July 2011 Birchbox - shipment two

Hello, Beautiful!

Just a quick post.... My husband's July Birchbox shipment finally arrived. I have no idea why his box takes so long to arrive. I contacted Birchbox to figure this out; I'm trying to figure out if it's a problem on their end or on my local post office's end. They're incredibly helpful in finding out what's going on and trying to prevent it from happening in the future. I just want his box to arrive at the same time so I can get both shipments uploaded to my blog and website at the same time.

If you're interested in checking out his July 2011 Birchbox shipment you can CLICK HERE to view it on ValentineKisses.com.

His July Birchbox shipment included:

• Zoya polish in Shay
• Philosophy Purity Made Simple One-Step Facial Cleanser
• Redken Shine Flash 02
• Ahava Mineral Hand Cream
• Kind Almond & Apricot bar

I also have my July 2011 Birchbox shipment posted on there (as well as past shipments).



On a side note:

If you don't know already, ValentineKisses.com is my beauty website - basically my blog in website form but I hope to make it better and easier to find what you're looking for.

I'm slowly adding content to it and it continues to grow day by day. Sometimes I post swatches and info on ValentineKisses.com before I ever post it on here, and sometimes I only post certain things on ValentineKisses.com that will never get posted on my blog.

There is an icon near the top of the page that says "Click here to check out the most recent additions to ValentineKisses.com!" -- you'll want to click on that icon first if you want to see what new content was recently added.

Be sure to check out and bookmark http://www.valentinekisses.com/

MASH Nail Art Stamping Plates: Review and pics of 25 plates - including showing all designs stamped!

Hello, Beautiful!

I recently received the MASH Nail Art Stamping plates (a set of 25 for $9.99 on Amazon). They're sold out at the present time, but I highly suggest you pick up this set the next time they come in stock.

These plates are really great quality for being just $0.40 per plate!

They stamp beautifully, even with non-stamping polish (I used Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri polish for the sample pics).

I'm not going to post all the pics here on the blog, but you can check them out on the new ValentineKisses.com where I have 25 MASH stamping plates listed - showing each plate and then a paper with each design from each plate stamped out. I really should have used a better polish for this purpose, but it's done now. You'll still get a good idea of the design -- and keep in mind the designs look better on the nail than on paper (since paper soaks up some of the polish and the designs don't look as crisp).

CLICK HERE to see all the MASH stamping plates.

In addition to the MASH plates, I added a nail art stamping photo tutorial. Click here to check that out.

I'm going to add more stamping plates and their designs soon (all the ones from the Born Pretty Store... well, most of them). I don't own any Konad plates, so I can't compare MASH or the Born Pretty Store plates to them, but I can say that the MASH plates were far better than the Born Pretty Store plates. Then again, I did see that the Born Pretty Store now has round plates (they were the hexagon shaped plates) and they look very similar. I ordered some, so I'll have to see if they're the same quality once I receive them.

Enjoy!



A sampling of the new website...

Hello, Beautiful!

Even though the new ValentineKisses.com is not quite ready, I do have a few preview pages I'd like to share with you.

Click on a link below to check out an example of what you can expect on the new ValentineKisses.com.


April's Birchbox shipment

Tarte Swatches main page

Tarte Reviews main page

Tarte Tutorials main page

Contests & Giveaways main page

Nail Art main page


That's all for now :)

I hope you enjoyed your preview and will look forward to when the full site launches!


On a side note...
Today (Tuesday) I am officially finished packing and shipping orders! It doesn't feel real yet that it's all really over; I feel like I'll have more orders to pack up tomorrow. But I'm really relieved I can begin to get my life back.

Over the weekend I finally had time to rearrange, clean and organize my living room... something that hasn't been done in nearly 2 months! It was a train wreck before Sunday. The rest of my house, however, is still a wild crazy mess.

The good thing is I will have a bunch of organization towers to use since I no longer will need them for my inventory. I mostly used (although not only used) those tall Steri-lite 7-drawer units to store all inventory for ValentineKisses.com. I have between 15 and 20 of them I can now re-purpose for organizing my son's toys, adding additional storage for makeup, jewelry, hair accessories, and just about anything else I can stuff in them!

I'm also excited to get back into pole dancing for fitness, something I used to do on a regular basis before I injured my leg (from pole dancing) over 3 years ago. I'm putting the pole back up and will slowly get back into it. I'm not rushing any crazy moves; not just because I need to build my strength and flexibility back up but also because I don't want to risk bumping my nose! I'll need to wait until at least September or October before I can attempt most moves.

Do any of my readers pole dance for fitness, or have thought about it? I was seriously OBSESSED with it. I even put off getting pregnant again so I could continue to pole dance... although looking back I wish I hadn't. If I had only known I would face fertility issues later down the road I would have gotten pregnant again years ago! Now having a baby is what I want more than anything, and I know in time it will happen. My goal is to be pregnant within a year.

Anyhow, it's late (12:19am here), and I'm super tired. Until next time...