while i was gone...

Holy moly, where did the past few weeks go?! I've been working about 50-60 hours a week plus school and babysitting/tutoring... along with trying to maintain a social life. I've been doing an ok job of all of this, but the blog just inevitably got put on the back burner for a while. Working 12 hour days and trying to find time to paint my nails is one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do. I miss it, but sometimes other things take precedence.

While I was gone (brace yourself for lots of pictures!)...

I turned 21.
WAHOO! I am now a fully legal adult. Scary. At least I can be on my parents' insurance for another 5 years. PHEW. Here are some pictures (in chronological order) from my special day:

My amazing boyfriend hand-delivered flowers to my work.

A happy, lucky girl :D

Pre-dinner at The Cheesecake Factory with my best friends and family

Nom nom nom nom cheesecake!

Heh heh. First shot of the night- bacardi 151!

The boyf & I: he came to Diva's Drag Wars with my friends and I. He must really like me. ;D

I had a great birthday with my friends & fam but it was shortlived and I was back to work the next day. Moving on to other big developments in conjunction with my big day... 

Sharing a (legal) beer with my mom:

 

This was excellent. We saw Scotty McCreery just a town over from where we live and even though the beer at the venue was 7 bucks a pop, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to buy my first legal beer. 

I met the boyf's parents... and I started wearing makeup again!

This is a big one! I ended up spending Thanksgiving with him and his family: my first Thanksgiving EVER away from my mom and dad! I was so nervous to meet his parents, but it all went really well. We all got along well and I think I made a good first impression. Out of sheer nerves, I broke out all of my benefit makeup and decided to give it a shot. I haven't work makeup in a long time but I think I'm getting back into it! Perhaps some FOTD posts in the future...? 

 

Even though the past two weeks have been insane, it's been a fun ride. I'm reallyreallyreally stressed but I'm surviving. I haven't gotten to paint my nails much, but I've done a few manicures. I'll show you those over the next week. For today, my birthday manicure!

 

I used two coats of Urban Outfitters Hangover and a glitter gradient on top using Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday. I thought that these shades were appropriate. ;-) 

WHAT DO YOU THINK?! I'm glad to be back- it feels good to type up a post! :)) 

Happy Birthday!

Birthdays are so much fun to celebrate. As you get older, they tend to get less fun, but you have those monumental birthdays that are always still great (despite the whole aging factor). 21. 30. 40. 50. Today is my best friend's mom's 50th birthday! I've been friends with Meghan for as long as I can remember- we met in kindergarten and used to go to eachother's houses to play Barbies or mess around on AOL Chat. Oh, the good old days! In 5th grade, I begged my mom to take one of the kittens Meghan's cat had. My mom was adamant that we didn't need another cat... but I was able to win her over the minute she held him! Hard to believe that was already so long ago. 

Anyway, Meghan is an amazing friend and always will be. She's one of those who is going to be there for life. Meg gets a lot of her amazing qualities from her mom, who is equally as great. They hold a special place in my heart, and I'm excited to be celebrating Meg's mom's "chapter five" as she likes to call it tonight at a SURPRISE PARTY! Of course, so as to not ruin the surprise, I'll schedule this post to appear at 6:00 pm, at which point the party festivities will be well under way. Heh heh. We threw my mom a surprise 50th a few years ago and it was a BLAST! I love surprise parties. So great. Can't wait!

Which polish could I possibly use on my nails on such a day other than the great Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday !?

 

To achieve this look, I used three coats of OPI Big Hair.. Big Nails, one coat of Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday, and another coat of Big Hair.. Big Nails topped off with some good ol' Seche Vite. This is known as a "jelly sandwich"- a softer way to wear glitter and an interesting change to a mani! The OPI I used (from the 2011 Texas Collection) is a jelly finish, which means it's much sheerer & more "squishy" than a normal creme.

I love the idea of a jelly sandwich manicure but every time I try it I'm just never in love with the look. Eh. I'll actually be re-doing my mani before the party because as you can see I ALREADY have tipwear and some chips from an early-morning shift at the shoe store.

Do you like the look? Have you tried a jelly sandwich yet?

Naked Bubbly Bombshell

Hey ladies! Happy Friday! I have a pretty busy work weekend ahead of myself.. working all day today and babysitting tonight.. working 9-9:30 tomorrow, and doing a mani/pedi, tutoring, and working on Sunday. Busy busy busy! I need to replenish the good ol' bank account after my expensive road trip, so it'll ultimately be a good thing! I'll reward myself on Monday; my best friend gets home from vacation this weekend, so we're going to the beach Monday! Yay for having Monday mornings/afternoons off! :D

 I'm wearing a tape mani today! Check it out:

I used striping tape on my accent nail and regular Scotch tape for the triangles on my other nails. This look is very simple but I love it. I used Deborah Lippmann Naked for my base color, and Orly Bubbly Bombshell for the glitter accents. I hate when manicures are hard to photograph. This manicure kicks ass in person but doesn't look as great in these pictures. Ahhhh well. Until next time! 

Deborah Lippmann Lavendar Glitter Mani

  don't forget to enter to win Floam, Fantasy Fire & Flecked !!

Happy Monday! I'm almost done with finals so my week is looking up! I was excited to have some time to paint my nails this morning (I don't usually have time on Mondays) so I headed over to my stash for some color inspiration. I picked two that were near eachother that I thought would look good together:

Colors I Used: SpaRitual Ripple Effect, Deborah Lippmann Today Was A Fairytale

What do you think? Ripple Effect is an AMAZING purple cream... I absolutely love the formula and pigmentation of it. It's my first time using Today Was A Fairytale but I'm impressed. That's only one coat on my accent nail!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

It's been a week since I posted last.. oh no! I was on spring break from classes this past week so you'd think I'd be able to catch up on blogging...but, nope! No classes means more work and even less free time. I have a few manicures I need to post and I usually do them in order but I'm mixing things up and posting my current manicure first to stick with the holiday!

It's sorta funny, green is my most favorite color but I hate green nail polish. I ended up using one of my only greens, Sinful Colors San Francisco. The only reason I still have this in my collection and haven't purged it is because I love love love San Francisco and have a dear aunt who lives close by. :-) I added Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday on top of the green because my best friend's birthday is tomorrow- killing two birds with one stone!

Naked and Bedazzled

Fun title today, haha! I was really interested in trying the nude creme/multi-colored glitter trend so that's what I did here!

Edge of Glory: Deborah Lippmann does flakies!

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I have a really special post for you all today! Santa was so good to me and brought me the Barney's New York exclusive Edge of Glory set! It's by Deborah Lippmann but it's a collaboration with the one and only Lady Gaga ! I don't own very many Deborah Lippmann polishes but this is one I knew I had to have the minute I saw it.

butter LONDON and Deborah Lippmann: The Best of Both Worlds!

I've been having a really hard time picking out polishes lately. Call me indecisive, but the more polish I get, the harder it is to choose which to wear on a daily basis. This combination is definitely unusual for me. I decided to try out butter LONDON All Hail The Queen, but I wasn't feeling how it looked alone. Deborah Lippmann Glitter In The Air stood out to me so I decided to add on two coats of that. I actually got a few compliments on this manicure. Here it is!

Deborah Lippmann Naked with Glitter In The Air

Hiii ladies! The past few days have been busy as usual... I finally got an hour to myself this morning and got to paint my nails! I decided to go with my two and only Deborah Lippmann polishes, Naked and Glitter In The Air. Naked is a nude polish that was flawless in two coats. Glitter In The Air is a VERY sparse glitter. The combination is really delicate. Take a look!

The tennis court features perfect lighting for shooting polishes... and I had to get my Spongebob shock absorber in the shot ;-)