Hiya lovelies,

So, April has come and gone and it's time for me to reflect on what helped make this April a good one, in my humble opinion.

Source here

Horrible Histories
I am a huge history nerd. I love it. I also love learning about random facts that have very little relevance to everyday life. Also, I love singing and music. And bam, there is Horrible Histories in a nutshell. I like it because I find it really funny and I like learning random facts. Loving Horrible Histories is also something that me and my youngest sister have in common and watching it is something we can do together. However, I am super sad that it's now over for good.... Season 5 was the last season that they are ever going to make of Horrible Histories. Isn't that sad?

Pink and White and Leopard Print

Hi lovelies,

I'm going to lay it all down on the line right now and say that I really like leopard print. Just in case anybody is still wondering about my feelings on this particular animal print. So, when I got inspired to use pink and white, I thought that it could definitely be jazzed up and improved by adding some leopard print to it. This was the result.

A Very Purple Dotticure

Hi lovelies,

In case you hadn't already figured out by now, I really like purple. I think it's a beautiful colour, it's really versatile and it looks great on me (which would explain my large amount of large toned clothes and accessories). So, when I realised I had bought a purple polish weeks ago and had never used it, I immediately set out to rectify the situation. Lilac Pastille is a Revlon polish and when I took it out to look at it, I realised why I hadn't used it - it's soooo pale! Really, really very pastel. And very not me. And with that in mind, I have literally no clue why I bought it. But now I was determined to use it. I pretty much figured that if I banked it up with some other purple, it couldn't be too bad, right?

And so, this was born.

I actually liked it a lot more than I thought I would and the kids a work loved it. I got lots of comments on how good it looked and many questions on where I got them done. Ahhhh.... That's the best question.... I love turning around and saying that I do them myself. It makes me feel so happy and proud inside. :)

Egads! A Pastel Manicure! Or, just a regular Easter one.

Hi lovelies,

So, with Easter around the corner, I thought it was high time to break the Easter themed manicures. Although, be warned, this is about the only time in the whole year in which you will witness a pastel colours on my nails. I just really am not into pastels. Like, at all. They don't do anything for me. But, I feel that Easter is a very pastel themed time, especially because of all the new life and lambies and duckies and springtime stuff that does not happen at all in Australia because we are meant to be in Autumn, even though the weather is being really weird and swinging being really hot (we had highs of 35 this week) and weirdly cold with lows of like, 9. Which is weird. And I'm sick of not being able to tell whether it's going to be a jeans or shorts day when I get up at 6:15 for work.... But anyway, moving onto my adorable Easter nail art...

Lost and Found

Hi lovelies,

Today's post is a long one and quite personal. I debated a lot over whether to post this or not because I felt, after writing it, that I was making a bit of a mountain out of a mole hill. Maybe I am. But it's my blog and I want to share this with you, even if it's not the best or most interesting thing I've written. But, on with the show....

It’s been hard for me to pin down my identity. Who am I? I know who I was. A couple of years ago I was sure – my identity was solid. Irrefutable. A done deal. But, identities change, they flow, they transition. One day you wake up and realise that you are not the same person you were 5 years ago. And that’s okay. It’s okay because you know who you are now. You’ve been changing so slowly into this new person that you didn’t realise that you had changed. It’s not until you realise what you are not, that you realise who you actually are.

My very first school picture. I was 6 at the time.

Everyone changes all throughout their lives. You change more so at some points than others. Through primary school and high school and university you go through major changes. You become a child, then a pre-teen, then a teenager and then an adult. Some changes are physical but the majority are non-quantitative. You mature emotionally. The structure of your relationships change. Your understanding of things in the world changes and your interests change. They fluctuate, they come and go. Some come and stay – like my love for the colour purple. Some come with a passion and leave with disgust – like my obsession with calling everything ‘random’ and having every second word being ‘like’. Some wax and wane, being really important at some times and not so at others – like my passion for really bad teenager-y supernatural TV shows (such as The Vampire Diaries and Teen Wolf). And some you lose along the way and never quite realise why you left them behind – like my love for always wearing the biggest, flashiest earrings I could find. For me, it’s those bits, the changing of interests and likes, that is the scariest bits about change. It’s when you wake up one morning and realise that the person that you were, that you loved and that you knew inside out, they are gone and the person that is now staring back at you from the mirror is a very different person entirely.

Inspired By: Minnie Mouse

Hi lovelies,

So, today we have another 'Inspired By' manicure. To be honest, I hesitated about making this one of my series, just because I didn't feel it was 'inspired' by Minnie, it was more a literal interpretation of her. But after thinking about it and looking at the design a bit more, a came to the conclusion that it did belong in this series. (Also, my youngest sister thought I had gone insane and starting painting Christmas designs again....). And that definitely cinched it. If she thought that my interpretation of Minnie Mouse looked like a Christmas design, it definitely was 'inspired by'! Oh, and if you, like me, are wondering how she managed to get Christmas out of this look, check out her response to this design. :)

Over all, I was really pleased with my design. I'm feeling much more confident in my small dotting skills and I just really liked my overall layout. I actually thought while I was doing it that all the dots were going to be too much, but when I'd finished all the nails, I found that they didn't over power the design.

For this design, I used Sizzling Red by ulta3 (red), Snow Me White by Sinful Colours (white), Black Satin by ulta3 (black) and the black jewels were from a Sportsgirl nail art wheel. And, isn't it just great when all your nail polish names actually have the colour that they are in the name! Or, maybe that's just me and I get weirdly excited about small things....

Check out my other posts in my 'Inspired By' series here.

Base and Top Coats - What I'm Using and Why

Hi lovelies,

So, if you are into nail art, or just like painting your nails, I'm sure you'll know by now that having a good base and top coat is really important to having a successful and great manicure. If you still are unconvinced, Michelle over at LabMuffin has written two really, really good posts (top coat and base coat) detailing why they are important.

Now that we've established that base and top coats are really, super important, lets crack on and talk about mine. :)