Cupcakes & Glitter - 2 of my favorite things

So, I love cupcakes.  I love glitter.  They are two of my favorite things.

I think I was subliminally influenced by them both when I got my newest mani / pedi last week...

I recently took a weekend trip and stayed at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo.  If you are not familiar with this place, take a look around their website.  It is kitschy, gaudy, over the top, strange, amazing, tacky, and I LOVE IT!  Their overnight rooms are all themed (some better than others).  Their main dining room (picture at left) is almost entirely pink (another of my favorite things).

If you show up not knowing what to expect, you are in for a BIG surprise.  If, however, you are fully informed and fully aware of what this place is like, and you aren't afraid, you are sure to love it!

For dessert, we had a piece of their pink champagne cake.  YUM!  How do they make pink chocolate, and get it into the curly ribbons?  I don't know.  I DO know that it is delicious and beautiful, and I love it.

So, I guess with cupcakes and glitter and sparkles on my mind, I selected my colors.

 

On fingers: Orly Cupcake.   This is the lightest cupcake-iest pink.  Love.

On toes: Orly Citrine Cheer under OPI Bring on the Bling.  This came out wonderfully - the Orly base coat is a light sparkly gold and the OPI glitter is mostly gold (with some other colored glitter) sparkly loveliness.  I had gold on gold a while ago, but it was a much deeper gold.  Loved that one.  Also love this one.

In keeping with the cupcake and glitter theme, I found a few other things on-line that inspired me and made my mouth water.

Cupcakes.  What's not to love?  Small, petite, gorgeous little round puffs of sugary goodness with pretty, flowery, puffy frosting.  I love all of the decorating on the cupcakes in the pictures below.  They look almost too pretty to eat.  Almost.  (I have a monster sweet tooth, if you couldn't tell...)

I found a picture of this AMAZING glittery gold tablecloth on a blog that I follow - Pretty Shiny Sparkly -  but wasn't able to find where to purchase this unique tablecloth.  I've never seen anything like it.  I found a reference to it on Polyvore, but again, no info on where to actually get it...  Boo.

Pink and sparkles.  Sparkles and pink.  A match made in heaven.

I happened upon a show on HGTV this morning - Secrets from a Stylist - where a stylist takes a couple with conflicting decorating taste and marries the 2 into an amazing room that suits both people.  The episode I saw this morning was called "Single Malt Noveau".  The girl in the couple is super girly and likes pink, gold, and sparkle.  The man in the couple likes modern, clean, manly things.  How did the stylist pull it off?  Quite wonderfully, in my opinion.  Love that she shows the audience that you can decorate with pink and have it not be overly girly and fluffy.  The final design was really beautiful - a nice compromise of styles that go together wonderfully.  Not too pink & sparkly.  Not too modern & manly.

What combination do you like?

Until next time...  Find some way to shine!

Mad for Monograms, Loony for Letters

So, I've always had a thing for monograms & letters.

I remember way back in elementary school when we did arts & crafts projects with our names.  One of my favorites was turning your name into a butterfly.  This was accomplished by taking a piece of paper & folding it in half lengthwise.  Then painting (in black) your name in cursive along the crease, then folding the paper in half so there is a mirror image of your name on the opposite side of the paper.  Then coloring in the white areas of the letters, and voila! a name butterfly.  The other of my favorites was writing your name in black on a piece of paper (cursive or printing), then outlining it in various colors until the outlines run off the page.

That was then, this is now...

My love for letters has evolved some.  I still love letters, but in a slightly more sophisticated way.

I LOVE these "letter" mugs from Anthropologie - $6 each (below left).  I also love letters you can hang on your wall.  My first "J" came from Anthropologie - made out of zinc - $18 each (below right).  Over the years, I've collected letters from all sorts of stores including Anthropologie, Ballard Designs, Pottery Barn (kids & teen), Restoration Hardware, etc.  If you look, you can find letters in lots of different stores.  A little boutique here in San Francisco, Timeless Treasures, has a vast array of vintage letters in all shapes, sizes, and materials (below middle).

 

In addition to letters, I'm pretty mad for monograms.  These days it seems you can get anything with a monogram.  Land's End has some great canvas tote bags (and most of their other items) that they can monogram.  The bags come in several sizes and colors as well as the available monograms.

I also love letters & monograms on jewelry.  When I was little I had a little "name" necklace with "JENNIFER" in capital block letters.  I was so sad when the letters broke apart between the "N" and "I".  I think I still have it in an old jewelry box...  More recently, thanks to Sex and The City, the "Carrie" name necklaces came back into popularity.  I got a new one with my name in script, and absolutely love it.  There are a ton of websites that will custom make for you.  Here are just a few I found from a quick Google search.  I can't endorse any of these, as I haven't personally used them, so just take the typical precautions when ordering things from the internet.  Name Necklace, The Name Necklace, Zales.

I saw this site mentioned in Lucky Magazine - they have some really cute options - Jane Basch.

I also am falling in love with monogram necklaces.  I also found this site in Lucky Magazine.  Moon & Lola - they have adorable acrylic monogram necklaces in all kinds of colors.

I am also loving these script monogram necklaces too.  I found this site on Google.  Can't vouch for the quality or speediness, but they are super cute!!  My Name Necklace.

Whatever your fancy, there are lots of options out there at all different price points - a letter or a name to match any budget and style.  What's yours?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."  ~ W. Shakespeare

Snow + Stars + Sparkle

Happy New Year my sparklicious friends! 

I can't believe that the first month of 2012 is just about over.  Crazy.  Seriously, where does the time go?  I honestly haven't any idea.  So, I guess we just go with it.

Speaking of "going with it", I had the opportunity to go to the Sundance Film Festival with a group of girlfriends + the boyfriend earlier this month.

What an experience!  This wasn't my first time at Sundance (it was my 3rd).  But, I can say that this was the best of my 3 times there.  We were lucky enough to get ticket packages (so we had guaranteed movies to see), we rented a car & condo, and made dinner reservations in advance, all thanks to the amazing Nikki-Z.  She hooked us up and planned everything.  AMAZING.

What do snow, stars, and sparkle have in common?  Sundance, of course. 

I live in San Francisco.  We do not have snow here.  Seeing it fall from the sky is certainly a sight to see.  Apologies to those of you who currently or at sometime have lived in the snow.  It is still a novelty to me.  I like it.  It is pretty.  I like to revel in it.  However, I don't want to live in it.

I saw 12 movies in 5 days.  The boyfriend saw 13 movies, and the group of girlfriends saw 10.  It is work.  It is exhausting.  It is amazing.  It is addicting.  I can't wait to do it again!

The star factor - so, Park City is a very small town.  Stars are out and about, and if you pay attention, you'll see a ton of them, not just in the sky or on the screens. 

I saw Andie McDowell, Sharon Lawrence, Parker Posey, Natasha Bedingfield, Ice-T, Coco, Chuck D, Amanda Peet, not to mention all of the actors and directors in the movies we saw - Common, Dennis Haysbert, Edward James Olmos, Charles S. Dutton, a gigantic Danish body builder, and countless others. 

It was cool to see these people acting "normal" and interacting with "normal" people.

There were a ton of sparkles there too...  From the snow falling from the sky in clumps the size of nickles, to all of the twinkle lights on the gigantic trees, to my freshly painted toes.

Toes:  base coat - OPI Overexposed in Southbeach.  Top coat: Orly "Rock it" pink/purple sparkles.  I'm in love with this combo.  Love the sparkles in the sparkly snow!  Sadly, I had to keep my toe sparkles under wraps for the week, can't gallivant around in flip-flops when it is 10 degrees and snowing, or at least I can't.

After the almost-blizzard on Saturday (28" of snow fell), we had a gigantic icicle hanging off the side of our condo. 

I'd never really seen one up close.  It was amazing!

I was in awe of all of the patterns the ice made - absolutely love it.







I fell in love with these lights hanging in the entry of Chimayo (a restaurant we went to one night).  Super yummy Mexican / Southwestern food.

They kind of remind me of pictures of solar flares, or sea urchins.  They were so pretty hanging there.  So sparkly and pretty!








After 5 days of almost 3 movies each day, we were all ready to head home, but were equally sad to be leaving.  Park City is such a cool place (no pun intended), and we all wish we had a few extra days there.

Driving from the condo back into Salt Lake City, I snapped this pic of the mountains - simply stunning.

Equally as stunning was the view of San Francisco, our city by the bay, on our landing approach.  Even though I was sad to leave Park City, I was equally as glad to be landing safe and sound back home.

I hope you all had a little sparkle in your lives this new year so far...  If not, you've got a few more days to get some!

Until next time...  let the stars, sparkle, and snow bring a little shine into your life!

Holiday sparkle!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a sparkly night!

So, the holidays are upon us, we're wrapping, gifting, eating, drinking, merry-ing, food-coma-ing, visiting, relaxing (hopefully), resting, and overall festive-ing, and maybe catching the 24-hour "A Christmas Story" marathon on TBS.

What is a holiday without a little (or a lot) of sparkle?

I am staying with my sister & brother-in-law and we decorated their beautiful tree the other night.  Love the sparkly lights, the red ornaments, and the sparkly snowflakes.

I am always in awe of tree ornaments; how they sparkle and shine, and pick up reflections of light from each other, the lights on the tree and from each other.

I took the sparkle inspiration into my holiday nail polish...  A base coat of OPI Dulce De Leche, 4 nails with an overcoat of OPI Mad as a Hatter, and 1 nail on each hand with an overcoat of Fresh Frog of Bel Air.  Sparkly wonderfulness!

I did my niece's nails too - base coat of a light pink with overcoats of Mad as a Hatter, Teenage Dream, and Crown Me Already (all by OPI).  Love the little sparklers!

Picked up some sparkly loot too from Santa!  LOVE!!!

Love this coin purse - full of silvery sparkly goodness (thanks to my brother-in-law)!

Love this gold sparkly wallet / clutch from Deux Luxe (thanks to my sister)!

And, who can't use a glow in the dark pink LED little flashlight (thanks Dad)!

And, I love these little freshwater pearl & swarovski crystal earrings (thanks to my boyfriend)!

I hope Santa stopped at your homes to deliver packages filled with joy and that you and your families had a very merry and joy-filled holiday full of plenty of sparkle and shine!

Until next time... whichever holiday you celebrate, I hope you shine and twinkle and sparkle, have visions of sugar-plums dancing in your heads!

Adventures in Nail Polish - Part 3

So, today was new mani day!

I'm a sucker for sparkles, obviously.  I'm also a sucker for sparkly Christmas decorations.  I was at a holiday soiree over the weekend at a good friend's house, and was in awe over her beautiful Christmas tree and all of it's sparkly ornaments.

So, this afternoon, I was digging through my nail polish drawer (yes, my nail polish has it's own drawer), and I pulled out a metallic silver, a silver glitter, and a multi-color glitter.  They reminded me of the glittery ornaments on my friend's tree.  Had to try it out.

I used 2 coats of Wet 'n Wild Silvivor (below left).  A coat of OPI Crown Me Already (below right) definitely a favorite of mine.  And on one nail on each hand, I added a coat of OPI Mad as a Hatter (below center).

The result?  Glitter-tastic sparkly ornamental nails!  Love!!!

If you've ever used glitter polish, you know what a pain it is to get off - takes forever.  A few tips I've found on-line to make it easier advise to soak a cotton pad in nail polish remover, and then wrap it around your nail for a few minutes to let it soak in.  This site says to wrap your nails (with the remover-soaked pad) in tin foil to make it easier.  I can attest that it IS easier to get off if you soak your nails in polish remover.  One of the nice ladies at my neighborhood nail spa did it on my toes once and it really worked.

Another method that I will probably try soon is one I saw recently in a magazine (I think it was Lucky)...  Instead of using cotton pads or balls, use felt.  Apparently the felt has more oomph to it that grabs the glitter better than cotton pads...  I'll try it out and let you know the outcome.

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Sparkle Love joined twitter (see block on the right).  I'll tweet from time to time when something sparkly catches my eye...  If you tweet or follow others on twitter, give me a whirl - sparklelovesf.   Thanks!

Happy holidays to all!  I hope you have safe travels, fun times, and lots of sparkle!

Until next time...  How will you add sparkly ornaments to your everyday life?

Adventures in Nail Polish - Part 2

So, it's new mani-pedi time! 

I remembered I had a gift certificate for a pedicure from my Cousin from a few years ago, and decided to use it this weekend.  Pedi was only ok (at LaBelle Day Spa in Palo Alto).  Not something I'd fork out $50 for.  Obviously I enjoyed it, but like my local neighborhood joint (Rainbow Nails in Noe Valley) more, and their pedis are only $25.

On my toes, I wanted something festive for the holidays.  I saw a super cute pair of red & gold flats that I really liked that served as my inspiration for my toes.  I bought a few years ago OPI's Ruby for Rudolph and decided to use that with some gold sparkles on top.

 
I did my own mani last night. 

On most of my nails, I used OPI's Dulce de Leche (below left) with Teenage Dream (below right) on top.  Dulce de Leche is such a lovely color on it's own.  Has some nice shine, and really blends in well with my skin tone.  It isn't overly flashy.  Teenage Dream is just dreamy!  Love the light pink-ish base and the sparkles in 2 sizes.

On one nail on each hand, I used Sally Hansen's Guilty Pleasure (below left) with Rock Candy (below right) on top.  Love the Guilty Pleasure on it's own - a nice antiquey-looking warm gold.  Rock Candy is a peachy-looking base with a little bit of glitter in it.  When using the Rock Candy, I was slightly disappointed in the amount of glitter - it is very sparse.  But over Guilty Pleasure and next to other nails with Teenage Dream on them, the subtlety is actually quite nice.

Here is the finished mani product.  I'm really loving it!

 Until next time.  Sparkle your nails off!

Want this, get that - Sparkle for every budget

So, I love shows / articles / things where professionals show you how to get a look you want 2 ways - one super expensive, and one more budget conscious. 

I'm getting into the High-Low project on HGTV (click here).  Designer Sabrina Soto shows people a super-high-end room design, then re-creates it on the homeowners' actual budget. 

The other day I was picking up a few things at Target, and saw a display in the handbag section of these beautiful sequin purses that were extremely budget friendly.  I knew I'd seen similar bags elsewhere.

I also spied some super cute glitter flats that looked strikingly similar to my Stuart Weitzman flats at a substantially lower cost.

This got me thinking - I know there are similar sparkles that fit into just about anyone's budget...

So, here we are - I've found a bunch of sparkly things that I love and one or two alternatives that won't break the bank.

To the left is a beautiful Michael Kors black sequin bag.  Price tag $368.

If that doesn't meet your budget, how about this similar bag from Target on the right?  Price tag $24.99.

If black isn't what you're looking for, they both come in gold / blush as well.

The Michael Kors version is to the left.  Price tag $368

The Target version is to the right.  Price tag $24.99

How about a super cute cross-body bag?

On the right is a gun-metal gray sequin cross-body from Coach (Occasion sequin flap crossbody).  Price tag $198.

On the left is a similar cross-body bag from Target.  This one comes in gold as well.  Price tag for each? $16.99.

Interested in some sparkly flats?

On the right are some stunners from Stuart Weitzman.  Price tag $275.  I have these in silver and absolutely LOVE them.

Need a pair that is a little friendlier to your pocketbook?  Try these on the left from Target.  Price tag $19.99.

How about a sparkly little jacket?

This stunner on the left is from Anthropologie.  Price Tag $138.

This cutie on the right is from Urban Outfitters.  Price Tag $89.

The little bomber jacket below is also from Urban Outfitters.  $89.

 

In the market for a long-sleeve sparkly top?  

The one on the left is from Rachel Zoe.  Price tag $350.

The one on the right is from J.Crew.  Price tag $69.50.

Mad for sequin hot shorts?  Here are 3 sparklies that might suit your fancy.

On the left is a lovely pair by Halston Heritage.  Price tag $260.  On the right is another pair by Express.  Price tag $59.50  And, below is a pair by Urban Outfitters.  Price tag $138.

What about a stunning sparkly top?  Here are three that I'm loving.

First, on the left, a striped T from J.Crew.  Price tag a whopping $499.99 (and that's the sale price - yikes!). 

I found two significantly less priced alternatives.  On the right, from Express, price tag $49.90.

And below, from Old Navy, price tag $34.94.  Old Navy has some diamonds in the ruff - this is one of them.  Beware though, this top is sheer - you'll need to wear something underneath.

 

And, here are three similar white-ish sparsely sequined tops that I like.  First, on the left, from Anthropologie.  Price tag $158. Also comes in a lovely green.

Second, on the right, a tank from Gap.  Price tag $54.95 (also comes in black).

And, lastly, below, a top from Urban Outfitters.  Price tag $69.  This one also comes in navy.

Want a silver sparkly scarf?

On the left is from Anthropologie - $188.

On the right is from Express - $34.90.

How about a wristlet / clutch?

On the right is from Kohls - $41.30 on sale now.

On the left is from Coach - $78. (Poppy sequins small wristlet).

There are lots and lots of lovely items out there that fall well within anyone's budget.  Just try doing a search for "sequin" or "glitter" on your favorite sites and see what comes up.

Here are the search results for "sequin" on a few sites that I frequent, and some new ones introduced to me by my sister:

• Bloomingdale's
• Urban Outfitters
• Gap
• Old Navy
• Piperlime (some really cute stuff here!)
• J.Crew
• LuLu's
• Topshop (thanks to my sister)
• Mod Cloth (also thanks to my sister)

There's never a shortage of sequin out there!!!

Keep on sparkling!

Until next time...