DIY Entry organizer

Since I moved to Belgium I had a brand new room to decorate, so one of the things I did for my new room that I've been absolutely loving was this entry organizer.

Life update #2 : Living in Belgium

Hello! It's me. Again. And guess what? I'm in Belgium! I'm so excited to be finally here! And, specially... I'm so excited to finally have internet access, which I didn't have when I arrived! Crazy, right?

Coming to Belgium has been so exciting, and scary, and nerve-wrecking, and even exhausting, but I think things are finally settling down and it was time I got back into my blogging routine.

I decided that I'm going to create Travel Tuesdays to share with you my experience here in Leuven, or, if I travel, I will show you what I visited. But I just couldn't wait until Tuesday to get back to blogging, so I'll show you a little sneak peak of Tuesday's post...

Bruges

Spice up your cords

In my family we are Apple lovers. We all have Apple products, which means we all pretty much have the same cords. I started doing this becauseI thought it would make my cords look cuter, but it ended up being a must-do when I noticed my family kept taking my cords, and sometimes changing mine for other ones that were about to die, as if I wouldn't notice.



What I did is I painted the ends of the cords with nail polish. Easy as that. For this one, I used a bright pink nail polish and some glitter nail polish on top.

I hope you like this idea, and make sure you show me if you try to do it!

College essentials

I used to absolutely hate Back to school season. Summer coming to an end is already depressing enough. Last thing we need is for back to school commercials to come up on tv as we try to make the most of those last few days we can spend doing nothing but sitting on our couches, watch tv, use our computers, sit on our beds...

But there as much as I hate those commercials, I just love back to school posts and videos. I don't even know why, but I love them. I know I'm a bit awkward, but... that's the truth. And right now all my back to school preparations are basically packing for Belgium. I already have a lot of clothes I want to take with me so I can't do any back to school shopping or DIYs or anything fun. But I wanted to do a back to school post too, so I decided to share with you my college essentials.

Agenda

My agenda is my life-savior. I have everything written on it: from exams and projects, to birthdays, blog posts, plans with people... everything! My memory is... nonexistent so I rely on this completely. I've been using the same color code since high school and it's been working pretty well for me. If you're curious, this is what I use:

• Blue: Birthdays
• Green: Exams (because green is the color of good luck)
• Yellow: Random things related with University
• Pink: Plans
• Purple: Projects
• Orange: Blog (this one is new)

Colors

I gave you a little spoiler describing my agenda, but I'm a fan of using colors. I have colored  highlighters, pens, post-it's, papers... I like to use colors to highlight the most important things and to brighten up my notes to make studying a bit less boring.

Post-it notes

Or may I say "colorful post-it notes"? This is another thing I use for EVERYTHING! I use tiny ones as bookmarks, or to write things on my agenda that are very important so writing them in its color is not enough, or when the date of something may change, because I don't like crossing things out.

I use bigger post-it notes to write things I forgot to add or to summaries the most important things in my notes, seeing them in another color helps me focus on what's truly important, and the reduced size of the post-it note makes sure I don't write anything but the most important stuff on them.

Water

Well, human beings need water. To keep hydrated, and avoid those super uncomfortable moments when you're very thirsty and can't stop coughing in the middle of a class. 

Hair ties

How many times have you read or been told that you should study in a tidy place? Well you shouldn't only get rid of any distractions from your desk, but also from any distractions in general. And these include your hair. When I'm working on something important or need to concentrate a lot, I need to put my hair away so it doesn't bother me if it gets in my face, or so I won't get distracted by it and start playing with it. I always need to have a hair tie in my wrist.

Music

I don't need to explain why I love music, do I? Music is always the best solution. You're going to need some relaxing moments and music... music is music. Who could live without it?

Sugar

Sugar stimulates the brain and helps you think better. Eating a million pounds of sugar is definitely not good, but eating a few before an exam is! Don't cut it out of your life because you're going to need it.

Sleep

Sleep is very important. I'm always super busy and I don't sleep as much I should. Maybe that's why I know not sleeping is definitely not good for you. You're much more productive if you sleep enough. Trust me, not sleeping enough is not going to help you at all.

Question of the Day

Which are your college/high school/school/whatever essentials?

Note. I also decided to use this post to make a little experiment. My camera is very old and heavy and takes A LOT of space so I don't know if I should take it to Belgium with me, so I did this whole post with my phone's camera because I wanted to see how I'd do next year without a camera.

The big guide of blog design

As I was doing my Makeover Mondays series, I started to get asked quite a lot about blog design tips, so since I no longer have the time to design your blogs myself, I decided to make this super extensive post for those of you who want to give your blogs a brand new look.

I'm going to share with you some pretty basic (and hopefully useful) tips and some of my favorite resources and tutorials.

Makeover Mondays #7: Brunette in black (LAST ONE)

Today I'm showing you the little makeover of my Makeover Mondays series, at least for this summer. However, I decided to do one more thing for you, which is... THE BIG GUIDE OF BLOG DESIGN. I prepared a pretty extensive post with a few blog design tips, resources, and tutorials so you can give yourself a blog makeover!

And now... let's talk about the makeover I did. Last week's winner was Monica of Brunette in Black. And this was the description she left:

Blogging has been a passion of mine since 2009 and this year I wanted to take it further. I wanted to share what I love, inspire people and be inspired, to share a little bit of myself with the rest of the world.
I would like to win the makeover because I want my blog to have something unique and special, the personal image of the blog itself and me.

She  asked me to try to incorporate a little illustration she found online on the blog design, and I struggled a bit at first since I didn't know how to, but this is what I came up with...

All good things come to an end, and I wish you thought Makeover Mondays was a good thing. Good or bad, that's it for this summer. I loved getting to do your blogs, and I wanted to thank you all for trusting me to do this for you. I hope you all enjoyed this!

Recycle your bottles

I don't know why, but I just can't throw bottles away. I always think they're too cute and just want to keep them forever. So today I bring you some ideas on what to do with them for those of you who have the same problem.

Fill them with candy

You can fill them with small candy like m&ms or gummy bears, or with candy that sticks out.

Paper stars

If you don't know how to make a paper star, it's actually very simple. You can watch a video here. You can even add a motivational quote inside each star and open them when you're feeling down.

I didn't fill the whole bottle because I'd just done my nails and... oops! 

Bracelets holder

You can use it as a jewellery display. It will help you keep organised and it looks nice.

Fake flowers

Just insert some fake flowers in the bottle and you've got a pretty decoration. If you have tiger stores in your town, you can actually buy some pens that look like flowers, like the brightest one in my photo.

They don't really require any extra explanations, so I hope the photos were enough to give you some ideas.

Question of the Day

Do you feel the need to keep all your bottles? If so, what do you do with them?