NOTD: Emily De Molly Saavy Trinket

What a beautiful color and finish for spring! This is a lavender purple with a shifty gold shimmer and a very smooth formula that was opaque in two coats. I only own two Emily De Molly polishes but love them both and definitely hope to purchase again in the future.

I also love how it goes with my rosemary bush. :)

NOTD Catch Up

Hey all! I clearly have a backlog of mani posts that I've neglected, but I've been wearing some gorgeous polishes for spring so I figured I'd just share them all.

3 coats Sinful Colors Sheer Flight.

St. Patrick's Day mani of 2 coats each Zoya Ivanka and Aggie with rainbow and clover hand painted accents.

French tip and decal mani with Lemming Lacquer's Just Like The Gypsy Woman Says.

2 coats Space Time Travel's Yes Way! Inspired by the cheesy 80's movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Anonymous Lacquer's 10k Gold Swagger, 2 coats.

2 coats Emily De Molly Rouge Sketch. Adored this one!

Hand painted Arizona Tea can cherry blossom mani. Base is 2 coats Claire's Dreamcatcher.

2 coats Seche Intrepid.

2 coats Zoya Aster.

2 coats Sephora Formula X Athena.

Thanks for looking! Have you worn any new favorite polish colors/finishes for spring recently? Any nail art?

Destination: Wax Haul

Wanderlust in wax form. That's how I would describe my recent order from Destination Wax! I first learned about Destination Wax from a wax chat Facebook group. The photos and glowing reviews of this brand were tempting me when I was on my no-buy back in January and thereafter when my funds were limited and I was trying to be mindful of my purchases. I finally was able to place a wax order a couple weeks ago and DW was at the top of my running "to try" list. I am so glad I jumped on the DW bandwagon; I am beyond pleased with my ordering experience! 

Destination Wax has two methods by which you can order. One is on their Etsy website and the other is by emailing your desired scents, shapes and quantities to destinationwax@comcast.net. This seemed a bit unconventional to me at first but I chose the latter method and actually found it quite easy to go through the scent list in the Destination Wax Facebook Group and pick out some scents that sounded intriguing. I just ordered one of each of my desires scents to try in their "lilliput" shape, which could be either two squares or a scent shot. I found their prices very reasonable and competitive with other brands I've ordered from. The squares and scent shots are $1.75 each for approximately 1.5 oz of wax. They also carry other sizes such as loaves and they do have custom scent blend ordering options. 

Shipping was also reasonable. My order was able to fit in a pre-paid flat rate envelope which is usually the cheapest shipping option and recently raised to $7.20. My order was extremely well packaged with tissue paper and in a box inside the envelope for extra protection so everything arrived in perfect condition.

One of the things I really like about this brand is their travel themed aesthetic. They used a really cool compass theme to decorate their wax labels and packaging, and even had a map motif piece of fabric tied around the bag containing the scent shots.

The attention to detail was superb and made everything about this order so aesthetically pleasing. I really appreciate the the handwritten thank you note the sweet owner Rebecca included as well.

As much as I loved the eye candy in this package, I hastily unpacked my order to do my favorite thin with wax: sniff the glorious blends! When placing an order with a new vendor for the first time I really need the themes and scent descriptions to "hook" me. I have such a huge wax collection that of late I've been trying to only order scents that I don't have much of that sound really unique and appealing to me. I obviously enjoy the travel theme, but the scent descriptions really solidified my desire to order. There were several blends I hadn't heard of before that I just had to try, and you can tell that Rebecca really put a lot of thought and creativity into her blends. It was hard to stick to a reasonable amount of wax and I had to narrow down my list a couple of times but I eventually ended up ordering these 14 different scents.

Autumn Walk
Bonfire Bliss
Coffee: Kona Mocha
Fresh Lettuce
Lavender: Mankua Honey
London Calling 
Mirror of the Witch
Pistachio & Rosewater Cake
Prailenes & Popcorn
Rainforest Sugarcane 
Sea Salt & Cocoa Truffle 
Southern Mint Tea
Thai Sticky Rice
Tonka Bean & Soft Sugar

I also received four generous free sample scents!

I ordered this wide variety because I love to try a lot of different fragrances and these all sounded wonderful to me. As I opened my tarts and sniffed each one I was not disappointed! There was not a single one that I didn't like and in fact they all smelled just as I imagined and hoped they would. It was actually quite a serendipitous sniffing experience and if they all smell as wonderful and strong when melting as they did on cold then I will be a DW customer for life! I have several of these new scents lined up to melt in April and I will be excited to share my thoughts on that.

Have you tried Destination Wax? Thoughts?

Have you ordered from or fallen in love with any other new vendors recently?

How do you learn about new vendors? I mostly find out about new to me vendors through social media and my bloggy friends. I have also placed a small order from another new to me vendor that I can't wait to share with you in an upcoming post!

Life Lately

Hi all! If you're reading this, thanks so much for sticking with my blog. I had not really intended to take a break from posting, but I found myself with a bit of writer's block over the past couple of weeks. I felt run down and uninspired and so I needed to take a break from the self imposed pressure to post daily.

I still really enjoy blogging though and and definitely don't plan to quit permanently. I'm taking a more relaxed approach to it now but still hope to create some musings fairly regularly, whenever I have something to share.

I really appreciate each and every one of my readers and the friends I have made online through shared interests. This is not a professional blog by any means, so your comments and support mean so much.

Anyway I have been focusing on self care recently, just trying to be mellow and taking whatever life holds as it comes. I had a terrible sore throat for nearly two weeks and completely lost my voice. It was surprising and miserable as I haven't been that sick in many years. Fortunately I am almost back to 100% in both body and spirit. I had been feeling a lot of anxiety recently and you may remember me mentioning that I had made my first appointment to speak with a therapist. I had that meeting and it went quite well. The psychiatrist seemed like a very nice and down to earth gentleman and I made an appointment to see him again. We didn't delve too deeply into any issues as this was more of a meet and greet sort of thing but I am optimistic to see where it goes and if I can gain some tools to cope with my anxiety better and figure out more of a concrete direction in life. My husband also had a positive first experience and will be seeing him again too.

Last week was a good week. Hubby was only vacation and we just took things easy and relaxed and spent a lot of good quality time together.

We tool care of a few errands and ignored some others. 

We had several delicious meals. Even though it was raining most of the week we managed to have a good time and went to our favorite beach spot on the only sunny day. We walked for hours along the pier and beach, playing Pokémon Go and enjoying each other's company. The empty boardwalk at night looks quite spooky!

We had decadent clam chowder in the California famous sourdough bread bowl as well as some delicious fried prawns. 

I was proud that we walked over three miles in order to burn off all those tasty morsels. Of course that resulted in a slice ofour favorite garlic smothered pizza at midnight.

I mentioned the rain: early on in the week my area actually had a tornado warning! I was so surprised; tornado weather is so rare in California and never in my 27 years had a warning been issued here. I called all my family to make sure they were aware, but fortunately no funnel clouds developed and it was just a fast moving and awe inspiring thunderstorm. It was fascinating and eerie to watch but was all over within an hour. I was grateful and relieved no damage was done; inclement weather is no joke.

We also went to the movies with hubby's dad and saw the new King Kong: Skull Island. I was a bit skeptical at first but it was actually quite entertaining and more well made than I thought it would be. It's nice to spend quality time with family and even nicer when it's around the dinner table over a delicious homecooked meal!

Another new development is that I started using the My Fitness Pal app about a week ago to track what I eat as I really had no idea how many calories I was consuming daily. It was rather eye opening and actually kind of fun. My stats indicate that I should be eating around 1900 calories a day and I've been consistently going over by a few hundred calories every day, so if I made some slight adjustments in my diet I might actually see some weight loss. Mindfulness is important if I want to accomplish anything, so it will be interesting to see how this progresses.

I must say that my no buy back in January did help me center my financial priority a bit. I don't currently feel compelled to buy every single thing that interests me and I haven't charged anything on credit in a while. I have made a couple of wax purchases and a couple polish purchases of things that I really thought through and I was pleased with those purchases. I look forward to highlighting a few of them in upcoming posts!

I guess that's about it for now; don't be a stranger and neither will I! I'd like to leave you with these little pearls of wisdom. I've found enjoying the small pleasures in life and savoring the moment to be most fulfilling.

Any recent developments in your life? Feel free to share!

NOTD: Hand Painted Roses

This is 2 coats of OPI Sailing & Nailing It with hand painted rose accents of OPI What's The Double Scoop, I'm Sooo Swamped, and Wet N Wild Undercover. This mani took about 3 hours but it was totally worth it; I love how it turned out!

NOTD: Tonic Polish Rainbowfish

So glad I found it! Can't believe I put it back in the wrong section of storage and spent like an hour looking for it. 

Anyway, it's amazing! 2 coats.

NOTD: KB Shimmer Blue Topaz

Absolutely incredible; looove it! Formula is a little thin so I had to be careful not to get a ton on my brush and sort of dab it on. Other than that it's fabulous! The glitter is highly saturated; I probably could have gotten away with one coat but did two. 

Band of Bloggers March 2017 Vol. 15

Welcome to the March edition of Band of Bloggers!  Hopefully this month begins to bring more temperate weather and the first signs of spring! In my neck of the woods, conditions have been alternating between crazy heavy rain/high winds and beautiful sunshine and blooming flowers. I hope the weather will stabilize a bit this month. Since the month of March usually holds the first signs of spring, that begs the question:

What scent are your favorite scents to melt and wear for spring?

Are you a fan of traditional spring scents such as florals, fresh/clean, earthy, herbal, etc?
Do you consider yourself a seasonal melter (melting scents traditionally associated with a particular season in that season?)

I myself do like many traditional spring scents. I like several florals, my favorites being rose and violet. I don't care for some super strong, overly "perfumey" florals though; some can just be too much. I like fresh scents like rain and breezes as long as they don't smell artificial. I despise anything that smells like a harsh air freshener or laundry detergent. I also enjoy many herbal and green scents, especially things like a well done version of grass.

I feel I do like many of the scents traditionally associated with each season and I like melting scents that I haven't melted in a long time, but I'm not a strictly seasonal melter because I've been known to melt whatever I feel like when the mood strikes. I'm not above huffing a bit of pumpkin bakery in the middle of spring or melting some coconut in December.

We hope you'll join the fun and leave your own answer in the comments below.

And we hope you'll visit these Band of Blogger blogs and help support the blogger community!

Amanda at Thrifty Polished

Deb at It's Always Something

Jaybird at The Candle Enthusiast

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

Lauren at LoloLovesScents

Liz at Furianne

Sandra at Finger Candy

If you are a blogger and would like to join the Band of Bloggers for our monthly posts, please contact us.

OOTD: Shades of Blue

Blue top: JC Penney

Lace Top: Nordstrom Rack 

Boyfriend Jeans: Old Navy

Bag: Rebecca Minkoff 

Boots, necklace: Walmart 

Bracelet: wish.com

Glitterati Giveaway Winner

A huge thanks to all who read my Glitterati post and entered my giveaway! I wish I could be the Glitterati fairy for all of you, but alas my stash is not that big. Without further ado, the winner chosen from the comments by random number generator is comment #2: Jennifer Roman! Congrats Jennifer! Please send your mailing address to morningviewangel99@yahoo.com or DM me on Instagram @thriftypolished to claim your prize! You have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen.

For everyone else, did you know the Glitterati mystery box sign up is going on right now? Over 2000 sign ups already so it will be quite a wait, but oh so worth it! I'm around number 1300 or so, so I should be getting my wax around this time next year, haha! I hope you all got a better spot on the list than I.

If you're still dying to get your hands on some Glitterati, make sure your check out the flash sale this Sunday from 3-3:30pm EST. She has been doing 15-25 spots instead of the usual 10, so more chances to win! Link to Glitterati Facebook group here.