Christmas mani drive by posting!

Hello, my lovelies!

I'll be back this Sunday with new, weekly postings but I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas if you celebrate it!

Here's what I'm wearing today! There's a whole bunch of polishes involved but the beauty on my ring finger is by a fabulous, relatively new indie called Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer! I'll have more from her this coming Sunday, but this stunner is called Newborn Solstice Sun and she is gorgeous. This is two coats of beautiful application, topped with Seche Vite. Be sure to check out Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer!

(The Santa hat is upside so I included a second pic to show it correctly!)

Orly Sparkling Garbage!

Hello, my lovelies!

How are you on this rainy day? I’ve got a lovely pairing for you today, Essie Turquoise & Caicos, and Orly Sparkling Garbage. Isn’t that a fun name? Onto the pretty! 

Essie Turquoise & Caicos is a pretty aqua jelly. Nice to look at but what a nightmare to use! I didn’t realize it was a jelly at first, I thought it was a crème. I’ve had it for ages and never wore it but thought it would be a great match with Sparkling Garbage. Color wise, it’s a match made in heaven! Formula wise…yeesh. It’s the sheerest sheer I own. It was thin and runny, dragged and pulled and after the 4^th coat, it was finally wearable. There’s still VNL, as is common with jellies. 

Essie & ILoveNP!

Hello, my lovelies!

Another weekend is upon us, hooray!

Since the weather has been on a warming trend this week, I opted for some refreshing blue.

A week of manis!

Hello, my lovelies! It’s Sunday again. The best thing about Sundays (for more one week) is that there are two Game of Thrones episodes left. Just two, and then an agonizingly long wait of 9 months. Luckily, I’ve read the entire series several times, so I know what happens. Otherwise, the wait would be even worse.

I had hoped to have more of a review for you this week, but it just didn’t happen. So instead, I’ll recap some of the manis I wore this week and recently.

I'm baaaaaack!

Hello, my lovelies!

It’s been far, far too long since we last visited. This pesky thing called work swooped in and took over my life the last few months, and unfortunately, the blog fell to the wayside. Most days I didn’t even have time to do my nails and would wear the same polish for 3 or 4 days (the horror!) ;)

But I think, things are easing up now and I hope to at least get once post in a week for now, and back up to 2-3 postings a week by the end of June.  I think I debuted this blog last year on Memorial Day, so my one year blogaversary should be here!

A celebration of red nail polish!

Hello, my lovelies!

I have something new for you today. Recently some friends of mine and I were talking about the red polish, OPI’s Smitten With Mittens (which for some reason, I always want to call it Smitten with Kittens). The conversation then evolved into one about red polish and how there are so many lovely ones. So I told them all to send me a pic or two of their favorite red and I would dedicate a post to red polish. And here it is!

Go Pink Wednesday #2!

Hello, my lovelies!

Welcome to Go Pink Wednesday #2!  Go Pink Wednesday is when a bunch of bloggers and nail polish fiends wear pink manis to support breast cancer awareness, because October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. You don’t have to be a blogger to join in! You can find more details over at Finger Painting Fingers, who organized this amazing event.

Today I’m showing off a new beauty by Different Dimension called “Honesty Feels A  Lot Like Mean”.  I’ll be reviewing some of her amazing polishes later this week but today, we focus on this one. 

Warning, pic heavy!

Essie Swatch Spam!

Hello, my lovelies!

Today we are enjoying some gorgeous early fall weather in DC, so I decided to share some Essie swatches with you! Many of these are from earlier this year so these are not fall colors. I am no fashionista and I do not subscribe to “appropriate to wear” colors dictated to by season, so expect to see plenty of warm summery colors during winter and sometimes dark, vampy colors in the spring! 

Warning - Massively pic heavy!

COOOKIES! OMNOMNOMNOM!

Hello, my lovelies!

I had hoped to post this yesterday but I was out of town with friends all day and didn’t have time. So instead, I’m bringing it to you today!

I wasn’t sure what to put on my nails Saturday but almost everyone who answered the question on FB, said “Cookie Monster!” A dear friend was spending the night so we did our nails, of course! (and I forgot to get a picture of hers, damn!)

Kleancolor Chunky Holo Poppy!

Hello, my lovelies! 

Today I’m wearing Kleancolor Chunky Holo Poppy. I got this baby for $.01 on Copious! (Have you joined Copious yet? Use my referral link toget $10 in credit when you join!).

This baby arrived on a scorching hot day when I was stalking the postman. I had to let the bottle cool down because it was so hot!

The first thing I noticed about this when I opened it was that it doesn’t stink nearly as much as the blue one I have! Warning: pic heavy!

Metallic Try It On Tuesday!

Hello, my lovelies! It’s another Try it On Tuesday where we try on polishes that have been waiting their turn!

 

I’m kind of cheating today and using 5, count ‘em, 5 new polishes! Today we have the Metallic Mirror collection by Essie. I think there are actually 6 colors; I have 5. I don’t really like paying $8 for a bottle of polish (well, for Zoya, sure!) but Wegmans was running coupons through June for $2 off each, so I stocked up. I’m okay with $6, that’s about the price of China Glaze. So the both the miser and polish addict are satisfied. 

I did metallic skittles! I find it amusing when I used to wear what it now called “skittles”, years ago, I got teased for it. Little did they know how fashion forward I was being!

Warning - pic heavy!

More colorblocking!

Hello, my lovelies!

It’s a scorching hot Friday afternoon in oh, about half of the US. I hope everyone is staying cool! The Big Fluffy Dog, also known as The Rare Tropical Husky, wants to go out and sunbathe and sit under the shed. Mommy (me) says no. So she’s currently snoozing a few feet away, on her back, legs splayed, back slightly arched. I do know other people with Siberian Huskies that prefer heat to cold too so she’s not alone, but it’s a small percentage. She has very poor judgment when it comes to the weather!

So I decided to do some more colorblocking, for Shelley’s Sassy Saturday mani contest! This is only my second attempt, but I used two polishes that have been waiting their turn: Zoya Arizona and Eddie Mojito Madness, both from collections this year.

4th of July fishtail!

Hello, my lovelies! Happy 4^th of July! This Navy daughter salutes our troops and all who served so that I can enjoy my freedom. It also would have been my grandparents 75^th wedding anniversary (they’re both deceased).

First off, I have to say I’m Not Happy with this mani. I seem to have trouble with the weaving and it’s just super sloppy. I followed Lucy’s Stash’s tutorial, but I botched it up 4 times. 4 times!!! This is the 4^th round. I’m too tired to try again. In the pictures, she doesn’t show using tap, but either she does, or she just has a great steady hand. So, next time, I will use tape to make the lines nice and crisp. I really like this look and am determined to get it right, so expect to see more of this mani style in coming weeks. 

Jem is Truly Outrageous!

Hello, my lovelies!  Today’s manicure is a super special labor of love. 

My buddy Jenn over at My Indie Glam Addiction is having an awesome nail art contest and the theme is JEM! Any child of the 80s like myself will know immediately who this is. I can still sing the entire theme song and some of the songs featured in the show. I’ve dressed up as Jem for Halloween at least twice in my life-and one of the costumes is still hanging in my closet ‘cause the last time was just a couple years ago. 

My first water marble!

Hello, my lovelies! So I finally got brave enough to do a water marble mani. I’ve been admiring them for ages now but frankly, was a bit intimidated. Using Water Lilies tutorial, I realized it wasn’t that hard. And I had always thought it seemed like a waste of polish but her tutorial explained you had to redo it for each nail, so it totally wasn’t what I was thinking and you’re really not wasting much polish at all. 

I used an old shot glass instead of a cup. For colors I used China Glaze Liquid Leather (black), Essie A Crewed Interest (pale peach) and Essie Turquoise and Caicos (minty green). Essie A Crewed Interest is almost the same color as both the old politically incorrect Crayola color “flesh” and freakishly almost  matches my skin tone. It's all topped off with Seche Vite, of course.

Time for some neon!

I had no idea what to try today, other than bright. A friend suggested neons, so here it is! I don't have many neons, but I've been reading about how putting it over a white base helps it to really pop. It is really bright, lol!

Recent hauls and mail!

Sales, deals, coupons - I can't resist them. So here are some recent hauls and nail mails!

Hauls:

Essie Bikini So Teeny, Essie A Crewed Interest, Orly Be Brave

An Orange V!

A few days ago I was wearing an orange tank top and olive green shorts. I thought the colors looked good together and wondered how to make them into a neat mani. I’ve always liked the “V” manis, but the last time I attempted on a few months ago, it was a disaster. Sloppy, uneven-I couldn’t even bear to take a pic of it. So this time, I thought it through a little better and was more careful with the tape, placing it carefully and removing it quickly. 

This is two coats of China Glaze Agro (from The Hunger Games collection), which, really, Agro is almost good enough to get by with one coat. The triangles are Essie Fear or Desire (3 coats) and topped with Seche Vite. While this attempt is definitely neater than my first, and it looks like how I envisioned (mostly), I don’t love it the way I thought I would. It’s lacking the ‘wow’ factor I thought it would have. I think it’s because the V doesn’t go low enough. I think next time it should extend down the entire nail, instead of the shorter version I have now.And maybe a creme for the green, to go with the orange.

Of course, about the time I finished one hand, I remembered I was going to try a water marble originally. Ah, well, maybe later this week. I’m so bummed over the season finale of Game of Thrones being last night, I may have to work on some Westeros-themed ideas. There’s no way I can freehand paint any of the house sigils…

A Fiery Gradient!

I attempted a gradient a while back with blues, that worked okay and looked good from about a foot away. For that one, I painted my nails a cobalt blue, then sponged a medium blue over 2/3 of the nail, and then sponged a light blue-gray over the tips. This was the result:

But today, I used The Nailasaurus' awesome gradient tutorial and got much better results! 

Fire colors are my favorite, so I decided a fiery gradient would perfect, esp with the heat we've been having! 

Using Essie Fear or Desire, a lovely bright orange that isn't quite neon, and Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby for the red, I got this beautiful gradient!