When a non-polish-aholic gives you polish...

...it is all the more special & sweet!!!  :D  The company I work for employs somewhere in the ballpark of 2700 people so it's no surprise that this new friend and I never crossed paths before.  All I can say is I am so incredibly thankful that we have and not only that, but we've become close friends in a matter of a couple months or less!  So imagine my surprise when this was waiting for me on Good Friday:

No, those aren't rabbit droppings, but they do look a LOT like them!  Which totally made me laugh. :)  Inside the very pretty fabric flower rimmed basket, there were 3 polishes (Orly Miss Conduct, Nicole by OPI Rich in Spirit, NOPI A Million Sparkles), the softest plush bunny I've ever had the privilege of petting, a gift card for the coffee shop where we work, AND as you can see, a card which was probably the best part of the whole surprise.  I'm big on cards, especially when they have heartfelt messages written in them. ♥

And this is what I did with the aforementioned polishes!!

I don't even know how I came up with this idea, but all of a sudden I knew I wanted to use Rich in Spirit for the base color, do a reverse glitter gradient with A Million Sparkles, and finally a plaid-esque accent nail with Miss Conduct!  I dare say it came out pretty close to what I envisioned!! WIN.

When you're at work, sans polish bottles, use your matching plaid coat for blog photos!! 

Hehe I just realized that the chromey foil finish of RiS + Seche Vite ended up reflecting ME in my pointer finger!!! LOL  

ANYhoo... after applying two easy breezy coats of RiS over Nail Pattern Boldness's Glitter A-peel, I used a triangular makeup sponge to apply A Million Sparkles (LITERALLY! haha) at the base of each nail, minus my ring finger which got a careful application of striping tape in as close to a plaid pattern as I could manage.  One swift coat of Miss Conduct later, and some just as careful removal of the tape, and TA DAA!  Super cool manicure, at your service. :)

This photo is from tonight when Deb & I went out for supper after work. :)  We had a wonderful time (well, I know *I* did, anyways!!), simply enjoying eachothers' company and chatting for, ohh, 2 hours or so!  It really means a lot when someone takes time out of their life to spend with you.  I've always tried to remember the value of that, and thank my friends for it.  Time truly is  precious!

This incredibly sweet lady has been through unbelieveable heartache in her lifetime, and still has such a caring heart and a beautiful smile on her face. ♥

Rich in Spirit

Ugggh I do not understand why my skintones are all over the board in these photos!  Oh well, I guess the most important thing is that the color of the polish came out accurately, right?  Of course  right!!  (Fiddler on the Roof line right there!)  lol

And how awesome is it that the reflection + the air bubble in the bottle formed what looks to me like a lightning bolt?!  :D  

Miss Conduct... naughty, naughty!  So much magenta scattered holographic beauty!

A Million Sparkles

YUP, there they are!!  LOL  I don't really like the lighting nor the pose, and the fact that the big drop on my pointer shifted and got deformed, but it does  show each glitter in very clear detail, so I decided to use it anyway. :)

Thank you all for visiting my blog in all its randomness & erm, highly sporadic/infrequent posts!  If I may, I urge you to take time today to thank those dear, special people in your life simply for being a part of it.  And most importantly: be sure to tell them you love them. :)  If there's one thing that Deb has reminded me of, it's that you never know when you'll no longer have the opportunity to do so.

Pushing Black The Curtain

This is going to be suuuper quick, mostly pics for now, but I was so excited to show you guys what I did last night that I couldn't wait. :D

Let's just say: Sinful Colors Whipped + OPI Designer Series Extravagance + striping tape = pure AWESOMENESS!  (IMO, anyways...I'll let you decide for yourselves.)

I used two coats of Sinful Colors Whipped on all fingers but the pinkie which got two coats of OPI DS Extravagance, and after they were thoroughly dry (or so I thought), I used striping tape to create a V & carefully filled in said V with a medium-thick coat of Extravagance and quickly whipped (haha!) the tape off. ;) I just LOVE the contrast of the sultry, sparkly magenta with its beautiful scattered holo glitters on top of the sexy matte black. Oooh!  Aaah!
Whipped applied very  easily, aaalmost a one-coater, but I really wanted it to be an intense black.  Dry time was average, about 15 mins.  I thought it would be faster since mattes usually are quicker drying, but oh well.  I'm so prone to getting bubbles in my polish, I probably wait longer than necessary between coats now.  I'd rather do that than end up with polish acne, I can tell you that right now!!!  I hate those darn bubbles with a passion!

OPI DS Extravagance was a birthday gift from my roommate last year, I purchased Sinful Colors Whipped at Wal-Mart for $1.99, and a friend of mine ordered the striping tape from Amazon as part of my Christmas present.  I think there are like, at least 10 different colors in that pack and I'm sure it came from China or Hong Kong because she was freaking out about it getting here in time.  Good thing we had our Christmas in January!   :P

Challenge #7: Sweets

Remember the blank white canvases with an accent of neon sprinkles (aka Lush Lacquer Clowning Around) that I showed you in my previous post?  That was the springboard for this mani.   For a minute I considered skipping the "sweets" day, but then it would haunt me because I wouldn't truly be able to say I finished a challenge.  So I resigned myself to a boring mani that we've probably seen a hundred times; a smattering of lollipops & hard candy discs twisted in cellophane wrappers.  But wait, what do I have on my accent nail?  Neon candy-esque "sprinkles!"  And I have China Glaze neon jellies...hmm... I could totally do cupcakes with those, right?!  The answer: HECK YESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

Of COURSE using neons also means none of the photos are going to be color-accurate, but I tried!  They're oh so bright and cheerful and NEON in real life! :D  The cupcakes were surprisingly easy and came out almost exactly how I'd envisioned them.  LOVE when that happens, don't you?

I was going to just do lines like realistic cupcake wrappers, but then I looked at one of my MoYou Suki stamping plates and saw all the cute little faces on foods.  Yup, everything looks cuter with a 'lil tiny smiley!

Poor pinkie cupcake looks like he has a shiner :(  Blame it on unsteady hands and a black striper brush + attempted coverup

A super fun "what I used" collage, courtesy of PicMonkey!! (and my creativity/effort, of course)  And you know what, I just realized the bottles are pretty darn color accurate!  WIN.

Clowning Around really was the inspiration for this mani, and I think it looks so awesome dabbed on the "frosting!"  I have a thing for neon glitters & own a fair few, but this one just might be my all-time favorite. :)  I wish I knew where to direct you to purchase it, but since their Etsy store went down due to the brand name conflict, I'm really not sure where to find them nor under what name. :-/  I'll be sure to update this post if I find something out. :)

And WOW I'm tired!  It's 3 am - imagine that! haha

Goodnight ladies!!!

Challenge mani #5: Nature

For quite some time now, I've been fascinated whenever I see someone's galaxy mani post, and just the other day as we passed a rack in Rue 21, a friend of mine commented on how cool the "new" galaxy leggings look.  SO when the "nature" theme rolled around in this challenge, I decided why not attempt my very own nail galaxy?!

I dare say it turned out pretty well and I have no idea why I waited so long to try a galaxy mani!  This was surprisingly easy and FUN.  Choosing colors definitely got my creative juices flowing and really, the sky IS  the limit! hehe

According to one blogger who will remain anonymous, you have to use a black creme base for it to look realistic, but I think my alternating Zoya Ibiza and Skin Food 05 (darn Korean brands!) create a lovely dark blue shimmery space. ;)
This mani made me like Ibiza more than I did at first application a few weeks ago, but I still had some pulling/dragging issues and re: drying completely... let's just say galaxy manis are GREAT for covering up slicing gouges and sheet marks!

This may be a bit of a "wild" and colorful galaxy, but whatever... I think it's purty!  And boy did I ever use a plethora of polishes for that prettiness:

Top row, L-R: OPI DS Extravagance, Cameo Colours Lacquers The Glass Slippers, Zoya Ibiza, Cult Nails Tempest, Hits Cha Cha Cha,
Bottom row, L-R: OPI Solitaire, OPI The Living Daylights, NOPI Just Busta Mauve, Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac, Venique Galoshes Glow, Skin Food 05

My favorites were probably The Glass Slippers (amazing super sparkly white yet not white; it's made of tons of tiny pink, blue/green, and gold flakies) and Just Busta Mauve.  :)

Using tiny chunks of makeup sponge and a tweezers, I pretty much went to town; a dab or two here, a smoosh (no, not a smooch !) over there, swipes of flakie glitter, and dots of Tempest with one of my dotting tools.  I also used the dotting tool to place The Living Daylights "glequins."

Yup, I officially L♥VE it and foresee many more nail galaxies in my future. :)  I think next time, I want to try making actual constellations on them; hearkening back to my adolescent years with my little friends, studying books on stars and learning as many of the constellations as we could. :)  "What is life but a collection of memories, made and yet to be made?!" - uhh, ME!

Challenge mani #2: Sparkles

Well well, the challenge & I meet again!  And again, I was not entirely sure what to make of the theme for today...  I mean, obviously, glitter, but since this is an ART challenge, I couldn't really just do a bunch of glitter skittles & call it good...

I immediately settled on using some Shimmer Polish since I'd recently acquired Leslie & Julie from yet another Pinterest sale.  Gosh I love those things!  They're like the garage sales of the polish world! hehe  

For the rest of the nails, I had two different ideas & ended up going with the one I thought  I could execute the best. ;)  So without further ado:

I give you Shimmer Julie as an accent, coupled with Revlon Parfumerie Wild Violets (which I FINALLY procured just yesterday at Target in the biggest "city" - roughly 15,000 people - near my hometown), and of course the requisite "sparkles."  P.S. I also scored Autumn Spice and China Flower, but they'll have to continue to hold their caps & wait in the wings for their debut on Must.Stash. ;)

Knowing 2 coats of Julie would be a pain to remove - although I probably should've done 3, I decided to forego a base coat and apply a medium layer of Elmer's glue straight outta the bottle & directly to the nail in hopes that I can use an orangewood stick to "scoot" it all off like I've seen in various tutorials.  I'll keep you posted on whether or not it works.  I'm thinking not, because it didn't even start lifting in the shower this morning.  So I must be doing something wrong, or I need to break down & buy Nail Pattern Boldness's Glitter A Peel!

The OTHER HAND.  Nope, no nail art sparkles, just a smattering of Set in Stones.
...ain't nobody got time for that!

Anyhoo, I used my recently acquired Duri Rejuvacote for the base on my other 8 nails.  It dries to quite a smooth & glossy finish, and I'm starting to wonder if that's why my new Zoyas and now this Revlon did not behave very nicely on the first coat... Lots of pulling and streaking and general unevenness.  The second coat however, righted all previous wrongs and wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles; I had no polish acne!  So either this scented stuff cures faster or I just had a rare good polish night. :D

Most of the time, WV looks darn near black on the nail (as you see in most of my photos), but this is the beauty that lies beneath!!  Oh, and the blurred out accent shows its many fine rainbow glitters. :)

Speaking of the scent, for me it was rather sweet & fresh with a hint of fruity, a bit strong for the first few hours and then I went to bed and I kept noticing it while trying to fall asleep.  I could still smell it at work today after adding Rejuvacote as a top coat, but much more muted.  Now (24 hrs later) it's completely gone.  I'm super excited to discover the scents of the other two I got!  Of course I've read other blogger's descriptions at length, but it's a different story to experience something for yourself. 

Ok, so I suppose I should actually talk a bit about why/how I did this mani for the challenge! lol  Umm the first thing that came to mind were the cartooned "sparkles" you see when light hits something shiny, or for example, the glint in someone's eye.  So using dotting tools and Pure Ice Silver Mercedes, I drew the body of the sparkles and then hex by hex, I added my ever so useful Essie Set in Stones.  Voila!  It didn't look as fabulous as I'd envisioned, and I couldn't get my camera + daylight bulb combo to actually make them sparkle and capture it, but oh well.  I do like it enough to show you, and that's saying something!

Goodnight my dear readers!  Sleep well!! :)

I challenge you to...a CHALLENGE!

I've never tried my hands (hehe!) at a blogger challenge before, but maybe now is a good time to start... it is  a new year, after all. And I just happen to like the subtitle of this challenge. :)  So today I have for you my take on the "fresh" mani.  Yes, I know it's a day late, but I worked 'til 6 last night and then had to pack up and drive to my parents' house in some mighty treacherous weather.
Side note: this also happens to be the first mani in a LONG time that I've even bothered to photograph & been excited to share on my blog, despite some imperfections.  The posts from this past week were all manis from months ago.

Using Zoya Godiva and L'Oreal Eiffel For You, I applied two easy coats each, then decided to add one extra coat of Godiva for maximum opacity and sparkle.  To me, these lovely nudes/neutrals classify as a "fresh" look.  I don't know, maybe I'm waaay off!  But alas I don't really know what Californails had in mind when she said "fresh."  So I'm using my imagination!

Please be kind - my cutes got trimmed against my will & I'm having a heck of a time reconditioning them. :(

What, you might be asking, is that fabulous stamping image?!  I know I always  ask myself as soon as I go to a blog and see what must be a stamp used in a mani.  This gem is from MoYou London's Pro Collection plate 04, stamped with Color Club Revvvolution.  Side note: they also have an XL plate with this script image for those of you with bigger nail beds.  Unfortunately, I'm not lucky enough to be blessed with 'em!  

Ok, this is an unconventional shot, and maybe it's not "okay" to do this on a polish blog, but I thought it might be fun to play with the exposure and make it look all softened out and glamorous, perhaps?  Oh, and check out all that silver microsparkle that becomes fabulously obvious in the bottle?!  Gosh I love Zoya's Pixie Dusts!  I scored this baby during one of their December flash promos.  :)  Pardon the fuzzy on my pinkie nail... Disclaimer: no fuzzes were harmed in the photographing of this mani.

 I purposely included this one to showcase the glorious Godiva sparkle!  So, so nice.  At first I was a bit dejected that it didn't have the golden crumpled tin foil look of Tomoko, but now that I have it on, I absolutely love it, as do my roommates and a couple friends. :)  Dry time is so nice and fast for the Pixies, compared to how long I have to wait to ensure my cremes don't bubble upon application of the second coat.  And it's especially nice that textures are supposed to be...well, textured!! lol  Can you tell how sick I am of bubbles in polish that is supposed to be smooth?!

Thank you for taking the time to peruse my humble blog, and feel free to jump in on the challenge with me!!! :D

Good gold, you blue me away!

As the title implies, this post will feature some blue and gold goodness that again, I did months ago when my nails were still "leggy & fabulous." ;)  Looking at these again, I must say I'm loving how it turned out, especially those hard to achieve perfect half-moons and clean cutes!  

So where, you might ask, did I get my idea for this mani?  Well my answer would be one of my many favorite TV shows.  Namely, Criminal Minds and specifically, Chief Erin Strauss's uncharacteristically casual outfit in the episode "Carbon Copy" from season 8.  As soon as I saw her multi-tiered gold necklace & dark blue shirt, the wheels started turning and China Glaze First Mate came to mind, as well as a new untried, Sally Hansen Resurrection, and I came up with several golds that I could have fun with and do a sort of skittles mani, all the while highlighting Erin's fancy yet casual necklace.

This is the inspiration:

And this is what I did with it:

Pinkie & thumb: 2 coats Resurrection, 1 coat OPI OY - Another Polish Joke! 

Ring: 2 coats ChG First Mate, lines in OY, and individual gold hexes from Essence Make it Golden

Middle & Index: 2 coats Resurrection, 1 coat butter LONDON West End Wonderland

What I used :)

 I also wanted to do this mani as a bit of an homage to one of my favorite TV characters/actresses. **Spoiler alert!
Chief Strauss was killed off in such a sad, awful manner at the end of part one of the two-part season 8 finale.  The above still was one of her last appearances in the series. :(  Her character only appeared from time to time as a bit of a "jerkface boss," but once you got to know her story, you could really start to see where she was coming from and empathize with her.  Jayne Atkinson has also played a similar role in another favorite TV series of mine, 24.  She's pretty fabulous there too as Karen Hayes.  Oh, and I recently discovered this tidbit (& subsequentely flashed back to about age 10): she played the foster mom (Claire?) on Free Willy. :)

This pic is making First Mate appear much brighter than it actually is.  Darn that powerful daylight bulb! lol  Both blue cremes had a fantastic almost one coat formula; in fact, now that I think about it, maybe I did use only one coat, not two.  I do however distinctly remember having to re-do my accent nail because for some reason I reached under the table, and as I was pulling my hand back up, I caught the edge & scraped a giant section of the semi-dry polish right off my nail. GAH.

I fell hard for the dusty periwinkle-ish blue that is Resurrection.  I first saw it in a Walgreens for like, $8 but was NOT willing to pay that much, so in a rare exercise of self-control, I put it back on the shelf (after taking a bottle shot to remember it by) and lo & behold, was rewarded by finding it on a blog sale a month or so later!  I love it with a topcoat of WEW, but it was beautiful on its own as well. :)

I really wanted to do a glamour shot with this Lia Sophia Journey ring, a la Melissa, but I could NOT figure out how she positions her hand to include her lovely rings! My contortion attempts were pretty funny though. lol

The accent nail was pretty simple, but would've been better if I'd had a striper brush with which to do the "chains."  I believe I used a stick pin, but it still didn't give me the precise lines I was hoping for. :-/  The gold hexes were taken off the brush & placed using a toothpick.  One seemed too small for all the tiers, so I used one at the top, then two, and a cluster of three or four on the 2nd chain from my cuticle.  I decided to leave the last one plain because there wasn't room for more hexes and not all of the chains in her necklace had the gold circles anyways.  Actually, I would've liked to intersperse more plain ones, but my nails just aren't (nor will ever be!) long enough for that because of my short nail beds.  I can't have a long enough free edge to compensate because I type all day long & usually chip off the sides of my nails.

I didn't take any pics with OY - Another Polish Joke! because all I have is a mini bottle, but West End Wonderland is some amazing gold and copper glitzy goodness!  A friend passed it on to me during a destash, and at first I wasn't too sure about it either, but now I know it's a keeper. :)  As is OY, a lovely ultrafine flaky golden/green shimmer in a clear base.  For more OYsomeness, check out Liesl's post - she has a hardcore crush on that one!

Thank you for stopping by, and the happiest of New Years to you and those you love. :) ♥

Neon nailsies and a bit o' life!

Hello and Happy Saturday evening to you all!  Since I was off work on Friday and going out of town, I decided to do a "funky" mani with neons (love 'em but I feel weird wearing them to work) and attempt a technique I've never tried before but recently saw in a tutorial video on YouTube.  It did NOT turn out like I envisioned because I could not find a small enough brush. :(  But it was still kinda cool, and I enjoyed it for a couple days. :)

First of all, can I say that as much as I love the neon mint color of ChG's Highlight of My Summer, the formula is HORRENDOUS!  :O  It gets sooo streaky, and yet, giant ridges build up in other places and it's just a royal pain in the butt to get decent coverage.  I think this is three coats.  Dry time was decent at least.  The accent nails are a polish I've showed you before; Maybelline Pretty in Polka.  I love their jelly/black & white glitter polishes! Drops of Jade is also in my stash. ;) 

As you might have guessed, the technique is one-stroke brush flowers, but mine did not really turn out.  I stupidly got the white and the pink (NYC French White Tip & Sinful Colors 24/7) reversed for the first two.  I'm not even going to try to describe it, so if you want to see how the pros do it, watch this awesome video!

So, since I only have & only wanted  to show you one photo of that mess, on to "life!"

Last weekend my little brother and I made the long-ish (6 hr) trek to New Ulm, MN to visit our mom's sisters and their "kids."  We're actually all around the same age...my brother and I both have cousins there that are the same age as us, and one that is smack dab in between us. :)  It was a really nice weekend and it felt good to finally reconnect with them.  It'd been YEARS since my brother saw that side of the family, and about 2 years since I'd been to New Ulm for a visit.  Plus it was nice to have someone to share the boring drive with - other than when he was driving like a boy and ruining my gas mileage!

Clockwise from R:  Jane (my aunt), Hannah (her daughter), me, Morgan (my brother)

Here's us having a sushi FEAST at a pretty spectacular place in Mankato. :)  Thankfully, we all enjoy sushi and so I thought lunch in the big city was in order!  Hannah had heard of this new place from a couple friends and they happened to have a $15.99/person all you can eat sushi lunch special.  I don't know how the 4 of us managed to eat only 3 rounds of 3 rolls...plus the most amazing crab rangoons as an appetizer - they were seriously to DIE for - like Turkish delight or something! lol
Somehow the sushi was very filling and totally delicious.  Mmmm.  Darn, now I want sushi!  :P

It was Oktoberfest while we were there - New Ulm is a very  German town, complete with a Glockenspiel & it's home to Schell's Brewery, so Saturday afternoon we walked around downtown and happened to catch the petting zoo as they were packing up...

Now that's not something you see in MN every day!  He was really cool... as we walked up, he kept saying: "Hello," and "I love you."  At least I think  that's what he was saying!  There was also a kangaroo, some other kind of big bird, a llama, a dromedary camel, and a couple other things I can't recall.  Hannah's 2-yr-old daughter was there before us with her dad, and she called her mom & kept repeating: "camel!" :D  It was pretty cute.  She knows a lot of animals for being only 2!

Now, on to TODAY!

I almost wan't going to include this, but since my friend's costume & my shirt kinda go (color-wise) with the mani I showed you, I figured meh why not!  Plus, I'm pretty excited that I did my first-ever 5k run/walk today!!! :D  Let me tell you, if someone said to high-school me (who about died every time we had to do laps for gym class) that in 10 years I'd be running a 5k of my own free will, I would have literally rolled on the floor laughing.  But, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles; here I am...

Here's me and my lovely friend, Janette, who convinced me to do this with her!  So up until 8 days ago, I'd never really run a day in my life, other than when absolutely necessary. :P hehe

I have no idea what our exact times were (the timing device they were using kept freezing because it was so cold) but I'm guesstimating it was around 45 minutes?  And we walked a lot of it.  But I'm pretty proud of us!  It was surprisingly not nearly as bad as I thought and all my mental freaking out and worrying about being the last ones to finish was for naught.  We'll probably do another one in Fargo in May. :D

Oh, this guy greeted me this morning when I was about to sit down by my mirror to get ready.  I'll spare you the big photo!  Needless to say I got ready in the bathroom instead.

ISH.  I HATE spiders!  When my roommate got home, I had her kill it. :P  I'll usually kill them, but I was already on edge with nerves about the run. 

Have you ever accomplished something you never thought you'd do?  If so, I'd love to hear about it!  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed this post even though it wasn't all about polish. ;)