Fresh Beginnings

Hello my lovelies!

In my blogging absence, I realized my need to get back into posting again, only this time with more purpose and discipline. Please join me in my new space and continue with me on my journey!

Thanks so much,
Jessica

Bientôt

Look at me being all productive and blogging again! Don't get used to it. :)

I've been playing around with a new look for the blog. It's definitely more subdued than my original look:

I still love how it was but figured it was time for a change. I might do some more tweaking but overall I'm okay with how it looks (though it is a bit drab). Any thoughts?

If you've read this blog all the way through, you may remember I worked as an extra on The Middle a little over a year ago. Well, if all goes to plan, I will be again!! For FOUR days! Man, I am soo excited: I got a call this morning from one of the casting agents seeing if I am available next week and I said YES. She's calling back this afternoon with the details. Next week is the last of my school break (the last week I'm open to do background work) and I've called in soo many times this break but never got through the lines. Now they called me! EEK. Anyway, since I signed up two years ago, they've called me twice for this show (out of three calls total) so apparently I look like I'm from middle Indiana. Not sure how I feel about that. haha. But, if it means I get to earn money for four days on set, I'll take the title!

So onto nails—I did another attempt at half moons using a pop of color. The application wasn't the neatest but I liked the color combo of navy and bright teal.

Zoya Ibiza over China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise

I was excited to see the moons matched my toothpaste! haha. Always love the matchy matchy.

Colgate Total ;)

I got my three Zoya bottles from their facebook promo! Zoya is my favorite brand of polish so I was quite excited to expand my collection. I received Crystal, Charla, and Rea. So far, I've only used Crystal:

Zoya Crystal, holding a ring by my friend Mel

Last weekend one of my best friends Alysia and I went to Arizona to visit the friends we traveled back from camp with last summer. We had a great trip, even though it was short!

Of course we used our designated road trip sunglasses for the occasion!

The desert has some amazing sunsets. Here are two pics I snapped on my phone while driving and stopped for gas.

So linear with the clouds. Weird.

Ooh. Last week I picked up some cute boots that were on clearance at Target! I love the gray suede and the RUFFLES!

Xhilaration Kameel Boots $20.98

In random news, I joined this cool site a couple of weeks ago where you can bookmark, or "pin", images you find and fall in love with. Feel free to join and follow me! So far I only have two friends on there. :) I loveee images though so it's a great way to keep track of and share pics I stumble across.

That's all for now. Next time I should have a review up on nail foils that were sent to me by OCNailArt! That'll be fun. Have a great weekend!

Paresseux

Bonjour! It's been a good while since I've made an appearance! I'm really not good with blogging while in school. haha. I have been keeping up with the picture taking though, and now it's time to share!

Ooh. These reminded me of Lisa Frank stickers. :) They were much sparklier in person!

Zoya Avril base, Street Wear Illusion, Konad S.P. Black with m57

I'm really not a red polish kind of girl, and in reality these are a little more pink than the picture lets on! I do like the glossy shine, though.

Zoya Vanessa

I made my half moons a little too big, but I still like the overall look. It looks black at first, but it's actually a dark green with the gray. I got excited about all the color combos I want to do in the future! Oh, and I definitely used hole reinforcers for the moons. I still can't free-hand! ;)

Zoya Envy over Ice Kiss Me Here

These were my Thanksgiving nails. Gradient gold and copper glitter over a copper base.

Jane Megawatt over Zoya Penny

I wanted dark nails but with a little flair! I used my dotting tool for the polka dots.

Zoya Raven with Ice Kiss Me Here and China Glaze Awaken dots

These nails were inspired by the nails of one of my male classmates (yes, I was a little taken aback when I saw them. haha). I used a similar color and glitter but added some wintery snow flakes to make it my own.

Cover Girl City Lights over Zoya Yummy with China Glaze Awaken and Revlon Chrome Lily with m59

I love the super pastel look but don't have many pastel polishes, so I used a sheer sparkly color over a white base. I liked its iridescence.

Revlon Sweet Nothings Rendez-Blue over Zoya Snow White

A few days later I wanted to spice them up! I used one of my nail art polishes to do the only hand-painting I thought I was capable of. :) These are almost carivalesque and though far from perfect, they were fun!

L.A. Colors Nail Art in Magenta (lies!! It's totally purple)

I had on some dark color for a while (black?? navy blue?) and wanted to do more experimenting with sheer top layers. I just used the polish brush so my stripes were pretty off, but you can see the before and after with the top coat.

CND Effects Gold Shimmer over a dark base

I finally got some mood polish from Claire's! It definitely works best on nails that have some length so that there is a temperature difference from nail base to tips. The polishes are fun, though don't last much longer than a day.

Claire's Mood Polish in Happy/Earthy

Again with the red . . . but I wanted to use my matte top coat. It gave the red a more industrial look which I liked better. It needed a twist.

Essie A-List with Claire's Matte Top Coat

Mmm. I love pink, and I love glitter. I also "mattified" these which gave it a cool, smooth effect.

Zoya Astra with Claire's Matte Top Coat

Phewww. I made it through all the nail pictures. OK, so I made a major beauty splurge. I have such a hard time spending money, but somehow I managed to shell out $30 for TWEEZERS. I saw this Betsey Johnson pair and knew I had to have them. Of course, they have a lifetime guarantee so they are the only pair I'll need for the rest of my life! ;) Aren't they pretty?!

For nearly the past two months I've been without a room because my actual room has been in various states, including this:

We're in the middle of construction and my room keeps becoming more and more involved in the new plans. I won't go into detail (RAIN, cough. Water damage, cough. Collapsing ceiling, cough.) but I CANNOT WAIT to have a room. My belongings are strewn around the house and right now I'm sitting at my computer which I've set up in my family room. Mm, I crave a private space to curl up and watch Hulu. hahaha. Pathetic and so true.

I have more to update on and I want to try and get away from only doing nail posts (more like when I first started this blog) but these will wait until next time. :) Thanks for reading!!!

P.S. Shout-out to Sam!!

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!