Random Pastel Leopard...

Yeah...I have no idea... I was wanting to do something atypical for winter and somehow a pastel leopard was born. And then I had to throw some glitter in there too. I guess this is where my brain goes after too many days of work and too much gloomy weather...

I started out doing a distressed look with Revlon Buttercup as my base and then I used Illamsqua Jo'mina, OPI Mermaid Tears, and Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream for my other colors. Then I stamped a leopard design using the Cheeky XL Wild at Heart plate and Konad White. Finally I added a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust.

And that concludes this edition of random, non-seasonally appropriate nail art. Thanks for looking everyone!

Pahlish Seven Swans-a-Swimming

Hi everyone! For this mani, I decided to pull out an untried from December. Seven Swans-a-Swimming is from Pahlish's limited edition 12 Days of Christmas collection. It has a blue jelly base swimming with disco glitters as well as blue/purple shimmer. All of the color shifty-ness of the discos was lost in my pics, but it was gorgeous in real life. I layered 2 coats over Revlon Royal for my mani.

Here is Revlon Royal on its own. It is actually dark like the first pic and has a jelly quality (but it is more opaque than many of my other jellies). If you happen to see this one around, do snag it as I believe it was discontinued  not long ago, but it is a staple in my collection for sure!

As I mentioned, Seven Swans-a-Swimming was limited edition so it is no longer available, but do check out Pahlish's other items, available from creator Shannon's Etsy shop as well as Llarowe. Thanks for looking everyone!

Favorite Yellows

Yet another category that had ABSOLUTELY ZERO polishes in it about a year ago. There still are only a few, but the ones that are here are awesome!

KBShimmer Where My Peeps At? Instant love for this polish. It is so fun and perfect for its namesake. Amazing formula as well.

CrowsToes Toxic Buttercup (over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow) . The pink/blue shifting sparkle in this one really makes it special. It is more of a layering polish for me, but you can build it up on it's own. Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow is more of a true yellow (think Tweety Bird) and I do like it, but I use it more for nail art or accents. I don't know that I would classify it as a favorite because I would never wear it on its own, but it serves its purposes for sure. I don't find it very flattering on my skintone by itself.

Smitten Polish Bananaberry Gumdrop. This is the perfect shade of buttery yellow. And the subtle flakes make it special. 

Revlon Colorstay Buttercup (shown under Oopsie Daisies Apple Picking...another favorite). This is the perfect buttery yellow creme. I absolutely adore it and say so often to anyone who asks for a good yellow creme. Not streaky either. 

Enchanted Polish Yellow Submarine. This one has a slight greenish tint to it and is surprisingly flattering. 

Jaybird's Fruit Martyr. This is from my buddy Jaybird who makes (and occasionally sells) her frankens. This was the very first yellow that made me feel like I could wear yellows. The shimmer is interesting and gorgeous in this one. 

I am actually waiting on two more yellow polishes in the mail that have a lot of potential for awesome, so I will make a yellow part II post if I love them! Like with my oranges, I'm also VERY (even more so) picky about my yellows. 

Pastel Brushstrokes

Happy Easter everyone! I haven't done much as far as Eastery nails this year, so I wanted to go all out on Easter. I wanted a pastel look and I had several ideas (water marble, gradient, dots) but I ended up going with a brushstroke mani. For any of you out there that are afraid of nail art, this couldn't be simpler.

Here are the colors that I used:

L-R: OPI Sparrow Me the Drama, Revlon Buttercup, Orly Ancient Jade, 

Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream, Illamasqua Jo'mina

Here is a step-by-step:

1) Paint on your base color. Use the lightest color you are working with (in my case it was the yellow) and let it dry.

2) Get a small brush to make swipes of color on your nails. I have seen some people use the actual polish brush, but this didn't work as well for me. To make the "brushstroked" look, you want as little polish on your brush as possible or otherwise it will just make blobs of color. I opted to use a frayed, bristly brush so that the brushstrokes would really be apparent (it was an old ELF concealer brush that was partially melted off from dipping it in acetone for clean-up...nothing fancy! Haha!).

3) Get a flat surface (I used a paper plate) and blob some polish on it sort of like a painter's palette. It doesn't take much! Work with one color at a time because you want the polish to still be thin and wet when you swipe in on your nail. If you put all of your colors out on your plate at one time, the ones you use last will dry out and get thick before you get to them.

4) Dip your brush LIGHTLY into the first color and make a few random swipes on each nail. Repeat this with all of the other colors that you have chosen, cleaning your brush with acetone between each color and drying it a bit with a paper towel. Be sure to clean the brush or otherwise your colors will look very muddy. Also be sure to leave some of your base color peeking through!

5) Clean up your cuticles and seal with topcoat!

This sounds more labor intensive than it is. I think it took me 5 minutes to do once my base color was dry. You can do this with any color scheme you want and you can also try it with different finishes (and mix finishes) for a very interesting look.

I hope all of you have a blessed Easter! Thanks for looking!

A Layering Experiment...

This mani is from a few weeks back. After Christmas...all I wanted to do was a royal blue mani. I don't know why. I guess it was red and green overload but I just kept craving something royal blue. Then I was perusing Fashion Polish's blog and saw Takko Lacquer We're All Mad Here. I DIED! It is so pretty! 

Link to swatches: http://www.fashionpolish.com/2012/12/takko-lacquer-swatches-and-review.html

But due to unfortunate events (aka...I don't read things thoroughly) I totally missed the restock, so I decided to do a mani loosely inspired by this polish until I can actually own it. The description by Fashion Polish of "a deep sapphire blue with a red shimmer and tons of green flakies" was my jumping off point. I thought..."I can layer that..." So here we go! 

For this mani I started off with a base of Revlon Royal. I then did 2 coats of Nails Inc The Wyndham and topped the whole thing off with Girly Bits Shift Happens. If I had wanted it to look more like the original...I would have added another thin coat of either Revlon Royal (or in my case, since my Royal isn't very jelly, I would have used Nina Ultra Pro Cobalt), but I really liked the way it looked as is. 

I was so pleased with how it turned out! But then again...I don't think there has been a mani I have layered Shift Happens over that I didn't love! Girly Bits Shift Happens is available from Harlow & Co as well as from Llarowe. It is also available directly from creator Pam's Big Cartel shop. Thanks for looking!

Advent Calendar Challenge Day 12: Family

image from: http://cupcake4today.wordpress.com/page/5/

So who all had one of these growing up? Oh yes...the infamous gumdrop tree. My grandmother always had one of these at her house. When the grandchildren in the family got a little older, she bought a few of these plastic trees and tied one dollar bills all over them and gave them as gifts...MONEY TREES! So yes...money can grow on trees...gumdrop trees!! At least it did in my family. My grandmother always did fun stuff like this  so I have many fond memories of the gumdrop tree. 

So for my mani, I made my nails into gumdrops! The colors I used are as follows:

Red: Cult Nails Evil Queen

Yellow: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

Purple: American Apparel African Violet

Green: Essie Pretty Edgy

Orange: Essence Get Up!

I think topped them all with Revlon Colorstay Calla Lily and a franken I made with the silver TKB Mermaid pigments and suspension base. It would have looked perfect with Sally Hansen Glass Slipper on top, but I used up all of my bottle making frankens so I had to franken a topcoat!

It's really a very simple form of "candy nails" but it means something to me. Thanks for looking!

Oopsie Daisies Apple Picking

You got an hour back today...so why not have an extra blog post to celebrate? Right? So this fall, I have seen a lot of fall and harvest themed polishes around but when I saw Oopsie Daisies Apple Picking, I knew I had to have it immediately. I have had it for awhile now, but I wanted to wait until November to wear it so it wouldn't be mixed in with all of the Halloween manis.

Then I had another vision...the perfect BASE. I think I have discussed this on my blog before but I am not much of a yellow polish person. Actually, until last week, I owned zero yellow cremes. When I saw this polish...I wanted a buttery pale yellow creme to layer it over and I went on the search for the perfect one. I had heard that American Apparel Butter was a great one, but when I ordered some American Apparel polishes it was out of stock (and I don't have a store nearby). So when I went to Ulta, I happened upon Revlon Colorstay Buttercup and it was absolutely perfect! The yellow I had been searching for! It has a nice formula and was opaque in two coats with no streaking AND it compliments my skin tone (which is hard for a yellow to do...though they may try). I'm pleased as punch with my find and if any of you are looking for a nice yellow...pick this one up!

So on to the mani! I thought the combination of glitters in the polish was so fresh and fun for fall and not necessarily your typical fall mix of brown/red/orange. I think the addition of the green in it really makes the polish special. It truly makes me think of a bucket of apples as well as fall leaves. the formula was very nice and free flowing and the glitter was very easy to work with. This is 2 coats of Apple Picking over Revlon Colorstay Buttercup.

Oopsie Daisies polishes are available from owner Cathryn's Etsy store. She has been closed for about a week due to Hurricaine Sandy but is now open for business again as of today and is premiering a new collection (which I may or may not have already ordered some of...hmmmm). Also for updates on Oopsie Daisies you can check out her blog and her Facebook page. Thanks for looking!

Holo-ed Bliss

So today I have something insane to share with you. I saw a franken that someone made recently that involved red-green color morphing pigment (a la Clarins 230, MF Fantasy Fire, et al) plus they added Spectraflair. It was INSANE! I decided I must try this out with layering and see what would happen!

So first up, I want to show you a little present from my dear friend Moxie over at Pied Polish Piper. It is called Bliss Piss...which is pretty much the best name EVER! I love it!!

Here is one coat of Bliss Piss over 2 coats of Revlon Royal. It is so gorgeous!

Then I put one coat of my love, OPI DS Shimmer, over the whole thing. It is just...crazy!

Too many pics you say? Nah...no such thing! I wanted to get some sun pics for you guys, but unfortunately it has decided to rain here are weekend. Here is a consolation flash shot.

Thanks for looking everyone!