DIY: Nail Polish Rack

After a stressful weekend,  I decided to calm down by making something. Often, the concentration and attention I give to objects that I craft myself help me to release any excess stress I have. Key word = excess! There's always a baseline of stress I can handle, but when I exceed that, something needs to be done!

So I actually explored around my room and YouTube to figure out what to make. I realized that I needed to organize my nail polish in a better way, so I found a video on YouTube by Beautybymoi who made her own nail polish rack entirely from scratch. Needless to say, I grabbed my keys, headed to my car (found a nasty surprise = some neighborhood idiots had slashed my tires), then asked my mom for a ride instead. Next stop: Micheal's!

I bought some spray paint at Micheal's, and after looking at their price for 1 foam board, we practically ran out to good old Dollarama. There I bought 3 foam boards that came to a total that was less than 1 foam board from Micheal's (by the way, the price at Micheal's was $3.99).

So I got home, and got to work. Here's what I used:  

1. 1 foam board (I used a 20in x 30in board)
2. A ruler capable of measuring 12 inches
3. An Exact-o-knife
4. A level surface to work on
5. Thick cardboard to protect your surface when cutting or spray painting
6. A pencil
7. A hot glue gun ( + glue sticks, of course)

Alright! Let's get to it!

Mark out all dimensions for all the pieces with the pencil on the foam board. Since I was trying out Beautybymoi's idea, I used her exact dimensions. Below are the dimensions for all the pieces:

• Base (2 pieces each of): 12in x 6in
• Side: 7in x 7in square
• Tier 1: 12in x 4.5in
• Tier 2: 12in x 3in
• Tier 3: 12in x 1.5in
• Legs (6 pieces each of): 12 in x 1in......each tier will be supported by 2 legs
• Front piece: 12 3/8in x 7/8in 

Tip: Mark each piece one after the next. Keep the 12in dimension running along the shorter side of the foam board. This way you can fit more pieces along the longer side.

This picture doesn't do justice to how I arranged my pieces but here's a description of the arrangement from bottom (20 in dimension) to top (30 in dimension),starting on the left-most side:
2 base pieces, Tier 3, Tier 2, Tier 1, 6 legs, Front piece
On the right most side, I marked the side square piece


Cut the pieces out with an Exact-o-knife, using the ruler as a guide to keeping the cuts straight.

 

This is what the pieces looked like after they had been all cut out. Not shown here is that I cut the square side-piece into 2 triangular pieces by cutting a diagonal line through the middle of the square. After this, you end up with 2 side pieces that are triangular-shaped.

Glue gun the 2 bases so that they are at 90 degrees with each other:

Glue one side piece on top;then glue gun the other side piece on the bottom:

Trim off the corners of the excess side pieces that extend past the edges. This now completes the frame of the rack:

 

Glue two legs onto each tier piece like so:

  

Here's how all 3 tiers with legs attached looked like:

Turn the frame over so that it's resting on one of base pieces. Squeeze glue onto the inner corner where the two bases meet and place the largest tier piece onto that spot. After, repeat the step by squeezing glue between the base piece and the tier piece, and placing the next sized tier onto that spot like so:

This is what it should look like after all 3 tiers are placed into position:

Add glue onto the front piece and attach to the bottom of the rack. This will prevent the nail polish at the bottom from falling out:

Finis!! Alright, now that all the technical parts have been finished, you can now spray paint and decorate to your heart's desire: I spray painted mine yellow and even made a quick version of another rack (without the tiers) to store some of my make-up palettes and lip products:

Here's how it looked like with the items in. The nail polish rack fit 41 of my nail polishes. I tried to fit 42, but had no luck. *sigh*














Hope you try it out. Let me know how it works for ya!

"Dermatologically Tested"

Ooooooh, the two magic words that make people just jump out of their skin! Synonymous (but not quite) would be 'dermatologically approved.' Or, how about this one: 'dermatologically recommended.' But, do people ever take the time out to think about what those phrases REALLY indicate?

Okay, so the typical consumer believes that any product labeled with these words will work wonders for them! Right?

Wrong! People really need to bring out that dusty dictionary (or Google) to clarify what approved, recommended, and tested are defined as.

When a product is 'tested', the outcomes can be good OR BAD, or even somewhere in-between. Just because a company slaps on that phrase on their product labels does not mean that it'll cure you of every skin ailment you have. Hmm, see where I'm going with this?

What about 'recommended'? Okay, imagine if I approached 10 Math professors and asked them whether or not they would recommend a magical book that would help each and every student become a pro at calculus. Let's say 9 out of 10 of them would 'recommend' SUCH a product but 1 of them would despise the idea because it would mess up the distribution curve and he would either have to pass or fail all of his students (If your class is on a curve system, you know exactly what I'm talking about).

But 9/10 isn't too bad, right? That's 90%! Of course it isn't bad. But the numbers aren't the issue here. Instead, it's the context. Their recommendation could be based on the 'idea', not the actual product. Aha!

Hmm...... So if a company thought their product MATCHED the idea, wouldn't they be right to say that it is dermatologically recommended? Just food for thought. I'm not trying to claim that companies NECESSARILY do this, but as a critical thinker, it wouldn't surprise me if they actually did.

Okay, your probably thinking: Di, that's all fine and dandy, but what about 'approved'. Surely you can't approve something if it's not any good. Pshh...of course you can! Here's an example. Let's say you have a friend that has 2 ideas for her 21st birthday party. One may be spectacular, while one may be just plain and ordinary; but, they're both doable. You approve of both ideas, though you would rather her choose the spectacular one. Same goes for products. They may be approved, but this doesn't equate them to being spectacular. If something is 'approved', it's not a direct indication of its quality level. Also, what criteria are they approved on? Could they be approved on safety vs performance? I dunno- you tell me!

The reality boils down to this. Companies have done their part on defining their products; it's now up to you to determine whether their definition matches what YOU're looking for.

Alright, with that being said, I'm not anti-skin products. In fact, I'm an extreme product junkie. But these are gimmicks I've fallen for and I just hope you can learn from my mistakes and avoid repeating them. People often wonder why they've invested on a zillion skin care products that say "dermatologically _______", yet they are left with sub-par results and less money!

If you fall for such marketing ploys, don't despair. Don't ask yourself why a product that came so highly recommended didn't work for you. Don't feed into the idea that it's your fault. Rather, realize that certain things work well for others and you just happened to be one of those that it didn't work for. Simple! What's left to do now is to find something that DOES work for you, but as we all know that's the not-so-simple part. 

All I'm asking is for you to become selective and critical of products that are being shoved in your face (pun intended). Then you won't wonder why there's a hole in your pocket and nothing to show for it.

Di out!

For the Love of Nails!

Di here.

So if you read my last post, I ended it off with some freshly painted blue nails. But, did it really end there?

Nope! I repainted my nails about 3 other times that night, but I finally ended it off with something that I'm really satisfied with. This time, I'll leave it on for the next 4-5 days (*fingers crossed*). 

I was browsing through Instagram when I discovered a talented individual by the screen name of bedizzle. For those of you who are unfamiliar with bedizzle, here's a link to her blog: bedizzlenails.blogspot.com. Anyways, she did an amazing nail art on her nails (of course). It featured pastel green nails with a tree branch. 

Ok, I know what you're thinking. What's so special about a tree branch on green nails. Well, her creative soul used her five nails to depict a full scene, with the tree branch originating from her thumb and extending to her digiti minimi (little finger). She also added 2 love birds (literally) on one of her fingers, as well as few flowers sprouting off a few branches. Uh huh! Now you're interested!

Well, I'm only a beginner when it comes to nail art, so my rendition was a very simplistic version of her own. In other words, just the tree branch. But like I said, I'm quite impressed with myself for even trying. It took a lot of patience and control for me to come out with my final product, but it was well worth it. That's what I love about nail art. No matter how hard it is, if you try your best and are truly delicate, you'll love the outcome no matter what!

Enough rambling on my part: here's how my nails turned out!

MY First Blog

Haha, I know. The title – how befitting! But I'm so pumped. I've wanted to start my own blog for a while, but never really tried. BUT, after a week filled with crazy school work and crazy group partners, I thought, hmm, how can I release this stress! On top of that, I was feeling a lil' moody today. After 11 consecutive hours of sleep, my week's stress still didn't feel flushed out. I toyed with the idea for a couple hours, searched up how to start one, and long story short........HERE I AM! 

So what are my plans for this blog?

Honestly, I'm not too sure yet. I'm positive that as I blog along, I'll find my focus! But, for now, here are what my interests include: makeup, photography, hair, African movies, Ankara, African music, nailsssss, shoes, clothes, books, jewelry, baking, and the list goes on and on and on... But, most of all, I love skin! I love caring for skin, and one of my aspirations is to have a career centered around skin care. I'm so fascinated with dermatology, it's ridiculous! One thing I'm sure of is that skin care will definitely be a major topic on my blog!

So what has today taught me?

Well, for one: If you want to do something – no matter how out of [your own] box and random-seeming it is – then for goodness sake, just do it! Simple right? I KNOW. If it makes you feel good, then do it.

Speaking of feeling good. One of the things I love to do when I'm feeling down is.....drum roll please..... painting my nails. Here's a pic of how it came out. Now I know it's not any special nail art, but sometimes it's just the simple things that make you happy! 

 

Before clean-up

All cleaned up!