Ikat Dreams

now i finally understand what people mean when they say: you are never done with furbishing an apartment.

it´s so true, everytime i think i´m fully equipped and done with decorating or moving things around i find some places in my home where i could still fit in a mirror, painting, a tray or vase or other decorative elements.

these items are on my wishlist right now - i discovered this amazing online store called CWonderstore.

they have basically everything one could wish for with ikat prints or other cute designs.

the gold athena leaf tray (this one is from Vanillawood actually) is perfect for holding jewellery or displaying other items as well as the ceramic plate with the giraffe (they also have that one with other animals).

also, one can never go wrong with some candles like this one from diptyque. 

note cards are cute for dinner invitations (place cards) or for a quick note added to a present.

now here´s the bad news - i fell in love with most of the stuff from CWonderstore only to find out that they are not shipping to austria.

bad for me, good for you guys who live in america! but at least i can get the gold leaf tray :)

but i will go on a hunt to find at least some similar items that are available in austria as well!

additionally, i highly to recommend these stores to you:

- Design Darling (for decorative objects)

- Muji or The Container Store (for acrylic storage)

- The Party Fairy (for party accessories)

- Jonathan Adler (for trays)

- A Modern Style (for monogrammed chevron home decor)

- Society Social (for great vintage bar carts)

- Annechovie (for prints and jar matches)

1.,2.,4.,5.,6.,8. via C Wonderstore

3. via Vanillawood

7. via Stylebop

HAVE YOU ALREADY ENTERED MY GIVEAWAY? STILL OPEN UNTIL 07TH SEPTEMBER!

Givaway: Hudiefly Shirt

i am super super excited to be able to start my first giveaway for you guys today - and i think it´s a pretty amazing first giveaway as well!!!

i`ve teamed up with lovely jasmine from hudiefly and we decided to give away one of her amazing, asymmetrical shirts with her logo on it. 

i love all of the stuff she is offering in her shop (ordered a mr. mustache shirt for myself) and the print on these tanks below represent the hudiefly logo, which is the chinese letter for "fly".

"Hudiefly: Hudie, [ syll. hu-die, hud-ie ] means butterfly in Mandarin Chinese."

what i especially like about hudiefly is that they are environmentally green, also they donate a portion of all of their sales to charity works. the company was founded in 2011 by jasmine and her design partner shirley and clearly they developed their own style and put some very creative design ideas to life with this brand.

so here is the thing: jasmine wants to improve her logo (even though i think it´s already perfect the way it is) and wants to know what you guys think about it and how she could change it in terms of color, size, shape or whatever you could think of!

GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!

WINNER WILL BE NOTIFICATED BY MAIL TODAY!

to win one of these gorgeous shirts, just follow these simple steps:

- follow ketchembunnies on either google friend connect, bloglovin OR facebook.

- like hudiefly on facebook.

- leave a comment with your mailadress, the color of your choice AND an idea on how to improve the logo in the comment section of this blogpost.

- a winner will be chosen randomly by the end of next week on friday, 7th of september

good luck to all of you guys!

for loners.

while most of my evenings are packed with running, shopping, seeing my girls, spending time with my babe or just cleaning and decorating the apartment, i have some nights just for myself where i´m not planning on doing anything at all - like yesterday. on these rare occasions i like to come home from work and just relax, open a bottle of wine, light up a candle, read my favorite magazines, do my nails (for which i don´t have that much time ususally), watch a good movie or series on my laptop and prepare a healthy meal for myself - but nothing too fancy because i don´t even want to spend too much time on that when i´m alone. i think it´s really important to be alone sometimes - just throw on something comfortable and make the most of YOUR night.

daily essentials.

one thing that i always like seeing on other blogs is the make up the girls are using because i am very keen on finding new beauty secrets.

i am almost addicted when it comes to high quality beauty products and could easily spend all my money on it and have to really stop myself sometimes from shopping too much make up.

i´m on a mission to find the best foundation out there every other month - kind of obsessed with the whole foundation thing - or to basically have the perfect looking skin.

so today i want to show you guys my absolute basics in make up that i use on an almost daily basis 

(sometimes only once or twice a month when going out).

(just something quick here: before you look at the pics i have to apologize for the dirty look of some of the products but that´s just because i really do use this stuff)

i don´t really use something other than mascara and kohl on my eyes, except when i´m going out - then i apply eye shadow as well to create some smokey eyes. those two products up there are my absolute favorites when it comes to eyes, the mascara is unbelieveable and the fluidline kohl is a little bit hard to apply but you get used to it (application with a little brush) and it lasts FOREVER.

for blush i´ve been using chanel for a long time now - it´s a pressed powder, can fall down but doesn´t break and crumble, lasts a really long time on the skin and smells of roses.

i recently rediscovered the lipstick from n°7 - it is a brand that i know from the time i lived in england, not sure if you can purchase it around here - but i love the color and use that lipstick for the office now, it´s a light nude shade. the mac lipstick is a neon orange and i wear that one when i feel very daring, which only happens to be once a month.

that dior powder i got from my babe as a present, it was from a limited dior winter edition and i love that it´s an absolute HIGH END PRODUCT. when applied, it gives you a light, sheer diamond shimmer wherever you want to have one. the case is decorated with swarovski diamonds and it really sparkles in the light (and it doesn´t look as dirty in reality as it looks on this picture, sorry guys!)

now - my favorite subject - foundation. 

those make ups up there where the ones that i purchased recently but i never came across one that satisfied my needs as much as the esteé lauder double wear make up and i really tried them all - bobbi brown, mac, clinique, lancome, chanel... i get a lot of compliments for my skin when i´m wearing it, but i can only recommend it to people who have slightly oily skin and want a make up that lasts very long because it´s rather thick and sticks to the skin for about 24 hours. and with stick, i really mean stick - you can´t even rub it off anymore to blend out any edges, so be careful with applying.

the invisible fluid by esteé lauder may be perfect for people who have naturally beautiful skin and just want something light to even everything out, but it´s just not enough for my skin, also it doesn´t last at all - i can just wipe it off like a cream or something.

i am rather satisfied with dior´s bb cream, but i have to apply a lot of powder as well when i´m using it because my skin will get oily and shiny after two hours if i don´t.

when it comes to powder, there´s not much one can do wrong - i love all mac powders, especially the pressed blot powder. it really absorbs any oil and you don´t even see the powder on your face.

the mac mineralize powder is a littlebit thicker and some people use it instead of a foundation, but i really like it as well. the esteé lauder one is also good (like everything else by esteé lauder) and i use it on days when i feel like the mac blot powder isn´t enough.

nails and fragrance are pretty easy and i don´t invest a lot of time/money in that. i found that for me some dark shades work best on my fingernails, those are the ones that i use on the weekends - for weekdays and for the office i apply essie´s allure which turns out sheer when applied once and white when applied three times. 

in general, my essie collection is growing fast and i am a big fan but i find it unpractical to use colored polish during the weeks - i don´t know what it is with other bloggers or if they just don´t have a job, but i don´t have enough time to do my nails every day or go to the office with mint colored nailpolish on.

for fragrance i use either what is given to my as a present or i buy jil sander sun - not only does it smell great and reminds me of summer but it´s also really cheap - around 20 €.

hope i could help you all a little bit and if you have any questions, please comment below and i´ll be happy to answer all of them.

girly as can be. (+ video)

yesterday we had our weekly get-together with sonja, vicky and our friend judith.

we have this concept that every week there is another host who kindly lets us spend the evening in their apartment and prepares something to eat and drink and yesterday it was judith´s turn. she made us delicious bruschetta´s
and for dessert some kind of raspberry cream on pancakes - soooo yummy!

of course i wanted to give my best in looking as girly as i could yesterday (we also listened to girly music and drank rosé wine), and this is how it came out!

 i also want to show you a very special video that my friend sonja made of our evening yesterday and it turned out AMAZING! you find the video at the end of this post!

(all pictures thanks to vicky)

kiss from a rose

i was very inspired by anna´s  post about her putting flowers everywhere around her apartment to pretty up her space. fresh flowers are something that i wanted to get since i moved in but somehow never managed to actually do it - but now i did and am so happy about the fresh smell in every room and the nice look the instantly provide. so now my plan is to buy fresh flowers at least twice a month - the simplest and most beautiful way to redecorate a flat on a regular basis.

 

things you wanna bring to the woods.

since i´ve spent the last week at our hat on a mountain in carinthia where we spend most of our summers (which is the reason that only two autoposts came up on the blog), i thought of showing you some wood/forest/nature inspired things that you might wanna bring for a week outside the city or that remind me of being there (also, the woolrich arctic parka is on TOP of my shopping list right now).
i am really impressed at how small you can really fold the new wayfarer folding by ray ban (my babe got this one for his bday).
also, you guys are probably wondering why you should bring an yves saint laurent lipstick BUT my motto is that no matter what you are doing or where you are, one can do everything with at least a little bit of class!
and yes, i am fully aware that normally you don´t wear heels in the forest but i really like the color :)

(click on the picture to see prices and links)

the vienna experience. mayerei im türkenschanzpark

as i already told you in the last post, i met up with my friend judith a while ago and we decided to go to a nice little bistro in the middle of the türkenschanzpark in the 18th district of vienna.

the restaurant is called "mayerei im türkenschanzpark" and it´s surrounded by flowers, palms and people who stroll through the park, play games and do sports. 

i love that they offer a wide range of juices that are being purchased from a local bio-farmer.

also, you can choose from a huge range of small dishes - we decided to mix two salads together and the outcome was pretty good - just look at the pics below.

so if you wanna grab a quick snack and combine it with a walk, the mayerei is the place to go.

Chain all over.

last week my good friend judith and i decided to meet up halfway from both of our homes, which happens to be the türkenschanzpark in the 18th district of vienna. 

i went there by foot and it was a really nice walk from my apartment, although next time when going for a walk i will throw on something more comfortable :)

the jeans are my current favorite pair of jeans because they fit so well, were super inexpensive and i got them while being in budapest the last time. i also really love the blazer which has large shoulder pads and a chain running down the revers - got that one last year in spring from guess. 

however, the key piece of this outfit is the necklace for sure which i got from my friend vicky as a belated birthday gift - did i already mention how much i love my birthday this year?

and what we were doing in the park you will find out in the next "vienna experience" post!

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KETCHEMBUNNIES

Mediterranean.

yesterday i went out with my good friend vicky. we had such a good time and since the weather is still really (!) nice in vienna, i decided to go for neutral, bright colours - all white with my navy striped jacket.

we went to a restaurant called "neni am naschmarkt" and had a lovely evening there - at first i was scared it might be too hot for a jacket and jeans but in the end it was pretty chill and i was happy with my choice.

i have to say i´m so blessed to have found such good friends in vienna in such a short amount of time - so thank you girls for the many lovely evenings i get to spend with you!

the vienna experience. Tel Aviv.

another edition of the "vienna experience". bit by bit, my friends start to introduce me to the real hotspots of vienna and i love it! tel aviv beach is a pretty crowded place because people seem to really like it there, for obvious reasons. we got there around 7PM and already had to wait a while for a table, although the outdoor area is pretty big and offers a lot of seating possibilites. 

so far, one of the best places i´ve been to!