The Things That Fall.

For some reason I can never position my fingers right for nail photos and they come out looking kind of weird, but anyway, I realized today that it looks like I've been majorly slacking on the blog posts! I really didn't want that to be the case, so I thought I'd share the two different looks I wore on my nails this week. I bought some new nail art supplies recently so I've been having fun trying different things out.

You can expect another post this weekend!

Things I Can't Live Without This Week.

Heels

I used to wear heels all the time, I've always loved wearing them, even in high school when no one else would. At some point though I stopped wearing them as much, maybe it had to do with having to run to make it to class on time every morning during my last semester of school (I like to sleep.) Anyway, I'm getting back into the swing of things and remembering all the cute heels I used to love to wear. It actually took seeing a petite friend looking adorable and perfectly dressed for summer in a pair of wedges to remind myself how much I adore heels.

Netflix and 30 Rock

Summer means relaxation to me, and relaxation just so happens to involve a lot of television and movies. I've taken an extreme liking to being able to use the watch instantly feature on Netflix. I've already gone through multiple shows and movies, my favorite so far being 30 Rock. I've always loved the show but decided to re-watch it from the beginning, totally making myself love it a million times more. Now I'm looking for a new show to watch and take up some of my spare time with, so I'd love suggestions!

Online Shopping

I've been doing my fair share of online shopping lately. It started with a book I needed for school, then it was a FIT t-shirt, then a laptop case (I chose a Speck Satin See-thru case in Peacock.) I also ordered a bunch (25) plates for stamping designs onto my nails. I'm a big fan of shopping in person too, but there is definitely a thrill whenever a box shows up on the doorstep with my name on it.

Skyscraper

I'm not a huge Demi Lovato fan, but her new song Skyscraper came up in my newsfeed on facebook and I decided I should just take a listen. Well, I haven't been able to stop listening. The vocals are great and I love all the emotion in the song. I've had it on repeat, which is something else I found on facebook, a way to play videos in a constant loop! Love.

Stationary

One of my good friends is going to the Coast Guard Academy and for her summer there she isn't allowed to use any kind of social networking or have her phone. Her only way to keep in touch with her friends is through letters, which has ended up inspiring my love for cute stationary. I found a bunch of cute prints and patterns at Marshalls, which I highly suggest if you are in the market for any. It makes writing your letter so much more fun. I figure I'll have plenty of opportunities to send hand written notes when I'm applying for internships when I'm at school too. My favorite stationary so far is a set of cute flat cards with cold Eiffel towers embossed on them. They're so cute I left them on display on my desk!

Stud Earrings

At the beginning of this school year I decided to take a break from earrings. I don't know why, one night I took my everyday pair out and ended up keeping them out. For a few months I didn't wear them at all, and then I switched to just wearing a cute pair every once in a while. Now I've gone back to just wearing simple diamond studs in my first hole at all times. I like seeings just a flash of shimmer when I catch a glimpse of my ears in the mirror, so I think I'll be sticking with them for a while.

Turquoise Jewelry

My mom gave me an old turquoise ring of hers after I admired it in her jewelry box, and it has been my favorite piece of jewelry to wear lately. Turquoise seems so perfectly fitting for summer, and I love pulling out the different tones in the stone with a pair of dark army green highwaisted shorts.

Do-Over.

I recently posted about my nail polish collection storage and I decided that I should also share some of the nail art I have been doing recently. I used to not care for more than just a solid color on my nails, but now I love to experiment with my nails. The look above was done by creating a gradient with a makeup sponge and then stamping the dots on using Konad.

I tried a few different tactics with this look. I wore these nails for graduation and wanted something really fun. I started with an orange base color and added a glitter polish to a few of my nails. On some I completely covered the nail, and on others I did another gradient. I also stamped on flowers and dots.

This was one of my first looks using Konad. This is one of my favorite patterns I have for stamping, it is perfect for spring and summer.

I've done looks similar to this a few times because I love it so much. This version was all about the neons. I stamped the leopard print onto my nails (but if your hands are more steady than mine you can do this look freehand) and then used a dotting tool (a toothpick or bobby pin works too) to add the dots to the leopard spots.

This was a fun paint splatter look. Anyone can do this one, all you need to do is start with a base color and then dip a straw into nail polish and blow through the other end so it will splatter onto your nails.

This is another one of my favorite looks I've done. It's a funky lightning bolt french tip that I was able to do by using tape for straightedges.

Those are just a few of the fun things I've done recently! How are your nails painted at the moment?

Patterned Rugs and Recovery.

I've learned a few things about myself, other people, and stuff in general since starting a job in retail. Here are a few things that I've thought about.

• Comfortable shoes are the most important thing in the world. And why are flats supposed to be more comfortable than heels, yet always so painful?
• People are really gross and messy sometimes. I don't know how hard it is to hang things up when you are done trying them on. Especially when they are already on a hanger but are thrown on a chair/in a bin/on the floor anyway.
• I've become much more aware of when people greet me and how I respond. It is uncomfortable when you greet people and they just ignore you.
• When you stealthily hide something you don't want somewhere other than where it belongs someone will notice. They will notice even more if they just took that item down from a really high rack for you or just looked all over the store for it.
• Baby clothes are the best.
• Hangers are the worst. They like to poke holes in plastic bags and always seem to get in the way.
• The person asking you to sign up for a credit card or write down your email is just as uncomfortable as you are.
• People really enjoy telling me they want to make a change to their purchase after I have passed the point where that is possible. For example: noticing something came up as a different price than it should have, remembering they had a coupon, etc.
• People are willing to wait around for a manager to come so that you can fix that thing they noticed at the last minute, even if it only makes a $1.00 difference.

What are things your job has taught you?

Or if you would like to participate and don't have a job/have never learned anything in a working situation, how am I going to do my nails next?

Redundant In a Good Way.

This pile of stuff is what would eventually become my Melmer. If you're wondering if you are supposed to know what a Melmer is, don't worry. A Melmer is a small 3-drawer filing cabinet style storage system. The name was coined by the online beauty/nail polish community and comes from a product Ikea sells, called the Helmer. The Helmer started being used as nail polish and makeup storage, and then when people started using something similar from Michaels for the same purpose, it became known at the Melmer. The storage system is actually intended for scrapbooking storage, but happens to work perfectly for storing nail polish too. I was in desperate need of a new storage system, and decided I couldn't go wrong with the Melmer. I've been considering it for a few weeks now and finally got around to going to Michaels where I picked one up. (If you go to the store, don't ask for the Melmer, they'll have no idea what you mean.) The original price was $35.00 but Michaels has a lot of great sales (when I was planning to go a few weeks ago I had a 50% off coupon) and I was able to get it for 40% off, which after tax ending up costing me $22.00.


Once I got the Melmer home I was eager to build it and get everything organized (I love both organization and nail polish so it seemed like a win win situation.) However, I'm not the most handy person in the world. Despite that, I set to work building the Melmer. It thankfully wasn't too complicated, but it was time consuming for me. I decided not to pay attention to the time though, I just set Pandora on my favorite station at the moment (Hedley) and stayed focused. The picture was taken over 2/3 of the way through my building adventure, which did end up being a good excuse to break out my paisley tape measure.


And here is the Melmer finished and waiting to be filled with polish!


I had a bit of trouble getting photos of the polishes actually in the drawers. Things were either too blurry or too bright or not even close.


After playing around with my camera settings a bit I ended up getting the best results with the "food" setting. Who would have guessed? I was able to fit all of my nail polish into one drawer of the Melmer. There are around 115 polishes in that drawer, which means it really can hold a ton of polish. Currently I have the polishes organized first my brand and then by color, but I might change things depending on what ends up being the most convenient for me. I have a tendency to organize and reorganize until things are perfect.


Right now the second drawer is home to all things deemed "nail polish related." That means base and top coats (recommend me a new base coat while we're on the topic), files, buffers, nail art tools (more on my favorite one, Konad, in another post), etc. This drawer still has plenty of room and I haven't even touched the third drawer. That leaves me lots of room to expand my nail polish collection and it also means I can keep other things in the Melmer too, which is what I plan to do at school. I haven't quite decided what yet but I know there will be something! After seeing the Melmer in person I even think it could work a bit of double duty in my dorm come fall as a night stand too.

Question time! You know I love to hear your thoughts too. Today I want to know:

1. How do you store your nail polish?
2. Is nail polish something you love to collect or something you prefer to keep to just a few favorite shades?

Happy 4th of July!

Pink Lemonade Season.

It seems like an update is in order. Have two months seriously passed since my last post?

• I graduated high school at the beginning of June.
• I received an award for achievement in design.
• I received a senior superlative in the student newspaper for "Most likely to take over the world when you least expect it."
• I got a summer job working in retail.
• I'm spending most of my time thinking about college and living in NYC.

That is it for my little update, but I'm going to be moving to Manhattan in less than two months (hard to believe) and I know I'll have lots to blog about during that time, and even more once I'm in school. This is going to be the beginning of much more regular posting!

Talk to you soon, looking forward to it.

The Day Awaits.

On the agenda for Thursday:
-AP Literature test
-Interview for summer job (retail!)
-Rewarding myself with fro-yo
-Waiting for the weekend