Cute Valentine's Day Ideas

Hey guys,

do you like Valentine's day and do you celebrate it?

Personally, I don't attach so much importance to the day because I think that you can show your love every day of the year how much you love him/her. My boyfriend and I don't make a gift to each other, but we always spend the day together in case it's possible.

But sometimes I'm in the mood to prepare some special treats because I like being creative and I like to make people smile.

I've chosen some cute Valentine's day ideas that I want to show you.

1. Patch Cake

For this you bake two cakes, exactley the same recipe with the addition that you color one dough red. When the red cake comes out of the oven and is cooled down you can slice it and cut heart shapes out. You can use a shape like you do for baking christmas cookies. 

Next, fill your cake pan partly with the non-colored dough, set the red heart shapes along the cake pan, fill it up with the leftover dough and put it in the oven again. 

After cooling down, you can put come chocolate coating on the cake like I did.

Slice the cake and you have your finished result! 

Not all slices looked so good like these in the following pictures. At some parts of the cake the hearts slided from the bottom to the top of the cake - I don't know why. ;) 

Anyhow, I think this looks amazing and is a really cute cake to eat with your love on Valentine's day!

2. Granola Cookies

This tasty snack idea is really easy to make. You roast some granola and mix it with butter and honey that you get a sticky mixture. Use the heart shapes again and fill them up with granola on a prepared baking sheet covered with baking paper. Put everything in the freezer for around 15 minutes and enjoy your snacks with berries, yogurt, whipped cream or whatever you like! :-)

3. Fortune Cookies

Who doesn't like reading the little messages in the fortune cookies after an asian dinner? With this idea you can write little messages and notes for your love. You just need some paper and small notes, that's all. Cut circles out of the paper and prepare your little messages. I've used one of my +Starbucks Coffee cups as pattern for the circles because they have a relatively huge diameter. 

Take the notes and start folding the fortune cookies like in the picture below. Take the first three to five cookies as test cookies until you are practised enough. I left the paper with the butterflies out because it was too thin. I recommend using thick paper for folding the cookies. It will be much easier.

Put all fortune cookies in a nice box and make your sweetheart happy!

I hope you like these ideas. If you try some, send me a picture. I'm excited to see yours!

What are you doing on Valentine's Day? Do you have presents for your sweetheart?

Kisses,

Van

Meeting Alex Goot and Luke Conard

Hey guys,

last friday was the day for that I've waited nearly three years!
I've been to the +alexgoot concert in Frankfurt, Germany, whoop whoop!

In October last year he announced his Europe Tour in January 2015 and who ordered directly two V.I.P tickets? Yes, me, Van! :-)

Baking with Van - Carrot Cupcakes

Hey guys,

let's bake some 'healthy' cupcakes together!

Having way too many carrots at home, I've decided to bake some carrot cupcakes.

And I have to admit, these were my first cupcakes ever - until then I've just baked muffins.

So let's call it an experiment and let the show begin. :-D

What do we need first? Exactly...

Get Ready With Me: A Winter Wedding

Hey guys,

last weekend I've been to a winter wedding and not only the month 'Januar' defined it being one. Luckily, the bridal couple could celebrate their amazing day in a wonderful snowscape. 

All guests had to struggle a lit bit to arrive safely at the wedding because of slippery roads. Apart from that, it was a challenge to choose a proper outfit. Especially for all women the challenge was to look amazing, to wear high heels and to do not freeze. ;-)

At the end I can say it was a perfect day, for the bridal couple as well as for the guests. 

I want to share with you how I got ready and I give you some insights of the wedding location.

I decided to wear a knee-length dress, with a narrow cut at the chest passing over to a falling skirt. You may recognize it from my Winter Haul.

The dress I've worn to the wedding.

My Winter Beauty and Fashion Haul

Hey guys,

it might be that I did some successful shopping in December and January. :-)

Do you wanna see which things I've bought? So, let's take a look. 

Starting with the beauty stuff...

Some of you might guess - Van is a +ZoevaCosmetics - Fan, right! 

So besides the amazing Rose Golden Luxury Set on that I did a review, I got some more products like the Rodeo Belle(*) and Smoky(*) eyeshadow palette, the Luxe Color Blush(*) in the colour 'He Loves Me Maybe' and the Lip Crayon+(*) in the colour 'Second Chance'. 

I'm a kind of person I love creative names for beauty products and, being honest, sometimes I buy a product because of the name. ^^ Yes for sure, I like the products anyhow, I do not buy anything that I couldn't imagine to use. I really like the name 'He Loves Me Maybe', giving this blush-colour this 'Hm I'm a little bit shy, but anyhow I'm a self-confident woman' - expression. Great!

My wonderful collection of Zoeva products.

ZOEVA Rose Golden Luxury Set

Hey guys,

may I introduce my newest purchase to you? - The Zoeva Rose Golden Luxury Set!

Since I'm a huge fan of make-up brushes - and if you have read my last post on the Urban Decay Naked 3 palette, you know that I love rosegold-coloured things - it was beyond all question that I had to buy this gorgeous set!

The set includes eight rosegold brushes and a brown elegant leather-imitated clutch (size 24 x 18 cm).

The eight Zoeva brushes of the Rose Golden Luxury Set.

Urban Decay Naked 3 Review

Hey guys,

this year at christmas I was a lucky girl - I got the Urban Decay Naked 3 eyeshadow palette as a gift from my partens. Since summer 2014 the brand is released in Germany and you can buy it at Douglas for around 50 €.

I've read a lot of blog posts of the Naked 1 and Naked 2 palettes before, telling that the pigmentation of the different eyeshadow colours is great and that the colours last the whole day. Even without primer the shades might show their true colour. So, let's check it out. ;-)

I own some eyeshadow palettes and until then I was every time a little bit disappointed even because of their lacking pigmentation. So I was more and more excited to get a Urban Decay product.