Julep Golden Box

 So! I completely forgot to blog about the awesome day that I won a Julep Maven Golden Box! If you'll sit right down, I will tell you about that fateful day! Every month Julep (Click Here to Become a Maven ) sends their Mavens an email letting them know what they can expect in their Maven Box for that month, For the previous few months I had been skipping my Maven Boxes, I was getting a little tired of the collections, I'll admit it. BUT this month, after opening up my email, I decided that I might as well go for the month since there was a chance of winning a Golden Box! A Golden Box is a box filled with the ENTIRE collection of Maven material for that month! (If you are unfamiliar with the Maven system, there are a few different styles of boxes and after taking a short quick Julep will name you a Maven type-  I was named American Beauty. ANYWAY! So, about a week later, I get home from work and to my surprise, see a GOLDEN BOX waiting for me in my room! I totally freaked! I NEVER win anything! And here I was winning a collection worth about $200! WOW! In my box was 11 Julep nail polishes, a cute nail file and a bottle of Julep Elixir. I was, and still am so thrilled that I was chosen as a winner!

Left: Portia, a beautiful sky blue jelly with blue holographic sparkle; Right: Emma, a beautiful pale pink jelly.

Left: Jennifer, a lovely sheer pink polish; Right: Jodie, an awesome deep red with gold shimmer

Left: Sophia, a lime green jelly with green holographic glitter; Right: Natasha, an awesome orange-y red creme.

Left: Brooke, a lovely lavender creme with shimmering purple glitter; Middle: Emma, a sheer pink shimmer; Right: Charlotte, the most perfect lavender creme

Left: Melissa, a daring opalescent shimmer that adds the perfect glow alone or as a top coat; Right: Alicia, the perfect pink coral creme

This stuff is Godly! I put two small drops on my hands every morning and my skin is soft like a baby's bottom!

YAY for nail files...unfortunately I hardly use them...whoops!

Summer 2012

This isn't going to be my typical blog post...but now that I think of it, are any of my blog posts really typical? I've spent my summer so far doing really wonderful things and growing friendships with some really beautiful people. I've created friendships that I never imagined would bloom. Enough of my rambling, I guess what I am trying to say is you shouldn't take good things for granted. You should spend your time doing the things you and enjoy and making the people you care about happy. My life today is a complete 180 from where I imagined it being a year ago, heck it is a complete 180 from where I imagined it being 6 months ago. 

 If someone had come up to me in January and said, you'll be spending your summer on the beaches of Florida fishing with loved ones-well, lets be honest I would have laughed in their faces-Me fishing? Get real. I hate being hot and muggy, and the thought of spending my nights getting bit up by mosquitoes? That's a big no-thank-you. But, then I tried it. I spent a hot muggy night on the pier with Ryan, and found peace within myself. A feeling that I really hadn't felt for awhile- a long while. So long, in fact, that I didn't even know what the feeling was when I felt it. I felt like crying. I was happy. 

Things that were important to me, or things that I thought were important, really didn't matter all that much anymore. I let go of the things that were weighing me down. I decided that if a person wasn't going to act like my true friend-then they were, in fact, no friend to me. I let them go. I let go of the baggage in my life. Being stressed about things I couldn't control, was just plain dumb. 

If you have a heaviness in your heart, I urge you to step outside, breathe in the summer air, take a good look at the people your surround yourself with, and make positive changes for you. 

Nail polish posts to follow, I promise. 

Back With A Sparkle

 Wowza! I can't believe how long it has been since I updated this blog-I am SO sorry guys! Life really caught up to me super fast, the end of the school year was insane and my students were keeping me on my toes! Besides keeping up with my 4th graders Ryan and I have been busy as well, we have spent way too much time having fun :) I will have to post about all our adventures super soon! In the mean time, he talked me into buying this GREEN glitter the other day when we were shopping at the mall! I picked it up at Forever 21.  I love when he picks out my polishes for me :) He has the best taste in colors hehe

 So to do this amazing Green mani, I first used 2 coats of Wet n Wild's Sagreena the teenage witch, which in itself is a beautiful metalic green polish. Ryan really loved the color on its own, except I completely forgot to take a picture of it-ahh!

So, after I did my forest green base, I added two amazing full sparkle coats of Green from Forever 21! This glitter is amazing it has small round green glitters mixed with larger green hex glitter in the same shade. I simply love the rich green color of the glitter! I finished the mani with a coat of SV. This is probably one of my favorite manis to date :) In closing, I super promise to post a lot again! When my blog reaches 50 followers I plan on hosting a really awesome GIVEAWAY as well!!

If you liked it....

then you shoulda put a ring on it! and Ryan did :P It's not an engagement ring or anything crazy like that, but just a small gift to show me how much he does care about me, and a promise to each other that we'll always be best friends.
As for my mani- I FINALLY used my Glee nail foils from Sephora that I got almost a year ago. They weren't the easiest things to put on. In fact they drove me insane! They wouldn't rip off at the ends the way the Sally Hansen nail polish strips do, so I physically had to cut and file each of these down and that took forever especially since they are foil.
Once on my nails the ends were incredible sharp and I felt like I couldn't touch my face or scratch myself for fear of getting a scratch or a cut haha! I mean they looked AMAZING and i got a ton of compliments on my mani!
They are definitely beautiful, and they lasted me 3 days before I couldn't take it any more and pulled them all off. They probably could have gone another day or two, so their lasting time was impressive to me since their packaging said they would only last a day or two.
Here are my left overs, for a view of the packaging...I completely forgot to take before and during pictures for this mani sadly :(

BIG BIG BIG ZOYA SALE!

Just sayin, Zoya just announced on their blog, a great new sale they are having TODAY to celebrate spring!! BUY 3 GET 3 FREE! Super easy!

step 1) go to Zoya.com, pick out ANY 6 colors, add them to your bag!

Step 2) put in promo code SPRING3 at check out

Step 3) get 3 free polishes and be excited!

Here are all the colors I picked out! Ryan really loves when I wear pink nail polish, so naturally I stocked up on some with this fantastic sale!

Thanks so much Zoya!

Since you've been gone..

It's funny how life has a way of showing us that every exit is an entrance to something else. I went from trying to learn how to breathe again without Josh, to having a really happy life. Once I started letting people into my life who truly loved and cared about me, amazing things started to happen for me. I feel like I have a TON to catch everyone up on!! First things first, I WON A GOLDEN BOX FROM JULEP!!!! more on that later, because it is really a post in its own haha! But look at all my goodies that I won :) ^^^
Secondly, I started dating my best friend, Ryan. I introduced him a little bit in my previous blog post. Him and I have been best friends for what feels like forever. He has always been there for me through thick and thin without question or hesitation. It was difficult for me to let him into my closed off world after everything that happened with Josh, but I thought, you know what, forget Josh, move on and be happy..And that's just what I did, and you know what? I could not be more happy then where I am right now in my life. Letting Ryan is has got to be the best thing that I have ever done for myself. The picture above is of us on our latest trip to Miami this past weekend, we had a blast!
And, to get in the mood for Miami, naturally I had to paint my nails in the most awesome neon pink I could find. My local Bed, Bath and Beyond started carrying small Color Club polishes and I am THRILLED about that!! I picked up a few recently, and this one is Jackie O. I used three coats to make this polish super thick and amazing. I topped it off with a coat of SV. I absolutely adore this color, and the best part is, it didnt chip at all! AT ALL. And I did some crazy things in South Beach! Verdict: I love this color! and Color Club remains my top top top nail polish choice. Hands down.
Look at how it glows!!!!
Lastly, while in Miami Ryan made it one of our missions to get me new nail polish that I haven't seen before, or that I couldn't get closer to where we live. We wandered into American Apparel, and I found these three beauties!!! I loveeee them!!! I can't wait to swatch them for you guys :) of course, Ryan bought me all three because he's the best!!

That's all I have for you guys on my short short recap of whats been going on. In my absence I did do a ton of manis and I will post all about them soon!! Missed you all!

New Car Radio yay!

I got soooo tired of my car stereo and its lack of an auxiliary input (look at it up there all smug in the picture), so the other day I went out and bought a new one at Best Buy. My conversation with the sales man went like this:

Me: I need a new car radio

Him: *points behind him* you came to the right place.

Me: Which ones light up pink?

Him: These *points*

Me: I'll take that one!
AND HERE IT IS AFTER! it's aqua in the picture, because it was flashing a rainbow of colors at me, that radio turns to 35,000 (yes THOUSAND) different colors. I enjoy its rainbow effect :D
Naturally, I am a female and therefore could not have installed this beast myself and had my bffl Ryan help me do it. Look at those wires, yea right I could have done that myself! Who are we kidding?
work in progress. I had the very important job of holding the screws after he took them off. I was terrified of what my car would look like, if it would ever be pretty again...thank god it was! :) He didn't let me down!

Annnnddd introducing Ryan. As you can tell from this picture, I picked him.

Changing your stripes

On Saturday I felt like pampering myself, and considered going to get my nails done at a salon...then I remember that I'm cheap, so I decided against going out and paying to have them painted lol. I *finally* got my new and long waited for bottle of Color Club "Wild at Heart" purple holographic polish and OH MY GOD it is drop dead gorgeous!!!!
I painted two coats of Wild At Heart on to my nails, and oooohed and ahhhhed over it for about 5 minutes, then I felt like stamping again! Something I haven't done in awhile because quite frankly I have been so worn out from work and my personal life to even want to attempt to stamp my nails haha! So using my Julep polish (can't remember the name right now I'll edit when i get home) I stamped the zebra stripes over my shiny holographic nails. Then topped my mani off with a coat of SV as always.
LOOK AT ALL THE RAINBOWS! just look at this nail polish! If you don't own it, I highly suggest investing the $7 in a bottle off of ebay or amazon! Do it for me :D
These two polishes complimented each other perfectly in my opinion. I am really happy with this mani.

In other sad news, one of my classroom fish died over the weekend, I tried to get rid of it without my kiddos noticing, but of course, our Pet Patrol worker of the week ran up to me in a panic no more than 3 minutes after entering the class hyperventilating the words "MS L!! WHERES THE OTHER FISH?! I ONLY COUNTED 8! WHAT HAPPENED!" :/ kids are too observant these days! I guess tonight I go invest in my fish for my classroom haha

Shattered

I was looking back through my blog at old memories and I became a little reminiscent inside. I thought back to all the time and effort I put into specific manis for special occasions and it made me a little sad to know that those times are gone, and all that remains are the memories. It's like the end of a sad movie I guess. I suppose it is time that I stop re-reading that old chapter in my life and move on...ANYWAY, so I brought out my Butter London polishes once again, and painted my nails in 2 coats of Queen Vic.
Then, I used OPI black shatter, and topped my mani with two coats of SV for shine.
I adore this combination.

Worth the Risque

Finally used my new Color Club Worth the Risque. Its another perfect linear holographic nail polish. I used two coats and topped it with a nice coat of SV. At least the rainbows in this polish can distract me from thinking about a certain someone.
While I may not be happy with my current life circumstances I am happy with this mani. That's a start right?