DIY advent calendar

About a month ago my friend and I made a deal that instead of buying an advent calendar, which I haven't had in years by the way, we will made each other one.

Of course as a famous procrastinator I am, I waited until the very last minute to made one. 

I must admit I forgot how much I love being creative and I am glad we made the deal because it forced me to search my brain for ideas, made a plan and then stick to it. 

So here is what you'll need:

• cardboard
• paint 
• colourful paper (preferably red, because it's christmas time)
• some stickers

What you'll need

First thing I did, was cover the cardboard with white colour. Simply because the cardboard had a logo on it and I had to cover it up, but also because I felt like white would make everything look more christmasy.

As I waited for the paint to dry, I started making little envelopes. I used this method >>here<<. For making envelopes I used a square (10x10cm) which I cut out from the red paper. 

Then I filled each little envelope with quote or a memory I have with the person I was making it for or I wrote down things I like about that person. Once the little envelop was closed, I put a sticker with a number on it.

Little envelope n. 1

Meanwhile the paint on the cardboard had dried up, so I turned the cardboard around and repeated the process on the other side as well. Then I waited for it to dry again while I continued to make the little envelopes. 

When all the envelopes were done, I stick them to a cardboard with a Sellotape. I basically made a little roll out of Sellotape and paste it on the back of the envelope so the Sellotape isn't visible. 

The final product

This is how the final product looks like. I can't wait to give it to my friend. 

I hope to make some more DIY posts in the future because I really enjoyed making this.

Have you ever made an advent calendar yourself? How did it turn out? 

They call me what?!

I've been trying to come up with the idea what to write for today's post and my mind went blank. I've been posting a lot about my experiences and things I'm doing, but I realised that I haven't shared much about me.

Whenever I'm looking for inspiration for a blog post, I tend to look around my room and my eyes landed on one particular picture.

I'm not going to talk about quote or what it might mean to me. No, I'm here to discuss why the bloody hell is there wheat drawn on each side of the quote.

It's a funny story, sort of an inner joke between my friends and I, and I am letting you in on it!

Basically I tend to get a bit carried away during sports activities. There are two reasons for this:

• I am extremely competitive
• Somehow sports activities boost my energy levels and get me into a really good mood (honestly, a cup of coffee doesn't wake me up as much as a good exercise does)

It was one of those days when we have sports activities in school first thing in the morning. We were playing volleyball and the team I was on, was losing.

Trying to be funny I started acting like a coach, cheering our team up and giving these ridiculous motivational quotes. At some point I said something like: "Come on, girls! They are crushing us. They are crushing us like flour. And we are not flour! We are wheat!"

It seemed like such a good motto at the time and for each point we got I would scream: "Wheat!"

I don't recall who won that game, but that thing about wheat stuck around and became an inner joke among my group of friends.

Do you have any weird nicknames? How did you get them?

My autumn break

This week I had my autumn break and I went to Copenhagen and Berlin. I haven't had time to come up with the blog post idea so I decided to share my experience with you.

I absolutely loved the trip, I love travelling in general, so I put together a few photos for you to see what I've been up to.

Denmark, Copenhagen

Germany, Potsdam

Germany, Berlin

Denmark

I think Denmark might be my favourite country I've been to along with the Netherlands and England.

What's you favourite trip you've been to?

Back at it

Two years ago, I decided to take up boxing. I needed to take up sport activity and a friend wanted me to check out boxing with her so I decided to give it a shot, even though I was sure boxing was not my thing at all.

How wrong I was.

I've fallen in love with boxing. I don't know what it is that makes me so enthusiastic about it, but I never want to pick up another sport again. My parent had complained that it's not lady like, but they got used to it and began to enjoy the surprised faces when they tell their friends that their little girl is training boxing. 

During last year, however, it got a bit too much. Balancing boxing and school seemed impossible at a certain point so I decided to quit it.

Sorry for the quality of the picture, it's a bit old tbh  

Every now and then I would look at my pink boxing gloves which were lying around my room, feeling nostalgic and wanting to run back to the gym, but I knew school would suffer.

This year I decided to make it work! I started with trainings in September and I've never felt better. I love getting rid of negative energy when we work on a punching bag. It also helps that I switched boxing club. The training are not as intense as before, the atmosphere is more relaxed and I freaking love it, okay?

If you've never tried boxing before I suggest you definitely look up if there is a boxing club in your area and check it out. Most places offer first training for free so you can decided whether you like it or not before signing up.

What do you do to release tension that build up during the week? 

Choosing career path

I'm at that point in life when people expect me to know where I am headed and where my future is. The reality is quiet different.

I have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life and the idea of making that decision terrifies me. My main goal is to do something I enjoy doing, but I feel like I haven't been introduced to all the opportunities and frankly I don't know what I enjoy doing enough so I wouldn't get bored of it in the future.

This weekend I gave one of my potential choices a go and I applied to a programming course Django Girls.

In second year of high school I absolutely loved working on HTML and programming robots, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to do something like that or if I just liked the idea of it.

On a Saturday morning I woke up quite early, had some breakfast and headed over to college that was organising the course. It's understanding I was nervous. New environment and new people, it's not my cup of tea. However, everyone was extremely lovely and after the introduction we were put into small groups of three plus the mentor. It was girls only course, if you haven't figured that out by the name of it, and I was put into a group with two girls who were both older than me. They were both incredible lovely and our mentor was brilliant. My biggest fear was that I wouldn't understand what we were doing, but he explained it so simple even a child would understand it.

If only all my professors were like that...

By the end of the day I was exhausted. We were there since 9am to 6pm, and we had recieved so much information my head was about to explode.

However, I enjoyed the whole experience.

I'm not sure if this means I am one step closer to choosing my career path or if it means my life got more complicated because this is another thing I am interested in.

Anyway, no matter what I decide to do in the future, this was a wonderful experience and now I got knowledge no one can take away from me, which is always nice.

Hopefully I soon decide where I want my future to go.

Until then I still have this blog.

Review: Girl Online

On my birthday I got book Girl Online written by lovely Zoella a.k.a. Zoe Sugg. Among other gifts, which you can read all about here, this was the one I've been dying to get my hands onto. Ever since Zoe announced her book is coming out I wanted to get it, but there's so many books on my MUST BUY list I never got around to do it.

To be completely honest with you guys, I wasn't even sure I wanted to spend my money on it because recently every youtuber has been publishing their own book and I've had a feeling that a lot of them felt pressured to do it because it was a way to make some extra money and because their viewers (me included) will buy everything they put out.

Luckily I was pleasantly surprised. I've fallen in love with Girl Online as soon as I read a few pages. It's a good teen romance, easy to read and it seems so realistic. It shows the influence of social media and how easily things can go viral and mess up someone's life completely. The book has a good representation of how it feels to be a teenage girl who is intimidated by world, doesn't feel like she fits in and above all doesn't understand what is happening to her.

However, our main character Penny, isn't afraid to express herself on her blog, putting her feelings out for the world to see and share her honest opinion. In her words she is keeping it real on the blog and unreal in her life. Her blog is like a safe place to her and I believe a lot of us (people who like to write blog like she does) feels the same way.

When things get overwhelming in school, her parents offer her a little getaway to New York. There she meets a boy that goes by the name Noah. He's different that what she knows, slightly older, very handsome and surprisingly good at asking random questions. They get involved, but Noah is keeping something a secret from her and when she returns to UK, things fall apart.

But you have to read the book to find out what happens.

Girl Online is a perfect book for a lazy, rainy day when you want to escape from reality. With a cup of tea by your side and wrapped in warm, cozy blanket you have a perfect setting for a day of relaxation.

Late birthday surprise!

My family has been building up tension ever since I first found out my aunt was taking my somewhere for my birthday and she didn't want to tell me where. I was supposed to go with her to that mysterious place a week before my birthday, but she had to travel on business that week, so she told me she would take me on the third of October.

The whole week my parents were saying things like:
"Have you packed your suitcase?"
"We already told your teacher you wouldn't be in school next week."

I was absolutely thrilled and freaked out. I love traveling and I grab the opportunity to go somewhere as soon as someone mentions it. So it's understandable I was excited.

When I came to my aunt's place at nine o'clock in the morning, she opened the door and greeted me with: "Where is your suitcase?"

At that point I wasn't sure if they were joking around or not. Needless to say my anxiety started to kick in because I couldn't prepare myself mentally for what I was about to experience. It was nerve-wracking.

We were getting closer and closer to the airport when my aunt told me she was taking me to Germany to help in refuge (because of the immigration crisis and all). I was speechless. I don't mind helping people and I believe you should offer a helping hand because you never know when you are going to be on the other end. When we drove past the airport, my aunt started laughing and told me we are actually not leaving the county.

Disappointment was definitely staring to kick in, but I convinced myself that whatever I get it's going to be amazing.

And I was right.

My aunt took me to a sushi workshop. I believe I mentioned in the previous post which you can read here how much I adore sushi.

The workshop was absolutely A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. We were thought how to make sushi by Japanese woman who have lived in Slovenia for eleven years now. She walked us through every step and at the end I had more sushi than I was able to consume. Luckily my brother is as enthusiastic as me about sushi so during the weekend it gradually disappeared from the plate.

Looks delicious, doesn't it?