Christmas Presents!

 Hey everyone!  It's been so long since I've posted!  I realized that I was a tad bit ambitious trying the 31-day challenge when I really didn't have the time to devote to it.  Hopefully soon I'll be able to try again! But for now, I'm going to try to post a couple times a week.  

So today I'm starting with some of the lovely polish I received as a present from my brother and sister-in-law for Christmas this year.  My sister-in-law, Mallory, knows that I love Sephora by OPI polish and so that's what I got! So exciting.  She picked out a combo (that I believe was packaged together) with a lovely deep purple and then a silver crackle.  

The crackle is Blasted Silver.  The purple is called Just A Little Dangerous.  And they look heavenly together! This is the first crackle I've tried because I just didn't think I would like them but I do! The effect is so cool.  See!

Please excuse the red and silver flecks on my fingers...I used some of the Sally Hansen
nail strip things earlier  and they were difficult to remove completely.

Zoom on the ring finger

The silver crackles best when the layers are thin.  

I really love the purple by itself too, but I forgot to take pics before I put the crackle over it.   I love it!

I got some other gifts from Sephora including a cuticle stick (good for travel), Bliss sugar lip scrub, and OPI avo juice hand & body lotion in Wild Huckleberry.  I love all of it! Thanks so much Sam and Mallory!

As you all probably have guessed, I've gotten a LOT of polish since I last posted on here.  Gonna post some swatches of the best stuff soon.  Also, I ordered some more Bundle Monster plates yesterday that have already shipped (squee!) and so I'll have more stamping to do!

It's good to be back.  I hope that all of you have had a wonderful holiday season and are looking forward to the new year!  Until next time...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

As you can tell the 31-day challenge has definitely gone by the wayside. October was a very busy month at work and on into November when I was at work at 0600 and didn't usually leave until well after 1800...everyday.  Yeah, I was tired.  So, while I still painted my nails, I didn't post anything on here which is super sad I know.  However, I will start posting again once I'm back in T-town after Christmas festivities are over.  I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and will be having a Happy New Year!!! I will post soon with many new colors and swatches and hopefully that will get me back in to the mood to try new stamping designs! Until then!

Day 16,17,18

Well, as you can see, I've totally failed the 31-day challenge to paint your nails a different way every day...don't get me wrong, I've painted my nails every day, but some of these challenges take up too much time and I've been procrastinating...big time.  Anyway, I am trying to catch up and today I have 3 manis backed up that I can post! I've also done water marbling but since galaxies comes before that I'm going to try to keep them in order [even if I can't keep them on the correct day] when I post.  So here we go...Day 16 - Tribal.  I've seen a lot of these nails and even the people that do a really good job with them, I just don't like tribal print on my finger nails.  However, the challenge was a good opportunity to use my new black striper polish I picked up at Sally the other day [free w/purchase of SV!].

Now, as you can see, I did not do the best job in the world on this.  Probably because I knew I wasn't going to wear it long, but still.  It ended up kind of crappy.  The striping was difficult [haven't mastered that yet] and the white dots take over because they gooped up.  

A little further away from the mani and the imperfections start to hide...

Here you can't even tell the purple tip has any striping on it...probably should have chosen a different color if I wanted it to show up better.

So there is my tribal manicure.  What colors did I use you may ask? Well, I can't remember actually.  I know I used a black Stride striping polish and a white striping polish [from Wal-Mart] but the other colors I can't remember right off and will have to compare the pics to my bottles and get back to you.  So what do you think? Have you seen tribal nails before? Do you like them when they're done right?

On to Day 17 - Glitter!  I was happy that this was a fairly easy day to pull off.  [Galaxies is going to be time-consuming but I'm excited]. This glitter polish I picked up at Ulta the other day.  It's by Revlon and called Facets of Fuschia.  I picked up their 3 newest glitter polishes [blue mosaic, facets, and starry pink] that day because it was buy 2 get 1 free.  Couldn't pass that up! So I used this really beautiful purple glitter polish that is opaque in 2 coats.  Gorgeous!

I love the different size glitter pieces in this.  I think this purple is so lovely.

In the sunlight.

Up close thumb...please excuse the black on the cuticles...that Konad special black polish stains to the point even acetone won't remove it.

After I painted the glitter [with 1 coat of SV on top] I decided to do a matte over the whole shebang.  I love matte on top of glitters.  It subdues them but still makes them beautiful.

Already a little edge wear on the bird and ring fingers there.  I'll need to make sure in the future to fully cover the ends of my nails too.

The matte is truly stunning over glitter.  The flash doesn't really do it justice.  My only problem with matte over glitter is the fact that the polish is really thick [2 coats of glitter, 1 of SV, then 1 of matte].  It can get goopy real quick.

Fabulous! So what do you think? Do you like the glitter I chose? What are your feelings about matte over glitter?

Now to Day 18! Half Moons!  Since I was trying to do a couple manis at once to try and get caught up I just used the base purple matted glitter mani to start this one.  I've seen on some other blogs about how to get a good half-moon by using paper reinforcements (you know, the things you put around the holes on your paper when they're ripped out of your binder so the paper will stay in there?).  So while I was at Office Depot the other day, I purchased some reinforcements.  [Btw, looked all over that dang store twice before I found them...and even then that was only after I'd asked someone, sheesh].

So like I said, started with the base purple glitter mani. Then put the reinforcements on top, like so.

There is one caveat to doing this though. The paper hole things aren't as sticky as I would have liked so I had some problems getting them to stick, especially around my cuticles where my nail meets...my fingers are chunky and I have deep grooves there.  Anywho, I worked it the best I could and it resulted in this...

...which was even more goopy than before! Too much polish! One layer of another of the Revlon glitters that I bought called Blue Mosaic, then SV on top.  I thought it would be cute but it's just too much.  I didn't want to leave the half-moon a flop so I re-did it with this set of polish...

The Garden of Good and Evil collection by Sephora by OPI.  I will have to say that I love every polish in this set and really want the large bottles of all of them.  So I used the gray [Frankly, I don't give A-dam] and the purple [Eve-y on the Eyes] and came out with this...

Much better!  I did put the reinforcements a little too far up on the nail so it's not a true half-moon [more of a really thick french tip] but I liked it so I left it.

You can kind of see on the pointer and bird fingers where the polish seeped under the reinforcements on the side...those things just aren't sticky.

Anyway, the finished product turned out great! One coat of SV to cover it all and it was super shiny and I loved it!

So what do you think about these 3 days worth? More are coming...until tomorrow!

Day 15 - Delicate Print

Hi all! I'm still trying to catch up with the challenge [that has seriously gotten the better of me].  I'm glad tomorrow is Friday! I'll be working on a pharmacy presentation all weekend but will at least have a little more time to paint my nails and swatch some more of my new colors!  Can't wait!

Anyway, on to the challenge for Day 15...delicate print.  I've seen this done lots of ways and actually thought about using this stamp combo but I've already used it in this challenge so I went with something new and here it is!

I used Borrowed and Blue by Essie as the base and then used one of my Konad plates and special Konad white polish for the stamp.  All covered with a coat of Seche Vite.  

I just love the cute little bows! 

Close up of pointer

I thought that this made a perfect delicate print.  It's very subtle and if you're not looking for it, you can hardly notice the white polish and bows. 

Very feminine and pretty.

Thumb

I think one of the main reasons that I like this combination is because of how much it reminds me of Tiffany & Co. blue boxes with white ribbon.  Tiffany blue is a little bit deeper though I think.

Here's the blue box...see the blue has a smidge more green in it.  Beautiful! 

So, what do you think? I think that I definitely love my mani and Tiffany & Co.!   One of these days I might just buy myself a little something pretty that comes in one of these lovely blue boxes... 

Until tomorrow!

Day 14 - Flowers

Hi again! I'm pretty excited with how this day's mani turned out...I used a YouTube tutorial [which I saw a few weeks ago and now can't find the link for the life of me] on how to paint flowers.  I thought it was a super cute idea so I tried it and I am super stoked with the results!

I told you it was cute!

Sorry for the blur...the flash is supposed to stabilize and take care of that...the battery must need charging in my camera.

I chose to do 2 accent nails rather than paint little flowers on all of them.  I thought that for my first time with this technique that I did a bang up job! The thumb is my favorite...it looks the cleanest.

Thumb up close.

The colors I used are: 

Envy by Ulta [green base color] - 2 coats (even though it really did cover in one)

SV coat

Re-fresh Mint by China Glaze [flower petals]

Strawberry Fields by China Glaze [center of flowers]

I used my new MASH nail art brush kit [btw, I freaking love this kit. I bought it from Amazon and it has a few different sizes of striping brushes, fan brushes, small brushes...amazing.] and used a striping brush for the petals and a dotting tool for the center of the flowers.  Covered it all with one final coat of SV and voila! Flower mani!

What do you think?  Hope you all have a blessed day!  Until tomorrow!

Day 13 - Animal Print

I'm back! I've actually got a few days worth of designs finished and will try to post all of them sometime today.  I had a huge presentation yesterday [that I'm very glad is in my rearview] so I've been prepping for that these past couple nights.  I haven't forgotten about the challenge...but I have changed the timeline a little.  We're going to pick back up with one of my least favorite challenges...animal print.  You guys. I did not enjoy this challenge.  I feel like when I have to use nail art brushes I just goop too much polish on and then the nail looks gunky and gross.  However, I tried this a couple ways and I failed so hard on one that the pics aren't even worth posting.  So here is the attempt I felt good about...

And it's not even that great.  I do love the colors though.  I used Fowl Play by Orly as the base.  It's a deep purple with flecks of orange glitter.  It's from Orly's Birds of a  Feather collection. Very cute.  Then the tiger stripes [yep, that's what they're supposed to be] are Luxe by Orly.  It's a gold foil.  I used a matte top coat over the glitter base before adding the stripes.  Matted glitter polish is awesome.  I just love it.

So how do you like it? Are my tiger stripes realistic?  I kind of think they just look like gold waves.  I also tried stamping using a BM plate I have but it just wasn't dark enough on the base color I was using. 

Thumb

Pinkie

I will definitely have to swatch Fowl Play by itself and take pics in the sunlight.  The flash and indoor lighting just don't show off how gorgeous it is.

I painted these while watching one of my new fave shows...Hart of Dixie.  Anybody seen it? It's on the CW on Monday nights.  It's about a girl that moves to Alabama from NY after her father passes away to inherit his medical practice.  She's a surgeon.  Anyway, the medical stuff is pretty hokey but otherwise the show is cute.  You have to forgive all of the stereotypes they make though.  I would love to hear your thoughts about the polish or the show! Until tomorrow...or later today!

Day...I've lost count...

Hey guys! As you can tell I've fallen behind with the blogging about nails. I would love to say that I'm going to catch all that up today but I'm not. Sorry! However, I do have Day 12 ready to go. Days 13, 14, 15 and 16...not so much. It's been a busy weekend. Went to Knoxville to see LSU whoop UT [even though UT held their own for awhile]. Met up with my pharm people I haven't seen in months and had a great time!

So on with the nail pics...here is Day 12 - Stripes.

What do you think? I actually utilized one of my new nail art brushes I purchased off of eBay recently. It's my first attempt at trying to make straight lines on my nail without tape. Not that easy, as you can see.

My lines are a little messy there as you can tell. But, hey, first timer here.

Thumb close-up

Pointer finger.

The colors I used are as follows:

Essie - Da Bush [mint-ish green]

Essie - Carry On [dark purple that looks like it's black]

Essie - Very Structured [burnt orangey]

Essie - Lady Like [pale pink]

I liked doing the stripes...I thought some of the Essie Fall 2011 line [which I've been using quite a bit lately] was a good combo.  Thoughts?

I hope you all enjoyed! I will try to re-start with the 31-day challenge and get Day 13 underway. Keep following, loyal fans! Until tomorrow!

Day 11 - Polka Dots

Good afternoon everyone! I'm a day late posting this and I know you're all super tired of hearing excuses but I was in Birmingham until late and didn't have time to post when I got home! Anyway, double post today so lucky you!  Let's start with Day 11...Polka Dots! I like polka dots just as much as the next girl and this is kind of a laid-back twist [sounds difficult] on the polka dot mani.  I had originally intended to do something in the way of red w/white dots for a "minnie mouse"-type thing but I got lazy.  I thought this one turned out fairly cute though.

Grey and Brown
So chic. Haha.

These colors are from the new Fall 2011 Essie line.
Dark Grey - Power Clutch
Taupe - Case Study

It might be cheating but I wore Power Clutch by itself all day then
painted the dots later.

I thought these colors worked well together.

I think Power Clutch alone looks amazing.  I think there's a swatch somewhere...

There it is! Power Clutch in the sunlight.  Gorgeous.

Don't know if you can even read them but there are the names again...

That's it for polka dots...now I've gotta post Stripes! 

So what did you think? Enjoy the muted polka dots?

Day 10 - Gradient

Hey guys! Well it's day 10 of the challenge and today's theme is Gradient.  I've seen this interpreted many ways [here, here, and all these] and while applying the gradient to the same nail looks super awesome [and I'll probably try that one day soon] I've known how I wanted this day to play out for awhile. It's more like the 2nd link there but I used different polishes rather than mixing one color for all of the gradient.  I have quite a few new blue polishes and decided that some of those would be the colors I'd use.  So, on with the show!

I obviously started with the darkest color on my thumb and went from there.  These blues [yes, that is blue on the thumb] are almost too different but I was already painting so I just went with it.

Here is a closer shot of all the colors.  I especially love the bird and ring finger colors.

Here is a list of what I used:

Thumb - Midnight Cami by Essie

Pointer - Ogre-the-Top Blue by OPI

Bird - For Audrey by China Glaze

Ring - Natural Environ-mint by Sephora by OPI

Pinkie - Borrowed and Blue by Essie

Top coat - SV

Top top coat - Glitter Top Coat [fun name right?] by Ulta

I've wanted For Audrey for awhile.  I've seen it on some other blogs and just love it. 

After getting done with the whole manicure I thought that I should probably have taken some pictures without the glittery top coat just so the colors could stand out a little more. Ah, well.  I'm sure I'll use them all again.

Up close thumb shot to show the sparkly glitter - this is 2 coats of the Glitter Top Coat I got on sale the other day!

And w/flash to show more sparklies!

Btw, you can totally see the previous polish I wore today...I didn't do a great job of getting all of the Brisbane Bronze by OPI off my skin around my fingers. [See pointer finger cuticle, bird finger left side, and thumb to the left past the knuckle].  Anyway, that's it for tonight!  

One question, who has been watching The Sing-Off? I'm so in love with that show.  I'm more excited this season than before.  Okay everyone, have a great night! Until tomorrow...