Elevation Polish A Journey Told Through Music Collection

*Press Samples*

Hi everyone! I'm so proud to show you my first post as part of Team Elevation! I adore Lulu's amazing polishes (I have featured them here many times) and getting to show you guys new Elevation Polish collections is just an honor. Today I'm going to show you some swatches of the upcoming A Journey Told Through Music Collection that will be released on January 7. This collection is a very personal one for Lulu and is inspired by songs that bring back memories of certain times and journeys during her life. She has a wonderful blog post describing the specific inspirations for all of these polishes, so be sure to check that out!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 24: Redo Your Favorite Challenge

So I decided to redo the movie challenge since I didn't have time to do what I really wanted for that one when that day rolled around. I did a completely crazy and non-wearable mani to represent my favorite Christmas movie: Home Alone. So for each of my nails, I chose to use one of the booby traps that Kevin used on the burglers in the movie.

Thumb: Tarred and feathered (well...it is really glue and feathers in the movie...but same difference)
Pointer: The "M" imprint left on Harry's hand after he grabbed the burning hot monogrammed doorknob
Middle: Blow Torch used on Harry's head
Ring: Buzz's pet tarantula that crawled on Marv's face
Pinky: Nail that Marv steps on on the staircase

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for sticking with me during this challenge! I had fun doing it but it was really hard to get done during the busy Christamas season. Hope you guys enjoyed! 

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 23: Rudolph

For the last official challenge day before the redos...Rudolph was the theme of the day. I started of with a white base and used China Glaze Party Hearty on all of my nails except the ring finger, where I made my Rudolph. I used China Glaze Fois Gras for the brown and a black nail striper for the antlers. I used OPI Speak for Your Elf for the nose and black and white with a dotting tool for the eyes. My Rudolph looks sort of like a gopher, but that's ok...right? Haha!

 

 

 

 

 

Now time for the last day...redos! Thanks for looking!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 22: Fruit Cake

There are not many desserts that I abhor more than fruit cake. It is a disgrace to the dessert world. Growing up, my grandmother used to ALWAYS get those disgusting brick fruit cakes from the grocery store and eat them at Christmas. Nope...not me. Since then, I have had some homemade fruit cakes that are a little better, but still not for me. So in honor of the brick grocery store fruit cakes of the world, I decided to do an equally unappetizing mani.

Yep...I know this is ugly. I will preface the pictures with that...but know that was the intention! I started off with a base of Revlon Colorstay Buttercup. Then I added a coat of Candy Lacquer Fruit Squares. Finally I topped it of with a thin coat of CrowsToes A Christmas Crow. The results give off the vibe of the fruit encased in the chewy gross mush of the grocery store fruit cake. And no I did NOT wear this mani anywhere...it was for picture purposes only. These polishes are all beautiful on their own, but together...ugh.

 

 

I really need to wear these polishes on their own to do them proper justice. I will do that soon! Thanks for looking!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 21: Water Marble

I actually cheated and did this for my Christmas Day mani instead of when I was supposed to in the challenge. Everyone loved it! I was so excited about how great it turned out. For the marble I used Finger Paints Paper Mache for the white, OPI Red Hot Ayers Rock for the red, and China Glaze Holly Day for the green. Then I topped it with China Glaze Fairy Dust to give it some sparkle for Christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

I stayed up super late on Christmas Eve doing this mani...but it was worth it! Thanks for looking!

 



Advent Calendar Challenge Day 20: Sweets and Candy

Another challenge day, another Candy Lacquer! I was very excited about this mani and have been planning it since the beginning of the challenge. I started off with a base of OPI Sparrow Me the Drama and then topped it with Candy Lacquer Santa's Sprinkles. Santa's Sprinkles is a fine matte glitter with pink, red, lime green, and green glitter. It looks like candy in a bottle. Then I stamped candy from Bundle Monster plate 306 and a gingerbread man from Bundle Monster plate 222 for accent nails with Sally Hansen Insta Dri Whirlwind White.

 

 

Here was the mani before the stamping was added.

 

 

 

You can purchase Candy Lacquer from their Big Cartel shop. The shop is closed now for the holidays, but will re-open January 7th. Thanks for looking!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 19: Ugly Sweater

Hi everyone! Sorry to have left you hanging for a bit on the Advent Calendar Challenge but I got super busy right before Christmas and then I went out of town on vacation for a week so I never had time to blog the rest of my manis for the challenge. So without further ado...here is the ugly sweater mani.

I used Candy Lacquer Mad for Plaid over Essie School of Hard Rocks for this mani. I thought the combo really fit the idea of an ugly Christmas sweater. And then the top coat bubbled to make it even uglier! Super... LOL! The polish really is cute and fitting of its name.

 

 



 

 

You can purchase Candy Lacquer from their Big Cartel shop. The shop is closed now for the holidays, but will re-open January 7th. Now on to a marathon of Christmas manis before it gets too far into January! Thanks for looking!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 18: Classic

So what is more classic than a gorgeous red jelly? Or even better...a Chanel red jelly? Oh now we are just getting fancy...

So for today's mani I chose Chanel Pirate. This is my first and only Chanel polish and I figured that if I was going to get a Chanel, I might as well get one that was classic and that I would get a lot of use out of. This is 2 coats of Chanel Pirate.

 

 

 

And then I thought...what is more classic at Christmas than a sparkly red? So I decided to add some sparkle to this mani with a Christmas gift I received from a friend: BB Couture for Men Santa's Sak. I believe this polish was from their 2010 Holiday collection. I am not always a bar glitter fan, but the use of bar glitter in this polish is amazing! It has lots of silver microglitter throughout and small holo bar glitter that just glow in the red jelly base. It is so festive!

 

 

 

 

 

 

So as you can see...I am still missing a few days but my plan is to do ugly sweater tonight, a water marble tomorrow, and then for Christmas day I am wearing CrowsToes Jingle Balls (which will be a repeat of green). If I have time tomorrow before the water marble, I might try to whip up something for Sweets and Candy, Fruit Cake, and Rudolph, but it might just have to wait until after Christmas. And I WILL do my redo of my Christmas Movie mani at some point because I think it is funny. It is inspired by my absolute favorite Christmas Movie. :D

 

 

 

Thanks for looking everyone!!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 17: Inspired by a Christmas Movie

Hey everyone! So for today's mani, I chose a polish thats name was inspired by a Christmas movie: CrowsToes Making Christmas. This polish was inspired by the song Making Christmas from the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. It is definantly Christmas in a bottle. It is an absolutely perfect Christmas mani. I like that it is a smaller glitter too. It has an assortment of reds, greens, silvers, some of the plain metallic and some holo for a little extra sparkle. It is a fairly dense glitter as well (this is 1 coat over China Glaze Jolly Holly).

 

 

 

 

 

I have a really crazy (non-wearable) mani planned for my redo day that is inspired by a movie. I'm obviously not going to be done with the challenge by Christmas and I'm going to skip around a bit, but I hope to be done by the end of December. It has bee lots of fun!

 

As always, CrowsToes polishes are available from Llarowe and Overall Beauty. Be sure to snap up these Christmas polishes before they are gone! Thanks for looking!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 16: Christmas Song

So today's mani was supposed to be inspired by a Christmas song. I picked Deck the Halls and I decked out my nails with some holly!

 

 

 

I started off using one of the OPI NYC Ballet Sheers, Don't Touch My Tutu, as the base. This is 3 coats of white jelly goodness. I love the Ballet sheers and highly recommend them to anyone who wants some lovely neutral sheers.

 

 

 

 

Then I added 1 coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust. I LOVE this so much. I almost didn't add the holly.

 

 

 

 

 

For the holly, I used a dotting tool and China Glaze Ruby pumps for the berries and China Glaze Emerald sparkle for the leaves. I a white and light green striper for the accents. making the leaves was really easy. They were very "free form" and I just sort of dotted out a leaf with the dotting tool and then filled in the middle and then used the light green striper for some subtle veins in the leaves.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking everyone!!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 15: Cozy

So when I thought of cozy...for some reason this polish kept coming to mind. HARE Polish Reverie in Rubellite is from the fall Finder's Keepers collection. It has a deep raspberry base with gorgeous golden shimmers and orange glitter. It reminds me of glowing embers in a fireplace. It is SO pretty! This is 1 coat over Zoya Zsa Zsa. So yes...this polish is totally warm and cozy to me! :)

HARE Polish is available from Llarowe and from Nikole's Etsy Store ("Like" HARE Polish on Facebook to receive updates on restocks and new collections). There is actually a new holiday collection called Paint the Town Red launching on Thursday on Llarowe which includes two gorgeous new polishes! Be sure to check them out! Thanks for looking everyone!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 14: Glitter

So today's mani was sort of a disappointment. When Lynnderella's Season's Glitterings collection came out I was the most excited to get my hands on Spumoni. I really love minty glitters and this one looked really cool. As soon as they became available individually I snatched this one up off of eBay. Needless to say...it wasn't all I was hoping for.

This is 1 coat of Spumoni over Linda Johansen Sea Mint. This polish just fell a little flat to me. The different colored bits in it were sparse and I think I was missing some shimmer or something in it to make it more special. It is pretty, but I guess I had built it up to be way more awesome in my mind.

Here is the base color alone, Linda Johansen Sea Mint. This is an easy two coater and it was not streaky at all which is excellent for a mint green polish. 

I guess you can't love 'em all, right? Thanks for looking!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 13: Snow

So today's mani had a few steps, but I love the end result! This is my favorite so far in the challenge.

First I started off with a base of Illamasqua Cameo, a gorgeous periwinkle blue creme. It wants to photograph more "blue" than "periwinkle"...but I promise it is periwinkle! It has a lovely formula as well.

 Then I layered on a coat of Girly Bits January Morning. This is SO pretty. It has tiny blue, green, and purple sparkles in it that are so difficult to photograph, but the are magical! I love this polish!

Then to finish off the mani, I stamped with Bundle Monster plate 323 using Sally Hansen Whirlwind White. I then used my dotting tool and dotted OPI DS Shimmer in the centers of the snowflakes for a little extra pizzazz. I am in LOVE with the final mani.

January Morning really pops under this more than the pictures show. I'm very pleased with this mani. I just wish it would actually snow here! Nothing but a bunch of rain. Thanks for looking everyone!