Key lime pie recipe.

Me and Bern are key lime pie lovers! So last night I thought I'd give it a go myself and found it actually really easy! I had a good look online for a recipe that wasn't too complicated. There are a lot of recipes that involve cooking the pie but I found one on the carnation website that doesn't involve cooking at all, only chilling in the fridge!

So you'll need:
A decent sized greased pie dish or baking tin
Juice and zest of 5 limes
250g digestives
150g butter, melted
300ml carton double cream
405g tin of light carnation condensed milk

First bash your digestives into smithereens with the end of a rolling pin. Use a food processor if you've got one it's probably a lot quicker! When the biscuits are all nice and crumbly stir in the melted butter. Next, press the biscuit into the base and up the sides of your tin and put it in the fridge.

In a big bowl whisk your double cream and light condensed milk together. It'll be a bit watery still at this point. Next, add the juice and zest of your lines and whisk again. The mixture will now thicken!

Take your biscuit base out the fridge and pour your cream mixture onto it and return to the fridge for a good few hours or overnight if you can.

Finally, dig in! Thanks Carnation you've made making this pie so much easier! I've finally tucked in now Scarlett's having a nap. If you look closely you can see her asleep in the background!

Take care

Ni
xxx

Nail art tutorial - gradient/blended/ombré nails

This blended colour design is ridiculously easy to do!  Please give it a go because the results are fab and a real talking point.  Use any colours you like, in this tutorial I used blue and pink because I liked the clash and I thought it they would stand out a bit more for my pictures.  You'll need Base coat or clear nail polish, two (or more if you're feeling ambitious) colours of nail polish and a sponge of any sort...

 

 

So first you should apply your base coat or clear polish.  When this is dry paint your nail in the lightest colour.  In my case, pink!

 

 

Next you need your sponge.  You can use any kind of sponge you have handy to do this bit.  I used a makeup sponge.  A kitchen or bathroom sponge cut into smaller bits works just as good!  Paint a blob of each of the two colours next to each other onto the sponge.

 

 

All you need to do now is blot your nail with the nail polish on the sponge.  Move the sponge up and down the nail a bit so it blends.  You may have to re-apply more polish onto the sponge depending what sponge you use, as I found it soaked up some of the polish as I blotted! 

 

 

Repeat this technique on all your nails.  Don't worry if it gets a bit messy, nail polish remover and a cotton bud will clear it up when you're finished.  To save the hassle of cleaning up afterwards you could take the time to put bits of masking tape around your cuticle and the skin around the nail and you can just peel it off afterwards.

 

 

Apply your top coat and you're all done.  So easy!

 

 

Give it a try and don't forget to show me pictures of your efforts and variations!  You can use the hash tag #nomechompskinailart on Instagram or show me on Twitter @nomechompski :)

 

Take care

 

Ni

xxx

 

 

 

No sleep tonight.

So it's currently 02:40am and there's probably no chance of me getting any sleep! Typically I'll probably manage to drift off just as little legs is waking up.

We had a bit of a scary incident with Scarlett this evening before her bedtime. To cut a long, and quite frankly pretty frightening, story short, she was sick (out of her little nose and mouth bless her) and choked on it. The longest two minutes of our lives was spend rubbing her tiny back trying to get her to breathe properly again. It really scared us but eventually she got there and she was fine. What if it happened after we put her to bed though?! I don't even want to think about that. Anyway, tonight we've put her back in our room as a precaution to make sure she's okay, hence the source of not sleeping. She made a funny noise which woke me up, and now I can't get back to sleep with worry! It's strange how having a child affects you in this was. You get an overwhelming protective urge and instinctively you feel you'd do practically anything to help and protect your little one. Even if it means no sleep all night through sheer worry and lots of checks to make sure they're okay. She'll appreciate this when she's older!

Isn't it crap when you can't sleep? I'm lied here thinking pointless thought after pointless thought and I can't clear my mind at all, arrrrgh! My eyes don't even feel tired! But that's probably because I've been staring at my iPhone writing this for the last 13 minutes. Why am I thinking about stupid things?! I mean, why am I so concerned about what clothes I'll wear tomorrow, about when I should clean the oven tomorrow and about the sheets on the bed in the spare room I need to wash! I hate not being able to sleep. I'm dead warm now too... This is a one leg out job I think. Why don't humans have off switches? Scarlett seems to automatically switch off after 9pm no matter where shes stationed.

How annoying is it when you can't sleep and then you get a song stuck in your head and your mind kind of, has it on repeat? But the bit you repeat is the same part of the song over, and over, and over. I've got 'over my shoulder' by Mike and the Mechanics stuck in my brain and it's all I can think of in the background of mind! I don't even know all the bloody works!

I'm jealous of Bern, he's starfished sleeping like a baby next to me, as if!

Okay so I'm now officially boiling. The solution has been upgraded to two legs out of the duvet. This is getting serious now. Que Celine Dion, "this is serious, THIS IS SEEEERIOUS!!!" I'm gonna try and cleanse my mind and get some sleep.

And now Bern's starting snoring. Fan-!?@&£#%-tastic!!!

Goodnight, I think!

Ni
Xxx

Nail art tutorial - vintage roses

Start off with a base coat and a nice colour. A light colour is probably best so that your roses stand out more.

Choose two shades of a nice colour of your choice for your roses. I chose blue. With the lighter colour, dot some round shapes on your nail. They don't have to be perfect circles, rustic is good!

With the darker colour, ouline the edges of your circles in a broken line to make petals. I found this worked better if I did three seperate lines on the outside of the circle.

In green (or any other colour you fancy) add your leaves by drawing quite small linear shapes coming out away from your roses.

Finally finish off with a top coat or clear polish!

You don't need any expensive tools to do this pretty design, the edge of your brush works good. But if you've not got a steady hand, use a fine paintbrush. I invested in some striper nail art brushes from eBay and they were only £2, bargain!

Ni

xxx

Gorgeous nails are easy!

I studied beauty therapy sciences at college and learnt and adapted a lot of the things I know now from doing it.

It's so easy to restore damaged nails and a few easy steps can help you to repair them.  You don't need to spend lots of time giving your nails some TLC and you definitely don't need to spend a fortune!

Pay attention to your cuticles! Often they look unsightly when they grow up your nail bed and stick to your nails, the stuck cuticle also prevents the nail from growing.  To prevent this make a habit of pushing your cuticles back gently with your towel while your hands are still wet after you've been in the shower.  Your cuticles will go softer when they're wet and this will make it a lot easier to push them back. 

Olive oil works wonders! I swear by olive oil, not only is it good for your insides and outsides, its good for your nails too!  Massage it into your cuticles before bedtime.  It softens them and the stimulation of the blood around the nails encourages them to grow.  Another cool thing you can do with olive oil is make your own hand/foot scrub.  Chuck some salt (sea salt is best but table salt works just as good or even sugar!) into a bowl and add to this some oil.  Don't put too much oil in as this will just leave your hands greasy.  On ratio you should probably use two parts salt to one part oil.  If you have any handy you could add a drop of your favourite essential oil although the only purpose of this is to make it smell nice.  Mix the salt and oil together and that's it!  Scoop a bit into wet hands, rub together as if you were using soap and rinse off for beautifully soft hands.  Amazing what a blob of olive oil can do!

Invest in a nail file. You don't need to buy a flash one, just a normal nail file will do.  I prefer banana files (they're shaped like a banana if you hadn't guessed!) because their shape makes it easier to file the edges of your nail.  No matter what shape you like to file your nails, always remember, don't scrub your nails with the file. Just use a sweeping motion filing inwards, doing one side at a time until you achieve your desired shape.  If you've chipped your nail or it's snapped off, unfortunately it's going to be shorter than the others, this is one of these sad facts of life we have to deal with I'm afraid!  But even still, shape it with your file and at least it won't look tatty.  It will grow back eventually!

Strengthen your nails with top coat or clear nail varnish. Clear nail varnish or top coat is really easy to find. Paint your nails with it to help strengthen them. It makes them lovely and shiny too!

French manicures add length and the white bits are easily done with plasters! I love french manicures, it's such a classic, and it makes your nails look really fresh and clean so this is good for everyone and is brill for disguising discoloured nails, or if you're after a more natural, subtle look.  It also makes short nails look longer.  A lot of people tell me they struggle painting the white tips on, and to be honest I struggle a bit myself sometimes when I'm having a wobbly day.  You can pick up french manicure stencils for really cheap from ebay, or if you can wait for them, just make your own stencils by cutting the shape you want out of a plaster or some masking tape!  Try experimenting with the shapes and make pointed tips instead of rounded ones, or use different colours instead of white to spice up your manicure or to turn this daytime look into more of an evening or occasion one.

I hope this has rescued a few nails in the world!

 

Take care,

Ni

xxx

First post!

I've been sat staring at my laptop screen for almost 30 minutes now, trying to decide what to write on my very first post! I placed myself on the barstool in the kitchen with a cup of tea (milk, half a sugar), my 2 month old daughter, Scarlett, on my knee, and Rolo, our Cocker Spaniel at my feet, however i got distracted and painted my nails (we're at a wedding tomorrow), and then it was time for Scarlett's bottle, so I gave her that. 

I've finally decided this post should be a kind of introduction, so here goes..!

My name is Naomi, (people close to me know me as Ni) and im 24.  I live in Stockton-on-Tees with my partner Martin (also known as Bern), our Daughter Scarlett who is currently 9 weeks old, our dog Rolo and our two cats Manuel and Tabby.

I've always lived in Stockton however my oarents are both Maltese.  My grandparents on my Dad's side live over there along with all of his side of the family and a portion of my Mam's side, so I'm a regular visitor to malta.

Likes:
1. Nail polish.  I'm a massive collector of nail polish and own a growing rainbow of the stuff.  I love doing nail arty things to my nails and have a box full of tools to do it, so keep and eye out for pictures!
2. Perfume.  Oh my God I have an unhealthy obsession with perfumes! I don't even know why, I just love it!
3. Shoes and clothes.  I buy on impulse.
4. Animals.  Honestly, if I had a back garden big enough I'd have a small zoo!  At the moment we've got a dog and two cats but if we had the space both Bern and I would love more.  I used to have 4 geckos and a rebbit but unfortunately had to rehome them to a friend when I moved house.  I'd totally have them again though, and I'd really love to have a chameleon!
5. My family.  I'm totally in love with Bern and Scarlett.  In majorly different ways of course, but I'm sure I'll have plenty of posts about them.
6. Travel.  I like to visit different places in the country and around the world. 
7. FOOD!  I love cooking, if it didn't cost so much to buy the ingredients I'd cook "proper dinners" every day.  I'll try and cook anything I that I think looks nice, or sometimes for the challenge.  Although I do have a bad habbit of cooking Bern cakes, just so I can lick the bowl at the end... Anyway, my next venture is to try and make fresh pasta or ravioli from scratch so watch out for that one :D
8.  Cosmetics and beauty products.  I'm a subscriber of Glossybox UK so recieve lots of products to try every month and I can't get enough of them.  I'll be posting about some of these maybe in the future.

So there's a bit about me.  Hopefully it wasn't too boring! 

Scarlett, Rolo and I are off for a walk in the park soon with my friend and her son so that's it for now.

Take care!

Ni :)