Finally a Blonde!

Its been too long since I've visited my blog. I've kind of taken a good break. But now im back. i promise. :)

And so we pick back up where we left off...

My hair.

So there it is. I didnt get an an all over color. Instead my stylist told me it would be better to do an all over highlight. And thats what I got. :) 

And lemme tell you, I LOVE IT!! So freakin much!

But I do want it lighter...

So maybe sometime later you'll see another change. :)

But definitely waiting. It was $150 sooo.. Im just waiting until we go home in April. My wonderful mother-in-law can do my hair then. :)

Now I promise to keep up with my posts.

Until next time! Thanks for stopping by!

Nikki P

Brunette to Blonde

Im finally going to take the plunge. I have a hair appointment set up next week to get my hair dyed. 

TO BLONDE. Yeah, blonde. lol Im nervous...Should I be? Ive always, ALWAYS wanted to know how i'd look blonde. Being a brunette all my life... Ones gotta be curious. And so after talking with friends, and the hubby, I decided one day while picking up some lunch for myself, Im gonna do it! And the date was set. Next Wednesday I will be a blonde. :D 

Now while being nervous...Im also very excited! (Its  big thing for me, dont make fun. lol) 

With me also wanting to have fun colors in my hair like, pink, purple or blue...in brunettes, sometimes they dont show up very vibrantly. Unless you bleach it of course but i cant so at home bleaching. :/  But now once i have blonde hair, I can finally try chalking my hair! It will show up MUCH better in light colored hair than brown. :P  So im excited about that.

The dilemma i have now is what shade to get.

 Im not going for this:

No no no no. Not a very light blonde.

More like these:

That ^^ would probably be the lightest I would consider.

Darkest...would be a tiny bit darker than this:

And so thats what will happen next week. I will post before and afters of course! 

See you then!! 

:D

Nikki P

Curling with a straightener. Is this for real?!

I promised you some new posts and i am sorry it took me awhile to get to them.

With us getting a new kitten in the family, its VERY hard to type on my laptop.  She pounces on my fingers every 10 seconds! lol I think its the noise I make but it kept getting on my nerves. She'd bring up the help screen, turn CAPS on, hit the wireless button ALL THE TIME, (disconnecting me like crazy) and of course some how exiting out completely! HOW!?! Well she did it enough times that i kinda just gave up on typing anything. Hence taking me awhile to blog...

But alas, here it is..

I always try to find new ways to curl my hair without a curling iron (which I am minus one of) and so I go to my favorite source. Pinterest.
Annywho, I found one that I thought was possible for me to do. Use a straightener. A straightener you say?? Isnt that kind of the opposite? Yes, yes it is, but it worked!! And i will show you how its done. Its very simple! and doesnt take very long at all!

Step one: 

Gather your things: Hair spray, clips and of course your flat iron. :)

Step two:

Clip half of your hair up so you can work in sections. 

(excuse how crazy my hair looks like this...)

 Step Three:
Take a small portion from one side...

 And take the flat iron to it as you would a curling iron. And twist it about 180 degrees. So that you see the rest of the hair like so. Slowly start sliding the straightener down. Stopping slightly every pull till you reach the ends.

This is the result. :) Nice curl huh!! Finish up and add hair spray. :)  It only takes me like 10-15 min to do this! My first time was a bit eh, but with practice I mastered it! haha Hopefully it will stay much longer for you than it does for me. Living in Japan and its humidity...curling is like a 10 min thing. lol it kinda sucks. :/ 

I forgot to get an "after" photo... so I apologize for no "before and after" results. :( 

But this technique works so well with me! Better than the sock bun at night, or headband and wet hair technique. I love it and do it all the time! No curler necessary. :) 

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. 

Have a great weekend! 

XOXO

Nikki P

*knock knock knock* Penny

Big Bang Theory Anyone? Anyone?

That was the inspiration for our new kitty's name. :) 

For a while I have been wanting a pet to keep me company while Brian is away at work. Him and I have been debating on a dog or cat. He wanted a dog. And I wanted a cat. :) After lots of talking and convincing...He said I could get a cat. (Yippee!!!) So I set out to searching for the right one. There's a site you can go to and look for stuff you need. Its kind of like a local  ebay/craigslist kind of site. You post items you want to sell, and if someone wants it, you meet up for it. Its very nice and can get addicting. lol And yes people sell all kinds of pets on there too. From cats and dogs, to sugar gliders and turtles. Awesome right!?! I emailed lots of people for information about kittens being sold. Asking for pictures, boy or girl, shots n what not. After a few we decided on one. :D It was a batch of 4, 2 girls 2 boys. the girls were black and white, and the boys all black. The pictures showed how adorable they were. and we ( I ) was hooked. The day we got her, we also got a look at her mom. a Siamese. Which was a shock. lol she looks NOTHING like her mamma. I knew i was in for a treat. 

Let me tell you, just like in Lady and the Tramp, those two Siamese cats, she is just as mischievousness. And I already love her so very much. Picture time!! 

(please hold your aww's till the end) 

 (She bites her toes and chases her tail. Normal right?)

 (look at that pink nose of hers!)

 (She's so happy!)

 (Yeah she sleeps like a freak. lol)

 (Hahaha I woke her up)

 (So Tiny!)

(This is a rare thing)

And so that is Penny! Every day is a trip. lol Between her spastic moments and her long naps, there are so many photo opportunities! Tho when she is playing she rarely holds still long enough. lol I look forward to many many interesting and exciting days with her. :) 

I'll keep checking in with info on her as she grows up. 

Thanks for reading!

<3

Nikki P

Long Awaited Update

I have been away from my blog for a long time. I apologize! For awhile in my life it was pretty much a bor-fest. We had plans to go to some exciting places but things kept coming up and we had to change those plans. :/ Bummer, believe me I know.

So that made it very difficult for me to blog about anything...

BUT

I have tons of new things now. :) So over the next few days you will have some special reads coming.

Things you can expect to see:

1. A cool hair tutorial. Curling your hair with a straightener. Yeah. Curling. Its happened. 

2. A nail tutorial. A popular one going around. Its outta this world. ;)

3. Just this week we got a new addition to the family. An adorable little black n white kitten. :)

Since I actually have things to post finally, I cant wait! Ever since we got her i've been taking pictures like crazy. So please excuse the excessive kitty photography. 

So stay tuned!! :D

Nikki P 

Okuma Paradise

Last weekend Brian and I and a few friends of ours stayed in cute little cabins at the gorgeous Okuma Beach and Resort. It was us two and about 12 other people from Brians shop. They have had a pretty rough 3 weeks before and needed a well deserved break. So that was the plan for the weekend. lol 

It was a great weekend overall. The sun was shining everyday, and in between the scorching heat, there would be a drizzle from a mysterious rain cloud. It really helped when you wanted to be cooled off. the first night we caught the sunset and even a small showing of fireworks. The next day Brian and I spent a good part of the day to ourselves. We stretched out on our beach towels to catch a tan. (ok I needed the tan, Brian was just "evening" out.)

After we went for a swim, and I loved it. Im usually very iffy with the ocean. Very paranoid about jellyfish. lol But I enjoyed it very much. 

We had enough salty goodness for the day so we decided to explore. Where we found a neat path leading up a hill surrounded by jungleness. Once at the top, A breath-taking view presented itself. Photo op! 

Walking all the way back up to the cabins and were completely pooped. With hours in the sun, a quick swim in the ocean, AND exploring, what better to do than nap. Something about the heat that makes me extremely tired. lol

The night ended with a shower of rain. Bringing an end to our beer pong and s'more making. Instead, we got huddled under a tent, singing along to Gotye. Haha awesome. 

Time for you to see the photos! Favorite part yes?

[Our cabin we stayed in. Air conditioned too!]

[All of our cars circled around our 3 cabins. Trying to make a sound barrier. Haha]

 [Amazing]

 [TEAL WATERS!]

[Our new kick-ass hats!] 

[I loved my hat!]

 [The start of our exploration]

 [Our view]

 [Sunset]

 [Our friend Brandy and her son Mason]

 [Me making an elephant in the sand.]

 [Breath-taking]

 [The sun disappearing] 

 [Insanely sun burnt cheeks...and shoulders]

[Elephant!]

[The on-lookers]

Here is a small video of what we saw on our expedition.

I hope you all had just as wonderful a weekend! 

XOXO

Nikki P

String States

Another great project I found on Pinterest. I've seen these before and always wanted one for myself but never really got to it. Till my husband pushed me in that direction. We went to the craft store and ordered a few pieces of wood and we went from there. How about I show you how huh?

What you'll need...

          *As many boards as you want to make. 12x12 is a good size. about 3/4 in. thick.

*Whatever color paint/spray paint you want your board to be.

*1 inch to 1 1/2 inch Nails

*Whatever color string you want. (i dont know exactly what kind)(the kind pictured.)

*A printout of whatever state your gonna do. Sized to fit.

*And of course a hammer.

Now here come the instructions. Dont worry there are pictures. :)

Once you have your board, grab whatever you are using to paint this bad boy and get to it. 

I had some handy help from my lovely husband. Let it dry overnight.

Here they are all primed up for me. With spray paint, it didnt cover the wood as perfectly as i hoped. It was a difficult kind of wood. lol

After you get your desired color, get that printout of your state. 

Make sure it fits nicely with room on all sides.

 Here I did Wisconsin and Florida. 

Also cut out a shape for a focus point. Like a heart, star, circle...etc.

I added a heart for where Brian and I grew up.

Now the fun part! Hammering in the hundreds of nails! Yay...

So just nail in around the state to make an outline. (I had to do it inside of the state for size reasons)

WARNING:

 *It does get messy with the nail rubbing off onto your hands and the board.(You'll see what I mean later)

*If you are going to be nailing on the floor, like I did, you may want to take breaks. I hurt my back just from being in the sitting position for so long. (Icy Hot helped a ton!)

Here is what it looks like after your all done adding the nails and you tear off the paper. 

See I told you it was messy. Stupid nails. lol

I was going to paint it again anyway.

I painted them again to get rid of the ugly marks and set them on our patio to dry overnight.

Guess what I woke up to...

RAIN. 

I thought to myself, "Are you fracking kidding me?!"

So I rushed to go get them. Nothing happened to them. 

The tops of the nails had rusted due to the H2O...

But I think it made it look even more awesome in the end!

 The rusted nails! lol Cool huh? Well anywho, after you I let them dry, I grabbed my string.

I picked a starting point and tied a knot to that one nail. I then just connected them to the heart by looping the string around individual nails. Some were used many many times again. Thats what caused the more dense areas. But keep doing that till you are satisfied with how it looks and tie it off on the last nail like in the beginning. Now, this part could get tricky. You may need to start over once in awhile but its quite easy. 

You get the hang of it pretty quickly.

Here are my finished products. Great right!

The next thing I gotta do is find some hinge thing to hang it up. You know the teeth like things that are on the backs of frames. lol Gotta search for those out here in Japan. haha 

And then find the perfect spot to hang these beauties. Hmm,...

And so that was my favorite project (so far) that I found on Pinterest. I will definitely search and complete more of course! But until then, im just going to go pin crazy! 

Have a great day everyone! 

Nikki P