While I was spending my week in Colorado after finals my nails were becoming increasingly chipped and I was becoming increasingly annoyed at their appearance. Enter target run with my boyfriend for emergency supplies. We were strolling along the nail polish choices and suddenly I located the Sally Hansen display. I had heard of her new "no light" Miracle Gel polish line but I had never stopped to pick any polishes up to try. This was partially due to my lack of funds and partially due to my lack of time. They're a bit steeply priced at about $8 USD per bottle but I was desperate for my nails to come back to their glorious nicely-polished-sans-chips condition and these polishes claimed a manicure that lasted "up to 14 days*" so I mustered up the mental energy and bought three -- er, two because I bought the top coat, too, and that doesn't count. I am so glad I purchased these babies! I bought two polishes and the gel top coat, which comes in a black bottle and is the super magnificient magic in a bottle that made this polish stay on my nails for a whopping 8 days without any major chipping! I know that's not the "up to 14 days" that the advertising claims but for me 8 days is UNHEARD OF. For real, it's a big deal. I'm sure you can relate (unless you have acrylic nails in which case you'd be sitting there like girrrrl I get my nails done and they last for WEEKS).
So anyway, I bought 340 Hydroelectric and 240 B Girl:
Both are absolutely stunning shades of blue. In the picture to the right Hydroelectric is on the right and B Girl is on the left. Also, loving my new camera....check out that photo quality! Finally my photos don't look like I caught my nails as they were running by a train window in the middle of the night.
I seriously am obsessed with this product line right now. Seriously. I might just have to buy them all. I will say that one minor thing was that it was a little difficult to get even coverage but with enough coats (and this dries shockingly quickly by the way) then you get a nice smooth even surface. Also, be SURE to hold off putting the top coat on for a little bit just because otherwise you could get some color transfer from your nails to the top coat brush....and we wouldn't want that to happen! I will swatch B Girl tomorrow or the next day when I have a moment but for now, feast your eyes on Hydro Electric:
This photo is not photoshopped at all. It's literally that glassy and beautiful.
Gorgeous! Have any of you guys tried out the Miracle Gel polishes? Could you get it to last 14 days? Let me know which ones you have and how long they stayed chip-free in the comments below!
As I mentioned in my last post, it's been quite busy over here. I visited my boyfriend in Colorado (remember from this post he moved there for 6 months for work) and we had such a great time! We crammed so much into my 7 days there and I am so pleased with all the memories we were able to create from our adventures. I wanted to share a couple of them here on The Files so grab some popcorn and have a seat...this post will take a while!
First, I am one of those airplane passengers who ADORES cloud photography. I take a photo of the clouds in almost every daylight flight I take. I saw the beautiful pinks in the sky and the formation of the clouds and knew I wanted to take a photo.
The flight out wasn't so bad -- there were no turbulence or scary oxygen mask dropping -- but I was unlucky enough to have a rather large man sit in the middle between me and the other man in our row. I'm not joking when I say his elbows were basically touching my ribcage the whole time. Good thing I was able to scooch over toward the window to give him some more room.
Anyway, the flight was about 4 hours and I spent it watching movies and shows I had loaded on my tablet (remember my Nexus 10 tablet nails). I also brought my cross stitch stocking to work on. You are allowed to bring sewing needles on a plane, who knew??
Once I arrived, Andrew started to show me around for the first couple of days. This was his view from his office:
Not a bad view am I right? I could get used to that!
We hiked through the Rocky Mountain National Park, which was neat because it was during its 100th Anniversary. The views were fantastic. I have never been up on a mountain side with such an incredible view. It was truly breathtaking and sharing it with Andrew made it doubly special.
We even saw an elk! He was just chillin and was unimpressed by all of us gawking at it. He eventually got up and walked away, but not before I could snap a few photos!
I apologize for the poor quality photo -- I had to zoom in a lot and it was on my camera phone! Funny story, while we were in the park I managed to crack the screen on my phone. Okay, not so funny. Then as we were leaving the park we saw even more elk! A whole group of them!
We also spent some time touring the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. You know from my Olympic nails (2012 and 2014) that I am obsessed with the Olympic Games so I was almost literally jumping up and down when we were able to fit this in. It was only $5 for the tour and they give you swag when you leave. Our group was given super cute Olympic scarves and beanies. They have the Olympic rings on them and everything so I definitely will be wearing them ASAP and pretending I went to the Olympics. Sorry not sorry. It was really spectacular to see where many of the olympians train. Andrew also bought me a Team USA water bottle that I will be using when I watch the Olympic. EVERY.single.time.
Next, we walked around the Denver Botanical Gardens and the Denver Zoo. Unfortunately, I do not have any pics of the Denver Zoo which is disappointing because it was Lights at the Zoo... all decorated for Christmas! Anyway, back to the Denver Botanical Gardens. The exhibit featured while we were there was glass work by artist Dale Chihuly. So on top of the gardens being beautiful in general, they were even more beautiful because they had all these stunning and vibrant glass designs placed throughout. How amazing are these photos? They are all colored and handmade glass:
Fun trivia fact: The last picture reminded me that I have seen work by Dale Chihuly before. He has a couple pieces at the Borgata in Atlantic City, which Andrew took me to for the weekend to celebrate my 21st birthday.
We also spent some time in downtown Denver walking around the Denver Art Museum. Although the DAM had 7 floors of mindblowing art, artifacts, and pottery from all different places (Asia, Middle East, Americas, etc), I was most blown away by the Cartier exhibit! It was called Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century and it was STUNNING. There were original pieces from Maharajahs, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, and Maria Felix.
For a short clip about the exhibit check out this CBS Sunday Morning clip (once you get past the engagement part it is really fascinating):
We also spent some time walking around downtown Denver because there was an open air market/festival going on. We walked our way to the Colorado State Capitol building with the gold dome and decided to self-guide a little tour of the building. Luckily, it is open to the public! The building was so ornate both inside and out and we overheard an interesting story about some of the building material used in the Capitol. The Capitol includes an extremely rare material, Colorado Rose Onyx (Beulah Red Marble). Story went that the builders used all the known marble in the building and therefore it cannot ever be replaced. The Capitol building took six years to install and polish the marble. It was completed in the year 1900. So there you go, a little bit of history!
While walking through downtown we came upon these lovely little gigantic cows. It had rained recently so the grass was too muddy for me to walk on -- otherwise the photo would have had me climbing on them!
We also ate at the Buckhorn Exchange....which doesn't sound overly interesting. However, what if I told you that the inside of the place looked like this:
Yep, the walls were COVERED in taxidermy animals. I ordered the buffalo Prime Rib and Andre I think got the Elk or Bison rib eye. Both were so delicious but I couldn't get over all the animals watching us eat. Talk about feeling guilty for eating meet!!
Okay, back to Rocky Mountain National Park for a sec! If you've been there you know that you will likely pass the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, on your way to the Rocky Mountain National Park. Does that hotel ring a bell for you by any chance? Does this photo remind you of something?
Yes, that is the hotel that inspired Stephen King's The Shining and the movie starring Jack Nicholson. You know, "HEEEEEERE'S JOHNNY" and all that creepy *isht. The hotel is for guests only (or so they want you to believe) but we went in anyway to investigate the place. Downstairs they had a bunch of photos and items from the movie, including this:
The plaque on the post to the right of the dollhouse states, "This Doll House was featured in Stephen King'sThe Shining -- an ABC miniseries that aired in 1997. This was filmed on location at the Stanley Hotel. It was located in the front of the Overlook Hotel and was part of the playground that was surrounded by the hedge bushes that come to life.
We also stopped by Room 217, the room that Stephen King stayed in when he was inspired to write The Shining. The hotel televisions have The Shining playing nonstop on one channel. Creepy.
Enough of that. Our last adventure was to Pike's Peak, one of the 14,000 foot elevation mountains in Colorado. No I wasn't out there schlepping myself and Andrew up the side of a mountain. Pike's Peak uses a Cog train to ascend and descend the mountain. You can drive if you want but that road looked like DEATH so I'm glad we chose the train option. Plus, how cute are these little train cars?
The train is the highest train in the United States and climbs an impressive 14,115 feet in about an hour or so. On the way there you are told all kinds of neat facts. For example, the panoramic view from Pike's Peak inspired the song America the Beautiful. The views at the summit were breathtaking but so were the various views you get while you're on the Cog. They keep you posted on your elevation with signs like this:
Once you get to the summit they have a restaurant and gift shop...where they made doughnuts! Yes, I've eaten doughnuts at 14,115 feet elevation and they were pretty damn tasty. We took a quick shot at the summit:
And then took in the incredible views.
You only get to stay up there for about 30-45 minutes since the temperature drops so much. We were bundled up because we knew that was going to happen but some people didn't and they were freezing by the time we boarded the train. Two neat things happened while we were up there: (1) we watched a couple get engaged and (2) it started hailing! We stopped in the store for a bit and I saw this hilarious bumper sticker:
No, I didn't get it but it's worth a laugh or two!
I think that sums up the trip! I'm impressed if you read this whole thing! If you did, you earned a cookie!
As you can tell, I have been totally neglecting my blog recently. I am so sorry for that! I was preparing for finals and then I was away in Colorado and then celebrating the Holidays with my family, seeing friends, and going to a wedding so I was super busy (even my nail polish chipped and I failed to keep them well painted!!). I hope December was as fun for you all as it was for me! In order to try and make it up to you, let me share with you my December:
It started off with studying for finals. This was no fun and my apartment was covered in books, papers, notes, flashcards, outlines, and pretty much anything you can think of:
Not even 16 hours after my last final I was getting on a plane to visit the boyfriend in Colorado. As you know he had to go there for 6 months for work BUT he'll be back at the end of this month! I'm so excited for him to be somewhat local again. Colorado was an absolute blast! We went to see a Cartier exhibit at the Denver Art Museum that was incredibly gorgeous (think diamonds upon diamonds upon DIAMONDS!), walked through the Christmas lights at the Denver Zoo, had some delicious food, and visited the Olympic Training facility in Colorado Springs. We were pretty busy but it was so much fun and I really like Colorado.
After a week of wandering around Colorado I came home (with Andrew of course) back to the East Coast and we had a few days at our family homes to celebrate Christmas. I had decorated my apartment for Christmas but I never spend Christmas here so I don't think I get to enjoy it as much as I could! Especially since this year I left right after finals and didn't really get to see my tree other than a few days. I had decorated it with Andrew when he was here over Thanksgiving and I really like the way it turned out. I never can decide whether I like all white lights on the Christmas tree or multicolored lights on the tree. For this year I went with all white lights, multicolored garland, and a beaucoup amount of Christmas ornaments. I swear, the tree had soooo many ornaments on it. Christmas balls, Peanuts ornaments, snowflakes, glittery stars, etc. I really liked the way it ended up looking and adding the presents under the tree made Christmas feel like it was that much closer to coming!
I LOVE figuring out presents to buy people and I get really excited when all the packages start arriving at my apartment. I sort of feel like it becomes Santa's workshop, you know? I'm trying so hard to use up a specific roll of wrapping paper that I have been using for the last few years. I do most of my shopping online and I especially loved seeing this box, sent from Newegg, on my doorstep:
Anyway, then we packed up all the presents and carted them to my parents' house. We do the Italian tradition of Seven Fish on Christmas Eve (which is a tad sad because Andrew doesn't eat fish :) ) and I helped my mom prepare it this year. After Christms Eve dinner we headed to the midnight mass and then came home and everyone went to sleep. Because my family is pretty much all adults now (my younger brother will be 18 in a few months), we don't wake up around 5 am on Christmas morning like we used to. Instead, we all got in from Christmas Eve mass and slept in until around 10. Then we all had breakfast before making our way down to the family room to open presents. I may be an adult but I'm a sucker for presents. I love being spoiled I guess? I also love giving presents though too so I think it all evens out. After we finished opening presents we all just kind of relaxed....even the dog had a busy Christmas morning apparently:
Yes, he's sleeping on the couch (which isn't usually allowed but I was the only one down there so shhh no one needs to know!) using the headrest as a pillow. He's such a little person sometimes.
Then Andrew and I headed to a wedding a few days after Christmas so we had to come back to my apartment. A buddy of mine from the law firm I work at was getting married and invited both of us. The wedding was fun and it is always a good time when you get to dress up! The wedding had a photobooth where guests could try on all different hats, glasses, signs, etc to get some crazy photos. One of them was this one:
I don't have many photos of Andrew and I so I really like this one even despite the crazy colorful hats. I especially love Andrew's blue and dalmation pimp hat with his gray suit. So fashionable :) We were trying to make a heart with our hands...but it didn't really work out.
After the wedding we headed back up to our parents' homes (thank god they are so close together and only about an hour from me) for New Years where we had hors d'oevres at Andrew's parents' house and then spent the midnight celebration with my family, Steph's fiance, and her friend Kelly.
Then I had to drop Andrew at the airport a few days later so that he could return to Colorado :( It's only for a month though so I'm excited for his return. Finally, on the 7th I started back at school....and it snowed:
That pretty much brings everyone up to speed and hopefully you can all see why I've been away from my blog for so long! It's hard to paint my nails outside of my apartment and I never brought any polish with me anywhere! However, I did buy three polishes in Colorado because my nails just got disgusting looking (so chipped!) and I couldn't stand it. These polishes will be one of my first posts this year!
HAPPY NEW YEARS TO EVERYONE! I hope 2015 brings your love, passion, fun, and excitement, and I'm thrilled to continue this blog for another year of experiences :) The year 2014 came to a close with a staggering 91 posts, the second highest amount in the 4 years I've been blogging. I was super excited to be able to go back through the year and select my absolute favorite nails of 2014!
If you've been a visitor of my blog for a while now, then you know the drill that happens at the end of the year here on the Files. I choose my Top 14 of 2014 around the end of January and then create a list of things I hope to do, accomplish, etc in the coming year. So, looking back at my 14 Things for 2014 post, let's see if I failed miserably or just missed a few! A few of them I will be carrying forward to 2015. I'm backdating this post because...ya know.
14 Things for 2014
Post at least 8 times each month. No "I'm busy" excuses!Hmmm, I failed 5 months...BUT a few other months had 14-15 posts so it as evens out ya know?! Of course there's that whole not-one-post-in-December thing but...eh.
Complete 18 swatches of new polishes. Not even close...only 3 swatches. How is that possible?!
Wear the same color (but not specific polish) for a whole month and blog it. Ex: "Mauves all May" or "Maroons all March"...although that's way to specific so I'll have to do a more general "blues" or "purples" for a month instead. Totally forgot about this! Will carry it forward!
Restart my Toetally Tuesdays posts. Nope. Failed.
Complete a First Friday Favorites post every month. Lol, I need to stop thinking I will do this! Trying it for ONE MORE YEAR and then I will abandon it.
Try a new design technique. I think I did do this this year!
Bake more. What can I say? I like cookies...I made a few cake pops and I think a cake...so yeah I did this!
Reach 100 amazing followers and do a giveaway to celebrate.Done and done! Totally awesome!
Complete a nail design for every major holiday in the US. Nope, missed the last few. Will carry this through to 2015.
Complete a cross-stitch project.I completed the one for Steph and Matt! Of course, I started another that is NOT finished. I'll blog about that later!
Watermark all my blog photos. That's a huge undertaking...
Buy a nail polish from the CoverGirl Hunger Games collection. I think I got the orange one!
Visit Maine (to see my best college buddy!) this summer. Nope. I was working :(
Last but not least, review this list January 1, 2015 and create 15 things for 2015.DID IT!
Alrighty, it looks like I failed miserably. That's ok though, that's what being a blogger is all about! Set some goals, miss them, and keep trying! In the spirit of thinking I will do better...here are my 15 for 2015!
15 Things for 2015!
Complete at least 10 swatches over the year.
Update my list of nail polish to reflect some of my new polishes!
Wear the same color family for an entire month.
Complete a Friday Favorites post every month.
Have a nail design for every major holiday in the US.
Complete my current cross-stitch project.
Survive the BAR EXAM!
Maybe do a youtube video or tutorial or something.
Keep on top of my Toetally Tuesday posts (at least 2 per month)
STOP neglecting my blog!
Use up all my random lotions and potions that are piling up in my bathroom.
Have a guest post here on the files!
Do a giveaway.
Try a new design technique.
Review this list and create a 10 Things for 2016! (16 would be ridiculous)
Today's post isn't particularly motivating. I just feel like I have to post it because I can't outright skip a week in the 31 Week Nail Art Challenge! If you've been a blog visitor for a while then you know that I am 100% awful at gradient nails. It's so disappointing because I see them all over the blog and they're gorgeous but every time I try one it's just.....bleh. So here's my try:
We can now forget about this one, mmmkay? Next up Week 11 - Polka Dots! (MY FAVORITE) Be sure to go check NailsNoob out to see what Ghila has come up with for the gradient week!
Also, some super exciting news!! Andrew comes home in 9 days!!
If you've been checking out my blog for a while, you may remember when I did my Nails of November series last year. I enjoyed posting them and it did keep me updating my blog decently often, so I decided to renew the series for this year. I'm not really sure what the point behind Nails of November was...it wasn't a challenge or anything, but at least it kept me updating. So behold, my first 2014 Nails of November post. Problem is I found this manicure originally on Pinterest but I have since lost the source!! If you know the original source for this manicure please send me the link so I can update my blog and give credit where credit is due! It might be Panda Polish over at Progress Through Polish but I'm not sure.
You might remember my blue version of this design that I did for my first day back to school in August :) I loved the design so much I thought I would do it pink! While this post is uploading, I am actually taking a very important test for becoming a lawyer. Most people know that we have to get licensed to become practicing attorneys, and to do so we have to successfully pass "The Bar Exam" (which you will hear ALLLLLLL about this year since I take it in July!). However, not everyone knows that we also have to take the MPRE (which I believe stands for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam) as well. I have to get a specific score or else I can't sit for the Bar Exam in July. Yikes! You have a couple tries to pass it throughout the year. This morning is my first try. Keep your fingers crossed and wish me luck that I get the required score I need!!
KEEP YOUR EYES OUT FOR THE ORIGINAL LINK TO THE DESIGN I USED HERE.
While I was spending my week in Colorado after finals my nails were becoming increasingly chipped and I was becoming increasingly annoyed at their appearance. Enter target run with my boyfriend for emergency supplies. We were strolling along the nail polish choices and suddenly I located the Sally Hansen display. I had heard of her new "no light" Miracle Gel polish line but I had never stopped to pick any polishes up to try. This was partially due to my lack of funds and partially due to my lack of time. They're a bit steeply priced at about $8 USD per bottle but I was desperate for my nails to come back to their glorious nicely-polished-sans-chips condition and these polishes claimed a manicure that lasted "up to 14 days*" so I mustered up the mental energy and bought three -- er, two because I bought the top coat, too, and that doesn't count. I am so glad I purchased these babies! I bought two polishes and the gel top coat, which comes in a black bottle and is the super magnificient magic in a bottle that made this polish stay on my nails for a whopping 8 days without any major chipping! I know that's not the "up to 14 days" that the advertising claims but for me 8 days is UNHEARD OF. For real, it's a big deal. I'm sure you can relate (unless you have acrylic nails in which case you'd be sitting there like girrrrl I get my nails done and they last for WEEKS).
So anyway, I bought 340 Hydroelectric and 240 B Girl:
