Look for Color Club's New Alter Ego Collection

Woo! I'm so excited! I got a press release today announcing Color Club's new Alter Ego collection, a collection of fourteen shades that include sheers and opaques that look like they could be a lot of layering fun. Let's look at the press release, shall we?
 

Color Club lets you create high-fashion looks for every identity with Alter Ego, their latest collection of diverse, long-lasting lacquers!


Alter Ego’s consists of 12 shades! Go incognito with our opaque shades or rendezvous in full view with our sheers of Alter Ego ‘LIGHTS’ and ‘DARKS’!

 

Alter Ego’s ‘Reveal Your Mystery Collection’ 7 piece salon pack includes Get a Clue, Revealed, Incognito, Secret Rendezvous, Sheer Disguise, and Give Me a Hint shades plus Milky White Base Coat.

Their ‘Keep It Undercover Collection’ 7 piece salon pack includes Alter Ego, Secret Agent, Total Mystery, Alias, Ulterior Motive and Masquerading plus Vivid Top Coat.

So tell me, what do you think about this collection. Are you excited? What shades look interesting to you?

Images courtesy of the manufacturer or their PR firm.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Heart of Haiti- Rwandan Women Build Their Futures

I know my blog is usually pretty upbeat and silly, and I love to make myself the butt of the jokes. But tonight, I want to write about something a bit more special. I'd like to turn your attention to the Heart of Haiti collection at Macy's. If you've been reading this blog for very long at all, you'll know that I absolutely love color. Instead of painting my walls with vivid colors, I love having warm neutral walls to serve as the backdrop for colorful pieces- pillows, art for the walls, cute whatevers to display on shelves and mantles. I am all about color!

"Ok, Laynie, what's that got to do with Haiti?" I know you're wondering. Well, something happened a year ago that you might have heard about- an earthquake. I think y'all probably know what happened and why it was a bad thing, so I'll try not to get too sappy on ya. We're coming up on the one year anniversary of that earthquake, so I know you won't have a problem finding the details if you look.

Instead, I want to share with you the Heart of Haiti, a selection of handcrafted items made by the people of Haiti. Every piece you buy puts money into their pockets, helping them support themselves using their traditional crafts.  It's a win-win situation, because you're helping people who need it, and you get something beautiful for your home!

Let's look at some of my favorite items from the collection. For instance, this potholder and oven mitt. I love the vivid blues in them, and if you click the picture, you can actually see a name stitched into the top of the oven mitt! I love the idea of having a bit of someone's personality showing through in the piece. I'm not sure why, even, it just feels like there's a bit of connection between the person who brought this piece into existence and me, the person using it. It just makes me happy. :D

Then there's this bowl. Do you love this bowl?? Because I do! I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this bowl! It's so bright, so cheerful, so fun! I want to pile it with fruit- apples and oranges and bananas, so that it can sit on my table and make me smile when I walk past! Or maybe I could find a use for it in my crafting area- put pretty supplies into it so they can be both useful and decorative! It's 8" x 5", so it's not giant, and it's only $16! I'm in love. There's also a watermelon bowl if that's more your style, but I can't get enough of that gorgeous yellow.

Finally, I have to share this candle holder with you. I know, it's not colorful. What can I say, I also like metal! Seriously, though, I love how organic this piece looks. I love the coral motif and the way the artist has used that motif to wrap around the candle. It's just very pleasing to my eye, and I'd love to have this in my home! I can imagine it lit, casting shadows on my table and wall...

Oh, sorry. I got lost in a happy daydream!¹  Whatever. Just go look at the stuff in the Macy's Heart of Haiti collection, and if you see something you like grab it. You'll be doing a bit of good for people who really need it.

¹  Wait, it's night, but I'm not asleep. Does that make it a night dream? Just a dream dream? Heck, I don't know.

I was selected for this very special “CleverHaiti” opportunity by Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity. All opinions are my own.

Wordles are fun...

I've been having such a fun time the last few days. I'm half sick again, and I'm blaming it on the weather. But I'm goofing off with craft supplies which always makes me happy. I haven't painted my nails in *gasp* a whole week! They're filed down to nubbins, and got totally destroyed with a bad experience with stick-on nails, but that's a story for another day. In the meantime, I'm having loads of fun crafting! But first, let me show you what this morning's web wanderings have inspired...

Get a FREE Model's Own Makeup Kit!

Hey y'all, are you into the Model's Own brand? Now's your chance to get a FREE makeup kit! Models Own, News of the World, and Fabulous Magazine have teamed up to give you a New Year's offer worth £24!

"That's great, Laynie, but how do I get it?" Easy... all you have to do is collect TWO tokens. One token will be available each week in the print edition of Fabulous (free in News of the Week) for three weeks only. Once you've gotten your two tokens, simply take them to a participating Tesco and get your freek makeup kit!

You'll receive liquid eyeliner, tweezers, an eyelash curler, mascara and eyeshadow, all in a cute make-up bag! Not a bad deal, don't you think? Once again, I wish I were in the UK! You can read more about it here!

BB Couture- Manbug

I love Twitter. I really do... I've met so many wonderful people over it, and I've even gotten to interact with some of my favorite celebrities through it. But I think one of the things I enjoy most are the late-night twitter giveaways.

See, lots of people are using Twitter as a marketing tool. So, at random times they'll host a giveaway where if people reply over twitter, they'll win a prize. It's loads of fun and gets you interacting with people. Plus hey, you win stuff!

As an example, I was online one night and the owner of Overall Beauty came on with a twitter contest. She asked if she said she had a manbug in her hand, what was she talking about? Since I had nail polish on the brain, I asked if it would mean she had a BB Couture nail polish, and sure enough I was right! A few days later, a cute little package arrived at my house complete with 2 eyeshadow samples, a business card, and a lovely handwritten card! I've still got the card hanging on my bulletin board!

So, since I've got the time now, I wanted to show you Manbug in all its beauty. I think it makes more of an effective layering polish because I can't stand visible nail line. This first swatch shows how it looks over both white nail polish and black polish. The sparkles show up more dramatically over the black, but it's still lovely over white.

I also put this polish over some artificial nails with a french manicure. This didn't work so well... the polish applies beautifully, but it's just so intensely sheer. I'm not terribly fond sheer sheers, and wound up putting on either 4 or 5 coats of Manbug. Even so, I still had visible nail line! =/

But it is one gorgeous sheer polish. I love the softness of the color, and while at first I was sure it would look horrible on me, I was actually kind of surprised to see it looked ok.

Unfortunately, it's not a polish you can stamp with. It's so sheer it's like trying to stamp with air! You can see on the stample that there's just a hint of color that shows.

So overall, I'm looking forward to trying more BB Couture polishes, but Manbug isn't one I'll be wearing often, unless I can figure out a cool layered recipe for it.

What do you think- is Manbug a keeper?

Today is the last day for the Zoya 3 Free promotion!

Have you gotten your three free¹ nail polishes from Zoya? I've been an absolutely horrible blogger and forgotten to post about this promotion. I'll have to find a way to do penance, and I hope you guys will forgive me.

But there's still time! Just go to the Zoya website and pick out your three polishes. Then once you go to checkout, enter FB2011 as your special code. Then pay your shipping and your order will be sent to you, it's as easy as that!

One thing to keep in mind... this has been an absolutely HUGE promotion, and people are clogging the site 24 hours a day. It may be a while for your order confirmation to come through. Please be patient, they're working as fast as they can, but as I'm sure you can imagine, they're absolutely swamped with orders. Also in the be patient category- shipping might take a bit longer than usual, since they're having to send out so many orders. They'll get there. :D

So scoot on over to Zoya and pick out your three polishes! Leave a comment telling me which colors you got...I'd love to know!

Til next time!

¹ The polishes are free, but you do have to pay for the shipping. 

Everyone I've heard from has paid just under $7 US for shipping. 

Your costs may vary.

I wish I had an evil monkey sidekick. He could keep my files neat

and edit my photos for me. Monkeys are cool like that.

.

I Was Chosen As Blog of the Day!

I'm so excited to share this! I was contacted by Simone of L'Onglex recently, and she asked if she could interview me. Turns out I was chosen as their Blog of the Day! Go show them some love, and share the happy! Plus, you get to learn a bit more about me, including about my worst beauty disasters! If you ask nicely enough, I might even be persuaded to post the picture of the one. :D

Go on... go read my interview at the L'Onglex blog!

No monkeys were harmed in the making of this blog post.

The same cannot necessarily be said about brain cells.