Manicure Monday: Chinese New Year Edition February 25, 2013

Saturday night was the Chinese New Year parade here in San Francisco. We were able to score a pretty sweet view from a rooftop along the parade route. The parade is one of the top ten parades in the world and the largest of it’s kind outside of Asia! It is also one of the few remaining night illuminated parades in the country. There were lots of dragons, lions, beautifully decorated floats, marching bands, martial arts groups, dancers, and of course a ton of firecrackers! Many of the groups in the parade incorporated snakes into their costumes or floats to celebrate the Year of the Snake. The finale featured the Golden Dragon, at 268 feet it is the longest dragon in the Western Hemisphere and requires more than 100 people to carry it.

On to the nails:

I used Gelish Hot Rod Red as the base color. The gold glitter is Julep Oscar and for the snake I used Nubar nail art pens in Mint, Neon Lime, Basic White and Black.

To see last year’s CNY mani click HERE.

West Coast Lion Dance Troupe

Wells Fargo turned the beloved Lombard Street into a snake. So clever!

SFPD Lion Dance Team

Giant Fortune Cookie

The 268′ Golden Dragon carried by Leung’s White Crane Dragon and Lion Dance Association.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Blog of the Year 2012 January 4, 2013

Happy Friday ya’ll! A huge thank you to Zenorah and Melissa for nominating me for the Blog of the Year 2012 Award. I’m so excited to be nominated by two of my favorite bloggers. I took a huge unintentional break from blogging this year. I’m happy to be back and receiving awards from these lovely ladies makes my return that much sweeter!

The ‘rules’ for this award are simple:

1 Select the blog(s) you think deserve the ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award

2 Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there’s no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ them with their award.

3 Please include a link back to this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award – http://thethoughtpalette.co.uk/our-awards/blog-of-the-year-2012-award/   and include these ‘rules’ in your post (please don’t alter the rules or the badges!)

4 Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the ‘rules’ with them

5 You can now also join our Facebook group – click ‘like’ on this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award Facebook group and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience

6 As a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award – and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar … and start collecting stars…

Yes – that’s right – there are stars to collect!

Unlike other awards which you can only add to your blog once – this award is different!

When you begin you will receive the ‘1 star’ award – and every time you are given the award by another blog – you can add another star!

There are a total of 6 stars to collect.

Which means that you can check out your favorite blogs – and even if they have already been given the award by someone else – you can still bestow it on them again and help them to reach the maximum 6 stars!

 

My Nominations:

I love everything about Zenorah’s blog and youtube channel. Zenorah is gorgeous and I love her name and her Trinidadian accent! Check her out for perfect swatches and informative reviews.

Melissa’s blog is one of my favorites so I’d like to nominate her as well. Melissa is a recovering nail biter so let her be an inspiration to you if you have the same problem. Check out Horrendous Color for nail related goodies and make sure you stop by her “About Me” section for the best blog naming story ever! She also has a beauty blog HERE.

I also want to nominate Judi from Middle Aged Beauty Queen. Judi is so sweet and so encouraging. After wearing the same color on her nails for 10 years she now changes her nails everyday and experiments with all colors. Judi came up with idea of Julep Januay (all julep, no repeats for all of January). Calling all Julep fans, check her out! Judi also has a youtube channel you can check out HERE.

Amy’s Vintage Closet is an awesome blog. Amy definitely deserves a nomination. I love how she combines vintage pieces with new pieces for totally stylish, totally unique outfits. And she’s rocked some pretty sweet mani’s over the past year too!

My final nomination is Tina from My Highest Self. Tina covers all kinds of topics and often has great giveaways.

Honestly I could go on and on with these nominations, I follow so many talented bloggers and all of them deserve an award. I am inspired on a regular basis by all my fellow bloggers. Cheers to 2013 everyone!

Manicure Monday: SantaCon Edition December 17, 2012

This past Saturday was SantaCon here in San Francisco. SantaCon is everyone’s chance to be Santa! Dress up as Santa or any of his merry helpers (elves, trees, reindeer, milk and cookies, etc) and spread the Christmas cheer! SantaCon originated in San Francisco in 1994 and now takes place in 37 countries and 276 cities. Ways of participating in SantaCon are passing out candy canes, giving toys to children, giving gloves/hats to homeless, having a snowball fight, etc. In general, Santa consumes many adult beverages during SantaCon and the entire city turns into a bar crawl.

Here are some pictures from the 2012 SF SantaCon:

Unfortunately the weather was cold and rainy but it was so much fun seeing red EVERYWHERE!!! Some people came up with some very creative costumes as well. Our little group was made up of a reindeer, a Christmas tree and a Santa.

I dressed as a Christmas tree for SantaCon so I decided to paint my nails with Christmas presents!

What things do you do to spread the holiday cheer?

Manicure Monday: Birthday Mani Edition December 10, 2012

My birthday festivities began with a mani/pedi at Tootsie Toes with my good friend Erika. If you are in SF I definitely recommend this place. They really take their time so I never felt like my service was rushed. They are also good with nail art. I didn’t get any nail art this time but probably will on a future visit. Of course you all know that I usually do my own nails but it’s so nice to be pampered for a change. For this visit to the nail salon I chose my go to fall/winter shade – OPI We’ll Always Have Paris.

 

We’ll Always Have Paris is from OPI’s La Collection De France from Fall 2008. It applies wonderfully and only needs two coats. We’ll Always have Paris is a deep red with purple and brown undertones. It’s one of those dark vampy reds that is nearly black but never actually looks black. I hate when colors are so dark that they appear black on the nail. Not the case with this shade.

 

 

I added Kiss Nail Dress in Bustier on my ring finger.

Kiss Nail Dress is great for adding an accent nail like I did here. You can see a full review I did on Kiss Nail Dress HERE. Bustier is probably my favorite set. As you can see it comes with a mix of patterns that mix so well together to make an awesome mani! The great thing about Kiss Nail Dress is that they are stickers. Since they are stickers they don’t dry out like the ones made from real nail polish.

 

Here’s a pic from Erika’s instagram showing our mani’s and the amazing rings we bought at a craft fair after our mani/pedi.

Photo A Day May May 13, 2012

6. You:

7. Someone That Inspires You: My Grandparents

8. A Smell you Adore: Coffee

9. Something You Do Everyday: Drink coffee

10. A Favorite Word:

11. Kitchen:

12. Something That Makes You Happy:  I need like two more of these racks because the upside down bottles aren’t very stable and I still have two more boxes of polish.

You can follow me on twitter and instagram to see these photos plus others daily! Both are @sugarmitten

 

Photo A Day April and May May 6, 2012

Sorry I’ve been a little MIA the past few days. Most of last week I had a terrible migraine and then a super busy weekend. Hopefully regular posts will continue this week!

29. Circle:

30. Something that makes you sad:

In case you missed the rest of April, you can find week 1 HERE, week 2 HERE, week 3 HERE and week 4 HERE.

And now for May’s list:

1. Peace:

2. Skyline:

3. Something You Wore:

4. Fun!

5. Bird:

I post the photo a day each day on instagram and twitter if you want to follow me on either of those (@sugarmitten).

Photo A Day April – Week 4 April 28, 2012

22. The Last Thing You Bought

23. Vegetable

24. Something You’re Grateful For

25. Looking Down

26. Black + White

27. Somewhere You Went

28. 1pm

Photo A Day April – Week 3 April 22, 2012

15. Sunset

16. Flower

17. Something You Don’t Like

18. Hair

19. Orange

20. Something You Drew

21. Bottle

Please vote for my design in Julep’s April Colors Contest by clicking on the photo below:

Photo A Day – April Week Two April 15, 2012

See week one HERE.

8. Inside Your Wallet:

9. Younger You: Me and Sis (I’m in the pink pants). This picture just makes me warm and fuzzy all over. I’m living on the opposite side of the country from my family so I don’t get to see them very often and I miss them like crazy.

10. Cold: Ice

11. Where You Ate Breakfast:

12. Stairs:

13. Something You Found: A slug in a bar.

14. How You Feel Today:

To see these photos daily follow me on

twitter @sugarmitten

or on

instagram @sugarmitten

Please vote for my design by clicking the photo below:

Thank you!!

Photo A Day – April Week One April 8, 2012

1. Your Reflection: On the underground on our way to the Castro to meet friends for Sunday brunch.

2. Color: An array of colorful veggies at a local market.

3. Mail:

4. Someone Who Makes You Happy: My BFF

5. Tiny: I was the victim of the bait and switch tactic at one of those quarter machine’s. The picture on the front of the machine showed Up characters (I was hoping for Dug) but I ended up with a tiny elephant. Cute but not Dug.

6. Lunch:

7. Shadow: