Xhilarated Nails

I haven't mentioned this yet, but this weekend, I'm going to Vegas with some friends and Andy. We'll only be there for two days, but I'm sure we all expect to pack as many adventures into those days as we possibly can.

Ramping up for Vegas required some serious accessorizing, from sunglasses to bathing suits to outfits. One of the dresses I bought was actually designed as a coverup for a bathing suit, but the way it fits on me makes it a sexy dress.

Awesome striped zig-zag patterns totally inspired be when I walked by my closet today, so with White On (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear) and Four Leaf Clover (China Glaze), I created this manicure.

I'll keep working on my free handing abilities, if you keep promising to be so kind! Seriously, I had a less than glamorous day yesterday but reading the kind comments for the past couple of posts, seeing the amount of reposts and Likes, really brightened up a dreary day. I know I hardly ever respond to comments, but it doesn't mean I don't love them. I'd like you all to know that I read each and every one of them. So thanks guys!

Modern Leprechaun

Without even thinking about what tomorrow is, I made today's manicure St. Patrick's Day appropriate! I'd been thinking about the combination of these two polishes for a while, originally hoping to make a reverse gradient using the colors. When I finally got around to painting my nails last night though, I realized how much thinner Set the Stage (Sally Hansen) was in its glitter formula. It wouldn't have worked nearly as well as Crown Me Already did for my mermaid nails. (I think that post is actually my most popular.)

I didn't feel much like creating a huge, gloppy blob of glitter near the base of my nails, trying to reach the correct consistency, so I decided to paint the whole nail with the gold. It's done over Essie's Sew Psyched. I have a teeny weeny little sample bottle of that, and it's just about the cutest size I've ever owned. Unfortunately, after about 2 manicures with it, it's half empty. In the literal way, not the pessimistic way.

When I was putting the polish away, I noticed Glitter in my Stocking in the same drawer, and kind of kicked myself for not using that for the gold gradient. It has more reds than I'd like to go with the green of Sew Psyched, but it still may have been pretty cool. Next time!

Outlined Flowers

I was originally inspired for today's manicure by Gully Nails's post, Polka Dot Flowers. After looking at her design again, I know I kind of missed the mark, but I'm still sort of giddy about my own design. Sort of seems kind of Spongebob-esque.

The base color here is Secret Peri-Wink-Le (China Glaze), overlaid with Whimsical (Revlon).  The petals are a combination of Feeling Great (Sinful Colors) and Lightening (Sally Hansen Insta-Dri). Finally, I drew the inner pollen spots with Time Off (Sinful Colors).

I will try this again to get it closer to Becky's design, because I absolutely love it.

Sally Hansen Red Zin, Etc Swatches and Review

Good Morning,

It's nothing like wearing a dark red wine color anytime during the year. It's my hubbies favorite that he likes for me to wear.  I got lots of compliments on Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Red Zin. While shopping in Walgreen's a young lady asked me what I was wearing I told her what it was and she picked it up to buy it for herself.  Can you believe I made a sale for Walgreen's. Ha Ha it made me feel good *-*

Red Zin is a gorgeous creme/jelly.  No problems with the application and it took 3 coats to cover well for me.  It's really shiny too.

Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle Serum is a clear gel very light and it moisturizers cuticles nicely.  You can put it on bare nails or over polished nails.  I use it at night before going to bed it keeps my cuticles hydrated.

Dry Chapped Hand Creme it's not thick but just the right consistency. After using my hands don't have that whitish dry look or feel to them. I love it!

You can find these at your local drug stores

  

These were sent for review

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  Until next time please have a great nail polish day. (✿◠‿◠)

You Dotty Girl!

Another lovers' affair, broadcast for my viewers to see. This is truly getting out of hand.

This time, I have a reason though. I'm going to enter one of my nail designs in Sarah's (Chalkboard Nails) nail art contest. She's encouraging her readers to participate in an all-dotting tool themed contest. The winners are chosen by Sarah and her panel of judges, so this isn't a plug for your votes. In fact, I think you all should enter! Entering your designs will inspire other designs for everyone to try out, so in a way, everyone wins a little. Plus, everyone knows how to use a dotting tool, homemade or store-bought. It's a great, fair way to allow nailers of all skill levels to enter and possibly win a $20 gift card to Llarowe.

Llarowe sells some of the coveted international polish lines like Glitter Gal and HITS to United States customers who can't get these polishes elsewhere. Good news...Llarowe ships just about everywhere else as well!

With that awesome prize and an additional two mystery prizes valued at $10 up for grabs, I had to enter.

I've done lots of dotting designs, so I had several to go on, but I wanted to enter something new. Hopefully I made the right choice with this design.

The base for this design is Skull and Glossbones (OPI). The various dots were done using my reliable dotting tools and Grape Pop (China Glaze), Planks A Lot (OPI), and White On (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear) (in order of darkest to lightest). I chose to go with a purple theme to match the dotting tools themselves. Dang those little guys are inspiring!

Darker Valentine

Valentine's Day is tomorrow, and today will probably be the last of my mini series of Valentine's Day manicures. Andy and I have plans to make some homemade ravioli (with spinach, ricotta, and Italian sausage inside) which probably won't leave much time for my hands to be painted. Toxic nail polish in delicious homemade food doesn't sound too appetizing.

Today I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Cinna-Snap as the base. Holy cow is that color sexy. It's such a deep, dark, almost bronzed red. Definitely a one-coater, and a hell of a job to clean up in the cuticle area. I then layered on some Chunky Holo Scarlet. Topping it all off is Synergy from L.A. Girl's Glitter Addict collection. I had plans to do some stamping, but I'm really pleased with all these glittering combinations lately.

Pyramid Flaked

An unusually frustrating feeling occurs when you have so many ideas flurrying about in your head, and can't decide which one to pick and ultimately apply to your nails. It's like walking into a candy store and being told you can only have one piece of one flavor. The decisions weigh so heavily on you that you eventually cave under the pressure, and pick up the first piece that you can grab. In the end, you're not thrilled with it, but the sweet taste is too distracting to care.

Faced with such a dilemma last night, I wound up with this cluster of colors. I chose the black base (Black Platinum from Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure) because I didn't want to use the solid black you see paired with flakies on almost every Googled image of "flakies". (I wish I had used a solid though.) The pyramid shape filled with Twisted (Finger Paints) is something I've been envisioning for the past few days, but it was only while I was applying my base coat that I decided to use flakies instead of my original idea. I won't say what that idea was yet, because I'm sure in the next few days I'll use that still. Ultimately, this is what I came up with, indecision be damned!

Opulent Orchids

Yesterday I tried my hand at striping tools; not the striping nail polishes with the brush built in, but the brush that you can use on any color you like, and the results were less than awesome. Maybe it was the polish choice, but I'm not ready to talk about it. I'm a little ashamed of it, and not ready to share it with the world.

Instead, I'll share with you a manicure I created using dotting tools, again. They've made me so beyond happy, and I can't stop writing down ideas in my teeny little notebook that would feature them. I highly recommend grabbing a set. It's worth the $10 you'll end up spending.

After my pansies caught so much attention and flattery (I found them featured on a French blog), I decided to keep with the flora theme. The stunning, fractal patterns created by most plant life lends itself quite well to the nail world. This time, my flower of choice was an orchid. These beauties have an interesting story behind them, involving the Greek myth of Orchis. According to Wikipedia:

Orchis, the son of a nymph and a satyr, came upon a festival of Dionysios (Bacchus) in the forest. He drank too much, and attempted to rape a priestess of Dionysios. For his insult, he was torn apart by the Bacchanalians. His father prayed for him to be restored, but the gods instead changed him into a flower.

Ouch. Sorry dude. But thanks for the inspiration!

I have no real, gorgeous orchids to pose with, but I do have a vase with the silhouette of an orchid painted on it.

I used Essie Turquoise & Caicos for the base color, the stems are from Color Madric Green, the white petals are French White Creme (Wet n' Wild), the purple petals are Plum Truffle (CND) and the yellow centers are Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightening. I had a lot of fun with this one, and my patience paid off. Even my right hand looks good. To top everything off, I used Matte Magic (China Glaze), based on the idea someone gave me when I posted my pansies. They thought I had made them matte, but that was just a photographic illusion. This time, I intentionally matted them, and it gives them a much softer, delicate feel, just like the plant.

Photo courtesy of http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com/2011/04/06/how-to-parent-sensitive-orchid-children/

Maybe if I work up enough strength, I'll post what I consider to be a failed manicure another day, but for today, that's all folks.

Gifts from Polish Art Addiction

I don't have nails to post today, although I did paint them. You'll have to wait a few weeks to see them though, as they're for a guest post on someone else's blog.

In the meantime, I wanted to share the really generous and unsuspected gifts that Leslie from Polish Art Addiction gave me. I helped her make a graphic for her blog, and she was so thankful she sent me a manicure care package. I'll admit, I got a little teary when she reminded me how thoughtful and gracious people an be. Thank you Leslie, you really shouldn't have.

In the top row, starting on the left, is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Crushed, Leslie's own franken (my personal favorite of the lot), and an L.A. Colors purple fuchsia glitter.

In the bottom row, from left to right, is Love & Beauty (a Forever 21 brand) Baby Blue glow in the dark, Pure Ice Celestial, Oh Baby!, and Platinum. I'm really excited about the two lighter Pure Ice colors especially. Oh Baby! seems like it may be a dupe for CND's Sapphire, and the stunning Platinum next to it is so freakin' shiny! I hope it lays well.

She also included a very pretty nail file and a bottle of Seche Vite. I'm set for life now!

Seriously Leslie, you're so kind for sending these gifts! I can't wait to try them all, especially your franken. It'll be perfect for Valentine's Day just around the corner.

Going In Circles

I'm happy it's the weekend!  I did several things to my nails.  First, I put on 3 coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Eel Skin. Second, one coat of Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Glass Slipper.  I can see myself putting it on every creme I own.  And, third did a stamping with Chanel Vendetta using XL Plate B.  

Why does macro have to show every little flaw. Lol!  I promise it looks better irl

Glass Slipper killed my lemming for Illasmaqua Raindrops and CND Sugar Sparkle.  (Hugs bottle)

 Eel Skin a nice creme

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Until next time please have a great nail polish day. (✿◠‿◠)

Birthday, Christmas and New Year Haul

The end of the year is always full of some serious celebration for me. With a birthday right before Christmas, Christmas itself, and all the celebration and hangovers that accompany New Year's Eve, there's a lot to be happy about. In addition, I have gifts and presents to celebrate over that I know you all will also appreciate. Of course, I recieved some lovely non-nail gifts and love from my family and friends that are also reason to celebrate, but since this is a nail blog, I'll just share those with you today.

Get ready...it's picture heavy!

First up, these are the gifts my sister gave me. She understands nail polish more than anyone I personally know, so you can only imagine my joy opening her gifts. She gave me tools:

...dotting tools

...striping brushes

...and a glass nail file.

She gave me the Butter London Dressing Table duo, Black Knight and Tart with a Heart. Unfortunately, the dressing table suffered a fatility during the 17-hour car ride, so it won't be making an appearance in today's shots.

She gave me some amazing nail art brushes I've never heard of, but definitely want more of. The formula on all of these is great, and only requires one coat. That's practically unheard of with brighter striping shades. All of these are from a company called Color Madric. They're all sort of metallic, not matte as their bottles seem to indicate.

Shown here is Design Yellow, Green, Ocean Blue, and Hologram Glitter.

Hologram Glitter really is holographic, as I tried to capture here.

Shown here are the metallics from the Metal-licious collection of Color Madric brushes. These colors are Am-Ore, Platinum Rush, Lead to Riches, Metal-Licious, Iron I Lovely, and Gold Digger.

These all appear metallic, as their collection's name suggests.

She gave me part of L.A. Girl Glitter Addict collection, including the elusive Uninhibited I've been craving since I saw Rie from Nails and Noms use it.

Shown here are Uninhibited, Jostle, Animate, and Celebrate.

A few days after getting these, we stopped by a random Rite Aid to get Andy some contact solution, and I saw a glittering display of five more colors from the collection!

I added Eutopia, Nostalgic, Purge (a new nail polish name favorite in my book), Synergy, and Provocative to my infant collection.

Now it's a glittering grand collection!

She gave me some polishes we had talked about over the phone. These are randoms I mentioned liking that she had cheap access to out there in So-Cal.

Shown here is Sea Gurl from ORLY, Good Witch? from China Glaze, Cleopatra also from China Glaze, Glass Slipper from Sally Hansen Diamond Strength (one I actually snagged for myself), Lady Luck from Sally Hansen Gem Crush and January from Julep. She didn't like that color on her, so I took it off her hands. To top this load of polishes off is the amazing Load from Illamasqua. Look at it back there. Beautifully raunchy.

Rounding out my sister's amazing gifts is my first bottle...or bottles rather...of Seche Vite.

Look at this monstrosity! It's so much top coat, I don't even know what to do with it! 4 ounces!

So that's it from her...but fear not, my haul has not ended! She did an unbelievable job of making my Christmas gifts a thrill to open. Thanks Sisser, I love you!

I mentioned in Sapphire that Andy's mom's trainer, Robbie really hooked me up with some amazing CND products. Here they are!

She included in my bag of goodies some nail care items including some tasty CND Solar Oil (a cuticle conditioner), Scentsations lotion minis in Sparkling Champagne and Clementine & Mistletoe. They smell awesome! There are also several samples of CND's Spamanicure hand lotions, in Citrus Soothing Creme and Almond Hydrating Lotion. I absolutely love the smell of the almond lotion. Finally, there are a few nail buffers, showing their support for breast cancer research with the words "Nail Community Cares" written on them.

She also included some amazing colors, including Smoochie (#518), Sapphire Sparkle (#561), Plum Truffle Sparkle Effect (#586), and Plum Truffle Colour (#585).  You've seen Sapphire Sparkle already in Sapphire.

Thank you again Robbie, I love everything!

Last but not least! We have the polishes I bought myself.

You've already seen the Urban Outfitters collection I picked up here, but here's a few more shots of those beautiful bottles.

I also snagged the entire Finger Paints Special Effects collection today at Sally's!

 Not much to look at when they're in the bottles, but I'm sure you've seen them used by other ladies. My favorite shots are from Jen at The PolishAholic, from this post showing each on its own, and this post showing them all layered together. Oh many these are going to be fun to play with!

So that's it. Can you feel my excitement through the screen? It's radiating!