China Glaze Holiday Joy - Red Satin & Pure Joy!

Today I have 2 polishes from the China Glaze Holiday Joy collection to show you! Christmas Collections have always been my favorite, lots of the polishes I get from these collections I use year round (OPI Comet Loves Cupid is my favorite red!)

Here is two coats of China Glaze Red Satin. It is a deep red creme leaning a bit jelly. It is a polish where you could apply too thick in some areas and get darker spots, so it's important to apply evenly.

It is a beautiful red to add to any collection. Christmas time is the best time to get new reds! This is the perfect classic red polish.

Then I painted one coat of China Glaze Pure Joy as a glitter topper! It is a clear base with tons of micro red glitters and a bunch of slightly larger gold glitters. It is so amazing and so Christmas-y!

It's hard to photograph red glitter on a red base, so I also took a photo in non-direct light to show the glitters a little better.

It is a little out of focus but in this photo you can see how the red glitters are almost the same color as the base creating a neat, sparkly effect! And the gold glitters are just the icing on the cake.

And an out of focus photo to show you the shine of the glitter!

Glitter is my favorite and the Christmas season is definitely the season of glitter! I can't wait to show you all the other Christmas glitter I got my hands on!

A Wintery, Glittery Manicure!

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas polish collections are hittin' the shelves again and I am forever excited. I picked up some polishes from the China Glaze & Venique collections!

I was especially excited to try out the Venique polishes i bought, because the brand is fairly new to me. I actually use it at work when I do manicures and I've come to love it a lot.

This is a fun, wintery use of my new Venique glitter! This mani started with 2 coats of China Glaze Towel Boy Toy, which is another new polish I picked up recently. It is a sky blue creme with a little bit of a royal blue shimmer. I love to use blue to create snowy manicures, so it was perfect.

Then I added one coat of Venique Twinkling Glitter! It is an assortment of small & medium holographic silver hex glitters in a clear base. It is amazingly sparkly. I was so impressed with the shine.

And here is an out of focus photo showing the holographic rainbow of the glitter! I love all the different colors you can see! Twinkling Glitter is a must have for any glitter lover. It's spectacular!

Nautical Nails!

So i just got a big old box full of new nail art stripers in the mail and I wanted to use them for something fancy, since I've been on more of an artsy kick lately.

I love nautical things, especially pin-up inspired nautical. I was a pin-up sailor for Halloween one year and painted my nails similar to this for my costume!

This mani was a fun opportunity for me to try out my new striper/pens! I bought a set of 30, and they send you random colors. I was lucky enough to get a white & a black which never happens, so I was pretty excited.

The colors used in this mani were Lime Crime Milky Ways, China Glaze First Mate & Zoya Maura. I also used Dollish Polish Toad-ally Awesome on my pointer as a glitter topper! I'll have to do a full mani using this, I love it!

The rest of the art was done using my nail art pens from eBay! They are extremely affordable and easy to use. You can purchase them from this eBay seller (where I purchased mine) for only like $20!

I've been feeling so inspired lately, hope it doesn't die off! Maybe I could finish the rest of the challenge!

Challenge Day 23: Inspired By A Movie

It's no question that I obviously failed this challenge. Big time. But I'm still going to try my best to finish it at my own pace.
Work has gotten really busy for me (which is a really good thing), so I'm trying to focus my energy on that. It was also my birthday and my 2 year anniversary with my boyfriend yesterday so that's exciting!

Anyway, this challenge was Inspired By A Movie. I didn't really know how to be inspired by a movie so I was looking through my collection of DVD's and saw The Notebook.
Then I thought of her super cute bathing suit!

If you're a bird, I'm a bird! I love The Notebook. It for sure made me fall in love with Ryan Gosling.

I recreated the pattern on her bathing suit (or outfit whatever it is) for this mani! My stripes were a little messy for this but i think it's pretty close to the pattern!

Ignore my messy stripes. I even recreated the pocket! The colors used for this mani were China Glaze Purr-fect Plum, OPI Comet Loves Cupid and Joe Fresh Concrete.

Did any of you mess up on the challenge? Hope I'm not the only one!

Challenge Day 22: Inspired By A Song

This was a hard one for sure. I'm not sure how to be inspired by a song. I was thinking music videos, lyrics, the name. But I eventually settled on something!

I have been obsessed with Lana Del Rey lately, her music is amazing and her lyrics are definitely inspiring. I chose her song Radio so inspired this manicure!

"Baby love me cause I'm playing on the radio." This song is awesome and was fairly easy to create in a manicure. I started with a nude base and painted on little radios on my thumb nails. I also did an accent nail with music notes! The radios were created with Joe Fresh Cement, Zoya Kelly and a black ebay nail art pen.

On the rest of my nails I did a glitter sandwich with F4 Polish Rainforest and China Glaze I. I thought this would be a cute way to spice up the rest of my nails instead of leaving them plain.

Overall I think this was a fun manicure! And I think it was inspired by a song quite well. Actually a radio and music notes could be inspired by all types of music!

I will be posting my tribal challenge later today, so for now I will leave you with a video of Radio so you can take a listen :)

Challenge Day 21: Inspired by a Color (+ previous challenge manis)

So, because I've been behind on posting but I'm still participating in the challenge I'm going to do a couple double post days. Where I left off will come later today and I will start with today's actual challenge. Which is Inspired By A Color!

So I took a page out of Rebecca's book from Rebecca Likes Nails and did a manicure based on a nail polish color instead of just a color... A glitter polish!

The polish I chose was F4 Polish Neapolitan which is a combination of medium pink hex glitters, large white hex glitters and micro brown hex glitters in a clear base. This polish was clearly inspired by neapolitan ice cream so I created neapolitan ice cream nails!

Other polishes used were Joe Fresh Bloom, Joe Fresh Mocha & China Glaze Knotty. I was going to use a white base but I chose Knotty because It would allow the white glitters to show better.

So later today I will post my delicate mani from last week! Plus a review of the wonderful polish used, which is my new favorite!

You can purchase F4 Polish on Etsy and keep up with the creators on Facebook.

Challenge Day 9: Rainbow Nails!

These were yesterday's nails, and the theme for that day was rainbow! I have done one rainbow mani before and I really loved it and enjoyed doing it but I never thought to do any other ones!

I LOVED the way this mani turned out. I just grabbed rainbow colors and went to town, my best creations always happen when I have absolutely no plan!

I started with 1 coat of Sally Hansen Whirlwind White and then a coat of Pretty & Polished Party On My Yacht. Party On My Yacht was such a perfect base to use because it almost was like a rainbow sprinkle background.

The colors I used for the rainbows were Essence Ultimate Pink, China Glaze Breakin', OPI The It Color, OPI Who The Shrek Are You?, China Glaze For Audrey & OPI Do You Lilac It?.

I just went to town starting with the pink stripe and then I added on from there. I loved the way it turned out! I was showing it off all day.

Today's challenge is gradient nails, so I better get to it!

Challenge Day 8: Metallic Nails

Here is today's on-time, on-schedule post! Ha ha. I paint sets of fake nails which I sell at the salon I work at and on Etsy, and one of my co-workers fell in love with a set that featured a glitter bomb silver nail. Today I wanted to do the gold version!

This is a bunch of different polishes layered to make a glitzy-glitter, metallic nail! I started with 2 coats of OPI Glitzerland (New favorite polish, for sure!) and layered on glitter from there.

The next layer was a coat of China Glaze I'm Not Lion, which is a gold & holographic glitter combo. It's such an amazing polish and it matches Glitzerland perfectly. Then there was a final coat of Daring Digits True Love (just the gold glitters, even though this polish also has super cute red hearts in it).

 

 This picture was kinda neat, my camera took a picture right in the middle of adjusting to direct sunlight and this photo was the result. I like it because it shows the holographic glitter so well!

I am finally up to date with the challenge! Now I'm off to a Hawaiian themed party with my friends. Happy Saturday!

Challenge Day 6: Violet Nails

So I'm actually writing this post very late at night and scheduling it for this morning because I did it again. Painted my nails for yesterday but then did not post them. Oops!

I did another simpler mani yesterday, as I was still sick and bed-ridden (finally better & back to work today!) But I actually love the way it turned out! The color combination reminded me of some sort of leotard a competition gymnast or figure skater might wear, ha ha!

I chose to do some big giant polka dots! (Pictured with a totally unrelated polish) The base color is 2 coats of China Glaze Flying Dragon. It is a violet neon polish that dries very fast and matte, like most other neon polishes. It also has blue & silver micro glitters, which makes this polish so interesting and one of my favorites.

The polka dots were done with OPI Glitzerland and a large dotting tool. The dotting tool was still not large enough for these dots so i sort of swirled the tool around to make the dots larger. Unfortunately, they were not perfect when done this way, but I still like them!

Sorry for the lack of photos, I did take more but I'm having issues getting my camera to take clear photos without flash. It's a newer camera, so I'll just have to play with the settings some more!

Later today comes black & white nails! I have a fun idea for this which also includes polka dots. Hopefully it will turn out awesome!

Challenge Day 5: Blue feat. Pretty & Polished Beach Bum!

Today's post has to be a little quicker because I have to go to work! Also, because of my time limit, I didn't do anything too fancy today. I still wanted to make it exciting though!

This is 2 coats of Sally Hansen Pacific Blue with a coat of Pretty & Polished Beach Bum on top. Pacific Blue is an amazing, bright royal blue and is one of my favorites in my collection. It's almost a one coater, but I usually do an extra coat out of habit anyway.
Beach Bum is AMAZING, I love it so much, it is a mixture of small to large green and blue hex glitters in a clear base. You could wear this so many ways.

Then I wanted to spice up the manicure a little more! I hadn't done a crackle mani in a while, so I painted a coat of China Glaze Black Mesh on my thumb and ring finger nails.

What can I say, queen of accent nails over here! I don't think I've done a manicure without at least one accent finger since day one!

Pretty & Polished polishes can be purchased through her Etsy and also on Llarowe.

Well, I'm off to work! Sorry for the lack of detail in today's post!
My nails do look cute, though!

Challenge Day 3: Yellow feat. Some Lady Gaga Inspiration!

Oh boy, oh boy. I am so excited to show you all these beautiful babies. This mani came out exactly how I planned, and I couldn't be happier.

I had some inspiration for this mani in the form of Lady Gaga's dress in the video for Paparazzi (Single released in 2009... oops! I'm a little late!). Lots of nail art addicts across the globe have done a version of these nails. I knew I had to try it out one day, so here they are!

Remember the yellow mouse dress in the video? Remember the thousands of inspired mani's that erupted afterward? Haha, here's mine! Three years later. 

 

I started with OPI The It Color as my base. It's my one and only favorite yellow and obviously a pretty good match to the dress she wore in the video. While the mousies aren't exactly the same, I did it the easy way and did a Minnie/Mickey mouse print.

The mouse print was done with a dotting tool and a generic drugstore black polish. Super easy to create because the ears are the same size as the head, so you don't have to switch dotting tools or anything! Super cute. Maybe I'll be Minnie Mouse for Halloween and do my nails this way with red instead!

I love accent fingers. I recently became a professional manicurist at work as well as a hairstylist and one of my coworkers called me "the queen of accent fingers." So I did a "Cocktail" mani featuring the print and on the rest of my nails I did a gradient with China Glaze I'm Not Lion (So pretty!).

Tomorrow is green! I'm sad I'll only be rocking this mani for a day. Oh well!

Also, look out for a new weekly post I'll be doing showing off some manicures I've done on clients at work for the week! It will be like an Instagrammed collection of awesome. So excited!

Challenge Day 2: Orange

OOPS. I totally forgot to post this yesterday, had my nails all done in the morning and just totally lost it. Well here they are!

I'm not a huge fan of orange nails, but I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to use one of my new indie babies :)

I started with 2 coats of OPI Hot & Spicy on all nails except my ring & thumb. Then I painted one coat of Pretty & Polished Phoenix on top. So nice, right! It's so bright, It's a neat combination too. I can't wait to try this polish over some other colors.

On my ring finger & thumb nails I did a funky cloud design I saw on Nailside! You can see the tutorial on how to create this super awesome & easy design here. I started with 2 coats of China Glaze Make Some Noise, then i did the first layer of clouds with OPI Hot & Spicy. I did the last layer with Pretty & Polished Phoenix and love this way this looks!

It's almost like a gradient, in an unintended way. Phoenix makes the orange look almost neon. It was such a miserable day outside yesterday, but I feel like I had the sun with me on my nails!

I better go do today's yellow nails! I hope my idea turns out good!

Challenge Day 1: Red!

Hello! So it seems like everyone is doing to 31 Day Challenge again. Which i tried to start a while back and failed miserably. But I thought, hey, why not?

Today also marks the first day of September! Goodbye summer, hello new beginnings! I love fall colors and wanted to say "see you soon" to some of my bright, neon colors. Because of that, I wanted to do a darker themed mani!

I started with 2 coats of China Glaze Purr-fect Plum. It's a burgundy (not a plum in my opinion) creme with really nice coverage and formula. I used 2 coats to even it all out but it's really nice and opaque. This is from the On Safari collection, which I love and need more of!

Then I did my favorite go-to pattern, leopard print! The spots are done with OPI Friar, Friar, Pants On Fire! It's a red that shimmers orange and it's one of my favorites in my whole collection of polish.

I then did the black spots with a black nail art pen from eBay. I love leopard print, it never fails me when I can't come up with any fancy ideas. I love the vampy look this has! Perfect for fall.
I'm going out tonight so i can't wait to match these nails with some red lipstick ;)

Have any of you decided to jump on board with the challenge?

Glitter Sandwich Love! Featuring Lush Lacquer Pink Panther

I've been seeing lots of glitter sandwiches hitting the blogverse lately. Glitter is back with the indie polish explosion and everyone wants to wear it 101 ways.
This is a neat way to transform any glitter!

Let's look at some pictures of Lush Lacquer Pink Panther first!

This is 1 coat of Pink Panther over 2 coats of China Glaze Innocence. Innocence is a nice light, dusty pink creme that is the perfect amount of sheer to use for a glitter sandwich! (It doesn't always have to be a jelly polish!)

Pink Panther is an awesome matte glitter. It features black, pink and white hex glitters in all sizes. I especially love the giant white glitters. (See my thumb!). It is super cute. You could layer it over all sorts of colors because it has a clear base. Awesome!

And then we sandwich! This is another coat of Innocence on top to sandwich it all. It makes the manicure so delicate and pretty, but funky at the same time!

Innocence was a great base for Pink Panther. It let the glitter be the feature of the manicure ever though it was covered up again to be sandwiched.

I got so many compliments on this manicure! Lots of people thought it was one polish and wanted to know how I did it! A glitter sandwich is a great way to make anyone think you have crazy nail skills!

Have you sandwiched any of your glitters lately? I love the way it looks like all one polish!

You can purchase Lush Lacquer on their Etsy and follow them on Facebook for updates!