365 breakfasts a year

by Nina

Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day. Also important is the diversity of your food, to make sure that in the end you’ll be collecting all nutrients your body needs. Well, here I am every morning wandering around the house in search of something to eat and keep ending up chewing on an old slice of bread treated with some overly sweet spread, because there’s nothing else I would want to eat. This is no good.

Do you recognize my story?  Then I have something nice for you: there’s more than just bread! Alpro knew this and therefore asked bloggers from all over Europe to photograph their fancy breakfasts in order to inspire the, when it comes to breakfast, uninspired rest of the world. For a year precisely, Alpro has been posting a breakfast every day, which makes a total of 365 breakfasts! That has to be worth eyeing.

I think Alpro used the bloggers to get their visitors to the Alpro website and to make them use Apro products, since every breakfast contains at least one of those Alpro products, but that’s just a completely wild guess. Another possibility is that they were too lazy to compile all these breakfasts themselves but did feel as if it should be done, preferably with their name on it.* But that doesn’t really matter now, right? As long as we can have our inspiration and aren’t obliged to use Alpro, it’s okay with me.

So, where are the pictures? You can find them here on the Alpro website. Here’s a one of the pictures I like the most, it’s number 340 and it’s created by the Belgian Applewood House.

* I do think Alpro sells good products, but we have to stay critical, right?

My first sauna experience

by Nina

For a long time I’ve been curious about going to a real sauna and especially about the naked aspect that clings to it. It didn’t seem something for me really, for I think I am quite prudish when it comes to nakedness, but I wanted to experience at least for once what it was like. Well, this horribly long winter made the perfect timing to actually plan a visit! Luckily for me, I found a friend who was done with the cold too and  already had some sauna experience (which means she would be able to guide and encourage me when needed), so we took off.

Let me begin by explaining how my doubts on me liking a sauna are funded. I’ve been in small saunas at the local swimming pool, but I have never been sure whether I truly liked it. I like the idea of sitting and relaxing, but in a sauna? Not sure. I am not even sure whether I enjoy taking a bath. At my parents’ place, the bathtub’s job description goes something like ‘collect all used, wet and dirty towels and tolerate the accumulating dust as you do so’. I have used it about three times in about ten years. Oh and once on vacation I’ve had a mud bath and a sulfur bath and that was really nice actually! This may count as experience here. My nudity background is that I just don’t really have experience with it. I am not a sports person so I never got used to changing and showering together with others and I’ve always been locking the bathroom door securely, just as all my family members. I am quite insecure about my body and to be honest I prefer others clothed too (not completely without exceptions, no). I am already insecure dressed in swimwear, really.

So I have never done this before, but I am willing to try. Maybe I am not that prudish after all. I am studying Biology and (therefore) it’s not hard for me to talk about things concerning nakedness, as long as it’s not about me specifically. I am really rationalistic and I know everyone looks different but at the same time we’re all the same and it doesn’t matter and we shouldn’t be ashamed, right? Plus I am not going there to get a guy so technically it doesn’t matter at all what others may think of me.

I did not dare to bring my camera to the sauna, so here you go: a completely unrelated but nice picture, from last year’s trip to Wimereux.

The idea was to go to the sauna to escape the cold, but it turned out the day we were going was the first day of real spring. Oh well, it’s better to walk around naked when it’s warm, right? It was quite weird actually. We met at the train station and took the bus together and it felt like we were going on vacation; the weather and the atmosphere were so different from before!

Important day in Dutch history

by Saskia

Slightly Orange was partly named after our country, the Netherlands, so it would be weird not to blog about this important day in our history. This morning, on the 30th of April 2013, Queen Beatrix officially abdicated in favour of her son, Willem-Alexander. She signed the Act of Abdication at 10:07, making her Princess Beatrix and her son King Willem-Alexander. Around 14:00, he was officially inaugurated.

The 30th of April has been a national holiday since 1949, known as Queen’s Day. This day was the birthday of Queen Juliana, mother of Beatrix. When Princess Beatrix became Queen, it was decided to keep Queen’s Day on the 30th of April, as her own birthday is on the 31st of January and it would be rather cold to celebrate a national holiday and to honour her mother. As the Netherlands has a King now, next year the national holiday will be celebrated on the 27th of April, birthday of Willem-Alexander, and will be called King’s Day.

Long live our new King and Queen!

The Style Book

by Nina

You know how I sometimes like to make collages of clothing in Photoshop? Which I then post here to make it seem more useful. Well, long before my Photoshop era I already made fashion collages, using good old scissors and glue. These collages have been collected in my style book.

Style book is a well-known term among fashion lovers. It basically means ‘book in which you express your style’, mainly by making collages, but writing, drawing and anything else you can think of is allowed. Once you have your style book, you can use it whenever you are in need of inspiration and of course you can enjoy it every time you feel like looking at nice pictures and compositions you collected and made yourself. How nice is that?

For me editorials are the main reason to like fashion magazines, mostly because of the possibility to rip them out and make them into collages. Or when images are too complete by themselves, to just collect them and look at them every once in a while. For my style book I prefer pictures with ‘doable’ clothing over catwalk looks no one (in the Netherlands) will ever dare to wear in daily life. This and my love for simplicity makes that my collages are quite simple and clean, which is exactly what I like.

Here I present to you the most recent additions to my style book and my first ever made animated GIF:

I don’t do credits in my style book since I am not publishing, but most images are coming out of ELLE, Glamour and H&M catalog and magazine. To give you an impression of the frequency of my collage making: shown are the fruits of 2.5 years. This frequency is low mostly due to the fact that I don’t want to spend much money on fashion magazines and magazines in general and I don’t want to use the internet for this because that would make it too complicated and I like the simplicity of how it works now.

Some more things I would like to add, for those of you who are thinking of starting a style book but don’t know yet how: there is no right or wrong. It is your very own personal project and you can make it exactly the way you like. Don’t like what you made at first? Just try if something else works better.
Plus: the images don’t have to represent the way you dress and that is totally fine. I once worried about my style book not representing me, but then I decided that the style book may be a good indication for the way I would want to dress if I had less restrictions (money, always the restriction) and more courage. My point is: it doesn’t matter as long as you like it and it may show you things about your style you didn’t already see.
So go ahead, making a style book is fun! ;)

The “one month no chocolate” experience

by Nina

On a wintry day Saskia and I radically decided to quit on chocolate for one month. The month March it would be. So we would not be having chocolate of any form; neither cacao, cacaoless white chocolate nor food with chocolate aroma of any sort. The idea behind this boycott was to become more conscious about our sugar consumption and that maybe after this month we would enjoy chocolate even more than we already do! Here you can read on our experiences and findings.

Nina’s chocolate diary

I was determined to just not eat chocolate for a while, as some sort of detox and to become more conscious about my sugar consumption. I could’ve also banned all sugar treats, but chocolate covers about 80% of my sugar intake so this seemed sufficient. I have done this before a few years ago and I remember that I caught myself eating chocolate about four times that one month.

Okay here goes. I started really good by resisting all chocolate things that came near me, just as brownies made by my mom (on the first of March, really?!), banana custard with chocolate sprinkles and tiramisu ice cream (I looove tiramisu!). So far so good. On March 9 Saskia came over for our very first true girls night, oh yeah, and then my visiting aunt served pie (one of the super sweet foamy kind!) with a small amount of chocolate on top. We ate it. Most of the chocolate was camouflaged, so that doesn’t count, right? Plus karma already got me by allowing the nuts on the side to make my throat itch.

Back on track! It went quite well actually, apart from that one time. What I was missing most is having chocolate sprinkles on bread. Other sweet toppings are just less nice. Celebrating Pi Day had some restrictions now, but the pumpkin pie was very good so it didn’t matter. March covers the run to Easter which means chocolate eggs! It is quite easy to not buy them, looking at the price tags, and I haven’t taken one of the eggs presented in bowls when paying in stores. Yeah! I was glad to realize that I like cinnamon, gingerbread cookies (the Dutch ‘speculaas’) and coconut about equally as chocolate.

It can only go downhill from here. This winter I developed the habit of buying chocolate chip cookies whenever it was freaking cold on a train station, which was quite often, to comfort myself and to be able to enjoy the warmth of the kiosk for a moment. I hadn’t done this in March until the 22th, but that day I had a good reason to be eating consolation chocolate. When I arrived at my parents, my mom offered me home made cake with some chocolate cream spots in it. Well, okay. If it changes anything: it didn’t really taste like chocolate to me.

From that moment on, I kind of stopped caring about the chocolate free project. I kept keeping track of my chocolate intake, though, which was quite confronting.

Make the most of your Easter

by Nina

This year’s Easter will be celebrated on the 31th of March and the 1st of April. Have you made your plans already? Here’s some more ideas worth considering.

Kick-start the day with an Easter Breakfast! I assume you know how to have breakfast, so I won’t go into detail, except: don’t forget about the eggs! If you like them that is. Plus you can do some extensive Easter themed baking, whether or not for breakfast.

Last year a friend and I ceremoniously shared KinderSurprise chocolate eggs. The idea for this was actually Amber’s. I still like it, except for those eggs being too expensive and the toys being, naturally, childish. You can also surprise each other with a hand painted boiled egg. Or anything else really. Hooray for Easter gift giving!

Getting tired of the eggs? Go haze instead! Organize a chocolate haze fondue. It’s rather sad to see him go down, but oh well, it’s a chocolate haze, were you planning on keeping him? You’ll get over it, by eating lots of his chocolate.

When the weather allows, you can have an Easter Fire in the evening! Or just  a regular campfire, or whatever is possible for you. A campfire is a good way to welcome the better weather and to get your friends excited for more campfires during the warm season and to make a lots of plans for the summer.

This might be cliche and childish and all, but: organize an Easter egg seeking event! You can make it less childish by adding an alcohol aspect or – I don’t know, be creative!

It’s only logical to send each other Christmas cards, no matter how religious you are, but Easter cards are way more unexpected and therefore, in my humble opinion, way nicer! You can make them yourself and make them very spring-ish with chickens and hazes and flowers and everything you and your friends like. Or you could google instead.

I hope you are now full of ideas and enthusiasm for upcoming Easter. The weather looks promising*, so let’s make it great!

Tweet from here via Tumblr.

* Well, now I am just making that up, but it can’t be that bad, right? How much longer will this winter take? Jeez.

Pie for Pi Day

by Nina

Today, on March 14, or 3/14, we celebrate Pi Day, dedicated to the mathematical constant π (pi), which has 3.14 as its approximate value.

What could be a better way of celebrating Pi Day than to bake a pie and eat it? Exactly, there’s none! Say hello to our Pi Day pumpkin pie!

Happy Pi Day!