For fans of Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games and hairstyles

   Hello everyone! College's been keeping me busy but I didn't forget you.

   You know, I just love getting beauty inspiration from the movies and series I like. They usually have such charming and peculiar styles that I wish I had time to do them every day!

    So I usually look for tutorials of nice up-do's that I've seen on them so I can try to copy at home. I finally stopped being lazy and started learning how to do french, dutch, fishtail and rope braids on myself; and that's good because lately that's what's been showing on my favorite characters.

    And here are some awesome tutorials I've found for the Hunger Games braided styles and the Game of Thrones styles:

   These girls have lots of incredible tutorials that I just loved! They explain it very well and the styles are so flattering! All of them, they have all kinds of hairstyles in their channels.

   So, next time you don't know what to do to your hair to go out, check their videos. There are tons of great and quite simple ideas. I'm addicted to them, really.

   Hope you enjoy!

Every Classic Hollywood Actress

   Collecting photos of them to cover my college notebook. I love covering notebooks with a theme. Never done a vintage one, though. Time has come for that.

   Classes start on Monday and I'm pretty excited! We don't have proper classes in the first week. First week is "get to know everything" week. Then classes officially start.

Now I'll have to cook for myself. I see disaster coming.

   I've been terribly busy putting everything in order in my new tiny apartment. There's so much to do when you start a place of your own! Tiny details of things that you had in your house and no longer have. Yesterday I stayed there with my mom because the fridge and stove would arrive. All we had was the microwave, so we bought frozen meals for lunch. We went out to buy some stuff in the morning and arrived at lunchtime, starving. Wasn't it so disappointing when we were going to turn on the microwave and the plug wouldn't fit? We had to walk a good bit more to find a way to adapt it. Just great.
 
   Well, it's all good now, at least. Now my place looks like a home. There are a few more things I have to take, but basically it is ready. I'm so proud! Now I have a place to call my own (well, kind of. It's rented, which means I can't put nails on the wall, which sucks. But, I can let my things in the bathroom, and I can't do that at home!).

   Think I will be fine there.

Vintage Hairstyles: Retro Styles with Step-by-step Techniques review

   What an amazing book! I could not imagine anything clearer and simpler than that.

    Lauren Rennells, the author, covers from the most basic points (such as which products are used) to finishing touches such as hair acessories, basic instructions on applying red lipstick and defining eyebrows and even the style of nail painting in each era. Simply brilliant!

    The beginning of the book explains the products used, the effects produced by different methods of curling hair and some bases such as the victory roll and the fingerwaves. The section on curling clarifies many doubts I had when curling my hair for a vintage look (for my hair is naturally curly, but kind of in a renaissance way), because the way you set the curls in the hair, de direction and angle you pull them and even the way you expand it make difference in the result.

   After that comes a section in which she teaches to do full updos, step-by-step, all with careful instructions and pictures to leave no doubt about its ways. The styles portrayed are deadly gorgeous (from more than 30 I didn't like much only two) and the haisrtyles evolve so you can try the first ones to get practice to do the last ones.

   In the end there's nice explanation of which accessories match each kind of hairstyle, an easy way to do you own hairflower and some tips on makeup and nails. It's just perfect. When I finished reading I went through all the styles putting little post-it notes with which accessory would look good and which variations I could see for the updos, for quick ideas. Now I just have to purchase some products and start working!

   I've already tried a simple set of curls in the bang. I have a not very long bang that I like to wear curly. My hair does curl naturally, but not always the way I wanted at the bangs. So I did this set she teaches at the beginning and the effect is so flattering! Kind of like this:

   And who doesn't want to look a tiny bit like fabulous Rita Hayworth?

I did it!

   I'm going to college!

   Friday was a very happy day for me. I was so anxious, I woke up at 6 a.m. to see if the results were out (they publish a list on internet) and continued checking every half hour. And yes, I made it!

    And made it very well. My course, which has not an exact equivalent in the english speaking countries - it studies the language (here, Portuguese), basically, its roots and grammar and literature, and a second language (you choose between english, spanish, french, german, italian, greek, latin and some colleges offer also chinese, japanese and arabic) and its literature.

    So, I was in ninth place in my course! Ninth! I am so proud!

    My course is not very valued here, despite its interesting proposal, because mainly what you can do with its diploma is teaching. And no one wants to be a teacher anymore, except crazy people like me. I want to teach at the university, because the salary is very good, but I would also like to teach younger people and make them like reading (reading is seen here as an EXTREMELY boring activity and people simply don't do that. Ever. They just spend their lives without reading a single book. That's sad). Maybe even do some research on reasons why children feel so discouraged to read here and how to reverse this picture.

   Well, let's start by the beginning now. I already found a place to live, a nice little place, on a very safe building close enough to downtown so I can walk there when needed and far enough so noise doesn't disturb me. There are little food shops close and a bus that goes straight to the campus. I can't wait to slowly and cheaply go decorating it, filling it with my personality. It will be a nice challenge.

   Oh, and when I arrived home I had a little surprise waiting. My Vintage Hairstyles book was waiting for me! I'll do a review as soon as I finish it, but I can tell it is simply marvelous! I am astonished with the simplicity Lauren puts into the steps. She's a genius.

    I am very pleased with my life now, indeed I am.

Camila's Culinary Adventures

   So, I never learned how to cook. My mother did try to teach me, but I'm not a good learner from watching, I learn better doing, and she never let me just take over the kitchen. So over the years all I learned how to cook was instant noodles (which I looooove, but you can't live from it).

   These last days I'm trying to cook some stuff. If I get to go to college this year (results come out tomorrow!) I'll have to cook for myself and I'm looking forward to this as great opportunity for me to try doing this my way.

   I've been mostly cooking pasta, because I love it and it's easy. Pretty good results until now. First time I tried to do white sauce I burned everything so I had to throw it away, but second attempt was very successful and very delicious. My seedless and skinless tomato sauce didn't cook much, but was delicious as well. And just yesterday I did some alioli with Jonas and it was very good too. I've been lucky so far.

   But the best thing we did was an omelette. At first things didn't go very well - I'm very clumsy and always find a way to more explode the eggs better than break them. Then it started to go right. We chopped ham in very small pieces and put it in the egg, mixed everything and threw it in the frying pan. Then I remembered there were some potato leftover from dinner (the omelette was a 2 a.m. snack. Hey, it's my vacation) so I chopped it very small as well and put it evenly on top and let it cook. When it was almost done we flipped it over (with the help of a plate. We're not so ninja), waited a bit and put it in the plate.

   Here's our masterpiece:

   Seems pretty yummy, huh? And it was. Just perfect.

   Other nice culinary good I discovered the other day was the cutest koala shaped biscuits filled with chocolate. Jonas and I went to this japanese store here where they sell sushi and other things from Japan and he took them for me to try.

   They are made in Thailand and are SO delicious! You just can't stop eating it. It's a pity it comes so few in the package. It comes about 10. 10 is not enough for my candy satisfaction!

   Aren't they the cutest thing?

   In time, I hope I'll be cooking more elaborate stuff. Who knows one day I am good enough to post some recipes here? That should be interesting.

Anxious to start vintage beauty experience... and maybe college too

   I'm done with my exams! No more! And hopefully, never again! Results for the college I want come out next friday, and I'm really looking forward to it. In the meantime I've been looking for places to live if I get accepted and waiting for my fabulous vintage beauty books to arrive from the US.


   It was really REALLY expensive because the dollar has been going up lately and the shipping was US$50. But I longly reflected on it and got to the conclusion it's worth my money. I'm sure I will use these bokks all the time and if I were to buy something like those here it would be even more expensive.

   I ordered Vintage Hairstyling: Retro Styles with Step-by-step Techniques by Lauren Rennells which has amazing reviews everywhere and seems to be very simple and instructive. People say the chapter on curling techniques is awesome and I really do need some help with my pincurling (it always gets kind of irregular). They also say it is very complete on the haisrtyles and little details like hair acessories and even nail beauty (even though I don't like painting my nails, I can see how this information is very useful for most women).

The author has also a vintage make-up guide which I will totally buy if the hairstyling one is good. She writes the lovelly Bobby Pin Blog that has more tips on hair and other stuff too. She looks like a very nice person.

   I also ordered two truly vintage books: Beauty, Glamour & Personality - A Complete 1940s Guide to Vintage Makeup, Hairstyling and Elegance; and Westmore Beauty Book - A Complete 1950s Guide to Vintage Makeup, Hairstyling and Beauty Techniques, both by the Westmore brothers (they did the makeup in many movies of the time and were very innovative). It's going to take so much time for them to arrive! At least February 15. The books are very complete and include even lifestyle and etiquette instructions, everything widely illustrated. They look like treasures to me.

   I'm really looking forward to their arrival. Can't wait to try all the beautiful styles!

Easy DIY Hairstyles

   I love these pictures that show step-by-step how to do some hairstyles, so through time I've collected a few of them and I want to share with you. I don't think they are the most flattering hairstyles around (vintage looks are prettier), but they are more to add a nice touch in you common everyday look.

 

   Hope it's useful to everyone! I still have to try most of it... But I'm pretty sure it'll work. Have fun!