Love Thy Self Part 1: The Exterior

The weather has been super dreary here.  Not like Colorado at all!  So we have started going through our basement in preparation for our move to our own house next month.  Words cannot express how excited I am to be a homeowner.  I have also been doing some extremely overdue cleaning of my computer.  I finally broke down and bought an external drive to move all of my pictures and music onto it. 
In the process I have been combing through lots of old pictures of friends, events and myself.  While looking at pictures of myself it struck my that I am crazy and ridiculous.  Lately I have been having some insecurities about my looks.  Growing up an overweight kid will do terrible things to your self confidence.  I was ridiculed till about the 9th grade for being heavy.  Very young in life I was forced to realize that my self worth wasn't completely determined by what I looked like on the outside but a lot with who I am as a person and the choices I make.  I have worked on my confidence but it still doesn't stop a lot of those under lying experiences from bubbling up.  In addition to all this I have been working hard lately to change some negative and bullyish thought patterns that I have.  It is truely amazing how fast and how harshly you can knock yourself down.  If you asked me a year ago I would have told you that I am a negative person by nature but I am coming to think this isn't the way it has to be.  I can be positive and I can on a deeper and more forgiving level love myself unconditionally. 
So this version of Love Thy Self is focused on my realization that I really do like what I see on the outside.  And if you are reading this thinking "how superficial" trust me I know there is more to a person then how they look but I do think there is a direct correlation to our inner and outer confidence and perception of ourselves.   And I am not fishing for compliments from anyone but myself here.  I am not perfect but that is okay. I like that my hair is totally out of control at times.  I like that I have strange colored eyes.  I like that I get compliments on my teeth after 3 rounds of braces.  I like that I thought there was nothing wrong with my teeth in the first place.  So I am going to be a little vain and narcessistic here and show you some of the pictures I found when I was forced to go through pictures of myself that made me realize that I am who I am and I like that. 

I fail at doing my own nails

Sephora (my heaven on earth) came out with these Chic Prints by OPI which is basically like a do it yourself version of Minx Nails.  I was giddy with delight because I have been searching for something like this and cheap ass me refuses to pay $40 for a salon to do it.
Now I am a Colorado girl through and through and we are typically very low maintenance and I admit in the summer my beauty routine consists of sunscreen, moisturizer, and chapstick and if I am going out somewhere I might put some eyeliner and mascara on.  However,  I do like having my nails done.  So when I found these gems at Sephora I jumped all over it and this is my adventure in applying them and being horribly disappointed.

Look how happy I am (this will slowly decline)

I chose the chrome lace print because it was the most feminine.


Start with clean, filled and buffed nails.

Pick the size that works best for your nail size and rub the decal so it comes off easier.
I started with my thumb.

I placed the decal at the base of my nail by the cuticle and wrapped the decal around to the sides. The nice part that is if I didn't perfectly center it I could pull it back off and try it again.

Trim the decal down to your nail. Here is where I realized that this might not work because I keep my nails so short I lost most of the pattern.

Commence pursing lips! I am really starting to get annoyed here.
Now the directions say to file down the decal to the nail but I found that this just moved the decal around and made bubbles. I ended up just using the scissors and trimming it to size.

Not really sure how I feel about them here but I figured I did one nail I might as well do the rest of the hand and then decide.

I look like I am out of the movie Terminator



So technically these were very easy to put on but aesthetically the blinding silver and loss of the pattern is just to harsh for me. I think if I did this again I would get the tiger print. My only issue with the patterns that Sephora is offering is they are all very modern and geometrical. I would like something softer, feminine, and not so freakishly silver.