Monday, May 13, 2013

Hooray for May Julep Mystery Box

I just received my Hooray for May Julep Mystery Box.  The box is still available on Julep.com if  you hurry. 



I received a total of 6 polishes, including the gift one that was packaged separately in a cute little blue bag. 




The colors I received are :

Korin - Must be the new mystery bright. It is not on the website. It is a yellow green neon.

Chelsea - Violet, silver and purple glitter (Duplicate polish so this is going on ebay!) Ebay listing

Dakota - Rose gold metallic creme (gorgeous, but another dupe) Ebay listing

Amelia - Light champagne frost

Annette - Light dove gray creme



The polish in the gift bag was:

Jackie - Maraschino cherry creme







This box was different in that it only included polish. There were no beauty products hair ties, polish remover packets or even nail files. Just polish. 

Value - $84 which exceeded their bottom range of $70 but was nowhere near $200. 

Maybe one day I will get a high value box, or the elusive golden box. 

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Sports Injuries, or How to Lose Your Fingernail

The boy smashed his finger a few weeks ago in the high school weight room. It was a pretty gruesome injury and his fingernail almost immediately turned black.  

***WARNING - Graphic Picture***




Being the overly protective mother that I am, I took him to Urgent Care the next night when his finger swelled up considerably and was hot to the touch. After a quick trip to X-Ray we were informed that thankfully, it was not broken. The Doctor drilled three small holes in the nail to drain off some of the blood and pressure and sent us on our way. 

My son plays sports and is in the middle of Track & Field season, so I was very happy to hear that he did not have any restrictions and was cleared to play. He throws shot put and discus, and is right-handed so smashing the middle finger on his right hand was going to be problematic. 

I would love to brag about my son's athletic accomplishments, but that's not really why you are reading this post. 

We cleaned the finger daily with hydrogen peroxide and kept it bandaged during track and football practice (yes, football has already started again!). He did not have much pain, but about a week after he smashed it, the finger began to bleed profusely. This turned out to be a blessing as all of the old blood drained out and his finger could really begin healing. This almost meant that he was going to lose the nail. 

The nail fell off last night. You can clearly see where the weight it the nail bed and caused the bleeding. Not pretty. My poor baby. (Mother's guilt)


***WARNING - Graphic Picture***


Missing fingernail - lost due to smashing with a weight
Guess who qualified for league finals in shot put? Yup, the boy with the missing fingernail!


Saturday, March 30, 2013

Goodies.Co March Box

I finally received my March Goodies.Co box. Apparently, there was a delay in receiving some of the items which resulted in the boxes being shipped late. I received mine later than most, but that's ok. Based on the spoilers, I was not that excited about it. 

The theme of this box was Rise and Shine and featured breakfast foods. 



On to the contents of box - 


belVita Breakfast Biscuits, Cinnamon Brown Sugar



Fig Newtons, Triple Berry



Erin Baker's Breakfast Cookie minis, Double Chocolate Chunk



Rickland Orchards All Natural Greek Yogurt Bar, Blueberry Acai



Ola! 100% Natural Handbaked Granola, No Nut Vanilla



Rip van Wafels Caramel Filled Amsterdam Waffle



Jovan's All Natural Instant Breakfast, Creamy Vanilla



Bonne Maman Strawberry Preserves



Of the eight items in this box, I could eat two, possibly three of them. Everything has wheat in it! The only items I can eat are the strawberry preserves, and the Greek yogurt bar. The ingredients are not listed on the instant breakfast pouch, but the allergen statement leads me to believe that wheat is not an ingredient. America's obsession with wheat based breakfast foods items is a topic for another post, but I am a little disappointed in the lack of wheat free offerings. I hope Goodies.co plans on offering gluten-free taster's boxes soon. The boys will eat most of the offerings in the box, but we are planning a family-wide move away from wheat products and I hate to spend $7 a month on a box when 3/4 of it is not edible. 



Friday, March 29, 2013

Julep April Maven Box Unboxing

My Julep April Maven Box arrived today! I think this is the earliest and fastest I have ever received it.


This month's theme is "The Brights" and focused on bright colors. I went with the Bombshell box this time for a number of reasons, but I just really liked the colors offered. 





This box was not as heavy on the freebies and extras this time, but that is ok. I think the Mighty Nail and Cuticle Serum make up for that. 


The colors in the Bombshell Maven Box this month are:

Ally - Electric Blueberry Frost 

Janel - Pink Raspberry Frost




Both are beautiful colors and look great in the bottle. There is a definite hint of shimmer to them.

The only other item in this months box, besides the serum and the two colors was a stick of purple rock candy!

I am once again pleased with my Julep subscription. They are, by far, my favorite sub box. Great job, Julep! 




Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Home Improvement Project - Part One: That Grout!

My husband purchased our home in 1998, long before we met, fell in love and wrote our happily ever after. When we met he had this awful blue carpet in the house. He had picked it out and was actually pretty proud of it. Men. I hated it. Hated.It. It was bad.

Fast forward a few years and we got engaged. Once we set a wedding date, the boy, and I moved in. The first project in making his house into our home was to do something about that carpet. I found a great deal on some beautiful 20x20 travertine tiles and convinced him to rip out the carpet and put the tile down. Which brings us to our first mistake. The son of a good friend of ours did tile for a living. He was a good kid (still is, don't get me wrong) and needed the work so we had him install our tile while we were away for a week on our honeymoon.

We came home from our week away to unfinished floors. Granted it was almost 1,000 square feet, but he had a week and still wasn't done. We had even removed all of the old flooring and prepared the concrete slab. All he had to do was lay tile. So he rushed to lay the rest of the tile and really rushed to put down the grout. Hindsight being what it is, we really should have stopped him at that point and have him redo the grout, but we were tired from traveling and just wanted our house back.

The grout held up all of a couple of months before it started crumbling and falling in. In some places, the entire grout line was gone. It was awful and so frustrating. At first we attempted to patch the spots because we thought they were isolated air bubbles. They weren't. The entire grout job was bad and would need to be redone. 

We started scraping out grout, by hand. It was a long, tedious process and made worse by the fact that it was preventable and just a lazy, rush move on the part of the installer. Eventually, we gave up on trying to get the rest of the grout out. We kept saying to each other "we really need to redo the grout" but the irritation about the situation and the back breaking work involved just led to that job being put off. 

Years passed, and we went on with our daily lives, with grout free floors. It was a pain to vacuum every grout line to get the dirt and dog hair out, and the edges of the tiles started to chip away with daily wear. We started tossing around the idea of hiring someone to do the grout for us, but we were really over the tile at that point. Then my love started mentioning wood floors. 

We had originally considered wood when we first did the tile but decided against it, mainly because of our dogs. If it wasn't for the grout issue, I probably would not have replaced the tile. It was nice, easy to clean, looked good and kept the house cooler in the summer. It did have some downsides - mainly the grout and the fact that what kept the house cool in the summer made it impossible to keep warm in the winter. So we started pricing wood flooring. 

Right away, we decided that hardwood and engineered were out. While they were very nice, and I found more than one that I loved, they were really out of our price range. We have plans to sell this house and move out of California once our son graduates high school in 2015, so we did not want to invest too much money in flooring that we would only enjoy for two years. That brought us to two options - A) redo the grout or B) laminate. 

We choose B) laminate. After a very short search, we settled on this. Charisma Coles Hill Chestnut from Lumber Liquidators. It was a nice color, and in our price range. I would have preferred to get a hand-scraped flooring but maybe in my next house. 


Coming soon - Part Two: Bye Bye Tile!

Influenster Sugar n' Spice Vox Box

Back in January, I signed up for Influenster. Influenster is an online community for product reviews and opinions. You can read all about them here. A big, and fun part of being an Influenster is the opportunity to get Vox Boxes. Vox Boxes are themed product boxes that are sent out to selected members. I was lucky enough to be picked to receive the Sugar n' Spice Vox Box. This is my very first box so I was very excited to get the email saying I was selected to receive one!



I was so excited to see that orange box on my front porch last week! (We have been redoing our floors, or I would have posted this sooner.) You will also have to forgive my lack of pictures! I thought I had taken more before I broke into my box and started using everything but obviously, I didn't. 



The theme of this box was "Sugar n' Spice" and there were some great full size products in it. 




If you have ever tried spray sunscreen then you will be familiar with the concept behind spray lotion. I was a little skeptical of spraying on lotion at first, but I like it. It is a little thin and not as intensely moisturizing as Vaseline's Intensive Rescue line (my favorite affordable body lotion) but it is a good product.


Nectresse Sweetener and Recipe Booklet  $3.99 for box of 40 packets
Nectresse is from the makers of Splenda and is made from monk fruit. The box says it is 100% all natural, and the ingredients are: erythritol, sugar, monk fruit extract and molasses. I am trying to phase out artificial sweeteners so I am looking forward to trying this. I am not thrilled about the erythritol, but it is supposedly derived from glucose using yeast and not an artificial chemical. I need to do more reading up on it. 


I think everyone has used witch hazel on their face at some point, especially if you were blessed with acne as a teenager. These wipes combine witch hazel and aloe to "clean and rejuvenate" your skin. I love the concept of face cleaning towelettes but have yet to find one that doesn't irritate my skin or cause my face to break out. I was very excited to see these because I do not think that they would be something I would have picked up on my own. These also came with not one, but FIVE coupons for $2.00 off. I am a sucker for a coupon so I really hope these don't irritate my skin.


Colgate Optic White Regimen - Toothpaste, Toothbrush and Mouthwash Toothpaste - $2.99 for 4 oz tube, Mouthwash - $2.99 for 8 oz bottle, Toothbrush - $2.99 per brush
Three products? Awesome! This regimen, meaning all three products used together, is supposed to give you noticeable whiter teeth in five days. As a coffee drinker, I hate the way it stains your teeth, but I am always wary of whitening products. At the very least, the toothbrush is purple so that made my day. I am looking forward to trying this "regimen" out.


belVita Breakfast Biscuits in Cinnamon Brown Sugar $3.69 for a box of 5 packets of 4 biscuits each
This is the third time I have received belVita biscuits in a sub box or tester box. I'll be honest, I haven't tried them, and I won't. I do not eat wheat, and I try to stay away from processed foods that have ingredients that I cannot pronounce in them. I am sure my teenage son will eat them. That boy eats everything! This item was the only item in this box that I won't use.

Overall Value - $30.63

I have invites available so if you are interested in becoming an Influenster, please let me know. 

Please note, that I received all of these items complimentary for testing purposes from Influenster. 



Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Julep Spring Mystery Box Unboxing

It's been awhile since my last post. Bad blogger! I know, but life gets in the way. We are in the middle of replacing our tile floors with wood, and the house is a mess! That project will be another post. Hopefully soon!

I received my Julep Spring Mystery Box today! The price on this box was $24.99, which is higher than their usual price of $19.99 but I am a sucker for mystery boxes so I couldn't resist.

I received box #3 according to the invoice included in the box. I did not purchase any add-ons this time. I am still kicking myself for not getting the Purple Reign add-on set that was available for March. (Speaking of March - I LOVE the Rock Star Hand Cream.)

On to the Spring Mystery Box.

I received:

One Step Polish Remover Pads - $9.99, $7.99 Maven

Nail File - $1.00 (This item is not listed on the site) 
They are great, sturdy files. 

Hair Ties - $3.00 (Again, not listed on the site) 
I just bought a three pack of these from Nordstrom for $6.99 so I am guessing at the value. I made the switch to this style of tie a few years ago and will never go back. They work great on my curly hair and don't rip out my hair. 

American Beauty Volumizing Mascara - $24.00, $19.20 Maven 
This is my second mascara from Julep. I just opened the first one, but I like it. It's not fantastic, but for "free" I'll keep using it. 


I also received four polishes. I saw where some people only received three.

Portia - $14.00, $11.20 Maven
Sheer tropical blue with opalescent glitter. Very pretty and will look great with or over Claire

Claire - $14.00, $11.20 Maven
Bright sky blue creme. Very springy. I think it will look as an Ombre with Annie from the Fall '12 Trina Turk collection

Camille - Not available online yet
I am pretty sure this the guaranteed mystery color. It is a clear opalescent glitter. It looked good on its own and should be good over another color. 

Parker - $14.00, $11.20 Maven
Golde tangerine creme. This is definitely a color I would never pick for myself. It is a nice color in person and would look good as part of an easter egg polish with a different spring color on each nail or as an accent. I don't think I am brave enough to wear it on its own. 

This box was a good value, even if I didn't win the diamond earrings. Retail (not Maven) price for everything came to $93.99, which is a great value for $24.99. 

I love Julep. I have said it before and I will say it again. Great products, great service. If you are interested in signing up, please use the links in this post and don't forget to use the code PENNY to get your first box for only $.01 plus shipping!