Boeuf Bourguignon

After watching Julie and Julia and reading the book, I had to let my inner french woman out and try my hand at making Julia Child’s renowned Boeuf Bourguignon. I followed the recipe at the Simply Recipes and Oprah websites, as I don’t yet own Julia's famous cook books, Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol 1 & Vol 2. Maybe Santa will surprise me with them this year!  While it is quite a labour intensive dish, I was more than pleased at the delicious end result! 

Even our German Shepard, Czar wanted to get in on the Boeuf Bourguignon action! If you’re looking to indulge in some classic french eats, then do yourself a favour and try Julia Child’s recipes. Julia Child was able to translate supposedly complicated classic french dishes into an easy to understand manner for the home cook. Whether you try her fabulous Boeuf Bourguignon recipe or her Coq Au Vin recipe you will be happy you did!

What’s your favourite foreign dish ?

What happened to Mani Mondays ?

Hello lovelies,

I know a fair few of you have been wondering what happened to the weekly dose of Mani Mondays.

Currently Mani Mondays have been put on hold as I picked up a nasty nail infection at the end of March. To be honest, I delayed writing this blog post as I was slightly embarrassed to have picked up a nail infection since I have never had one before. I was also secretly hoping that the nail infection would subside fairly quickly so I could resume my weekly nail polish joy of Mani Mondays! 

Alas, I have found that there is nothing to be embarrassed about as nail infections are quite common. However, rather unfortunately, I won’t be able to resume Mani Mondays any time soon. I have been medically advised (sounds far more serious than it is!) to not apply any nail polish for 6 months in order to allow for new, fresh, healthy nail growth. It’s been almost 3 months thus far, so only 3 more to go! 

I did try and sneak in some nail polish (can anyone say addict) as my nails appear clear of the infection and look healthy and back to normal now. However, within a day of applying nail polish, the infection was creeping back…so I am going to have to strictly adhere to the 6 month rule. I am currently using a mixture of tea tree oil and decolourized iodine to treat the infection and it’s worked a treat. It’s obvious as per my recent sneaky experiment that I can’t start applying nail polish or stop with the oil treatment as yet.

Mani Mondays are officially on holiday till further notice! However, do feel free to share with me your pretty manicures or ideas, I’m stocking up on inspiration until Mani Mondays resume! During the time away from Mani Mondays I’m going to explore other passions on the blog. I have wanted to add more diversity for a while and now is the perfect time to do so. Do follow along and I hope you enjoy it :)

Have you ever had a nail infection ? What treatment did you use and how long did it take to heal fully ?

Mani Monday: Blushing Pink Mani

 Good day lovelies, I decided to display a really girly, soft and feminine mani this Mani Monday!

I used some ribbon nail art detailing on the ring fingers as accent nails accompanied by polka dot french tips on the rest of the nails. I used Revlon Nail Care Calcium Gel Nail Hardener as a basecoat, Essence Denim Wanted Collection in High Waist Pink x2 coats, Essence in Stamp me!White x1 coat for nail art, and Revlon Nail Care ColorStay Gold Standard Top Coat as a top coat.  

You will need:

• Base coat nail polish
• Base colour coat nail polish (I chose coral/pink)
• White nail polish for nail art
• Toothpicks
• Top coat nail polish

Method:

1) Apply base coat nail polish to all nails, wait for it to dry completely   

2) Apply base colour coat nail polish to all nails and wait for it to dry completely  

You're correct, it's not my hand. Decided to treat my mum to a Mani Monday mani :)

3) Start working on the ribbon nail art details on the ring finger accent nails, pour a small pool of white nail polish onto a scrap piece of paper and dip a toothpick into the nail polish. Then place one dot anywhere on your ring finger nail…then draw/dab/pat/drag the nail polish in two oval zero shapes on either side of the dot…like the bow area of the ribbon. Once the bow part of the ribbon is complete, now draw/pat/drag the nail polish in a downwards direction from either side of the centre of the bow so as to form two little lines from the bow…like the ends of a ribbon bow. Complete as many ribbon designs on your ring finger accent nails as you desire

4) Pour a small pool of white nail polish on a scrap piece of paper, dip a toothpick into the nail polish and start applying dots on the remaining nails in one line along the french tips of nails. Complete this step on all nails, except ring finger accent nails

5) Wait for all nail art to dry and apply top coat nail polish

6) I know, you’re thrilled with your soft, feminine mani!

 What’s your favourite girly, feminine mani ?

 

As always, linking up to Mani Monday below, with the fabulous Heather and Heather! I will also be joining the ladies over at The Nail Files.       

Join the fun side of life and link up to Mani Monday and The Nail Files below :)

Mani Monday: St.Paddy’s Day Mani

 G’day beauties! Of course I had to honour St. Paddy’s day with a festive mani! I decided to let shamrocks run around on my nails :)

I highlighted two accent nails with big shamrock designs coupled with shamrock french tips on the rest of the nails. I used Revlon Nail Care Calcium Gel Nail Hardener as a basecoat, Sally Hansen Hard as Nails  Xtreme Wear Nail Colour in Emerald City x2 coats (it has excellent opacity), Revlon in Garden x1 coat for nail art, and Revlon Nail Care ColorStay Gold Standard Top Coat as a top coat. 

You will need:

• Base coat nail polish
• Base colour coat nail polish (I chose dark green)
• Coloured Nail polish for shamrock nail art (I chose light green)
• Earbuds
• Toothpicks
• Top coat nail polish

Method:

1) Apply base coat nail polish to all nails, wait for it to dry completely  

2) Apply base colour coat nail polish to all nails and wait for it to dry completely 

3) Start working on the shamrock nail art on the accent nails (index and ring fingers), pour a small pool of light green nail polish onto a scrap piece of paper. Dip the end of an earbud into the nail polish and apply one dot of nail polish onto the bottom part of your nail. Next, place a second dot of nail polish right next to the first dot, ensure that the dots are touching each other. You will now place your third and final dot of nail polish at the top of both previous dots…as if completing a triangle shape. Now to draw on the stem of the shamrock, dip a toothpick into the pool of light green nail polish and carefully pull and draw a small stem on the shamrock…imagine you are drawing an upside triangle and you will draw the shape on correctly. Complete this step on both index finger nails and ring finger nails

4) The same principle as in step 3 applies to doing the shamrock french tips, except instead of using an earbud to create the design you will use a toothpick. Dip a toothpick into the light green nail polish and place 3 dots in a triangle shape ensuring that all dots are touching and carefully draw on an upside triangle at the bottom of the shamrock to act as the stem. Place the shamrock design at the tips of your nails…draw each shamrock next to each other and continue applying the design to all french tips. Complete this step on all nails

5) Wait for all nail art to dry completely and then apply top coat nail polish

6) Go out with your St.Paddy’s day mani and have a pint of Guinness to celebrate this holiday!

Cheese, a pic from my travels! Posing with a festive leprechaun while travelling through Dublin, Ireland

Did you celebrate St.Paddy’s day, if so how ? What’s your favourite holiday manicure ?

As always, linking up to Mani Monday below, with the fabulous Heather and Heather! I will also be joining the ladies over at The Nail Files.      

Join the fun side of life and link up to Mani Monday and The Nail Files below :)

Mani Monday: Flower Power Mani

 Good day my lovelies,

This Mani Monday I was feeling the retro vibe and decided to channel it into a flower power mani!

I dotted big daisies all over bright pink nails (the nail polish paints on so opaque that it looks like red nail polish). I used Revlon Nail Care Calcium Gel Nail Hardener as a basecoat, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Cerise x3 coats, Essence Nail Art Stampy Polish in Stamp me! White x1 coat for nail art, Colours Nail Enamel in Creammoss x1 coat for nail art and Revlon Nail Care ColorStay Gold Standard Top Coat as a top coat. 

You will need

• Base coat nail polish
• Base colour coat nail polish (I chose bright pink)
• Two colours for daisies nail art (I chose white and mint)
• Orangewood stick
• Toothpick
• Top coat nail polish

Method:

1) Apply base coat nail polish to all nails, wait for it to dry completely 

2) Apply base colour coat nail polish to all nails and wait for it to dry completely 

3) Start working on the daisies nail art. Pour a small pool of white nail polish onto a scrap piece of paper. Dip the sharp end of an orangewood stick into the white nail polish and carefully make 4 dots on your nails, ensuring that the 4 dots touch each other. You are creating the petals of the daisies, randomly place the collection of 4 dots all over your nails, you want the flower design to be haphazard on your nails. Continue dotting on the petal design onto all your nails, place on as many or as little daisies as you would like

Example illustration of how the four dots should be touching

4) Pour a small pool of mint nail polish onto a scrap piece of paper, dip a toothpick into the pool of mint nail polish and place a small dot of mint nail polish in the centre of the four dots. You are dotting on the centre of the flower design. Continue doing this until all daisies have a mint dot in the centre

5) Wait for all nail art to dry then apply top coat nail polish

6) You would be forgiven to be caught humming along to some retro jams like ‘Build me up Buttercup’ by The Foundations…’Why do you build me up (Build me up), Buttercup baby just to
let me down (Let me down)’…la la la.

What’s your favourite retro song?

 

As always, linking up to Mani Monday below, with the fabulous Heather and Heather! I will also be joining the ladies over at The Nail Files.     

Join the fun side of life and link up to Mani Monday and The Nail Files below :)

Mani Monday: Princess Mani

Hi Beauties,

Today I wanted to display a mani that indulges the inner princess in all woman! A simple and girly mani for the win!

I decided to do glittery accent nails paired with baby pink nails. I used Revlon Nail Care Calcium Gel Nail Hardener as a basecoat, Essence in Rich & Pretty on ring finger nails (accent nails), Bella Cosmetics nail polish in light pink (my description) on all other nails and Revlon Nail Care ColorStay Gold Standard Top Coat as a top coat.

You will need

• Base coat nail polish
• Base colour coat nail polish (I used baby pink)
• Base colour coat nail polish for accent nails (I chose silver)
• Chunky silver glitter nail polish
• Top coat nail polish

Method:

1) Apply base coat nail polish to all nails, wait for it to dry completely

2) Apply x2 coats of silver nail polish to ring nails and x3 coats of light pink nail polish to the remaining nails, wait for it to dry completely

3) Dab/pat chunky glitter nail polish onto ring finger nails, you may need to repeat this step twice so that there is enough glitter covering the entire nail

4) Wait for nail polish to dry and then apply top coat nail polish

5) It would be totally acceptable to run around like a Disney princess when you are rocking this mani :)

What’s your favourite girly/feminine mani ?

As always, linking up to Mani Monday below, with the fabulous Heather and Heather! I will also be joining the ladies over at The Nail Files.    

Join the fun side of life and link up to Mani Monday and The Nail Files below :) 

Mani Monday: Smiley Face Mani

 Hello Lovelies!

This Mani Monday I wanted to display a mani I have been pondering for a while now and finally got around to doing it. A mani that is sure to put a smile on your dial :) Firstly, thanks to Heather from Glitter & Gloss Blog for featuring my mani from last week as her favourite choice! Secondly, one of my manis was featured in the March 2013 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine (South Africa), I could have died with excitement, more about that below! Here is the Smiley Face Mani:

If you recall, I recently won a Revlon hamper to the value of R1000.00 packed with goodies for winning a weekly Mani Monday competition run by magazine giant Cosmopolitan (South Africa) in coalition with Revlon (South Africa). Cosmopolitan called me a few weeks ago wanting to feature my winning Girls of Summer Mani in their upcoming issue in a spread about Manicure Mondays, of course I could not say no :)

Now, that all that goodness is out of the way, let’s move on with todays Mani Monday shall we. For this Smiley Face Mani I highlighted the smiley face on plain yellow accent nails with pops of yellow lines peeking through black nail polish on all the other nails. I used striping tape to achieve the line detailing on the nails and used a stamping kit for the accent nails (needed some free hand touching up though). I used Revlon Nail Care Calcium Gel Nail Hardener as a basecoat, Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Mellow Yellow x3 coats as a base colour coat, Essence Nail Art Stampy Polish in Stamp Me! Black x1 coat for nail art and top colour coat and Revlon Nail Care ColorStay Gold Standard Top Coat as a top coat. 

You will need:

• Base coat nail polish
• Base colour coat nail polish (I chose yellow)
• Top coat colour nail polish & for nail art (I chose black)
• Top coat nail polish
• Stamping kit with smiley face stencil (or you can draw on the smiley face freehand with a toothpick)
• Toothpicks

Method:

1) Apply base coat nail polish to nails, wait for it to dry completely   

2) Apply base colour coat to all nails, wait for it to dry completely   

3) Apply striping tape to tips of all nails (except accent finger nails aka ring finger nails)…place the striping tape around where you would paint a french tip. Make sure you firmly press down the striping tape so that there are no air bubbles, this will ensure that there is a clean, neat line left when you pull the striping tape off later

4) Paint all nails (except ring finger nails) with x1 coat of black nail polish, you will paint the nail polish straight over the striping tape. The principle works the same as it would with painting on white french tips using french tip guides

5) Immediately after painting on the nail polish remove the striping tape from the nail. I find it best to work nail by nail, paint one nail and remove the striping tape immediately and then only move onto the next nail, I find this leaves a cleaner, neater line. Repeat steps 3-5 on all nails

6) Now you can start working on the smiley face nail art for the accent nails. I used an Essence stampy stencil for the smiley faces on the accent nails, however for some reason I had trouble getting the stampy design to transfer onto the stampy stamper. The Essence black stampy nail polish I was using was a matte effect nail polish, I'm not sure if that had a negative effect or not. The stampy design only very lightly transferred onto the nail and at that, some of the design didn’t transfer at all so I had to go over the design freehand. This is clearly apparent in the shaky smile of the smiley face! Like wise if you don’t own a stamping set you can apply the smiley face freehand with a toothpick. However, I do highly recommend the Essence stamping set, available at Dis-Chem (SA drugstore)…this has been the only time I've had a little trouble with it, most times it works a charm once you get the hang of it. More discussions on how to use a stamping set here

7) To apply the smiley face freehand, you could dot on the two eyes using a toothpick dipped into the black nail polish and slowly draw an upside down ‘C” shape for the smile…if you have a steady hand then your smile will look better than my shaky attempt! No shame though, I think it adds character haha :)

8) Once all the nail art is dry, apply top coat nail polish

9) Look down at your mani and totally feel a huge smile creeping up on you, ‘cos you can’t help but be cheery with a mani like this! This mani automatically made me start thinking of the childhood rhyming song ‘If you happy and you know it, clap your hands…' la la la…c’mon tell me I’m not the only one!

What instantly brings a smile to your face?

 

As always, linking up to Mani Monday below, with the fabulous Heather and Heather! I will also be joining the ladies over at The Nail Files.   

Join the fun side of life and link up to Mani Monday and The Nail Files below :)

Mani Monday: I’m International {Polish Swap}

 Hi Beauties!

Today I am featuring a mani that I was able to put together from a package of amazingness that was sent to me by Emma, a dear blog friend who blogs over at the ever wonderful Subliminally Smitten! I participated in my very first international polish swap, from the shores of the USA to South Africa and it’s been an awesome experience!

Emma and I sent each other packages full of stunning nail polishes that we thought the other would like, favourite brands and country specific brands, all in all we aimed to totally spoil each other! I was completely spoilt by Emma and love everything that she sent me! We will both be featuring more of the nail polishes we sent each other over the next few weeks. Do mosey on over and check out Emma's stunning blog, Subliminally Smitten.

For my International Swap Mani, I used four colours that Emma sent to me. The four featured colours are Zoya in Harley, Barielle Shades in Now That’s Hot, China Glaze in For Audrey and Julep in Jordan – Boho Glam. I used Nail Care Calcium Gel Nail Hardener as a basecoat, Zoya in Harley as a base colour coat x3 coats, Barielle Shades in Now That’s Hot for half moon tips x1 coat, China Glaze in For Audrey on accent nail for added half moon nail art x1 coat, Julep in Jordan – Boho Glam for half moon nail art x1 coat and Revlon Nail Care ColorStay Gold Standard Top Coat as a top coat. 

You will need:

• Base coat nail polish
• Base colour coat nail polish (I chose silver)
• Coloured nail polish for half moon tips (I chose hot pink)
• Silver glitter nail polish for half moon nail art
• Coloured nail polish for added half moon nail art (I chose mint)
• Toothpick
• Reinforcement stickers
• Top coat nail polish

Method:

1) Apply base coat nail polish to nails, wait for it to dry completely  

2) Apply base colour coats to all nails, wait for it to dry completely  

3) Apply reinforcement stickers to all nails, apply each sticker so that half the sticker is on your nail and the other half on your finger. Basically you are placing the reinforcement stickers on all your nails in such a manner so that the curve of the sticker follows a half moon shape at the top of your nail. Ensure that the stickers are pressed down firmly and that there are no air bumps underneath the stickers…this will lead to messy half moon nail art

4) Apply pink nail polish to all nails excluding the ring finger nails, as these are the are accent nails, you will be painting the mint colour nail polish first. Apply the nail polish over the reinforcement stickers, don’t worry the reinforcement sticker will keep in tact the half moon shape underneath the pink nail polish. Carefully remove each reinforcement sticker from each nail, I prefer to do this immediately after the pink nail polish has been applied as I find it leaves a cleaner line

5) Apply mint nail polish to ring finger nails over the reinforcement stickers and carefully remove the stickers once the nail polish has been applied

Your nails should look like this before moving onto the next step!

6) While you are waiting for the half moon tips to dry you can start working on the glitter nail art in the half moon on your nails. I chose to paint the half moon design silver first as if there are any open spaces in between the glitter nail polish the half moon nail art will still look uniform as the silver nail polish blends in with the glitter nail polish

7) Pour a small pool of glitter nail polish onto a scrap piece of paper, then dip a toothpick into the glitter nail polish and dab, pat and drag the nail polish within the half moon detail on the nails. I found it was easiest using a toothpick than trying to use the nail polish brush. With the toothpick I was able to stay neatly within the half moon line. Complete this step on all nails including the accent nails

8) Once the mint nail polish on the accent nails is completely dry it’s time to apply the pink nail polish, this will provide uniformity as all the nails will have have pink half moon tips

9) Apply reinforcement stickers to ring finger nails. Place the stickers further down the nail so that two thirds of the sticker is on the nail and one third of the sticker is on the finger. You are ensuring that the band of mint nail polish will peek out below the silver half moon detailing by placing the reinforcement sticker in this way

10) Apply pink nail polish over the reinforcement sticker and carefully remove the sticker. The result will be a silver half moon, with a mint band below that and the pink half moon tip. Complete this step on other ring finger nail

11) Only the ring finger nails will have the band of mint nail polish in between the glitter half moon and the pink half moon tip. The ring finger nails and all other nails should resemble the following

12) Wait for nail art to dry completely, then apply top coat nail polish

13) Be stoked with this glittery, girly and feminine mani! 

What’s your fav girly mani ? Have your participated in an international project or swap of any kind before ?

As always, linking up to Mani Monday below, with the fabulous Heather and Heather! I will also be joining the ladies over at The Nail Files. 

Join the fun side of life and link up to Mani Monday and The Nail Files below :)