NS Role Models: Janelle Monae

I LOVE HER. What more is there to say? She has been on the scene for a while but has not blown up on the music scene the way she should have by now. She signed to Bad Boy Records last year and I'd like to ask Mr P Diddy, "What's going on?"!!! More Janelle please!

This Kansas girl, has fantastic voice, unique style and is an inspirational character. All that and she's Naturally Sexy. What a role model! GQ magazine dubbed her a 'Girlie Grace Jones' which I'd say it quite an accurate description. That plus a touch of Andre 3000, James Brown, Judy Garland, Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson & Lauryn Hill. She's amazing! Watch her do her thang in the video to Many Moons...

Yummy Treats

So last week a friend gave me some money and told me to buy myself something nice with it. I thanked her, said "Yeah, I definitely will" and then popped the money in my wallet. What usually happens after that is that the money goes on bread, eggs, petrol, a bottle of wine for Costcutter... you name it, it goes on it... everything but that treat for yourself.

Well, today at work I decided to keep to my word and took at trip to the perfume shop to buy myself a treat. I had a few ideas but thought I would smell around to see if anything took my fancy. Fifteen minutes and £48 later I was the proud owner of a bottle of Prada Infusion de Fleur d'Oranger. It's a light, fragrant mix of jasmine and orange blossoms and it's sooooo yummy! Apparently it's on limited sale for 4 months only, so I count myself very lucky. Plus I think the packaging is to die for... It's very befitting of the person who gave me the money - elegant and classic.

Thank you friend x

Locks Loved Pt. 2

(Click here to see Pt 1/Before pictures)

So today, at 5.30am some twelve hours later and after the following...

1. Adding 10 locks using human afro kinky hair plus a lot of patience and skill (see YouTube 'HOW TO' here). All whilst eating my hosts delicious food and naughty snacks and watching horror movies!
2. Dying the ends, to lift the colour and help newly formed locks to blend in
3. A shampoo and a herbal rinse
4. A Retwist

...Sam finally got her NS back...

Here is a close up of the lock extensions...


...and below, how they seamlessly blend into the other locks.


I must say it was a pleasure to do and I, but more importantly Sam, was very pleased with the results. Enjoy your beautiful locks sis, they're amazing.

Here's is a picture of Sam's yummy little girl, Arizona, next to a beautiful picture she drew for me...

And finally here's me back home after a long, tiring, but extremely rewarding and delightful weekend.

Lock Love Pt. 1

A good friend of mine Sam, has some beautiful long locks that were in desperate need of some love. There was a lot of regrowth and the front section needed some work as there was about 5 inches of new hair that was not blending well with the other locks. Unfortunately, with the expense involved in getting this done at a salon and the time and effort involved in doing it herself, she had resorted to wrapping them up in a scarf - hiding them away from the world.

Now, you know me, I couldn't have her hiding her NS self away, so I offered to come to the rescue and save her lovely locks. Here is how she looked before the love...



Her sides had hair that needed to be locks. There was no point trying to pull this free hair back into a lock behind it. The other side also had more free hair that needed to be locks.

(CLICK HERE FOR PT.2)

My Green Obsession 4.

So today I was out in the local market and there was a lovely lady with a stall selling bits and bobs from Ghana. As I walked past, her rings caught my eye along with a green beaded necklace. A few minutes and £5 later they were mine. I LOVE THEM!...



1. Because they're green
2. The price... £2 for the ring and £3 for the necklace
3. They were skilled by my husbands countrymen/women. Go Ghana!!

WOW... I DID IT!!!

Talk about goal setting. I did it!!!

I haven't had much sleep but it's done and just within the 24 hour mark. 23 posts. I must say I'm quite proud. Excusing the grammatical errors it came out pretty well. I love blogging, seriously. I recommend it to everyone. It's therapeutic and a great way of scrap booking. It's nice to look back on the good times and look forward to more good times to come.

Right now I'm looking forward to some sleep... goodnight x

SIX WEEK'S IN 24 HOURS CHALLENGE...TO MYSELF!!!

Okay today is the 5th May and ENOUGH IS ENOUGH arghhhhhh! I just get a little too into this thing. I have spent a few day's writing and constantly drafting ONE BLOG, you'd think I was writing for a newspaper - all the edits and the rewrites! Terrible. Although it was Mother's Day, so I think it was warranted the care and attention. It even had me putting together a slide show!!

Anyway, I have decided to give myself a challenge, six weeks in 24 hours?????? It's 1.39am...by this time tomorrow can I put up the photo's and stories of the past six weeks??? It'll certainly help towards my longness! So here we go....

First 22rd March 2009...the long one... Mother's Day... I'll try and keep the rest short and sweet, well now that I've challenged myself I don't have time for much more!!!

Little Noah

(POSTED ON THE 6TH MAY 2009 AFTER SIX WEEKS IN 24 HOURS CHALLENGE)

Today we went to dinner round Henry's best friend Dwight's place. We enjoyed the great company and hospitality of Dwight and his partner Nicola, but most of all we enjoyed seeing their son Little Noah, who we hadn't seen since he was about 3 months old.

He is sooooo tiny and such a mini Dwight. It was funny to see someone so small walking around the room. Soooo cute! We brought him a Toy. It was hard for us to resist buying him this particular toy... A Fisher Price Noah's Ark
Well, Noah seemed to be very at home with his new Ark! Plus I can definitely see some similarities especially in the cheeks and eyes between Little Noah and the toy Noah...

Of course I wore my green dress...

And my hair was matching the dress in cool, chic and cute.

Dad's Day Out

(POSTED ON THE 6TH MAY 2009 AFTER SIX WEEKS IN 24 HOURS CHALLENGE)

Today the brothers hooked up, along with Henry's Sunday Football pals and took the kids to Milton Keynes for a family fun day. There were rides, bouncy castles and 5-a-side football tournaments, so needless to say everyone was happy! Here are some of the pictures they took while they were there. Looks and sounded like they all had a really good time.


Henry and Eddie



Henry roughing up little Ezra. A usual occurrence when their paths cross!



Kamaal and Ryan, son of Henry's footie mate Paul, sporting a pretty cool Malaysian Afro of his own.

The Dad's look happy... but what's wrong with the Z's???
A closer look at the sad faces of Zain and Zari...

Well they wanted to do more of this... so of course they were vexed!

Mum's Day In?

(POSTED ON THE 6TH MAY 2009 AFTER SIX WEEKS IN 24 HOURS CHALLENGE)

So what do Mum's do on Dad's Day out? Well I went out actually too. I had an appointment round my sister Kerri's, to help her and her best friend Irene design a website.

However, there were a few things I needed to do first. I had washed my hair last Saturday and during the week I put a spiral flat twist in it, mainly to separate my hair into strands which being clever it'll remember and automatically bounce back with a little help from my NS friends Spray, Shea and Styling Cream.

I took these pictures when I took it out today. With the camera at Dad's Day Out, I had to use my phone to snap these shots, so forgive the blur...

The fringe remained at the front


My unravelled hair was looking lovely, healthy and perfectly stranded for wet and go fro for the week or so.

My Green Obsession 3.

(POSTED ON THE 6TH MAY 2009 AFTER SIX WEEKS IN 24 HOURS CHALLENGE)

So while I was round my sisters today, we decided to take a break from site designing to visit a lovely little boutique literally across the road. There, once again I fell in love! Look at this dress... I LOVE IT!!!





1. Because it's green.
2. Because it is so cute, chic and cheap...£20 folks, they do some cracking discounts in this place, but you know it has some exclusivity. Not like something you'd get the high street.
3. It has some really beautiful details (see below) and hidden pockets.



Look at this little guy, so sweet.

All wrapped up

(POSTED ON THE 6TH MAY 2009 AFTER SIX WEEKS IN 24 HOURS CHALLENGE)


This is a reconstruction of how I wore my hair today, (taken on my mobile on Saturday...forgive the blur. Although sometimes, like in this next shot, it's quite effective!!)