breathes event I ran into the lovely Sofie Valkiers from Fashionata.

On a Friday evening we celebrated the birthday from one of my best friends with a jacuzzi party and a "small" bottle of alcohol.

My godchild with the dress I gave her for Easter.

The outfit I wore to the Fashionata's Ladies Night.

This is the outfit I wore to go to a dinner with friends. Love the colorful details.

I had a trio of chocolat as dessert. It's probably needless to point out how delicious it was.

Last Saturday I went to Replay Festival.

A healthy lunch to finish the week.

Instalab #14

It has been a while since I last updated you about my personal life. The reason for that is that I have been incredibly busy with work, posting 4 - 5 times a week a new article on the blog and lots of appointments in my personal life as well. As you can see below I attended some events but also checked out different restaurants,... Let me know which is your favourite picture!

Being busy means you have to multitask. So while I'm at the hairdresser, I also did my nails and tried to suck in new inspiration by reading fashion magazines.

One Wednesday per month, the event Overtime is organized in club Versuz. This is an afterwork party. My friends and I were vips at the Mini Store area.

This outfit shoot I did together with my mum. I called it A touch of red.

One of the events I attended the past month was the Men at Work Ladies night. 

The other event I attented was one of the most exciting events I ever went to: the Denvin Fashion show. The report from this event is my most read article so far, definitely check it out here. 

Trying out new places and things to eat are my favourite things to do. These nachos I had at Kiwi Maastricht.

The busy lifestyle and lots of partying had their effect on my weight unfortunately. Therefore I inscribed at a gym. I try to work out at least three times a week.

Sometimes I can't help myself but cheat on my diet.

Another hotspot to eat is Poco Piu in my hometown. I loved this place so much that I devoted an article to it. 

Another outfit shoot I did while spending the night at Luik. 

The past week I also went to Brussels to get my hands on some goodies from the H&M conscious collection. My best friend and I were too early so we decided to grap a healthy breakfast.

This is one of the pictures I shot while driving through Brussels. Big cities really give me some kind of overwhelming energy. I could easily see myself live in one. I really think we (myself included) don't pay enough attention to all the amazing buildings and scenes we have in our own country.

I eventually only bought this hear ribbon from the H&M conscious exclusive collection. Unfortunately some of the pieces I liked weren't available in the H&M store in Brussels.