Recent Obsession: Nail Art

For awhile there I was going to the nail salon once every 2 weeks getting shellac manicures. About 2-3 months ago I decided I couldn't afford to keep doing that and stopped going. I had always been pretty horrible at painting my nails, but my need to have color on my nails forced me to try, try again. I started finding that even if I 'color outside the lines', I can fix it! I got a bottle of pure acetone and some pointy Q-tips and they do the trick. But with practice I have gotten a lot better at painting them! I got bored with solid colors and have been trying all sorts of new things. Here are some instagram photos showing my progression!

Started out simple:)

Multicolored dots using the back of a sewing pin! and cupcake toes! (I watched a youtube video on how to do it)

Left: bought a nail art brush! Right: did my friend Sharaya's nails with smaller dots (again with the back of a sewing pin)

Leopard nails!! My fave. Watched another youtube video for this.

4th of July nails! And then I did Spidey on the other hand! 

Left: black and white, stripes and dots. Right: polka dots and flowers on my friend Kathleen

My current nails! 

Wish my nails were longer. I have been taking hair/skin/nail vitamins, but haven't seen any results yet. I talked to a friend who said it took a year of taking them, but now her nails are long and strong!

Happy Monday!

Lindsey

Reunited with my twin... again!

Well I lied when I said I would write a post after going to NYC. We really didn't get that many pictures on the trip so I guess that was my excuse. Sorry! It was a fun trip though and it went by too quickly. We mostly did a lot of eating and shopping. Also I discovered an amazing licorice that I have been obsessed with ever since!

Lucky for me Kelsey is back in Iowa this weekend visiting for her birthday!! She has hair appointments all day today so I thought I would sneak in a blog post. :)

I first met up with her on Thursday at this cute little shop in Marion called The Dreaming Bear. Had to snap a pic of her by all the pretty colors in the store! After that we went to have a mini late lunch at Ramsey's. Later that night we had a birthday dinner for her at Zin's. She had the perfect cake from Jule's bakery... Champagne cake with strawberries! Then met with some other ladies for drinks later that night. She said she had a great birthday! So glad that I was able to spend it with her:)

And then I got my hair dyed again! She was totally booked up for the time she had rented out at her old salon so we did it at her mom and dad's house... Salon de la Smart!

My dark hair again! Yay!

 More to come soon!

Hope you have a happy father's day today!

<3, Lindsey

NYC! Reunited

We have been bad and haven't posted in a loong time, sorry! We've been busy. But I thought I would take a couple minutes this morning and mention that I am in New York City visiting Kelsey! More pictures to come later but here is a teaser. We had dessert after our french dinner last night and it was yummm. Best cupcakes I've ever had!

At Sweet Revenge with our friend Kathleen. 

<3, Lindsey

TGIF

Friday!! After work today I am going to get some sewing done with my awesome intern, Chelsa!


Here are some outfits from this week:)

Wednesday:

F21 blouse, black stretch pants: Zenana Outfitters found at TJ Maxx, shoes: Nine West (scored in the sale room at Von Maur for $35!).


Thursday:

This treat was waiting for me at work!

Free People lace dress (a hand-me-down from Kelsey!) worn with a black satin slip underneath, Betsey Johnson Tights(I love these!!! Spent a little more than I should have on these, and sadly they have already ripped at the foot, but don't worry I sealed the run with some glittery nail polish.) , Betsey bow earrings, and Black patent heels that you can't see haha.

Don't know what I'm wearing today yet, but I should probably figure that out ASAP! Time to go to work:)

Lindsey

Wanted to update to show you my nails! My intern and I went to the fabric store then instead of sewing we got our nails done then had orange leaf! mmm!

Missing my fake twin!

Even though I hear from her daily, I still miss my faux twin, Kels. Here are some cute twin pics from a night when we were asked to be tweedle dee and tweedle dum(or tweedley deedley dee since neither of us wanted to be the 'dum' twin!) for an Alice in Wonderland photoshoot. I think the waitress at Leo's might've been confused why we were dressed the same... and why we were wearing such crazy eyelashes!

Our awesome eye make-up was done by the fabulous Patrick Boltinghouse of VG Cosmetics

 

This picture makes me laugh. It's like where's waldo(s).

 

Dressing up like this reminded me of how it was so cool (or so I thought) to dress up as a twin with someone in middle school. I think we even had set twin days. Did any of you ever do this?
<3, Lindsey

SomeHAIR over the Rainbow!

It's everywhere...Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Glamour magazine, Urban Outfitters and Free People catalogs, the spring fashion runways...

the RAINBOW HAIR trend! 

Colorful twin hair!

And I LOVE IT! I consider "rainbow" hair to be one of my areas of expertise. Check out my portfolio on www.kelseysmart.com and you'll see what I mean. I've been rocking rainbow hair myself pretty consistently since St. Patty's day 2010...I started with a little green and added some purple (so I wouldn't look like a freak after the holiday was over), pretty soon I was asking my fellow stylists to bleach out entire sections of my hair so we could add more blue, copper, yellow, hot pink...and maybe some raspberry pink, purple, blue-violet or lime green while we're at it...You name it, I've probably had it on my hair at some point. There was a point when I got more comments from little girls than anyone else, so I decided to dial it back a bit. Haha. This winter, I returned to a solid dark brown color to give my kaleidoscope hair a break from the bleach and schizophrenia. (For the record, it was always nicely mixed in with a natural base color, so I didn't look like a Hot Topic employee.)

SoCap's keratin bond

Now that spring has rolled around again, and especially since I've been seeing tons of colorful hair trend alerts, I was starting to miss my rainbow hair! Gemini14 doesn't carry my favorite products for rainbow hair (I'm going to have to see what I can do about that!), but they do have quite the selection of hair extensions! Which is also great option for those of you who want to avoid bleaching your hair to smithereens trying to get the perfect light pink. Lucky for me, one of my favorite coworkers, Naomi Porto, offered to put the extensions in for me after I ordered the hair from SoCap (quality hair, great selection). They're surprisingly comfortable and easy to style, unlike other extensions I've had. They'll stay in my hair until they grow out enough where I want them removed. 

The key to this trend is not to over-do it, but not to under-do it either. Too much looks cheap and inappropriate on a full-grown woman...we don't want to evoke memories of your punk phase in high school. Too little looks like you can't commit...a statement color is meant to be just that! Let it stand out! Go big or go home, as they say. Another thing to keep in mind is the placement. It's not a natural color, so it shouldn't be placed as you'd normally put, say, blonde highlights...it's going to look "off" if you do that. It needs to be a "pop" of color...on the ends (that ombre look that's so of-the-moment), peeking out of your bangs or underneath your hair. I like to use more than one color, and preferably three for a good mix of contrast and coordination. I have purple, raspberry and dark brown in my hair. I just fell in love with a lilac swatch at the salon, so I’ll be saving my tip money to add those!

Yay, spring!

This is how my hair is now with the extensions.
I love how it melts into my natural hair.
It's great to have some color in there again! Thanks, Naomi!

Some of my fun hair with feathers, colored extensions and "rainbowed" natural hair.
This was for a review I wrote for BehindTheChair.com about the Marilyn Teasing Brush!

St. Patty's Day 2011
Photoshoot for Skimpily Clawd's fabulous green dress!



****Edit by Linz****

 More rainbow hair! This is all Kelsey's work of course:)

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I Rock a lot of Polka Dots..

 

Top: old navy; Skirt: from Francesca's boutique; Pumps: Steve Madden

Outfit! I was shopping last weekend and finally found the perfect outfit to wear with my navy blue pumps! Saw this skirt at a Francesca's boutique and fell in love with the asymmetrical hem. I am not normally a fan of asymmetry when it comes to things like one shoulder tops or anything involving a right vs left side, but I love the front/back asymmetry! I found the burnt orange top on sale at old navy and it really pulled the outfit together. The back of the top that you can't see is a lot lower than the front. I really enjoyed the combo of this skirt and top being high in the front, low in the back.

facebook.com/skimpilyclawd

New dress! I finished making this last week for a friend of mine's little sister. He bought a gift certificate from me to give her for Christmas and she cashed it in for this custom made piece. She is currently in France for a high school trip, lucky girl! Hope she hands out my business card to some Frenchies! ;) I had a lot of fun making this dress. I made a detachable purple tulle petticoat so she can choose to wear it and make it poof or just wear the dress as is with another accent color (like red!). I also really love how the ruffled collar turned out with the white peaking out from underneath. I haven't decided if I will make another one of these but I definitely want to use more of this fabric (it's even stretch!).

Skimpily Clawd Gift Certificates. I owe these to my amazing graphic designer... Amanda Hudson

Lindsey


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