Ah, where to begin. I’m not really one to overshare the details of my life that include other people but I’ve been kind of a mess the past of couple days. I came home Thursday from Put-In-Bay to find out that my dad went to the emergency room, thinking he had a heart attack.

As an only child with very little extended family, my parents are my whole world and my father is my rock. He may tease me like he’s the older brother I never had and he may be more stubborn than me (which is a feat) but he’s funny, smart, caring and, most importantly, always there when I need him.

So needless to say, I’ve pretty much been a crying mess ever since. Even now as I wait to see if he will be released, I’m crying just typing this. While I have every belief that he will be okay, if you could send a positive thought his way, it would mean the world to me.

As you can imagine, talking about polish is about the last thing I care about right now so I’m not even going to apologize for effing up my 365. Some things are just more important than polish.

Needing a little cheering up, I put on Barielle A Bouquet For Ava which came out with the Barielle Wildflower Collection last year and was created to benefit the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. There’s even a group that raises awareness for the disease through nail polish called Teal Toes.

Since then I’ve seen various tutorials pop up on YouTube but none of them have looked as good or been as detailed as this one by LovelyInstinct so I thought I’d share. She uses a different method than Elle in that she applies a base coat of color underneath the lace and a lot more products. Those of you that aren’t a fan of seeing your natural nail through the lace, this is a great alternative.

To recap, these are Elle’s instructions:
1. Start with a clean nail  2. Brush on Gel Resin  3. Pick a thin Parisian piece of lace and attach   4. Spray with Glue Dry  5. Cut and shape using an embroidery scissor   6. Re-Resin  7. To remove, soak in acetone

Launching this February, the Wildflower collection from Shades by Barielle includes three polishes designed by Creative Director Elle to help fight Ovarian Cancer.  With two blues and two greens including some unique glitter accents, I’m smitten with the charitable concept and the colors.  The collection doesn’t launch for a couple months but I’ve got a preview of the bottles and Junebug for you to check out.

I’m sure you remember the lace nail trend I spoke about a while back.  The concept created by my friend Celebrity Manicurist Elle. Well Scratch chose Elle’s work for their December cover and asked me to write the accompanying cover story.  So cool, right?

You see, the lace nails were partially inspired by the Barielle All Lacquered Up collection.  During a shoot to promote the collection, Elle created some amazing fashion-forward looks that were an offshoot of concepts from the collection.  Read more about it and see my first print article, after the jump!