New Sinful Colors Glitters - Swatches

I'm not particularly fond of Sinful Colors but they recently came out with a pretty glittery collection and I felt like I just had to grab a couple of them. Like most Sinful Colors polishes, I usually find the formula to be thick, goopy, and a bit of work. The base was on the thicker side but to my surprise, it wasn't as goopy as I expected. The one positive thing about it is that it allows the brush to pick up a little more glitters and one or two coats is more than enough to cover your entire nail with sparklies. What attracted me to these polishes was the mix of diamond shaped glitters. Well, you actually have to fish a bit for those diamonds because there's much more small glitters than diamond glitters.

Scene Stealer has a clear base and a mix of small fuchsia pink and rose gold glitters and pink diamond glitters. Looks so pretty in the bottle but a little disappointed on the nails. There's not much contrast between the color of the diamond glitters and the small glitters so it kind of get lots in the mix, if you know what I mean. These diamonds aren't much of a scene stealer in my opinions. I'm rather disappointed. This is my least favorite.

For the base color, I used 2 coats of Sally Hansen Salon Manicure Lavender Cloud. Swatch on the ring finger was done without a base color.

Rags to Riches has a clear base, small green glitters, larger holographic teal hex glitters, and holographic teal diamond glitters. I love the different mix of glitters in this one. They play nice with each other. This is definitely my favorite out of the three.

For the base color, I used 3 coats of OPI Sea Ya Later Sailor! Swatch on the ring finger was done without a base color.

Shine On Me has a clear base, small holographic glitters, larger pink hex glitters, and holographic pink diamond glitters. There's a good contrast between the glitters here as well.

For the base color, I used 3 coats of Sephora by OPI Sin-cerely Violet. Swatch on the ring finger was done without a base color.

What do you think of the new Sinful Colors Glitters? Did you pick any up?

Born Pretty Store Tribal Snowflake Nail Art Polish Glitter Shimmer Colorful #5

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by the Born Pretty Store to review a couple of their products. Fortunately, I was allowed to pick them out. The Born Pretty Store sells a wide variety of Nail Arts products, makeup, jewelries, accessories, and even circle lenses. I think the Nail Art section is where they really stand out and if you love doing your own nails, this would be a good place to check out because the prices are pretty reasonable. They ship from Singapore and it took approximately 3 weeks for me to receive my package. Everything was carefully packaged and arrived in pristine condition.

Born Pretty Store has a 5 different glitter mixes of this particular kind and they all look pretty darn cute. However, I think #5 looked different than anything I have in my stash so I thought it would be a nice addition to my collection.

First, look at the heart-shaped bottle, ain't that adorable? It has the standard .5 oz or 12 ml for most polishes.

The brush is the perfect size and shape for me. I like that it is a bit flat. The clear base is a bit thick but that's not a problem. It sure packs a punch of a glitters within one coat. As you can see from the swatches and pictures, there's a mix of white bar glitters, white hex glitters (large and small), hex rose gold glitters, and hex copper glitters. You do have to move the glitters around a bit during application, especially if you want them to be evenly distributed on your nails. I didn't find the process to be difficult or challenging but I absolutely love the result.

I didn't know what to use as a base color so I thought a nude color would be a fool-proof combo. I did not use any base color on the ring finger.

Honestly, I love this glitter polish. The bottle is stinking cute and the mixture of glitters are fun and interesting. The fact that the white glitters are matte makes it a little more toned down and easy to wear I think. What color would you pair this glitter with?

Price: $4.61
Available at BornPrettyStore.Com (http://www.bornprettystore.com/snowflake-nail-polish-glitter-shimmer-colorful-p-5550.html)

If you are interested in ordering anything from the Born Pretty Store, please feel free to use coupon code SM7J61 for 10% off your purchase.

Birthday Haul

From left to right: China Glaze Budding Romance, Orly Charged Up, Finger Paints Itsy Bitsy Spider, Sinful Colors Scene Stealer, Sinful Colors Rags to Riches, Sinful Colors Shine On Me

If you follow my blog regularly, you've probably noticed I haven't posted in a few days and that's usually unlike me. My birthday was a few days ago and my sister was sweet enough to make a cake for me and my daughter since our birthdays were just a day apart.

I've been in a depressing mode. I was stuck inside for a month following my ankle injury. During that time, I couldn't do much beside rest and heal...well physically that is. All that free time I had to myself was driving me nuts. I had a lot of things running through my head. The more I think about it, the less happy I was feeling. I'm 36 years old and I feel like I don't even know what to do with my life. Yeahh that's what's been depressing me. I'm probably entering an early mid-life crisis. Boo me!

I've been doing a bit more walking now without my clutches. The first day, I didn't think I walked much at all yet at the end of the day my whole body was incredibly sore as if I just ran a marathon. My back and legs are really stiff when I walk and my ankles hurts so I can't walk too far or too long. I am hoping that it will get better as the days go by. This experience has been somewhat of a wake up call and made me realize the small things that I took for granted. Soon enough, I'll be back to work and things will seem more normal, either that or I'll be too burned out to think of anything else.

Let's move on to more cheerful things. One thing I love about birthday time is that I receive birthday coupons. I'm a little sad that I didn't get to use all my coupons but just a couple of them. I guess that's better than nothing.

As you can see from the picture above, I've managed to snag a few nail polishes.

Ulta sent me a $10 Birthday coupon and surprisingly I couldn't figure what to get. I wanted to stick to things I need so I decided to try out the Kenra Platinum Hot Spray. I use the straightener a lot so this should help protect my hair. To my surprise, I didn't know I was supposed to get a free gift with purchase so they also gave me the Kenra Volume Spray. That's pretty awesome because I love Kenra's hairspray and that was a pretty good size freebie. I don't remember the exact price of the Hot Spray but I think it's around $20.00.

Kelly & Katie Cognac Leather Cuff

We took my son to the mall to return his tuxedo rental for prom and I realized that they just opened a DSW in the hood. I was ecstatic and wondered how long it had been opened. The cashier told me they've only opened the store last week. I had a birthday coupon for $5.00 that was going to expire soon so I wanted to put it to use. Since I won't be walking in heels anytime soon, I decided to get a pair of flat sandals. The moment I saw these, I knew I was going to bring them home. They would be perfect for summer. They look simple but the metallic gold hardware on the straps make these sandals very flashy and edgy. They have a bit of cushion on the sole, which makes the sandals comfortable to wear. The only minor issues is that the sandals run a little long and the ankle cuff isn't adjustable. For me, they fit perfectly but I still would prefer the cuff to be slightly more loose for more comfort. They are sold for $49.95 at DSW. Here's a link for your convenience http://www.dsw.com/shoe/kelly+.and.+katie+cuff+wedge+sandal?prodId=273935&productRef=SEARCH

Since I'm a rewards member, they saw in their system that I had a $10 certificate that I didn't use yet and asked me if I wanted to combine that with the $5 birthday coupon and I was like Oh yeahhhh! So I got $15.00 off my purchase.

BTW, these are my daughter's feet

Partying isn't really my thing but I sure enjoy getting myself a few things for my birthday, especially when I'm getting birthday coupons...that makes it even better.

DIY Prom Corsage and Matching Boutonniere

I know this post is out of the ordinary but I still wanted to show you something pretty that I did. Last weekend, my son attended prom and instead of purchasing a corsage, I decided it do it myself. First, they are quite expensive and a corsage similar to the one I made runs around $45-50.
After purchasing my supplies, my total cost was just roughly $20.00.

To be honest, I had no clue what I was doing or how I was going to do it but I just had a general idea of how to do it. Please excuse my lack of pictures tutorial because it's not easy being both the photographer and the somewhat crafty person.

Mainly what you'll need is:

• Flowers
• Ribbons
• Foral tapes
• A bracelet

You can find these supplies at any craft stores.

1.  First, I grabbed a handful of flowers and leaves and position them like a small bouquet. I use the floral tape to tie them together, like so.

2.  Once I am done wrapping the flowers together, I leave about 2-3 inches of stems and cut the rest.

3. I wrapped the ribbon around the remaining stem and created a few loops of ribbons. I actually sew the loops of the ribbon by hand.

4. I use a few strings of small ribbons to secure the flowers on to the bracelet.

The matching boutonniere was a LOT easier to do. Only took me 5 minutes. Took me about an hour for the corsage. The process was similar to the corsage. After I used the floral tape to tie the flowers together. I wrapped a ribbon over it and finished it with a bow accent.

Just had to end it with a picture of the prom boy. If you'd like to see more pictures, you can view it on my other blog http://pangsphotodiary.blogspot.com/2013/04/prom-2013.html

How do you think I did? Have you ever tried to do a prom corsage or boutonniere yourself?

theBalm Haul

Hello Ladies,

I purchased some products from theBalm during their 50% off sale a few weeks ago and well it took a little while for my order to arrive in spite of the fact that I didn't even order anything that was on backorder. I received it about a week ago so I wanted to quickly show you what I got and hopefully I'll be doing some reviews soon as well. Included with my order was a small sample of the Apricot Skin Renewal Cream.

Hot Ticket Nail Polish Call Me Iridescent, $10.00 (regular price)

White Tea Almond Microdermabrasion Face Exfoliating Scrub, $36.50 (regular price)

Balm Jovie Rockstar Palette, $39.50 (regular price)

Meet Matt(e) Nude eyeshadow palette, $42.00 (regular price)

I listed the regular prices so as you can see getting half off was a deal I couldn't pass up. Did you take advantage of the sale as well?

Born Pretty Store Haul

Hello Beautifuls,

Sorry for the absence. I haven't been motivated to work on my blog these past few days. I'm going to make this haul short and sweet for y'all because I will be reviewing these products and give you more details later. I have a couple more hauls coming up so stay tuned. I'm currently working on them.

I was contacted by the Born Pretty Store a few weeks ago and I'm pretty excited that they've sent me a couple things to review.

I received a selection of nail art studs, which is something I've been dying to try for a while but now that I have it here I can't even think right about what I'm going to do with them but I promise I will try my best to come up with something good. This wheel is sold for $4.89.

http://www.bornprettystore.com/heart-square-elliptic-round-hollow-stud-rhinestone-acrylic-nail-wbox-p-4993.html

The second item is a glitter polish, $4.61.

http://www.bornprettystore.com/snowflake-nail-polish-glitter-shimmer-colorful-p-5550.html

I provided you with the links in case you wanted to check them out. They have a wide range of nail accessories and supplies with pretty reasonable prices so check them out if you haven't done so already. Don't forget to use coupon code SM7J61 for 10% off your purchase if you decide to place an order.

Have you ordered from Born Pretty Store before? If yes, what's your favorite product?