Making a Calendar

So this year, I have basically no money. But my boyfriend and I are coming off our two-year anniversary and I had no idea what I could possibly afford to give him.

For a long time, I've wanted to go to Kinko's a make a calendar with pictures of us, but just haven't gotten around to it. Luckily, I was looking through a book of scrapbook paper I had purchased for a previous project and had a realization: I CAN MAKE A CALENDAR FOR HIM FROM MY SCRAPBOOK PAPER!

So this is what I do. I get my scrapbook paper and choose 12 of the pages I liked best that I thought would maybe be boyfriend friendly. Fortunately I bought a black and white themed book.

I got my tools together:
Scrapbook pages (13) You'll need an extra one to write the dates of December on.
Pencil
Ruler
Sharpie Pen
Mod Podge and Sponge
Tape
Pictures (I went to Kinko's and printed out 20 photos in different sizes from my flash drive)

So what I did after having all my tools ready is go through the pictures and find out exactly which pictures I want to put on each month. I tried to make sure that there was enough difference between the pages so no two consecutive sheets looked too similar in color. So after I put all the sheets in order of the months I want them, I laid out the photos on top of them and decided which go where.

Once I decided which pictures will go with each month I turned them over and wrote with my sharpie which photos go with which month (just in case I get them out of order. Turned out to be REALLY helpful). 

After putting those in order, I decided to focus on the real work ahead, making the date boxes for the months. The key to this is using the back of the following months picture page. For example. The dates for the month of January are written on the back of the dates for February. They are essentially upside down because once you flip the page up, if there is writing on the sheet of scrapbook paper, it would be face up. 

I was really scared when doing this, so I decided to trace everything out with a pencil before going back over it with the sharpie. 

I made each box 1.5in x 1.5in and made a 1.5in by .25in boxes for the days of the week at the top 

That's it for right now. I'm going to post my next installment later.

Holiday Nails 2

Hello again. Welcome to my second installment of Holiday Nails! And yes, it has glitter nail polish in it again. I am going to try to upload a new design every week, but we'll see how well that goes :-/

First things first, base coat. Always. Protect those nails ;)

Following that, I chose to use "Gunmetal" gray because I thought it would work in fun contrast with the glitter that will be going on top of it. 

Next, instead of covering the whole nail in glitter, I chose to do a french manicure inspired style that covers about the top third of the nail. I only needed one coat because, like I said, the brand of nail polish I use is very think. You'll notice I didn't do a lot of cleaning up around the nail area before I took the picture.

I've read that putting Vaseline around the nail area before starting will catch any excess nail polish and you'll be able to wipe off any errors made right after.

Final Product! Hope you like it.

Christmas Nails

So, I see all these great, creative ways of doing nails on Pinterest and I wanted to come up with something creative to do myself. This is a seasonal way of doing your nails that's no so obvious but still festive.

I started with a base coat. My nails have a tendency to break in half at the top, so I live in a base coat. I use one called Rock Hard that I got at my local Sally Beauty Supply and it has worked wonders! :)

After that, I use a white color. I've found that this actually looks really nice on all skin tones when something is added on top of it :) I use Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear. This polish is really thick and kind of temperamental when it comes to drying, so it's not really a white I would recommend. But when it's only $2.50 at Target, I guess I can't really complain. 

 

The last step is the glitter :) I love glittery colors, especially when they are not overpowering. I only used one coat of this gold "Set the Stage" color. I just made sure that the brush had plenty of glitter on it before applying it onto my nails.

It has big and small pieces of glitter so I took a closer up picture of it so you can see the details of all the little sparkles!

Of course, I always recommend using as steady hand as you possibly can. White nail polish is EXTREMELY unforgiving and every mistake shows. 

I hope to post more of these, but I hope you like my little creation.