I stumbled on food jewellery site Tiny Hands a while ago but I finally ordered my first piece. A chocolate cookie necklace!
It arrived after a week and a half in a beautifully packaged box.
All the jewellery on the website is handmade. They are also scented (unscented available too). It smells like a delicious baked good. Whenever I wear it, I get a waft of it every so often and it makes me crave cookies.
It’s definitely a unique addition to my accessories. Now I need to stop myself from ordering the entire site!
If you use the following coupon code at check out you can get 15% off your order: A9EHQ997
Thanks everyone for all your support in my first Dollarama review. Today I am going to review this Style Me Up Chalkboard Nail Art thing. Like the Easyfeet, it is also a premium item for $3. If you hate reading, I also made a video of me trying this for real.
Anyways, doesn’t this look like a super fun thing to do when you are bored? Even when I’m in my 20s? At $3 it seems like a steal for black nail polish, 3 decorating markers and a top coat. They even give you a mini catalogue of all the other style me up nail kits and hair kits available.
When I opened the pink marker (after shaking it for a while), it did not look like there was any ink. I tapped on the table for a while and everything but it was definitely dry.
I found the exact same thing with the green marker. This was making me sad.
Lastly the blue marker had colour. When I pressed it to paper, it made blue markings! However, when I applied it on top of my black nail polish, it did absolutely nothing. The blue markings were not bright enough to show up on top of the black.
In the end, I was left with a matte black nail polish and a gooey top coat. This was definitely a Dollarama fail. The product either sucks, or the ones that they sell there are way past their due date.
A few months ago, I left my beloved iPod Classic on the subway. I then waited way too long to buy a new one and the classics were now discountinued. This left me with not much option in terms of iPods. Spending $300 for an iPod Touch didn’t seem to make much sense since I had an iPhone, while the lower ones lacked enough space to hold my entire library. I then turned to the internet to research affordable high-end mp3 players and concluded that my best choice would be the FiiO X1 player at $99.
I bought it in gold (silver is the other option). You can watch me unbox the thing here:
Inside the tiny packaging, there were a ton of accessories that I didn’t expect it to come with: 3 screen protectors (1 of which is already on the screen); a silicone case; 2 sets of decorational stickers. Oddly enough it does not come with earphones. You also have to purchase a micro-sd in order to use it as there is no internal storage. It supports cards up to 120GB.
The player looks a lot more expensive than it’s $99 price tag. There aren’t that many instructions that come with the machine, but it’s fairly easy to use. Here are two tips for future FiiO owners:
– You must go into the system settings and hit “Storage Formatting” on your new SD card if you wish to use your own SD card reader instead of the cable to transfer songs.
– Every time you transfer songs going to “Update Media Library” in the system settings is recommended as it refreshes all the album information. Otherwise, songs only shows up in the list of all your mp3s.
Besides the above, everything is basically drag and drop. You can drag your entire iTunes library (or whatever library you use) onto the SD card and leave all folders in tact. It plays FLAC, APE, ALAC, WAV, WMA, MP3, AAC and OGG files, with up to 192-kHz/24-bit resolution. I can definitely hear the sound difference. Everything is more crisp, clear and loud sounds don’t clip. I also hear a certain warmness of each artist’s recording setting that I didn’t pay much attention to before.
Album covers display, but only if they’ve been part of the original mp3 meta data. What this means is that if you did the “Get Album Artwork” thing in iTunes, it probably didn’t embed itself in the metadata, but elsewhere.
The battery lasts very long (12 hours I think) and the system preserves it well. The screen automatically turns off after a certain time and it also turns itself off. The buttons take time to learn but really once you understand how to hit enter (centre button) and go back (top right), the rest don’t really matter. $99 is totally a steal for this thing!
I literally live right beside a Dollarama and it’s a goldmine. There are plenty of great products for decent prices. In fact, a lot of my kitchen is furnished by things from Dollarama. But it also holds treasure to some products that are quesitonable and downright weird.
When I first saw the EasyFeet on the shelves, I was very amused by the box and what it claims. Is washing your feet that hard? According to the original commercial, it sure is.
After much social media coaxing, I bought it. I wanted to know if this really did make washing my feet ay easier.
Despite people having two feet, there is only actually one EasyFeet in the box. There’s a reason for this though which I will explain later. The back of the product has a pedicure-like stone texture and the rest has tiny bristles. It definitely does not have 10,000 like the box says.
The Easyfeet is pretty big in size and could probably fit both my feet at the same time. The idea is that you adhere it to the bottom of the shower or your bathroom walls while you take a bath. There are little holes at the top for pouring soap, but they are a little counterproductive since you have to bend over to aim the soap. I mean, the whole point of this product is not bending over right?
Anyways, I have been using the EasyFeet for two days. The first day I almost slipped in the shower. When too much pressure is applied while pushing down on it, it will slip. This is probably why they don’t give you two or you’d be skating in your bathtub. It’s much safer to do one foot at a time.
The bristles are very ticklish, but gentle on the bottoms of your feet. They do look like they will wear down quickly though. My favourite part of the product is the pumice stone-like thing at the heel. It works great for peeling off dead skin on the heels.
Would I buy again? While it was at a discounted price at $3, I don’t think I would buy it again. The fact it moves around in the shower makes it a little less convenient than it should be. Plus, I don’t want to die.
In October, I had the pleasure of being my best friend’s maid of honour. She lives in PEI and her other bridesmaid in New Brunswick. Since we were in difference provinces, we were assigned different colours for each of our dresses and we were allowed to pick our own style.
My colour was mint and I ended up finding a beautiful silk chiffon one at Donna Morgan. I ordered it online and it came quickly in a beautifully packaged box. One thing to be careful about in international orders (especially clothing) is any potential custom fees. Mine ended up being an additional $40 on top of what I already paid for the dress (including shipping).
I didn’t mind though because the dress was perfect. The different colours and textures of each of the girl’s dresses looked stunning together.
Photo by James Jeremiah Cripps Photo by James Jeremiah Cripps
I want to encourage myself to do more fine art this year. I used to when I was younger and as I grew up my main excuse was that I had no time. I’m starting to realize that, that’s not a reasonable excuse. There’s always time to pursue the things you love, you just have to decide to actually do them.
I decided the best way to start drawing and painting more again was to buy myself some blank canvases, or new sketchbooks! That way I wouldn’t be self-consciously comparing myself to things I used to be able to do. I headed to Michael’s and bought myself two different ones: one for dry media, and one for mixed.
For mixed media, I purchased the Strathmore Mixed Media Art Journal. The 64 page softcover journal has acid free paper that is 100% cotton. It’s perfect for all sorts of media including watercolours. The cover also has this sleek smooth texture which I am in love with.
I also wanted a sketchbook for general doodling and dry materials. I chose the Artist’s Loft Fashion Journal in orange. At $20, it was well worth it for 110 pages. I also liked that it was a bright orange colour to separate it from the other book and give it a pop of colour when travelling with it. Since I moved to the city, I plan to take it around and find inspiration outside my house.
I love both these books and I hope to fill them with things this year and share them with all of you.
It’s Barkbox time again! This might be our last for a little while (mostly because Teddy still needs to eat all his snacks from Woofstock). This month’s theme was “Surf’s Up”.
Fitting perfectly with the them was this shark toy from Harry Barker. The toy had two squeakers but were no match for our little dog.
These Bixbi Daily Essentials Chicken Jerky Treats make the dog go crazy. All of Barkbox’s treat selections have been some of Teddy’s favourite. They tend to be organic and have no filler ingredients such as corn and soy.
There was even a pina colada smoothie! Unfortunately Teddy is allergic to banana so we’ll be giving it to a doggy friend.
My latest addition to my Tony Moly collection is this Egg Pore Shiny Skin soap. These came in an adorable egg-carton like package.
The eggs come in white and brown. The white is for day and the brown is for night. There aren’t English instructions on the package and searching online has a few variation of uses. You can use these as normal face soaps (just lather and rinse). However, I like to use them like a mask. I lather and leave them on for 10-15 minutes before washing off. The brown one is a bit stronger so it doesn’t need to be left on as long.
After using them for a month, I have noticed that my pores are a bit smaller, and my skin looks smoother. The soaps are not recommended for sensitive skin as they can be very drying at first. A good moisturiser after washing is a must.
When I first started using these, I broke out a little bit, but that is a result of all the deep dirt coming to the surface. After a while, my skin is looking great. The soaps look like they will last a long time too.
You can also watch my first impressions in this video.
Another month, another Barkbox! I think I’m just as excited as Teddy to see what goodies are inside.
These Healthy Dogma Banana Chips ($7.95) look just like the human kind. They are grain and gluten free. Unfortunately, Teddy is strangely allergic to bananas so we will be giving this to another dog friend. I wish there was an option on Barkbox to mention allergies/sensitivities. Bananas are the only food we’ve ever seen him have a problem with.
The other snack in the box was the Primal Freeze-dried Beef Liver treats ($5). Teddy is absolutely in love with these.
One of the best part of Barkbox is there careful consideration of quality toys. This frog from Pet Qwerks is so adorable!
By far the best item in this Barkbox was this Baboon butt from Silly Bums ($20). It’s hilariously random but Teddy hasn’t stopped playing with it since. It squeaks and crinkles. It’s more durable than it looks at first glance.
Tiana Feng 