Alliebeans!!

Happy Cyber Monday everyone!


One of the best things of being a nurse is not getting the Monday blues, since we work night shift, weekends and all, Monday can be our day off, and sometimes we can't wait for it to arrive!


Today I've been sort of productive, I'm guessing I could have been more so if I hadn't gone to sleep at 5 am, but I really wanted to finish 501st by Karen Traviss, and now I just can't wait till the next book! But anyways, I managed to take quite a good portion of the photos for this blog entry, and edit all the ones that I'll end up using, and I'm writing this blog entry, so I guess that counts as productive?


I stumbled onto Allie's shop via twitter I believe, saw a link, checked her shop, and knew I had to get something at some point!


I decided to get myself one of her signature pouches, the Porta-Pouch, in denim with a super cute hedgie appliqué! Not only is super cute & well made, but I've also discovered it's the best companion for an amateur photographer gal like me! You just get your ID, cards and some cash in it, and you can slip it inside your photo bag, taking very little space, and having all essentials with you! And even in my tiny bowler bag (that can fit my E-620, one lens attached to the body, two more lenses, my porta-pouch, my lenspen and my card-reader) it fits perfectly!








During my last trip in the US, Gaurav's sister & her hubby got me an iPod nano as b-day present (I've always wanted one, but kept postponing buying one cause of this and that...) so I was very excited about it and also knew it needed a lil cozy to protect it from scratches and bumps. Since Allie has some very cool phone cozies for iPhones in her shop, I thought of asking her if she could make me one iPod nano sized one! She was very glad to help me, and came up with a super cute pouch, in my favourite fabric from her shop, the Yoga Cats!










Also while staying in Wisconsin she had her Halloween Sale, and also listed a few more goodies in the Yoga Cats fabric, and since I can't resist it, I went and bought a whole bunch of things: Porta-Pouch, Cosmetics medium bag and Sneezy pouch, aside from one of Batty sneezy pouch that was on sale. I asked her to ship it directly to Spain since I was leaving WI soon. She shipped it the day before Halloween, and I have no idea what adventures the naughty cats got themselves into, but they arrived only last week! Allie had included a Yoga Cats fabric covered mirror as a lil extra, and that's super cute too!














Once I arrived home, aside from waiting for my Yoga cats to arrive, I also indulged myself in some more pouch buying, I got a super cute Moo Cow iPhone pouch for my friend Nayade that loves all things cow! and a lil baby box pouch (also part of the Halloween sale) that is small but sturdy enough to use as my tampon pouch! Both pouches managed to somehow arrive before the Yoga Cats, and I can't wait to give my friend her Moo Cow pouch that I've kept in Allie's original packaging; it was too cute not to use it!






If you've fallen in love with Allie's super cute pouches, she's having a 15% off SALE for Black Friday & Cyber Monday!

Sunday Shots: Week 33

Sunday again!


And as usual, back come the Sunday Shots! I've managed to get mine done at the very last minute, cause I was too busy this week with work, and this weekend having some social life!


But here are both Gaurav's and mine shots! A lil winter-y themed btw.






I'm hoping to write a pair more blogs next week!

A lil Saturday update! A Kreativ Blogger Award

*waves*


Feels so good to be home, relaxing on the sofa (thinking of going to sleep soon), after having a great time out with my friend Pilu.


We went for lunch at an Italian, had some absolutely yummy foods, with a bottle of wine, and then went to see New Moon! I liked the movie, I think the Vulturi were very well cast! And as I said, I liked the movie, but all the teenager girls screaming at the screen for Jacob or Edward is not the way I like watching movies. I guess my anti-social-ness comes out cause I don't like the traffic and crowds of malls on Saturday.


Yesterday I got a very cool award from my very talented friend, Miss Sheika, who is an amazing artist, so I'm truly honoured to be given a Kreativ Blogger award! You really need to check her blog for her amazing weekly comic entries!




As usual, all awards have their rules!:

- Put the award with message on your Blog.
- Leave a message and link to the one you got it from.
- Tell us 7 things about you we didn’t know.
- Choose 7 other bloggers who you want to give this award,
- Link to them and let them know you gave them the award!

7 things about me that you might or might not know:

- English is my second language, but I was attracted to learning the language when I was 3 and wanted to watch Muzzy, a green fuzzy alien cartoon that was in English!

- I've always loved to travel, and now I make two (or three) long international (and intercontinental) trips a year to spend time with my bf.

- I have shopping issues, I tend to shop to compensate emotional haggard so when I'm feeling particularly crappy about missing the bf, or work was been too tolling... I go a bit crazy on Etsy or buying books.

- I love books, buying them, reading them, hoarding them! I want to have a HUGE library in my dream house.

- I'm extremely ecclectic with my taste in music, I can like Iron Maiden and Kylie Minogue at the same time!

- I have a bit of an irrational attraction for all things Pagan (think ancient Celtic & all sorts of Mythology) for an atheist.

And my Seven Bloggers I want to give this award to are:

- by_Rheea
- Cotton And Cloud
- Fabulously Fierce
- Hollyrocks
- Meekiyu's Dream
- RockerByeBaby
- MorganStreet Handmade Soap

And now I'm gonna hope for G to sign in on Skype before I go to sleep to make my day complete!

Stocking up on Holiday cards!

Hi there!


Finally, it's Friday! (Black Friday for all you lot in the US, happy shopping!) And although I have to work tonight (something I'm not entirely looking forward) after that, I'm gonna be having a bunch of days of (finally!) so I'm hoping I'll have enough time to relax, have some social life (on Saturday is lunch & New Moon with bff) and take loads of photos and write a few blog entries!


This year I have decided to start my shopping early, and though for a general consensus many atheists like me don't celebrate Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Solstice, I for one, don't care about the religious background, but I do love the excuse for buying presents for the people I care for and getting together to enjoy yummy food! So I've already started my gift shopping, I'm still waiting for some packages to arrive here before I can send a package with all my Christmas gifts to the US for G's nieces.


What other shopping I decided to start on early is Holiday cards! This year I had decided I'd only get handmade cards, and that's what I did! I found three shops with amazing cards and I did my shopping there! Dollgift, UniqueGrabs and Enfin LaVoila!





My first purchase was from fellow blogger and amazing artist Rheea, on her Dollgift shop on Etsy. I saw a few sneak peeks on her blog posts, and I knew that I was gonna be getting a set of her cards as soon they were available! So I snagged a set, and when they arrived, pretty fast, all the way from Singapore, I was in awe at how super cute her packaging is and even more at how cute and sturdy her cards are! I'll probably be sending these to G's family both in the US & India.






Next came indulging the geek in me! I had been watching UniqueGrabs' shop for quite a while, cause they have all sort of geeky cute b-day cards with characters from SW, LOTR, Twilight and many other movies (even My Fair Lady!), and when I saw their special of Holiday cards with the Kreepy Kids version of SW characters... I knew I had to get them! They're really colourful and cute and most of all, GEEKY! Mr G is gonna be getting one, and so will those friends of mine that like SW and know English!






And finally, I have family & friends that don't speak English, but also deserve holiday cards, and I still wanted them to be handmade... what to do? Well, doing my usual perusing on Etsy of my favourite shops, I checked EnFin LaVoila's shop and ta da! problem solved! Right there on her shop announcement was the solution to my problem! She can make her cards in any other European language you want, cause she has an European keyboard with all the accents she may need! So I contacted her, and she was super fast on making two sets of six cards on each of the two designs I chose! Now, my friends & family will have some super quirky & cute cards in Spanish!






So here they are! Showing off my super cute and unique Holiday cards, like them? Go get yourself some! Handmade cards for the win!

Sunday Shots: Week 32

Hey there!


Luckily, Sunday Shots have arrived in time this week too.


G got his shot ready yesterday and I racked my brain this morning to decide what to try, and managed to meet the deadline, so here they go!:


Just a warning... don't be scared! G is really a sweet guy!






More next week, I promise! I have some Holiday cards I need to rave about! ;)

Just for the heck of it...

Aaaahhh, the weekend is finally here!

I've just been so unmotivated as of late... unmotivated and uninspired for both taking photographs and blogging. Coming back home, leaving G behind in the US, and going back to work not just full force but overdoing it sounds like a good excuse, but still, what time off I've had this past weeks I've dedicated to reading (or to be more accurate, devouring books, this week I've read 3 books, one per day, I think Charlaine Harris' style makes for a really fast read for me!).

So today, after the morning bath after work to relax all the tensions from the rather bad night and a lil morning nap (and failing at trying to work on this week's self-portrait), I'm sitting here in my sofa, chillin' at last and thinking that I will update my blog with mindless babbling and a reminder of what this blog is about.

G suggested this while we were on holiday, given the amount of reviews and how all of them are such glowing and positive ones, I just again remind all the followers (and occasional readers) of my blog (75 of them, WOW! I'm so flattered! Thank you guys for thinking I'm worth following) that this is NOT a reviews blog, what is this blog, then? Aside from the weekly place where I post our lil ongoing photographic learning challenge, is a place where I share my love of the handmade products that I purchase, which means, everything that is featured in this blog has been bought by yours truly, I don't get things sent to be reviewed.

The process here is simple, I buy something handmade, I get it, I love it, and I want to rave about it! So I take some pics and write a blog here about it! Of course all the reviews are positive ravings, cause I write about what I love, that's why the title of the blog is "In Love With Handmade"!

One of the things that buying handmade includes is a more personal touch in the whole process, where you talk more with the person you are buying things from, so that also translates with a more friendly relationship with the sellers, and after a positive experience, I usually keep in touch with sellers via twitter, etsy convos or the blogsphere itself, and being a repeat customer can mean access to discounts or special promotions, and let's face it, I'm so damned nice, sellers love me to bits! ;-)

The bottom line of this blog is just this: this is my little corner to voice my opinion, and that's just it, MY OPINION, I'm not being paid to say things one way or the other, and if I get something and feel blah about it, or didn't have a wholly positive experience about it, I won't blog about it, cause it won't be worth my time.

So, that's that, outta my system. Now I can go get me a cuppa and think about what to do about my damned self-portrait for this week...

See you tomorrow (hopefully)!!

Sunday Shots: Week 30 & 31

*dusts off blog*

It's been a while since I last posted, but coming back home, the jet lag, leaving G behind and going back to work full force has kept me both busy and uninspired to work on the blog.


We've also been quite uninspired to work on our weekly self-portraits, but we finally managed to get our arses in gear a bit, so here I give you both our shots for week 30 & 31.


Week 30:





Week 31:





Hopefully this next week I'll update the blog more often, since I have a few days off, so I'll have time to rest, and my inspiration will come back. Wish me luck!

Sunday Shots: Week 29

Sunday Shots is back, and right on schedule again! (at least in US time, in Spain is already past 2 am... my goodness, the jet lag is gonna be sooooo bad for me!).


This week Gaurav managed to take his self-shot on Thursday itself, a total first for him, I slacked a bit more, but managed to take mine on Friday itself.


Gaurav is showing off is "new" 30 year old prime lens.




And I'm showing off the colours that come straight off the camera using the "Pop Art" filter.




Have a great rest of the weekend, and next time I'll be posting it'll be in all probably from Spain, since I'm going back on Tuesday *sniffle*.

Happy Halloween!!

Hey guys! Happy Halloween!!


I hope you all lot are/have had a very fun Halloween! This was my first time to really celebrate Halloween since it's not celebrated in Spain, so though I've seen it many times in movies and all sort of TV shows, this was the first time I did have a Trick-or-Treat & dress up Halloween.


Me & G are house sitting right now for his sister, so we were in charge of handing out candy this year. We didn't have the foresight to plan much costume wise, so I managed to come up with a home-made witch costume, and Gaurav decided to skip it.




My witchy costume was pieced together with a brown dress G's sister had around, a witch hat, a pair of stripped longstockings I got from PoppysWickedGarden, two Halloween-y hair flowers I got from Mizu's Garden, a necklace from Headless Tess and my make up, base & veil by Pink Quartz Minerals & eye shadows by Orglamix.













I have to say I enjoyed giving out the candy and seeing the costumes the kids wore (I loved that some many kids had SW related costumes!) and even more the ones the parents wore! The weather was pretty cold though, so we didn't get as many trick or treaters as we were expecting, which leaves us with LOADS of candy left... even if we were giving handfuls of candy to every kid...




Halloween really IS my favourite holiday!