weekend recap- mani & all

Hello hello! Back from my amazing weekend away and thus back to reality. I usually work the entire weekend, so I never have anything to "recap" on Mondays... however, I'm taking advantage of this whole having a weekend off thing, so I'm going to recap!

I worked during the day on Saturday, but I had the night off so the bf and I left for his lake house early Saturday evening. We went bowling and hung out with his friends Saturday night. Long story short, I'm a horrible bowler. The last two times I bowled strikes, however. Not sure how that happened because I completely bombed the rest of the game. Sunday morning we got to sleep in, which was glorious. B insisted on having the wood stove going before I got up so I laid in bed which he started the fire. Let me tell you, a lake house in the middle of the woods with a wood stove and a guy as amazing as B is this girl's dream come true.

After moseying around the house being lazy for a few hours on Sunday, we went into town and had lunch at this cool place called the Gypsy Joynt. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was awesome, too. Then we Redboxed a movie and got some dinner food (read: Spongebob mac & cheese, popcorn and some Goldfish) and headed back to the house. It was sooooo nice to relax. The lake house has a sauna that we got to use Sunday night which was the cherry on top of a perfect weekend.

Getting back to work this morning downright sucked, but it was nice to get away if only for a day and a half. The mani I'm showing you today was done on Friday night. I'm actually still wearing it now, with minor chip wear.

 

This is two coats of Essie Sew Psyched with Essie Beyond Cozy accents. I used a pointed q-tip to create the polka dots on my pointer finger, and scotch tape to create the solid, straight lines on my other nails. 

The formula on SS was great and the color is awesome. Slight shimmer, green, grey-ish? Perfection. The BC spiced it up a LOT and the two colors looked great together. Formula on both gets an A+. I love Essie, and I always forget how much I love it until I use it again. Essie wears very well on my nails. Not much tipwear and barely any chipping after 3-4 days is awesome in my book, and hard to come across for me with my busy lifestyle.

 

 I am obsessed with rings- here's another I got that I had to show you all. I just bought earrings at Express that match this almost identically. 

And I'll leave you with this beautiful picture I took on the lake while I was away this weekend. This was about an hour before sunset. Ah, how I long to go back...

 

Day 11: POLKA DOTS

Wooo POLKA DOTS! Today's challenge theme gives me a chance to use my dotting tool for the first time. Yup- that's the extent of my dotting tool skills. I seriously give props to all of you amazing artists who can use a dotting tool to conjure up nail art. I think it's crazy insane. I'm sure I'd be ok at it if I practiced... but I'm just not patient enough.

For today's manicure, I was inspired by an old dress that I saw at my best friend's house. We were reminiscing looking at older pictures (we've known eachother since we were 5- that's 15 years, WHOA) and she saw one from our junior prom. Of course, that led to a twenty minute dress up sesh and it ended up in this brown dress with light blue polka dots that she actually wore to my sweet sixteen. I'd show you a picture from my sweet sixteen but my Facebook is acting up- darn. ;P I remember begging my parents for a big party and they insisted I didn't need one. Of course, I was able to convince them otherwise. Those were the days. 

I don't like how my fingers look in this one, but I wanted a good sunshiney picture
to show you the beautiful orange shimmer in SpaRitual Howl.

For this manicure I used two coats of SpaRitual Howl. I never understood why it was called Howl when I first got it, but I noticed the orange shimmer today. DUH, Halloween polish! Side note: I freaking love Halloween polish. It makes me feel so nostalgic and reminiscent of my childhood. Love, love, love! 

I'll definitely be wearing Howl again sometime soon because I loved it. I am always so impressed by the formula of SpaRitual polishes. A polish's formula can either make or break a manicure, and this polish went on like satin. It applied perfectly. I want more SpaRituals, but I'm just not crazy about a whole lot of their shades.

The dots and bow are done with China Glaze For Audrey and my dotting tool from Sephora. Of course, you don't need to actually buy a dotting tool. Polka dots can be made with toothpicks or even the head of a sewing needle.

I'm in love with this manicure. I don't want to take it off. It's so much fun and so girly! What do you think?