happy bird-day.

First off, thanks to ALL for a truly amazing, wonderful, fantastic birthday. Thank you for the wall posts, dinners, tweets, emails, texts, drinks, cards, calls and other forms of love. I would be no where without the love and support of my friends and family. Secondly, I have to advertise some of the awesome presents I received from my people! 

1. Photojojo set of three iPhone lenses: 

2. Banana Republic metallic scarf: 

3. New Shel Silverstein book (poems published following his death):

4. Letter writing "Hi There" notepad: 

5. Magnetic nail polish:

6. Nail Art book (with six nail polishes!): 

I cannot thank everyone enough for the wonderfulness of my birthday. If the last few months are any indication, I am confident that the new year will be phenomenal. 

new nail art.

 As you may know, my newest obsession is nail art. After the blood trial, i've moved onto a new design. As described by my favorite step-by-step nail guide blog, refinery29, today I worked on the chevrons. 


It's pretty easy. You just need a nude color and black with a skinny brush (available at Walgreens). First, you make a gloopy triangle of the nude color at the base of your nail. It should be wide enough to cover the bottom edge of your nail. When that is dry, use the skinny black to make two crossing lines creating a nude triangle. The nude color should fill the entire spaced marked by the black lines. Then, fill in the top of your nail with the black. When fully dry, finish with your favorite top coat. Lately I've been using sally hansen insta-dri. See final pictures below! 

I think next time I want to use a darker nude color. The one I used is a little too white/beige. Here are the refinery29 instructions. Post your own nail art pictures below! 

bloody sunday.

What did you do today? I spent part of my afternoon bloodstaining my nails. Considering it is about a week until Halloween and I have yet to secure a pink and white spandex suit, à la Nicki Minaj, I think this will have to suffice as my costume. And I'm really no good at planning costumes anyhow.

This nail art was surprisingly easy, and is from my new favorite fashion blog, refinery29. Follow their instructions here. I would recommend a straw on the smaller side (maybe more like a coffee stir) and perhaps a darker shade than I used - my nails look a bit more like someone dropped strawberry jam on me. I still thought it was really fun to do, and would also look cool with a different color on top for non-Halloween time. I'm thinking of trying purple.

Here are my bloody/strawberry jam nails. Let me know how yours turn out!