Jamberry Nails with Skyla

Okay, I must admit, I LOVE mani pedi days and I love going to the nail shop, I LOVE my shop. If you are local to OKC or Edmond, I must say you need to try US Nails! They are amazing and I have been going to Jimmy and Tiffany for years, but let me say, not having a job and it costing me $60ish to get mani, pedi and eyebrow wax isn’t really in my budget. So when I heard about these nail shields from Jamberry, I was excited. They say the sheets give you 2-3 manis worth and they are only $15, plus they run specials where you buy so many get one FREE! How great it that $5-8 for a mani done by you that wont chip, will last 2-3 weeks and comes in cute designs? Let me say, I was very curious about this after seeing it all over pinterest and facebook. So I set out to find a consultant, that is when I got Skyla, and AMAZING Jamberry consultant that has provided me with the sheets! 

Now what is Jamberry and how do they work? Well, they're different than other products such as nail stickers or appliques because you need a blow-dryer to apply them, isn't that crazy!?!? When the glue on the back of these shields is heated up, it is activated and with firm pressure, it forms a strong bond with your nail. This allows the shields to last up to 2 weeks on tips and 6 weeks on toes! Let me just say these are the neatest thing I have every tried! I will say, I am glad that Skyla sent me a few extras to play with before my first real sheet came. They are like an art form and let me tell you, Skyla has all the tips and tricks on how to get these babies to work and look PERFECT!

The shields come in a ton of different designs and can be mixed and matched how ever you want, to create a custom look! I got the Turquoise dot for my review and I loved it. I will say, my fingernails must be odd sizes because I had to cut most of the shields to fit my nails correctly, which is fine, gave it a more finished look. I will say,  there is a slight learning curve to the application process, but once I got it, it was pretty easy to do! I made a few mistakes in my first few tries, such as touching the glue to many times and not sealing the edges fully, but after some practice and tips I was able to get it down.

These shields are perfect for those of us who love the designs and look of them and just don’t have the time. They are also great for someone who constantly chips their polish and hates that. The shields take about the same amount of time to put on as painting your nails does, but the PLUS is no dry time! When they are on, you are done and ready to go and not worry about the chipping. 

 

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Room for improvement? I wish they either sold the tools to put them on, or that they came in the pack. I think it would be great since most ladies that go to the salon don’t have some of this stuff needed to apply these. I also think more solid colors would be awesome for the ladies that don’t want designs, or like the few solids they offer or want to do the whole solid then a pop of design on one nail.

Now do I have you excited to try them? Well good, because Skyla has sent me a sheet to send to one lucky reader! 

 It's the Multi-Color Chevron Shields!

Hair Candy Review and Giveaway

Who doesn't love a custom, handmade item? Who loves a cute purse? Who loves something small? Who loves things that can go inside bigger things? That’s right THIS GIRL DOES!! I am not your typical girlie girl, even though I am making strides to become more girlie, I don’t always like to carry a purse, especially not a huge big one, well except for my big purple Coach purse Cole got me..LOVE that one! So I look for smaller purses. Whether it be a cross body, amazing clutch, stuffable purse (you know, for inside the big one so you don’t have to take the whole thing in walmart) or just my little mini wallet that hooks to my keys that’s what I like.  So when we were contacted by a Stillwater, OK company who makes AMAZING headbands, STUNNING clutches and ADORABLE MUST HAVE baby items, I knew it was ment to be. 

Hair Candy is a semi local to me company. It is run by a mom who just wants to make all the cute boutique purses, hair wear and baby items affordable to everyone, through her etsy shop and her facebook page. She offers tons of options for everything she make’s, from pick your own fabrics and accents to help her design the item. 

Hair Candy sent us this SUPER CUTE clutch wristlet and an adorable headband, which will be covered in another post this week. She let me pick out my fabrics and then she went to work on making it. I choose zebra and polka dots in orange and black of course, have to show my COWBOY pride. The clutches range from $18-$22 plus shipping, which is a great deal considering how fast she gets them done and that you pick the fabric and everything is made FOR YOU!  All the clutches are lined and have a pocket perfect for phone, keys, gum, lip gloss, you know the small things that get lost.

 Perfect for the Zombie Lover

I used the wristlet clutch as a true wristlet for a few days and then as a stuffable for the rest of the time. I had to be a big kid and go on interviews so I needed my nicer leather purse but didn’t want to carry all the stuff in it. I loved this purse! It was perfect to hold my chapstick, touch up make up, mini wallet, phone and hand sanitizer and lotion.  Now, I didn’t carry all of this at once, make up was only if I wore it that day, but everything else stayed in the bag. The zipper is always a big deal for me since when I am girlie, I do tend to over stuff my purse and let me say..I did try to with this one, made the little guy so chunky it hardly closed, but the zipper stayed, didn’t unstitch, didn’t pucker and didn’t get stuck! 

Do I think there could be improvements?

    Well, it did stain a bit and I considered putting something on it but decided not to, just washed it in my washer and my stains came out!

    Another pocket or set of credit card pockets, I think those would be a great addition to add just 2-3 pockets for cards, that way they would be secure and you wouldn’t need to have another bag inside it.

Will I buy from Hair Candy?

  OF COURSE! I LOVE her fabric choices, her quick turn around time, AMAZING prices and willingness to work with her customers.

What Would I Buy?

    Zipper coin purse, one of my FAV items ever invented, baby items for friends (such cute items) and maybe even another clutch. 

Want to win this clutch? Here’s How!

Giveaway Rules:

*Open to US residents only

Mandatory Entry:

*Must be a Google Friend Connect of A Girl In A Guy's World 

*Must "like" facebook.

* Must visit her etsy 

*Must comment what your favorite item is she makes

*Must provide e-mail in comment

Optional Entries (1 extra entry per...)

(must include in your entry post that you did these in order for them to count):

*Like A Girl In A Guy's World

*Share this giveaway on you FB profile or page.

*Tweet about this giveaway.

*Blog about this giveaway.

*Refer a friend to A Girl In A Guy's World

*Buy any item from Hair Candy

Make sure to put your e-mail in your comment. Each extra entry is in the SAME comment. If no e-mail provided new winner is picked.

Giveaway closes at midnight on January 30th

 

Winner will be selected via Random.org on January 31st and announced on the blog and on our Facebook page. Winner will have 48 hours to respond to claim their prize, or another winner will be picked.

Special thanks to Hair Candy, for offering this giveaway!

Happy New Year

The 2001 year has come to an end and 2012 has stared with a bang! I am sick as can be, running so behind on the blog due to Cole's surgery and feel like I havent cooked anything in awhile. So this is what I have come up to help, me, the blog, my readers and my life. I now have OFFICAL blog hours! I will be blogging every Tuesday and maybe once a weekend depending on my course load in school, and my outside life. I will say, I do have giveaways and reviews to put up, a winner to announce and a lot of recipes to share!

So the NEW BLOG will include the following:
A review and giveaway
Recipes at least twice a month
My trials in school, life and hopefully work soon
My job hunt
Ashley's family life
Ashley's side of being a mom
Frugal Tips


So with this said, here is your first reciepe for 2012 from me!

Churro Cookies

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup superfine sugar (see note below)
1/4 tsp salt
16 T unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces and softened
2 T cream cheese, softened
2 tsp vanilla extract
2T melted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2T plus 2 tsp cinnamon
pinch salt


Note: If you can't find superfine sugar (castor sugar), simply process 1 cup granulated sugar in a food processor for about 30 seconds, then measure out 3/4 cup for the recipe. 

Directions:
1. Whisk the flour, sugar and salt together in a large bowl. Using an electric mixer on medium-low speed, beat the butter into the flour mixture, one piece at a time. Continue to beat the flour-butter mixture until it looks crumbly and slightly wet, 1-2 minutes.

2. Beat in the cream cheese and vanilla until the dough just begins to form large clumps, about 30 seconds. Knead the dough in the bowl by hand a few times until it forms a large cohesive mass. 

3. Roll cookie dough into rods about 3/4-1 inch in diameter. Cut the rods into 3 inch pieces, place on a plate and refrigerate for 10-15 minutes. Combine 1/2 cup sugar, 2T plus 2tsp cinnamon and a pinch of salt in a small bowl. 


4. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place cookies on a baking sheet, with about an inch between each cookie. Using a pastry brush, brush each cookie with melted butter, and then sprinkle with a generous amount of cinnamon sugar mixture. 


5. Bake cookies for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and immediately place indentations lengthwise along the cookies using a wooden skewer. Let cookies cool for five minutes on the cookie sheet, then place on a cooling rack to cool completely. 

Optional - For more cinnamon-sugar flavor, brush cooled cookies with more melted butter and sprinkle again with cinnamon sugar. 

Serving Ideas- Vanilla Ice Cream or Custard or some amazing Spiced Apples or Apple Pie Filling maybe even some Apple Butter

Hope everyone has a great 2012!

Fun times..

So this weekend Cole, my sister, Mr. Alaska (sister's man friend) and Clarke (Coles best friend) all went bowling and to dinner, minus Clarke he couldnt make dinner. Oh what a great night! So much fun, even tho Clarke is weird and likes ou, we still had fun! So where to start, well let's start with dinner!

So we went to an amazing hole in the wall place that you wouldnt know about unless someone had taken you. If you live in the OKC metro I highly reccomend you get down to Bandaleros VIP grill, its on shields between 44th and 59th St. We had a groupon, LOVE groupon, I love it even more when it is to one of my favorite places! So for us to eat, it wasnt bad at all, all 4 of us ate for $20 plus tip and our meals were huge! Cole had a bistec steak and it was big and smelled sooo yummy, but it was way to spicy for me to try, my sister and I both got quesadillas, my steak was so juicy and flavorful and Dani had cheese, that wasnt overly greasy and Mr. Alaska had chimichangas, they were HUGE!!! He said they were some of the best hes ever had. Not to mention that we got FREE salsa, 2 kinds, queso, chips, tortillas and sopaillas! I will say, that is one thing I miss when I am not in OKC, you don't get half the free stuff! I am a big fan of FREE! So thats my rant on best Mexican food in OKC now on with the night!

After we went to dinner, we went cosmic bowling, where Clarke met us. We love to go bowling, we really love that cosmic bowling at heritage lanes is $15 a person all you can bowl! Their bar also has decent prices, so we got 2 giant beer keg things, plus jello shots. Let me tell you how great the bowling got after a few drinks were in us! We were having so much fun! Cole even got a ton of strike, Turkey and all! So proud of him, I wasnt bowling very well, the gutter was my friend and Clarkes. So when we got towards the end of our bowling, we realized we had a decent amount of beer left. At this point, I was so full from the beer I didnt want anymore, so the beer gnomes came out. Those sneeky little gnomes that fill up everyone's beer glass! They made the night so funny, everyone started watching their beer cup, taking it to the lane with them and all. the final gnomed person of the night was Clarke! It was great, those gnomes sure do know how to party!

End of the night, after all the crazyness and fun, we headed to Clarke's brand new house. This was when I realized we had all grown up and that we were adults. His house is amazing! He has leopard carpet in his bonus room, how can a house not be built with out, I will never know! Aside from that, the house was amazing, back yard was a nice size, not to big, not to small and his decor was very tasteful. We watched some movies in 3D on Clarkes new 3D tv, which is really awesome! I now want a 3D tv more then ever, the movies looked so different! After all this was said and done, it was time to go home. Time to go to sleep and think of how full I still was from the beer, which as I write this I am still full! I hate beer for a reason, and this is it. I feel perfectly fine except my tummy feels like I have been eating for months! Cole said he feels full too, so full, this is not a fun part of beer! Those gnomes made me full!

Well, with all this said, it is time for me to get back to the real world. I need to work more on my Holiday Gift Guide, so, if you want to join in let me know! I need to do all my homework, which is a ton! Get ready for the game, GO POKES! and take my car for an oil change, will all this said, I must now go do something else! Have a great weekend! Don't let the beer gnomes get you when you tailgate, but if they do remember you have to yell "I've been gnomed" or if you are the gnome "You've been gnomed" Let's go watch some football folks! GO POKES!