Nine hours left!

Hey, guys! Just a quick reminder, there are only nine hours left to enter your accent nail art submissions! The contest ends tonight at midnight (US Central)!

Enter here!

Over the course of the contest, 28 people have entered and I have made it up to 64 followers. As I type this, I am just 18 views shy of 7000! I can't get over it! I'm so excited, and thankful, and humbled by my fellow bloggers. 

I love you. I love this contest. Go enter it!

Blue Braids

Wow, it sure does feel nice having two consecutive posts again. I'm getting all giddy. c:

Silly me, though. I went and took my hardest polish to photograph and slathered it all over my nails. 

I think these pictures are about as close to color accurate as I can get. Imagine the color just a smidge more purple tone. Periwinkle the cat is a great color representation.

I used China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le, China Glaze Frost Bite, and my gray franken, which I've decided to name Eternal Sunshine. You may be able to see a pink shimmer to it, if you enlarge the pictures. I'm still working on it.

I've been messing around with different art recently, trying to find what looks best on short nails vs. long. As it  turns out, a nice fishtail braid works well in any shape, length, or color. And it's so easy to do. You can find a tutorial under my tutorials tab, if you'd like to give it a try! You can always use the design for an accent nail, as I did, and then enter it in my nail art contest, but hurry! There are only three days left!

What I've Been Up To

Before I start today's post, I'd just like to take a second to beg for your forgiveness. 

Every time I think I've got the hang of balancing work and blogging, I vanish for five more days. I'm still reading your posts, commenting, and reading my own comments. I keep up with the blog world every day, I just haven't been posting. I'm so sorry, everyone.

Here's what I've been up to recently. 

First of all, I broke three of my nails at work in the past two days - the most tragic being my left hand ring nail. My accent nail! I considered, for a day or two, looking into wraps or full out acyrlics, but in the end, I filed down all of my nails. My hands look so foreign to me now.

I'm wearing L'Oreal Because You're Worth It on my nubbins. I'm pretty proud of the paint job, considering I did them in a moving vehicle yesterday, hah.

It seems that in lieu of posting, I've been buying a lot of polishes to make up for it. My thought is "I don't have nail art to share, but I will have hauls!"  Here is everything I've picked up this past week.

I picked up these E.L.F polishes last week at Target. They came in a four pack for five dollars. From left to right is Coral Dream, Flirty Fuchsia, Smokin Hot, and Party Peach.

These were also Target finds, but L'Oreal and Revlon are sold just about anywhere. L'Oreal Because You're Worth It and Revlon Rain Forest

As I'm sure all of you know, Sally's Beauty Supply is currently having a buy two, get one free sale. I couldn't pass it up. Left to right is White On White, Fairy Dust, Dress Me Up (from the Capitol Colors collection), Secret Peri-wink-le (which wouldn't photograph at all - it's really a dusty blurple), and Frost Bite.

Along with having every polish buy two, get one free, Sally's also had a sale on SV. It was 5.99, instead of the usual 8.99. ...so I bought four. I will keep two of them and then the other two will be included in my nail art contest prize packages.

And speaking of my nail art contest, there are only four more days left!

Over this past month, there have been 25 entries, and I have reached 61 followers! It just blows my mind. Thank you guys so, so much! I seriously love every single one of you.

Now hurry! Paint up your accent nails and enter before the week is up!

Geometry and Roses

Hey! Today, I'm going to cut the lead-in and go straight for the picture.

I'm not too sure what to call today's manicure. The pattern isn't quite basket weave and it's not herringbone. Aztec, maybe? I'll stick with geometric. 

What I can call this manicure, today, is beautiful. I love the look of hard lines with soft roses.  

Revlon Vixen and Revlon Spanish Moss were used to create the roses. The white is my newest Art Deco stripers, and the gray base is my newest franken. I'm really excited to show you guys, but I still need to mess with it a little bit. I tried to make a gray shimmer, but this batch is a little too subtle for my tastes. MOAR SHINYS!

I also have swatches of four new Elf polishes, coming up. I've never had an Elf polish before, so I am quite excited!

I hope you enjoyed this look and I hope you enjoy my nail art contest!

Glitter and Graphite

Hello, friends and followers!

Do you ever get into this trend, where you find yourself picking up the same colors for weeks at a time?

I'm stuck in one right now, and this time, I keep gravitating to these pewter, gunmetal, graphite grays. 

The last two polishes I bought are essentially the exact same color. See what I mean?

This is Zoya Loredana, my Share The Love pick, top coated, and the accent nail is Sally Hansen Gem Crush Glitz Gal. It looks like I added holographic glitter to Loredana, but Glitz Gal is a beautiful pewter glitter all its own. I also picked up a black Art Deco striper recently, and decided to give the framed look a try.

I am in love with every single aspect of today's manicure. I need to run out and buy all of the striping polishing,  now, and I cannot get enough of Loredana. I think it's the perfect amount of grunge and glitz.

What do you think?

Just a reminder, the month's half over! Don't forget to join in on my nail art contest!

My Meager Collection - Swatched

Hello, everyone!

So, in celebration of my very first paycheck, I blew it pretty much right away on nail related things. I'm just now starting to see those things in the mail. Yesterday, the most wonderful thing came for me. I am so excited to share it with you.

SWATCH STICKS!

I spent my day off yesterday, swatching and labeling my collection. I'm so happy with the outcome. 

They're all placed on a long bolt, held together with a simple nut, making organization easy. You simply pull the sticks off the bolt to polish them, and you can mess with the order at any time. Finding colors that work well together is so easy now. It'll also make things a lot easier when friends come over, wanting their nails painted. Instead of pulling out every single bottle, I just show them my swatch sticks.

I went out and bought a cheap label maker, and it seemed to really speed up the process. I included brand and name for each label. I thought about adding the coat number, but I tried to keep it all at an even two coats. The label maker also has the capability to do a lot of cute little symbols, so when I run out of a certain polish, I plan to put a little skull and crossbones on the stick. 

I found these sticks for about five dollars through a quick eBay search. It came in a pack of 50 sticks, with the bolt and nut included. They did come from Korea, so it took about a month to arrive, but it was worth the wait. I will undoubtedly be ordering more soon.

Swatching yesterday did make me realize what a small collection I have, though. What you see here is everything, except frankens and polishes used for frankening. It comes to 38 polishes total, excluding franken supplies. 

Another thing that came in the mail yesterday was Zoya Loredana, so you can expect to see that tomorrow!

Jelly Moons

The mani I have for you today has been first on my to-do list for a long time.

First and second, actually. I've been wanting to do glitter half moons with a creme, and I've also been wanting to try my hand at a jelly sandwich. As I was trying to pick one or the other, I wondered why I couldn't do just both.

Here's what I came up with. 

I think the next time I try a jelly sandwich, I need to mess around with opacity.

I layered NOPI Rainbow In The S-Kylie between the orange juice neon and the coral shimmer from this post. Afterwards, I laid my reinforcement stickers and painted a coat of L.A. Colors black. I did have shrinking issues with a full L.A. Colors mani, but you typically get what you pay for with cheap polishes.

I think it's neat, because from far away it looks just straight up black and neon pink. I love subtle BAM!s like that. 

How do you think I did on my first sammich? 

As always, don't forget to check out my nail art contest!

Cinderella Glitter Gradient and Sharing the Love

Hey, all! I hope you're having a wonderful Easter! Or a splendid Sunday, whichever you prefer.

I have some simple art for you today, just a glitter gradient over a nice shimmer polish. I was going for Easter and spring with pastels, but I think it reads "Ice Queen." It may have missed the mark, but I think it is gorgeous, either way.

I used Revlon Stunning, a holo hex glitter with silver and blue micro glitter over three coats of Sinful Colors Cinderella. I topped it all off with Hard Candy Mattely in Love, though you wouldn't be able to tell from the pictures. This is what two days of vigorous hand washing does to a matte top coat.

In an unrelated note, if you guys are Zoya newbies, like myself, you might not know about their Share The Love promotion, going on right now. All you need to do is click a Share the Love link, and sign up for an account. In your new "my account" section, you'll find a coupon for one free Zoya polish! I just bought Loredana with mine, and I can't wait for it to arrive! Matte shimmers are probably my favorite type of polish.

After you set up an account, you can get your own Share the Love link and you get love points for each person you refer. Love points can be used for more free polish. It's a win-win for everyone!

Enjoy!

Hand Placed Glitter V-Gaps

O hai dere.

I don't have a lot to tell you guys today, so I'll get straight to the nail art.

I will say that I think this is my favorite art so far. Top three, at least.

What do you think?

I go gaga for hand placed glitter. LOVE IT.

I went with a pastel minty green, since Easter is coming up, and I think the nude and gold compliment it really well. 

This was created using Revlon Minted, Revlon Endless Possibilities (which is a lot like Nude Now, but is opaque in two coats instead of four!) and Milani Jewel FX Gold.

I also thought you guys would like to know that I just bought a decent sized haul from Dollar Nail Art, including a few nail art contest prizes! Get excited!

Playing Catch-Up

Hi, again! I do hope you'll forgive me for my sporadic posting.

I'm trying to get back to my regular post-a-day, but it's taking some balancing I'm not used to yet. Rest assured, we are on our way back to the regular schedule. I hope you'll bear with me and that I won't lose any readers who have come to expect something new daily.

I took this awful picture to show you guys just what working fast food has done to my nails. This is the rare right-handed picture, so it's more damaged than the left one was, but there you have it. 

I also wanted to assure you that I do absolutely everything necessary to make sure my nail (polish) doesn't chip into the food. Even the thought is disgusting, but I wanted to put that out there. 

Luckily, I've had today and yesterday off, so I did my full nail care routine and everything is back up to my standards. It also gave me time to quickly swatch out a polish pack I got on sale Monday night.

When I saw this at TJ Maxx, I knew I shouldn't expect much, but for a dollar a bottle, I had to swoop it up anyway. I figured if they weren't a very good quality, they could at least be used for jelly sandwiches or frankening. I did messy swatches that I didn't bother to clean up, because I took it off right after. Pictured below is two coats of each color.

I was quite surprised by these. They were quite opaque, as far as neons go. I really like the blue and the coral shimmer. I'm undecided on the green and I think the rest will go to frankening. 

Tomorrow, I'll have real nail art for you guys, including pastels and a little bit of hand placed glitter. 

In the mean time, please check out my nail art contest, for all of my accent nail loving followers!

It's open for the rest of the month, and I'd really like to have at least ten entries.

Have fun!

Girly-Girl Challenge Day Eight: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

Well, hey, strangers! I'm sorry I vanished for a while.

The truth is, work has done a number on my nails, and until last night, I haven't had the time or the energy to bring them up to picture quality. I apologize if my cuticles are still a little raggedy. 

The good news is, being gone for a little while drew out the end of the girly girl challenge. I'm sad to see it go.

Th final day of the challenge calls for a fun-loving mani. When I think fun, I think bright colors and bold patterns. Keeping bold patterns in mind, I headed over to the Urban Outfitters online store. They have some awesome patterns. I saw this bathing suit and knew right away what I wanted to do.

Here's my inspiration.

I took it quite literally and decided to try cut out nails. 

I used Sally Hansen Nude Now, Essie Blanc, LA Colors Black, and Sally Hansen Lightening for the accent nail.

(and speaking of accent nails, don't forget my nail art contest!)

I think the other ladies are done with the challenge, but you can still check out what all they did!

Neverland Nail Blog 

Follow The Yellow Polish Road

A Little Polish

Captivating Claws

Polishable

Unprofessional Nails

This Charming Kate

A Plethora of Nails

The Do It Yourself Lady

Talon-ted

Neues vom Kellerkind

Nox Nails

Smashely Sparkles

See Sarah Swatch

Lacquerologist

Luv My Lacquer

O' Natur Nail

I'm Just Me... ChiChi

Color Me Silly

Berry Polished

Polished Cousins

Overstuffed

Nearly Natural Nails