Mean Green Juice Manicure

Hey y’all! I know, I know…I have been totally ignoring y’all the past few weeks. Things have slowed down now (thank gosh!) and I am ready to make you guys and ballinonabudgetblog a priority again!

Alright, enough with the guilt trip 😉 I am happy to share this next post with you all. 

Who here has seen the amazing documentary Fat Sick and Nearly Dead with Joe Cross? Well, I hope you all have! It is an inspiring story documenting one mans journey as he ditches the fast food life to live off natural raw juices made from vegetables and fruits for 60 days. It is available on Netflix and Hulu and I definitely recommend it. I promise this is not a movie review but an explanation of today’s Manicure Monday post.

My best friend and I decided to give this whole juicing/reboot thing a try for a few days. 

Here is our first and lumpy attempt at the Mean Green Juice. 

And here it is, in its intended state, super juicy and pretty tasty!

Although the recipe is available all over the internet, here it goes again:

• 6 Kale leaves
• 2 Green apples
• 4 Celery stalks
• 1 Cucumber
• Half a lemon
• Ginger

Can be made with a juicer or a blender, I would recommend checking out a few video tutorials before you try either. I will not share my depressing saga where I broke both a juicer and a blender in one weekend because it is just not how I am feeling anymore! I definitely feel more energized but I will confess, I am so hungry and miss chewing. I never thought I would say that I missed chewing haha. 

All the juice talk aside, I decided to try a Mean Green manicure for the week to complement my Mean Green juice. I used “mint sorbet” by Sally Hansen Xtreme wear and “Patti” by the Rocker Chic collection from Julep. I read somewhere, cannot remember where, that 2013 is the year of the double accent nail, so I decided to give it a try. So far, I am digging it. What do y’all think?

There it is. Doesn’t look so mean, but at least its green. And I just love the chunky glitter from Julep!

Anyone have any manicures to share? I’d love to see them! I hope everyone’s week is off to a good start!

DIY: A wreath fit for fall

I am so excited to share my newest DIY project. I have decided to decorate for the seasons this year, including the two weeks of fall Central Texas gets each year. I think making wreaths is my new favorite thing to do! Christmas wreath making party anyone? I’ll stop yapping and show y’all my creation.

I followed the amazing tutorial found on pinterest from homemade by jill. Make sure to check out how hers turned out!

 

The original tutorial used loose glitter on cardstock, I decided to cut one step out and found glittered cardstock in the scrapbook aisle. There was glitter everywhere!

I cut out a leaf shape from each color. This actually proved a little harder than I thought it would! I ended with a total of 72 leaf shapes, 18 in each color. I could not figure out a way to make each leaf the same shape. I decided to accept it and it was actually really helpful that they were not identical once I started placing them on the wreath form.

The next step was to pop in season 3 of Friends and watch the “We were on a break” episode on repeat. Oh and also to heat up my hot glue gun and get to work. I started off with all four colors in a row and filled in the rest.

This was seriously so quick to do. I think I spent about 5 minutes to get to that point.

And then I decided to start the other way. I followed the original tutorial here because I really like the effect of it meeting at the top.

After gluing all the leaves around the wreath form and wiping my eyes and finally watching the next episode, I glued on the bow. I decided to buy a pre-made bow because my bow making abilities are just as bad as my leaf cutting abilities. Also, I fell in love with this glitterful bow! And I feel you can never have too much glitter, although my carpet my disagree.

I borrowed the wire from the bow and made a little loop to make the wreath a lot easier to hang. Now my wreath holder won’t damage any of the leaves!

Et Voila! Here is the finished product! I love how much sparkle is on my door right now!

A la instagram!

This was such an easy and inexpensive project. It was also a lot of fun! I spent about 2 hours, most of which were spent cutting the leaves. It cost a total of $15 to achieve this look since I already owned the hot glue gun and the wreath holder that I purchased at the dollar tree. Each piece of cardstock was $2 which is a little pricey in my opinion but totally worth it to cut out the extra step and the glitter did not fall off as much as the fine glitter usually does. The wreath was purchased with a 50% off coupon thanks to the Michael’s app (LOVE this app).

I wish this could stay up longer but I am excited for my upcoming Christmas wreath! I hope y’all enjoyed this as much as I have! I can’t wait to share the other things I have been working on!

Til then, hope everyone is having a great week!