Happy New Year! A Random Update Post

Good afternoon (at least it is here!). So I have five more days until I start my graduate internship!! I will be dividing my time in half, the first half in a high school guidance office and the second half in the middle school guidance office. While this past semester was very hectic, I feel this one will be busy in a different way.

That being said, I'm hoping to have some time to bring some different things to the blog. First of all you can see the new design. I have had a current obsession with neon rainbow designs for the past year or so, and finally brought that to the blog :-)

But the biggest change is my new polish access. I will not be working in the city I have been in for the past two and half years, which has access to fabulous places like Beauty PLUS, Sally Beauty, and Ulta. Those stores are 45 minutes from my home, but the school I'm interning at is 45 minutes in the OTHER direction, and I will be riding to work with my husband who teaches at the school and probably doesn't want to take the 20 minute detour to the next closest city, hehe. Finances will also be somewhat tighter, so ordering online is limited as well.

BUT I have MANY pretties that I have yet to try which I want to share, and some new ideas to try. I also want to be more active in conversing with my readers and fellow bloggers for new ideas with the polishes I have. I FINALLY have a page on the blog that shows my collection (up to 246!), and who knows, maybe I'll weed out pretty soon and venture into buying/selling/swapping. Not only that, but after doing my first review for an independent polish maker (the lovely Lacey at Penguin Polish), I thought it might be fun venturing into the PR world...

Besides all of this, March 1st is my one year blogiversary, so I'm hoping to have something fantastical to bring and have two months to get it together. My ultimate goal would be to have 1000 Facebook followers and 200 GFC followers, which really is plausible.

Anyone with questions, comments, advice, ideas...I want to make the blog much more interactive so I'd love to hear from you all!!!! Peace! -Jessica (Sparkle and Shine)

Color Club Revvvolution and Fashion Addict Pt. 1: The Capture!

Good afternoon, lovelies!!!

So I'm a little lack luster this summer, because I work in a school and am off of work. Why does this limit my polish time? Well, I live in a VERY rural area 45 minutes from work at an inner-city school district. Well, when I'm working, I go to the stores after work more often than I should (oops!). However, I need to find excuses to get to the city. And yesterday I had one.

I've been ALL OVER central and northern NY state with my husband, who is on the job hunt for a math teaching position. He's had five interview offers this summer, the fifth interview being tomorrow. He's also teaching summer school, so the interviews take time from his planning and teaching, and it's been hectic helping him get everything together.

BUT. My husband had an interview 45 minutes north of our home yesterday, then had to head 50 minutes south of our home to his summer school job to prepare for the day he was missing to go to today's interview interview (At this point he's had an interview Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week!). So I drove him to let him work during the 50 minute car ride, dropped him off, did some birthday shopping for my mom, and of course...POLISH SHOPPING!

Now, I wasn't just perusing (though I was checking at the Sally's to see if they had the China Glaze On Safari collection, which they did not :-(...) I had heard from the lovely Jen at Jen's Nail Files that Color Club once had some beautiful linear holographic polishes. Anyone who knows my lemmings knows I have CRAVED some holographic polishes.  BUT, from my understanding, when the U.S. stopped the use of the holographic material, Color Club recreated their polishes to be shimmers rather than holos. However, if you look right, the holos are still kicking around.

SO I decided to go to my Color Club and OPI store of choice: Beauty PLUS Salon in New Hartford. I knew I went there for a reason! They carry lots of Color Club colors, and they must have been kickin' around for a little while, because...

Looks innocent, yes/no? Left: Revvvolution, Right: Fashion Addict

BAM! Holographic goodness (you can see the holo better on this color in the full-size pic, but in person it's marvelous!)

Even MORE holo goodness! (it's pretty obvious in this one!)

So the first part of this adventure, as in the hunt and success, are captured.

 Coming soon: Part 2: The swatch!

Update, with lots of links! :-)

So I have been neglecting my actual blog for ten days now, because I've concentrated on my Facebook page (which you should check out here).

First of all, I've been working on the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge for Painting Outside the Lines's contest. I'm seven days in so far, and you can see everything I've done in an album on my Facebook page. That's the biggest reason I've neglected the blog :-(

Second of all, I'm hosting a Sally Beauty/China Glaze giveaway on Facebook! If you click here you will be directed to the wall post that contains the giveaway, along with the rules of entering!

Thirdly, though not AS significant, I took part in Zoya's polish exchange, and ordered SEVEN bottles of Zoya at 50% off, which is FANTABULOUS!!

So I'll be posting soon, one of my favorite challenge days is coming up and I just HOPE it works on my nails like it does in my head!