St. Patty's Day Nail Art

St. Patrick's Day is one of my favorite holidays, mainly due to 1) being Irish, 2) the abundance of green, and 3) shamrock shakes!  The other day I decided to make my nails festive for the occasion.  The materials needed:

Martha Stewart's glitter in aquamarine is my new Windex.  It will solve any problem, I swear.  The nail polish colors are Essie's Pretty Edgy, and Essie's Navigate Her. (Insert dirty joke here.)

Simply paint nails in Pretty Edgy, and paint the disco nail (ring finger) in Navigate Her.  Once you've done two coats and they are dry, dip a q-tip in clear nail polish, then the glitter, and then apply to the tips of your ring fingers.  (Or if you're feelin crazy, ALL OF THE NAILS!)  After the glitter is well in place, cover with one more coat of top coat.  Et voila!  Instant Irish pride!

Throw some glitter, make it rain

File this under things that WILL happen in a future home of mine:

My favorite part is that the best technique to ensure even placement of the glitter is to throw it up in the air as you apply it.  An excuse to throw glitter, AND a sparkly floor as the reward for your efforts?  Sign. Me. Up.

Check out the directions here.

Petit Ecolier S'mores: A little bit of French heaven.

Please excuse the dorky video.  I was a bit bored and filled with insomnia the other night, so I had a bit too much fun with iMovie.  I'm still learning how to use it, despite having owned my Macbook for almost three years now, but I am obsessed with the pixie dust text.  I think the world would be a happier place if sparkles were used more copiously.  Ke$ha and I have that theory in common, I believe.  I mean, I don't know here personally, but her incredibly insightful and thought-provoking lyrics "Go insane, go insane, throw some glitter, make it rain" have led me to this conclusion.

My name is Manda, and I have an addiction.

Ok kids, it's time to get real.  I am addicted, hardcore, to...accessories.  I would say this problem has been going on since....well, since birth.  There's just something so exciting about the pop of color accessories can add to your outfit, and it's really the place where you can get away with crazy and unexpected.  You remember that board game Pretty Pretty Princess?  I have NO CLUE how to actually play the game, but I have vivid memories of bartering over accessories with my friend until we were COVERED in plastic heaven. Actually, come to think of it, I don't think much has changed since then...I still don't pay much attention to how I SHOULD be doing something, and I do my not-paying-attention with at least 5 accessories on.  (Grown-up-hood, I have arrived.) My accessory of choice often rotates, from necklaces to earrings to rings to headbands to bags to shoes to sunglasses.  Which is most definitely my current obsession, as I have bought several pairs of wayfarers this summer:

In my defense, you really do need them in every color!

I really am like a three year old, with an out of sight out of mind problem, so I like to keep my accessories in view when I'm getting dressed in the morning.  Including my prized headband collection:

As prized as "purchased in Target's kids section" can be

The only problem with this brilliant solution is it made me realize I had far more warm colored headbands than cool colored.  Oh yay, another excuse to buy more headbands!  (Good thing the Target kids section is so economical!)


My addiction runs so deep that on most days I have an accessory in mind BEFORE I pick my clothes.  You don't know how many times sleepy 6am Manda has thought to herself "I really need to wear my pink headband today...ok, that shirt isn't horribly offensive when paired with it."  Sometimes I get sad when I go out at night, because I can't wear the sunglasses that would match my outfit perfectly.  Sad, guys.  SAD.  Over SUNGLASSES.  (This is the part where I SHOULD be realizing how pathetic this reaction is, but instead I'm revisiting the outfit in my head and...the sadness...here it comes again...)


To be honest, I don't really see myself changing anytime soon, and I will probably be the 82 year old woman rockin a flower headband and assorted other crazy sparkles all over me.  But seriously, how can you not appreciate accessories?  I can't be the only one who picks accessory first, outfit later, right? Right? ....Bueller? Bueller?