My Pretty Little Liars & Chasing Life Party

by sparkleandshinesami

My contract with Seventeen Magazine, as a member of Seventeen Magazine’s Seventeen Social Club, helped me land a once in a lifetime opportunity.

To kick off the “Pretty Little Liars” season premiere last night and the premiere of ABC Family’s new show “Chasing Life,” Seventeen Magazine and ABC Family sent me promotional goodies for myself and some friends. To celebrate the premiere of the shows and the awesome goodies, I hosted a Pretty Little Liars/Chasing Life premiere party (#PLLChasingLifeParty).

My friends (starting from left to the right, in the back) Jenny, Kathleen, Jenna, Lawlah, Allie, Julia, and Vanessa came over to celebrate to start of the premiere with all of our amazing goodies!

Some of the goodies ABC Family sent for our #PLLChasingLifeParty were orange Chasing Life bags! They were super cute and the right size to keep some of the other goodies ABC Family sent us in.

We had so much fun with the other promotional goodies – such as the beach balls, “Pretty Little Liars” and “Chasing Life” mini posters, and ABC Family summer season lineup fans.

Coasters featuring ABC Family’s summer shows were also included. They were perfect to put our drinks on…..

…and to keep the “Pretty Little Liars” fun going during the commercial breaks!

ABC Family also included a WATCH ABC Family flyer and “Pretty Little Liars” season 4 DVD coupons.

As a party host for ABC Family, through Seventeen Magazine, I tweeted some of the pictures above. The official ABC Family Pretty Little Liars twitter account and official ABC Family Chasing Life twitter account retweeted me twice. Now, images of my friends and I at our #PLLChasingLifeParty have over 100 likes each, over 20 retweets each, and I’ve gained a bunch of new followers.

Whenever people tweet at me asking how I received all these awesome goodies for my friends and I, I just tell them that I’m lucky enough to be working with Seventeen Magazine thanks to “Sparkle and Shine.”

Thanks ABC Family and Seventeen Magazine for this opportunity!

P.S. readers, The Collegiate Standard is still offering 10% off with coupon code SAMI10. Head on over to get your shopping on while the coupon is still available!

21Apr2014

My Monday Musts

by sparkleandshinesami

Happy Monday, readers!

For those of you who celebrated Easter, hope you had an amazing holiday. I also hope the Easter Bunny was as good to you as he was to me – he clearly knows me very well, seeing as my basket was filled with Victoria’s Secret, Clinique, peanut butter cups, and a new pair of sneakers. Can’t wait to break them in later at the gym!

Being home for a few days for Easter allowed me to de-stress and prepare myself for the long-haul of the next three weeks of classes, tests, and ultimately – finals week.

My biggest recommendation is make your phone’s lock screen an inspirational quote that you really love to help you power through. I scoured my Pinterest‘s “Words to Live By” board until I found the perfect one. Here it is:

To help you stay calm through your possible stressful week, take a quick break, and check out this week’s Monday Musts –

1. Cookie Dough Iced Coffee from Dunkin Donuts

I spent my Friday home in New Jersey from school getting my nails done and shopping. No day of manicures and shopping would be complete without either a Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks run. So, after hearing rave reviews about Dunkin’s newest iced coffee – Cookie Dough flavored, Julia and I decided to get it. It was DELICIOUS! I’m a recent iced coffee addict and this new flavor from Dunkin was so good. The Baskin Robins inspired flavored coffee is a MUST TRY for any iced coffee addict – so head on over to Dunkin immediately. You won’t regret it!

2. Modern Family

Besides iced coffee, manicures, and shopping, my few days at home for Easter also included vegging out on the couch catching up on some of my favorite television shows, such as “Criminal Minds” and “The Millers.” I’ve heard a lot of positive reviews about the ABC show, especially how funny it is. I decided to watch it – and became HOOKED. Before I knew it, I was watching every episode that was on demand and am now quickly looking into other ways to catch up on all the seasons (if anyone knows – let me know – since it’s not on Netflix). I love all the characters, the family dynamic, how the show is set up, and just everything about it. I hope my future daughter is as sassy as Lilly.

3. The Makeup Show NYC

Being a member of the Seventeen Social Club as brought so many incredible opportunities (stay tuned for a post from one of the products they sent me this week!). One of the most recent opportunities that I am super excited about is attending The Makeup Show in NYC with my little diamond, Amber, as press. On May 4, Amber and I will be traveling into the City to hear from some of the best in the industry regarding different makeup tips and tricks for all occasions. I’ll be sharing about it on Twitter and Instagram, then doing a blog post all about it. Words can’t express my excitement or how thankful I am for all the opportunities “Sparkle and Shine” has given me.

Also, remember I can help YOU get famous – just go HERE.

If you change your lock screen to an inspirational quote, comment below and tell me what one it is – or even link it to the photo on your Pinterest board. I LOVE finding new quotes to pin.

Have a great week, readers! Keep sparkling!

14Oct2013

My Monday Musts

by sparkleandshinesami

Happy Monday, readers!

And happy midterms week to most….

I hope you all had a great weekend – I know I sure did! It was my first weekend back at school since my knee injury and I could finally go out with my best friend. It was so good to be back with them, doing what we like to do on the weekends, and spending my Saturday night at Quinnipiac students’ infamous Saturday night club, Toads.

Now, it’s back to reality of the craziness of school. It’s midterm week here at QU – and that means spending hours in the library, studying my note cards til I can barely see straight anymore. It’s day like these that I wish I liked coffee!

With two exams tomorrow, and one on Wednesday, I have only this weekend to look forward to. This weekend my absolute best friend, Julia, and I are going to New York City to visit our other best friend, Vanessa, at school! I am so excited for the three of us to be reunited and spend a Friday night in the best place on Earth together, NYC!

But, in the meantime, I’ll take a study break to share with you all this week’s Monday Musts:

1. Passionately Pink for a Cure Hair Strands

Last Monday, some of my best friends and I got pink clip-in extensions to show our support for breast cancer awareness. According to the American Cancer society, about 1 in 8 women will develop invasive breast cancer during their lifetime. About 40,000 women will die from breast cancer. These are mothers, sisters, daughters, and friends. Grieving offer the loss of a loved one is one of the hardest struggles someone could possibly go through. Our $5 hair strands contributed to making a difference, and making an awareness, to changing these statistics. I am proud to be a female and proud to help fight back against cancer.

2. Wednesday Night TV

In my previous Monday Musts, I discussed my LOVE for “Duck Dynasty.” “Duck Dynasty” airs their new episodes on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. With some of my closest guy friends, I gather around their television to watch the show. As Connor, Ben, Pat, and I finished up the episode, we decided to then watch the next show, “Bad Ink.” I never saw it before – and I quickly became obsessed. “Bad Ink” follows two Las Vegas tattoo artists who fix people’s bad tattoos – whether they were just bad choices or the original tattoo artist just did not do a good job. The show left me so amazed. So when we all planned on watching only one thirty minute episode, it turned into a 2 hour marathon. I don’t get to watch a lot of television in college, so I look forward to Wednesday night with the boys watching “Duck Dynasty” and “Bad Ink.”

3. ABC Family’s 13 Nights of Halloween

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays – always has been and always will. One of my favorite parts of any holiday are the themed movies. ABC Family’s annual 13 Nights of Halloween kicks off this Saturday and I am SO excited! ABC Family always plays the greatest cliche Halloween movies that we were all raised on, such as “Hocus Pocus” and “Beetlejuice” (two of my favorite movies). Though with the craziness of my schedule, I won’t be getting to watch as much of the Halloween movie marathons as I would like, I’m just happy to know that it is on. Plus, to me, this kicks off the start of all the holidays and all the great traditions that come along with it!

Now it’s back to studying for me…Enjoy the rest of your week, readers!

20Aug2013

My Monday Musts!

by sparkleandshinesami

This Monday is such an important Monday for me – it’s my last Monday at home before moving back into college tomorrow for my sophomore year! I am just so excited to get back to school – not just to see all my incredible friends and my Alpha Delta Pi sisters, but for the extracurricular activities I am involved in and for my classes.

Call me a nerd, but I love to learn. I’m very interested in my classes this semester, such as broadcast writing and nutrition, which means my yearning to learn is twice as intense. Plus, my dedication to my classes is so strong that I am proud to say that I have made Dean’s List for both semesters of my freshman year. I also love doing extracurriculars, besides just being apart of Greek Life, and piling them sky high on my plate – such as being a staff writer for the school newspaper, the Managing Editor for the school yearbook, and a writer for Quinnipiac’s chapter of HerCampus. This semester, I have other activities I want to be involved and other goals I have set for myself to make for this to be an exciting year ahead!

So on my last night home in Jersey before heading off to school, I present to you, readers, this week’s Monday Musts!

1. My First Blogging Freebie!

Today is my two month-iversary of creating “Sparkle and Shine.” Yay! Though for only being two months old, I have been granted a lot of wonderful opportunities, such as writing this post and this post for Greek Cover Photo and writing this post for Campus Book Rentals (who is currently having a fall sale, might I add). This past week, I have been in contact with sorority super star and author, Cheryll Duffie. I was completely starstruck when Cheryll got in contact with me and asked me to write about her book, Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned from Being in a Sorority. Yesterday, I received a package from Cheryll – my first blogging freebie! Ahhh! I’m so excited to be working with Cheryll. Readers, be on the lookout for some very exciting things to come from this!

2. Whodunnit?

One of my favorite summer shows was ABC’s Whodunnit?, a crime solving reality TV series. It took real life people and set them in a real life Clue game – where one contestant was the murderer, one was the ultimate winner, and the rest were killed off episode by episode. Each episode kept me on the edge of my seat – playing along with the contestants. My mom was also addicted to the show, so it became similar to us playing a real life Clue game trying to see who the murder really was. The season finale was last night, however, full episodes are online to watch!

3. Silver Linings Playbook

I’ve heard so many positives about the award winning movie Silver Linings Playbook, but have never gotten around to watching it. A few nights ago, I was flipping through the On Demand Movies top movies section and found this movie. I never knew what the movie was about, watched the preview, and instantly knew that Silver Linings Playbook was the movie I was going to watch that night. I fell in love with the movie as each second passed. Pat, played by Bradley Cooper, was recently released from a mental hospital for bipolar disorder and is striving to get his wife back. While aiming to get her back, Pat meets Tiffany, played by Jennifer Lawrence, a recently-widowed woman who is struggling to deal with her own demons. The movie made me laugh, made me cry, made me smile, and overall shows viewers that no matter you are struggling with – there is something out there that will make you happy. If I could, I would watch this movie again and again everyday.