Yankee Candle Summer Haul

Over the years my mum has been increasingly complaining about how hard it has become to find something to give me for my birthday which I actually haven’t picked out myself beforehand. Something I told her that she can never really go too wrong with are scented candles, especially Yankee Candles. So, when I finally turned 20 (which just sounds so much better than 19) I got a bunch of Yankee Candle samplers, amongst some other very lovely bits and bobs. This time, she had a really good hand (or rather nose) with picking out some fairly nice fragrances. Except for one or two, I actually liked all of the candles that I got! Now, here are the individual votive candles, each with the description taken from the Yankee Candle website as well as my opinion and rating on them.

Frankincense

"This precious resin has long been sought for its delicate sweetness, peppery spiciness and balsamic wood undertones."

To get it out of the way, I’m going to start with the only scent I absolutely didn’t like. Normally, I’d even burn candles that don’t really make me release torrents of enthusiasm but with this one I just couldn’t get myself to burn the whole thing as it literally made me feel sick. When the candle isn’t burning, it actually has quite a nice and subtle orange scent but as soon as you start burning it, the incense simply gets way too overpowering. ‘Balsamic wood undertones’ is definitely a slight understatement, if you ask me.

► 1/5 ◄

Red Raspberry

"Tangy sweet and full of nature’s goodness … there is nothing quite as delicious as ripe, rosy red raspberries."

After that odour nuisance, let’s get to something much more pleasantly smelling. With this candle, you get the fruity and deliciously sweet scent of freshly picked raspberries which isn’t too sickly at the same time. This kind of makes me want to go to the nearest raspberry plantation and pick baskets full of these tasty red fruits (… and pay for them afterwards, of course).

► 4/5 ◄

The Chocolate Factory

As nearly everything’s normally shut down on Sundays, me and my family occasionally like to visit a little seaside resort nearby called Eckernförde on those days. The shops there are allowed to be opened because of a special regulation for such resorts here in Germany.

The city certainly doesn't offer a ton of different stores, but I really enjoy browsing around the little shops without the intention of necessarily buying anything.

Anyway, there is a very special place in Eckernförde that is definitely worth stopping by - especially for everyone that has a sweet tooth like I do! The place I’m talking about is in fact a candy factory (in German 'Bonbonkocherei') where you can see how the candies are made and also purchase a ton of different sweets. Although I should warn you: Especially on Sundays it’s really busy in there!

However, this place also includes a separate chocolate factory in an outbuilding  which I stepped into as it was much less crowded. And let’s be honest: I prefer chocolate over wine gum and hard candies anyway.

For me, it’s always interesting to see which types of chocolate they have to offer when I go in there, as those tend to  vary throughout the different seasons. For instance, you can get ‘apple-cinnamon’ in winter and something like ‘strawberry’ or ‘orange’ in spring and summer.

All of the different chocolates just look so nice and appetizing next to each other! ^_^

Top 10 favourite Yogi Teas

As I'm slowly revealing all of my more or less secret passions, I'll let you in on another peculiarity of mine: not only am I obsessed with sweets and nail polish but I'm also a huge lover of tea.

I have already tried quite a lot of different tea brands from all over the world and if I were to pick a favourite one out of them all, it would have to be Yogi Tea.

Let's first talk about the amazing idea of putting a yoga pose on the side of every tea box. In my mind, there couldn't be any better recipe to help you relax and destress than the combination of a warming tea and yoga!

After getting the actual tea bag out of its envelope, you also get to read a lovely little philosophical quote/ piece of advice.
["Happiness is taking things as they are."// "To a friend you can lend the whole content of your heart." // "Empty yourself and let the universe fill you."]

Anyway, enough about the packaging and onto the actual tea itself.

Yogi Tea make a variety of different spice and herbal teas which are all based on authentic Ayurvedic recipes. By now, they have already brought out over 40 different kinds of tea! Out of all these blends I'd like to recommend my personal top 10 to you.

[Side note: Yogi Tea also does green and black teas but due to my hypersensitivity to caffeine -I literally will not get a wink of sleep if I have some-, I’ve only included caffeine-free teas]

10. Women’s Tea

I have to say that I was kind of sceptical towards the concept of a tea that is specifically meant to be for women. According to Yogi Tea it’s supposed to 'support the feminine side of creativity and inner balance'. Although I'm not quite sure whether it really does that for me, what I can say is that it's pleasantly light, comforting and just delicious tasting.

Prevailing flavours: ginger, cinnamon, orange, fennel, chamomile.

9. Classic

You can never go wrong with a simple, classic and yet still somewhat exciting Chai tea. Just add a little bit of sweetness and milk to it and you've got your perfect, homemade Chai Tea Latte!

Prevailing flavours: cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, black pepper.

The Versatile Blogger Award

I've recently been nominated by the lovely Jo from Say Cheesy Cake to do the Versatile Blogger Award. I’m very grateful for her nomination as she’s one of the first bloggers I've started to follow and she always puts so much love and effort into her posts!

I think this is quite an enjoyable tag as you’re supposed to tell the reader 7 facts about yourself which is great for getting to know everyone a little more personally.

So, without further or do - here are the 7 facts about myself:

I. My absolute favourite movie series is (and will certainly always be) Harry Potter. Normally, I’d rarely watch any film more than twice but I've seen all of these so many times that I know practically every single scene by heart now.

My Nail Polish Storage

One thing that you may have already noticed about me by now is that I'm quite a nail polish enthusiast. What follows is that my collection doesn't really seem to stop growing anytime soon.

It has taken me quite a long time and lots of failed attempts to figure out a way to properly store all of my polishes.

There were certain requirements that the final storage solution had to fit:

1. The polishes should be easily accessible!
2. The different colours should be displayed (or at least visible without having to take them out of a box or something)!
3. It should store over 100 polishes!
4. At best, there should be an option to enlarge the storage capacity!
5. I don't want to spend a fortune on specially made polish racks that you can buy online!

Despite the rather large number of requirements, I finally seem to have found the perfect solution for me, namely the RIBBA picture ledge from IKEA! Although it's certainly not intended to be used as a nail polish holder, it's perfectly suitable for this task.

Sail Into The Sun

The other day, I was listening to a few different remixes on SoundCloud and there was a certain song that got totally stuck in my mind. It simply creates such a positive, laid-back atmosphere that it sort of inspired me to make another drawing.

The particular song I'm talking about is called "Sail Into The Sun" which is originally performed by the band Gentlemen Hall but I listened to a remix version of it which was created by RAC (who honestly do the most amazing remixes, by the way!).

The  picture with its individual elements slowly came to life whilst I was listening to this song on repeat for what felt like over a hundred times.

Again, I worked with pastel chalks and basically the same equipment as already described in a previous post called "Chalky Flower Meadow".

After all, here is the final outcome deriving from the picture that my weird brain associates with this great piece of music:

A New Take On Classical Music ♪

First of all, I have to say that I'm usually not really into classical music. Although I certainly haven't developed a strong reluctance towards this kind of music like I have towards German folk music (how on earth can this be qualified as actual music in the first place?) but it's definitely nothing I'd listen to on a regular basis.
Nevertheless, I found that classical music as well as the corresponding instruments don't necessarily have to be stale or tedious. Nowadays, orchestral elements are increasingly incorporated into modern songs, anyway.

Some time ago, I stumbled more or less accidentally upon a musical group that transforms popular songs into beautiful classical pieces. They do not only stick to songs that appeared in the pop charts at some point of time but they actually cover a wider variety of genres also including rock, country, techno, metal and more.
The group I'm talking about goes by the name of Vitamin String Quartet (or VSQ in short).

Chalky Flower Meadow

Every now and then I think it's necessary to simply tune out for a bit. For me personally, I've found one of the best ways to relax and just push all the annoying stuff aside for a moment is drawing.

I especially enjoy drawing with pastel chalk. Even though I'm mainly using blending stumps or tortillons to smudge or blend different colours, I also like using my fingers sometimes and enjoy the feeling of the paper structure under my fingertips.

I use a set of Studio Quality Soft Pastels by Faber Castell that includes 36 different shades. I find the colours fairly intensive when applied which enables you to create expressive and really vibrant compositions.

My latest little creation featuring a sunrise, some poppies and a cherry tree! ☺

Adventure Game Check: The Whispered World

To give you a small impression of this adventure game I'm going to outline the most important aspects of the game.

Title: "The Whispered World" (available on Amazon *here*)

Platform: PC

Genre: point & click adventure

Developer: Daedalic Entertainment

Publisher: Daedalic / Deep Silver

Graphics:
I have always been a fan of 2D-adventures. Some developers made the step and tried to realise an adventure game in 3D. As far as I'm concerned the outcome could just never keep up with the traditional 2D graphics. Above all because 3D is simply unnecessary when you control the game through point & click and only makes it needlessly complicated.
Anyway, the drawn backgrounds in this game are just breathtaking. Every single one is an entire artwork on its own. The amount of details is literally out of this world. Here are a few screenshots to give you at least a small idea of it:

Currently On Repeat: "Evelyn" by Abby

©universal-music.de

I recently stumbled upon this song on the radio and immediately fell in love. As many radio presenters nowadays tend not to repeat the song title afterwards I finally retrieved it after some more or less intense internet research. The song "Evelyn" was released in 2013 by the German band Abby who are currently living in Berlin.
Definitely have a listen when you're into superb indie rock paired with contemporary electronic elements!

Yankee Candle Winter Wonderland 2014 Edition

Especially in autumn and winter my love for scented candles seems to be growing ad infinitum. There's just nothing better than staying inside on a cold and/or rainy day, snuggling up with a cosy blanket, wearing fuzzy socks AND burning an enchantingly smelling candle!
Unfortunately, there are remarkable differences when it comes to the quality of these wonderful, waxy things. Although I love the candles that you can get at IKEA for about 2-3€ the range is simply too small for me in the long run.
Soooo, where do I go searching for lovely-smelling, nicely-burning scented candles that also come in a huge variety? Yankee Candle! (...at least most of the time)

As I get tired of a certain smell rather quickly, I prefer getting the Yankee Candle samplers. While I'm still waiting for my dream of an unlimited budget to become true, in reality it can be quite pricey to buy excessive amounts of these candles (Yankee Candle samplers are usually 2,49€ each).
Taking advantage of my experiences from former years, I usually go looking for nice winter scents right after Christmas as you can get some great discounts at that time. Luckily, this year I wasn't disappointed, too. So I ended up getting the "Yankee Candle Winter Wonderland 2014 Edition" for 15,99€ instead of 31,99€ at Karstadt. 
This gift set includes 12 different votive candles from various winter collections with two of them coming from the most recent one (Candy Cane Lane & Icicles).

1. Christmas Eve® (description taken from the package)

"traditional festive scents of a warm hearth, sugared plums, and candied fruits."