Lace nail art design

Are you looking for a fun and easy interesting nail trend to keep you away from the hum-drum same styles you're used to doing all the time? This is a simple and fun look involving lace that you can purchase anywhere (even at the dollar store). I stumbled upon this look and was absolutely shocked at how breath-taking these nails can look for how little effort it requires. What do you think about this look? You can choose to do the lace all over your nails, on fake or real nails, or you can choose to just do portions of lace randomly placed on your nails. I personally am a fan of the unique nails, each nail looking like a different lace portion of the same pattern, whichever piece strikes my fancy on each finger.

What you'll need:
- Base coat (any color you choose)
- Top coat (clear nail polish)
- Small-patterned lace (so it fits over your nails, honeycomb pattern is simplest to work with) in any color
- Small nail scissors
- Nail art pen (if you choose to draw more designs like swirls or dots over your lace to add intricacy)


This is actually a very simple process to do. First, you will want to cut out the portions of lace you want to use and measure them up with your fingernails. Once you've gotten all the pieces cut out (or you can go one by one if you choose), you want to apply a base coat (it can be clear nail polish or nude/colored opaque, you may even want to consider glitter polish if you're going somewhere fancy). This look doesn't require any extra glitz and glamour, however, because the lace will present so well on its own. After you apply your base coat, wait until it's dry and apply a clear coat of nail polish generously over top, gently use a tweezer and position your lace on top of the clear coat before it dries. This is important because you want the lace to tack onto your nail by sticking to that clear coat very well. After everything is dry, soak it up one more time with another clear coat of polish over top so that your lace won't frill or come off during hand-washing or rigorous activities! If you want your nails to be even more interesting,  you can draw on borders, swirls or dots (even cheetah prints with little 'c' shapes) with nail art pens. Remember to be creative and use different colors of lace, nail polish, and nail crystals over top to keep your nails looking very cool! Your friends will envy you for your expensive-looking manicure; you don't have to tell them you did it yourself!

Project Runway All-Stars

This new show premiered on Lifetime last week and it features contestants that were snubbed by Project Runway in various seasons, competing for a prize that totals $500,000 and a one-year guest editor position at Marie Claire magazine. You can watch Project Runway All-Stars episodes here. The competitors do seem to be of a higher quality than in the regular show, and they feature all your favorites from past seasons which is a bonus. The designers featured this time include Kenley Collins, Rami Kashou and Mondo Guerra, which are some of my all-time favorites that have been on the show. Kenley is mean but quirky and her design style always reflects a retro point of view, Mondo is completely out-of-the-box and surprises me with his designs which are wholly unique every week, and Rami just oozes classic couture and impeccable construction. I won't lie, some of the designers this season (like Mila and Austin) are some of the most annoying people that have ever been on the show, but I guess the point is to see if they can all co-exist for awhile and make some ridiculous reality drama.

Angela Lindvall, host

The new mentor, aka the position of Tim Gunn in the original, is Joanna Coles, a woman which pretty much embodies the Devil from 'The Devil Wears Prada'. She's a lot more stern than Tim Gunn and seems to be giving far less helpful advice, for the time being (there's time for her to redeem herself). The new hostess on this show is supermodel Angela Lindvall (which I've never heard of before but the show claims she's an extremely famous person) and she is fairly awkward in her delivery of the lines but tolerable and even comes across as being nice. It's definitely nice to see a fresh face on this show. I was sick of Molly Sims in the Project Runway Accessory show because she was always incredibly rude and she sounds like she has a speech impediment (not to be rude to people with speech impediments, but do they really have to host a TV show?). Is it just me or does Angela Lindvall remind you of a bootleg Taylor Swift? The show seems to be sticking to the same format but adding fresh faces with different points of view, maybe ones not as nasty as the previous show's. One major change this season is that nobody will ever get immunity, which means every week someone will be eliminated and it will be unexpected.

Georgina Chapman, judge

Either way, let's talk about the other new changes: the judges! Let me just say that Isaac Mizrahi is incredibly annoying, I dislike his fashion all together and I have no idea what makes him qualified to be a judge on the show. With that being said, Georgina Chapman is the other judge and she is the co-founder and designer of Marchesa but what is most shocking about her is that she is married to Harvey Weinstein (possibly the ugliest man in the world) and even bore his child. Georgina makes all the models on the Project Runway shows look like trolls because she's absolutely stunning and her dresses are very popular among the Hollywood elite on red carpets (this probably has something to do with her husband).

Sephora OPI Sale!!!

This post is for all of you gourmet nail polish lovers that refuse to coat your nails with anything but the best! If you go to Sephora's website, you can just click this link to easily get into the sale portion of their website. I didn't see a button or link for it anywhere on their main page so I got it using Google, it was a trick someone taught me from a makeup board. You can choose to sort all of their items on sale by price, which will show you everything from the cheapest price to the most expensive.

Now before you get too excited, there is something important to realize: not all of the colors go on sale, it's mainly just the seasonal ones. However, they're full-sized bottles and it's still a great deal, so if you can find a few that you like, it's worth it! Here's a list of the colors that have been reduced in price from approx. $10 to $5 or $6.65 here and the link you can find them at. I've also included photos from fellow bloggers, thank-you for your contributions to this article!

Countdown to the Kiss: opaque royal blue with medium glitter (item # 1355981) ---> $5

Don't be Eggnogious: clear with medium and chunky copper glitter (item # 1355999) ---> $5

New Years Red-Solution: opaque metallic golden red (item # 1356013) ---> $5

Stop Stocking Me: opaque metallic golden plum (item # 1356039) ---> $5

Tempted by Teal: opaque metallic teal (item # 1345132) ---> $6.65

Going Nude, Eh?: opaque light milky neutral (item # 1256973) ---> $5

Blasted Nail Colors : blasted effect opaque metallic sapphire blue, midnight blue, maraschino red, metallic turquoise, and bright white ---> $5

I couldn't find any great photos of this collection per se but this is what crackle nailpolish looks like, the 'blasted' is supposed to be a slightly milder effect, but it probably looks the same.

From the Katy Perry Crackle Nail Collection by OPI

Lancome's Newest Collection: Roseraie de Delices

Lancome's latest Spring 2012 collection by Aaron De May, their artistic director who is known in the industry as somewhat of a beauty genius (although he somewhat resembles the crypt keeper, see below for reference images), is an absolute beauty to behold. I want every single item they have put out for the collection and I'll show them to you so you can 'oooh' and 'aaaah' yourself.

Crypt Keeper

Aaron De May - Artistic Director of Lancome

As if Lady Gaga hadn't already told us in her latest music video for 'Marry the Night', mint is definitely going to be the huge color trend for Spring 2012 (she had insider information from Calvin Klein, Chanel and the likes) and that's okay with me because it is a delicate, feminine and fresh color. Without further adieu, I present to you the fabulous 5 color all-in-one shadow and liner compacts in Vert Tendresse and Rose Romance!

There's so many options with these! There's lid, crease, shadow, highlighter and liner in each of these, you can mix and match the colors for many different looks and combinations. The rose palette consists of peach and rose tones with a burgundy liner, while the green palette containing mint and forest greens with a darker grayish green liner. I love all of the colors because they have a shimmery iridescence to them that feels youthful and joyous. However, the cost of these is a little steep (as to be expected with Lancome products) at $48 each.

Now, I present to you what *really* caught my attention in this collection, the illuminating smooth powder which is a mixture of rosy pink and pastel shimmers. It's an all-in-one product for the cheeks and face, so you can use it as your face powder and blush, as well as highlighter (the parts that are more shimmery). The cost is, again, steep at $42, but it is such a beautiful item that appears to look like a bed of roses that it almost makes it worth the price.

My least favorite items in this collection are their waterproof eyeliner pens in green and white, I'm not a huge fan of their formulation, it's a little greasy for my taste,  but some people like that. Also, they're expensive at $25.50 each and you can probably find something similar in a drugstore.

The lipstick in this line is kind of adorable because the limited-edition packaging for the cotton candy shade and the color itself are the cutest. However, the 'Le French Touch Absolu Nu' lipstick costs $35 because of the packaging, while the rest are $29, $6 for packaging, Lancome?? Really??? I know that packaging didn't set them back anything so why are they overpricing? 'L'Absolu Rouge Nu' comes in the colors 'Sweet Marmalade' and 'Rose Petal'.

L'Absolu Rouge Nu in Sweet Marmalade

L'Absolute Roughe Nu in Rose Petal

Limited Edition - Le French Touch Absolu Nu in Cotton Candy

Surviving painful neck spasms

I don't know if any of you have gone through this but I recently have been experiencing an onset of horrible neck spasms that include my trapezius, sternocleidomastroid and scalene muscles. It's a horrible experience to have to go through and I'm pretty convinced it's from a pulled tendon/ligament because it has taken me through the Christmas break and refuses to let up even a little bit. I've been using muscular rub, two different kinds of cervical collars, taking cyclobenzaprine as a muscle relaxant and diclofenac to reduce swelling. I've been to the doctor and she has advised me not to massage the area or see a massage therapist because rubbing the strained muscle will only cause it to spasm harder. So seeing as nothing is helping, I decided I would cover the ways to prevent muscle strains from happening, specifically in your neck because they take up to 6 months to get rid of and are extremely debilitating.

People who sleep on their stomachs, including myself, are very prone to this kind of a strain because in order to lay that way you must turn your head an extreme amount, this is also an injury common to those who have been in a car wreck. However, it can just happen on its own, during a workout, afterwards, or maybe during a brisk turn of the head because something caught your attention. Using a pillow that's too flat or thick can cause this type of strain but so can being around an air conditioner or an open window (in my case, I was outside on the rooftop patio on a chilly day after a work out when I felt the pull). If this happens to you, you can expect pain, stiffness, loss of range of motion, feeling like there is a hard bulge in your neck and numbness (because the sprain and spasms can pull on your blood vessels and nerves). My doctor suggested not working out again until the spasm is gone completely because you can end up tearing ligaments. Alternating ice or moist heat is said to make the pain go away, but it really only relieves the outside layers (such as your skin) and the pain will quickly return. Even taking oral medication hasn't proven too successful, aside from making me drowsy and forcing me to fall asleep and forget about the pain. The most practical improvement has been while wearing my neck collar because it supports my head and the muscles in my neck and back don't have to work to hold it up (they do this without you willing them to).

It's important to do a series of neck stretches whether you're sitting at a computer all day hunched over or going to the gym.

Smile Self-Esteem

It's time to get real for a second and talk about some issues that are pressing and prevalent in our society. I read this article in the Daily Mail (from the UK) and it said that 75% of all British women avoid having their picture taken because they have a negative self-image. I realize this may not be where you or I live but the point is that this is a global trend, women everywhere are more and more self-conscious by the second. If we're not striving to lose 50 lbs, we're obsessed with our makeup, the way we dress, our hair, our nails, the list goes on and on. The problem begins and ends with society, what do I mean by this? I mean that I can't walk out of the house without makeup on (and I've learned this since I was in high school) without people telling me that I look sickly and pale, or asking me what's wrong. That's just my face, guys, I wasn't born clowned-up, stuffed into tights, and pushed up by a bra (and neither was Kim Kardashian, for example).

Facebook photos are so pathetic now, too. I look at my friends posted pictures and they're all posing like some hypersexed faux-supermodels, nobody is real anymore, everyone tries to be staged and perfect. In all honesty, I can't harp on others without admitting my own faults, I've done this plenty of times, I used to think that smiling made me look too young and imperfect so I would pout in every picture for years, what a goon. 36% of brides are anxious about their wedding day not because of the colossal decision they're making but because they will be the focus of attention and photographed extensively.

Despite the fact that a whopping 52% of women are scared to death of smiling in a photograph for fear of showing their yellowish or wonky teeth and smile lines, men appear to firstly be attracted by a woman's smile rather than her cleavage or legs. The article suggests that instead of saying 'cheese', women should be saying 'oats' to create a perfectly plump pouty smile, but I think this is absolutely ridiculous. If you can't even smile without faking it, whose to say you aren't faking your entire life away? I'm going to say that this issue runs so deep that it permeates every facet of our social interactions and it has got to stop with you. If we continue this deification of what a woman is supposed to be (and it's happening to men, too) we'll fall down a slippery slope where not only our mental image is warped but that of our children and their children's are going to be more disturbed than even ours.

There's no reason in the world you should try to control the way you smile, just brush your teeth regularly and see a dentist once every 6-9 months for a cleaning and you should be fine. Stay away from unhealthy things that stain your teeth such as caffeine and sodas, and bare your chicklets to the world without a care of what others will think about you. I'm going to let you in on a little secret, the most attractive thing about a person is their confidence, so if you can muster that you can pull anything else off. How could you even have time to have fun if you're always worrying about how yellow your teeth are, sucking in your stomach and hiding any sign of a blemish? God forbid we should just be who we are, right?

Style trend alert: The Neckalina

I came across this new accessory that I just have to share with you all by KaVatee called 'The Neckalina' and it combines my two loves of necklaces and scarves in one! This way you don't have to choose whether you'll wear a necklace or scarf or worry about them tangling if you pair them together. It's basically the marriage of a pashmina-looking scarf and a big, bold statement necklace. What an awesome concept. You get three looks for the price of one, it's one-size fits all and can be worn alone as a necklace, a scarf, or together as a necklace paired over a circle scarf. 

My only qualm with this accessory is that I think H&M or a less-expensive brand should remake it for a lower price because the price tag on this look is $88, which is entirely too much for my what the product is. If this was in the $30-$40 range, I would gladly spend the money on it, but for $88 I can think of many other things I would rather buy first. You can check out the different colors and styles here. 

These are the current existing looks that you can purchase online (my favorite one being the black):