Home decor D.I.Y

As you may or may not be aware, I got a sewing machine as part of my dowry for my traditional marriage. A few months ago, I decided to start using it. My first project was to make covers for some throw pillows I got. I got some throw pillows from Orca and Palace on the Spintex road.  I then got some fabric from Da Viva fabrics in the Marina Mall. They have some gorgeous prints there. I watched lots YouTube videos just to learn and I found some very simple tutorials on pillow cases. I then proceeded to make my cases.

They turned out so beautifully a friend asked me to make her some. I did and she loved them.

 

I really enjoyed the process of making something so beautiful and useful by myself.  I, therefore, decided to do more DIY projects for the home. I have collected quite a few magazines for a while now and they were in a mess in my closet. I had long desired to arrange them somehow so I went on the net to find some ideas for storing them. There were so many ideas but I settled on arranging them in baskets. I drove to Cantonments to one of the bamboo weavers and ordered a few baskets according to my specifications. I ordered from a guy known as 'teacher'. Took a day but I picked them up two days later. They turned out really well and fit my mags perfectly. I decided to make some liners for the baskets before actually using then for storage so I went on the 'tube' and found many videos with different levels of complication. I watched a few and got a basic idea of what I was to do. I then got some cotton fabric from Palace supermarket on the Spintex road and made the liners and arranged my magazines.  Turned out beautifully, if I do say so myself. 

 

I want to encourage everyone to take up D.I.Y. It is very relaxing and satisfying.

WHIPPED SHEA BUTTER RECIPE

HELLO  READER!

It has been a minute. Life happens you know? But I promise to do better.

Anyway, to start over again, I am coming to you with a post for my recipe for Whipped sheabutter. I use this mix for my body and my hair as well. It is especially great for dry skin and hair. 
The best thing about it is how easy and inexpensive it is to make. This doesn't take away from how awesome it is for you though. It is a purely natural product (no chemicals here) and absorbs very well into the skin. I usually add a bit of pure cocoa butter which I normally get from the Cocoa Processing Company in Tema in Ghana.  

The end results from this recipe is a bit hard at colder temperatures and feels more like a mousse at warm temperatures. It is lovely. I made a little video while making mine so I will post that as well as photos.

You will need a mixing bowl, a hand mixer, empty containers to store finished products, spoon and plastic bag.

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup raw shea butter
2 tablespoons Virgin Coconut oil
1 tablespoon Organic Castor Oil
1 tablespoon Organic Aloe Vera Gel
About 20 drops total of your choice of essential oils (I used Peppermint, Rosemary and Ylang Ylang) Use whichever you want.















METHOD:
Place shea butter in a mixing bowl and mix with hand mixer until fluffy.
Add coconut oil, castor oil and aloe vera gel and continue mixing.
Add drops of essential oils and mix until soft spikes form in your mixture. 
Take plastic bag, spoon mixture into the bag, snip one edge of the bag and squeeze mixture into empty containers.

Tips:

My shea butter was at room temperature and since it is really warm in my kitchen the butter was quite soft so I didn't need to soften. If yours is hard, you can soften it a bit in a double boiler. Don't use the microwave or direct heat as this sometimes makes the shea butter gritty.

You can use a piping bag if you have one and don't mind using it for this but the ordinary plastic bag works just as well.

Hair Update! September 2014

So even though I missed my retight appointment on tuesday because our broadband was being connected, I wanted to share an update of my sisterlocks. They are growing like weeds and locking really well. I still have some loose locs but I hope they all loc by the end of this year. My 2nd Locversary is coming up in a few months so I am excited to see where my locs are at that time. 

I have to say I am still enjoying my locs so much. I still get compliments every single day. Even from fellow sisters with sisterlocs. I guess it is because of the colour I had in my hair before locking. I don't know if I mentioned this in a post before but I had bleached the tips of my afro and dyed it auburn before I locked it. Colour is still in and looks amazing with the locs. People also love the way my hair is tapered. This is also due to the fact that I had cut my afro in a tapered pattern before locking and as such my locs are following the same pattern. 

A week ago I decided to trim the ends of my locs after washing my hair. This was to get rid of the knots and funky looking ends of some of my locs. I am very glad I did because I am really loving the way the locs look now.  Below are some recent photos showcasing my locs. It shows how easy they are to maintain and also style. I don't style often though because I don't want to put to much strain on my roots. Most days I just shake and go.

View from the top

Hair colour.

Updo by Allure salon. For my grand uncle's funeral.  

Sisterlocs are perfect for swimming

Another day out in the car. I usually have them loose.

on a day out in the car

casual side swept style

Also perfect when hanging out with babies and family

Mohawk undo by me

Back with a BANG!

So I know I have been very lazy with this blog. In fact I haven't posted anything since January (horrible, I know!) but I promise to do better.

Over a month ago, one of my friends, who lives in the states, was in Ghana and was looking for a natural hair salon to fix her hair. According to her she decided to do a google search and lo and behold my blog came up. She read my post about natural hair salons in Accra and ended up reading all my other posts. She then sent me a whatsapp and asked which salon I thought was best. I gave her three choices and she chose Twists n Locs (they were the closest to her and worked on sundays). She had a good experience there so I guess there has been an employee turnover since my last disastrous visit, which I wrote about here. Anyway to cut a long story short she encouraged me to keep up my blog so here I am!!

The main reason I have been so lazy with my blog is the fact that I prefer writing on my laptop instead of my phone or iPad. Don't get me wrong I have 2 or 3 posts I have posted from my iPad and phone but blogging just works better from my macbook. It was, however, irritating to have to connect my laptop to my mobile network on either my phone or iPad just to blog so it fell through the cracks. But (after much nagging on my part) we have finally fixed the broadband in the house, yippee!!lol. So look forward to more frequent and interesting posts on this blog. 

Thank you for reading and stay tuned for more!

Christmas in Dubai

Christmas in Dubai??? so my husband and I spent xmas in Dubai last year and also two weeks of this new year. It was awesome. We arrived exhausted on the 23rd december. We didn't do much apart from checking into our hotel (Bonington Hotel in Jumeirah Lake Towers), a very gorgeous room if I do say so. We went to the Dubai Mall (huuugge mall!!!!) since we needed a forex bureau. We didn't stay long…we went with the hotel shuttle and came back with it 2 hours later. I loved the mall even though I didn't even do much window shopping. 

Christmas day itself was great. We went to the Dubai mall again and got a few things. We came back to the hotel and I was tired (still jet lagged) so I decided to just stay in the room while hubby went to the bar downstairs. I watched movies and ordered room service…had a great time. 

The next few days were spent exploring Dubai. We even ended up at a hospital since he got sick. After that we decided to extend our stay from two weeks to three. 

New years eve was the best. We went to the Rolls Royce and Bentley showrooms (nice cars). After this we went to the mall before the roads were closed in preparation for the fireworks show later. We did some shopping and followed the thousands of other fireworks watchers outside. We got in position and had a nice view of the amazing fireworks. We concentrated on the ones from the Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world?). The logistics involved in getting it all to work without any destruction hmmm!!!!

I then spent our last week in different malls shopping. I was at the Dubai mall a lot (I still haven't seen the whole of the mall), I also went to the Mall of Emirates, Dubai Outlet Mall, Festival city (to visit IKEA). We also went to Abu Dhabi, which was really nice (can u say huge mosque?? nice thing to build in memory of the leader who united the emirates and started all the development we see today.) 

I bought some clothes (for myself and family), some bags (Chanel GST, Louis Vuitton Neverfull MM in citron, DKNY cross body, Burberry cross body, Michael Kors Jet Set Macbook Travel Tote and MK Miranda bag orange and black colour block), some makeup, beauty supply and some shoes. 

Dubai is a beautiful place which is very culturally heterogenous. It is a quite expensive place to shop if u ever shopped in the US but it is ok for us who live in Ghana where everything imported cost so much. I will definitely love to visit several more times (if only to see the entire Dubai Mall lol)

Here are some photos from our trip.

our room at the Bonington 

outside the Dubai Mall

the water fountain inside the Dubai Mall

moi at the water fountain (looking all pale in the foundation the girl in Makeup Forever thought was a perfect match for me…..smh)

shoe district in the Dubai Mall

is a caption really necessary???

i spent a lot of time in this store, I must admit

winter castle in the desert???xmas decor in the Dubai Mall

my favorite floor of the Mall….bags all around... 

Burj Khalifa (Tower Khalifa) at night

across from the Dubai mall

how the buildings were before Dubai went all skyscraper

at the Noodle Factory inside the mall

I was wearing a shirt dress by Poqua Poqu of Ghana, blue jeggings and loafers from Marks & Spencer 

The Souk section of the mall

Louboutin…nice store but I must admit I was not inspired!!!!

waiting for the fireworks to start

view from outside our hotel

like a postcard

Abu Dhabi

Burj and the Dubai mall our first evening in Dubai

on the metro in Dubai

view of the Burj from the Dubai mall metro station

entrance to the mall from the metro station

underwater aquarium inside the mall

my DKNY cross body that I had to get so my arms would stop hurting from carrying my burberry bag

got a new camera from Nikon..love the pictures and videos.

inside a Dubai Taxi

outside the Wafi Mall

walking to the Wafi mall from the Mediclinic hospital

a little chilly in the desert lol

nice stained glass ceiling inside the Wafi mall

part of the fireworks from the Burj Khalifa

happy New Year!!!

the label on our hotel

and a pedi

decided to get a mani

filled in my gel nails but they did not last long (anytime I use any other gel products apart from LCN, they start to chip that very day hmmm) so I went back, got it removed and got shellac polish instead

all shellaced (that red was gorgeous)

Oh la la!!!!my best day of shopping yet….Chanel GST, LV Neverfull MM in Epi and Burberry Orchard XS (I have the large Burberry orchard in dark chocolate so decided to get the extra small one as a cross body bag)

some foundation (YSL touche eclait foundation and Armani luminous silk)

haul for that day (last major haul in Dubai)