REJOICE!

Sunday, April 15, 2012

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!

Saturday, April 14, 2012

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!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

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!

Sunday, April 8, 2012

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!

Friday, April 6, 2012

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!

Thursday, April 5, 2012

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!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

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.