Favorites: May (and dealing with stress)

May, along with everything else, is coming to a close. The end of May and beginning of June is one of the more stressful times of year. School work starts to pile up, summer plans need to be finalized, and the anxiety that comes with finishing one grade and moving on to the next is a lot to handle (especially if that next grade happens to be your senior year of high school...eeek!).

There are a lot things people do to keep their stress level from reaching its maximum, but for me its pretty simple. I just try to focus on each day as they come and pay attention to the positives.

Here are some of my favorite things from the month of May that kept me sane:

One

Do one fun thing at the end of every day as a reward for working hard. This doesn't mean procrastinating and doing that fun thing instead of homework, it should just keep you motivated. I started a new TV show from the mid 90's called 'My So-Called Life'. Its is a story about teen angst. The main character, Angela, is a 15-year-old girl who faces the trials and tribulations of being a teenager and dealing with friends, guys, parents and school. It is so good, and I love ending my day with Jordan Catalano ;)

Two

Pamper yourself. Sometimes taking a long hot bath with a soothing bath bomb is more than necessary. Maybe even wear an item of clothing or an extra makeup product to help boost your self confidence. Last week I took a much-needed bath with my Lush Cosmetics Twilight bath bomb, and I also bought a new Lip Balm just for fun.

Three

When you're hungry, eat. Have a small snack before or while you work to keep your mind off your stomach. When I get hungry I make myself a bowl of mixed Erewhon Organic Cereals (you can find the brand at Whole Foods). The brand makes all types of delicious healthy flavors; my favorites being Quinoa & Chia, Buckwheat & Hemp, and Crispy Brown Rice. Mixing them all together makes for a totally healthy and totally filling snack.

xoxoxo

Nina

Song stuck in my head right now: Lean On Me - Bill Withers

Hidden

Just Relax

Look Book: Prom

So something really exciting happened last Sunday, and if you read the title of this post you probably already know what I'm referring to. PROM HAPPENED!! For years I have imaged what prom might be like, what I would wear, who I would go with, but my expectations were pretty far off. 

The pre-prom pictures happened at my friends house and all the juniors were invited. I'm really glad that we were all together because it was nice to see everyone before you actually got to prom and it made the whole experience a lot less awkward. 

My school is pretty traditional in the sense where there is the expectation that a boys is supposed to 'prom-pose' to a girl in a public way and they will go to prom together, take pictures with their arms around each other, and buy corsages and boutonnieres. There are exceptions though, and nobody is judged for how they decide to spend their prom. I was one of them. I ended up asking my friend from out of school if he wanted to go to prom with me and we went together along with another friend (Yay breaking gender norms!). The three of us didn't take any couple-y photos and didn't buy flowers, but I didn't feel like I was missing out. Going with friends made the entire night so much fun, and I couldn't have asked for better dates. I am a huge supporter going to prom with friends.

Prom itself was basically just a dance party. There was an okay DJ who played okay music that everyone danced too. There was some food, but it wasn't great. The theme of the room decorations was Alice and Wonderland, and that was pretty cute.

Overall, the reason prom was so fun was because everyone go to dress up and have a ton of fun with friends.

My Outfit

Dress - Piperlime.com

Shoes - Dune London

Clutch - Anthropologie

My Makeup

Eye Shadow - Urban Decay Naked 3 palette

Eye Liner - e.l.f. gel liner

Eye Brows - Benefit Cosmetics Gimme Brow

Blush - Benefit Cosmetics Rockateur

Mascara - e.l.f. Essential Volumizing Mascara, Maybelline Great Lash

Lipstick - SEPHORA COLLECTION Rouge Shine Lipstick in Love Letter

xoxoxo

Nina

Song stuck in my head right now: Wannabe - Spice Girls

Petals

Swatching

Lets Go Fly a Kite

Alley

DIY: Photo Printed Candles

Last week was Mothers Day, and usually my mom's birthday is around that sunday also. I knew I had to make her something creative to try and top what I did last year, so, of course, I turned to my trusty pinterest account and search "mothers day DIY". After some scrolling, an image of a candle caught my attention. I tried to find the version of this DIY that was actually doable with the materials we already had in the house. So finally I created my own version of the Photo Printed Candle DIY and here is how I did it!

Materials

Candle (the candle should be white or at least light enough for the image to show up on. Also the surface space of the candle should be big enough for the image).

Tissue Paper (will take the color of your candle)

Scissors

Scotch Tape

Hair Dryer

Printer and Printer Paper

Wax Paper

Step 1

Find the image you want to print onto your candle, and scale it to the size you want. I dragged my image to a pages (aka word) document and pasted it four times just in case one doesn't print well.

Step 2

Cut a piece of tissue paper to be a bit larger than the size of printer paper. Then Wrap it around the printer paper and tape the edges down (this part is very important because the last thing you want is tissue paper stuck in your printer).

Step 3

Print your image onto the tissue paper. If you have a small image you might want to make multiple copies of it on the same page so that if one gets screwed up, you don’t have to start all over.

Step 4

Cut out the image so that the tissue paper is no longer attached to the printer paper. Leave a border around the image (it will blend into the candle). If you want, you can glue the image onto the candle, but I just held it in place.

Step 5

Wrap the candle in wax paper. The wax paper keeps the image in place, and keeps the candle from getting too drippy.

Step 6

Blow dry it. Really. Just put your blow dryer on high and have at it. It’s pretty cool to see the tissue paper seem to disappear. Make sure that you get all of the areas of the image. Try not to focus to much on one spot because my candle got a bit misshapen. When all of the tissue paper looks like it’s gone and you just see the image, you’re done.

Step 7

Unwrap your awesome new candle. Then...

Step 8

 take pictures to show all your friends so they’ll know how awesomely crafty you are. 

xoxoxo

Nina

Song stuck in my head right now: Fix You - Coldplay

Artificial Rainbow

Smile

Photo credit: Liel Dolev

Photo credit: Me!

Suburbs

Dissection

Look Book: What I Can't Wait To Wear This Spring/Summer

It's already mid-spring here in Boston, and that means that it is actually warm outside (Today was 80 degress!!!). I have officially replaced all my winter sweaters and boots for T-shirts and sandals, and stored them away for next year. There are some specific items that are now in my wardrobe which are my go-to's recently. Here is a little Look Book that I put together to show you what I can't wait to wear this spring/summer.

Enjoy!

1. Paris skirt

2. clog sandals

3. round metal Ray-Ban

4. my go-to hairdo: natural, half up, and high

;)

xoxoxo

Nina

Song stuck in my head right now: Bad Self Portraits - Lake Street Dive

Lola