Photo Dump

This is where all of my late posts go to die... stuck in dumps without their own posts, le sigh.

If I could be bothered to take a bit of time and draw this better it would be my header on my blog... But I cant draw on computers very well

This was a Christmas Nail that didnt make it. If I could, I would go back and replace one of the earlier ones with this one... meh. Its Urban Outfitters Holo Pink with some of my stripers in red, gold, and green.

Boyfriend bought me some last minute Christmas gifts the day after Christmas. This is Butter London's British Racing Green!!! I have heard on the grapevine that deep green will be the color of 2013, IM READY FOR THIS ONE!

I bought myself the documentary Nailgasam and it kind of inspired me to screw around with patterns and neons... these are unnamed Color Club colors and my  Sally Hansen art pen. I may have to develop this idea further.

I have been listening to this song non-stop for two weeks now... Im not really big on hip hop or rap or whatever, but this is my jam! I am kinda messing around with ideas for inspired nails.... if I ever do a challenge you can bet your ass I will use this! The "thumb" and "pinkie" are the color of blue like the polish they close up on :14 seconds in. The "index" is his sweater on 2:42, the middle is the dress from 1:40 and the "ring" finger is the suit on 2:57. I LOVE THIS SONG RIGHT NOW!!! WARNING: Explicit Language

Finally, I have been dying to show off my Helmer.

I really love stickers, but since I dont put any on my car I end up saving a bunch of them... like the "I Brake For..." I just end up collecting them. So when I decided I needed a Helmer I began buying more stickers! A lot of them came from RedBubble.com mostly the nerdy ones!

These little gems came from 23 Madison Studio She draws and makes these cute little stickers. The one I bought had 20 little different lacquer bottles.

 OK: Now on to the contents This is the top drawer. I keep my dotting tools, gems, stickers, filmo, orange sticks, nail art pens, magnets, cuticle scissors, nail clippers, flocking powder, striping tape, tweezers, oils, files, falsies, and nail wraps in here... among other things

 Drawer two has my base coats, topcoats, glitter top coats, cuticle remover and stripers.


Drawers three, four, and five have my polishes in them... semi color coordinated. The pictures have most of them... a few empty spots are stuff I havent put away and then there are about 7 new ones I havent made space for yet.

The last drawer has boring stuff in it, random cuticle care kits, business cards, lotions, acetone free polish remover (for jewels and stuff) extra cotton balls (I keep my cotton balls in a nice glass jar with lid that I picked up at Hobby Lobby... kinda decorative) and my favorite lotions, oils, polish remover pumps and jar scrubs are on top of my desk. Its a pretty good set up because my desk has a glass top, so when I want to do nail art or dotting I just dab the lacquer right onto my desk and clean up is super easy!

Yippee! So that was what I really wanted to show off... I think its pretty cool. This has been my favorite photo dump yet!

What's your favorite way to store polish? Any good products I should know about?

})i({ - Amy

Photo Dump!

So I got some pictures from two of you out there of your Halloween nails!

I really liked the spider webs and the little pumpkin! Also need to say WOW, you can write with your left hand!!! Good job, I really wish I couldve done something like this with hand painted designs, but there would have been such discord between my left and right hand. Great Nails!

I love your back drop!!!What green base did you use under the shatter polish? I love the colors!

                                                                                                                           

So I went to my bestie's house last night and she made me dinner (stuffed pepper soup!) So YUMMY! As thanks and for a bit of girl time I decided to do her and her mother's nails. 

I re-attempted gradient dots... these didnt come out as good as the first time but she liked the color scheme more.

Maybe if I had kept the dots closer together...? Anywho, it China Glaze For Audrey Base with Butter London Slapper and Urban Outfitters Bandeau spots

So then I did her mum's nails. China Glaze Recycle base with CND Silver Chrome tips, also not the first time I've done these nails. To add a bit of pizzazz I put a little grey rhinestone on the ring fingers. These came out pretty snazzy and elegant.

                                                                                                                             

The other day I was at Michael's next to the Ulta near my house (I went to Ulta for polish and then to Michael's for nail accents, it works so well for me!)
I found flocking powder which I was inspired to use from Pixel's Blog. I even used the same color scheme but wasnt game to try spots. It worked pretty well and I liked the finish a lot, it was super soft! My only problem was not pushing down hard enough and the powder ended up coming off in spots. I will have to attempt this again though. Fun finish... Kinda like Ciate's velvet manicure.

Also I bought this awesome Essence polish called Chic Reloaded. I love it!!! It is a duo-chrome purple green in a dark gray base. I have had it on for THREE DAYS!!!! I cant take it off (also because I'm expecting a package with Enchanted's Ciao Milano and I think this might be a good base.) Either way, I love it!

 I'm going to end my photo dump there. I must get ready for work, I'm already running late.... and that's where I shipped my package from Llarowe. I cant wait to put on my first Enchanted polish! I'll probably post pictures tonight!!!

As always, I would love to know what you think, what your favorites are, and any advice on how to make my posts a bit better. (I know I should be using the good camera and also working on the quality of my nails and cuticles.... sorry!)

And I would love to get some followers!

})i({ -Amy 

E.L.F. Polish Trio: Teal Blue, Yellow, Party Peach

So in the one I just posted about Zoya Charisma I mentioned that I bought some polish because I was blue.... Well, I bought a LOT of polish, 3 Zoyas, 1 China Glaze, these ELF polishes and a duo-chrome OPI

These ELF ones came in a pack from TJMaxx for 3 bucks! Thats a buck a bottle! The bottles are .203 fl oz each so they are kinda small, but no worries!

 I tried my hand at the gradient look first. I applied the yellow then sponged on the orange, then the green/teal. It looked terrible, bestie said it looked like a Mexican flag. So I put a black shatter polish over the top...

I should have waited a little cus the shatter pulled the color and left bare spots on my nails.

I didnt like this mani very much (or at all), but I figured I had ought to show the good with the bad. Seemed like a good polish but I dont really know, the sponge seemed to pick it up pretty well I guess. 

Meh, this post was more to show you that I buy bargains... regardless of how much I like them... and how it back fires.

})i({  -Amy

Zoya Charisma

I Love Zoya's formula. It goes on really smooth and looks really nice, so when I was feeling a little blue the other day I went out and bought 3 Zoya polishes: Charisma, Tony (dark burgundy red), and Evvie (dark greenish tinted gray). I thought the last two would complement each other so you may see them in a post coming up...

This is Charisma, it is a fun magenta color. This was two coats, a little VNL but that wouldve gone away with a third. On the ring finger I used Butter London's Slapper and a dotting tool with Charisma.

This was a fun colored mani and picked my spirits right up! Charisma dried a little dull, kinda matte but the top coat solved that issue! Overall I like it... so yeah, super short post for you 

My internet was down for a few days, other wise I would have posted this sooner. Instead you get to have 2 posts today!!! Yippee!

Whats your favorite Zoya color? Do you even like Zoya? (why, why not?) Let me know!

})i({  -Amy

Urban Outfitters Polish Tiny Shorts

I went to urban outfitters on Saturday because of The PolishAholic's post on Friday about Ruby Wing's Color Changing Polish. While I was there I bought Ruby Wing's Eclipse (when I really wanted Moonstone.) But I also bought two Urban Outfitters colors (they were having a special, buy two for $8 instead of $10), I got Tiny Shorts and Bandeau (the second one is a BRIGHT intense purple.)

Tiny Shorts is fluro orange. SUPER bright! I know it's a little late in the year for neons but I LOVE THEM!!!! I could wear them all year... le sigh.

The polish went on thick and blotchy but I wanted to keep it thin (so it would dry someday!) and my thin blotchy coats evened out after 3. Then it dried really weird, almost matte but more... dull.

So Iused my Seche Vite top coat (anyone know how to pronounce that?) It fixed the dullness and smoothed everything out. I figured I could still get away with this for Halloween or something, but otherwise a very summer color. In the pictures its such a bright red orange, in life its more of a true neon... and a little more yellow. It's FAB either way.

I hoped if I took a picture outside it would show the color better... kinda but nowhere close to its true glory; the thumb is close, I will be going back to this a lot (probably all year to brighten up my winter!)

There is total VNL but that doesnt really bother me at all... just figured for summa you guys out there it would be a bust...

ah well

What do you think? Whats your favorite neons? Any better oranges? What would you do with this color in a full mani? Let me know!

})i({  - Amy

Butter London Two Fingered Salute

So today I painted my nails at work... It needed to be done! I bought Butter London's Two Fingered Salute a little bit ago, but hadn't tried it out yet. I ADORE the way it looks in the bottle, it jumped out and screamed at me from Nordstrom's display.

Its SO purdy! I thought it looked like tarnished copper. It's basically a grayish mint green base with flecks of what looks like copper shimmer in it (but is actually copper micro glitter... only learned that after I tried to get it off). You can kinda see it in the picture.

(Flash on)

After putting it on my fingers I wasn't so sure about it. Its not a green I would normally wear and the coppery shimmer is hard to see on the nails.  

(Flash off)

I was a little upset after shoving my hand into my boyfriend's face so he could see how pretty this polish is (will I have to do that to everyone?)

I want to be able to notice the beauty of this polish, and my boyfriend suggested that the copper would "pop" if I used a copper for tips (how helpful, boyfriend!) So I looked online for some copper polish and came across some that I thought would work. Essie's Penny Talk looked pink enough but after reading a few blogs, some people had said it was a little more on the brown side and I am looking for a pinker copper. I found Revlon's Copper Penny on Amazon Prime for $2.99 so I bought it anyways... but then I'm still looking at Butter London's Old Bill (maybe since they made the Salute their coppers would be the same... but I'm not sure), also Elf Polish 1576 Copper but I can't find any swatches of it... we'll see how the Revlon looks and go from there.

When I get the copper I'll paint my nails again and see if it looks any better!

})i({  -Amy

Photo Catch Up

Hello All!

These are photos of stuff I have done up to now... Not a riveting post, but one I need to do to move this process along, after this post it's all new stuff, techniques,  brands and quality.... or at least my description of those things. 

If you have done anything similar and want to share or help (mostly help!!!) then please leave a comment. I would love to include your information in my posts!

So I did eventually do an anchor... but it was so much work that I gave it up soon after. One of my earlier ones, so I don't even remember the crap polish I used.. no biggie, but I did abandon the scotch tape here for a striper.

I LOVE the color of this one... I desperately wish I could do this on all of my fingers because the nudes are just so elagant. This is OPI You Don't Know Jacques and Tickle my France-y with my lame excuse for cheetah spots! I bought these colors is a 10 pack of mini Opi polishes at Ulta. The set was called Best of the best and I literally paid like 6 bucks for the set, I think it was a pretty good find.

Another set of the Co-worker's nails. I liked this one a bunch. The colors are all of those Art Deco ones... it was hard to paint the whole nail with an art brush. And the bows are little nail stickers. I think this would be cute for a baby shower!

This is really what I wanted to do with the baby nails, but I couldn't find black bow stickers. I tried to paint them and then bought the Konad stamping set with bows but lost steam after a bit. Havent really done bows since. This is China Glaze For Audrey and those Art Decos.

These are my co-worker's nails again, (she lucked out with all the free manis!) I think these are super fun and I would definitely do them again. They are Art Deco colors over OPI Alpine Snow (part of that box set I talked about.)

I took this idea from one of my Instagram followers (iloveyou432)... Its a cute simple idea for a mani, easy to produce on both hands and subtle. 

Pink so hot it'll burn your retinas! I love this color! This is Color Club's Jackie-Oh! A friend of mine got it in her Birch Box and she hates pink. She gave this to me when I mentioned that I wanted to get a neon pink after giving one of mine to a co-worker.

Another copy from Instagram (leacoast) and I LOVE it. the flowers are super easy, you do uneven spots (so not with a dotting tool) and then with a lighter shade of the color you do a swirl inside. They were beautiful and I wished I couldve done them for myself (instead of for my co-worker, lucky B.) China Glaze Four Audrey and Art Deco

Another idea from Instagram, can't really give credit since this girl was reposting reposts... and I HATED IT!!!! The little palm trees are cute enough and since I only had to do my middle and ring of my left had I thought it was cute (the rest of the nails were skittled with colors from the palm tree stripes.) What I really hated was the nail polish I bought, (it was around this time that I learned to stop buying cheap nail polish... GRRR), the yellow stained SO BAD! It is only starting to grow out and you can see it on some of my later manis... :( Never buy Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in Buttercup.

Had to do something dark after the staining and I love how it turned out! This is China Glaze Recycle with CND Silver Chrome tips. (I use the hole reinforcements to do the tips, super easy.)

I did these for my Bestie's birthday. Silver Chrome base with roses and thorns... got this idea online, so I guess I stole it. In future posts I will credit all ideas, but hopefully have more of my own.

Thought this would be a really cute way to use more of the Silver Chrome (I became obsessed shortly after buying it.) This is Jackie-Oh and Silver Chrome with zebra striping on my co-worker.

I bought my first 4 Butter London colors at Ulta, I waited until they had a buy one get one free sale that I had heard rumors of. This is Gobsmacked and I LOVE it. It is like a pure glitter coat with medium sized gunmetal black sparkles. It is so awesome!

I totally stole this idea from another blogger right down to the brand of polishes and most of the colors (except they used Lesbihonest instead of Ilf.) At this point I can't remember who. My apologies if I took this idea from you but, as they say: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." I used ManGlaze's Matte is Murder, Fuggen Ugly, and Ilf for this, on top of Butter London's Diamond Geezer. I wish I was able to make the stripes smaller; I swapped from scotch tape to electrical tape, but haven't found the right scissors for the job. I really like ManGlaze's matte polishes, they go on smooth and don't dry too quickly during application (but do dry quickly overall.)

I assured myself that I would not pay for Deborah Lippmann's Glitter in the Air when Revlon made an exact dupe called Whimsical that I could buy from Ulta for  5 bucks... but I waited too long and by the time I got around to getting this Ulta didnt have it anymore and it was selling on Amazon for 15 bucks... might as well buy Lippmann's at that price, right? If you look close enough you can still see the staining from the palm tree mani... le sigh

This is my current favorite. If I only had one color, it would probably be this... This is Zoya's Yasmeen and I dont really like purple. This purple is rich, smooth, radiant and opaque as all hell, it also has a fine golden sheen to it. I put a little rhinestone on as an experiment.

My Bestie wanted to borrow my  OPI DS sapphire... which I haven't swatched yet, and when I went over we ended up doing something a little different. This was exactly last week, practically the same time as now. It's Butter London's Trout Pout and Slapper with another little rhinestone.

This is my first crackle or shatter or whatever its called. Its OPI Gold Shatter over Butter London's Slapper, it reminds me of natural turquoise, maybe if I had put a little black in there it would've been more like the stone.

This was an excuse to go buy black polish (I had lost mine.) This is ManGlaze Matte is Murder with China Glaze Liquid Leather. I adore this look, very simple and classic. I paired it with a white pencil skirt and a black v-neck sweater with little floral black and white flats... ADORBS!

I got my dotting tools in the mail yesterday and had to do this mani Monday morning. Its Julep's Alicia and the darker pink spots were going to be Butter London's Trout Pout, they are very similar but the Pout is a bit darker. Not dark enough though, so I frankened Jackie-oh and Trout Pout... I guess if I had to name it, it would be Jackie's Pout. I dont know what the green one is, it came in my mystery box and it didnt have a name on it... if i do this mani again (and as I type away and see how cute my fingers are, I think I will) then I will probably do a dark blue instead of the green. Maybe an excuse to buy a blue from Zoya.

Any Zoya fans out there? I have it narrowed down to Charla, Ibiza, and Song. All pretty different, but very pretty. I don't have a darker blue yet and could use one! If you have an opinion or a swatch you want to share, I will post it when I decide on a blue. Let me know!

})i({   -Amy