Fab Lust

Fab.com is probably one of my bigger eye candy websites. They have way too many things I <3. Lately they've managed to come up with a giant amount of stuff that I'm lusting after, which is hard because I do not have too much cash to spend on too many things, not to mention that I am trying to lose weight, so I can't really invest in much clothing at the moment, and I'm moving, so I can't really accumulate too much stuff without feeling super terrible. Nonetheless, the website is great, and even if you are like me, feel free to drool. I've also included a referral link at the bottom that gets you a 25 dollar discount off of your first purchase at the site, and gives me 25 dollars in credit if you do make a purchase (no extra cost to you ofcourse). Without further ado, here is some of the jewelry I am lusting after at the moment:

My Geeky Jewelry <3's

Tiny Camera Necklace by VERAMEAT

Its a tiny vintage camera! How could anyone not love this forever and ever? I must have it. Someday.

Full Moon necklace by Nervous System

I love Nervous System jewelry in general because its uber cool. They do 3d printed jewelry that replicates the shapes and textures of natural phenomena, which tickles all of my science bones. Lovelovelove.

2-layer Twist Ring by Nervous System

3d printed, bright pink (have I mentioned that pink is my favorite? I know, how hopelessly girly, whatever, I am a computer scientist as well, so I think I do a good job with killing gender stereotypes normally), and based on the physical texture and structure of coral?? Too much cool. Too much. 

Cellular Earrings by Nervous System

For those of you who don't like bright neon pink accessories for some reason, but still have a healthy appreciation for organic shapes and textures in your jewelry, science, and 3d printing. 

Deco Earrings in Dark Blue by Summerized

These are not diamonds. 

Discounts for you:

Ok, so if you click and sign up here, you can get 25 dollars off your first purchase of 75 dollars or more (ie, the optimal thing to do is to get something that is roughly 75 bucks for 50 bucks), and I get 25 dollars of credit too! Wins all around. One more time for clarity:

Click this to sign up and save 25 dollars off of your first 75+ dollar purchase at Fab! 

What do you guys think of these? I love fun jewelry. It is an unfortunate addiction. What are your current lusts? Any other geeky science jewelry fans? 

Bright Braided Vintage Sari Bracelets

Greensewn Bracelet Trio

I received these bracelets as a present recently, and am madly in love with them. I actually own a few sets of them (I think I own 12 bracelets in total) in various colors. These are by far the brightest of the bunch. I love these bracelets because they can be stacked, or worn alone, and in both situations, look amazing. They're made with quality materials, and are eco-friendly. I got mine (as did the friend who gave me the extras) when they were on double sale (at fab.com, initially at 15% off, and then they were another 20% off because fab itself was having a sale.) Fab sells a ton of stuff I adore, you can sign up here for free, and get lots of artistic and funky things at a discount, though I actually wait for holiday sales, yay black friday is coming. They carry lots of brands that I haven't actually found on sale anywhere else, and I adore a ton of the things they've got there, from stationary, to jewelry, etc.

In terms of style, I've realized that overall, I prefer to have a relatively neutral palette for clothing, blacks, navies, nudes, peaches, and then to accessorize with interesting and more decorative objects of interest, like these bracelets, a cute purse, cool nails, etc. Part of why I do this has to do with the fact that I feel self conscious about my weight, and do not wish to draw attention to it, and accessories almost always draw the eye away from my ginormous belly and chest. Another aspect is that as a petite woman, I can't really wear giant prints without having it visually overpower my appearance for the day, which is kind of a bummer. I think that one of the things I'm looking forward to the most as I lose weight is becoming a little more confident about wearing prints and brighter colors. I like these bracelets because the dreary winter is helped a lot for me when I see a pop of color. Sometimes it feels like everyone joins in with the dreary winter with their giant black coats, its like a funeral for all of the plants or something (how hippie-ish of me to say that). The tiny pop of color on my wrist helps remind me that spring is going to come soon, and to hold out for that, and maybe eat less donuts.

What about you guys? How do you deal with bright colors in the winter? Do you feel like prints or bright colors are scary in terms of drawing attention to yourself, work appropriateness, and weight?

Pointy Red Shoes - Feelings, and thoughts/ Review on Madewell French Knot Pointy Skimmers

Madewell French Knot Pointy Skimmer in Blood Orange

So, in order to deal with my feelings, since my go to method of eating about a barrel of cupcakes isn't really an option, I decided to wear red shoes. I adore Madewell French Knot Pointy Skimmers because they are pointy and have a bow and are flats with a rubber sole. Its basically really awesome. Red shoes make me feel powerful and strong and like I'm stylish on the days when I'm depressed because usually on those days I accidentally walk out the door wearing 100% black or navy, and red makes it look like that was intentional so that my body could be a canvas for my stylish taste in shoes. Those skimmers are on clearance sale too, so they're like half the price they normally are, and maybe people should buy them.

I put a of thought into purchases, since I am not exactly ludicrously wealthy. I fell in love with these red shoes, and basically, I think they are classics that will never go out of style. They are made of leather, save for the rubber soles, but I am taking them to a cobbler as soon as I can to get an extra layer of sole put on underneath the shoe's soles (most people do this for very expensive shoes like louboutins, but I believe in doing this for any pair of shoes you really love, because it makes them last much much longer, and the cost of the service is under 20 dollars - given that these shoes ended up costing me about 48 dollars (originally they were about 95, but they were marked down by first 30%, and then I got a 15% student discount at Madewell in-store), that is ok with me. I also paused a little before purchasing them because they are suede, but I do have a suede care kit (they seem to run around 15 bucks, and then you can treat and protect all your suede forever, which is imo worth it) that includes a waterproofing spray you can treat the leather with, and things like that really help prevent staining the material, and keeping it looking nice. Overall, the skimmers are extremely comfortable, and I'm very very happy with the purchase. I highly recommend grabbing a pair of skimmers, they're so classic, and I love them. I will admit that since there were a few sales, afterwards, I also snagged some black and brown skimmers, and now I am basically done with shoe shopping for a few months. In all fairness, I really wanted some black and brown shoes for interviews/starting to work after graduation in a few months, and I think these will be both comfortable and formal enough to be appropriate for walking to work and making it through the workday!

Ok, enough talk for now. I'm going to go take more pictures of my shoes matching fall leaves.

Love Letter Nails - Sally Hansen Salon Effects Review (Spoiler: They're awesome)

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Manicure in "Love Letter"

So last week, I ran into Danielle at CVS while running some errands, and we ended up meandering over to the nail section. I hadn't done my nails in a really, really long time (specifically, since December, while being a bridesmaid at a friend's wedding). I happened upon these nail strips and thought they might be fun to give a try. They were really great.

Review:

I think these are awesome. They took about 20 minutes to apply, stayed chip free for about a week, and since I have small hands, the cost (10 dollars for a box, but I have smaller nails and ended up discovering 1 box = 2 full manicures for me) is actually great, given that getting a salon manicure takes a lot longer including transport, costs about 15 bucks including the tip, and lasts for about the same amount of time chip free on my fingers. Also, they look cool! I've gotten compliments literally every single day I've had these on!

Everything else:

This was a photo from the day after I did these nails. I am really impressed and this is awesome. As a computer scientist, I type around 12 hours a day on average, and my nails take a beating, so I don't bother polishing my nails because the combination of me being a perfectionist with chipped nails is a super super bad thing. I also just have like no patience, so it drives me sort of insane if I have to wait for my nails to dry because I COULD BE DOING STUFF, so I think I fell more in love with these nail strips because they have no drying time. Also I'm a typography freak so this was cool.

I don't think of myself as a nail art person at all. I use my hands a ton, and am generally sort of fidgety, so I don't think I have the patience for the most part, not to mention that I type a lot and play the piano and knit, so I just assume the nails will get messed up very quickly and gave up early on. However, when I did this manicure, it was completed watching a Legend of Korra episode (EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH IT) and at the end I just felt so...pretty and polished. It actually inspired me to care more about my appearance for the rest of the week, because I had such pretty nails, and I wanted the rest of me to be pretty too! I actually sort of forgot what it feels like to have any part of me be pretty for a while.

This particular nail experiment also sparked an interesting memory that I'd kind of forgotten about. While I am not normally into nail art, I was extremely fascinated by the Klutz books as a kid - books that would come with small kits of materials for art projects, and then have project instructions inside. I ended up recalling this book:

Every time I went to the bookstore for about 2 years, I would stare wistfully as a kid at this book, fully knowing that there was no way in hell anyone would ever get it for me. Its actually still sold on amazon (I know! I know!!) but I am a little less enchanted by turning my nails into ladybugs. I might still do it, on principal though. Still, good times. It was incredibly exciting to remember this, look it up on the internet, and suddenly realize that I am an adult and if I want that book, I can have it. Yep. Thats what I pushed myself through college for - the ability to buy the book of my 8 year old self's dreams and have it delivered to my door, no extra charge.

Speaking of the internet, now that I'm excited about it, I went ahead and while the cost is ok, I was curious as to whether this could be cheaper. Answer: IT CAN. These are also sold on amazon at various much cheaper prices, and even cheaper on ebay! Ebay is also neat because you can get past limited edition patterns/prints that aren't sold in stores. I got excited and grabbed these shades at about 3-5 bucks a pop:

Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Shiny New Year

Pink and Gold Glitter? Whaaaat? Yeah. I could not resist. I guarantee this will not be limited to holidays.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Di-Vine

Gold and Black and Flowers!!

You may notice as I continue to blog that my style tastes have some unfortunate addictions built in. Namely, basically all of my favorite clothes and accessories and makeup products are some combination of Gold, Black, and varying shades of Pink and Peach, Red, and Beige. This is mostly because I look good in these colors, and generally feel like its harder to pull off a lot of colors that are offered in the US since I have darker skin (approximately Jessica Alba colored), but I am aware that I should branch out, which is why I branched super super far out into a very adventurous monochromatic navy blue t shirt recently, but that discussion is probably best saved for another post. Regardless, I am pretty excited that my nails get to look like that instead of me having to painstakingly paint them gold and then have it ruined within 15 minutes after I've forgotten my nails are wet and started peeling an orange.

Other shades/patterns I've got my eye on and/or super like and may be trying out are:

Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Girl Flower

I adore flowers. Incoco Nail strips actually offers a few gorgeous floral patterns, which I plan to try soon as well. This design actually sort of matches the cover on one of my favorite notebooks.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Bold Rush

Gold, Glitter, and some Purple. I'm a little worried that these will be harder to remove, but I guess glitter always is, and its so fun, and its Ombre! Look at that gradient guys! My love affair with Photoshop never ends.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Lustrous

More black and gold. In fact, probably I'll just give all of the black and gold ones a shot:

Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Frock Star, Laced Up, Misbehaved, and Glitz Blitz

Ok, I think thats just about everything I have to say about these for now, I'll probably instagram/blog pictures of my nails the weeks I do these.

Overall, I'm looking forward to being excited about having pretty hands/nails, and am mostly trying to figure out which patterns I like look professional and pretty since I want to do well on my interviews, but not have my hands be distracting during them. We'll see. Might just go with something more tame like the gold with black netting in Misbehaved for that. I think in general, as small as it seems, these have been a huge step for me in terms of doing something that has been positive and encouraging for my body image, while not necessarily being too jarring or overwhelming or noticeable to others, which I think is pretty much what you want in the beginning.

What do you guys think? Are you going to give any of these a shot?