Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Here, Kitty Kitty...

(Please excuse the non-manicured nails. I have recently taken up biting them...again.)
Animal prints have never really been a staple of my closet. (Other than zebra print, which I absolutely adore!) I've never understood the need for a crocodile skin bag or a pair of ponyhair shoes. But, just like the trends, I change my mind a lot. I've decided that although I won't be buying a cheetah print shirt or pants anytime soon, I did want to be involved in the trend. Hence the cheetah spots on my fingernails! I was inspired by Lauren Conrad. If you want to see her much more manicured style, click here. It was actually very easy and didn't take much time at all! The steps to having kitty claws are as follows:
1. Use nail polish remover to take away any leftover nail polish or other grime. I like to use something that strengths my brittle nails.
2. Use a nail buffer. This helps the nail polish go on easier, and if like me, you're going to use a transparent base color, helps your nails look more polished. (Pardon the pun!)
3. Use a sheer pink nail polish color as your base. I used Sally Hansen's Hard As Nails Sheer French Color.
4. With a nail polish pen, paint circles on your nails. They don't (and shouldn't) have to be perfect, because you can cover up any mistakes with the black. I used gold, but you could also use white or brown.
5. Trace half of the circle with a sloppy line using a black nail polish pen.
6. Slick on one layer of top coat, preferably with sun protection in it, so your beautiful spots don't fade!
And just like that, you have an on trend statement piece that cost you less than $10!

Look Book

I have officially been featured in my first fashion article. Okay, so it may have been my high school yearbook, but that's almost as good as Vogue, right? This was in the "Personal Style" section, along with about 8 other people. I was very honored to have been chosen, since my style hasn't been very unique until the end of my junior year. Every year that goes by seems to give me more and more inspiration for why I should dress better than I used to. I have realized that when you dress better, you take on life is kicked up a notch. People take you more seriously, you are more likely to be productive (which is a big problem in my life). Because I've moved on to college now I've realized that you can't start math homework at 11:30pm when it's due at 11:59pm. I've also learned to understand that my hair, makeup and outfit don't have to be absolutely perfect everyday. My morning ritual is to wake up, check out the latest posts on all my favorite fashion blogs (featured on the right side of the page!) and see if I get any inspiration. If not, I look through my own personal look book. My look book is a collection of hundreds of pictures cut from magazines dating from 2006. Although the beginning part of my look book is filled with tube tops, stretchy skirts and sequined purses, it still inspires me. I love looking to see how my style has evolved over the years. If you haven't made something like this for yourself already, I would highly recommend it. Not only is it a good reminder of where fashion trends evolved from, but it is also a way to cut down on the clutter of endless fashion magazines. I started my look book because I had too many magazines, and although I loved them all, some of them only had one or two good pages. So, I ripped out pages or cut out outfits I liked and suddenly I had an evolving fashion magazine of my own! All you need to do this is a 2 or 3 inch binder, depending on how much stuff you're planning on putting in it, a 3 hole punch for pages out of magazines, blank pieces of paper to glue small cut-outs on, fashion magazines, gluesticks and your imagination! Because you aren't following any rules as how to make this look book, it can become anything you want it to be. Happy look booking!