Strawberry Margarita Pitcher and ZOYA “Alegra” with L’OREAL “L’Orange” Accent

Happy Weekend! What a long week! I am so ready for my vacation. I’m leaving tonight to go to my Aunt’s house and early errrallllllllyyyy Saturday morning we’re driving up to her cabin in Georgia for the Fourth of July week! I’m so excited! I’m bringing a bunch of polish to keep me and her goddaughter entertained, but I might miss next week’s post, so I apologize in advance :( This week’s drink is definitely for a crowd – perfect for a Fourth of July party? I think yes! A pitcher of Strawberry Margaritas – who wouldn’t love it?

You’ll Need:

1 (12 oz.) Can Frozen Limeade
12 oz. Champagne
8 oz. Sauza Blanco Tequila (I couldn’t find Blanco, so I used Silver)
4 oz. DeKuyper Strawberry Liqueur
12 oz. Water
Ice

Make It!

Pour limeade into pitcher.
Fill limeade can with champagne and pour into pitcher.
Then fill can 2/3 full of tequila and 1/3 full with liqueur and pour in.
Add one can of water and stir.
Serves nine.

The recipe calls for ice IN the pitcher, but if you don’t drink it fast enough, it melts and gets all watered down and that’s a big no-no. I always put the ice in my individual margarita glass. I absolutely LOVE this recipe. I love the champagne, I love the tequila, I love the strawberry. And as a bonus, you still have extra champagne left over, so you can pregame before you serve the drinks lol


ZOYA Alegra with L’OREAL L’Orange Accent
WHAT?! No patriotic nails for the 4th?! Sorry sorry sorry! I do my manis a week in advance and didn’t want to look like I don’t know how to read a calendar. I will do Red, White, and Blue while I’m in Georgia and at least TRY to have a decent post for you next weekend – no guarantees though, because service sucks up in the mountains and I don’t know if there’s WIFI. I might die! So anywho, my nails this week were inspired by my “slut dress” I bought last Friday. I went to my boss’ high school reunion pre-party and completely fell in love with this thing! It’s white, pink, and orange.


I like ZOYA, but it kind of annoys me that most of their polishes that I find have shimmer in them. This Alegra is very pretty though. It’s kind of a violet-red (imagine your old Crayola crayons) with shimmer in it. It went on perfectly in two coats and dried at a reasonable speed. Like I’ve said in my previous post with L’OREAL’s Now You Sea Me, I really love this brand. L’OREAL L’Orange is almost a jelly – it went on in two coats and I can still kind of see through it. It looks realy bright in the bottle, but darkens up a bit when dry.

Have a great weekend and a safe Fourth of July! :)

Summer Fun! Mojitos and Cotton Candy Nails

Wheeeee for the weekend!  And its OFFICIALLY summer (not technically here in Florida, cuz let’s be real – it’s ALWAYS summer here).  It was suggested that I post a mojito recipe.  What better time to give it to you than the first weekend of summer!?  Here is my friend’s recipe (thank you, Danny) and my own recipe. 

For Danny’s Cuban Mojito (he uses REAL measurements – WTF?)

You’ll Need:

•  2 oz. Light Rum (Matusalem Platino)
• 8-10 Mint Leaves
• 1 oz. Simple Syrup
• 1 oz. Fresh Lime Juice – keep the leftover lime for garnish
• 2 oz. Soda Water
• Crushed Ice

Make It!

Place mint in a glass along with simple syrup and lime juice, muddle gently.  Slice the remainder of the lime and add along with crushed ice.  Add rum and soda water.  Stir – don’t shake.  Garnish with sprig of mint.  Enjoy.

For My Extra Sweet “Gringa” Mojito

You’ll Need:

• Light Rum (I like to use Bacardi Limon or Bacardi Dragon Berry)
• 8-10 Mint Leaves
• Lime Juice
• Sprite
• Ice

Make It!

Pretty much the same as above – Muddle the mint and lime.  Add a few glugs of rum, Sprite and ice.  Stir it up, drink it up, and relax.  I don’t mess around with the garnish of mint and lime.  I usually strain the muddled leaves out anyways since I always seem to forget they’re in the glass and choke on them.  Haha =\

I’ve mentioned before, I LOVE sweet drinks.  So if you’re more traditional, you should most definitely go with Danny’s Mojito.  I was never a fan of soda water, so I always used Sprite instead.  SO GOOD GUYS!  And if you’ve never tried the Bacardi Dragon  Berry…get to a store now and buy some!  It’s strawberry flavored.  Delish.  Adds more flavor to a plain mojito.  It’s also great in Ginger Ale and Coke.  BUT you don’t have to get all fancy with the flavored rum.  Plain Bacardi works perfect too.  Or whatever you want, I don’t care.  Sorry, no picture this time because it only looks like a glass of Sprite - boring.

Fun Cotton Candy Nails

I really wanted to quit boring y’all with my blue polish obsession so I went with something more girly.  I went to the store looking for some nice bright summery colors and stumbled on this gorgeous bubblegum pink Essie that was on sale.  Duh, I had to get it!  Then I was all ohh hey look at this cutie blue too!  I couldn’t help myself and threw in a blue pedi.  So be warned: my gross toes are pictured below!! 

Two coats Essie Cascade Cool; Two coats Sinful Colors Snow Me White
Dotted with Essie Bikini So Teeny and Cool Cascade

I used two coats of Essie Cascade Cool on four nails and two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White for my accent nail.  This was a girly enough mani, but I wanted to make it even more fun.  I bought this dotting tool from Sally Beauty a month or so back and was finally brave enough to try it out.  I dotted on (took me like, four tries – SO annoying!  My hands kept shaking) Essie Bikini So Teeny and Cool Cascade in a little sort of half moon shape.  I did the same on my toes but switched the colors as seen below.  It reminded me of cotton candy, hence the post name. :)

I didn't even realize, but the Bikini So Teeny has cute little sparkles in it!

Close up

On the Toes: two coats Bikini So Teeny dotted with Cascade Cool and Snow Me White

Of course, Essie is my favorite brand, so I don’t have any complaints about how the polish went on, no chips, no bubbles, blah blah.  The Sinful Colors got some little cracks, but didn’t start to chip off until Thursday.  I didn’t even put a topcoat on. 

Have a blast this weekend y’all!

Homemade Pickle Vodka and Revlon “Royal”

Happy Weekend!! FINALLY!  I woke up on Tuesday thinking it was Thursday and was all excited that it was the almost-weekend…worst feeling ever!  I’ve actually been doing that a lot lately.  But nobody cares!  On to the good stuff!

Yes, that says “Homemade PICKLE Vodka”.  I know a lot of you (if anyone actually reads this thing) are gonna be all ew gross pickle?! but too bad!  I love pickles, I love vodka.  It’s a natural combination.  There’s this brand of vodka called Naked Jay that sells pickle flavored vodka.  I looked and looked at every liquor store I could find and NO ONE has it (not even Total Wine).  I went as far as to tweet to their account on Twitter and they informed me, sadly, that they do not sell in Florida…YET!  SO, in the meantime I had to get myself a recipe to make that shit!  I really wish I still had the website/blog whatever where I got it so I could give them a shout out, but I don’t.  So, disclaimer: this isn’t my recipe and I didn’t make it up!

You’ll Need:

• 750 mL Vodka (they recommended a higher end brand because cheap vodka may affect the end taste – I bought Smirnoff)
• 2 Cucumbers
• 6 Cloves of Garlic
• Dill (they didn't say how much so I bought a bunch in a package from Wal-Mart and used the whole bunch)
• 1 Jalapeno
• Some sort of container with a seal to keep it in (I got like a lemonade/tea pitcher with the spout thing on the bottom..?  Yeah, I don’t know what it’s called – there’s a picture so you know what I’m talking about)

Make It!

Cut up the cucumbers into ½ inch slices, peel the garlic cloves but leave them whole*, take the stems off the dill, slice the jalapeno into quarters**.  Put all ingredients in the container then pour in the vodka.  Let it sit for 3-4 days and then make yourself a damn Bloody Mary for having such patience!!

*I smashed a few of the garlic cloves a little with the back of a knife to make it more garlic-y tasting.

**If you don’t like really spicy stuff, take the seeds and junk out of the middle of the pepper – that’s where the spice comes from.  I left everything in and it’s not THAT spicy.  Don’t forget to wash your hands and not touch your eyes/face after cutting it!

Like I said, make a Bloody Mary with this (recipe on my “The Classics” post).  I don’t know what you could possibly drink pickle vodka with and I’m not about to try mixing it with anything else!  I kinda tweaked the Bloody Mary recipe because I thought the vodka would have turned spicier than it actually was. 

Here’s how I made my Pickle Bloody Mary:

Start with the Pickle Vodka, 3 dashes What’s-This-Here Sauce, Lemon Pepper Seasoning (only a little because the jalapeno adds some peppery taste).  Then fill the cup with ice, add V8 & Clamato juice, top it off with more lemon than usual.  Drank it up!

This stuff really does taste a lot like pickles guys!  I added more lemon than normal because you don’t get the vinegary bite since, duh, there’s no vinegar added in it.  Otherwise, it’s a fuckin’ liquid pickle!  Amazeballs!  I guess you can just leave it out on the counter.  That’s what I’ve been doing.  I’m pretty sure the vodka will kill any bacteria.  But, if I turn up dead in a few weeks we can blame it on me ingesting some weird pickle-vodka-mold-fungus-grossness.  I will probably move it to the fridge soon – just in case.

Looks so good!

This is that container I was talking about.

Revlon Royal

Holy blue! I’m on a blue/turquoise kick lately and WOW!  I saw this in the store and couldn’t believe that was the color in the bottle.  I thought it was wrapped in a different color plastic or something.  If you find it or have it, I think you know what I mean.  Naturally, I had to add it to my collection. 

The picture really doesn't do it justice.  You HAVE to see it in person!

I guess you could classify this as a “jelly” polish.  Forgive me, I have a nail polish blog but am totally not up on the lingo.  Holos, hex, bar, jelly, whatever guys!  It’s all nail polish!  I DO know a jelly is that kinda see-through pretty stuff that you need like, five coats to fully cover your nails – good for the jelly sammiches that I wanted to try…andeventually will. 

It’s a speed-dry polish too and it really dries super fast!  The only thing I don’t like about it is it dries matte so I HAD to put a topcoat on in.  I don’t know about y’all, but any time I put a topcoat on is always when I end up smudging, so I try to stay away from it.  Nothing wrong with mattes, but I just thought it would be shiny – and I think it looks prettier like this. 

Two Coats Revlon Royal with a Topcoat.

Wow, I'm really pale.

I used two coats of Royal and a topcoat.  By Wednesday I had a lot of chips.  I will, however, blame that on Tequila Tuesdays when my friend and I split two pitchers of margaritas and a shot of tequila each.  Got a little outta control there for a couple hours.  You know tequila, no explanations are necessary ;)

Have a great weekend y’all and tell your daddies Happy Father’s Day on Sunday!

Marshmallow Coke and L'OREAL "Now You Sea Me"

When I'm not on my random Bloody Mary kicks, I ONLY drink sweet things.  This is one of those verrrry sweet ones.  Marshmallow Coke guys!  Three letters: Y - U - M!!! I always knocked the stuff because I don't even like marshmallows, but they were giving away free samples so I couldn't pass it up.  And look at me now - I'm in love!  The brand is called "Poppin'" and the flavor is Marshmallow Puff.  I've seen other brands like Smirnoff and Pinnacle (spelling? I'm not sure...you know what I'm talking about), but this was the cheapest and I knew I liked it.  I had no idea what to mix it with at first.  The man at Total Wine (my heaven - ALLLL types of liquor everywhere!) told me to try it with Root Beer or Coke.  I tried both and Coke was my favorite.  I didn't think I could taste the marshmallow enough in the Root Beer.

You'll Need:

• Marshmallow Vodka
• Coke 
• Ice

Make It!

Come on, do you really need directions??  My only tip: I'd start out adding the vodka slowly because if you overdo it, it gets way too sweet!

You can most definitely drink this plain as a shot.  Be careful though, it sneaks up on ya! ;)

L'OREAL Now You Sea Me

First off, I'll say my Seche Clear hypothesis is correct!  I did not use it as a base coat again and I had no unusual chipping.  I'll reserve it for when I use glitters.  

No fancy designs or anything special this week, just the pretty color.  I got a lot of compliments on it.  Its a gorgeous teal color, kind of similar to Essie Turquoise and Caicos.  I drove around to four stores to find it.  Totally worth the gas!

This is my first time trying L'OREAL nail polish and I like it a lot! Okay, I actually LOVE it!  It went on in two coats perfectly.  I didn't get around to putting a top coat on and I had no chipping at all.  I painted them last Friday - its now Sunday and they look great - except where my nails are growing out, obvs! ;)  I will definitely be purchasing more of their polishes!

Two coats L'OREAL Now You Sea Me

Have a great week lovelies! :)

Giligan's Island and Summer Nails

Happy Weekend!  I'm sorry I've been slacking so bad on these posts!  Goodness.  This weekend's drink is called a Gilligan's Island.

You'll Need

• Vodka
• OJ
• Cranberry Juice
• Peach Schnapps
• Ice

Make It!

Pour some (a lot..?) vodka in a large glass.  Add half as much schnapps, then a little OJ and cranberry.  This drink was really good!  Even though I added too much OJ at first, it was really refreshing.  I love peach flavored anything so this was right up my alley.  Random side note - when it sat for a little bit, it started to taste like Snapple peach tea, so if you like that, this is similar!  I didn't bother taking a pic this time, it doesn't look like anything but a glass of OJ.

Summer Nails

I started out wanting to try a "Jelly Sandwich" (paint a see-through color as a base, then glitter, then the same color over top of the glitter so it looks "trapped"), BUT it was Memorial weekend so we went to visit my grandparents and I was too busy to finish.

F -> B: Spoiled Pet My Peacock, Confetti Blue Bombshell
Milani Yellow Whiz

One Coat of Confetti Blue Bombshell, two coats Spoiled
Pet My Peacock, and two coats Milani Yellow Whiz

 I'm really surprised how awesome these polishes were.  I'm always skeptical when I see "fast dry" polishes (the Milani was High Speed Fast Dry one coat formula)...but this stuff was great!  It really was good in one coat, but I smudged it twice so I just said EFF it and painted over instead of taking it off.  The Confetti brand wasn't advertised as fast dry, but I think it dried quicker than the Milani.

My little experiment worked - it IS the Seche Clear that makes my polish chip.  These didn't chip or peel.  I still have it on my fingers and the only chips that are there are from me peeling the glitter off when i was bored.  I'll try it out again because maybe it was the formulas for these polishes, but iiiiiii don't think so.

Enjoy your weekend y'all!  I will try my best to have the post up next Friday like usual!!