Something blue...

The boyfriend and I.  Dress: Motel Rocks (Through Zando), Belt: Vintage, Earrings: RichBitch, Shoes: Ideals. Dane is in Shoes & Trousers: Topman, Blazer & Tie: Carducci, Shirt: Trenery.

I adore weddings. The build up before, the sharing of heartfelt vows, the speeches, the abundant love and merriment and... the Dancing! Oh my goodness do I love the dancing at weddings. There is always high celebratory spirits and everybody wants to just have a good time, spinning, twirling and getting down all in the name of love. 
This weekend we attended a good friends wedding at The Durban Country Club and the following morning my thighs felt like I had run a marathon. Heels and dancing are clearly a fantastic work out. From now on I think I'd rather shake and twirl rather than squat and lunge thank you very much!

Magic in the Monarch

Do you believe in Magic?

I do and I love that I can’t understand it and am happy to accept it as magic. This of course is completely opposite to The Boyfriend who knows that there is definitely a logical explanation for every trick and that magic is just clever sleight of hand. Whatever. It’s magic. Embrace it.

We were watching Dynamo last night and that was what got us chatting about it. I am awe struck with his tricks. Seriously. They are fun and beautiful and take me back to the days of believing knowing anything is possible and everything can be real (including the fairies). In his one trick, Dynamo manages to turn a paper butterfly into a real Monarch butterfly and then a swarm of them fly about the room. Awesome. (link below)

Watching this inspired my latest mani… Ombre nails with an accent nail of a monarch butterfly wing…

These nails were easy enough but did take  a very steady hand and will need a bit more practice from my side.

First I did an ombre of orange and red using the sponging method  (see here how I did my ombrenails last time)

I chose to do just one accent nail wing, mainly because it is pretty tricky and I couldn’t bear trying to do my entire right hand and also because it feels like it may take away from the beauty of one winged nail.

To do the wing, draw a black curve on both ends of your nail, then painting from the top curve to the tip of your nail. Then join the two lines with three thin black strips, round them off slightly and finally add a few white dots to the black tips.

 

 

 

 p.s. If you know how Dynamo does his tricks don't dare tell me! I love believing in magic...

Wrong Avenue

Cardigan - Truworths, Top - Woolies, Skirt - Mr Price, Shoes - Rage, Belt - Mr Price

On Friday night The Boyfriend took me out for a lovely fancy dinner but, in his excitement, booked us in at the wrong restaurant (oops). So as we arrived I started walking one way (towards the restaurant we had booked a table at), and him another (towards the restaurant he meant to book us into.) After his cursing and my hysterical laughter he sheepishly walked into 9th Avenue Bistro and explained to the manager that he had somehow got the restaurant names mixed up and booked us next door when he really wanted to dine in style at 9th Avenue Bistro. They were thankfully really accommodating about his mix up and manged to set us up a table within 15 minutes (even though they were quite fully booked - as is expected). 

If you're in Durbs and you've not yet been, do make a point to dine at the 9th Avenue Bistro. The food is incredible (expect dishes from rabbit to duck) the wine selection is top notch and the service is outstanding. It is no surprise that they have won multiple awards for being one of the top restaurants in SA.

Oh. My. Ombre

I love ombre. Ombre hair. Ombre clothes. Ombre utensils. I love ombre. And then I saw this awesome blog on how to get the ombre affect on your nails and had to give it a try.

I had imagined it would be tricky, but it was super easy and has a really lovely effect. I used a light and dark pink (Essie: Lovie Dovie & Mavala: La Paz) Next time however I’m going to try more contrasting colours and take this up a notch. I’m thinking blue and white or pink and grey…

Here are all the instructions. 

(Note: I sent my pic of my nails to my bestie and told her she had to give this a try. She tried blue to purple, which looked very cool but did resemble a heavy bruise from certain angles.)