Busy post alert!

This is a very busy post!  An award, A looong review, and my newest creation!  Prepare yourself!

For the first thing, I have been given a blog award from the lovely Linzi Louisa from When It Rains It Pours

This makes me so happy!  I've only been doing this a short period of time, and already I've been communicating with some awesome people, and there are people in the world who appreciate the stuff I post.  I love doing this, and I'm beyond glad there are people out there who share this hobby/obsession with me =]

I know that I should share this love with other people, and I'm definitely going to do that soon, but right now I've got stuff planned to show you all!  If you've been keeping up, I posted about my May Birchbox
and I promised to review the items that came to me in said box.  Here we go!

First up, I don't have a picture of it aside from what came in the box, is my Twistband Headband!  The one that I got is a navy blue, which is actually sort of cool, because it matches my work uniform shirt, and since I spend 40ish hours there a week, I'm more likely to wear headbands there...
I love Twistband.  I received two of their smaller bands in one of my first Birchboxes last year, they were both black.  Basically they are just colored elastics for your hair, but they are a really comfortable elastic.  They have soooo much give in them, but they still hold your hair up without denting it.  I gave one of those to my best friend, and kept the other, but I've since lost it =[ which sucks, because they're so great to just wear on your wrist, they won't cut off circulation and they just look cooler than a regular elastic.  The headband is made of the same material, and it is thinner.  I am so glad they sent me this, because I have been on the fence about spending the 10-12 bucks it costs to get a pack of these types of headbands from Birchbox (Birchbox has another brand of headband/hair elastic similar to Twistband in their shop) because headband elastics have always been hell for me.  I don't know who's to blame for this, but I always ended up feeling my head must be huge and oddly shaped, because I see girls all the time wearing their hair up, and the elastic holding back bangs and loose hair, and they make it seem so easy.  Like the band doesn't slip off their head in five minutes.  No matter what I try, i can't keep these things on!  Twistband has saved me.  The headband is so versatile, it looks awesome even with your hair down, doesn't slip off my head.  I love this product, and if you have troubles like I do, I definitely recommend the Twistband headband. Here is a link to all of the Twistband products on Birchbox, apparently my headband comes from a pack of 6 skinny headbands, which is $20.  For me, that's a bit steep, but here is the direct website, find something that works for you!

Next up is Dr. Jart+ Water Fuse Beauty Balm SPF 25+

This is an awful photo!  I was trying to take photos of things I have received in my boxes, and the others turned out fine.  So I'm really sorry, and you're just better off viewing it in my original Birchbox post lol or here on the birchbox website. (Note: it is the squeeze bottle to the left of the Nuxe dry oil bottle that kind of looks like nail polish but is not)  I was excited to try this, I haven't tried beauty balms yet, and I wanted to know how different it could be than just a tinted moisturizer with some SPF.  Turns out, I won't get to find out unless I buy some.  I was getting ready for work the other night and opted to use this instead of my Neutrogena Healthy Skin Enhancer.  Now before I tell you what happened, let me just say that I KNOW that these products are just samples. I know that there is not much of them, although some of the things I am sent do last me a long time.  But it's been my experience with Birchbox that when a product comes in a squeeze bottle instead of say a disposable packet that you cut open and use once maybe twice, that the bottle is at the very least halfway full.  Not so with this product...I squeezed slightly, then built up the force with it after nothing happened, and after about five or six squeezes, a little squirt flies out onto my hand.  I was like really?  It was enough for my cheeks and blending my concealer under my eyes.  I made the comment in the box on the feedback page while I was reviewing the product to earn the ten points, so hopefully someone has read it at Birchbox.  All in all, I'm going to stick with my Neutrogena.  The Healthy Skin Enhancer has SPF 20, it's oil free, it has retinol treatment, and it's tinted the same as many other tinted moisturizers out there.

And now, onto the Color Club Disco Nap from their Foil Collection!

I think this is my first foil.  This is so pretty! Application is awesome, One coat was fine for almost all my fingers, but I used two coats and that made it perfection.  If you're looking closely, you can see streak marks a little, but I don't care =] for giggles I sponged China Glaze Luxe and Lush from the Hunger Games collection on my thumb and ring fingers, as well as added Seche Vite top coat to all of them:

It's hard to tell, but in person the flakies go really well with the gold  in my opinion.  Top coat helped in hiding the streak marks, and didn't change the foil-y finish much, I think this is another winner from Color Club =] This is $8 on the Birchbox website. I'm really thinking about getting the other polish in the collection, Foil Me Once, which is a really pretty fuschia color =] I really feel like this is going to help me through the Crumpet's summer challenge (there are some olympic-related challenge days!)

Onto the perfume! This is Arquiste L'Etrog

I haven't actually used this yet, but I opened the top and smelled it.  Smells wonderful =]
The description from the website:
"This transporting scent will take you to an exotic Mediterranean cabin built out of palm leaves and foraged branches. Beneath these opening woodsy notes hovers a bright base of Etrog citron, which is native to Calabria, plus lush date and fragrant myrtle. The overall composition is warm and citrusy without veering into overly sweet territory."
This description is great, and I love the reference to the Mediterranean, because when I sniffed this awesome perfume, it immediately reminded me of my awesome aunt, who is no longer with us.  Her husband was Greek, born and raised there, and she absolutely loved to visit Greece.  When she died, she split up her collections between her nieces, and I've added a little bit to them over time.  Of her collection, a large portion of it is perfume bottles, I have a lot of mini bottles and regular sized ones, some empty some not.  I don't know why this reminds me of her so much, it's been almost 11 years, but it does. I'll keep this in the collection, but there's no way I'll spend $165 on a full sized bottle..

Then there is the beautyblender blendercleanser.  Birchbox sent me a beautyblender a couple of months ago, and that makeup sponge is AWESOME!  You get it wet, squeeze out the excess water, and the sponge doubles in size.  It works so well at blending everything together, and you can use it all over! for anything! I do wish I had the blendercleanser because I resorted to using my Neutrogena Deep Clean facial cleanser..you know, the big bottle full of orange stuff?  Which worked pretty well.  But now I really wanna get another one!  This stuff is also great for cleaning your makeup brushes=]  I would definitely recommend it, but this is my first brush/sponge cleanser, so I'm sure if you've found something cheaper (this is $17.50 for 6 oz.) that works for you, I'd say go for that.  I'm so cheap lol  No, I haven't used it on my makeup brushes yet but I will =] 

So that's it for my May Birchbox review!  Be expecting these monthly=]

The last thing I want to leave you with today is my awesome upcycling of my old Birchboxes into a new nail shelf!  The idea just came to me, and I had asked my boyfriend to build me a shelf but then I thought, why go out and buy supplies for a shelf, why not utilize stuff I already own??  I have collected a lot of my Birchboxes.  For one, they're cute.  For a craft enthusiast like myself, throwing away this completely reusable box once a month is just crazy talk.  I also save the lovely tissue paper that comes in the boxes.  You never know when you're going to need a cute box and some tissue paper!  Seriously..

So here's what I did:

I used some masking tape to hold them together as well as tape down the paper I wrapped them in.  I used the little description cards that come in the boxes to sort of stabilize between the boxes:

The layers are not attached, so I can add more and move stuff around whenever I want!

I was hoping this would, but it like PERFECTLY holds my entire stash, including all my top coats and base coats and such.  You can tell from the top shot that there is just a little bit of room for more.  That shouldn't take very long to fill =]  I'm so pleased with this!

Any thoughts?  Do any of you have monthly beauty subscriptions?  I love reading about other Birchboxes and stuff like it, and I've often thought of adding on something else, but until I can save more money $10 is all I'm willing to shell out..