It has been a while since I've written a blog post due to a lot of schoolwork. Before I start catching up on all my blogging work, I want to give you a heads up about all the things I've been doing these last couple of months. In that way my upcoming blog posts won't be so confusing and it will all make sense in the end. Get ready for a list of things I've been doing along with some pretty pictures.

The last time I spoke to you guys was around April/May. Since the pressdays my life has gotten pretty busy, both personally and blogging-wise. I've been working with a couple of brands such as Fuelfood and Innerglow. Two healthy brands that I like a lot. I've been writing weekly Dutch blog posts for Fuelfood which you can find here. My next post on my own blog will be one about Innerglow, a brand designed by the lovely Angéline who makes ready-to-blend smoothies which are soooo delicious! Stay tuned for more info about this brand at the end of the week!

May also brought some awesome new friends. Thanks to the pressdays I got to know a lot of fellow bloggers who really inspire me. I've been discovering new yummy places with Florence from Go With Flo, I discovered the limited edition collection from IKEA in collaboration with Coely with Nena from Turn It Inside Out and I've been to many events with Lynn from L'amour Innocent. All of these exciting moments from May and June will come to you in the next couple of weeks!

Besides these happy moments I've also been hard at work for school. I've finished my final assignment and succeeded, which means I'm graduated with a masters degree of Interior Architecture. At the end of June we had an exhibition with all the students for our teachers and our family. And, along with my partner in this assignment, we also got selected for an other exhibition in 'De Singel' in August, so if you are curious on what we did, you can come and see for yourself! To finish off the school year, Gate 15 organised a graduation party at the Zoo of Antwerp where we danced and celebrated the end of our unilife between the flamingo's in a retro chic style! 

All the above will be posted these next few weeks with a longer description and a lot more pictures. One major thing I've done last week actually is something I wanted to do for the past two years and that was cutting my hair and donating it to Think Pink. If you want to see a preview of my new haircut then you can find a picture on my Instagram page. Of course the before and after pictures will come along with the blog post! I think I've mentioned most of the events that happened in those two months of not blogging. Keep an eye out on my blog if you want to know more about any of these things and I will talk to you very soon!

- xoxo - 

Chiara

Along with the pressdays there are some goodies to take home to test out. I didn't even expect to get so many things for free but I'm so grateful that these press agencies gave us these things. Most of these fun little presents came in the three biggest goodiebags from Yapado. As this was our first stop and we didn't have a car, we had to carry these huge bags all over Antwerp for the rest of the day. If you read the previous blog post, you'll know that we had breakfast at Yapado to start our day. So most of these goodies were food from brands that served for our breakfast that morning.

We had several kinds of drinks in different goodie bags. From our first stop at Yapado, we got a juice from Jus Jus, which are raw cold-pressed juices. Mine was 'The Jus Tox' which had ingredients such as cucumber, ginger and celery in it. If I'm honest, it is not my favourite. There weren't many options left to choose from so I picked this one myself. But somehow the combination of ginger and celery isn't something I like when I'm drinking a juice. Ginger is fine in my tea but not so much in this combo. Besides the juice, we also got a carton of coconut milk from Koko Dairy Free which is great for my smoothies. The Bottlegreen sparkling water is something we got in the goodiebag from Pravda, as well as the three Finleys.

Yapado gave us a third goodiebag which was filled with all things beauty. The first thing that caught my eye when I opened the bright pink bag were these four (!) cute bottles by Body Fantasies. These body sprays smell so good and can be used as a fragrance, because honestly, they last so long! I put these on to test them after the breakfast and I could still smell them in the afternoon. I gave the vanilla one to my sister because I'm not that keen on vanilla flavours. The 'Pink Sweet Pea Fantasy' is my favourite one out of the four. 

Last but not least are these yummy granola bags from I Just Love Breakfast. I've spoken about these before in my previous post but I was happy to see these in my bag! Granola is one of the things I like the most for my breakfast. When we tried these during our breakfast at Yapado, I could already tell that I wanted some more granola of this brand at home. We got two tiny bags of granola. The first one being number seven, which is the organic cashew banana granola, and number five, the organic pecan almond granola. 

These are the main things that we received in the goodiebags mainly from Yapado and Pravda. I'm again really grateful for all these yummy and beautiful presents and I want to say a big thank you again to all press agencies! I'm not bragging in any way, I just wanted to show you guys what I got and what new brands their are. I hope you enjoyed this post!

- xoxo -

Chiara

Something I wanted to achieve with my blog is something very small but kind of a big deal for me. If there was one thing I wanted to do was to be invited to the pressdays. I know it's not such a big achievement but for me it was a point in my 'bloggingcareer' where I knew that I meant something to somebody else. A few weeks ago, a lot of bloggers started to get invitations from different agencies for these upcoming pressdays on the 26th and 27th of April. Until a few days before the actual dates, I hadn't received any mails. I didn't make a fuss about it and hoped to maybe be invited for the next pressdays for the next seasons. But the moment I told my mom that I didn't get any invitations, my mailbox alarmed me that I was invited! I couldn't be happier and immediately messaged some blogger friends to meet up and visit the press agency. Some of these friends were also invited to many other agencies and we decided to go as a group. In that way, we could all visit a few more than we expected and go along with each other. 

The day started off with a delicious breakfast at Yapado. In collaboration with blogger Carolien from 'On a Healthy Adventure', we enjoyed this breakfast with brands such as I Just Love Breakfast, who have amazingly healthy, biological and handmade granola, Jura, koffie kàn, Koko Dairy Free, Lidl, Pure Via, ... Thanks to these brands we had a great breakfast to start off our long and exhausting day. After breakfast and the introduction to all the brands, we left with three goodiebags to our next stop which was Pravda Pressroom. (Upcoming blog post is all about the goodiebags!)

At Pravda we got to meet a lot of new brands but also some familiar ones. They had the new collection of some Herschel backpacks, Women's Secret, Happy Socks, Omoda and Springfield which were all so stunning! But also some new brands such as Lekker Bicycles, cute Contigo  flasks, Bottlegreen and Eskimo pyjama's. That is one thing I like so much about these pressdays. You get to know so many new brands you didn't even knew exist. And then I can tell you guys all about it! 

Our third stop was at Global Image. They had a beautiful setup outside, decorated with beautiful furniture by Nordic Living, Sofacompany and Eijffinger. They had these royal blue velvet sofas which were the softest and nicest sofas I've seen in a while! If you are looking for some new quality furniture, definitely check out their website! At Global Image, you could have something to eat or just have a drink with HenTho gin tonic, which is a handcrafted gin by father and son from the 'Antwerp Gin Company'. They also provided an area for Pronails, were you could have your nails done. 

Last but not least we visited Oona. Their showroom was the one I liked the most. They had a wide range of different brands such as CKS, Essentiel, JBC, Ikea, Dille & Kamille, Levis , Juttu, Terre Bleue and many more. I fell in love with this jeans jacket from Levis with embroidery but I have to wait for Autumn because only then all these new collection will be available in stores.

I hope you enjoyed this little overview of my first pressdays in Antwerp. I learned so much in one day and got to know a lot of new brands and bloggers. A huge thank you to all these press agencies for having us! Thanks to Marjolein, Eline and Florence for this amazingly fun day and taking me along. I'm so grateful to all brands and agencies for the beautiful goodiebags and I'm excited to see all these new collections in stores soon. Thanks a lot! 

- xoxo -

Chiara