The last What I’ve been up to went live on January 6th, which means it’s about time to give you a new overview of some of the things I did these past few months. If you like to stay more up to date with what I’m doing, then Instagram is the place to follow me. Check out @indiequeen84!

What I’ve been up to #7

We’re starting off this overview with some make up play time. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying playing around with make up again. I have plenty of products lying about that deserve some more love and I’ve been really into colorful eyeshadow looks lately. Here I’ve used the Urban Decay Vice 3 palette.

Even though spring has started, we had an actual winter this year. It wasn’t super cold all the time, but this winter had its moments. One day I walked out of the house to be greeted by ice covered trees. You know it is cold when that happens!

In my Christmas break I went on a major shopping spree in Amsterdam. I showed you the result in this haul. I stocked up on winter goodies, but also a few spring items already. But once the actual spring collections hit the scene I of course had to grab a few items from those as well. I showed you those in this lookbook.

This year I am limiting my shopping to certain moments as I’m saving up to buy a house. One of those certain moments was the release of the new 2017 Catrice collection. I showed all the products I bought in this video and reviewed most of the products by now.

These past few months have been incredibly busy. I spent most of January doing nothing but grading. Paper after paper, test after test and assignment after assignment. It seemed as if there would come no end to it, but it eventually did and I’m glad to have started Semester 2 which has me teach far fewer classes, which means more time for other things.

I also reviewed this stunner of a palette: the Lorac Pro 3. Despite it getting loads of bad reviews, I love this eyeshadow palette. It has just the right type of shades that are flattering on me without going overboard.

Despite the busy times there was also time for friends and family. My best friend came over, I went to a few birthday parties and my brother got married. Here I am having a drink with friends in our favorite bar: De Bonte Koe.

Another item you might have spotted in my huge winter haul, were these navy booties from Asos. I ended up wearing them finally on a not so rainy day and I got a lot of stares. They truly are a statement piece.

I also visited a theme park. Not for pleasure but for work. I supervised a group of year 1 students on their field trip to Toverland. I had never been there yet myself and since I do work at a track for Attractions and Theme Park Management, it was about time.

I already mentioned my brother getting married, but we also organized a babyshower for his now newly wed wife. The baby girl could arrive any day now, which means that I could be an aunt before the week is over.

Leiden by night. Always brings me joy.

I decided to force spring along and buy some brightly colored flowers. Unfortunately these caused my hayfever to flare up like I’ve not experienced in some time. I was sad to have to throw them out as they surely lit up the room.

During vacations I like to get ahead of the blogging schedule and I try to film as many videos as I can. One of them is a lipswatch video which will be up not this Sunday but next week. And when you do so many lip swatches in a row, your make up wipe ends up looking like this.

Another video I recorded during spring break was a wardrobe declutter. This was the result after one round. By the time I had finished, I was able to fill up 4 huge garbage bags. It took some time, but I am happy with the result. I like going inside my closet again.

I also posted my bookcase tour last January. They are some of my favorite videos to watch on Youtube and I decided to do my own. You can watch it here.

I sometimes get these weird food kicks and my latest craving has been chocolate milk. Not hot chocolate, just plain, cold chocolate milk. It made me feel like a 3-year-old, but it tasted really good.

The other night I spend a good few hours digging through some music playlists again. I usually gather a few from a couple of months and then sit down and have a giant click fest. I don’t like all that is on these playlist by any means and I’d rather listen to songs I might like or that are interesting to me than ones that feel like I’ve heard a million times. Takes some effort, but it makes for my own tailor made music intake and I love it.

Apart from Catrice, Essence of course also changed up their line. I bought fewer products, but also included some mini reviews/ first impressions of all of the products I picked up. You can watch that video here.

Finally, since flowers don’t seem to work out for me this spring, I decided to add some different greenery to my living space. Hema started selling succulents and cacti again and while I missed out on them last year, I decided to grab two this time.

What have you been up to lately?