25, December 2014 | 16:30

Xmas Eve

Hi lovelies♥ Did you guys have a good celebration last night? My family and I had the most wonderful night, with yummy food, lots of laughter, and of course; Lots of playing with my nephew. Is there anything cuter than the pure happiness kids have on Christmas eve? My little darling was over the moon happy last night, he is seriously the cutest thing in the whole wide world! I didn’t take a lot of pictures though, I actually put away both my phone and my camera most of the night and focused on just enjoying my family and all the delicious food. We celebrated in my parents’ 500 years old living room, which was beyond magical! They of course have a regular livingroom too, but this part of the house is just magic. It’s so full of history! The ceiling is painted by my grandfather, so beautiful..

Now we just got home from a lunch with my boyfriend’s family, and in exactly two minutes we’re going to a dinner with my family. So cozy! I just wanted to pop by and say hi before we go, and I also want to say thank you for all the wonderful comments I got on yesterday’s post! It made me so incredibly happy. You guys are the best! Now we really need to go, have a great evening everyone♥

24, December 2014 | 12:05

Merry Christmas

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Merry Christmas wonderful people♥ I hope your day will be absolutely perfect, and that you get to spend it with all your loved ones. My thoughts go to those of you who think the holidays are difficult for various reasons.. It’s important to remember that not everyone has a family or safe surroundings, and it breaks my heart. I have several friends who think Christmas is the most difficult day of the year, and my heart goes out to all of you feeling like that. And to everyone else, I hope you enjoy it to the fullest!

I’ve enjoyed a fantastic Christmas morning with my boyfriend and family, eating candy and watching Cinderella. That’s a tradition I’ll never let go of! I woke up to the cutest xmas stocking from my boyfriend which I was so thrilled about, I actually started crying, haha♥

Hot chocolate with cream, homemade Christmas treats from my friend Cynthia and her mummy, and Vogue from my stocking.. J’adore!

Okay, now I’m gonna be completely honest with you guys.. When I delivered my last exam on Monday, I had a little breakdown. Nothing big, I just felt so incredibly drained mentally, my head is exhausted after a really tough month of school and work! I had one day to fix everything for Christmas, and I suddenly felt a massive pressure. As a fairly big blogger, and an active Instagrammer, I have this idea that everything has to be perfect. My tree needs to be the prettiest tree you’ve ever seen, my gifts need to be wrapped to perfection with all sorts of ornaments, my house needs to look spotless, and so on.. Because that’s what it’s like with all the other bloggers! I shed a little tear yesterday and felt so useless, because I simply didn’t have the energy or the desire to try to wow you guys with all my perfect this and perfect that.. I looked over at my tiny little Christmas tree, and thought of all the other trees I’ve seen on blogs and on Instagram, and just didn’t want to blog it at all. ‘What a stupid little tree‘ I thought, while I was super frustrated and simply just drained. Then it occured to me ‘What the fuck are you thinking?!’!! I had to give myself a little bitch slap. The truth is that I think my tree is ADORABLE. My gifts are wrapped with paper and ribbon from Staples, and you know what? That’s more than good enough!! And now I’m sharing it with pride, even though the trees and presents you see on every other blog today is ten times more perfect than mine.

Haha, seriously guys, isn’t my tree a little cute? Just a little bit? I also got some gorgeous Christmas flowers from the Stylista team, which makes perfect decoration in my window..

And last night my boyfriend came home with the most gorgeous roses for me after finishing my exam period, which of course also made me cry. I didn’t even have to force him to like I had to on Valentine’s Day, haha♥

Okay, this was a super random post. I really just wanted to wish you all a very merry Christmas for you and your families. Lots of love♥♥♥♥♥

23, December 2014 | 16:56

Fluffy

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My order from Asos finally arrived! The one I told you about that I ordered in November, filled with Chritsmas presents. I had almost given up on the whole thing, and today I was planning to buy new gifts, but then suddenly it arrived. Oh, the luck!! The day before Christmas, hah, it couldn’t have been better timing. In the package there was also a little Christmas present for myself – this fluffy dream of a bag. I think it’s so freakin’ cute! I had a similar one in pink a few years ago, but after a little incident while drunk it had to go (I mistaked my bag for a barf bag, happens to the best of us).This will totally make any boring outfit pop, and I can’t wait to wear it! Now it’s present wrapping time with ‘Love Actually’ in the background, have a great night loves♥

22, December 2014 | 15:08

VIP Sale

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– adlinks –

Nelly’s Christmas sale is right around the corner for the rest of the world, but for you guys it starts today!! Nelly let me invite my readers to shop the sale early with a VIP early access code, YAY! All the goodies will be waiting for you in all sizes, and the prices are ridiculous. Most of the stuff is 50-70% off!! If you want to access the sale, simply click HERE and use the code XXCATH.

What better way to celebrate the holidays than to snatch a few goodies for yourself on sale? I know I will, after finishng a tough semester that is totally well deserved in my opinion. Here are my sale favorites♥

1: Here / 2: Here / 3: Here / 4: Here / 5: Here / 6: Here / 7: Here / 8: Here / 9: Here / 10: Here / 11: Here / 12: Here / 13: Here / 14: Here

I’m definitely going to order dress number 2, the parkas and the Chloé key chain. Did you guys find anything you liked?♥

18, December 2014 | 18:42

Dear Santa

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– adlinks –

1: Here / 2: Here / 3: Here / 4: Here / 5: Here / 6: Here / 7: Here / 8: Here / 9: Here / 10: Here / 11: Here / 12: Here / 13: Here / 14: Here / 15: Here

I’ve been so consumed with everything else this December, that thinking about what I want for Christmas hasn’t even occured to me. The only thing I could think of when my mama asked me was a polaroid camera, but while looking through my favorite online stores I realized that my wish list is of course much bigger than that, haha. There are so many pretty things to choose from! One thing I really want is a cool pair of sneakers, as my friends and I have big workout plans starting January (who doesn’t, lol). Girly things like makeup and jewelry is always a winner, and a refill of my favorite perfume is always awesome. What is on your wishlist this year?♥

16, December 2014 | 16:55

Photo Tips: Editing Your Pics Lighter

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I’ve been getting a lot of questions on how I always edit my pictures so light and bright, so I thought I’d share some of my favorite tips with you guys. I really like light pictures, and I always edit them as light as I can. I found a few pics I’ve taken lately, and here you can see them both edited and un-edited. Let’s start with the tips, shall we?

cathinthecity photo tips light editing photography fashion blog cathrine heienberg

♥ Lightroom → My editing tool of choice is Lightroom, which I think is absolutely fantastic. I use Photoshop for some things as well, but most of the magic is done in Lightroom. I absolutely recommend it to everyone with an interest in photography!

♥ Manual settings → It all starts with the manual settings. Do terms like ISO and shutter speed confuse you? Well, worry no more, I’ve already made a post about how to understand and use manual settings here. I always use manual settings, and it makes all the difference in the world. I always set the settings as light as I can without it compromising the quality of the shot. If the pictures are too light, you’ll loose a lot of details. The rest I leave up to editing. Below you can see how I edited the picture above.

♥ Exposure → The most important tool to use if you want lighter pictures is adjusting the exposure. Turning up the exposure will make your pictures lighter, and again, I turn this up as much as I can without loosing details in the pic. I also adjust the contrast quite a bit as a lot of exposure can make the picture pretty ‘blah’ if you know what I mean. I still want some life in the picture, and that’s where the contrast comes in. Most editing tools have these functions.

cathinthecity photo tips light editing photography fashion blog cathrine heienberg

♥ Blue hues → As you can see on the before and after pictures, the before pictures are pretty orange, and the edited pictures are much more white. This is mostly an issue when taking pictures inside without much natural daylight. The light from lamps inside is very orange, and not pretty in pictures in my opinion. The first thing to do is adjusting the white balance on your camera to the light bulb image, which will make your pictures more blue and less orange. If you still think there’s too much orange in the picture, you can adjust the temperature in the picture more blue, like you can see on the printscreen of Lightroom above. I of course don’t want the picture to be blue, so a little trick I always do is bring the saturation on the blue tones down. This might sound confusing, I know, but it’s really quite simple. I adjust the whole picture more blue, then when I bring the saturation on the blue tones in the pictures down, I’m left with a perfectly white picture. I don’t know if you can do this in other editing tools than Lightroom, and this is one of the reasons I love Lightroom so much. If you look at the printscreen above, and look in the bottom corner to the right, you can see that I’ve selected blue under ‘Colors’. This tool will only adjust the blue tones in the picture, and everything else will remain the same.

To the left you can see it with the auto temperature in the picture. Way too orange, right? In the middle, I’ve made the picture bluer, but I think the blue is too visible. On the right you can see the finished picture, where I’ve adjusted down the saturation on the blue tones.

You can also use this tool the other way around – to make the blues even bluer. I made a post on that this summer here, and I’ve seen several bloggers doing this lately. It really makes the picture pop! Just look at the difference on the blueness of the sky here..

♥ Good light → Good light to shoot in is absolutely crucial, and I have a little trick for that too. I have a huge lamp in my house, the kind of lamp they use on construction sites, hah. Earlier I used a photo lamp, but I managed to break it, and this work lamp works just as well. Try to take pics near a window with natural daylight, like you can see below.

♥ Whites whiter → Another function I love in Lightroom, is that you can make the whites in the picture whiter, and the blacks blacker. This is similar to the blue tones I tried to explain to you above; Only the whites in the picture will get whiter, and the blacks blacker. I use the black function a lot to remain the details on the darker elements in the picture that I still want to be dark.

♥ Lightening and darkening tool in Photoshop → A tool I love in Photoshop is the lightening tool, which is a brush you can swipe around on the areas you want to be lighter. You can choose how strong you want the light to be, and the same goes for the darkening tool. This is perfect if there’s just a piece of the picture you want to be lighter, and you don’t want to edit the whole picture.

Before editing.. HUGE difference, right?

♥ Saturation/meeting down → Another trick I often use, is to turn down the meeting/saturation in the picture just a little bit. It often makes the whole picture much more delicate to look at, and way more professional. You can do this in most editing tools.

cathinthecity photo tips light editing photography fashion blog cathrine heienberg

There we go! I’m sorry if anything is unclear, it’s so difficult to explain this as I don’t really know the right terms for things, and I don’t know how to translate everything to English. But if you have any questions or anything you want me to add, just shoot me a comment and I’ll be sure to answer the best that I can♥

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On a totally different note, I thought I’d add the links to where you can vote in the categories I’m nominated for in Vixen Blog Awards once again, as it’s been a while since I shared the links. You can vote for your favorite fashion blog of the year here, favorite blog of the year here, favorite lifestyle blog of the year here, and favorite outfit of the day here. I would be so incredibly happy if you voted for me! You can vote once every twelve hours in each category until December 31st♥♥

15, December 2014 | 19:54

Night In

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Hi superstars! Jeez, I’ve had such a productive Monday filled with energy. I thought I would be totally exhausted today after working so hard on my exam paper, but it turned out I just got tons of energy to do everything I’ve been postponing lately. Now the whole house is shined, laundry done, accounting work done, lots of organizing around the house done, and of course Bella and I have been out playing in the snow several times. She is the cutest thing! She jumps like a little bunny around in the snow, and catches all the snowballs I throw to her, haha. So adorable! She actually looks like a little snowball too, as all the snow she jumps around in sticks to her fur, which is the cutest thing ever. Now I just got home from the store where I bought ingredients to a calorie bomb hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmellows, and of course a new magazine to fill up on inspiration with. I’ll be back with more fashion related blogposts tomorrow, I have a few outfits I haven’t posted yet. But right now; Hot chocolate, Costume and cuddling with Bella is on the menu. I hope you’ve all had a great day♥

15, December 2014 | 11:57

Mondays

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Hi loves, and happy Monday! Last night we finally handed in our big exam paper, and it felt so good!! I wasn’t able to enjoy it too much though, as I’m such a perfectionist and just feel that it could’ve been better. But whatever, it’s done, and I never have to think about it again, yay! All day yesterday went to sitting in front of the computer doing the final touches..

Glasses: Karl Lagerfeld/Specsavers (sponsored)

I just noticed that I look so different with my hair parted at the side, hah. So anywho, this morning I just really needed some time off the computer after spending way too many hours in front of it the last weeks. When I hopped out of bed I put on xmas music in the whole house, organized my closet and now I’m doing tons of laundry while dancing to ‘Jinglebells’ and having lots of coffee. Cosy!

Now I just got in from playing in the snow with Bella, and it’s time for a little skin care session before the rest of the day will go to all the accounting work that has been piling up during my exam period. It should’ve been done a month ago, I hate being late! So it just needs to get done today, even though it’s the most boring thing I know.

Fun life nowadays, right? School and accounting work, bah! I’m so freakin’ excited for next Monday when I can officially celebrate the holidays, just one more exam to go. Thanks for sticking by me in this incredibly boring time period, hah. You’re the best♥

14, December 2014 | 08:23

Girlieness

A White Christmas

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cathinthecity xmas decoration christmas fashion blog cathrine heienberg

Now it’s time to put school work away for the day, and start decorating for Christmas! I actually put the school work away an hour ago, when my boyfriend cooked me dinner. That sentence is a pretty big deal, because that never happens, hah. I was expecting a heated frozen pizza, but suddenly he whipped up burgers with pulled pork, fries and tons of yummy toppings. Ten points!! He also got the xmas decoration for me, which scored him another ten points. As you can see, my decoration is mostly white and silver. With exception for the green tree of course, even though I really want to spray it white or silver too, haha.

cathinthecity xmas decoration christmas fashion blog cathrine heienberg

Here’s a little peek on my xmas decoration, I’ll show you the result once I’m done decorating. Nighty night angels♥♥