How To: Earrings Storage Solutions!

*cue sales lady’s voice*

Ever wondered how you can stop your earrings from becoming a tangled mess? Or how to keep each pair together so that you don’t spend precious seconds trying to find them? Perhaps you just simply want a cute display that allows you to visualise which pair would go perfectly with your outfit?

How To: Magnetic Nail Polish

If you've been reading my blog for a while then you must know that I am a lover of all things nail polish. I really do have a soft spot for this stuff and can't help myself whenever I'm in a beauty shop so I'll always leave with a couple. 

About a month ago I went into Super Cosmetics intending to get some face scrub and surprise, surprise, ended up grabbing a few nail polishes while I was there. What I didn't realise was that one of the ones I picked up was magnetic nail polish - an unexpected but much welcomed purchase. 

Immediately I got home I took off my nail polish, painted on this pretty blue hue, held the magnet over it and, wait for it, Nothing. Nada. Not a thing happened. I was beyond disappointed until I realised that I was doing it all wrong. Anywaaaay, without further ramblings, here's a post for you eager beavers willing to try out magnetic nail polish. Enjoy!!

What you'll need: 

The Magnetic Nailpolish - mine was Cairuo and it only cost Shs225 (about $3). 

The Magnet - usually comes with the nail polish at no extra charge

Base coat and Top coat - if you will

Nail polish remover and some cotton wool - assuming you need to take off your nail polish

A nail file

 Step 1: After removing your nail polish and making sure that your nails are as product free as possible, slap on a base coat. 

Step 2: Apply a thin coat of the nail polish and wait for it to dry a few seconds. About 20-30 seconds is enough. 

Step 3: Apply a second coat of the magnetic nail polish but this time, make sure it's a little thicker. 

Step 4: Immediately after this second coat, hold the magnet as close as possible to your nail but without actually touching it. Leave it hovering above for about 10 seconds.

Step 5: Voila! You're done. Now repeat steps 2-4 on all nails and apply top coat.

 I realised that depending on the direction you hold the magnet, the lines on your nails can either be vertical, diagonal or horizontal. Pretty cool.  

Final product!

I'm looking forward to buying this nail polish again but in different shades! It's a fun and different look and isn't much of a hassle to put together.

Hope this post helped :)

Wow. It's Thursday already. This week just flew right past.

A Quickie DIY

There's so much I want to share about the short trip my family and I took to Tsavo! I took about 1,000 photos (quite literally) so  I'll have to divide the posts into some kind of order so that I don't bombard you with too many photos at one go.

In the meantime, here's a little DIY for ya!

I got this idea from A's Fashion Files which is a blog run by Allison. Her version is a lot fancier than mine but to my defence she does this kind of stuff often! You can take a looky at her DIY here. 

So let's start.You need:

1. The shoes that you want to DIY

2. Tape

3. Paint

4. Paint brushes

5. A pair of scissors

I got the paint from a friend and ended up using the bottle to the left which he mixed up for me. It wasn't labelled so I don't know what brand it is but I know that it's the kind that you can use on fabric. The bottle to the right is Fevicryl and I know you can get that from Textbook Centre or any crafts store in town.

 Shoes from Bata for only Shs350!

 To make it easier for me, I followed the seam around the back of the shoe. I also cut the tape into smaller strips which made it easier to follow the round shape.

 Then it was time to paint the town gold! Which was definitely the most fun part.

 Tadaa! 

 I think I'll buy like three more pairs and create different designs. 

And there you have it! 

Half Moon - B&W

Next on the plate for my nail art roll was the half moon. So far, this is my favourite especially since it's also one of the easiest I've tried. Good thing about this is that the materials you need are easy to find and you don't have to use any specific nail polish colours for it to work. Just two contrasting ones are good enough and the end result will be striking, which is what we're aiming for. I've also seen some bloggers use only one colour leaving the part around the cuticle bare and it still looked pretty good. So really, whatever tickles your fancy. And in case you're wondering, I've had these nails for about 3 days hence the chipping and scratches!

I got these little stickers from Nakumatt and they couldn't have cost more than Shs100. I think they're about 200 of them, maybe more, so you're assured to be able to try as many half moon looks as you could possibly wish for. If you're interested:

Step 1: Put a base coat

Step 2: Paint your nails with your desired base colour - this is the one that will appear in the shape of the half moon. I went for white and put two coats as the first one came off really streaky. 

Step 3: After waiting for your nails to dry, place these little stickers over the cuticle area to create the half moon shape. Make sure you press the sides down tight enough so the second colour doesn't seep through.

Step 4: Apply the top colour of your choice. I went with black and only used one coat.

Step 5: After waiting a couple minutes, gently remove the little sticker and voila, your done! You can also put a top coat for extra shine if desired.

This nail art, as like any other, is bound to get messy so fear not if it's not as perfect as you expected. I can assure you, people will still be impressed by your work!

{ Phone pic taken soon after application}

It's Labour today which means it's a public holiday! I'm spending my day in bed doing a little blogging, watching Revenge (how cool is this show?) and eating like there's no tomorrow. Happy Labour day to all my Kenyan readers and a beautiful Tuesday to all!

p.s.: So excited because I've just realised that this is my 100th post! 100 and counting.

Tribal Nails #2

The time had come for me to attempt tribal nails once again. This time I was determined to be more prepared so I even drew out the patterns I wanted to use beforehand. If any of you ladies want to try out tribal nails, I must say that drawing out the patterns really helped! Once I started actually painting my nails however, I changed a few things but it was definitely a lot better having the sketch in front of me. And I also made sure that I had the nail polish with the thinner brushes to help with the strokes which were a lot easier to use than the normal brushes. Durrr.

 I used gold nail polish as a base. Brand is Luron but I can't remember their numbers. 

My bad.

 Taadaaa!! I was so excited about it because this time round it came out a lot neater. You can see my previous attempt on here.

 Pic from my phone.

 

These are the new nail polishes I got with the thinner brushes. I chose the colours based on a similar tribal nail pattern that I saw of the internet. 

Let me know if you try out tribal nails or if you've previously had them and put a link below so I can check it out!

How to: Storing stud earrings

Now I don't know about you but my recent jewellery purchases have been centred around earrings, particularly studs. I've actually got a little over 20 of them now and I've been storing them in a small glass bowl. It gets pretty annoying when your trying to look for a particular pair.. 

See below. 

After a little research I found that there are several ways one can do this. The prettier ideas involved getting cute boxes, adding styrofoam and voila! A cute stud earring storage system. Others talked of buying complex earring holders that left me doubtful of whether I could ever get my hands on them. So eventually I chose to go with the most simple, unflattering but practical and easily doable suggestion - an ice cube tray.

 Oh yeeeaaaah. 

Cheers to not spending ages looking for my little faux pearl stud earrings in the morning. 

*clink*

Now I'm on a mission to find cuter ice cube trays! Either that or I'll need to spray paint this one.. It looks so weird having a plain white ice cube tray sitting on my dresser. Not the most flattering thing to have next to your perfumes or make up I tell you.

So now that the tray can only hold 16 of my studs, I put the little ones in it and leave the bigger ones in the glass bowl along with my rings. 

 {only holding the bigger studs}

{some of my rings}

Hope this helps!

So how do you store your jewellery? 

I think I need Kim Kardashian's jewellery storage system. Never seen it before but can you imagine how elaborate it would be??

Black and Gold

Opi Lincoln Park After Dark 

One very messily applied coat.

Essence Make it Golden

Two coats. Also messily applied.

Was just experimenting with this look and didn't think I'd last more than 10mins with it let alone 1 week..
Despite the messy job, I received loads of compliments!

Try it already.

How to: Water Marble Nails

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter

Before you read this post I must first warn you. This was initially meant to be a tutorial on how to create a great water marble nail look. On all nails. And not just the two I managed to do. There you go, you have been warned. 

Now read on!

I initially saw this nail art on the blog Another Bottle of Nail Polish?! (abbreviation ABOP) 

Loved it. 

Tried it. 

Failed at it.

The Materials

To start with, you will need whatever it usually takes to have a clean set of nails. For me, it usually consists of:

1.   A couple of nail files, 
2. Nail polish remover and cotton wool
3. Vaseline for moisturising your hands after washing/soaking them in water. If you ask me, one can never have enough vaseline for moisturising, hence both bottles. 

 

You will also need:

1. The nail polish colours that you wish to do this trick with. For me, those are the three in the middle - gold, nude, pink. I later decided to add black which isn't featured in the picture. 
2. Base coat - I used the top coat as a base coat
3. Base colour - featured extreme right. I used this white colour simply because I saw ABOP use a similar colour.
4. Top coat.

And lastly, you will require: 

1. A bowl - to conduct this little experiment in
2. Toothpicks - to help with the design/pattern
3. Cellotape - to protect your nails. Apparently this is an important step.

The Process

1. Start with a clean set of nails. 
2. Use a base coat and then your chosen base colour. 
3. Cellotape the areas surrounding your nail so as to protect your skin from the excess nail polish. 
4. Fill the bowl with water and start by adding just a drop of each nail polish colour.

[See pic below]

Don't worry about making the circular patterns yourself, it'll all happen el naturale baby.

5. Using a toothpick, draw a line across the nail polish that's set on the water. This forms a heart shape which makes my heart smile.

6. Now draw horizontal lines across the heart. You could also choose to draw more lines across that.

But whatever you do, don't get carried away with the drawings.

7. Dip your nails into the pattern and right into the water, making sure that you move all the excess nail polish that was left on the surface of the water to the sides before taking your nails out.

The Mistakes

Clearly I was having a little too much fun with it all. Not only did I forget to put the cellotape on one hand, but I started trying to make butterfly patterns out of the nail polish!

 

Ladies and gentlemen - the messy ugly look that I was not going for. 

THIS is the look I was trying to go for. Clearly there are a few tips I needed to have learned from ABOP before starting. And THIS is the video I watched that got me all excited about marble nails.

Now I have 2 nails with a water marble pattern. The rest are pink.

 

Hope you have better luck trying this out! 

Something tells me I may need a couple more practice shots before I do any other tutorial. 

P.S: Let's stay friends despite my ill tutorial.

Avatar-like nail tricks.

That's all you're getting. 

A picture. 

That also happens to be incomplete/misleading/bizarre.

Oh the joys of teasing

;)

But for real, can't wait to share this fun nail art trick with you tomorrow! It was sooo much fun!

Now I'm off to *snore*

Button up

I bought this shirt about 3 weeks ago but completely forgot about it until last night. I don't think it cost more than Shs100. Boy do I love second-hand markets.

The fit is perfect but it was missing a button. A plain, boring button.

But fear not, plain and boring shall not feature for too long. Look what buttons I came across while going through my mama's button jar!

  lil' pretty gems

Decided to go with these as they came in 5, which is the number of buttons I'd need for the shirt. 

I'll be featuring the shirt on ze blog soon.

On Other News:

It's a Saturday and I'll have to go to work in a couple hours. 

I'm off to jump off the balcony.