Hey ladies,
Winter is hardly half way through, but with the appearance of beautiful spring clothing in stores and on the LuLu*s site, we’re ready for warmer seasons to come. The pretty mints and floral prints had us excited so we decided to do a floral manicure this week. A reader of ours taught us the simple steps to making easy rose-like flowers, so follow along below!

Here’s the look we’re going for:

What you’ll need:
- mint nail polish
- hot pink nail polish
- white nail polish
- green nail polish
- fast dry top coat
- a toothpick

Start with a few coats of your base color. Allow the coats to dry completely before continuing.

Now take your pink nail polish and dab a small dot on your nail. Then grab the white polish and dab a small dot directly next to the pink one.

Then take your toothpick (quickly before the polishes dry) and “stir” the dots together to make a swirled together spot of polish.

The take the other end of your toothpick and pick up some green polish. Dab the toothpick sideways to create a small leaf shape on the sides of your flower. Repeat the above steps multiple times on each nail to make a repeated flower pattern.

and then top coat and you’re done– your nails will be ready or the spring in no time!

Hey ladies,
This week we’ll be showing you another tutorial with a simple dotting technique. We’ve been noticing a lot of quilted style fabrics in fashion lately. The classic Chanel quilted leather purse is iconic as ever and we’ve been seeing plenty of jackets, skirts and shorts in a similar luxurious style! We’ve tried to capture the textured look in this week’s manicure with a simple black and white palette.

Here’s the look we’re going for:

What you’ll need:
- black nail polish
- white nail polish
- fast dry top coat
- a dull pencil
- a toothpick

Start with a few coats of your base color. Allow the coats to dry completely before continuing.

Then take your white nail polish (any contrasting color will work!) and put a few drops onto a scrap piece of paper or on some foil.

Then use your “dotting tool” and dip it into the paint.

Simply touch the tip of the pencil to your nail and you’ll have a perfect dot! Continue in an alternating pattern with the dots evenly spaced out.

Then take your toothpick and dip into the paint.

The smaller tip will make tiny dots, so use this tool to “connect the dots”. Just adjoin the larger dots with a dotted line. Form little diamond shapes to get a quilted look!

Do the same to each of your nails.

and then top coat and you’re done– your nails will look luxe and textured like a certain expensive designer bag

Happy Monday Ladies!

We’re back with another nail stamping tutorial. These manicures require a couple of extra tools (a nail stamping kit), but it’s a worthy investment if you’re a big nail art enthusiast! We decided to go with a festive red and white plaid to match your Christmas morning pajamas or that sparkling holiday dress.

Here’s the look we’re going for today:

What you’ll need:
- A base color (we used red!)
- Konad Special Nail Polish (white)
- A top coat
- Konad Image Plate, Stamp and Scraper
- Nail Polish Remover & Makeup Remover Pads (not shown)

Start with a few coats of your base color & allow it to dry completely before moving on to the next steps.

Now gather your Konad Stamping items together. These special tools can be purchased online & getting a starter kit costs under $25. The metal image plates are available with hundreds of different designs on them. You also need a “stamper” and a “scraper” and their special nail polish… the first step is to grab your special polish & apply it over the entire etched design that you want to apply to your nail.

Then take your scraper and using one swift movement, scrape off all the excess nail polish off of the design. It helps to have a piece of scrap paper sitting under your plate so that you don’t end up scraping the nail polish onto your table.

Moving VERY quickly, take your stamper tool and pick up the design from the plate. It’s important to move quickly or the thin coat of polish will dry onto the plate. Usually, the thinner the image (these stripes are tiny!) the more quickly the paint will dry up!

Now that you’ve transferred a detailed design onto your stamper, you can carefully stamp it onto your nail in a rolling motion.

Once you have done one nail, grab the nail polish remover pads and clean up the excess polish from your plate and stamp. You can repeat the step for each nail and then clean the excess off your cuticles with a cotton swab.

After finishing all nails, top coat them to seal in the design & be sure to take quick swipes so that you don’t smear the design. And there you go! The stripes on mine came out slightly wavy because of some unsteady hands, but practice makes perfect & sometimes you just have to embrace those little mistakes on a DIY manicure.

Jessie from trendhungry.com created a super cute video where she styled our Happily Leather After Black Vegan Leather Skirt seven ways! Jessie is an on-air style expert, fashion blogger, and stylist who knows how to shop on a skinny budget.

Check out the video below to get some winter-wear inspiration!

xoxo

Hi everyone! It’s Mara again! I’m back to share another favorite holiday dessert! With Christmas and New Years quickly approaching I’m trying to figure out which desserts would be good to make for family dinners. I’m a big fan of pie but I’m always a little apprehensive about making it because I don’t want to mess up the crust. I found this recipe for a chocolate pie that uses a store bought crust and I had to try it. After all, the holidays are busy enough so if I can save myself a little extra time it’s totally worth it. And trust me, no one will be able to tell! This chocolate pie is rich and delicious and will impress everyone at the table!

Minny’s Chocolate Pie

Do you have any go-to recipes you like to make around the holidays?

xo, Mara