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!

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!!

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!

Wish Upon A Star

I realized today that I have wayyyyy too many blues and purples in my nail polish collection. I can't seem to get away from them! These colors have tended to be my "go to colors" recently. Besides my mani, I have some fun exciting news to share, scroll to the bottom to read all about it!

Today I did my mani using part of my color club Starry Temptress collection, Other Worldly. I've never used this polish before, but this collection hasn't let me down yet!
Other Worldly is a beautiful neo blue with holographic sparkle throughout it. I used two coats for this mani, and I feel as if I could have opted for a third coat. It's a beautiful rich blue and I am a big fan :) I topped it with a coat of Starry Temptress which is a PHENOMENAL glitter top coat. This is my absolute favorite glitter TC to go to! It sparkles and shines and gets SO MUCH glitter onto your nails in one brush. Then of course, I coated this mani with 2 coats of SV for the awesome glass finish.
the dynamic duo. :)

My Alias

When I got home, a package of nail polishes I had ordered from 88 had arrived, in there was my bottle of color club Alias (pictured above). I looked at my bottle for a long time, and identified with its shifting colors. Just as the colors shifted in the light so did I. The only problem is, I am not a duo chrome nail polish meant to be different in different light. I am a person, an individual and I am made to be an individual, to love and be loved.
I painted my names with 3 coats of Alias, topped with a thin coat of SV. Something calming happened when I applied this polish, the shifting on the colors was so much less evident when it was on then in the bottle. Normally this would have peeved me as the shifting colors is the appeal of this polish, but after identifying with it and recognizing the changes in me that I wanted to make, seeing the polish used, and out of its hard case, not changing any more, in a strange way gave me hope. I can and will get better.
Feeling so naked today, and taking a good hard look at me gave me the idea to go out and do something nice for myself to show me that I love me to do the opposite of what my mind has told my heart for so long. So I went to Ulta and picked up the Naked 2 pallette. I love it!
And here is the newest polishes to my slowly growing collection. Sometimes you need to step outside and remind yourself of who you are and who you need to be. I did that today.

Sometimes Life Happens

Spring Cleaning. After.
Before: yucky!
I made the decision to clean my room and clean up my life, and find myself, and happiness again. It started with my nail polish collection, because my nail polish has always brought me happiness and joy. I dumped it out and with the help of my dear friend Nia, we went to work organizing my polishes by color.
Getting my polishes organized was such a relief to me. Being able to look at my collection in all its glory I find strangely satisfying haha! And of course, I had to get a mani in with my newest installment of Julep Polishes:
In my February maven package (my first maven package I received in about 3 months, I had been putting my account on hold because I just wasn't passionate about nail painting anymore) I received two gorgeous colors: Glenn (red) and Oscar (Gold sparkle). I like how regal this mani turned out :)

Thanks for staying with me through that drawn out production.

Day 1: Red Nails

YAY! for the start of the 31 day Nail Challenge! Day 1 is red nails, now I didn't know what to do, I'm not really a "red" person, so I thought i would try a new nail technique. I used my SV base coat and painted two coats on my nails, then using the color club top coat, I painted a thick coat over the base coats and promptly shook red glitter all over my nails! I used Recollections ultra fine glitter in Cherry. :)
It was a bit of a messy process, so much extra glitter haha but i loved how glittery and sparkley this mani is!! Although, without a coat over the glitter, it liked to wipe off, and putting a top coat over it didn't work out too well...
But for the time, I really enjoyed this mani and it's a technique that I would definitely use again for a special occasion :)