Today, I wanted to do a post that is not the most typical to my blog, but possibly very important for some of you. As we're in the holiday season, and get bombarded with commercials from the left and right, see all perfect pictures on social media and may even get pressure from our families, it's easy to get stressed about things. So, I'm sharing my tips on how to avoid stress.

On Holiday time, I often get super inspired to do many themed nail art designs. This year doesn't seem any different as I already started my third mani of the month yesterday. Here on the blog, I will today share my second Christmas mani of the year, which is maybe more a winter design. But I wanted to play with techniques as well as new stuff I got from Born Pretty Store. I'll talk more about them below along with the pictures.

Every Christmas, the best part for me is that I get to decorate the house with some Christmas items. Usually I don't go too overboard, and this year is no exception. In this post, I'm sharing the decorations I put up this Christmas. 

Hello lovelies! How are you today? ♥ Sorry for a late post, but the weekend has been crazy. So, I will be uploading the posts 12, 13 and 14 very close to each other. It will be better after tomorrow, I promise. I got the last school thing out of my hands so I can focus on the blogging stuff on my free time. Today's post - well, Saturday's post - is a quick one about things I love about Christmas. See my list below:

Hello lovelies!

I hope you're having a fun day today! ♥

Heya everyone!

How are you all today? ♥

I've been enjoying quite a lazy day before going to work, watching TV, starting my training season again, knitting and stuff like that. Totally cool, totally fun. I also got the new H&M catalog for SS14. So I'll be looking through that later tonight and seeing whether it has some nice ideas for updating my style for the spring. I actually have some ideas of my own already, but we shall see if they're anything close to the actual fashion trends.

Anyways, today is again a nail day here on the blog, I still have these nails from before Christmas that I didn't have the chance to show you earlier. But hey, better late than never, right? Both of these designs have reindeer on them, but that's as far as the similarities go, actually.



First up, a red and white mani with snow, candy stripes, sweater print and a reindeer (which you will see a couple of pics below).



The idea for doing these came to me while I was scrolling through Christmas nails on Google before holidays, and it seemed like a lot of fun as I had never done anything quite like this before.





Here you can actually see the reindeer. This was free-hand painting, so it's not perfect at all, but it was pretty cute, though.



The polishes used here were China Glaze Roguish Red, China Glaze White On White and China Glaze There's Snow One Like You. All the painting is done with just nail art brushes and dotting tools, so no stamping was involved. I really, really liked these nails and I think these totally inspired me to do more holiday nail art later in life.





The other mani here is a bit more colorful and not so traditional. This was much inspired by Cutepolish from YouTube and Instagram, who's an amazing nail artist and who makes fantastic tutorials. You can find her YouTube channel here, if you fancy to see her amazing work.



Here, like in the first design, you can spot a little reindeer hanging around. This one is pink, though. Because I thought it's cute.





The point here was to make a not so traditional holiday mani, and to try out new things and tips I had read about over the Internet. And I must say, these came out more nice than I expected. I'm not much of an enthusiast for Christmas manis usually, but this one was pretty fun.



I used China Glaze White On White, China Glaze Escaping Reality, L'Oreal Color Riche Green Couture, Ciaté Mini Paint Pot Mojito and a bunch of different colored Kiss Nail Art Paints. I topped the whole thing off with China Glaze Fairy Dust to give the design that extra sparkle.



So that's what I have for you guys today, I hope you enjoyed this post even half as much I enjoyed writing it. I need to go now and get some tea before heading to my work shift, but if all goes as planned, I will have another post for you tomorrow. ♥

What do you all think about these manis? And, what are you wearing on your nails today?

Also, I haven't actually remembered to give you all amazing people enough credit for supporting me, commenting and overall being amazing! Thank you for all the support you have given me for the blogging and thank you to all 100 of you amazing individuals that have followed this blog on Facebook, I can't believe there's already so many of you. If you haven't already, you can join the page here to get the latest updates and sometimes some extra material that doesn't actually go live here on the blog. And the same goes to my IG account, which you can find here, there's more live stuff and throughout this year, there will be little vids and such coming up. So if you find those things interesting, please follow me on those platforms, and if you post fun stuff, I love to see your work as well. ♥

Wow, blabbering much...? Anyway... I'm really off now, seriously.

Have a fabulous day! 

Blog ya later,

xoxo

Johanna

Hello everyone!

How are you all today? ♥

I hope you've all had an amazing weekend with the boys and totally got the relaxation I needed after all the work past few weeks. I still need to do stuff for Christmas, like buy a couple of gifts and wrap them all and schedule blog posts and everything, but after this weekend I feel like I have the energy for it all. This year my Christmas will be a tad short as I only have three days off from work instead of the whole week, but somehow I'm pretty okay with that.

If you follow me on Instagram (@silvertigo), you know I have tried a bunch of holiday nails this month. Actually I'm painting a brand new ones whilst typing this post (meaning I paint my nails and carefully type while the polish dries), so stay tuned via IG if you wanna see those soon!

But today, you'll get to see more of my previous holiday nails, which I painted in the beginning of the month.



First up, red and gold nails with some festive stamping on them. I made these pretty glittery and all because I felt like that would be a pretty Christmassy thing to do.



The polishes I used were China Glaze Goldie But Goodie, China Glaze Twinkle Lights, Ciaté Mistress, and Ciaté Enchanted Rose. For stamping I used Konad stamping polish in white.





This was my try to get back with the stamping but I feel like it just pushed me away more. I guess I try to do this thing a little too quickly and I just can't seem to get the stamps straight anymore... So, sorry for the inconvenient looks of these, I promise I will try to get better at it towards spring and summer!





The other manicure is something I made after kinda sorta messing up the red one after a day or two. I removed the red polishes (I don't know if it's just me, but the Ciaté glitters totally make the nails weird and not that wearable, so I usually can't go for many days without redoing my mani.) and replaced them with these glitter gradients.





Polishes used here were China Glaze Kalahari Kiss, China Glaze Twinkle Lights and China Glaze Goldie But Goodie.



I personally liked this one quite a lot as it is pretty subtle but still super festive. I don't know if you guys have noticed but I seriously have a thing for glitter polish all year round. Beware, there'll be more where these came from!



Now, I'd like to hear from you:

What do you think about these nails? And, what kind of polishes you all like to wear during the holiday season? ♥

Now, this girl needs to go get her cup of tea before hitting the bed for some much needed sleep. Tomorrow, I need to go buy some last minute things before work, and on Tuesday morning we will head to Pori to spend the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my fiance's parents and family, followed by a visit to our friends for a night. I will try and schedule a post or two for the days I can't really hit the laptop, as I still have a lot of things from this month that I really would love to share with you. ;)

Have a fabulous day, everyone! 

Blog ya later,

xoxo

Johanna

Hello my lovelies!

How are you all? ♥

Today I was planning not to open my laptop at all, but I got something I couldn't resist sharing with you. With the holiday season just around the corner, and the Autumn already behind, I've noticed so many people posting about the American classic, Pumpkin Spice Latte. Even though there are already the whooping amount of two Starbucks coffee shops in the whole Finland, I haven't had the pleasure to test out the infamous tasty treat.

So, what's a girl to do when there's no proper place to buy a food/drink, but there's the growing anxiety to try it out anyway? Well, the girl finds a recipe and makes some at home. (and if you actually can get this from Tampere, Finland, please correct my ignorance and point me to the right direction!)

So, for those of you who also want to try this out - or maybe wanna save some money for more Christmas shopping - here is an affordable (nearly fool proof) recipe you can whip up with very basic ingredients:

I found the recipe here!

BrokeAss Gourmet's Pumpkin Spice Latte

3 tablespoons strong ground coffee
2/3 cup water
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
2 teaspoon honey or agave nectar
2/3 cup milk

And, if you are like me, and live in a culture where we don't have pumpkin pie spice regularly in our spice rack, here's how you can make your own:



Pumpkin Pie Spice (found here)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Mix the spices in a small bowl, and store in an airtight container.

Simple enough, right? Now that this is done, back to making the latte, shall we?





1. Brew the coffee with the water in a regular coffee maker, French press or drip cone.

2. While the coffee brews, stir the pumpkin pie spice into the honey or agave nectar until completely blended. Set aside.



3. Pour the cold milk into a microwave-safe bowl, the edges of which should come up a bit higher than the milk.

4. Keep the bowl slightly tilted to the side, so that the milk is gathered more towards one side. Using a wire whisk, quickly and vigorously whisk the milk in the bowl for about 2-2 1/2 minutes. If milk is not frothy after 2 1/2 minutes, continue whisking an additional 30-60 seconds. The milk should be very frothy at this point.

Note: this is the point where I personally screwed up. I didn't get the milk foamy enough, so it just got back to liquid when I put it on a microwave. I found this step easier with a clean (microwave proof) glass jar with a lid. Put the milk in the jar, close the lid tightly and shake it heavily for 30 seconds or more, just to get it thick enough. Then, take off the lid and and continue following the instructions.

5. Microwave the milk in the bowl on high for 8-10 seconds. It should puff into a high foam immediately.



6. To serve the latte, pour the hot coffee into a mug and stir in the honey/agave-spice mixture until completely dissolved. Top with the hot milk, spooning the thick foam on top. A dash of additional pumpkin pie spice or some ground cinnamon on top is a nice touch. Serve immediately.

Or do as I did and add a ridiculous amount of whipped cream and cover the not-so-successful milk foam to have more of a coffee shop kind of experience with it.



Last night I baked some brownies, so what better way to enjoy the latte than with a piece of brownie and an episode of one of my favorite TV series, Desperate Housewives. ♥

So, I hope you found this post helpful or fun, I have been wanting to taste this for years but only last night realized I could actually make my own. The best part: this doesn't contain the high fructose corn syrup that some claim is pretty bad for you, and those who know me, know that when I can, I at least try to pick the option with less artificial things in it.

The verdict: This was good enough to make another time, I loved the taste of it a lot. Is it even close to the infamous Starbucks one? I have no idea. What I can say that it smells heavenly, and brewing this baby can make your whole home smell adorable. I warmly recommend trying this out if you like coffee.

Have you tried making your own pumpkin spice latte? And, would you like to see more this kind of posts where I try to find easy, kind of healthy options for other classic treats? Let me know below in the comments ♥

Now, I'm off to try and wear off my caffeine rush by completing some DIY projects and washing the dishes and so (yes, I've found the right drug for the lack of energy it seems, haha).

Have a lovely day!

Blog ya later,

xoxo

Johanna