DIY Nail Polish Rack Tutorial. Sort of.

So with an addiction to subscription boxes, comes addictions to related Facebook groups, comes side sales and swaps of anything you could possibly think of. My vice? Nail polish. I don't have a lot, but I am a Julep Maven and that translates to me receiving nail polish every month. What do you do with all your nail polish when you've already taken over most of the bathroom storage for all of your other "woman crap" as men love to refer to it as? Well. You Google. You Youtube. You Pinterest. I ended up finding a great tutorial here from The Polished Fox. She gives a great explanation on the how to's with photos of the whole process. Bare with me because I have NEVER in my life written a tutorial for anyone for anything. I can barely share my recipes properly without throwing a profanity in there somewhere.

True to myself, I am unconventional and I rarely follow instructions perfectly, so I did NOT take photos of the "during" process. I will however attempt to give a brief overview as best I can on how to make one of these:

Its not perfect, but it is an original piece hand painted by myself, and I am very happy with the end result. Most everyone either uses colored foam board, or decorative duct tape or fabric to "fancy up" their polish racks, but I took the more painterly approach was too lazy to do my own shopping and didn't want my husband picking out my fancy duct tape.

I started off with 3 foam boards ($1.25 each) from Dollarama. Box cutter, pen, ruler, hot glue gun, glue sticks (you'll need about 4-5), and paint/foam brush (or get funky and use duct tape, I wont judge you.)

The first foam board, I marked off at every 5 inches and drew a line across. Those lines will be where you glue your shelves on. You end up drawing 4 lines, plus the top and bottoms, for a total of 6 shelves in the end.

The second foam board was the bulk of the work, because that's the one that you use to cut out the shelves, and the shelf borders. So keeping your foam board in the same portrait position, you need to mark off six lines 2 inches apart. Your shelves will be 2 inches wide. If you want bigger, hell's bells, go bigger! Just kidding. Do as I say or be gone with yourself. On the same board, you'll need to mark off another six lines that are 1 inch apart. I'm not going to lie, I think I would have preferred making them 2 inches wide, because I find they look a bit flimsy when you look at the facade in my photo. But I guess they're O.k. Use your judgement based on my photo.

The third foam board gets vertical lines drawn into it to make the sides of your rack. (Hey, Nice Rack!) Now here's where you need to do as I say, and not as I do. MY rack has 2.5 inch wide sides. IT DON'T LOOK RIGHT (said in my best redneck voice). If you go a titch smaller, like 2.25 inches wide, it'll be perfect.

The next step was to cut out all these shelves and borders and sides and plug in your hot glue gun. Believe me when I say, use your ruler to help keep your box cutter/exact-o straight. Otherwise you'll end up with on one of those "Nailed It" memes and you'll never live it down. Once I cut them all out, I got to painting. In hindsight, this is where I should have got up and walked around a bit before starting because at this point my hips and knees were on fire and I could no longer feel my ass. I have this major problem with sitting "Indian style" about 14 hrs per day no matter where I am sitting, be it on the couch, the bed, the floor, my office chair (ya i can still pull it off, go me), you name it. The only time I'm not sitting like that is when I'm in the bathroom. Retelling this reminds me of that e-mail I got a few years back about the girl who tried a home waxing kit for the first time. But that's a horse of a different color. Anyways.

I really like the way mine came out, with the purple and black on white, and it will look good in my bedroom when my husband finally gets sick of my nagging and hangs it on the wall for me in about 6-8 months hangs it on the wall for me. It'll match our my purple and zebra print theme we I have going on.

Once that's done its time to glue these bitches together. There really isn't anything that I can say here because if you've made it this far, you're intelligent enough to figure out how they all piece together. So get to gluing!!!

Let your rack set for about 15-20 minutes after gluing together to make sure that all the glue is cooled off and hardened and that your rack is holding together properly. Fix up any unstuck edges with more hot glue before you decide to move it around, or hang it on the wall, or fill it with polish to take a pic and post on every social media site to draw attention to yourself like I did. Admit it. My rack is AWESOME.

You should be able to get about 15 polishes per shelf, times 6 shelves comes out to... a lot of polish depending on the brand of your polish bottles and whether or not you're a mini junkie. Now go forth, and DIY!

The MANPACK.

Do you ever get the feeling that your mailman/woman is hoarding your mail somewhere and purposely delivering it bit by bit? The past month I've noticed something with my mail lady: I get mail on Tuesdays and Thursdays. THAT.IS.IT. But honestly, how could anyone possibly prove that and be taken seriously? She already thinks I'm crazy.

Today my awesome husband received his awesome package from Manpacks.com. Manpacks is a manly box that ships every 3 months (or ANY TIME if you hit their "Ship Now" button, as often as you like), whereby you can pick and choose exactly what goes in your box each month. I have to say, being a woman, I was kind of jealous that this type of box exists for men, because we don't have one really for women. But NEVER FEAR! The awesome guys over at Manpacks whispered to me that there WOULD be a similar "sister" company launching in the near future! Anyways, back to business. Lets start off with my first impression of their website. Totally simple, totally to the point, and their Dashboard is awesome and comprehensive. No man could possibly get lost navigating their page. Need socks? They've got em. Need skivvies? They've got em. Got sweaty balls? They've got a product for that too. I shit you not. They're awesome. When I first picked out my Hubs' manpack and placed the order, I immediately got an e-mail from them to make sure everything went smoothly. I was tickled pink at the personal service I received, even though the bulk of it wasn't exactly for me. A couple of days later I had questions about my purchasing choices, so I clicked onto their Online help, and there popped up Ken. Super friendly, helpful, to the point. Score one for Ken. Score one for manpacks.

Ok so enough stroking the goat, lets get down to business. "What did you order Lola??" Well allow me to share!

Voila. Now everyone knows my husband is currently walking around with the freshest balls in town. There's no shame in it. Don't tell me as women we've never swiped deodorant between the girls to avoid summer sweat. That's what I thought. 

So the Fresh Balls retails with manpacks for $14.00. They describe it as " Scientifically designed to keep your junk as fresh as a lily". It really does smell "fresh". In the bottle. Dont. Even. Go. There. Its a natural product with no aluminum, no talc and no parabens. It contains oatmeal (anti-irritant) and tea-tree oil (kills bacteria). At first I didn't even want to tell my husband I picked this out. I thought it would be funny for him to receive the pack and discover it as he opened it. But I couldn't resist. I'm not going to lie, telling him I picked out a product to keep his balls from sweating was about as awkward as discussing light bladder leakage. He was iffy at first, but as the days went on he actually got excited to receive his bottle O'fresh. 

I picked out the rest of the items (all two others) based on the fact that my husband likes to keep his socks and boxers until they're see-through, full of holes, and basically dangling off of him. But don't tell him I said that. Manpacks offers a wide variety of man socks, I chose the hubster's usual sporty black sock. The ones offered by manpacks are the performance no show's by Champion at $3.00 per pair, which is a pretty kick ass price for man socks. They're soft, they're stretchy, they're socks. And I can't wait to hijack a pair. Manpacks also has a plethora of choices of man gaunch. Again, I went with the usual Hanes Comfort Soft Boxer Briefs at $5.00. Soft, Junk supporting, washable, wearable, great price.

They even sent along a piece of Ginseng candy, just to make the opening of the package that much sweeter. When you first subscribe you get great deals, a discount code for $4.00 off, and if you order over $30.00 your shipping is free. This is a U.S. company but they ship to Canada, and honor the free ship over $30. We received our manpack within 10 days. They predicted 2-3wks, so it was awesome to be surprised by an early arrival. All in all, I was super impressed with the service I received placing my first order, and my hubs was super excited about his loot. I've made some changes for his next manpack that I plan on activating the "ship now" option on in March, and I cannot wait to share with you everything I picked!

Picture Polish Snag

Husband: "What did you do today honey?"
Me: "Housework" "Stalked Llarowe.com, waited in line to get into the store and then stalked the new releases of Picture Polish's collection so I could snag a totally awesome polish!"

Yeah, that's right. I'm one of "the crazies". I was after all taught by the best of the business of polish stalking. No seriously, these girls are awesome. 

So after an hour of waiting, refreshing, stalking, cussing, smoking, refreshing, cussing some more, I was able to snag this beautiful specimen of perfection: 

Meet "Wowza mind blowing Aurora" by Picture Polish. She's beautiful, she's exciting, and she's MINE! ( In 2-3wks depending on shipping and our *awesome* mail system ) I literally feel like I've just adopted a new child. I deserve my own TLC show. "Here comes Lola and Aurora". Has a nice ring to it no? 

Anyways, Aurora is part of their Limited Edition set of polishes, and you can see the whole collection right here, cause I'm awesome like that. 

Aren't they lovely?

Nail Mail!!

I have a serious addiction to receiving things in the mail. It's a BIG problem. It's only recent though, it all started back in October 2013 when I signed up for Julep Maven ( A monthly subscription that delivers nail polish right to your door, and other beauty products based on your profile for $19.99/mth. Click HERE to get your first box free when you enter FREECOLOR in the coupon code.) Julep popped my cherry, and unleashed the wild beast of searching constantly for the best subscription boxes, coupon codes for free or cheaper boxes, giveaways... All this lead to the wonderful world of Freebies, and Samples!!! And that was a gateway to FB pages and groups dedicated to subscription boxes, freebies, sample giveaways, people who love boxes, people who swap their box contents, people who sell their unloved polishes from previous boxes... you get the picture. Its like crack for the beauty product lover. And I am a beauty product crack addict. The first step to recovery is admitting it right? Right. 

So what came in my mail today? 

My first Dollish Polish!!! I'm so excited to try this. I'll post a swatch later if I remember. If you're curious what color it is, follow me, and ask me! I also got in the mail the Pink Rockstar Nails polish and caviar set that came in Beauty Box 5's February box, which I was going to review next. I got the Teal-ish version in my box, but of course, like Pokemon, gotta have 'em all. I told you. Its like crack for housewives. I say that without malice because I am a housewife. I work from home, I shop from home, I raise my family from home, I'm a wife at home, so that makes me DESPERATE TO GET OUT. Just kidding. It pretty much qualifies me as a housewife. 

I.LOVE.MAIL.

DollarShave Club

Another nifty package showed up on my doorstep today, again, not what I was expecting, because I only subscribed on Saturday, was my Dollar Shave Club subscription package. No really. I have entered my information on so many samples pages, and freebies sites, I was truly expecting the mailman to show up and dump a huge crate at my door, but alas, no. 

Aside from the fact that I'm not exactly a fan of my "replacement" mailman right now ( I think she's a scab ), I was really happy when I opened my package and found my new razor and blades for the month. Dollar Shave Club offers monthly subscriptions, allowing you to chose which blades you'd prefer. Seeing as how I'm new to the whole subscription addiction, I chose the least expensive razor and blades, The Humble Twin for $4.03 per month with taxes and shipping included in that tiny price. O.k. I'm partially lying. I got the cheaper one because I literally haven't shaved my legs in over a month and figured why spend money on something I barely use anyways? No one can tell I'm sporting the Yeti look under my flannel pajama pants anyways...  

In honor of my new sub, I decided to give my no-more-excuses razor a whirl in the shower earlier, and de-yeti-fied myself. I'm sure my husband will be thrilled to regain his long standing title of "hairiest family member". It took me a few drops in the shower to figure out how to attach the blade to the handle and not have it fall off ( Don't hold the release button when trying to shave ). What can I say? My legs are silky smooth again, with a nice close shave, no razor burn, and no knicks. Im a happy shaver right now. I think for next month I'll upgrade to the "Lovers Blade" ( 4 blades ) for my husband, and keep this Humble Twin for myself.

Toothbrush Subscriptions

I subscribed only Saturday to www.toothbrushsubscriptions.com and to my surprise, it arrived today. Considering the wait time on a lot of other sub boxes, I was tickled pink to see this in my mailbox this morning.

When you arrive on their site, you can chose your preferred toothbrush (or as in my case, toothbrushes) as well as the frequency at which you'd like them delivered. I chose the Luxury Toothbrush ($3.00 ea.) for myself and my husband in different colors (because who wants to mistakenly brush with someone else's? Yuk.) and the Junior Toothbrush (2.00 ea) for my 9 yr old. We'll be receiving these awesome little bad boys every three months. All of their toothbrushes are approve by the American Dental Association, so that makes me feel great, and not like a cheap-ass mom trying to save a buck by buying toothbrushes online.

The quality of these toothbrushes surprised me really. Nice thick handles, soft bristles, cute colors. They'll do my family's teeth just fine. For $8.00 every three months for my choices, I highly recommend giving this sub a try. They ship to Canada and the U.S., and they offer free shipping to both. No seriously. Their invoice literally reads "Free Shipping, No choice, Sorry!". I love it. Now get out there and buy your pearly whites a subscription to this great service. You'll thank me later. If you remember.

My new addiction, Subscription Boxes!

Ok, so I'm probably the millionth blogger to ever subscribe to a monthly box, an post photos and reviews of my loot, but what the heck. I'm an original, so surely my posts will be... original?