SailorGirlfriend.com Blog

You can use your toilet paper roll as a cell phone stand by cutting the top like I demonstrated below in the video. It only takes a minute and if you ever lose this stand, you can always easily make another one. It's free and useful for recording those TikToks hands-free. Reuse, reduce and recycle!

While sheltering in place, I've been spending more time on my skin care. I'm making sure I put moisturizer at night, trying to remove moles on my face and body and recently, worrying about my tech neck. Tech neck is a term to describe the premature wrinkles on your neck from excessive use of your smartphone or computer. I have a few of them. They are typically horizontal on your neck. Have you checked your neck lately for them? 
(Picture of a wrinkle-free neck)

Typically, most women worry about looking young and focusing on their face but how your neck looks is something that also contributes to how you look to others. The more lines you have, the older you may look. I have noticed that my lines are getting deeper so I'm starting to research about them and finding remedies at home to help minimize the wrinkles.

As part of my skincare routine, I'm making sure I'm putting moisturizer on my neck now after I've applied it to my face. I would rub my wrinkles in a circular motion, hoping that would help. I'm also going to be more conscious about how I hold my phone or how I'm positioning my laptop. I am probably going to stop working on my computer with the laptop on my lap and instead use a table while I'm using it. I'm currently lying down on my stomach in bed while using this laptop to avoid looking down and worsening my tech neck. 

A few neck creams you can find on the internet: 

ACTIVSCIENCE Neck Firming Cream, Anti Aging Moisturizer for Neck & Décolleté, Double Chin Reducer, Skin Tightening Cream 2 fl oz.


bareMinerals Ageless Genius: Firming & Wrinkle Smoothing Neck Cream, 1.7 Ounce, Multi (098132473885)

With the Covid 19 situation, my husband mainly works from home now but every so often, he has to come to the workplace and is required to wear face coverings at all times to protect himself and his co-workers. I decided to make him a face mask that he would like to wear.


Carolina Panthers fabric that I used: "Panthers light blue" Fabric by the Yard (Fat Quarter) 

Luckily, I had a enough fabric sitting around at home to make 4 masks for my family. I didn't have any elastic bands so I attempted to look for them online on Wal Mart, Amazon and Target but I couldn't find any! I decided to substitute it with headbands that I found at home instead. Now, headbands are different than hairbands in that they are much longer so were great for adult face masks. I just cut them in half and each half was for one ear loop. I later discovered that the standard face mask measurements are way too big for my little ones so I had to improvise. Since their ears and faces are much smaller, one headband was enough for both of my kids' face masks. I cut one headband that I had at home into quarters and each quarter was an ear loop. You can't just use any headband for this project. It has to be the ones that wrap around your whole head and made out of a thinner (but sturdy) elastic material (see my face mask DIY video above for reference on what I used). I just happened to have them lying around in my house but I can imagine that these are hard to find in the market now. Look through your hair accessories at home; you might find one! Put the elastic headband or any elastic close to your kid's head to see how much you really need to make ear loops for them. Too long and the face mask won't stay on but if it's too short, then it'll hurt their faces and ears.

For my kids, cutting the elastic piece to 5 inches long for each ear loop was just right. For adult masks, I'd go between 6 - 7 inches, depending on how stretchy the ear loop material is. Since I've used all of my headbands and hair bands already, I have been using pantyhose cut offs as ear loops more recently and they are actually more gentler on the ears! See this short TikTok video on how I cut off my old pantyhose to make 48 ear loops.



Recommended Elastics:
Trim Joyce 1/4" (7mm) Elastic Stretch Flat Band, Mask Band by 5-Yards, SP-2715 (White)


My husband is a Carolina Panthers fan so I already had fabric at home from older projects to make him a Carolina Panthers face mask. I am not the fastest sewer so it probably took me close to 1 hour to cut the fabric, sew, add the earloops and sew the pleats. I used instructions from Hobby Lobby, which I found very helpful: https://www.hobbylobby.com/DIY-Projects-Videos/Sewing/DIY-Face-Mask/p/20-1960-DIY-Face_Mask. Depending on how big your kid's face is, you can probably cut the length of the fabric by a few inches shorter on the long/length side (keep the short side's width size the same >> 8 inches) to help cover their faces more securely. If your kid has a longer face or head, then you may not need to change the fabric size. My kids are still pretty small so the standard mask size was way too big for them.

10PCS Disposable Face Masks Elastic Earloop Dustproof Anti-bacteria Spit Splash Protection for Health Care only $9.31

I just opened my Coach Rose Bouquet Mini Sierra Satchel purse that I ordered from CoachOutlet.com during this Covid-19 pandemic and store closures. Everything is on sale. If you've never tried to find a Coach bag online, I recommend going on the Coach Outlet website instead of the regular website. There are older releases that are so beautiful at a great deal right now. So many people are going through such hard times and here I am, buying a purse. I'm sorry.

Originally priced at $298, I got this on sale for $89 on March 26th and today (by the time I'm able to open this) on April 2nd, it has sold out in this Chalk color! Right now, I see the black colored of this and other patterns but if you can find the Chalk color like mine, it would be difficult. I got so lucky. I know I'm blessed that my husband still has his job because people are losing theirs. I hope this purse review will cheer you up and not dampen your spirits.


See my full youtube video review to see the insides and details of this cute mini satchel.


This will be the only purse I buy during the Covid 19 closures and it'll be my only one during this pandemic. I think when I look at this purse or whenever I use it in the future, it'll always remind me of this period of our lives. Stay safe.

Black floral version of this from Amazon: 
Coach Mini Sierra Satchel With Rose Bouquet Print, 91430


See other patterns in this Coach Mini Satchel style.

My older son is really into Minecraft so I decided to surprise him with Minecraft themed decorations for his birthday party. A few of the things that I did myself included creating a centerpiece using a cardboard box and a plastic green tablecloth and drew Creeper's face on it with a permanent black pen. I also placed a green square cake that I baked on top of this centerpiece.


For party favors, I created a pretend TNT dynamite using 2 chalks and wrapped them with red wrapping paper and a TNT white label. See the video on how I created this DIY TNT party favor step-by-step, below the image.



I also baked cupcakes using green cupcake wrappers so that matched the color of the green Creeper centerpiece. I also frosted half of the cupcakes with green frosting and the other half with chocolate frosting. You can't see it in the very top picture but there were Happy Birthday mylar balloons and they were all square-shaped. We got those mylar balloons at the Dollar Tree store and thankfully, they had square-shaped balloons! The Minecraft napkins were bought from our local Party City store but you can also find them on their website and on Amazon too.

It was really fun putting this Minecraft theme birthday party together. I didn't go over the top with a Minecraft Happy Birthday signage but I see that they do have those on Amazon if you were interested in finding those.

Other Minecraft decoration ideas:

Coincidentally, I've been a Sailor Moon fan since I was 12 years old in middle school. I had a Sailor Moon comforter, pillow cases and Sailor scout posters all over my room. I'm still a fan after all these years. It was really hard to find Sailor Moon Merchandise back then. Nowadays, you can find them online and order from Amazon or ebay too. Check out some of the cool things you can buy as a Sailor Moon fanatic.


You can also find Sailor Moon Cosplay or Sailor Moon costume al fits


See other Sailor Moon Merchandise.

Waiting for your blinds to get in can take awhile so using temporary shades is a great way to get privacy for your family until you're ready to put in permanent blinds. This is budget-friendly, family-friendly and a great temporary solution.

I got these Redi Shade temporary blinds from Bed, Bath & Beyond but you can buy them from Lowe's, Home Depot or online on Amazon too. If you buy the Redi Shades on Amazon, getting them in bulk is cheaper versus buying one at a time.

These require no tools to install. You just need a sharp knife (or sharp scissors) to trim if you need to. If your window is really big, you can double up and use two blinds or more. See my video below on how they look and how easy it was to install. They stick with a sticker.

This is how they look after I've stuck them up there. It darkens the room nicely and gives us privacy.

See more details on Redi Shade blinds and shades on Amazon.