The World's Cutest Pedicure!

Gooooooood morning my lovely polish enthusiasts! I have something extra sweet for you this morning. Apparently my little angel Ella who is just 12 weeks old loves herself some Pomegranate Lacquer! She is swatching Fiery for you today!


Let me apologize in advance for two things. First off the pictures are not great, I have new respect for people who photograph infants, I must have taken 100 pictures and these were the best of the bunch! I don't know why the little stinker didn't just sit pretty for me? Second, this girls cuticles are a mess! I don't know what she was thinking, how embarrassing! But without further ado, here is the worlds cutest pedicure!!

 

 

 

 

 

Isn't that adorable? I may be a little biased but who can resist baby toes? Certainly not me!!! Have a fabulous day!

Swatch And Revew Butter London & Pomegranate Lacquers

TGIF!! Woo-hoo! Can you tell I'm glad it's the weekend? I'm exhausted and I don't want to work any more! I stayed up too late last night watching Avengers - I LOVE that movie, it is hilarious. The husband and I took our 5 yr old daughter to see it in theaters and she was laughing so hard that she was the loudest one in the theater! She does that when she gets excited though and we kept having to shush her!

Today I had to swatch a couple of the polishes from this weeks haul - I still have a ton to go! I will also apologize in advance for the state of my cuticles, I have been naughty about chewing on them! That isn't helped by the fact that it is extremely dry where I live and I can't keep enough cuticle balm on them!

I swatched them a little crazy so you could see several swatches on one hand because I'm lazy like that! Also try to look past the messed up middle finger, my daughter smudged it RIGHT before I was going to take the photos and, again, too lazy to redo it! And with a very needy 12 week old baby to take care of on top of a 5 yr old and a 2 yr old, I barely have time to do my nails the first time!

On mah index finger is one coat of butter LONDON Black Knight. On mah middle finger is one coat of BK over one coat of Pomegranate Princess of Persia. Mah ring finger is sporting two thin coats of Princess of Persia while my pinky has just one coat - although it was a thicker coat!

I'm having really mixed emotions about Black Knight. This is my first experience with butter LONDON and I think I need to try a few more before I make broad assumptions though. This polish was incredibly thick and gloopy and hard to work with. I don't know if I got a bad bottle or what. It would not even out or spread worth a darn! It also would NOT come off my cuticles although that may not be entirely the polishes fault. I have some jagged and dry skin! That being said it is GORGEOUS! It is also really nice after just one coat although two would just add to it's dimensionality. What is your experience with this polish? I have just heard so much good stuff about butter LONDON that I was sad when this wasn't what I expected!

Then we have the lovely Princess of Persia from Pomegranate Lacquers. This polish was divine and a joy to work with! I can't wait to try stamping with it. I was really surpised at it's opacity after just one coat which was the pinky! This polish went on like a dream and evened itself out. It was a perfect medium thickness and a total breeze to use! I HIGHLY recommend this brand and I got this awesome polish for half off!!! What do you think? Have you used Pomegranate polishes?

Huge Weekly Haul!

Oh Lord, I hope my mother doesn't read this post! She would die if she saw how much stuff I got this week! Honestly, I'm not even 100% sure if this is all of it, I may have missed a couple of polishes I got at the store! Don't worry, I don't plan on making this a regular habit so there's no need to call an interventionist! Without further ado, here is a shot of all of my nail swag - details to follow after!

Okay kids - on the top row here is butter LONDON Black Knight. Then comes Julep in Gayle, Olivia and Donna. Next is Lancome in Rose Boudoir and Midnight Rose. Finally my first Pomegranate polishes in Fiery and Princess of Persia!

In this fine row is China Glaze in Man Hunt, Below Deck, Joy and 108 Degrees. Then it's my little Essie in Overboard and Color Club in By Design and finally OPI Dutch'ya Just Love OPI? Then a sweet little 7-surfaced file that I love!

I also got some Pure Ice at the store, colors are Magic, Jaguar, Purple Reign and Electric! Then I also got my first set of dotting tools from Mash - yayyyy!

 

Here are my new 2012 Mash plates - soooo psyched about these and my OPI Alpine Snow!

Whew! That is a lot of stuff! My wallet is in some serious pain but my fingers are seriously happy! Also, in order to validate my purchases and make myself feel a little better I would like to know, what is the most you've spent in a month on polish and accessories? Come on - 'fess up!!

If you want to see something swatched or have any questions, just let me know in the comments! :)

Lancome Rose Boudoir Swatch and Review

Hello sweetpeas! I had the best nail mail day yesterday and got all kinds of new polishes that I've never tried! It was really hard for me to choose so Aneela from Rise and Shine Beauty suggested I try the Lancome Rose Boudoir and that solved that! :)

I was instantly in love with this polish. I've always loved Lancome's cosmetics but this was my first time trying their polish - it certainly didn't disappoint! It applied like a dream and was smooth and even on the first coat. I used to coats for more opacity. You can still see a VNL in the photos but I really didn't care! This polish was a gorgeous pink/red creamy shade and it was so beautiful! I normally only spend half this amount on polish but this stuff was so worth it! :) Ignore the bubbles, those are due to my really thick top coat - I need to go shopping for a new one!

This shot was taken in the shade, the color ended up being darker than I imagined but I really love it!

 

This was indirect sunlight which brightens the color up a little and brings out the pink!

 

This polish gets a 9 from me. The only thing that would make it a 10 was if it could reach full opacity in 1 coat! What do you guys thing, would you wear this? Oh, and here are pics of my haul from yesterday and I still have more coming! :o

 

Acrylic Paint Splatter Mani

Hello my fellow polish addicts! I'm so excited to share my mani with you today because it was so much fun to do and I think it turned out pretty good! I've been loving the paint splatter technique and finally decided that I was brave enough to try it! I wanted to use acrylic paint rather than polish though because of several reasons. Acrylic paint is much cheaper, it dries flatter and it washes off with water so if you mess up a nail you can just rinse it off and start over! Then when you're done with the mani and your top coat is dry you can just wash the mess (and there WILL be a mess!) off your skin - no acetone! With as dry as it's been around here I can use all the help I can get!



I used OPI Alpine Snow for a base coat. Then I just put a small bit of paint in an old ice cube tray and add a few drops of water to thin it out. Then use a regular paint brush and hold it over your nails and tap it until you like the way it looks. Wait until the acrylic paint is dry before attempting a top coat - I learned this the hard way!! It will smear all over the place and you will have some funky looking nails! Here are my instruments of torture:




Here is the awesome mess that I made! You could tape off around your cuticles and that would make the cleanup a little easier if you want but I didn't!!



 

And here is the finished product! I'm thinking of making a video on this technique, what do you think, should I? I don't know, maybe paint splatter nails are "over," but I still like them and I never claimed to be fashionable!



 

My next attempt may have to be a water marble but that may be a while off - the idea still scares me a little bit! :)

Metallic Fall Mani and New Toys!

Hey y'all watch this! Okay, totally joking - I'm not that much of a redneck! As Honey Boo-Boo would say, "you'd better redneckenize!"

Can you tell I'm tired? I'll also apologize in advance for all the bubbles in this mani. I was doing it very late last night and trying to get it done before the baby had a fit so I was putting on thick coats and not waiting for them to dry!

I don't normally do fall colors - I'm much more apt to wear summer colors all year long! This time around though, I was inspired by all of the beautiful Fall manis I've been seeing. I actually had to buy some fall colors just for this mani because I only owned a couple and they weren't what I was looking for. Since I have a ton of polish coming in the mail I made myself stick to some cheaper polishes so I got these four from Pure Ice:

 

They are Magic, Jaguar, Electric! and Purple Reign. It's my first time using this brand and I'm not sure what to think. It went on beautifully but the brushes, especially in the Magic was really crappy. The bristles were stiff and they were all smashed up in this one. Then it took forever to dry. I don't know if that was because I was impatient or if it is really that slow! Of course I'm used to fast-dry polishes so that didn't help!

For this mani I used 3 coats of Jaguar as the base and then I used the stencil technique found here on Chalkboard Nails and it worked like magic! I don't know why I didn't think of using painters tape before - DUH! The accent finger is waaay to many coats of Traffic Stopper Copper from Sephora by OPI. I kept trying to cover this one bald spot on the nail so I have like 4 coats and that was waaay too much but it looks pretty cool!



I was so excited because I found these 5 paper punches for $.96 each at Wal-something or other. I've  got all kinds of ideas for them, muahahahaha!



What do you guys think, is this one a success? Also, I want to know, what is your favorite white polish? I'm looking for something decent that doesn't take 4 perfectly applied coats to use as a base!

Fave Manis And Random Question Of The Week

I hope you have all had a magically fantastical weekend so far! It's been a good one for me! This blog has been so much fun and I've  gotten to meet some seriously awesome people! I have also looked at, literally, hundreds of manis this week - especially due to the 31 day challenge that's going on in the nail blog world. They were all amazing but there were a few that really stuck out to me and I wanted to give them a little nod here on my blog. So here are my fave 3 of this week!

This first one is from my friend Dot over at Young Wild and Polished. Her name is actually Nicole, but it was her alter ego Dot that did this mani! How fun is this?

Now here is a truly "ooh-ahhhhhh!" mani from Jeanette over at The Swatchaholic! This is what she calls "baby steps" in water marbling! I just keep staring at this one because there's so much awesomeness going on here!

 

Next up is from Bregje over at Oooh, Shinies! I was SO in love with this beautiful color combo that I went and ordered both of the polishes! Now I just need to get that stamping plate!

 

 

And finally comes the prettiest water marble I have ever seen! It reminded me of candy and Summer and who doesn't love that! The crazy part is that Sarah from Chalkboard Nails admits to struggling with water marbles. If that's struggling, sign me up!

Wow, now thems is some purdy nailz! I'm beginning to feel just a little bit of hero worship here, lol!

 

Now onto the random question of the week. I'm a total weirdo and I don't mind showing it to the world so I'm hoping to bring out the little bit of weirdo in you too! So here is the question, I'd be much obliged if you would post your answer in the comments!

 

Q: If you could make a hat out of any food, what would it be?

(told you I was weird!)

Pink and Grey Mani!

Hey everyone! How is your Saturday going so far? I got to sleep all the way in until 7:45 :/ Oh well, I can sleep when I'm dead and I have a lot to do today! I finally did a mani that I'm really pretty stinking proud of! It took me forever because I kept smudging it but I was able to rescue it every time. When I woke up this morning it had shrunk on my nails so I had to redo the tips and top coat it again. I think it happened because I forgot a base coat - won't be doing that again! I used some nail guides, stencils and rhinestones I got in this mini-haul:

The stencil worked great but there's only one of each image and I don't think you could use it 10 times, I used mine twice and the polish was getting built up. You might be able to make it work if you were very careful but the acetone I tried to clean it with ruined the stencil!

 

Anywho - on to my mani! For this one I used 3 coats of Wet n Wild Tickled Pink - I really like this color, it's so soft and pretty! Then for the accents I used Essie Merino Cool. It's a gorgeous grey/brown color and the only Essie I own until my shipments gets here! So, without further ado, here are the pics - sorry if there are a ton, mama is proud of her baby!

 

 

Are those pictures obnoxiously large? I'm never quite sure!  Let me know what you think, good or bad I luvs me sum comments!

 

Stay tuned because I have a huge haul coming in from Amazon, Sephora and TransDesigns. There are 14 bottles of polish, dotting tools and the 2012 Mash plates on their way, YAY!

First Ever Swatch Request!

Wheeee, I was so excited to get my first swatch request! It came from Ellie at Just Me...And Some Polish! She wanted to see Sinful Colors What's Your Name up close and personal.

 

I honestly don't have any clue why I bought this polish and I don't remember doing so. But at first glance it just looked like a black base with green micro glitters in it and maybe that's why I've never tried it? But when I pulled it out this time I noticed some blue and purple shades in the glitter as well so my interest in this polish was renewed. It went on very nicely and took just 2 thin coats. Unfortunately, once it was on, I could only see mostly green and an occasional hint of blue, no matter what light I tried. I never could see the purple, not even in real life. The pictures look exactly like I was seeing it - have a look:

This one is with straight on studio lighting. I was almost wishing that I took the pictures without a topcoat because, boy howdy, this stuff was shin-ay!

This one is under the ceiling light with flash...

This puppy is under the ott lamp and you can see a bit more blue here!

 

And this little guy was shot in indirect light outside, kinda pretty!

And just so you don't think I was imagining it, look at all the purple in this macro shot! Now if it only would have looked that way on the nail it would have been a winner!

So if you like really dark polish that sparkles in the sun, you'll love this but for someone who spends most of her time indoors, it was a little bit too black for me!

 

I have a buttload of new polish coming next week as well as the 2012 Mash plates! I made orders at Amazon, Pomegranate and also Sephora! :) I will post the haul when I get it and until then, feel free to request swatches of any of the polishes I have here!

Dot Mani - My First Attempt

Today I'm bringing you another mani to laugh at! This is actually my best so far so I'm actually kind of proud of it - HA! Since some of the dots ran together I'm almost tempted to call it a "blob mani!" I think Blob is the slovenly cousin of Dot over at YoungWildAndPolished. If you check the link you will see what a pretty dot mani looks like!

I had actually tried about 3 other manis before this. I'm not sure if I'm actually happy with it or if I was just tired of trying! So here you go...your joke of the day!

Let me just make an excuse for myself - I realized after I was done doing this that the end of the paintbrush I was using as a dotting tool had a little sliver of plastic sticking out so it wasn't completely round. There, that explains it, right?

 

All three polishes were Wet n Wild Megalast and they were I Need A Refresh-Mint, On A Trip and Through The Grapevine. I absolutely love these three colors, especially together. I want to do a splatter mani with them, or maybe a water marble, but I'm not there skill-wise yet!

Too Much Acetone!

Mah nails, they are a-changin'! Ugh I think I painted my nails 4 times today! I would get the base on and it would look really nice but then I would try to add some nail art of some sort and I would totally botch the whole mani even though I had a topcoat on the base, I just got frustrated and removed it all! My hands have had enough of acetone for a few hours at least! I eventually gave up and went with a base and glitter mani, lol! I actually think it turned out pretty cool, what do you think?

When I saw this Pinky Glitter by Sinful Colors in Walgreens, I had to have it - I mean, it was pink and glitter, what else can a girl ask for??

 

 So I was expecting that when I painted it over the black Sally Hansen Black Heart base that I would get a mostly pink shimmer. Imagine my surprise when this is what I got...

I apologize for the black on my cuticles - it would NOT come off!!

After I photographed the bottle and checked out the macro, it made more sense but still, where did all that pink go? Now I'm curious to try it over some other colors! Here's the macro shot if you're curious! :)

 

Oh, and hey! I finally got my Twitter account set up so come on over and follow me there or at bloglovin' too!!!! I need your validation to feel good about myself! HA!

 

Wet n Wild Megalast Swatch and Review

So this time around I actually took my time painting my nails and it certainly turned out better. I know it's faaaaar from great, but I'll get there one TINY bit at a time! One of my biggest problems is that I end up putting the polish on way too thick - I think that's why I ended up with bubbles. :( After I took these photos I tried desperately to do some stamping on them too but that just ended in an acetone bath for my nails! I should have taken photos of the disaster so you would have something to laugh at today! I'd like to think that everyone of you started off this badly but even I'm not that big of a dummy!

The photos turned out decent, they show the true color of he polish. I just wish I didn't have topcoat all over my cuticle!

This was Wet n Wild Megalast Through The Grapevine. It went on really nicely and this was only 1 coat! I do adore a nice creme polish! They also have a new, wide professional brush that I'm really diggin'! It's tapered at the end to help you get a nice curve at the cuticle. For $2 this was an exceptional polish and I will be trying more from this line! It leveled out very nicely on the nail as well which is something I have trouble with.

The Most Pathetic Mani In Nail Blogging History

Okay...let me make fun of myself before everyone else gets to it! I realize this is a terrible mani but let me make a few excuses for myself first!

1.) This IS Nails 4 DUMMIES - what did you expect!
2.) This is seriously a learning process for me, until yesterday I didn't know that you were even supposed to leave space between your cuticle and the polish!
3.) This mani is a full day old so it's not lookin' the best AND it's only 1 coat so I was impressed by that!
4.) I'm in cuticle rehab here, I know they're ugly, we'll work on that! Okay, with that said, here's the photos, feel free to point and laugh!

So, you see the weird grooves at the base of my nails, especially the ring finger? Yeah...don't use a cuticle cutter unless you know what you're doing!!! It cut right into my nails, eek!

 

That being said, this is a pretty cool polish. It's a new suede effect from Avon. It went on really weird for me and dried really fast but still leveled out pretty good. Like I said before, this was only 1 coat and it's totally opaque except for that weird spot on the pinkie, I'm not sure what happened there!

 

Then I went over the mani with some Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love mattifying topcoat so I didn't lose the suede effect.

 

Aaaaand, after seeing these photos I'm gonna go moisturize my cuticles! HA!



My Pathetic Nail Polish Stash

Okay - I used to own about 10-12 bottles of nail polish, not one of them costing over $5 a bottle.Then I made the mistake of trying some China Glaze and then some Essie and THEN I tried Illamasqua - I am in so much trouble! I don't have a very big stash right now but I thought I would take some "before" photos so that we can see how my baby is growing. If I could afford it, I would own 300 bottles by now but we'll have to start slowly and work our way there. So here are some pics - I started out having them sorted by color but then I would find one that should have been in the last group 2 photos ago and I got lazy so you get what you get and you don't get upset!

Cover Girl Cabernet, Maybelline Red Comet (those two are so old!) Sephora by OPI Be-Claus I Said So, Sally Hansen Red Velvet, Sephora by OPI New Year's Red-Solution, Sally Hansen Shining

 N.Y.C (label came off, sorry!) Venique Lost In Bermuda, Sephora by OPI Just a Little Dangerous, Sally Hansen Royal Romance, Wet n Wild Wild Card, Wet n Wild Eggplant Frost, Wet n Wild On a Trip, Sally Hansen No Hard Feelings, Wet n Wild Buffy The Violet Slayer, Illmasqua Prosperity



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Avon Suede Soft Violet, Pure Ice (my daughter peeled this sticker off!), Nicole by OPI Gone Wishin', Nicole by OPI Rainbow In The S-Kylie, Sephora by OPI G-listen To Your Heart, Wet n Wild Fergie Hollywood Walk of Fame, Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters, NYC Big City Dazzle

Wet n Wild Sparked, Sally Hansen Strobe Light, Sephora by OPI Beam Me Up Hottie!, Sephora by OPI Traffic-Stopper Copper, NicHaole by OPI Have A Heart

Avon Decadence, Wet n Wild Through The Grapevine, Wet n Wild Hannah Pinktana, China Glaze Traffic Jam, NYC (another one my daughter got to!), Wet n Wild How I Met Your Magenta, Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter, Maybelline On Fire, Sally Hansen Pretty Petunia, China Glaze Exceptionally Gifted

Sally Hansen Blushing Bride, Maybelline Color Show Fuschia Fever, Avon Feisty, NYC MoMa, Wet n Wild Lavender Pearlescent, Venique Heel D'Orsay

Sinful Colors What's Your Name, Sally Hansen Lapis Amethyst, NYC Water Street Blue, Pure Ice French Kiss, Wet n Wild Saved By The Blue, NYC  Pier 17, Wet n Wild Caribbean Frost

China Glaze Custom Kicks, Sephora by OPI Tempted By Teal, Sephora by OPI Who Let The Dorks Out?, Wet n Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint

Sally Hansen Save the Date, Sally Hansen Lavender Pearl, Sally Hansen Turquoise Opal, Sally Hansen Celeb City, Wet n Wild Silvivor, NYC French White Tip, NYC Bowery Black, Sally Hansen Black Heart, Maybelline (no label!), Wet n Wild The Gold & the Beautiful

NYC Park Avenue, Essie Merino Cool, Sally Hansen Cafe Au Lait, NYC Canal Street, Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up, NYC Lexington Yellow, Sally Hansen Limestone

Well, there she blows! All 73 bottles! I know pathetic, right? Well, I'll be changing that soon, muahahaha! Also, while I wish that every bottle I own could be Essie or OPI and the other nice polishes, my bank account can't handle that kind of stress so I will continue to be an equal opportunity polisher. Besides, a lot of the cheap stuff is really decent for the price!

If you see anything that you would like swatched, please aske me! Sorry for the inconsistency in the pics, I was trying to get the very last of the fading light for true color photos so I chose the pics that translated the colors best. Also, I'm still being out-classed by my Canon Rebel T3i - this thing is a beast and I need to learn to use it!
 

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