Happy Halloween 2016

Honestly, Halloween is probably among my least favorite holidays. We live in an apartment so we don't give out any candy, and I usually spend Halloween dressed in my PJs watching Hocus Pocus. Gone are the days of dressing up in my mom's homemade and exquisite costumes and wandering around the neighborhood guided by my trusty Dad with a flashlight. Nope, now me and the future husband just sort of relaxed and watched our pumpkins flicker. I also decided to do another Halloween manicure for the blog. Wow, it feels like it's been forever! For the last few weeks my nails have remained as a french manucure. Anyway, candy corn, anyone?

And let's not forget the original candy corn nails I did! They were from National Candy Corn Day way back in 2010! Whoa, talk about a flashback!

I hope you had a more exciting Halloween than I did! I didn't even dress festive for work. Not even an orange shirt or anything. Man, I was just Miss Halloween Bah-humbug over here!

Pumpkin Carving 2016

Right now there's quite the rain and storm going on so it's a great time to sit down, listen to the pitter patter of the rain, and do a bit of blogging. Did Halloween sneak up on anyone this year? Last Sunday Andrew and I went to our local farm and picked our pumpkins for this Halloween but usually we try to go earlier so that we get the very best selection of pumpkins. In my Instagram photo collage I showed the slim pickings we had while we searched for pumpkins. Luckily, we found the perfect pair of large pumpkins for our carving extravaganza, as well as two smaller pumpkins to decorate the apartment with. This is the photo from insta:

See the desert of pumpkins?! Usually you're still pulling them off the vines! After searching the entire patch for the perfect carving pumpkins we found two ones that were calling our names. This beauty was mine.

I forget every year who gross it is to actually carve pumpkins. You have to scoop out all this nastiness and seeds and it's slimy and gets under my nails. Ick! But once I get through that it's onto the more fun stuff! This year I decided to freehand my design. Can you guess which one is mine??

Yep, mine is the one on the right. Did the wonky heart background give it away?? It's supposed to be a bride and groom, since Andrew and I are getting married next September! The groom actually came out really well for being free-handed, I think.

We also found a tiny little green pumpkin/gourd for our little sadness figurine (you all know how much I love Sadness from the movie Inside Out!). It was perfect.

Did anyone else carve pumpkins this year? Did you dress up? Here's a throwback to Andrew and my first Halloween together. He was my Knight in Shining Armor and I was a chef!

First Halloween Appropriate Nails of the Season

Hello all, with Halloween in one week today's post is the first Halloween manicure post for this year! I'm a sucker for orange and black this time of year and when I saw these photos had somehow missed being posted last year I decided to rectify that situation! Here are some Halloween digits from the vault.

This is China Glaze Razzle Me Dazzle Me over OPI Flit A Bit. Simple yet still office appropriate for Halloween.

I can understand why this one didn't make it to The Files last year...it's pretty simple, dare I say boring?? Again, I used OPI Flit A Bit (clearly my go to orange for Halloween) and then created an accent nail with Sally Hansen Gunmetal and China Glaze Razzle Me Dazzle Me. Clearly I was really liking these polishes last year!

Let me see your Halloween designs!

Weddings on Wednesday: Asking my girls!

Let's be honest, almost as soon as the future husband proposed to me I started considering how I would ask my girls to be my bridesmaids and stand by my side. I knew exactly who I would ask and so I just needed an idea of how to do it. Remember how my sister asked me to be her Maid of Honor? And when Sarah asked me to be hers? I decided on a DIY project that was simple, sweet, and was guaranteed to be enjoyed by my future bridesmaids.

I started with a set a small wooden crates, a set of champagne flutes, some metallic spray paint, and, of course, champagne! I sanded and painted all of the wooden crates with two coats of the metallic silver spray paint. Caution: DO NOT SPRAY PAINT WHILE WINDY. I left them to dry upside down while I prepared the rest of the stuff. Here is a quick photo of the drying stage.

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. The silver is so shiny in the light but also understated enough that it's not overwhelming. They are also a lot smaller than the photo above makes them seem. Here's a photo with my hand for perspective of size.

I purchased some Armor Etch glass etching paint and stencils to add a personalized touch to the champagne flutes. I was really pleased with how easy it was to use. All I needed to do was align the stencils with what I wanted to write (the bridesmaids' names) and then layer on the etching cream. Note: You have to apply the paint really thick to ensure it etches smoothly and uniformly. Then I waited 3-5 minutes (although the instructions said 1-2 minutes was sufficient) and washed off under running water. Obviously I wore gloves to protect my hands from the etching cream since it would burn your skin if it came in contact with it! Here is my setup:

 And then I added a few finishing touches, including a personalized card and a mini bottle of champagne to each one. I arranged each in one of the wooden crates and called it a day.

For my sister's I added additional goodies because she is my Maid of Honor. I added macaron erasers and a cupcake-in-a-jar (also DIYed). How cute did they end up??

Needless to say, they each said yes!

Welcome to My Second Car

As you know, I recently replaced My First Car (Sylvia) with My Second Car. So this post is all about my new whip! Who doesn't love a good new car, eh? Please welcome to the blog my new car! have officially joined the Honda CRV club.

She's a 2016 Honda CRV in modern steel metallic, which I honestly want as a nail polish ASAP because it's so pretty.  She is much taller than my old car so driving her is super interesting...BUT she has a lot of really cool features! For example, I have joined the realms of hand-less phone capabilities. She also has the ever popular multi-angle dynamic back up camera (which I didn't think I would like but seriously.....this feature is amazing!). She also has a "right mirror camera" which eliminates every blindspot when you need to make a right turn or lane change.

She had all of 4 miles when I drove her off the lot!

And here is a photo of my babies side by side. The short, sleek, old Sylvia, and the new, large, and in charge...uh, I don't have a name for her yet!

Any suggestions for a name??

An Ode to...my First Car.

You might be thinking "oh my goodness, she's finally lost it" when you read the title to this post...and well, you might be right, but I'm still going to continue anyway because it means a lot to me. You may not know that one of my proudest accomplishments in my 20some years on this planet was that I saved up my hard earned cash monies from my five year gig as a late-night waitress at a local diner and purchased my First Car. You may remember the first time she appeared on this blog when I called her "my mitsubishi baby" and painted some mitsubishi logo nails. Here she is in all her glory:

Doesn't she look great?! I had saved up $4900, bought her in cash in 2010, and I LOVED her. Everyone knew I was obsessed with my car and my friends and family would even refer to her by name (I had named her Sylvia). She was a 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse GT with a nice 87000 miles on her odometer (she had a long life before she met me). Whoever bought her originally had her filled to the brim with extra features, including a cassette tape player (LOL) AND four CD changer, Infinity premium sound system, leather interior and steering wheel, premium Alloy wheels, tinted windows, and a sunroof. She was all mine. 

Let me just say, she was the best car ever and I thank her for that. Sure, she had a headlight electrical issue in 2010, she had the great flood of 2011, she needed not one but TWO $1100 strut replacements, when she failed to start on the day of my first law school final, my friends and family had to save me when she decided to not start after my last law school final...or at the Christiana mall...or Target in the dead of winter, or any of the countless replacements and tune ups she needed over time. But she also took me to and from my parents house when I was in college, to and from visits to my future to-be husband at his college in Philadelphia, to and from law school from my first apartment, to and from the train station when I worked in the city during law school, and to and from my first job. She did her job and although I could probably build a second car with the replaced parts off of her I still will always remember her as a great car. (I'll leave it to other people to remind me!) 

When I got my first full time attorney position I started to save up for my "big girl car" because Sylvia started to be less and less reliable. Finally, in September I decided I saved enough and the time had come to say goodbye to Sylvia (it was not without tears). So, we started to get her ready for her final drive.

It was a sad day when I drove her to the dealership to trade her in for what would become My Second Car but it was all worth it. Rest easy girl. May the road rise up to meet you!

So what did I replace her with you might be wondering?? Well, here's a hint:

More to come! Stay tuned!

Gotta Catch 'Em All!

I think I already know the answer to the following but I'm going to ask it anyway....Do you play Pokemon Go? It took me way too long to hear about it and even longer to figure out what exactly it was. There are people falling off cliffs, walking into animal enclosures, and trespassing to catch a pokemon. For real?? What is this game? I admit my sister and I really enjoyed playing Pokemon when we were younger and back when it was on Nintendo but damn, Pokemon Go is serious. I don't play it but almost my entire family does so I painted some pokemon-appropriate nails:

So there we go. Gotta catch 'em all! Just maybe be careful where you're walking while you do!!

Monarch Butterfly Take Two

Did this photo ever make it to the blog?? I can't quite remember! It's from back when I did my blue monarch butterfly nails in honor of Muhammad Ali. The blue chipped a couple days in but the accent nail still looked great so I decided to just paint the other nails orange-y pink and call it a day. Super easy to do and yet it seemed like a brand new design.

Birthday on Broadway, Baby

Some excitement for the post today: I got to see some bright lights in the big city! Try reading that without singing BRIGHT LIGHTS AND THE BIG CITYYYY to yourself. Also, I fulfilled another of my 101 in 1001 list items!

This past Saturday my buddy and I visited NYC to see Aladdin and grab some dinner to celebrate her birthday. Aladdin is one of my favorite Disney movies and to get to see it on Broadway was really really neat.

 And these are the nails I painted (technically after the show):

It is from the producer of The Lion King and stars Adam Jacobs (as Aladdin), James Monroe Iglehart (as the Genie), and Courtney Reed (as Jasmine). The show and music is definitely "Genie-us" as described on the website and I would highly recommend it to EVERYONE.

After the show we headed to Wolfgang's for dinner and just chatted for a bit. It was a really good time and a nice escape from working, wedding planning, and house hunting.

Have you ever seen a Broadway show?? Which one?

Bridal Expo: Andrew and Nikki Style

Tonight Andrew and I tried to get a little wedding planning done and attended a local Bridal Expo at a catering company. We already have a caterer because it's included in our venue package but it was nice to get to talk to the various other vendors in attendance, including photographs, florists, etc. We even got to have some dinner in the form of hors d'oeuvres (our favorite) and the best part? You were given tickets at the door to put into various little bags on teh vendors' tables. At the end of the night they picked on the tickets and you won something. Well, our card got pulled at the Tuxedo rental vendor (which also does photography and DJ so that's one stop shopping)! We "won" two free tuxedo rentals! How cool is that??