Season Two Premiere

I'm back after my summer hiatus! haha. OK sorry for the TV lingo. (Can you tell I'm thrilled my Hulu queue is filling up?) No but really, I haven't posted in two months, more specifically since school started. OY I have had the busiest semester ever so far. I had lots of stuff due this past week so I feel like now I can get away with sneaking in just a little blog time.

Nails nails nails. That's probably why you're reading this. I've been incredibly lax in doing my nails, especially konading! I'll catch you up with what I've documented though.

I only wore these like a day because they just didn't excite me. Zoya Harley with Konad m14 in Revlon Punch Chrome.

Then, for whatever random reason, my naked nails were behaving very well so I went naked for a few days.

I started getting bored with no color but I still liked my nudeness so I threw on some Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure.

Wow, that stuff is always surprisingly hard to get off of your nails. It was time to move on to Zoya Jolene which I still hadn't tried since getting it from the swap they had in the summer. I think it's the perfect Barbie pink.

I wanted to jazz it up a bit so I tried to konad on some argyle with m60 but as you can see from the purpleish tint to the pinky and middle nails, the stamping didn't work and I had to take off the black. This picture was days after I did it and I had never bothered to top coat the nail so the black was wearing off. OH but with this sad, poor example of Konad's magic, I caught the eye of a girl who was working at a thrift store. She asked if I did it myself and if so, how on earth I did it! She asked my to write down the name on a receipt top so I did. Happy to convert another Konader! ;)

I decided to konad the next one after the base layer of color had already started chipping, so the result is less than stunning. I like the tone-on-tone look, though. Zoya Demi with Konad m73 in China Glaze Let's Groove.

Next, I wanted something bright and fun so I tried Urban Outfitters Green 6 without a white base and had much better results than my first time. It wore pretty well, too. (Sorry for the crappy photo and worn tips!)

This Konadicure I really liked and have been meaning to do since I first got the second polish like last December. This is Ice Kiss Me Here with Konad m3 in China Glaze Awaken. Again, it's tone-on-tone which I love. It's surprisingly subtle but then BAM if you pay attention. ;)

My friend went to Hawaii last month and brought me back this HOT PINK called Aloha Dream by Island Girl which is a great blend of pink with a dash of red. It's that perfect strawberry/raspberryish color that I love so much! I couldn't capture the accurate color in photos, sadly. And this was right after I applied it, so I apologize for my messy cuticles. I still don't have my application technique down!! haha

OK well this is a long and boring post (which I'm sorry for!) but I'll leave you with an assignment I turned in for a class a few weeks ago that I had SOOO much fun doing (mostly due to rooting around my closet for "band worthy" clothes and coordinating all the outfits) and am happy to say I got an A on. :)

I hope I'll find more time (and interesting subject matter) to post about sooner than two months from now! Happy 10/10/10 and have a great week!

(P.S. Wow. This post took me 2 and 1/2 hours to create! Maybe that's why I blog so rarely. haha.)

Wind Out of My Sails

We had a yard sale today and I am pooped!! I put out soooo many clothes and sadly only 5 shirts sold. :( It was hardly worth my time, but at least I tried. Now to eBay what didn't sell. Ugh, I hate eBay.

Ooh. This week was a pretty good one because over the period of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I was able to hang out with most of my very favorite people. Hanging out with any of them is more or less rare, and to see them all in one week was awesome.

In random news (being aware that I am OBSESSED with food), I saw this picture of a new sandwich offered at Dennys and while it looks kind of disgusting, it's also oddly appealing. Presenting the Fried Cheese Melt: "four fried mozzarella sticks and melted American cheese grilled between two slices of sourdough bread". Really, it's all about the picture.

Yes? No?

So I only have two nails pics to share, and I submitted both of them to the last two PhD's challenges. I love having some direction to start the nail design process. Here's the first mani which I actually did before I remembered the challenge, but it happened to coincide with the theme of nature so I submitted it.

Urban Outfitters Blue, m13 with Essie A-List

Next is just tips, the design of which I debated over for a while. I originally wanted to do white tips with neon pink fishnets but was moreso feeling the blue.

Essie Candy Apple Mint, m57 & m60 with

Konad white & China Glaze Awaken

Oh. A couple of weeks ago Alysia and I put highlights in my hair and I went a little crazy with the amount of time I left the goo on . . . They turned out SO blond, it was scary. The blond itself was a good color (not orange at all) but the contrast with my extremely dark brown natural color was gnarly. Here are some pics of it just for fun (and it looked even worse in person, let me assure you).

I went right away and bought some semi-permanent dye to tone it way back to normal. It's redder than my natural color but I went with the semi because my hair will fade back to bleachy. Right now it's already a lot lighter than this pic from the day I dyed it. It'll be fun to see how blond it will get again.

Well, this was an incredibly boring post. Sorry about that. Only one week left until school starts again, and I have SO-O-O-O-------OOOOO much to do before then. Despite that, I hope to blog again soon. :)

P.S. Happy birthday!

I just noticed the blog's first birthday was two days ago! Whohoo! Thanks to my followers! Knowing that even one person reads my blog motivates me to post, even if it is only once a month. :)

Home Sweet Home

I have had an amazing month!! I know I was apprehensive about camp but this year I had the best dorm I've ever had. They were so wonderful and fun. All the campers were. :) I'm thrilled I went this year. I drove to camp (in Washington) with friends and had such a great time, the day camp ended, hanging out in Portland for the afternoon with more friends from Arizona then caravaning back with them. It was a really long trip (we drove straight through back to Los Angeles) but we switched passengers and drivers between the two cars all the time which made for quite the awesome drive. I love those guys.

OK so get ready for pictures!

Alysia and me in our H&M roadtrip sunglasses:

Here was my pretty view while sitting on the soccer field at camp:

They have forests everywhere! I love the fairytale-ness of it. :) Looking up:

So the day after I got back from camp, I got back in the car -- this time with my family -- and headed out to Colorado for my best friend (and other really good friend)'s wedding. Here's a pic I snapped a pic while driving. Not sure what state we were in:

We made sure to get there a few days early so I could attend the bachelorette party. It was a fun night filled with various shenanigans. ;) Here were my nails for the occasion using my precious new Zoya Ali with Konad m3 and m57:

Bride-to-be Madeline:

Here we are at the wedding: :)

Bride and groom after the cake-cutting hamming it up for other BFF Jen and official photographer (check out some of her amazing pictures on her blog):

Me with Jen and Madeline. Love them!! I so very much wish they lived [much] closer.

Here's a picture I snapped on the drive back home. I like the colors and clouds:

For the wedding, I did my nails with Trixie by Zoya (ahh the most amazing ground-up tin foil silver!) and then on the trip home found LA Colors nail art polishes at the Dollar Tree (!) so I had to test them out. One of my very first hand painting attempts:

Here's my current manicure which I really like. Zoya Avril (agh -- the formula drives me mad but thankfully it's so nude you don't really notice the unevenness) with Konad m77 stamped with Revlon Chrome:

That's it! I'll leave you with a picture I took during a most memorable stop with my family at a rest area in Colorado (involved my mom accidentally kicking my little shih tzu into the rushing river. All ended well, thankfully, and now we find the situation rather hilarious). I only changed the overall tint of the photo to a violet color. All the variations and such were already there. It's currently my background picture. :)

Well that was a brief summery of my past few weeks! I hope you guys are having a summer as nice as mine!

July Festivities

So I leave tonight for camp (I'm driving straight through to Washington with friends) and have SO much to do before then. I wanted to leave you with a post before I left since I will be absent for 3-4 weeks (camp and best friend's wedding).

Here's the Urban Outfitters polish I mentioned in the last post. This was three coats over a white base, but next time I'll definitely try it without the white. I gave up on making it even; the consistency is so runny and streaky! Boo -- I hate sheer polishes. :(

Urban Outfitters Green 6 (Yes, that's a chunk out of the thumb. With the white underneath it reminded me of a green M&M!)

I only had this on for a day but it was cute while it lasted. Nothing too fancy!

Here's my fourth of July manicure featuring the ever-delicious (and quite American) Mike's lemonade:

Konad stars and [my first ever] freehand stripes

My friend let me use her Essie Matte About You the next day for my first ever matte mani (though I know it's hard to see a difference on here).

This is one of my favorite shots from the amazing fireworks show my friends and I saw at a high school. Mm, I love my new camera.

My birthday is July 5th (which might be why I love fireworks oh-so much!) and two of my best friends were nice enough to surprise me at 9 in the morning and take me out for breakfast! They were hoping to find me in my pajamas but thankfully I had already showered and was just getting dressed. :)

They took me to a cute little french bakery that I've been wanting to try out. We all ordered the same thing -- strawberry and banana crepes! They were garnished with DELISH and rich whipped cream and chocolate drizzles (and a tooth-shaped strawberry. haha). Yum! Thanks, ladies!

OK well that's all for now. I'll blog again in a month! I hope everyone has an amazing summer. Oh, and a huge welcome to my new followers!! It's awesome to know people actually read this thing every now and again. :) Have a good one!

Summertime Blues

Summer is flying by and I'm seemingly getting nothing done. I have to leave for a summer camp a week from today and honestly, I'm not looking forward to it! They were extremely short female counselors though so I agreed to go. Anyway, I have to start thinking about packing, which I happen to despise!!! It should be easy, but it never, ever is. Boo. Onto the nails . . .

I finally got around to participating in one of PHD's awesome nail design challenges. The challenge was any design using only analogous colors. Having taken a color theory class this semester, I was compelled to enter. I'm still such a newbie (I only get around to doing my nails about once a week and usually am in a rush) but it is fun to try! Here is my blue, blue green, and green manicure featuring green blueberry stamps (creative liberty!). I really didn't like the outcome but they did meet the challenge requirements.

And. . . . drumroll: my first Hidden Treasure mani! Mm. So flakey. I did these a week before I found this on my blogroll and freaked out when I saw! Great minds . . . The pink is actually way more me but because the flakes are very red/orange/yellow, I thought the yellow would compliment them nicely.

I liked these so much that I wore them (and they lasted!!!!) for a week.

It's funny how VERY many things around me match the exact shade of yellow, Zoya Creamy

Day 8 I cut my nails (after bowling did some major damage) and I liked the micro tips.

Anyway, eventually I got bored and now I'm wearing a new green shade from Urban Outfitters. I'm hating the formula. Mini review to come!

Oh, and I finally put in my order for the Zoya Exchange earrrrly this morning. I'm an up-to-the-deadline kind of girl. :) I can't wait to get them! Which one will I use first? Oh my.

Remember that pink camera I was lusting after in an old post? Well I ended up ordering the white version (pink isn't available in the US) which I have already nicknamed (the moment I saw it online) the Stormtrooper. It arrived yesterday! I have SOOO much to learn about it. I can't wait to start taking some great pictures!

Hey, if you're reading this, you're awesome. haha. Have a great day!