Passover / Easter Weekend

Friday morning was my yearly tradition of saying, "Hey, is it Passover? It's Passover! YESSSSS, I'm making FOOD!!"

I have this memory of a certain mystery food that was spread on matzo bread from Passover when I was a kid. It was sweet and I can never figure out what it was. 

I made matzo ball soup with parsley, dill, parsnips, tri-colored carrots and celery. I love that purple carrot. Matzo ball soup is delicious if you have never tried it. Usually it has chicken in it too but I didn't think we needed two meats since I also made salmon with a horseradish and dill cream sauce. For the side I made tri-colored fingerling potatoes and roasted beets.

I also made challah from scratch.

Saturday I decided to dye some eggs since I planned on making egg salad. I'm obsessed with egg salad. We watched the original TRON too. I don't know why you need to know all that.

The dog found the first Easter egg and brought it into his bed with him before I caught him. Ellie found the rest and tried putting them all in her mouth. She got a nice little goth lipstick look!

Happy Spring!

Nail - Spring Patterns

Happy Friday! This week was a little rough for me. I totally bombed a math quiz that I spent HOURS studying for and I got another parking ticket at the school. Lots of really great things happened though. The highlight was that Ellie can WALK now! She's so cute wobbling around. She has a bruise on her butt from plopping down on it. After I came home from my crappy quiz day Ellie came wobbling up to me for a big hug. The sweetest!!

On to my nails for this week... I cut them short again because the length was getting annoying. Immediately after I cut them I found a video showing how to file perfect almond shape nails and I regretted it. I want my nails sharpened to a point like Miss Kitty! Also my nail art haul from Amazon finally got here. I have a whole set of nail guides in different shapes, gems, pearls, roses, bows, pink brushes and dotting tools. 

The husband will have to be on nail photo duty from now on because I can't get a picture with my real camera that is any better than my iPhone! I discovered that I cannot get it to focus on me if I set it up and move in front of it. Yay. I know nothing about cameras and the more I try to learn the more confused I am. It's worse than my pre-calculus class.

China Glaze - Lotus Begin

Milani Jewel FX - Lavender

OPI - Bride's Bouquet

OPI - Natural Nail Base Coat

OPI - Top Coat

Martha Stewart Glitter - Sugar Plum

XJ French Nail Tip Guides

I can't even get a good picture of flowers! WTF.

Nail - French Pink Bow

I finally got my pink bow nail charms! I love them!! I have to watch out for the bows snagging on things which is a little weird, but it's also pretty weird having my nails so long. I used to grow my nails all the time when I was younger. They are strong enough, grow fast, and I never really break them or chip them. With the military I usually kept them short even though I was allowed to grow them 1/4 inch (without nail polish.) It just felt too weird to get my hands dirty like that with long nails. Now I can have princess nails!

I stopped by Sally's Beauty Supply and picked up a couple of fresh new pastels to get me in the mood for spring. By the way, did you know it's snowing in Buffalo? Yay. Super yay. My new polishes certainly brightened up this snowy and dreary day. I can't wait to try them out!

OPI - Natural Nail Base Coat

OPI - Bride's Bouquet

OPI - Altar Ego

OPI - Top Coat

Charms - Tie Me Up, Pink

Swarovski Rhinestones  - Crystal Clear (similar)

Niagara Falls

Nothing reminds me more of a "family road trip" than Niagara Falls. Maybe Mount Rushmore and the Hoover Dam too. Those boring things you go see because it's family friendly and very Americana. Niagara Falls we went to see because it was part of my assignment for a class. I went there as a kid and remember waiting in line forever on the Canadian side in those dumb ponchos to go to the cave behind the falls or whatever. It was okay. 

Before we left we had to make funny faces of course...

Ellie's first state park!

Joe had never been to Niagara Falls before. I thought that was weird because he grew up in New York all his life until he moved with me to Alaska. I thought everyone had gone there as a kid at some point!

We both had this irrational fear of somehow dropping Ellie down the waterfall. 

Those big piles of snow are actually mountains of ice from the waterfall.

Nail - Matte Grey and Glitter

I did little nail polish haul and received the first few of my items in the mail. I got the OPI base coat, glossy top coat and the new matte top coat. I think the matte top coat is the best nail polish purchase I've made in a while!

Essie - Chinchilly

Bedhead - Health Goddess

OPI - Natural Nail Base Coat

OPI - Top Coat

OPI - Matte Top Coat

DIY Decoden Phone Case

I know that I'm a grown adult and I probably shouldn't be doing ridiculous things like carrying around a cell phone that looks like someone barfed up candy onto it, but at this point I don't care. It's just way. too. cute. Back in the days of flip phones I used to hang adorable Japanese charms and super glue Swarovski crystals all over my phone, so nothing has really changed. I am, so my husband says, a 7 year old stuck in a 29 year old's body.

Since the iPhone came out I was a little sad that I couldn't put charms on it and make it cute. Most of the cases were just "eh." The most I saw was those little dust caps that go into the headphone jack and have charms attached to it. It's a pretty good idea but I needed more. Then I stumbled upon decoden! It was just as ridiculously cute as I needed it to be.

"Decoden" is a craft where people adhere cute little charms called "cabochons" to things using a silicon cream. The cream can be bought in different colors and many people just use caulking from the hardware store. You pipe it on the item you are decorating with an icing bag and icing tip to make it look like cake icing or whipped cream. Then you place cute charms on it along with pearls, rhinestones or anything else you want. 

I ordered my charms from Happy Kawaii Supplies on Etsy and I was really happy with it. You can order the clear case, the cream, charms, and anything else you would need.

Supplies You'll Need:

Clear phone case (or any color you want as long as it is a slim and minimal case)

Nail file or sandpaper

Puff paint

Pearls, rhinestones, micro beads, glitter or polymer clay sprinkles.

Piping cream (silicon cream, caulking or Mod Podge Collage Clay)

Icing bag and large star tip

Cabochons

Tweezers

The first step is to gather your supplies.

Then take your nail file and scratch up the top of the clear case so that the cream will stick to it a little better. Don't worry, you won't see it after you are done. Don't scratch up the sides of the case though. Now take out your cabochons and see what you want to use. I chose a sweets theme and purchased the large 25 piece assorted sweets pack so I had many options. I also got two large pink bows to use as the main focal point.

Arrange the pieces on the case approximately where you want them to go and take a photo with your phone so you can refer to it later. This is very important since you don't want to make a mistake and mess up your nice piping work.

Take your puff paint in whatever color you would like. I chose the Scribble Pop "Hot Chocolate" so it would look like chocolate sauce. You can do strawberry sauce, green ooze or even a blood color if you're into that. "Pastel Goth" is a thing, right?

Drizzle the puff paint onto the edges of the case to look like it's melting. You can purchase hot glue in various colors and do this with a hot glue gun if you want to. It hardens faster that way too! I chose puff paint and I like the results, but be careful not to touch it as it dries for a few hours. I added some rhinestones and polymer clay sprinkles around the camera area since I have to keep that part clear of the cream. 

These clay sprinkles were a great buy! It was a last minute addition to my cart and I'm glad I got it.

The only thing disappointing was that the light purple "simulation cream" I ordered was in too small of a tube to cover my entire phone case. Also the icing tips it came with were very small. I decided to use this for another project and went out to Michael's to pick up Mod Podge Collage Clay. It comes with enough cream for a ton of projects, comes with three large icing tips and you can get it in "Vanilla" (white)  or "Strawberry" (pink) and it only cost $9. I'm really happy this exists!!!!! Mod Podge had a whole new collection of products that I was happy to see too, including puff paints in brown, pink and red, and hot glue sticks in similar colors, I assume for projects just like this one.

Pipe the cream on your case and add your charms, sprinkles and everything else! Let it dry for a day or two before touching it.

I just love the little strawberry dipped pretzels! And the biscuits!! I should have ordered some more clear cases. I feel a collection coming on...