Nail Designs

I was once told I have a story for everything. The more I thought about it I realized I do have a story for everything. Maybe it's because I want to share the meaning. Maybe it's because I like to talk. Maybe it's a combination of both. Regardless of the reason here are some nail designs I've done in the past few months and a little meaning behind the design. 

Cow Spots

My sister likes cows (well, specifically their spots) and had asked me to paint her toe nails. We've experimented with the spot colors, but we both like the traditional white with black spots the best. On this occasion she was going on a week long vacation so I decided to paint my nails to match. We both had so many compliments on our nails. Who knew so many people would like cow spotted nails?

Plaid Nails 

This plaid design sparked my creativity. I've even created a how to video to instruct my niece how to copy this design. Start with a solid color. Add a plaid design with 3 stripes going in each diagonal direction. Add a second color of strips in between the first stripes. Simple, yet it looks so complicated at first. A steady hand is helpful, but if you look closely, you'll see not all the stripes are perfectly straight, but you can't tell because there are so many stripes. 

Princess Nails 

I started with a solid pink as the back drop to this design. I added pink glitter plaid (just like the first color in the Plaid Nails design) and then used a magenta pink to add the dots in the middle of the plaid formed diamonds. I loved the way my nails sparkled. I felt like a princess all week with my sparkly pink nails.  

Ladybug Nails

This little girl likes ladybugs. How could I not put a rainbow of ladybugs on her nails? I've copied this design on my own nails. It is so easy to do and gets so many compliments. I like when the ladybugs go in different directions, but they are just as cute if they all go in the same direction. 

Vintage Rose Buds

The Vintage Rose Buds is a design I copied from Pintrest. I'll do my best to describe how I made the rose buds, but I'm not sure how well I can paint the picture with my words. For each rose bud start with  your lighter color and make two "C" shapes so the tails of the "C" interlock with each other. So you end up with a lopsided circle-ish shape. Then do the same thing with the darker color on top, but 90 degrees of the original interlocking "C" shapes and spaced out a little so they are not so close together so you can see the first "C's" interlocking. I liked this design. The only down side is it takes a while to master the design and it takes a while to do. This is one of the longer to complete designs I've done recently.

Broken Arm Nail Design

Okay, I know the title of this design is not very creative, but it is what it is. When I had a cast on my arm I still wanted to paint my nails. After all, I was sitting around doing nothing, so I might as well paint my nails and then sit around and let them dry. My doctor requested I not paint my right nails because he needed to see if my nails were changing colors and not with paint. To compromise my desire to paint my nails and to honor my doctor's request I used clear polish as my starting base. With the limited motion of my casted arm I knew my design had to be fairly simple. I had three stripes in one direction and two stripes in the other. The picture is hard to see the details, but with a casted arm this was the best I could do. This design allowed my doctor to look at my nails without having to remove my polish. Not to mention the nurses all raved on my creativity. 

Vanuatu Flag

My friends are missionaries in Vanuatu and their family is going to celebrate their completion of translating the Bible in Naavar. The 11 year old asked for the Vanuatu colors and I suggested we paint the flag. We googled the flag and I copied what I could (the blue is actually green, but the lighting changed it to a blue color). After talking to my friend in Vanuatu via Facebook she told me a little about the flag. Here's what Wikipedia says about the Vanuatu flag:

The flag of Vanuatu was adopted on February 13, 1980.

When the Vanua'aku Party led the country to independence as Vanuatu in 1980, the colors of the party flag - red, green, black and yellow - were chosen to be the basis for the national flag. A parliamentary committee chose the final design based on submissions from local artists.

The green represents the richness of the islands, the red is symbolic of the blood of boars and men, and the black of the ni-Vanuatu people. Vanuatu's Prime Minister requested the inclusion of yellow and black fimbriations to make the black stand out. The yellow Y-shape represents the light of the Gospel going through the pattern of the islands in the Pacific Ocean (Vanuatu is approximately 90% Christian).

The emblem in the black is a boar's tusk - the symbol of prosperity worn as a pendant on the islands - along with two leaves of the local namele fern. The leaves are supposed to be a token of peace, and their 39 fronds represent the 39 members of Vanuatu's legislative assembly.

Cool, right? I love the Y represents what my friends have been doing for the past 10 years!

American Flag

My sister and I will be in Washington DC for the 4th of July and figured we might as well show our patriotic side with American Flag nails. Here I was experimenting with a few different ways we could paint our nails. It worked out well and we will be sporting our patriotism in our nation's capital this 4th of July. Happy Birthday America!

Tasty Strawberries

Okay, okay, these are not real strawberries. In fact they aren't all that tasty, but they are super cute! A fun summer design.

Thank's Pintrest

I found this design on Pintrest and loved the concept. The picture doesn't do this design justice. The pointers are silver (which you can clearly see) and my other fingers (and thumbs) are pink. What you can't really see are the dots in a swirly pattern in the opposite color. Super cute and hard to make a mistake. If you make a dot where you didn't want it, just add another dot to follow along. Simple and fun.

Rainbow Nails

This little girl loves to have Miss Alice paint her nails. On this particular day we didn't have much time, so we decided to paint her nails while she was in her car seat waiting for her siblings to get out of school. She had to stay still long enough she ended up falling asleep while I was painting her rainbows! Talk about a challenge - tiny 4 year old nails while she is sleeping and kept clinching her fists! In the end they turned out so cute. When she woke up she was so happy to see her rainbows! 

Boston Red Sox

My sister is a Boston Red Sox fan. When she was heading out to go to Boston she asked if I could paint the Red Sox logo on her toes... apparently I can.

Cupcake Nails

Another Pintrest inspired nail design. A lot of the cupcake designs on Pintrest included a cherry, but who puts cherries on their cupcakes? Cherries are for ice cream, not cupcakes! I figured I'd give this design a try for my birthday and I'm very pleased. 

Pick A Color Any Color...

Here is just part of my nail polish collection. The top row are special stripe polishes with thin brushes. My collection is ever growing because I think of a design and need to add a color or two. I think I may have a problem with how many nail polishes I have, but then again if I didn't have this many I couldn't create my fun nail designs. 

Glass Bottle

I have tried using many different bottles to help with the eco factor as well as the save money by refilling the same bottle factors. My trouble came when I tried a few different kind, but I don't like them for various reasons. 

I started with the plastic bottles, but I don't like the aftertaste they leave not to mention the funny smell. I had friends tell me it was because I wasn't getting the right one (I needed to make sure they were BPA free). I got the ones they suggested (as in more than one because there are quite a few out there), but still no luck on the after taste and funny smell. Another friend suggested using metal water bottles. Although those were better, they still had a funny aftertaste. I did like how the metal water bottles I got came with a sleeve so it helped with the sweat my cold drinks would give off, but I couldn't get past the funny smell and after taste.

I had heard glass bottles don't give off the funny smell or have that icky after taste. The downside was I had became so frustrated with the cupboard full of water bottles I gave up searching for a water bottle I could use to be eco friendly. A few months ago I was visiting with a friend who had been diagnosed with cancer and had made life altering decisions to help fight her cancer. Among changing her diet and consuming an insurmountable amount of pills she is also very aware of anything chemically that can aide in the spread of her cancer and avoids it at (almost) all cost. One of those things is only drinking from glass containers. At the cancer treatment center they have the lifefactory glass bottles and after a discussion about how fantastic this bottle is I made a comment on how I would love to have a bottle that wouldn't leave the funny after taste or have that water bottle smell that makes me not want to drink anything from that bottle. She told me she would get one for me, but knowing all that she is going through I figured she would forget, which is totally understandable, not to mention she doesn't need to get me anything. After all, I could be doing more for her and her family during this time - even if she insists I do so much already - there is always more I can do to help.

It's now a few months later and I was so excited when she gave me my bottle tonight. I haven't had a chance to drink from it, and realized I should have waited to make a blog post about my new glass bottle, but I'm just so excited I had to share.

My new pearl white glass bottle.

I am SO excited about my new glass bottle! I love that it has a wide mouth to it so I can add ice cubes and easily pour into the bottle. I love the pearl white color. Although there were many other great colors to chose from - I love the white color. I do love white and it's a pearl color so it has a shiny tint to it... what could be better? I guess the fact it has the dots in the silicone sleeve which are like the polka dots I love so much (heck, I wrote a whole blog about polka dots!). I'm so excited about my new glass bottle and I'm excited to have a reminder to pray for my friend every time I use my new non-funny smelling, non-yucky aftertaste glass bottle.

Thank you friend (you know who you are)!

UPDATE:

Oh, how I love this glass bottle! It is so wonderfully awesome I can't tell you how much I love it!

First of all, the handle on the lid is amazingly awesome. I can easily hold on to it with three fingers - or one finger if I'm holding other things. Then when I take it off to drink it easily fits on my three fingers while I hold onto the bottle with the same hand without any drops of my drink getting anywhere... awesome! I was a little concerned about having to take the top off each time I drink and juggling with the cap and the bottle, but it was so easy to do... even while driving! Again... AWESOME! The design of this bottle is amazingly wonderful.

I loved drinking from it so much I needed to refill it by the time I got to work! I'm getting more liquids than before... bonus! In the morning I poured in some tea and thought, "Dude (yes, I call myself dude), I could totally add some cranberry juice and have some awesome tea right now!" FYI, it was SO delicious! Try it! I also loved how at lunch I was able to fill it with soda from the soda machine - with ice and all (of course I paid for it, although I had a few dirty looks from onlookers -  I had my receipt to show I paid for a drink, but didn't need the paper cup)!

The only downside is I'm still getting used to the wide mouth while drinking. While driving I was overly excited about drinking and holding my lid all in one hand I didn't notice the break lights ahead of me and in the process of drinking I slammed on my breaks all the while still drinking. Needless to say I had tea all down the front of me, but it dried and no one could tell (except I'm now telling the world... but you won't tell, right?). I'm hoping I will learn how to drink from a big girl bottle soon and won't need to get the flip top lid or the sippy lid they offer on the Lifefactory website (which is amazing, right?!).

What I'm super duper excited about is the taste of my drink... it's the taste of my drink! All day yesterday I was trying to use my bottle for different things only using water to rinse it out... and you know what... I only tasted the new drink I poured in! How fantastic is that? With my old water bottles I'd use water to rinse it out, but the new drink would taste like the old drink plus the icky taste. The true test came when I put water fountain water in my bottle. I'm not a fan of water fountain water. I don't like the taste (it's got that metal worse than tap water taste), but last night I wanted to try it out. It wasn't my favorite, but drinkable. It was so drinkable I actually didn't pour it out and get something else. This morning I looked at my half drank water bottle with water fountain water and thought, "Man, I wish I could drink you and you'd be drinkable like last night, but you'll probably have a funny taste and be REALLY gross." I figured why not go for it and try it... I was so surprised to taste and see it was the same as last night! Still not my favorite water to drink, but it didn't have the yucky taste like my other water bottles would have the next day! I then was thinking about how it's actually not THAT bad and if nothing else I could drink that water fountain water again.

The only down side is I am a little concerned about dropping it - it is glass after all. I know there is the protective silicone sleeve, but I'm still worried about dropping it. Last night I was caring a lot of things in from the car: my phone, laptop, and glass bottle in my hands among other items. As I'm juggling all these things I rank what I would want to save first, second, third and so on if I needed to drop something. I then laughed at myself as I thought, "Save the bottle, then computer, then phone..." WHAT??? A glass bottle I can replace for $8 (lid and sleeve would probably be okay), but drop the $2,000 computer???? Obviously it's not like I'm choosing what I'd drop, but if I'm willing to mentally save the glass bottle before the computer I either really love my water bottle or have lost my mind! Fortunately, I was able to make it to the house without dropping anything and mentally scolded myself for not thinking computer then bottle.

Moral of the story: I love my glass bottle!

The Blanket

If you know me then you know I've been one busy woman lately. I'm trying to blog more often, but I can hardly find the time to sit down and think of what I'd like to say let alone actually formulate what I'd like to say and actually post it to my blog! When I blog I like to include a picture, so most of the time when there is something for me to blog about and I don't have a picture I just don't blog about what ever it was going to be. There was one thing this week I thought was interesting and figured it might be worth blogging about. I didn't get a picture, but I found one on google to help me out.

I was babysitting this week for a family I've known for a while. When their now four year old was a new born I would put her in what we called "the blanket" - also known as a baby wrap. She would want to be held, but I would need to help the older kids with homework or make lunch or do anything else that would need a hand or two. The baby wrap was great! So great in fact I got two of them and put one in the church nursery where it has been used and borrowed by many. When the now four year old was about two years old she would call the wrap "the blanket" and the name has stuck. 

I haven't used "the blanket" in a while because the babies have grown up to be big kids. I have loaned out "the blankets" to friends with new borns and even used it once while dog-sitting when the dog was afraid of the wind and wanted to be held all day.

Okay, so here it is. The baby wrap with a dog in it. 

Sure this may be the silliest thing you've ever seen, 

but if it works why not go with it!

Anyhow, I had "the blanket" in my car to return to the nursery from a friend borrowing it, but hadn't had a chance to remember to put it away. This past week I was babysitting and while driving around after taking the kids roller skating (which would be another blog in itself - try taking a 4 year old skating and try not to fall yourself!) the four year old who named "the blanket" fell asleep in her car seat. We needed to go into the store and I was faced with waking her up, leaving her in the car with her 11 year old sister (which I was highly debating against), or using "the blanket" and taking her into the store to continue her nap. 

I wasn't sure if she'd be too big since it has been at least a year since we've last used it, but figured why not try the side hold. I wasn't going to leave her in the car with her sister, so she'd be woken up either way, but at least this way she might get more of a nap (she was SO warn out from skating... or should I say falling and getting up only to fall again). The 11 year old helped me get her into the wrap and off we went.

The side hold with a baby wrap for those 

who have NO idea what I'm talking about.

With the wrap there are multiple holds you can use

and on this day I used the hip hold or side hold.

It wasn't until we were in the store she groggily wakes up and asks where we were. I told her we were in the store and we are almost ready to leave. She then lays her head back on my shoulder and mumbles... "I like the blanket." 

I love baby items you can use from infancy to 4 years old! I wonder how much longer I could use "the blanket" with her. I'm guessing not much longer considering her feet were dangling at my knees! (Again, for those who know me and know I'm not the tallest person you'll ever meet this isn't surprising. In fact I've had many conversations with this four year old on how little I am. One of our conversations included a debate on why I should have a car seat when I'm driving because I'm so "little.") I think it's time for "the blanket" to be passed on to new babies, but it's good to know I can use it with a four year old if I need to!