Manicure Monday: Valentine's Day Nails!

I love holidays, so even though I'm single I still feel the need to celebrate Valentine's day :)  So I've spent the last week sporting all these girly, pink Valentine's inspired nails.

This is a "jelly sandwich" manicure.  Basically I painted alternating layers of a hot pink jelly and a multi colored glitter.  I used "Too Hot Pink To Hold 'Em" from OPI's Texas collection and Wet & Wild's "Party of Five Glitters."  I love how the glitter looks like it's suspended in the jelly polish.

This is two coats of Sally Hansen's "Rockstar Pink."  It's a fun, fairly opaque pink, blue, and (a little) red glitter.  It like this glitter all on it's own, but I thought it might also look pretty with a jelly on top, so...

I put two coats of "Do You Think I'm Tex-y" (also from OPI's Texas collection) over the glitter.  And, of course, I LOVE IT! 

This is "Kim-pletely In Love" from Nicole by OPI's Winter 2011 Kardashian collection.  It's a gorgeous pale pink with subtle blue shimmer.  Apparently this is the polish that Kim Kardashian wore on her wedding day.  Because of that, I sort of feel jinxed when I wear this polish...but it's so pretty I just really don't care.

This is "Wear Something Spar-kylie," another pretty polish from the Kardashian collection.  It's a very opaque medium pink glitter.

And last, but not least, this is Sally Hansen's salon effects nail strips in "Cross My Heart."  I've never used this stick on type of polish, but I really love it!  They were super easy to apply, and are supposed to stay on for up to 10 days...but there's no way I'll be able to make it that long without changing my polish :)

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Manicure Monday: OPI Nicki Minaj Collection

I'm not a big fan of Nicki Minaj and her music...but I'm loving her collection for OPI :)  I only bought my three favorite colors, and here they are!

This is "Fly" a lovely, bright teal.  This picture doesn't show the color exactly right...in real life this polish has a bit more green and is more of a true teal.

This is "Fly" with one coat of "Save Me" on top.  I am so in love with "Save Me."  It's a beautiful small silver glitter filled with blue and holographic bar glitter.

Here's two coats of "Save Me" by itself on my thumb.  I am loving the bar glitter.  It's like a confetti party explosion :)

And last, this is "Metallic For Life."  It's a light black/gray jelly packed with small, medium, and large hexagonal glitter.  It's so pretty on and I think it looks more speckled than glittery.  I'm torn about this one.  It's beautiful but horrible to apply!  It was super thick and I had a really hard time spreading it evenly across my nails.  And then huge pieces chipped off just a few hours after I painted them.  And I had a good top coat on and everything...Still, it's so gorgeous that I think it's worth the problems.

I really like this collection.  I still can't decide if I want to go buy all the other shades...I'm leaning toward yes.  :)



Candles...random...but yeah, candles

Not really sure why, but today I'm talking about candles.  I just love scented candles.  Smell is such a strong sense, and I love how a scent can immediately bring good memories to mind.  When I get home from work I love lighting a candle and working at my desk.

For Christmas, my little sister Macy gave me this amazing Slatkin & Co. candle from Bath & Body Works. Not sure how she knew I would love it...maybe because when we were in the store I handed it to her and told her I loved it :) Anyway, it really is so good. 

It's called Mahogany Teakwood.  Now I don't know if it smells like mahogany or teakwood, but it smells awesome.  You know when you're walking through a mall and you know there is an Abercrombie & Fitch nearby just because you can smell it?  That's exactly what this candle smells like.  That's a guy smell, so I wondered if it would be weird for my room to smell like that.  Nope.  Not weird, wonderful.  It's so super strong that I never burn it for very long.  Just long enough to let the wax melt all around the top so it burns cleanly.  Even after you blow it out the scent stays for hours.  Good stuff.

This is my all time FAVORITE candle.  It's Bird of Paradise by Circle E Candles, based out Fredericksburg, Texas.  I also don't know if this smells like a bird of paradise flower.  What I can tell you is that it smells so good I just want to eat it.  It smells sweet (but not sickeningly sweet), sort of like strawberry frosting.  Meh...that's not a very good description.  Trust me, it just smells heavenly.

My family moved to a house in the country when I was in Jr. High school.  My mom always had one of these burning in our new house, so the smell just takes me right back.  It makes me feel safe, happy, and like I don't live 1,500 miles away from my family.  I have these shipped to me all the way from Fredericksburg.  They're that good.

Manicure Monday: Recycled eyeshadow edition

Today's Manicure Monday is kind of a strange one...

A few weeks ago I was watching a money saving beauty segment on the Rachael Ray show.  It was sort of interesting until her guest started talking about how you can make nail polish out of your old eyeshadow.  Then it got really interesting!  Whaaat, craftiness and nail polish?!  Of course, I had to try it :)

I got these cute little Wet & Wild eyeshadows for super cheap, but the colors are so bright that I hardly ever use them as eyeshadow. What better to try and turn into nail polish?

So I used a paintbrush to loosen the shadow and brushed it onto a paper plate.

Then just add some clear polish (fewer drops=opaque & more drops=sheer)...

Mix with your paintbrush...and start painting!

***disclaimer*** I painted these quickly so the polish wouldn't dry up on the plate, so the application is sloppy.

Here's the first set of eyeshadow polishes, "I'm Feeling Retro."  I mixed these first and used a lot of clear, so it took about four coats to build up the color.

And this is "Spoiled Brat."  I used a lot more shadow for these, and I really like the way it turned out.

It was so interesting to paint with these.  I didn't expect these to go on as smoothly as regular polish, but they really did.  Actually, the formula on these was better than the formula for some of my normal polishes.  I had a lot of fun mixing and painting with eyeshadow, but it's definitely not something I would do often...because it's a giant pain.  But I'm glad I tried it!

Oops...

I deserve the award for Worst Blogger of 2012.  I can't believe it's been over a month since I blogged!  I've been pretty busy so far this year, but I am going to do better about making time to blog, because it really is therapeutic in a weird sort of way...

Anyway, I basically have nothing of importance to say today :)  I have a four day weekend off work, so I'm relaxing and trying to spend my time fairly productively.  I promise that (somewhat) interesting blog posts are returning this week.

Oh, and Scooter says hi!

He looks grumpy because I was practicing for my voice lesson...apparently he hates my singing more than anything in the world.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

My favorite Christmasy poem, by Robert Frost.

Manicure Monday: Essie Winter/Holiday

Gasp, I almost missed Manicure Monday!

Today's polishes are a little random...they aren't all from the same collection because I just bought what looked prettiest to me at the time.  I have a polish from Essie Winter 2010 collection, Essie Winter 2011 collection, and Essie Luxeffects (Holiday) 2011 collection.

This is Brooch the Subject from Essie 2011 Winter collection.  When I saw this bottle in the store, I fell in love with it.  But I changed my mind once it was on my nails.  It's so close to my skin color that it gives me mannequin hands, and I'm just not crazy about the way that looks.  I guess it would be good in a situation where I wanted to wear polish that wasn't too noticable.  Not too much to say, other than that it's a beige creme.  The formula was perfect, as usual.  I love Essie's formula.

This is Going Incognito from Essie 2010 Winter collection.  I think this is one of my favorite polishes of all time.  It's an emerald green creme.  Again, perfect formula.

Here's one more picture of Going Incognito.  It looks even prettier in the sunlight!

I had been searching for Essie Shine of the Times for a long time.  It's part of their Holiday 2011 Luxeffects collection, but I couldn't find it anywhere because it's been such a popular color.  My favorite nail polish store finally got it back in stock last week and I snagged a bottle.  It's a flakie glitter topcoat.  The best thing about this polish is that it shows up differently depending on the color you layer it over.  My favorite nail blogger Scrangie suggested layering it over white, so I had to try that.  Here's a link to her Essie Luxeffects post.  Her Shine of the Times pictures are waaaay better than mine.

This is the polish I chose to put under Shine of the Times.  It's Sally Hansen Polar Bare, a semi sheer white.  I love this color even by itself, but it's really pretty with the Essie top coat.

My pictures just do not do this polish justice!  Only my pinky really shows the fun color of the top coat.  This is one coat of Shine of the Times over two coats of Polar Bare.  Shine of the Times is an iridescent flakie glitter that shifts between red, pink, orange, and green.  I'll post some pictures of Shine of the Times after I put it over a darker color.  The flakie glitter really pops over black, dark blue, and purple.  It's more subtle, but really beautiful and wintery over white.  It reminds me of sun shining on snow.

Billy Elliot...is closing. CLOSING. WAAAAH!

As promised in the Newsies post, this is my rant about Billy Elliot closing.

It was embarassing because I was at a Starbucks when I first read the news on my phone, and I almost broke down right there in middle of my Chai latte.  Why, why, WHY?  I know it's about money...but this is one of the best shows on Broadway.  In my opinion, this show is the perfect formula for a Broadway musical.  The songs are amazing, the dancing is incredible, the script is well written.  It's hilarious and sad and full of heart and hope. (I sound like a commercial.  No one's paying me to say this, I swear!)  It's heavy on ballet and tap, but there are also elements of modern and jazz.  And the majority of the dancing is performed by children who range from about five to thirteen years old.

I've seen the show several times but my favorite Billy (by far) was Trent Kowalik.  He's from Long Island, but he nailed that British dialect.  He performed in the West End Billy Elliot first, and then was one of the three original Billys when it opened on Broadway in 2008.  He and the other two Billys (David Alvarez and Kiril Kulish) all won the Tony Award for best actor in a musical in 2009.  Trent was chosen to perform the "angry dance" at the 2009 Tony Awards, and it isn't hard to see why.  I don't know how such a young kid managed to channel so much emotion into a tap dance.  Do yourself a favor and watch this if you haven't already seen it...

Sadly, he's too old to be Billy now. His last performance was on March 7, 2010.  Thank heavens for YouTube!

Billy Elliot is playing at the Imperial Theatre through January 8, 2012.  If you're here and you haven't seen it, you really should go.  The national tour is still going on too, so if you don't get to see it on Broadway, all is not lost.

What's that?  You want one more Billy Elliot video?  Okay, okay, I'll help you out :)



This is a collection of various clips of the show.  It was filmed live during one of Trent's Billy performances.  It's a little hard to grasp the greatness when you're watching random clips out of context of the story, but it's still good stuff.  (There's an eensy bit of language in one of the clips, so maybe don't watch if you're easily offended)  This video is a little long, so if you don't want to watch the whole thing, you should skip to 5:20 for "Electricity."

Manicure Monday: LA Splash

A while back I was at a Duane Reade and saw a display of polish I had never heard of before!  So of course I had to make a purchase :)  I have now discovered LA Splash polish and I'm kinda in love with it.  I've never seen it anywhere other than Duane Reade (NY based drugstore) but I'm sure they sell it at other places.  I'm going to keep my eyes out for it...

First up: Diamonds.  This is a holographic, silver glitter in a clear base.

Blurry so you can see the pretty holographic-ness

I wanted to layer it over red, but didn't like the way it looked.  The glitter is so densely packed that the red barely showed through.  So I painted a layer of a red jelly polish over it.

This is one coat of Essie Limited Addiction painted over LA Splash Diamonds.  Actually, Limited Addiction isn't a true jelly, just a sheer-ish red.  Diamonds would sparkle through a true jelly even better, but I still think this looks pretty.  I love red sparkly for Christmastime!

And this is LA Splash Glitz & Berry.

The name kind of speaks for itself on this one.  It's a berry colored jelly polish loaded with glitzy silver and red glitter.  The color on this one seemed to shift with what I was wearing (more pink with my pink clothes and more red with my red clothes).  I would call the color cranberry or raspberry.  This one is also perfect for Christmas :)

Baylor Football in NYC

Last Saturday I went to a Baylor football viewing at the Mason Jar in Midtown East.  My parents were shocked to hear that I voluntarily watched football, and I have to admit, I even shocked myself a little bit.  I decided to go because some of my Baylor Theatre friends (who live here too) decided it would be a fun way for us to have sort of a mini reunion.  It was such a fun night.  I saw some friends I haven’t seen since I graduated and some friends I’ve kept up with but just don’t see often enough.  I did do more socializing than game watching, but I watched enough to know that we destroyed UT  :)

The Mason Jar is sort of your run of the mill, upscale-ish bar, but still fun.  They serve Southern style cuisine—maybe that’s why the Baylor Alumni group picked it?  I didn’t order any food, but my friend Hillary had Sweet Potato and Andouille soup.  She said it was really good and it looked amazing!

Anyway, I love making New Year’s resolutions and I’ve already started on next year’s list.  One of my new resolutions is to see more of my Baylor friends who live in NYC.  I really need to make more of an effort to spend quality time with these lovely people.  They were my family in college and I miss seeing them every day.

Yay resolutions, football, Baylor theatre, and NYC!  SIC 'EM!!!

Dennis Quaid on The Ellen Show

Sometimes in the evenings instead of being productive, Amber likes to distract me by making me go to her room to watch YouTube clips from The Ellen DeGeneres Show.  Apparently Ellen likes to set up hidden cameras and send out celebrities who don't mind making fools of themselves.  There are some pretty hilarious clips, but this one is ridiculously amazing.  I know this is completely random and has absolutely nothing to do with my life...or New York...but this is too funny not to share.

Just try to watch this without smiling.

Shake Shack

After church on Sunday, Amber and I went to Shake Shack to grab lunch.  I don't think I've ever had anything more delicious.  I like hamburgers just as much as the next person, but I’m not hamburger crazy.  And I normally don’t even like milkshakes, but I can’t get over the amazingness of Shake Shack's food.  They are most famous for their burgers and shakes, but they also have hot dogs, cheese fries, frozen custard, ice cream sodas, and pretty much anything you can think of that might cause cardiac arrest.  There are several locations in the city, but we went to the Upper West Side location, which is near the Museum of Natural History (I've also been to the one in Midtown West--it's just as good).  It was super crowded and we stood in line for about half an hour, but it was totally worth it.  I've heard all the locations can get crazy busy, so if you're going with a group and want to eat in the restaurant, it's best to avoid the lunch and dinner crowds.

They have a different custard flavor every day of the week (plus chocolate, vanilla, and peanut butter available every day).  You can enjoy the custard plain, have it mixed with candy, or made into a shake.  I think I'll have to come back one Wednesday for a Christmas Cookie shake...

The atmosphere is cute and cozy.

They have fun merchandise, too.  I love the "small fry" onesie!

I forgot to take a picture of the food before I inhaled it...but trust me, it was perfect!  

Yay Shake Shack!

Manicure Monday: OPI Muppet Collection

Yay, it's Manicure Monday again!  :)

I'm going to show you guys two polishes from OPI's Muppet-themed holiday 2011 collection.  I really like all of the muppet polishes, but ended up only getting my two favorite...and they are both amazing.  And I also have one lone polish from Nicole by OPI's glitter holiday 2011 collection.  I wanted to get more from that collection but can't seem to find them anywhere!  I finally found this little guy sitting all alone on the shelf at a Target in Connecticut. 

Here they are!

This is Excuse Moi!, named after Miss Piggy, of course!  It's a bubblegum pink sheer-ish base, loaded with multicolored glitter.  This picture does not do it justice.  It is so amazing in person.

Warm and Fozzie is named for Fozzie Bear (obviously).  It is a coppery brown foil finish, with some pink and green shimmer (if you look really close).

And this is Snow-Man of My Dreams, the lone Nicole by OPI polish.  It's sort of like the blue version of Excuse Moi! except the glitter is a little smaller.  It's a sheer blue base with blue and multicolored glitter.  Super fun and wintery!

Happy December!

I wanted to do a crafty post today and show some of what I've been knitting over the past few weeks...but I can't because I'm giving them as Christmas presents.

So instead, I'll just do another Christmasy post :)  I am so excited that it's the first day of December.  Christmas is just around the corner!

I got this cutesy Christmas ring at Target last week. 

It's metal, and looks just like a gift wrap bow.

Amber's mom gave us each a sparkly, real mini Christmas tree to take home afer Thanksgiving! It's covered in silver glitter...so pretty!  I made the picture on the right blurry so you can really see the sparkles.

And last but not least, look what was on sale on Black Friday at Target!  Only $5!  I can't believe I didn't already own this, because I am all about Christmas movies...

Newsies

I missed the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this year, so I've been on YouTube catching up on the Broadway performances I missed.  Of course I love them all (even Spider-Man...go ahead and hate, haters) but ohmygosh, NEWSIES!  It was as good and better than I was expecting.  I seriously cannot wait for this to open.  I was sad that I didn't get to see it when it was at Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, but now I don't have to be!  I'm a longtime fan of the movie musical and am so glad it's finally coming to Broadway.  What's better than fifty tap dancing teenage boys?  Nothing, that's what.  I'm going to need some children tap dancers in my life since Billy Elliot is closing, but I'll rant about that later...(Does that make me seem a little creepy?)...Anyway, I'm especially excited that they switched the reporter role from male to female.  The boys don't need all the good roles.

Of course, there's no singing Christian Bale in this production. 

I just felt the need to include this picture because, well...isn't it obvious?  Drool.

It's set to open on Broadway on March 15th at the Nederlander Theatre.  Right now it's only supposed to run through June 10th, but let's hope it's super popular and becomes an open ended run.

If you missed the parade, you should definitely check out the video.  And if you saw the parade, you'll probably want to check out the video again :)  So here it is!

The Temper Trap

Advertising definitely works on me...as soon as I see a commercial I like I feel the need to run out and make a purchase...probably not the best thing :/

Anyway, about a year ago I started seeing this amazing Diet Coke commercial.  The commercial is beautiful, and a bit inspiring to me.  I've always liked Diet Coke, so that's not really the part of the commercial that got to me.  I was obsessed with the song!  I shazam-ed it on my iPhone and discovered it was "Sweet Disposition" by The Temper Trap.  They are a relatively new Australian band, formed in 2005.  I ended up purchasing their debut album, Conditions, on iTunes and love it so much.  Every song is awesome, but I especially like "Sweet Disposition," "Love Lost," and "Down River."  "Sweet Disposition" is also featured in the film 500 Days of Summer.  And "Love Lost" plays at the end of No Strings Attached (a film I definitely don't recommend).  It's the kind of album that's great to listen to on your iPod as you're walking down the sidewalk...makes you feel kind of epic...even if you kind of aren't :)

Here's the commercial that started my obsession.  Enjoy!

Manicure Monday: Essie Fall 2011

Today I have two polishes from Essie's Fall 2011 collection, and one random Essie color.  The first two are from Essie's fall handbag inspired collection.  The third is just a pretty polish from Essie's retail collection that came out earlier this year (Spring, I think).  I love all three of these polishes so much!  Essie's formula is perfect and these are all easy to apply.  Even though they're easy to apply, I still managed to do a sloppy job.  These are not the greatest pictures, so sorry about that.

This is Carry On.  It's a very basic dark purple creme, but still super pretty.  I took this picture after I had already been wearing it for a few days, so it looks pretty scuffed up.

Very Structured is a creme that lives somewhere between burnt orange and brown.  In real life it isn't as orangey as it seems in the picture...I like this one a lot.

Master Plan is a beige/gray that looks almost lavender in some lights.  I love it and have been wearing it all fall.  One of my favorite polishes ever!



Fall Wreath

My darling friend Alicia got me hooked on Pinterest a few months back.  I saw this great idea for fall wreaths on the site, and decided to try and make my own. 

My favorite was this one, by blogger Craftberry Bush:

Here is the link to her post about this wreath: http://craftberrybush.blogspot.com/2011/09/moment-of-clarity.html



I decided I had to try and recreate this for my front door...but then my wreath hanger didn't fit on my front door...so it's on my dining room door instead.

She made hers from coffee filters dyed in coffee, but I just dyed mine in watered down brown paint.  It was pretty easy and super fun to make.  Mine didn't turn out nearly as cute as hers, but I still like it :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Sorry I didn't get to blog yesterday.  I spent most of the day getting ready to travel to Connecticut.  I left out of Grand Central station at 5pm and let me tell you, that place was a mad house!  And it's going to be a short one today, just wanted to say a little something about my Thanksgiving...

I am very blessed, because for the third year in a row Amber's family took me in for Thanksgiving.  We just finished eating, and I am stuffed.  Amber's mom went all out and I am in a delicious tryptophan coma.  

This year I have so much to be thankful for.  My family and friends are all happy and healthy, which is definitely the most important thing.  I am loving my life in the city, and feel like things are really starting to fall into place.  I am going to be in Texas in about 3 weeks, and that always makes me thankful :)  I have a job, a home, and plenty of food to eat.  Today I'm trying to think about all the people who aren't so fortunate.  Sometimes I don't realize how good I have it.

I hope you've all had a blessed year and a very happy Thanksgiving!