My giveaway winner!

Congratulations to the winner of my Julep giveaway, Bella M! I have emailed her and await a reply.

Thank you all for your support and I hope you continue to follow my blog now that the giveaway has ended.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

August 30, 2012: Ending Today and Your Daily Freebies

Polished Criminals: eye Candy London Giveaway
Lauryn Lofgren's 250(ish) Follower Giveaway
The Do It Yourself Lady: 1000 Followers Giveaway: Event 5 Grand Finale
Lac Attack Giveaway 
Lace & Lacquers: 750 Facebook Likes Giveaway 
Lisa's Nail Obsession: August Giveaway 
Beauty Shoes Nails Fun: Obsession Nails Giveaway 
Oh So Lacquered: Wet n Wild Saved By the Nail Giveaway 
A Rhyming Dictionary: 250 Facebook Likes Giveaway 
Apple Lacquer: Lucky 13 Wrap up and Giveaway 
Deuce Beauties: Black Cat Lacquer Giveaway
The TraceFace Philes: LE Candy Lacquer Giveaway 
The Nail Junkie: Animal Polish Line Giveaway 
Glitter Puke: Julep Giveaway 
My Giveaway! Samples by Entaeyen: Julep Giveaway 
Liesl Loves Pretty Things: Butter London Giveaway
Be Someone Cute: Giveaway!

9ml universe: 350 Followers Giveaway - open to Europe only

Chance to enter daily
New Beauty is giving away 365 days of Beauty items!
Teen Vogue is giving away prizes throughout the month. Check back daily!
Dove Summer Shuffle n Win game: Win free deodorant
Broadway Nails - 1 daily grand prize winner, 9 second prize winners daily, M - F, ends August 31 
Kiss Nails - same as Broadway Nails. 

TONs of goodies from Allure Magazine all month long. 

12 P.M. Guess by Marciano cotton elastane jeans
1 P.M. Redken Powder Refresh 01 Aerosol Hair Powder/Dry Shampoo  - first 500
2 P.M.Sephora Long-Lasting Eyeliner in Fancy Blue - first 20
4 P.M.Egyptian Magic All Purpose Skin Cream  - first 250
5 P.M.Ardell Self Adhesive Lashes in 110   - first 200
6 P.M. Chaiken cotton Lycra pants  

Try it on Tuesday: Some days are just like this..

Some days start off bad, end good. Other days start good, end bad. Instead of doing 2 separate posts, I thought I'd share my day with you along with my Try it on Tuesday post.

My day started with getting my mail and discovering that not only did I receive my gift from Narmai at Made by Me which I knew I was getting, but I also got my winnings from Cool Polish, Bro's giveaway. My gift from Narmai is Kleancolor's What Girls Really Talk About glitter mini collection. My prize from Cool Polish, Bro, is my first China Glaze polish! Marry a Millionaire :) So, overall, a glitter filled start to my day.

I decided I wanted to do something simple today. Last night, I decided to do one of my old favorite manicures using my two Nina Ultra Pro polishes, Pewter and Silver Slipper. I haven't done this manicure in many, many years. These are more of my very old polishes. I don't know if they're still made or not.. I didn't even know this brand was still sold until recently. Anyway, a few months ago I received a Jamberry nails sample and I thought this would be a good chance to try it out.

Let me start with the Jamberry Nails. This is Black Floral, and it was my first time using any kind of nail shield. Nothing but problems here. I think perhaps my nails are just too small because the Jamberrys refused to lay down flat on my nails, and the one on my left hand has already come completely off, less than 6 hours later. Needless to say, I'm less than impressed with the Jamberry shields. I do have a full sheet so I may try these again at some point in time and see if I can get them to work better. I'm probably going to take them off tomorrow.

Moving on to the polish, Nina Ultra Pro Pewter is a gorgeous pearly light grey. I used 2 coats here. With 1 coat, it almost looks white. It applied pretty easily, but a little streaky as I think you can tell from the photos.

Silver Slipper did not want to photograph well. At all. You can't tell from the photo, but if you've ever gone bowling and have seen the pretty bowling balls full of glitter... well, this is what my nails looked like! Yes, I'm probably the only person I know who went bowling as a child and could not stop staring at the bowling balls. :D

This is 2 layers of Silver Slipper, a very pretty clear packed with tiny sliver glitters. I think you can see in these photos how much the Jamberry was NOT sticking to my nail around the edges.

This manicure stayed in tact for about all of 5 minutes. Even using my quick dry top coat, my right hand was completely ruined within minutes. I've already messed up my left hand, also. Definitely the shortest manicure I've done in a very long time! As much as I love the Nina polishes, I think I'm going to remove the Jamberrys tomorrow, redo this manicure on those nails and then paint over all of my nails with a crackle. Guess I might be doing a couple of manicures this week. I have been wanting to try out OPI Black Shatter over a silver, so I guess this will be a good chance :)

To complete my fun filled day of problems, I grabbed my nail scissors to try clipping away some of the Jamberry and it broke!

Oh well, here's the good part of the day. If you've read my previous posts, at the beginning of each month I clear out my Caboodle and put all of the polishes stored there in with the rest of my stash, then I begin again and put all of my polishes I've won or bought within the month in my Caboodle so I can keep track of my monthly goodies.

I cannot close my Caboodle! I'm still expecting a few more goodies in the mail, so I'll definitely be spilling over this month :)

Meanwhile, if you read my posts on Facebook yesterday, you'll know that I spent about an hour yesterday trying to catch a mouse in my kitchen. It's adorable, very adorable with it's little head poking out through the burner in my stove :/ I made a humane homemade trap, but still haven't captured him but I didn't see him today, either.

To top off today's fun events, my boyfriend came home from work and announced that he's sick. (OH! That's why I felt so horrible last week..... I don't always know when I'm sick.)

So, that's a glance at my day. How is yours? :D

Nail Care Challenge: Creams and balms

Here's part 1: Basecoats , part 2: Cuticle Care and part 3: Top coats if you missed these.

This post is a few weeks late, sorry about that! I got behind with computer issues, and then the sponsored reviews, and then finally not feeling well.

This last week we're talking about creams and balms. Up until about a year ago, my hands were very dry, irritated and I permanently looked as though I were wearing red gloves. My hands were so dry in some places they would at times crack enough to bleed! I tried product after product and finally figured out it was just the hand soap I was using that was causing the problem. Fortunately this means I have quite a few products to share with you :)

The first option I'm starting with is one which I believe worked the best for my condition. It's also the pricest, I believe. That would be Lubriderm Intense Skin Repair ointment. It's 1.75 ounces and costs just under $5 at Walmart. It's specially formulated for dry, chapped or cracked skin which mine most definitely was.. this seemed to help the most and at times my hands seemed almost normal again for awhile, but then it would flare again and this wouldn't do much to help. The main ingredient is Glycerin, which as you can see is the third option here so let me jump to it for a minute.

 Glycerin is a cool product to have on hand for many uses: my boyfriend bought it to make fake blood. According to my bottle, it can also be used for skin soak, aromatherapy bath, and preserving leaves and flowers. I've just used it for skin protection, though. I don't know where my boyfriend bought this or even how much it costs; probably Walmart but I'm not certain. It did seem to work well but I thought it left my skin too greasy, so it may not be for everyone. You're supposed to dilute it with water, which I didn't know at first so that did help :b It can also be used on lips, so I should probably try that out as well!

The next product is petroleum jelly.... and I already know writing this, certain individuals I know but shall not name (L followed by ena and Happi followed by ness) are going to see this and their minds are going to be in the gutter :b As you can see, I have Family Dollar brand and again I don't remember the exact price.. I think it was about $2 but I'm not positive. It's another good skin protectant and helps with not only chapped skin but burns, cuts, scrapes. I know I've heard some people say you should not use it on your skin; I don't really know why or why not. I've used it for my chapped skin and it did help. I think it's the cheapest option I had, but it was also the messiest, and greasiest.

I've also collected many, many different lotions over the years and I tried out some of those.. too many to add here, I believe. None of them helped my skin, anyway.

That brings us to my one and only official nails and cuticles hand creme which I own. Influenster.com provided me with Sally Hansen Nails and Cuticles Hand Creme for review as part of the Summer Voxbox. It's supposed to provide 24 hour moisture, and its made with Shea Butter. I really like this product: I noticed after the first use my cuticles were much softer. It has a light lemony smell which I really don't mind. This is a little pricey for me: it runs about $6-7 online, from what I've seen. I might buy it sometime if I can find it on sale, and once I've run out of my other items.

I still have a few other samples to try, and other products as well. Since I live in the land of Winter aka Wisconsin, I'm sure I'll be using them up before much longer. Almost Winter here!

I also snuck in my panda creme in the last picture because I'm still in love with this little creme... the container is adorable :) You can read more about this one here.

I also recently reviewed Julep's Pedicreme.

I have just a couple more home remedy ideas for you: I know a lot of people recommend using coconut oil in place of lotion. I haven't tried this because it is expensive. I have used it a little bit for chapped lips. In fact, if you look at Julep's pedicreme, Coconut Oil is the fourth ingredient (sorry, Julep!)

My best secret, however is something you may not think of using on your hands or feet: you typically think of using it on your hair! I read about using hair conditioner to soften your feet, when I was a teenager. I tried it and it worked wonderfully. You don't have to use expensive conditioner, either: just cheap old $1 conditioner should work fine. I used to just pile a lot of it on my feet before bed, rub it in and let it do it's magic.

I think that just about sums it up. I really enjoyed this challenge, and I hope it's helped. As always, feel free to ask me any questions or let me know if you have any suggestions. Thanks!

Short update and today's big win

This is going to be short... I've felt a big migraine coming on for awhile now and today it finally landed. I can barely move without getting dizzy or wanting to vomit or stand or sit for too long before needing to lay back down. I wasn't going to go near a computer today, but I just happened to check Facebook on my phone and I saw that I had gotten a message from April that I had won Polish Hideout's giveaway.

This is the one giveaway I've seen recently which I just really wanted to win so I am beyond ecstatic.
Here's what I won:

Yun picked these two polishes up while she was in Stockholm; by her sources, they cannot be bought in the US. Next to my love of polish is my love of genealogy, and family history in general. In fact, just Sunday I took a break from blogging and spent the day doing some genealogy. I've traced parts of my lineage back over 2000 years so it's pretty tricky stuff, very challenging and very confusing at times. I am my family's genealogist and general family history record keeper. A job I feel I've been neglecting recently, so I'll probably be spending more time on that and less time on this blog once I'm feeling better. Anyway, I am part Swedish so it's just so cool that I won a little piece of Sweden. I'm very, very excited.

Thank you, Yun for this amazing chance and really amazing prize. I can't wait to get them :)

Try it on Tuesday: A Splash of Blue

About a month ago I was looking through my polishes and I was devastated to discover I had very few blue polishes. How is this possible? Blue is one of my favorite colors! It was literally like the very next day I won Adventures in Polishland's 50 Blog Followers Giveaway, winning me my first LA Splash polishes and glitter, but of course a gorgeous blue polish!

Here's my goodies used in this manicure:

LA Splash glitter in Mardi Gras, Blowfish Blue and Glitter Top Coat.

First off all, a word to the wise: do not attempt your first manicure using free form glitter when you're really tired. Secondly, do not follow the glitter instructions. If you dip your nail into the pot while your nail is wet, you will end up with lots and lots and lots of glitter caked onto your nail. It might look kind of pretty if you like that sort of thing, but the glitter will be very much clumped on and not easy to move without messing up your manicure. Instead, sprinkle it on with your fingers, a brush, tweezers if you have to.. Third, the glitter gets everywhere so expect that. I did but as you can see in the photo, it got on my top coat brush and inside the bottle. It bleeds. So much for that top coat being clear :/ Completely my fault, I shouldn't have been doing this while I was too tired to pay attention. I might use this top coat for a franken at some point!

I'm not too sure about this glitter.. I think it would be awesome for a birthday manicure. This manicure is kind of growing on me the longer I wear it, but I'm still just kind of iffy about the glitter. Blowfish Blue, however, I love! It's really gorgeous and it's such a unique shade of blue. You'll see in my photos it looks a really pretty medium blue. In certain light. What's strange about this color is in certain light it looks almost light teal, it other light it looks medium teal, and in other light it looks very dark teal. I'm waiting for the sun to come up so I can get some pictures of it in natural light, but these first few photos are taken at night under my over head light.

- no flash -

- with the flash -

I forget if I had the flash on for that last photo or not :/

Now here are some photos under natural light. Notice how different it looks? Weird, huh?

Blowfish Blue dries pretty quickly. It was dry to the touch in just about 5 minutes. It's very sheer, so  I used 2 coats. It applied pretty much perfectly, no real problems. I did end up using my Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat over top all of this because I'm too impatient and the overall manicure wasn't drying quick enough for my tastes. Seems my Sally Hansen top coat has spoiled me :)

So... any tips for using loose glitter? :)

Thanks again to Christina for my prizes! 

Nail mail!

Yesterday I woke up 3 hours early, wide awake and just could not get back to sleep. Since I'm on 3rd shift, this means I woke up at 5 PM, which would be about 5 AM for most regular people. While I was up, I decided to check my mail. Oh I'm so glad I did, except I was so excited about what I got that I couldn't get back to sleep :b I kept getting up again to look at my goodies. For some silly reason, I had this fear that I wasn't going to receive this package for whatever reason so I'm ecstatic that I did... and I was even more excited to get it, and read the return address as a town I recognize.. from my home state! I moved from Ohio to Wisconsin a few years ago and I still get homesick sometimes, so getting Ohio nail mail really made my day. Thank you, Jodi! :)

Here's what I received! All of these are my winnings from Nail Polish Adventure's super awesome first giveaway.

Donna Michelle Salon Basics 8 mini bottles nail art fish egg beads. I have a silly question about these. I've never used them, so what's the easiest way to take them off? Is there any way to save them for future use? You know me, gotta be frugal and reuse when I can :) My boyfriend seemed quite curious about these.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects 150 Groove. I've never seen a package of these in real life so if you didn't know, it comes with a cuticle stick, mini file and buffer, how cool is that?

Kiss Nail Dress in a leopard print. These are really pretty in real life.. I didn't realize, but they actually have a gold glitter to them. Very pretty. It also comes with a nail file, which is nice.

Revlon Top Speed Guava and Cloud. Cloud looks awfully similar to Julep Renee in the bottle, so I'm going to have to try those two out together some time and see how close they are. I haven't had any new Revlon in years, so putting aside all of the recent Revlon / Sinful Colors drama, I'm pretty excited to try these out.

Last of all is what I was really excited about getting: my first Ulta polishes! The Lust in Lace mini collection looks so pretty from the swatches I've seen, I can't wait to try these. Black base / dark color polishes are my favorites and I've been wanting some more.. these look so pretty!

All of these products and or brands are completely new to me, so I will definitely be testing them out in the future and sharing them with you.. I can't wait! Thank you again Jodi for such an awesome prize!

Noxicare Review

If you've glanced at my other blogs at all or the about me page for this blog, you'll know I have a headache disorder. For those who haven't looked at my headache blog, I've had a permanent headache since about 1990. Just to be perfectly clear, this means I've had zero periods of pain relief in over 22 years.

Over the years, I've tried a lot of different things to find some relief. In the past few years, as I've gotten healthier I've started looking towards natural pain relievers to try to get some help. In my routines with running this blog, I came across one natural pain reliever product in particular: Noxicare. I approached Noxicare just hoping to maybe get a sample from them, but they did one better: they provided me with a free tube of their cream, plus a free T-shirt in exchange for an honest review of their product.

I wish I could say Noxicare helped my headaches, but it didn't. I think my headaches may just flat out be medicine resistant. I did however, get a good surprise! In addition to my permanent headache, I've also had a daily tension headache for the better part of the last decade. My neck and shoulders are so sore and stiff that at times I can barely move my neck. After just two uses of Noxicare, I noticed my shoulders were much looser and my neck wasn't quite as stiff. I had read that Noxicare is supposed to help with tension headaches, so this is the realistic type of pain relief I was hoping for.

Here's what I like about Noxicare:

• claims to be odorless, but I think it does have slight odor which isn't really bothersome
• non greasy
• fast acting
• long lasting - you can use it 2 - 3 times a day. The most I ever had to use it for my tension was twice a day.
• provides natural pain relief
• contains one of the most powerful natural pain relievers, turmeric

Now what I don't like, the price tag:

• $19.95 for a 3.5 fl. oz. container

I would probably go through a full size bottle in about a month or so. For me, this is an added expense which isn't quite worth it. This would probably be a good deal for most people who are not in as much pain as I am on a daily basis.. so I would like for you to consider that. I would guess a full size bottle would last most people much longer than it would me.

I probably will consider buying this product, just to have on hand for those days when the pain is just unbearable. I will however, more than likely also continue to look for other means for pain relief.

That being said, as this product can take away some of my pain, it is something I feel worth recommending. You can get more information at their Web site or find them on Facebook.

Disclaimer: This product was provided to me in exchange for an honest review. As always, all my comments here are my own, honest opinion.

Acid Wash Nails

I was just going to post more photos of my Acid Wash manicure on Facebook, but I've gotten a lot of compliments on it so far so I thought I'd blog about it as well.

I absolutely love this manicure because the technique is so easy, you get different results with each nail which is something I love, it's something which doesn't take long to do at all (way under an hour with quick dry top coat). PLUS I can definitely see myself doing this a lot in the future to cover up old manicures. Quick and simple alternative to the crackle polish, I suppose.

It's funny, when I told my boyfriend I was going to use these two polishes together in a manicure, he made a comment about the colors not really going together. Oh yeah, Mr. Artist? I showed him! ;)

In certain light, the colors almost blend together. Eva on it's own reminds me of candy, but the combination of the two really has the same effect.

So what do you think? I love these polishes, love this manicure and love this technique. I'm definitely trying it out again sometime, and soon.

Nail Mail! Blue Diamonds

Yesterday I received my first Indie polish in the mail! On July 31 I won Me and My Nail Polish's giveaway and my prize was 1 polish from Custom Nail Art. Ashlyee Deakins, the owner of Custom Nail Art, did a fantastic job of packaging this polish to make sure it shipped safely. For that alone I applaud her! She wrapped it up in a ton of bubble wrap, then packaged it with with the shavings stuff similar to Julep's packaging material, in a fairly decent sized box. She also included her business card and a code for 5% off my next order!

I'm not a fan of big glitter polishes, but I thought it would be fun to have one with diamonds so I picked Blue Diamonds. In real life, this polish looks absolutely gorgeous in the bottle. It's packed with tons of microglitters in silver and blue. The polish itself is a bit weird; it's a gel with a tint of blue. The gel gets a little thick at times and in the bottle it sometimes looks like there's clumps of blue gel mixed in with clear. Maybe I should have shaken it a bit, I'm not sure. It applies fine though, and dries very quickly. The texture is a bit rough, so I would definitely clear over this with some top coat. I like my nails nice and smooth, but that's just a personal preference. Also, this polish is 3 Free.

I tested it out on a couple of my toes, and I'm just not a fan of big glitter, at least not on me. I'm going to have to play with this a little bit. I think I'm going to end up using this one by layering it a bunch... and, it's just screaming out to me to use in a jelly sandwich manicure. So I'll definitely try that out one of these days!

Regardless, this is one of those polishes which I could literally just sit here all day and stare at the bottle. It really is gorgeous in the bottle... so now I just need to figure out how to get it to look like that on my nails :)

I couldn't resist trying it out on my thumb.. unfortunately it wasn't as dry as I thought it was because I completely  smeared it all over the place! Fortunately I did so after getting a couple of photos!

I guess you also get a sneak peak at my current manicure, or at least a hint of the color :) This took 4 coats of Blue Diamonds to get it layered enough to look even close to how it looks in the bottle. In that second photo, I know it looks like the diamonds are sticking out at crazy angles all over the place but rest assured, they were flat against my nail. I think I captured the color really well in the first photo of my thumb. It still didn't capture all of the glitter, but you can see just the hint of the blue glitters in the last photo. I think this polish would look gorgeous over a pale blue.. Essie's Mirror collection comes to mind, specifically the blue shade which the name of is blank on my mind at the moment.

I will DEFINITELY swatch this better at some date in the future, but I just couldn't resist doing a little bit to show with you all immediately. I'm still half tempted to go stare at the bottle for awhile, it really is that gorgeous!

FOOT  PHOTO WARNING!!!

I took a photo of my feet because I wanted to share with you the long distance effect this polish has. At a distance this polish creates a really awesome effect: it almost looks like snake skin.

 Blue Diamonds is  $11. Her price range is $7 - $11 but she also sells minis at $3.75. She also has package deals where you can buy 3 full size polishes for $27 and so on.

I think this polish is going to come perfectly in handy during Winter, what do you think? :)

Review: Schick Hydro 5

I was ecstatic when I received the Schick Hydro 5 "sample" in the mail because I knew it meant I could finally give my boyfriend his own razor and he could stop using my Gillette Venus and dulling it down. Yes, I'm too frugal to just buy him his own razor, but that's besides the point.

This was a big disappointment!  After a few days of use, he removed the "hydrating gel reservoir" because it was already coming lose and I guess it was bothering him. He didn't see the point in it. I suppose us ladies like these types of features more than men do, or at least more than my man. Anyway,  he's been using it for a month exactly and already it's started to rust. I definitely won't be buying refills for this razor... guess we'll both stick with my Gillette at least until I find another razor sample or finally break down and buy him his own Gillette :)

Perfectly Simple Toasted Coconut

I haven't really been hungry lately, so I woke up and decided to try out my sample of Perfectly Simple for something different for breakfast. I was expecting it to be more like a granola type bar, but it wasn't.. I wish I would have known this before hand, but it's made with date paste so it's more of a soft chew type bar. I'm not a fan of dates, so when I started eating it, I had to read the ingredients to find out why it tasted weird.

I think it was just OK. Good coconut flavor, and the date flavor wasn't terrible. In fact, I don't think it really tasted like dates so I didn't mind it that much. To me though, it was just too sugary. I think I tasted the sugar more than anything else. I'll admit, I seem to be sensitive to sugar lately, so that may just be me. I think I would like to try the other flavors at some point in time to see what I think.

So, overall, not great but not terrible, either.

Update: my boyfriend got his Peanut bar in the mail. He said he thought it was pretty good, but he wanted about 4 more of them :)

OK, I broke.

So the "No Buy" thing didn't last long once again.. but here it is, almost the first week of August over (almost) and I hadn't bought anything. I've been wanting a nice mint green polish, but I've also been wanting a glow in the dark polish. Since I live at night, it only makes sense, right? I don't even really get to see my nails in their true beauty most of the time because I'm always in the dark. These have been towards the top of my want list for awhile. So when I saw CH Nail's glow in the dark polish on Very Emily, I knew I had to have this polish. HAD TO.

As I was buying it, I also noticed Emily has a 10% off discount code for the Born Pretty Store on her site, so I even managed to buy it at a cheaper price :)

So... Week 1 is almost over and all I've spent so far is $4.49. I've already received and / or won over $100 worth of items which I hope to share with you all soon! On that note, I have a TON of items I need to sample and review, on top of the reviews I have lined up this week. I'm sorry I haven't gotten around to doing the Nail Care Challenge post yet; I plan to do that in a couple of days.

Having my computer basically nonfunctional for a couple of days recently really threw things off for me, and I'm still not exactly comfortable with it yet. Last year I had a TON of computer problems. I finally had enough of it and didn't go anywhere near my computer for about 6 months because I was waking up every day with a stomach ache, I was making myself a nervous wreck. With this relapse of computer problems I've had another bad stomach ache almost all weekend. Just a reminder that I need to spend more time in the real world, I suppose.

Anyway, I just wanted to mention that I will be posting more reviews soon. I'm working on getting caught up on a lot of things - including sorting through the 1000 emails in my inbox. Thanks for reading and continuing your support of my blog!

Sample Mail

Wow, look at this.. I got Sample Mail for a change! That doesn't happen often anymore.

Awhile ago, Perfectly Simple was giving away samples of their nutrition bars. You were able to get I think 3 per household, 1 per person. I got one for myself, and 1 for my boyfriend. Today I received the one I requested for myself. I picked Totasted Coconut to try out! They also sent me a $1 off any two bars or one multipack coupon.

I just might be trying this out for breakfast or a snack sometime soon :)

I also received my Kotex sample pack from Walmart.
I have one issue with this sample right away.....

Everything fits just fine in the little pouch they gave me, so why did they have to package everything else separately in the black box, shown in the first photo? Huge waste here. They could have simply packaged everything in the pouch, and wrapped it up in plastic or something. Instead, they created more waste by packaging the pouch, then packaging everything else in the black box, then wrapping everything together in plastic.

Anyway, here's what I got: the little black and fuchsia pouch which would be perfect for my niece to play with, definitely little girl toy material here. It's cute, but pretty chincy. It also included a Kotex pantyliner, tampon and pad plus a $1 off coupon for a package of U by Kotex.

Have you gotten any good samples lately?

Update about Sally Hansen Crackles.... oh yes, plus, nail mail!

After much playing around with my Sally Hansen Crackles last night, I finally figured out and mastered the trick to using them: You want to use as little nail polish as possible. Very, very light coat but seriously: try to get the brush as free of the polish as you can. There should just be a tiny amount. I literally had to dab it in with the brush in some places because there just wasn't enough on the brush. Doing it this way though got the results I've been wanting.

Sorry, I know these aren't the best photos but I hope you can tell it definitely cracked like it's supposed to!

I also got my nail art brushes and dotting tools in the mail!

 I ordered Bundle Monster's Pro 20 Piece Nail Art Detailing Brushes and Dotting Tools from Amazon.com. This set costs $14.99 (I got it for $9.97!) and it looks pretty awesome! Next up, I need to learn what to do with each of these awesome tools and how to use them. My boyfriend said he would help first time I want to use them :)

 I also organized my polishes last night, this time by color. I definitely need more yellows, greens and oranges... and I discovered while I have lots of different purples, they're almost all Wet n Wild, so I think I need to get a few different brands in there. I've definitely come a long way from the days of mostly greys, and dark shades. Lots more color in there.

This got me wondering though, to those of you who organize by color.. how do you organize your glitters? I mean, some of them are easy. Others, not so much!

Important announcement

Hello,

So I turned my computer on today and the screen started flashing colors.. it was doing this a little bit a few days ago, but then I unplugged and plugged my cables back in and it seemed to be working fine. Now though, it's gotten much worse. I'm pretty certain the graphics card is done for.

Fortunately I have my boyfriend's computer to use until we can buy me a new one. I have most of my files backed up, so I won't be too off with things here on the blog but I won't  have as much time to work on everything. Also fortunately, since I am frugal we have the money to buy a new computer immediately, so thankfully I won't have to wait too long. I imagine it's going to take me quite a while to get back into the swing of things around here, though so thanks for understanding!

I have 2 sponsored reviews coming up in the next week, plus my giveaway. Talk about bad timing!

I'll be working on some scheduled posts tonight to get us through the weekend (aka Friday - Sunday in my world.)

Thanks, as always for reading and I hope you stick it out with me :)

-Melanie

Announcement: First Giveaway!

I'm excited to announce I will be having my first giveaway, probably posting sometime early next week! I've been wanting to have a giveaway for quite some time because I truly do appreciate all of my readers. Unfortunately, this is going to be US and Canada only. I really am sorry, because I do have a lot of International fans. I'm trying to come up with something for you as well. Please understand, I have no income so my options are pretty slim. If anyone has any suggestions for a money saving International giveaway, I'm definitely interested!

Thanks & I look forward to running this and sharing it with you... I won't tell you what the prize is yet, but it is polish :)

Today's winnings...

Silly me, I forgot to show you what I won today! (I slept about 5 hours give or take so I'm not really with it! haha)

First up, I won Nail Polish Adventure's First Giveaway! She had a main prize, but also a mystery prize which I think is just awesome! I'm so excited about winning this :)

I also won my first Indie polish! I won Blue Diamonds by CustomNailArt in Me and My Nail Polish's Giveaway.

It's been an awesome day... I'm totally excited about both of these. I've really been wanting to win an Indie, so I'm super excited I won this. I've also been wanting black base polishes, so I'm ecstatic about winning the mystery prize, as well as all of the other goodies. Every single item I won today is going to be a new brand for me, and some new types of items. I can't tell you enough how excited I am, and how much I'm looking forward to trying these out. I had one Revlon polish but it was ancient and I had to toss it recently, so considering everything going on with them lately... I'm still looking forward to trying out the brand.

Thank you to Nail Polish Adventure, Me and My Nail Polish, and of course CustomNailArt!