Ruin and Rising Launch Party Recap

Hi, everyone! Today is the release day for Ruin & Rising by Leigh Barugo, the third book in the Grisha series. I was lucky enough to attend the launch party last night held at The Last Bookstore in downtown LA. Leigh knows how to throw a good party and I was excited to celebrate her new book with her and all of the Grisha fans.

The event did not start until 7:30pm. I met up with Nicole, Michelle and Crystal earlier in the evening and had dinner at one of my favorite Italian places. By the time we made it back to the store, there was a pretty substantial line happening. Eventually someone came around to check our names off a list and gave us color coded wristbands so that they could tell if we were allowed booze or not. Below you can see I have my Ruin & Rising manicure and wristband ready to party!

The store was jam packed and we did not manage to grab seats in time. Instead, we wandered around the store checking out the party decorations and snacks. 

There was a lot of fun stuff going on, including a photo booth and a manicure station. I was pretty excited about the manicure station. I didn't do it because I already had my nails done but I am interested in seeing what manicures everyone else got.

After some mingling and snacking it was time for the main event. Leigh got up on stage and thanked everyone for being there. She said that she has started off all of her other launch parties by reading something embarrassing from her childhood. This time around, she had found a journal from when she was 10, which she read aloud parts of to us. I can't really paraphrase what was in the journal but trust me, she had us all in stitches. 

Leigh then talked a little bit about the film Labyrinth, which was one of her favorite movies as a teen.   I can't really summarize this part very well but she showed us some great footage of the ballroom scene and how it relates to her writing. She also touched on the subject of reading YA and pointed out that there is a lot of amazing writing going on in YA and that's why people read it. 

Leigh then read the first page from Ruin and Rising. She didn't want to be spoiler-y so she had a limited selection to choose from. Next up were some questions.

Who were Nikolai and the Apparat inspired by? 

Nikolai is a bit Han Solo and a bit Lando Calrissian. She also mentioned a character from a book series but I am blanking on the name. Sorry about that. If you remember, leave a comment telling me below.

Who was Mal inspired by?

Leigh had a friend when she was younger and they had a really close friendship. Mal is sort of inspired by that relationship of deep friendship though he is no inspired by any one person, since Leigh has never met anyone like Mal.

Then it was finally time for book signing! Luckily we had been standing pretty close to the stage and managed to get in the signing line near the front. The line was still going strong when we left so I am glad that we got in it early.

Leigh was sweet and gracious as always. I showed her my R&R nails like a fangirl. We even managed to finally snag some brownies after looking for them all night. Overall I'd say the night was a huge success! 

Much thanks to Leigh and everyone who organized the party and also to my blogging buddies for the great company. If you missed Leigh this time around, she will be at the Fierce Reads tour in B&N The Grove on July 23. I will be in San Diego for Comic Con already by that date but it should be a great event. 

Manicure Monday (67): Ruin and Rising

 

Manicure Monday is a feature that combines my love or reading and nail polish. Each week I'll showcase one of my current reads along with a matching book manicure.

Hello and happy Monday, everyone. Today's manicure is for the newly released Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo. While this technically does not come out until tomorrow, I heard that some B&N had them out early. I went in search of it over the weekend and happily was able to find it at my local store. I decided to do this manicure today because I am going to the launch party for Ruin and Rising tonight, which is being held in downtown LA at The Last Bookstore. It should be a really good time and I hope to see some of you there.

I love the covers to this entire series. They are so striking and work well individually but also make a nice set when seen together. The cover to Ruin and Rising is much darker and more ominous looking than the last two covers. Looking at this cover, I knew that I wanted to do a gradient as part of this manicure. Using three shades of Zoya polish in Sooki, Rekha and Paris, I created a gradient on three of my fingers. I arranged it so the darkest color was at the base of my nails. Then I wanted to create a splatter effect to mimic the center part of the cover where there are faint splatters of gold on the red. I had a really hard time finding a gold that was as orange as the one from this cover. However, after much digging I was able to find a good match in Wet N Wild The Gold and the Beautiful (yes, nail polish companies do love pun-y names). I made the splatter by dipping a small mixing straw into the polish and blowing it onto the nails.

The grey I used was actually a polish that was given out as a promo product when Shadow & Bone was first released. So far, there has been a polish for each book. Shadow & Bone's polish was a matte grey creme. I used two coats of the Grisha Grey on my thumb and ring finger. I used black acrylic paint to paint the stripes on my ring finger. 

For my thumb, I decided to pull an element from the central tower on the R&R cover. I painted the turrets with black acrylic paint and dotted on red polish to match the tower.

Bonus pic of my right hand, which I usually don't show because it's often the same as my left and it's sort of annoying to take pics of your non-dominant hand. However, I did my read hand a little differently this time so I thought it would be fun to show it.

And there you have it - nails ready for a Grisha party. Hope you guys liked today's manicure. If you're at the launch tomorrow and see me, please come say hello. :)

Siege and Storm Launch Party Recap + Giveaway

This recap is ridiculously overdue. Apologies for the lateness of it but sometimes life just happens. I was lucky enough to be able to make the launch party for Leigh Bardugo's Siege and Storm on June 3, 2013 at Hemingway's in Hollywood. I had never been to Hemingway's before but it's a really cool bar that uses books as decor.

My partner in crime for this event was Kimberly from The Windy Pages. She got there a little before me and got in line. We arrived a couple of hours before the party started and there was actually a good size line when we got there. (Also - hi to Cindi and Lupe, our line-mates)

Manicure Monday (21): Siege and Storm

Well it's Monday again. Funny how it keeps coming around week after week. :) But the good thing about Mondays is that it means another manicure that I get to show off. I am cheating a bit this week and am using a manicure that I did a couple of weeks ago. I attended the Siege and Storm launch party earlier this month and wanted to create a special manicure for the event. I actually had some trouble coming up with ideas for this manicure and had a couple of failed attempts before hitting on this one. However, I was very happy with the final result and it's one of my favorite manicures to date. Take a look.

I thought about mimicing some of the lines on the book but then decided against it since doing straight lines is hard for me. Instead I decided to focus on the dragon on the cover, namely the scales. They're not very prominent on the cover, but you can see them on the edges of the book cover.

To create the scales I used a black creme (Wet N Wild Black) as a base. I then stamped a pattern from Cheeky plate CH4 over it using Urban Outfitters silver holo, an awesome holographic polish. I originally tried stamping with a different pattern but it didn't look scale-like enough for me and I ended up switching to this pattern, which I like a lot better.

For my thumb, I knew I wanted to do an accent nail. I tried doing a sort of sunburst with red and grey but I totally messed it up because I didn't let it try long enough before taping it off. I wiped that all off and was going to try again but, after putting on my base (a burgundy from CND), the idea crept into my head to try drawing the dragon onto my nail. I really wasn't going to attempt this because I was already tired and thought  it was going to turn out terrible. But, like most of my decisions in life, I decided not to go with common sense and just went for it. Happily I think it turned out really well.

For the dragon I used a white striper. The brush was a little too long for fine work but I managed. Added orange accents on the mane and a tiny red eye. I am actually really impressed with myself for not messing this up. I ended up wearing this manicure for almost a week without any chips. I loved seeing the rainbow scales in the sunlight and my tiny little dragon every day. 

I hope you liked this week's manicure. Thanks for coming by. If you decide to participate, please leave your link in the widget below. Have a great week!

 

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A Week of Bookish Events (Fangirl Squeee!)

June is promising to be a good book month for me. There are a ton of really awesome books coming out in June and some really great local book events to go with them. I am going to 3 (yes, 3) events the first week in June and I am super excited about them because they are for some of my all-time favorite authors. Details on the events are below. If you happen to be going, give a shout out. I'd love to say hi.

Leigh Bardugo

Monday June 3, 2013 7PM
Siege & Storm Launch Party

Hemingway's Lounge
6356 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, California 90028
Facebook event page

Nalini Singh

Tuesday June 4, 2013 7:30PM
Heart of Obsidian (Psy-Changeling series)

OMG you guys know how much I love Nalini Singh. I am super excited to see her again and Tues is the release of her newest Psy-Changeling book. It's going to be epic.

Mysterious Galaxy Redondo Beach
2810 Artesia Blvd.
Redondo Beach, CA 90278

Richelle Mead

Wednesday June 5, 2013

Gameboard of the Gods

Another total fangirl event. I LOVE Richelle Mead. 

Barnes and Noble
1201 3rd St Promenade
Santa Monica, CA
310-260-9110

Note from Richelle on the event
*Event will include reading, Q&A, and signing.
*I will sign up to four books per person--one personalized and the others just autographed. We'll do pictures if time permits.
*No tickets required, but if you purchase Gameboard of the Gods in advance or at the event, you'll get a priority spot in line.
*If there any of my books you want to buy and don't have, PLEASE support the store and buy them there! It's a lot of time and expense for them to host me. Thanks!

Mark your calendars and come out to one of these great events. Hope to see you there!

say "twee!"

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