Needle Marble Blue and Grey Nails

This manicure is actually pretty old, but I haven't had a chance to post it yet.

For this manicure, I used Milani Blue Jay and KBShimmer How You Dune? Blue Jay was a gorgeous polish and almost a one coater.

For the middle finger, I used the needle marble technique. It wasn't my attempt, but it still looked cool.

Negative Space Skittles

Negative space manis are everywhere lately, aren't they? I'll admit, I wasn't a big fan at first. I still don't like some of them (I'm not a fan of visable nail line so that needs to be mostly covered for my personal taste), but they have really grown on me!

Plus if you skip a base coat, they're super fast to do especially for tape manis. And that's part of what I did for today's mani!

I laid down a base coat on all but the index and pinkie fingers so I wouldn't have to worry with dry time and tape.

I painted the thumb and middle with one coat of Barry M Pomegrante. I used nail vinyl straights to block off a section and painted on Milani Fresh Teal. For the ring finger, I combined the two colors to make flowers and added Barry M Silver Foil dots in the centers.

I topped the whole mani with Rica Glossy Glam. I just bought the top coat to try. It's thinner than Seche Vite (which I normally use) so I did have a tiny bit of dragging from not floating enough. It did dry quickly. I didn't keep this mani on long enough to see if shrinkage would occur, but I will with the next one.

June Nail Art Challenge, Day 28: Destinations

A day late in blogging this, but I was able to get it up on Instagram in time! It's a Instagram challenge, so that's what counts, right?

Anyway, I bought Cheeky Jumbo Plate 3 (European Romance) a while ago because of the beautiful images on it. It's got some great full nail images that I really like. But it's also got some super cute smaller images that I haven't gotten around to using yet. So this challenge theme was a perfect excuse!

I chose to go with Italy as the theme simply because I have spent time there.

I chose the airplane to represent travel in general. The other images are for 3 of the cities in Italy I was able to travel to: Pisa, Rome, and Venice. The little gondola driver is so cute!

The base of this two coats of Milani Fresh Teal which I found at Dollare Tree. Score! I stamped the images using Konad Black.

June Nail Art Challenge, Day 25: Nude

How's everyone doing today? My day hasn't been too exciting. Got a good work out in with my husband this morning at the YMCA. Our local Y is really nice and has cheap daycare. It's a total win since it gives T a chance to play with other kids (I'm a stay-at-home mom) too.

The little guy's been a cranky butt though. He hasn't really wanted to nap at all. He did finally take one this afternoon and bedtime is soon!

Anyway onto today's mani. I've been really loving nude manis lately.

For this one, I used a base of Essie Brooch The Subject and China Glaze I'm Not Lion. Then I freehanded the design using Cosmo Wild Thing (a neon pink I won about 2 years ago from Cosmo magazine) and Milani Fresh Teal.

If the mani looks familiar, that's because I was inspired by an awesome blogger! 

@PolishCandies does some great stuff so  be sure to check her out.

My nude day didn't turn out quite how I wanted it. And I'm Not Lion didn't agree with me and it popped off in sheets the day after I did this mani (I did it at night and I noticed one nail already missing that morning!)

Zoya Riley

I meant to post this yesterday, but we were out of town most of the day so things were kinda crazy!

I got Zoya Riley along with a couple of other Zoya polishes for my mom because she always uses Zoya Sooki when she visits. My mom gave Riley back to me because she said the formula was a bit weird.

I didn't find the formula weird at all! It went on wonderfully just like the other Zoya polishes that I own.  Riley is a gorgeous raspberry creme that went on it almost one coat. I used two for this mani though. I'm not a big red fan, but I really liked this one a lot.  Notice that I did have some staining around my nails though. Moisturizing before doing the mani might have helped with that.

This photo was taken using direct lamp light compared to the others which were take using indirect sun light.

I decided to play around a bit with this mani and added some gold glequins to my ring and pinkie fingers and 1 coat of Milani Jewel FX Gold to my middle and index fingers.

Monday Mani: Purple Up! For Military Kids

This week's Monday Mani theme at PAA (Polish-aholics Anonymous) is Purple Up! for Military Kids.  This picture explains today's theme quite well.

I did a group order forever ago it seems when Illamasqua was doing a sale on their website so we could get free US shipping. It took a long time, but my polishes finally made it to me a week or two ago.

I got Illamasqua at part of my order and KNEW I had to use it for today's purple mani.

Look at that glow! Illamasqua describes Baptiste as "a deep royal purple" with a "shimmer finish."  I would say it's so much more than that. It has this beautiful inner glow to it that really makes it stand out.  I used two coats for what you see here. I used thin coats so you could probably get away with one thick coat.

On my accent fingers, I used Rimmel Black Satin and one coat of Milani Lavender. Lavender is a super dense glitter with lavender hexes and purple micro glitter. It applies great and really stands out over black.

What is your favorite glitter to layer over black?

St. Patty's sparkle

For today's mani, I knew I wanted to use NYX Girls Emerald Forest, but I wasn't quite sure how. It's in a light green base so using it as a topper would change the color of any base too much. Using it over green, would mask it's glittery goodness.

In the end, I decided to use it on its own as my favorite accent. I used 3 coats for this mani which gave me perfect coverage.

For my other nails, I used 2 coats of Nina Ultra Pro Mossy Britches. Mossy Britches is a olive green/gold metallic that is perfect for St. Patty's Day.

When I was putting NYX Girls Emerald Forest away, I spied Milani Jewel FX Gold and decided that I needed to add that to this mani as well. I love the blingy, sparkly effect.

You may notice my nails are a bit shorter than the last post. Well, they were getting too long for me to manage! I was having a hard time messing around on my phone so I shortened them a bit. This is the perfect length for me, I think.

Glittery Leopard Print

In my quest to use up my untried polishes, I came up with this mani that uses two of them.

The silver glitter base is Milani One Coat Glitter Silver and the red is Milani One Coat Glitter Red Sparkle. Neither of them are actually one coat glitters, they are more like 1 1/2 coat so I ended up using 2.  The polish is pretty thick and it made it a bit hard to apply (notice all the glitter herpes on my skin where I couldn't get it off). I also found that dry time sucked too. I probably won't end up keeping these.

Then I freehanded a leopard print using the opposite colors. The red I used is Zoya Sooki, and I mixed a white and black to get the darker grey that I wanted.

St. Patrick's Day Manicure

Today is the last day of my Green series as well as St. Patrick's Day. Enjoy the day for all of those who are celebrating. My sister-in-law is living in Ireland for graduate school and is taking a trip to Dublin for the day. I'm sure she'll have great fun! As for me, I ran errands this morning and now I'm relaxing for a bit before I go babysit. Boring day, but babysitting money means more polish!

Anyways, onto the nails! This idea was inspired by several designs I've seen on blogs/Google search/Pinterest.  The base coat is a Sally Girl Mini from Sally Beauty Supply.  The color is called Lime, and it even smells like it! It's a beautiful bright green with some very light shimmer.

On with the pictures!

The rest of the colors used are Zoya Sooki (red), Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up (orange), Maybelline Sunshine (yellow), OPI Don't Mess with OPI (green), Sinful Colors Why Not (blue), Rimmel Wild Orchid (purple), Rimmel Black Satin, Rimmel French Tip White Nail Liner (white for cloud), China Glaze Blonde Bombshell (gold), and Milani Jewel FX Gold.

Mermaid-esque

I started off with a new polish, layered on another new polish, and was inspired! So this look was born.

I started off with this new color that I picked up at Walgreens during their 99¢ sale last week. It's Sinful Colors Rise and Shine.  It's the beautiful sort of neon green with hints of blue to tame it and lots of shimmer.

This picture was taken at night so I had to use a flash, but it's pretty true to color.  I needed to use 2 coats of polish.

Next I layered on 2 coats of Sinful Colors Nail Junkie. At this point, I was really reminded of mermaid nails. The sheer base of Nail Junkie turned Rise and Shine into this beautiful teal color and all of the glitter reminded me of mermaid scales.

So I added on some Milani Jewel FX Gold onto just the tips. I sort of blobbed it on to get the look that I wanted.  All told I used 9 coats of polish  for this mani! (2 of OPI Nail Envy, 2 of Rise and Shine, 1 coat of Seche Vite, 2 coats of Nail Junkie, 1 blobbed coat of Gold, and 1 more coat of Seche Vite) Yowza!

Also, you may notice that my nails are shorter. Well, I've been having tons of breakage so I spent a good amount of time taking off length and filing down my nails. I've been using OPI Nail Envy for about a month now. I do notice that my nails grow longer and stronger, but I still have about 3 more months of damage to grow out.  I don't mine my shorties though. I think this color combo looks really good on them!

Monday Mani: Half Moon

I'm back to doing Monday Manis again after taking a break for the 24 Days of Christmas Challenge.  At PAA, we voted on doing half moon manis.

I'm not a super big fan of these, but I did vote for this one because I wanted to try it again since I wasn't a big fan of my last one. I'm still not a big fan of the half moon (on myself at least!), but I like this one a lot!

For this mani, I did a base of Rimmel Wild Orchid. I love the Rimmel Pros. They have great brushes. They are big like OPI brushes but rounded so I can put them on nicely.

The glitter is Milani One Coat Glitter Purple Gleam. It really needs 1 thick coat or 2 thin ones, but it still dries very nicely.

Look at this glitter!

Finally, I used Essie Matte About You over the whole thing. I couldn't decided if I like it matte or shiny better (I should have take comparison photos), but ended up just sticking with matte.

24 Days of Christmas Challenge, Day 13: Christmas trees

So my poor middle finger smudged very badly after I added Seche Vite. Sigh. I didn't have time to fix it, so here yea go!

Look at my poor nails. :(  They've been breaking left and right. I've been using Essie Rock Solid as my base coat and doing everything else right (filing in 1 direction, fine grit file, sealing the nail plate, pushing back cuticles, moisturizing). So I blame stress. My face is breaking out all over the place, too.

This didn't quite turn out like I hoped it would. The base coat is Savvy Ruby Pumps. Clearly, they took their name from China Glaze. It's a pretty nice color, but a bit thin. It's not as glittery as Ruby Pumps. Next, I added in the tree base using Essie Sew Psyched (green) and Sinful Colors Nirvana (brown). 

I added in the details using Revlon Gold Coin. I decided to just make dots instead of trying to draw a star, but they don't quite look right. The sparkles on the tree is Milani Gems, which I believe is a dupe for Happy Birthday.

Here's some others who are also participating in the challenge:

Paint That Nail

Obsessed With Glitter

Nails and Stuff

Red Hair and Black Nail Polish

Base Coat Top Coat

KK Nails

Me, Myself, and Nail Polish

My Polish Stash

Finger Painted

Polish, and Makeup, and Cars, Oh my!

My Wet Nails

Monday Mani: Fierce Accent

This week's Monday Mani as decided at Polish-aholics Anonymous is . . . Fierce Accent!

I took this to mean bling, bling, and more bling!

With flash

 On every finger but my ring, I used Milani One Coat Glitter Purple Gleam. It actually need 2 coats to cover fully, but it looks amazing.

I followed it up on the ring finger with 2 coats of China Glaze Blonde Bombshell to make it super sparkly and to prevent bald spots. Then I put on Milani Jewel FX Gold over that. I put on one coat of this and then blobbed it on the to cover up the rest. It covers really well, actually!

With flash

Both of these pictures are without top coat. This picture shows the major bling the best. The purple looks gritty here, but it's not that bad. I really should have put on a top coat though.

Weekend Haul

So here's all the stuff I got from this weekend.

O.P.I. Stranger Tides, Milani Jewel FX Gems, Milani Jewel FX Gold, Milani Purple Gleam

 3 out of 4 of these were on my wishlist so I'm pretty happy about that. I ordered Stranger Tides from Amazon.com, and I bought the Milani at K-Mart. Look at those shinys!

Sinful Colors Easy Going, Essie Brooch the Subject, Rimmel London Sunset Orange, Wet N Wild Blue Wants To Be A Millionaire, Wet N Wild Black Creme, Sally Hansen Whirlwind White

 Easy Going is to have a base for french manicures/something to cover up the yellowing. Mine isn't as bad as others, but I do have some.
The Rimmel London is not really my color, but it was on super sale for 2.39. I couldn't pass it up, and now the color is growing on me. I can't wait to wear it on my toes, especially in the summer.
The last two (black & white) are for stamping (I'm expecting some Mash stamping plates --my first!-- along with rhinestones and dotting tools to come any day).

Here's a closeup for Wet N Wild Blue Wants To Be A Millionaire. Tiny, dense, blue glitter. So pretty!

So I kinda feel like I've been buying a lot of polish lately, and I know I really don't have to justify it to you ladies, but I kinda feel like I should anyway. I have a regular job, but I also work on the side babysitting for a few families. My husband doesn't understand my addiction, but he somewhat supports it and lets me spend my babysitting money on nail polish. Isn't he sweet? Anyway, this time of year is always very busy for me as a babysitter so I've been earning quite a bit.

My total number of polishes is a bit over 70, which is no where near as many as some of you! I've been realizing, though, that my collection is pretty well rounded out. I have a few colors that I need to round it out (very light grey, lilac, a true teal, and a real "normal" green). I also of course have some colors that I'm lemming, and I'll probably end up buying more than what I "need" but oh well?

I also noticed that green is the color I have the most of, and it's not even my favorite color! I have tons of glitters and most muted tones.



What about all of you? Any trends in you polish collection?