Cranberry Smashed and Tiffany’s Nails

Hey y’all! I hope everyone had a great week. I know I’m glad it’s almost the weekend!  My Drink of the Week (I guess I should change it to Weekend) is called a Cranberry Smashed – it’s a twist on the regular vodka-cranberry.

You’ll Need:

·         Vodka

·         Cranberry Juice

·         Ginger Ale

·         Ice

Make It!

(Pretty self-explanatory guys…I shouldn’t need to say, but here ya go!) Put the ice in the cup, add the vodka (a few glugs – you be the judge), then fill the rest of the cup with ½ cranberry and ½ ginger ale. 

I like this drink because the ginger ale tones down the sour of the cranberry…and I just like fizzy drinks! :)

Tiffany’s Nails

First I applied the Seche Clear basecoat (pictured in my previous “Weekend Haul” post) because I will be putting glitter polish on (which, as you may already know, is incredibly hard to remove).  I heard it was the best basecoat and that you can practically peel the glitter off when you’re ready to take it off – we shall see!

After that was dry, I applied two coats of China Glaze For Audrey.  I hadn’t planned on doing anything special with this manicure, I was just going to leave them plain since I did the nail art last week….but I got a crazyyyy idea.  This stuff looks JUST like a Tiffany’s box! So, what else would I do but add some silver sparkle (Essie Shine Of The Times) and a little white bow stamp?  It just made sense guys! :)  After everything, I finished it off with a topcoat so the bow stamp would last longer.

Two Coats China Glaze For Audrey

Two Coats China Glaze For Audrey, Konad Bow Stamp,
and One Coat Essie Set In Stones

Close Up - kinda blurry - sorry!

Now, as freakin amazeballs as they look, I am NOT happy with this China Glaze polish…AT ALL!!  It was so gloopy and thick.  It took F O R E V E R to completely dry before I could stamp the bows and put the glitter coat on.  It got a million bubbles once it did finally dry, so my nails are all bumpy (most annoying thing ever!  I’m really OCD about bumps/bubbles/smudges/chips etc.).  Speaking of chips, two of my nails chipped the next day.  I have never had polish chip on me that fast.  Maybe it was the Seche basecoat, because I really did peel half of my thumbnail’s polish off.  I will give it another try because I’m seriously in love with this color, but if it does the same thing again, I’m going to be really disappointed.  This was my first time using China Glaze (as a “regular” polish – I have the crackle stuff, which honestly has the best crackle effect I’ve found so far), so it was a double bummer for me.  Maybe I just got a bad bottle…who knows?? :(

TELL ME!  Did you try my drink? How was it?  What are your thoughts on China Glaze polishes?

The Classics: A Spicy Bloody Mary and Cheetah Print (or Leopard, if you prefer)

For my first post, I’d like to start out with one of my all-time favorites – a Bloody Mary. My first taste of one was about a year ago while on vacation in Georgia with my aunt (YES I still remember because it was THAT good). This is not the same recipe, but it’s still effin good! I find it weird that I like them so much because I have such a strong aversion to vegetables – especially tomatoes (which are actually a fruit, but whatever)! I guess if you put enough vodka in anything I’ll consume it. :P Read on to get your veggie-packed deliciously scrumptious Drink Of The Week….

Here's how to make mine:
You'll need...

• Vodka (I just bought a huge thing of Red Cup Vodka, so that's what I'll be using in my drinks)
• "Whats-This-Here" (Worcestershire) Sauce
• Lemon Pepper Seasoning
• Frank's Red Hot Sauce
• V8 (Regular OR Spicy)
• Clamato Juice
• Lime or Lemon Juice

Now make it!
In a cup, add 3-4 glugs vodka (or pour while counting to 5), 3 shakes whats-this-here, 1 dash lemon pepper, and 3 shakes hot sauce (I exclude this if I use the spicy V8). Fill cup with ice and pour 2/3 full with V8. Fill remaining with clamato and a splash of lime or lemon. Stir up and get ready to do yo nails!! :)

I really like this Red Cup Vodka. I want to say it was $13 for a big jug (I’ll have to look up the ounce-age for ya later). I’m not an alcohol aficionado at all, so if you are a fan of Grey Goose, you miiiight not like this. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never had the Goose. Like I said, I’m keeping this semi budget friendly since nail polish comes at around $8 a bottle and I have quite the collection.

Cheetah (or Leopard) Print Nails
I started out with 3 coats of Zoya MINKA.  It's a very pretty nude color with a hint of iridescent goldish pink shimmer.  I was going to leave it as-is, but I got one too many drinks in me and decided to be adventurous! I hadn't used my Konad stamps in a while and thought the cheetah print was speaking to me.  It was a lot easier than I remembered, so I did ALL my nails with it.  After it dried, I was bored again and wanted to try out my nail pens I got for Christmas last year - and ta-daaa!! the pink and white dots were born!

I’m a huge fan of Zoya polish now. I got this one on sale at Ulta for $5 (regular $8). It would have been perfectly fine in 2 coats, but I smudged some, so I went ahead and put a third on.

Colors:
Zoya MINKA
Stamped with Nicole by OPI Razzle Dazzler
Dotted with the Pink & White Nail Pen (below)

Tools:
(Top Left) Konad Template with Cheetah Print with scraper & stamper
(Bottom Left) Close Up of Cheetah Print Template
(Right) Pink & White Nail Pen

These Konad stamp templates are the shizzz! They take some practice, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll have so much fun. You just paint the polish over the design, scrape the excess polish off, press the stamp onto the design then transfer it to your nail.

I hope you enjoy my drink and are inspired to take a walk on the wild side with your nails this week (haha that was gay - sorry!)

Upcoming:
To me, trying a bunch of drinks is fun and exciting! But who wants to buy 2,045,674 ingredients for a drink you’ll make maybe once or twice. So I’m keeping them simple with minimal ingredients – hopefully you’ll have most of them in your stash already. I have a few drinks on deck that require some ‘special’ ingredients, but I promise I’ll post more recipes in coming weeks that will have that in it too - because no one wants a half empty bottle of Midori Melon Liqueur sitting around forever.

I'd like to know: What are some of your favorite vodka drinks? Did you try mine? How was it?
PLEASE comment and give your input! I'd love to hear it! :)

Have a great weekend y'all!