one week...

One week from today, and Mike and I will be married! I have been having a hard time getting excited, not stressed ... I have got that down pat. But right now, I am finally feeling it. I am in fact excited.

 

polish please | black and blue

I bought my first duo chrome polish the other day! They are a really neat concept {and nothing really new to the world, just to me} The color I bought was Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Black and Blue. When I was at the store, the color change seen in the bottle really stood out to me, but once it was on my nails... not so evident. The color in the polish changes from teal green, to blue to purple {not really black, ever}. But hey, with a name like Black and Blue, at least it didn't look like a bruise. 

What do we think of this polish? Was it worth the dough? I am not going to lie, I am not too thrilled on the purchase. Next purchase will definitely be something with a little more wow factor.

bloglovin

The more I get into the blogging world the more I learn. As of late, I have been following blogs through the blogger interface, but there is so much buzz out there about Bloglovin. So please follow me through bloglovin and let me know what you think!

They also have a mobile app that I am really digging. 

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/7004557/?claim=re5wkb5bwpu">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

wedding update

Are you all keeping an eye on the calendar? If you are you will have noticed that we are already into APRIL! This means that the wedding is fast appoarching, and I think that I may actually have a handle on this thing now {cross fingers, knock on wood, say a little prayer}. The past few weeks have been filled with prep, fittings, shopping and parties. I know, I know, not all bad. 

The great thing about a backyard wedding is the control that you have over everything, the bad thing about a backyard wedding is that YOU have to control everything. Thankfully I am not the only "YOU" in this equation. I know that I have said this before, but it is true. I have the best family ever! My parents, sister and bother are all wonderful people who are always there to help. Sometimes that help includes yard work. Now, I don't mean regular everyday, run of the mill raking, lawn mowing; I'm talking about cactus/plant removal, new planting, and let's not forget moving 35 tons of crushed granite! We were all on clean up duty, and my mom was in charge of planting. The rock, oh the rock! My dad is a power house! For five days he shoveled, wheel barreled, dumped, spread and raked. Whether he had help {my bro, myself, Mike, my uncle, or our family friend} or not, the old guy just kept moving! I knew my dad loved me, but I mean the guy moved 35 tons for me.

The dress fittings are finally complete, and now my dress is safe and sound at my parents house. The fittings weren't a big deal. I feel like they went pretty smoothly with just a minor hiccup {a lining issue}, but I really didn't mind the fittings because every time we were there we got lunch at the Cornish Pasty Co. It had not occurred to me until two weeks ago, but we should have had the Cornish Pasty Company cater the wedding. The light bulb in my head went off way too late. Oh well, that idea is fair game, but if you use it for your upcoming nuptials, just remember where it came from and that the Oggie is my favorite.

So far this what we have accomplished in the wedding world:

• Venue {and newly landscaped to boot!}
• Wedding party
• Officiant
• Dress {including fitting, shoes}
• Cake
• Food
• Rentals
• Photographer
• Music
• License
• Materials for decorations

With a few weeks left, there are still a few things to get done. Hopefully we are not forgetting anything!

polish please | tanzy arizona

The other day I received my Zoya Color Cuties in the mail, and let me tell you, I was SO PUMPED! I had a FedEx note waiting for me on my door, and was super bummed when the only time the apartment office was open was when I was at work. Boo. So I didn't pick these babies up until Wednesday. They were well worth the wait!

The minis are now sold out, but all still available in full sized bottles on the Zoya website. From top left to bottom right: Pippa, Tanzy, Shelby, Lo, Audrina, Zuza, Gilda, Happi, Arizona, Blu, Neely, and Yummy.

I have had Arizona on my wish list for obvious reasons, and immediately wanted to pair the two oranges for a tone-on-tone effect; his is what I came up with:

This was a very simple tape mani, with a very subtle difference {except for in direct light}. All you have to do is paint your base coat, base color Arizona, then quick dry top coat. Once everything is good and dry {make sure it is very dry so the tape doesn't peel up the polish} cover half of your nail with tape pain on your second color Tanzy, peel to reveal, and add top coat. 

I love the color combo and L.O.V.E. the Arizona! 

Which polish should I try next?

 

polish please | it's a trap-eze

Have any of you ever had your eye on something, and wanted it so badly, but have such a hard time making it yours? This was me until last week. I had seen this amazing polish on Chalkboard Nails {one of my favorite nail blogs} and I knew that I had to have it. So the hunt began. I checked out all my local polish haunts {Ulta, JCP, Sally's Beauty Supply, Beauty Brands} to no avail. I kept checking back once two to three times a week with promises of new deliveries, but every time there was no beautiful creamy white polish with multi color glitter. 

After weeks and weeks of searching the old fashion way, I befriended technology and took my search to the web. Amazon and Ebay had the polish, but man was it pricy! Not only the cost of the polish, but the shipping as well. That is when I finally remembered that I had pinned this polish on my pinterest board from a site that had very reasonably priced polishes. So I ended up snatching up the polish here for only five bucks! Who doesn't love fast, free shipping?

I paired the glitter packed polish with my other latest obsession, OPI Atomic Orange. The polish was a little thick and clumpy from all the glitter, but after two coats of top coat it felt and looked great. What wasn't so great was the almost immediate chipping of the polish, something that I have not experienced since switching to Essie First Base Coat. The densely packed glitter three layers thick may have been the reason for the horrible chipping. Next time I try this polish, I think that I will start with the white base color.

So, do you think that the hunt was worth the find?

tutorial | paper flowers

As promised, here is my paper flower tutorial! I really wanted to make paper flowers for the wedding instead of using real flowers. I fell in L-O-V-E with the way that they look, as you can see in this post, but just didn't have the time to make them all. I did attempt to make the flowers, and have about fifteen completed flowers, but I was defeated by these beauties. I did put together a little picture tutorial using the "PicLab" app that I downloaded onto my phone.

Here is a step-by-step on how to create a Kusudama Paper Flower:

Tada! I did clip notches on the tips of the petals for some of the flowers, but not on all. I used scrapbook paper for the tutorial, but origami paper for the flowers that I was going to use for the wedding. If I had a year to plan and prepare for this wedding, I would have used the paper flowers. But, six months was not enough time to get all of this done. Oh well. I am going to use the flowers that I made for something else around this place, I will show you all when I know what it is!

Give the paper flowers a try, and let me know how they turn out!

polish please | fancy french

Oh Blogger, how I have missed you. It has been almost two weeks since my last post. My bad. There has been a lot of things going on in our lives lately. Wedding planning is actually starting to get serious. We have booked vendors, mailed invites, put down deposits. This wedding is becoming pretty legitimate. 

We also had some wonderful news yesterday. March 15th was the day that medical students around the county found out what internship/residency program they had been accepted into. The school had festivities, and celebrations. I was so excited the night before, that I did not fall asleep until 2:30 am {when I had to get up at 6!}. There has been so much build up to this moment. Four years {plus} of hard work, months of planning, weeks of interviews... and then waiting. Yesterday was match day for thousands of future doctors, and Mike matched at a program that he is completely excited about. I couldn't be happier for him.

Since this week was really all about him, when I sat down to paint my nails the other day, I asked Mike what I should do. He said, "French manicure." To which I replied, "What colors?" His response, "The regular ones." And so it was...

So I rocked this look for all of 14 hours {six of which I slept}. I started with one coat of Essie Sugar Daddy, which I have owned for a while, and have only used twice. I then used the adhesive sticker guides from Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails French Manicure Kit to mark off where I would paint the white tip. You could also use tape, but I was feeling pretty lazy that evening, and the stripes are really simple to use. For the tip color I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. After the white coat dried, I added another layer of Sugar Daddy, and finished with Good to Go.

The next morning I was feeling a little bored with the neutral, simple look, and wanted to jazz it up just a bit. I had just picked up some L'Oreal metallic polishes {on clearance} that I thought would work well for stamping. I used Just Jest Setting and a small striping brush to add thin lines across my nails just below the white tips. This was also a neat trick to getting all nails looking uniform. {I believe I mentioned that I was feeling lazy what I started painting my nails.}

What do you do to add some interest to s classic French manicure?

desert botanical garden

This weekend was a fun and busy one. Saturday was my bridal shower thrown by my mega best friend, and my family.

 It. Was. Wonderful. 

But more on that later. I was also lucky enough to have one of my aunts visiting, so of course we needed to do something fun, and take advantage of the beautiful weather. Today we went to the Desert Botanical Garden. I never get sick of that place. I have been maybe a dozen times in my life. A few times for school, and countless times with my family. Such a pretty way to spend a day, and the breeze that was sweeping through the valley today was just the right thing that we needed.

Here is a little peek at what we got to see today...

 Closest I have ever been to a roadrunner. He really put on a show for us, posing for pictures and everything.

Then there was a very interesting art installation; the four seasons were represented by these sculptures.

 Winter

 Spring

 Summer

 Autumn

They sure were interesting, and let me tell you... EVERYONE was taking pictures for these guys. 

Diane, I had so much fun while you were here. So happy that I got to spend the day with you and my mom!

polish please | hands off my kielbasa

I know I have been slacking on the blogging front lately, but today I have some beautiful polish to share with you. I was feeling MEGA a little bit stressed the other day and the only real way to combat stress in my life is brand new nail polish. 

The new OPI Euro Centrale collection has really beautiful colors. I did have to settle on just one (although I really wanted to get all of them). Here is what Hands Off my Kielbasa looks like.

I added an Essie flakie topper to my ring finger as a accent nail. The rosy color has a pretty iridescent shimmer, so lovely. What do you all think of my latest shade?