December Birchbox

I love the Christmas season. I always seem to have things in my mailbox, and I love all the glittery and shiny sparkly Christmas lights. I also love the two week winter vacation I have coming up from School, as of next Friday, woot.

The mail came late today. So fiance and I ran to run errands. We got cat food for our three furbabies, I got pony beads and pipe cleaners for my students because next week,  I'm going to set up my mini Christmas tree in the classroom, and my students are going to make these:

I also ran to Target because I need ingredients to make peppermint bark for a White Elephant party on Saturday, as well as a thirty dollar gift card for my school secret santa, and we went to Sonic, where I got this wonderful frosty  strawberry masterpiece:

In the mail, were a lot of happy surprises. Some more Christmas cards:

And some yummy chai tea samples from Twinings:

And this:

In my birchbox were the following:

This is some kind of hair powder. I'm not sure what hair powder is. Apparently it makes your hair less oily, which I suppose isn't a bad thing since my hair tends to be on the oily side, so I may try this.

Hand Therapy. It has a lovely scent. As a teacher, whose school is primarily outside except for the classrooms, except you walk outside to get to other classrooms, so I'm always battling the crazy Texas weather elements, I'm not really opposed to a hand lotion of some sort.

Another skin product, this one is another thing that works for dry skin. My face tends to get really dry, so I'll be interested to see if it helps my dry skin as well as my moisturizer that I typically use does.

This horrendous lipstick. YUCK, I will seriously NEVER wear it. I don't like lipstick, in general, and a color this bright and this red, is just going to be gifted to somebody who may actually want to wear it because I don't and won't.

I like chocolate. Therefore I approve of this.

So. I wasn't disappointed with my BirchBox, but I wasn't super pleased either. Skin products are okay, but I prefer makeup to skin products. But I find, at least with me, Birchbox is always a hit or miss. This one was meh. Maybe next months will be better.

On another note:

That's my nails painted Celia from Julep, mind you, they've been painted since Sunday night, and it's Thursday night, but doesn't it look pretty? The polish lasts very nicely too. I've had it on for awhile now, and it hasn't chipped, at all. I love Julep polish.

Julep: December's Glitterati

There's nothing better than coming home from a day with crazy four year olds [although they've been much better since Thanksgiving break, I think it was good for both of us] and finding out I got a package, especially when I'm not really expecting anything aside from Christmas Cards of my cats from snapfish.com since it's early early December.

So I was thrilled to find this in my apartment office:

I opened the box to see this:

I especially liked the glitter. It was a nice touch.

This is the first month, I've upgraded for the entire nailpolish collection. I just couldn't help myself, I mean seriously, IT'S NAME WAS GLITTERATI AND I LOVE GLITTER.

Hello, my name is Lyssa and I am a sparkle-a-holic.

I didn't even pay that much for the upgrade because even though I think my Montrose neighbors stole my September and October boxes since I forgot to change my address on the website, I still got the Julep bucks, so I used them to upgrade, and didn't have to pay much extra. Yay me.

This is the inside of the box.

This is the neutral pallet for eyes. My camera doesn't really do the colors justice, so from l to r: a very peachy color, a spray tan color, a light brown color, a darker brown color, and then a pretty dark brown color. I'm excited to try the neutral colors. I don't really wear much eye makeup, unless I try to rock the smoky eyes look, but then I suck so bad at it that I just look like a reject goth girl with too much black.  So I think neutral eye-shadow colors may give me eyes a pretty decent pop... as long as I pair it with black or dark eye liner.

BTW, I LOVE JULEPS EYELINER PENCILS!!! They're seriously almost as awesome as my Urban Decay 24/7 pencils and the colors are waterproof, and they're easy to apply because the tips are thicker like crayon or marker, and they're awesome. They get a 10/10 from me.

I also got this:

silver and purple hair-toes. They may be Christmas presents for my kitty, who is OBSESSED with hair ties and literally steals them from the bathroom to play with. They were a freebie.

Onto nailpolish:

from L to R: Mia, Jillian, and Cara.

Mia is a shiny thick silver color. I like thick silver colors because they tend to go on in one coat. It's not a thin silver like some of the other silver polishes I have that take like 3-4 coats to show.

Jillian is more red than my picture shows, sort of like this:

That's my attempt at a better angle. It's a very dark reddish black color. [And the color on my thumb is Karmen, which I've gotten a lot of compliments on. I have an extra and I'm giving it to one of my co-workers, who loves the color.]. It's shimmery and dark. I haven't decided if it's too dark for me yet. But it's a much prettier color than my camera gives justice too.

Cara is hot red. It reminds me of a "sleep with me" color that you would wear out to the bar looking for a one-night stand. I have nothing against it, I'm just not really one for most red polish colors, but I have friends, who are... HELLO STOCKING STUFFERS!

From l to r: Misti, Audrea, and Joelle.

I'd also like to add, if I ever have future children, who are daughters, and I can't think of a name for them, I'm totally going to look at my Julep nailpolish bottle colors.

Misti is a dark pastel icy blue color. I actually like it. My mother keeps insisting I need to have pastel colors in my March 2015 wedding, and I keep on telling her I hate pastels and I want shimmery blue and silver.... but if we had a color like Misti, I may not be so opposed to pastel blue.

Audrea is holographic gold glitter. It reminds me of gold dust. I like it.

Joelle is holographic silver glitter, that reminds me of the electromagnetic spectrum because it's silver... but then you see ROY G BIV. It's very much a sparkly winter color.

 from l to r: Evelyn, Celia, & Shoshanna.

Evelyn is one of my future children's names. I want to name a girl Evelyn, so I can call her EeVee like the pokemon!!! No lie. Anyhow, it's a magenta color. A nice dark magenta. I'd wear it.

Celia is a teal shimmer color. It's very pretty. It reminds me of what the ocean looks like in all those fantasy paintings of the ocean containing mermaids and rainbow seahorses that people post all over facebook. I dig it.

Shoshanna is a very Jewish name, however it's not a very Jewish color. It's a lime-green glitter with a hint of gold. I like it. It sparkles.

Next up... I spent way too much money on the Julep Cyber Monday sale, so much, that my fiance probably should've dragged me away from the computer. So that's coming.

I get my first Ipsy bag!

And Birchbox.

Now off to address my photocards  and decorate them with pretty stickers.

Julep Diamond Mystery Box

So, it was a tough week, at school, it always is, and my district, is one of the only nearby districts that doesn't have the entire week off next week, and my students are done, and I'm done, therefore it was nice, when I came home to find I had a package, and got this at the office:

My first thought was: "Damn that box is huge."

This was the view from inside the box.

Sorin [my black and white kitty] was pretty curious about what was inside the box.

The Diamond Mystery Box was my first Mystery Box. I just got one out of curiosity since the big seller was the glittery topcoat nailpolish that sparkled like diamonds, and I like things that sparkle. For my add ons, I just picked a mystery gift because I like surprises.

My surprises included all this:

Julep Doublestep Foot Treatment, Pink Grapefruit Body Frosting [which the name totally reminds me of when my best friend in high school gave me edible chocolate body frosting for a birthday], A black thing that I have no idea what the hell it is, and Moisture Masks for the hands, feet, and nails, which sound interesting.

I also got all these polishes:

from L to R: Fireworks, Adele, Lois, Ally, Coco, and Babara.

Fireworks is very fourth of July, hence the name fireworks. It's a patriotic glitter polish, which I think will go perfectly with my habit of wearing nailpolish at school to support holidays [like Memorial Day] or just nailpolish in general that seems color appropriate for holidays.

Adela is a glittery gold shimmer color. I approve.

Lois is a shimmery glittery pink neutral color, it's perfect for just any day sort of wear. I approve.

Ally is a bright blue color with a purple shimmer. I happen to really like bright colors, so that works for me.

Coco is a dark brownish red color. It's not really my sort of color. It's not a bad color, it just won't get much wear, if any, perhaps I can gift it to a friend.

I'm excited about Barbara because I had it once, and I loved it, but then in the great nailpolish catastrophe of 2013, it got shattered and broke, so I'm glad they sent it back to me,. It's dark glittery purple with a pink sheen.

Inside of the diamond mystery box were these:

from l to r: Candace, Antonia, Lucy, Eva, Karen, Geo, and Karmen.

I got two repeats: Karen and Carmen, but both are colors that I really love, so I don't really mind having a few extra bottles around, either for myself, or to gift.

Candace is a dark bronze glitter color, I like it because it's sort of a neutral glittery color that can be worn for a lot of occasions.

Antonia and Geo were the diamond colors they promised in each box. One is a pink holographic glitter and the other is a light blue/purple holographic glitter, They're both very pretty.

Lucy is a dark brown color with a hint of red, which will not get worn by me at all because it isn't colorful enough, but perhaps I can gift it to somebody.

Eva is bright pink and I love it. I love love love bright pink polishes!

I gave the rock candy to my fiance, he enjoyed it.

So, no diamond studs from my end, but that's okay, I'm really not much of an earring persin anyways.

However, I got seven polishes, and each retails at about $14.00, so that's $98.00, which is three times what I paid for the box, I got well over what I paid.

My opinion of Mystery Boxes is that they're pretty cool. I don't know if I would buy them all the time, unless it was a theme I enjoyed like Halloween, Glitter, or Christmas, but I do think it was a good investment. I would buy one again.

Now I can't wait for my December Box, I totally upgraded and used my Julep points to get every single color :)

Julep: Holiday Sale

October through January is such a bad time for my wallet. I just love sparkly glitter nailpolish colors and makeup, which is why, when Julep had a holiday sale, my wallet was sad.

So, after I came home, from a long day of crazy pre-k students, who are totally burnt out, and probably just as eager for Thanksgiving break as their teacher, I was ecstatic to discover a package for myself.

I will say this about Julep, they NEVER EVER notify you when your stuff is shipped, so I never know when it's actually going to show up, this came within a week.

It's bigger on the inside.

From L to R: Daria, Char, Angela, and Karmen.

Daria is a dark blue grayish color that's a bit more blue than gray. It's about the same color as my eyes, to be honest, which makes me think, it'll be a great color to wear.

Char is a bright blue color, it's the color the polo shirt I wore to school today. I like it because it's blue and bold and bright.

Angela is a shimmery greenish turquoise color, and I cannot wait to wear it.

Karmen is an example of a red nailpolish color I like. It's red, but it's glittery and shimmery. It's absolutely perfect for the Christmas holidays.

Julep had this deal, last week or so, where you spent like thirty or so dollars, and you got the holiday glam set [a 72 dollar value] for free. I like free, so I gave in.

From L to R: Anisa and Oscar.

Anisa is very red. It's a dark red than Sheila though, and not the color of a fire hydrant, so it has the potential to be worn. Oscar is gold glitter.The two of them combined, would make a lovely Christmas nail color.

An eyeliner pencil sharpener, which is awesome, a brown shimmer/carbon black eyeliner combination pencil, and Daring lip gloss.

I'm excited about the eyeliner, I love eyeliner. Eyeliner is basically the only daily makeup I wear. In college, I would beg my friends, who actually, knew how to put on makeup, to put black eyeliner on my eyes, so I looked goth.

Therefore, any new eyeliner is fun and exciting for me.

I'm not sure how I feel about Daring. It's very red. I don't really wear red, let alone lip color that is red, so I'll have to try it on, and see if it's as red as it looks before I pass judgment.

But overall, I'm very satisfied with the holiday glam set because I love the nailpolish, eyeliner, and sharpener. That's 75% satisfaction, at least, possibly more after I try on the lip gloss.

The eyes aglow set has five mini eyeliners. From l to r: violet shimmer, black shimmer, teal shimmer, charcoal shimmer, and bronze shimmer.

I haven't worn them yet, but I like them. They have the crayon-like tip that I enjoy so much from Urban Decay's 24/7 eyeliner, which is my go-to eyeliner. They're also slightly shimmery and glittery, and I like the variety of colors. Unfortunately, unlike 24/7, I don't think they're waterproof, but that's fine. I think I'll try to wear one to school tomorrow and see how they look.

The Little Lights nailpolish: Jameson, Colbie, Ivy, Paris.

Jameson isn't glittery or shimmery like the other three. It's a very dark blood red color, almost brown. I'm not sure I'd wear that one.

Colbie is green and silver glitter. Perfect for the holidays :)

Ivy is glitter blue, but the glitter is woven into the nailpolish, so it's a solid glitter color, not like a top-coat. I like it a lot and it will definitely be worn a lot.

Paris reminds me the electromeganetic spectrum. It's big silver white glitter, with all the other colors in glitter form mixed in. Another great holiday color... AND IT'S SO SPARKLY!

So overall, I am quite satisfied with my holiday store purchases.

My wallet may be sad, but I am glad.

Nailpolish Writeup

Since fiance and I are really attempting to reorganize our apartment that we moved into in August, and make it less of a trap, I reluctantly went through my nailpolish collection today.

Mind you, I moved here from NJ in August 2012, and mu nailpolish collection experiences some casualties along the way such as a bottle exploding, but due to my personal and freakish attachment to all the possessions I brought from NJ to Texas, I refused to get rid of them.... UNTIL TODAY

So I thought since this is mainly a nailpolish blog, I'd post the colors that survived the nailpolish genocide of 2013, and write about them:

This is most of my Julep collection. I've been subscribing since March 2013, and I will admit, I did not get about three of my boxes. All due to a fault of my own. After a tonsillectomy, I managed to leave my debit card in an ATM machine, and I had to get a new one, and forgot to change the original debit card to the new debit card, so I never received my April box.

Then, we moved from downtown Houston to another town in Texas, and I forgot to change the address on my Julep account, so I'm pretty sure the new tenant in my old apartment stole my September and October boxes, luckily, that's fixed, so no random person will be getting my awesome nail-polishes anymore. I suppose I could call customer service, but that just seems like too much of a hassle :/

Anyhow from L to R: Sylvia, Martha, Claire's sun changing nailpolish [not Julep], Jane, Veronica, Portia, Alaina, Meryl, Kennedy, and Cassie.

Sylvia is a gorgeous purple color. It's like a deep but light, almost blue but purple, almost the color of a violet, and it's pretty. It looked really good on my nails. I really liked this color.

Martha is a pastel pink color. It looks very pretty. It's very much a summer color for me. Once I got a little bit of color myself, from tanning and reading my kindle, at the pool, it looked great with the tan.

Claire's Sun-Changing polish is awesome. I bought it on a whim and painted my toenails with it, over the summer. It would be silver when I was in the apartment, and then at the pool, it would turn bright purple glitter and it was amazing. It also goes on thick, and I only needed one layer, usually I needed multiple layers of glitter polish. But it's such a fun summer glitter polish.

I like to highlight a nail with Jane, I'll paint all my nails, but one on each hand, a nice neutral color, usually a gray, and then I'll paint one toenail with this glitter polish and it looks really cool. My first graders, last year, gave me a lot of compliments, when I wore my nails like that last year.

Veronica reminds me of strawberry ice cream. I love strawberry ice cream. To me, it's a nice dark pink color that's perfect for around February or in early fall, when you don't want to say goodbye to summer.... not that summer ever goes away in Texas because it's a darker color, but it's still summer-like, if that makes sense.

Portia is pretty. It's basically like glitter paste though. It takes a layer or two to go on, but then it also comes off easily, and it's nice tough enough if your very hands on every day, like a teacher is, but it's a cool sparkly color.

Alaina is a gray with a slight hint of purple. It pairs very nicely with Jane.

Meryl is a gray color. It's a medium gray color. I like it because I like painting my nails colors like gray and black, but it's sort of boring.

I did not like Kennedy, it's a yellow-gray color and I just thought it looked horrible on my nails. It's too yellow, and it looks like nail-polish faded and rotted on my fingers. This is one of the colors that I got from Julep that I really did not like and will probably never wear again unless I want my nails to look like Jaundiced skin.

Cassie is a fun color. It's like a peachy pink color. It's perfect to wear for work, or to wear to Schillterbahn like I did over the summer on vacation. It's very much a beachy and fun color to me.

From L to R:  [all Sinful colors unless noted] Pink Forever, Glass Pink, Cream Pink, Mermaid to Order [Sephora], I Miss You, and Out of This World

You can see evidence from the Great Nailpolish Explosion of 2012 in this picture.

Pink Forever is a light pink color. It's a fun color, I've worn it before.

Glass Pink is a shimmery and sparkly pink. You can't really see it in this picture, but it's a very pale pink color with pale glitter in it. It's one of my favorite winter colors because it's light enough and sparkly enough that it sort of reminds me of snow.

Cream Pink is neon pink. It's a perfect fun and neon color. I wear this one a lot.

Mermaid to Order is from Sephora. It's a turquoise color that's more green than blue and sort of reminds you of water. I like it because it brings out my eyes. I don't wear it as much as I used to, but it was always one of my go to fun colors.

I Miss You is purple glitter. It's another one of those colors that I like to pair with another color, usually a neutral gray or a black color and highlight a nail or two with the glitter. It is a pain, however, to get off your fingers, so I recommend an undercoat of some sort. It makes removal, a lot easier.

Out of This World is a silver glitter color. I like it, but it does go on pale, so I tend to need 2-3 coats for the color to show, but it's a perfect winter color because it's a shimmery white gray, and I love glittery and silver polish.

from L to R [all sinful colors unless noted] Under 18, Run with It! [Sephora], 24/7, Secret Admirer, Forget Now, and Frenzy.

Under 18 is one of the only red nailpolish colors I like. It's a shimmery red, so it's red with red glitter in it, it's not an over the top red, like other polishes. It's one of my favorite colors to wear around Christmas because it is glittery.

Run with It! by Sephora is okay. The nailpolish, itself, is very thin, so it takes a lot of coats to actually get the color to show, there are much better silver polishes, for half the price.

24/7 is another neon pink color, but it's a pastel neon pink color.

Secret Admirer is one of my favorite black colors. It's a black color, but it has silver glitter in it, it's almost like oil slick eyeliner by Urban Decay in nailpolish form and I love it.

Forget now is a shimmery dark pink color. It's really pretty. It's like a deep pink and it shimmers and has glitter, it's one of my favorite nailpolish colors.

Frenzy I bought just because it reminds me of the Cheshire Cat's colors from Disney's Alice in Wonderland because it's purple, pink, and blue glitter. It's a really fun color, but it takes a lot of coats for the color to actually stay on your nails, and then once you get it on your nails, it's fragile and it smears and comes off easily.

from L to R [all sinful colors] Bali Mist, Tapping Nails, San Francisco, You Just Wait, Let's Talk, and Big Daddy.

Bali Mist is a pretty light purple pink color. I like it, it gets worn.

Tapping Nails is usually my go-to Thanksgiving color.  It's a dark shimmery orange with yellow glitter, and it's one of my favorite colors, and I usually don't like things that are orange due to an ex-boyfriend, who OBSESSIVELY wore an orange Old Navy Performance fleece, but I love this color.

San Francisco is just a dark green color. Nothing special, but a good shade of green for St. Patty's Day, or an occasion like that.

You Just Wait is a shimmery yellow-pink color, it's like a pale pink color with shimmers of yellow.

Let's Talk is dark royal purple.

Big Daddy is a dark neon orange color. It's a good Halloween color.

From L to R: Ocean Love Potion [Sephora], and Sinful Colors: Love Nails, Mint Apple, Purple Diamond, and HD Nails.

I'd just like to point out that Ocean Love Potion [from Sephora] and Mint Apple are the same color, only the Sephora version cost almost triple the Sinful Nails version. They're a greenish aqua color. The Sephora one is more matte, and the Sinful nails version is more shimmery, I personally like the Sinful nails version better.

Love Nails is a dark turquoise  color. It's shimmery and it's a really fun color. It's also really bright.

Purple Diamond is a glitter light purple color, but the glitter is blended into the polish, so it's not a glitter polish. It goes on very nicely, and it's a very pretty shade of purple.

HD Nails is a dark green color, but it's not as dark as San Francisco, it's probably a shade or two lighter.

from L to R: Fancy Schmancy [Sephora], O Canada [Julep], All About You [Sinful Nails], and Going Platinum & Heels of Steel [Fergie for Wet and Wild]

Fancy Schmancy is very pale silver color. It's slightly glittery. But it goes on very pale and takes a lot of layers to show on your nails. That's my big complaint about it.

O Canda is a glittery smorgasbord from Julep. The polish is like white glue with balls of gold, blue, and red glitter in the glue. It's most of a color that you would layer on top of another color and not wear alone.

All About You is gold glitter. I like to wear it on top of one of my green colors from above, so they're sort of green glittery Christmas nails and that always looks pretty awesome. Sometimes I color my nails red and green, and top them with the gold glitter. It's a fun holiday color.

Going Platnium is a great silver color for like $1.99. It's a silver sparkle polish but it's polish, not glitter, so it glides on nicely and it gives your nails a very blingy platinum look. It's really fun for holidays, especially around Christmas time.

Heels of Steel is a dark gray/black glitter polish, as well. It goes on nicely, and gives your nails a nice and sparkly look.


And that concludes my current nailpolish collection.

My earring fetish, part one:

It all started last year, when I taught first grade, I got into the habit of wearing holiday themed earrings for the holidays. I had always had a nice collection of skull earrings that I liked to frequent for Halloween, and in school, during the holidays, I got away with it, so then I decided to stock up on all holiday themed earrings. I love wearing them, and my students love them, they're always curious about what I'll be wearing for what holiday.
They're always full of cute little compliments.

This is a small sample of my Halloween earrings. I've got candy corn, a pirate Jack O'Lantern, a glittery Trick or Treat, a collection of skulls, and colorful glittery spider earrings. I seem to get the most compliments on the skull and spider earrings.

Today, in a search for Thanksgiving themed earrings, I wound up with these:

I figure they can represent Turkey Feathers, especially since I keep reading my students the story of "Timmy the Turkey", who keeps on dying his feathers different colors to try to please other animals, but he pleases nobody, than he dyes his feathers all different colors and becomes the most beautiful Turkey of them all.

And then I picked up some Christmas/winter themed earrings for the upcoming month.

Most of them are dangly and glitter, and they were buy one and get some 50% off :) I can't wait to wear them because I know my students will love them. We've got Santa, stockings, snowflakes, and snowmen :)

I also picked these up:

because Gummy Bears are Legit.

And holiday scented "Happy Chappy" to bribe my students with, who can resist? We've got Caramel Apple, Gingerbread, Xmas Cookie, Candy Cane, Spearmint, and Hot Apple Cider.

I JUST LOVE HOLIDAY EARRINGS!

I just buy them mostly at Claires, they're pretty cheap there, they're the most over the top ones, which I like, also glittery. They usually have pretty good deals too... like buy one, get another 50% off, or buy two earrings get one free. But I've seen holiday themed earrings at Walgreens, where I got my Christmas Tree and Penguin earrings, I've spotted them at Walmart, and Target, so they're everywhere :)

And they sort of make teaching more fun, for both me and the students :)

Happy Chappy

I did say this was a teaching and glitter blog, right?

Let me introduce you to the best frakkin thing I've ever done in pre-k, and yes it sort of involves makeup.

This is Happy Chappy, I saw this at a training, this year, so I can't exactly take credit for its discovery, but it's amazing!

Every time my pre-k students behave themselves, whether it's at workstations or at circle time, I take one of the Bonnie Bell lip smacker flavors, dot it on their hand, and say they made me happy and this is "happy chappy."

They love it. They sniff it, they try to guess the flavor, and they love happy chappy so much that they want to behave, especially since they never know what flavor I'll give them.

Pre-K students are also gullible, so when I lie and say watermelon is gummy bear flavor or vanilla is cupcake flavor, they totally believe me, so even though I don't have unlimited flavors, I do have a creative imagination.

My class has crazy students, and happy chappy even works for my behavior problem children.

It's the best reward/motivation I have ever discovered.

Try it, you won't regret it, and you can get Bonnie Bell, or even any other flavored lip gloss for kids- Hello Kitty, etc- at any place really, Target, Walmart, a drug store, the supermarket, etc, and it's pretty cheap and will last you awhile since you're not exactly wearing it.

I've also discovered if I go "time to stop, hands on top", no matter what my students are doing, they'll stop it and put their hands on their head and listen to me.

And on an unrelated note, one of my students today, felt my hair, and told me "Your hair is so beautiful, it's long, and it's smooth like a baby's bottom", while I question the origin of that comment, it's another point for Deva and the wonderful things it does for my unruly crazy curly hair.