Galaxy Nails - February Challenge

So if you have not read the post below this one. I will clue you in. I decided that I love nail art challenges so much I decided to join not just one challenge but two challenges this month! I have to really say thank you to Erica for hosting this challenge! It was her November challenge that got me really into nail art - so of course I am going to join her February challenge. From my understanding this is the largest amount of participants to date for her challenges so yay! Here is what you can expect to see in the next month! 

I attempted my first Galaxy nails in the last challenge Erica had back in November. I liked how it looked but to me it was too busy! Not bad for my first time. This time I wanted to keep it dark and mysterious! You can still see the colors but I like how subtle the galaxy nails look!

I used:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Black Out

Nicole OPI - Prized Possession Purple

Wet n Wild Fast Dry - Grey's Anatomy 

Finger Paints - Sparkle and Snowflake 

Hope you like it!!!! 

Black and White - Laid Back Challenge

So a few weeks ago I decided to join the Crumpet's Nail Tarts Laid Back Challenge. I am not good at doing daily challenges because some manicures I am fond of and don't want to take it off. This challenge is right up my alley! Here is a look of what will be coming up! There are quite a few things on the list that I have yet to attempt so I am really excited!!! 

So before I post the pictures I just want to share that yesterday I broke not one but two nails on both hands. So I had to go to nubbins! I am so sad! This is the shortest my nails have been since September! So bare with me while my poor nails grow back! I hope it will not be long! Let's get on with the manicure!

I used:

Essie Marshmallow

Pure Ice Black Rage

BM - 314

I hope you like it! Check back tomorrow for my first day of Erica's Nails and More February challenge!

Also you can check out some other black and white manicures that ladies have done down below!

Zebra Stamping Manicure

I first want to say welcome new followers! I am glad you are here :) 

Tonight I have a manicure for you that I absolutely love! I did this manicure last week and I did not want to take it off! I have a feeling I will be repeating this manicure in the future! It's also really quick and easy! I am a sucker for dark colors and black is one of my go to shades so I feel extremely comfortable with this look!

I used:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Black Out

Finger Paints - Sparkle and Snowflake

Mash - 41

HK Girl Top Coat

Daily Lacquer - The Green Fairy

I want to apologize for the wait on this swatch and review. I had set it up for what I thought a scheduled posting and for some reason it did not post. So here it is!

I received 2 mini polishes from Daily Lacquers from the All You Need is Love Collection. Which if you haven't figured out is inspired by Moulin Rouge! One of my favorite movies! 

Earlier this week I posted about Satine which you can view here. The polish I have for you tonight is The Green Fairy, this polish is the one that surprised me the most out of the two. I really thought this polish would not work well with my skin tone. Well I was wrong - I was blown away on how amazing this polish looked on! This ended up being my favorite out of the two. The best way I can describe The Green Fairy is green married with gold. It has amazing gold flecks of glitter which brings out the gold in this polish. 

This is the mini bottle don't worry your bottle will look like the ones pictured above!

In pictures this kind of throws a yellow tint to where it almost looks like a soft yellow polish but I promise it is green! I applied three light coats and probably would have been fine with just two coats. I had no problems with this polish and it was extremely easy to work with. I topped this off with HK Girl top coat. 

If you are interested in snagging your own bottle of The Green Fairy from Daily Lacquer you can visit her etsy shop here! Also for future release of polishes and shop updates you can always visit her Facebook page.

                                                                                                           *This was sent to me for review - the opinions are my own. 

Epic Multi Blogger Giveaway

So a few months ago Kara from Never Going To Give You Up had an amazing idea to do a Epic multi blogger giveaway. There are 8 other bloggers, a few amazing indie makers, and some nail experts bringing this giveaway to you!!! There are 10 AMAZING prizes to be won! I will stop blabbing and show you the goods!





Prize #1

 

Nail Nation3000 Kizmit, Kelara Lacquers' entire Festivus 4 the Restofus collection minis (set of 5), Island Girl Island Paradise, Milani Nail Art Purple Outline, Fimo slices, and a Julep glass file

Prize #2

3D Nail Stickers, Revlon Heavenly, Pure Cuticle Oil sampler pack (set of 4), Butter London The Black Knight, NailNation3000 Infinity, NailNation3000 Heart of Gold

Prize #3

 Glisten & Glow Stuck on Blu! base coat, Glisten & Glow HK Girl top coat, Julep Chelsea, NailNation3000 Bohemian Rhapsody, Julep Glycolic Hand Scrub (1 fl oz), Sally Hansen nail file, stamping plate

Prize #4

Set of 8 mini bottle of microbeads, OPI DS Magic, NailNation3000 Limelight, Island Girl Old Hawaii, Daily Lacquer Moulin Rouge, Nail Pattern Boldness Boop-Oop-A-Dupe, Julep Age Defying Hand Brightener (1 fl oz)

Prize #5

Microbeads, Sally Hansen Gem Crush mini set (set of 4), Julep Cindy, NailNation3000 Eye of Newt, NailNation3000 Cupids Arrow, Delusional Polish Snow Caps

Prize #6

Pure Cuticle Oil Sampler Pack (set of 4), Julep glitter pot, Orly Steel Your Heart, Color Club Editorial, NailNation3000 Fire Flies, NailNation3000 Kryptonite, Sea Lore Andrina, Sally Hansen nail file

Prize #7

 Microbeads, Daily Lacquer Come What May, NailNation3000 No H8, Deja Vu Dead Sea Minerals Cuticle Oil, Julep Barbara, Color Club Personal Stylist, OPI Ridge Filler

Prize #8

Julep Age Defying Hand Brightener (3 fl oz), NailNation3000 Alison, NailNation3000 Sun Goddess, Elevation Polish Xixabangma, stamping plate, Layla Hologram Effect Mercury Twilight + buffer

Prize #9

NailNation3000 Valley Of Neptune, NailNation3000 Baby Doll, Island Girl (no name), Julep Georgia, TipTop Blue Me To Pieces, stamping plate, Julep The Best Pedi Creme Ever

Prize #10

Daily Lacquer I'll Fly Away, Sally Hansen Gem Crush mini set (set of 4), Revlon Girly, NailNation3000 Max-a-Million, NailNation3000 Lunar Eclipse, stamping plate

I want to take this time to give a very special THANK you to Maria of NailNation3000, Maggy of Daily Lacquer, Tara of Kelara Lacquers, Jill of Glisten & Glow, and Ana of Pure Cuticle Oil for their very generous donations. We love you!

The Rules:
           
                 *This giveaway is open to US and Canada only
                 *You must be 18 or older to enter
                 *Entries will be validated
              
                 *10 winners will be chosen at random. The first name pulled will get Prize #1, the second name will get Prize #2, and so on.
                 *The winners will be notified via e-mail, you will have 24 hours to respond to the e-mail, or another name will be chosen. Please check your Spam folders.


How To Enter:

                 Enter via the Rafflecopter below

EDIT: As of 2/07 we have added an eleventh prize! Huge thanks to Stacy of Paris Sparkles for her generous donation of two of her best sellers!

Prize Pack #11

Paris Sparkles Golden Touch and Midnight in Paris

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Daily Lacquer - Satine

So I am really excited to bring you a swatch and review tonight! The lovely Maggy sent me two of her polishes to show you guys. This is from the "All You Need Is Love" collection. The name might sound familiar well that's because this is inspired by the movie Moulin Rouge. I have to say - I love this movie!!! So much so I had to order it last week on Amazon because my copy seems to be missing. I watched it last night!!

All You Need Is Love Collection

I love her bottles!!! I think it adds a unique touch! 

Tonight I have for you Satine. Satine is packed full of holographic goodness! It's also got some nice holographic diamond shapes in there!   I was really excited to see this one!

 Let's get on with the pictures shall we?

I was sent a mini bottle so don't worry guys this is now how it will come! 

I did not put a top coat on for fear it would dim the holographic look. This polish was so easy to apply and was full coverage in 3 thin coats. I got at least 1 or 2 diamonds per nail. I am not a picky person and actually like how random they are placed but if you are not like me you might have to place the diamonds to where you want them. So I left the diamond pieces where they were laid on the nail. I tried really hard to capture the beauty this polish brings but this was the best I could do - in Minnesota we haven't had much sunlight. 

Overall I am very pleased with this polish and cannot wait to be purchasing it after my no buy I am currently involved in. 

If you are interested in this polish you can visit Daily Lacquer's Etsy shop here. She has this polish available on it's own or in the entire collection. 

I cannot wait to show you guys the next polish tomorrow! Any guess on which one it is? 

*This was sent to me for review - the opinions are my own. 

Here Fishy, Fishy!

Whenever I go fishing you will always hear me call out "here fishy,fishy" I don't know why but it works for me! Last week I was browsing through and saw that Pure Ice was doing a nail art contest called Pure Ice My City! You had to come up with a manicure that is inspired by your city, or state. 

Since I have not lived in Rochester very long I decided to stick with Minnesota. I knew right away I wanted to do something with lakes. Minnesota is known as Land of 10,000 lakes. I love the water! I love to swim, go boating, fish etc. I decided to make my manicure about ice fishing. I thought it was going to be a lot easier to do than it was. In the end I am pretty proud of it. All was done freehand.

I was really inspired by the whole snowman connected nail I just knew right away I was going to have a line go down both nails and a fish at the end. It was my mother in law's idea to add the ice shack. I had a really fun time creating this! 

If you are interested in learning more about the contest you can visit Pure Ice's facebook page for details. You might want to hurry though! Contest closes Friday (tomorrow) morning! 


#PureIceMyCity

China Glaze Tranzitions

So I am thrilled to show you this polish. Well for a few reasons. This is going to be a pretty picture heavy post so you have been warned! I picked 3 of the China Glaze Tranzitions before Christmas and I just got around to really playing around with them last night. I originally picked these polishes up because I have a thing for polka dots and I thought this would be great for it. Well the polish I am going to show you tonight was a big fat fail when it came to polka dots. I felt there was not enough contrast in the colors that you could not even see the dots. I was ready to get rid of it.

 Back to my last post - I said I would be practicing stamping over manicures I am about to remove, well I did that today. Let me post the results below. I had to take a series of pictures so everyone could see what I am getting at.

Here is the polish just 1 coat. I love that it covers after just 1 coat. No top coat. 

Here I am demonstrated what happens when you apply top coat to the polish - it changes. This one changed to purple! I love the colors on their own but since they are both so dark it was hard to see any polka dots.

Here is the stamping I did. I decided to clear coat all my nails and just do purple and silver stamping. I used Wet n Wild Metallica and BM - 313 plate. I love the look of this. 

Here is where I was floored. I decided to put another coat of top coat on and it changed the silver! It made it a light metallic purple! If you look at the picture above with just the silver stamping you can tell a huge difference! I couldn't even believe it. I now am in love with this polish just for that reason. 

I knew I had to blog about it so I removed all polish and started over from square one so I could show you the steps on this polish. I apologize for the dryness around my nails when I was doing quick clean up with acetone. This is why it is important to hydrate after using acetone. I use an amazing cuticle oil called Pure Nail and Cuticle Oil. I will be posting more on this in a few weeks! 

If you are interested in learning about the Pure Nail and Cuticle Oil you can check it out here

She is currently running a special until January 19th, 2013. It's a huge discount! 

Saran Wrap/Stamping Manicure

So learning how to do different techniques with my nails I have to say I have some favorites. Saran wraps manicures are so easy and look really neat. I also am getting into stamping. 

Yesterday I asked the hubby to pick out some of my untrieds to do a saran wrap manicure. He of course chose the bright blues. I really like how the saran wrap turned out. 

Today I decided to recycle my manicure and  practice stamping over the manicure and I am really pleased with the results. Here are my manicures for the weekend. 

I used:

China Glaze Blue Sparrow

China Glaze Turned up Turquoise 

Wet n Wild Metallica 

BM - 322

HK Girl Top Coat

I would also like to add if you are interested in stamping one great way to practice stamping is do it on a manicure that you have had on for a few days and are planning on removing soon. I will probably do this to majority of my manicures just so I can really get the hang of stamping.

Skittle Manicure

I have for you tonight a skittle manicure. This is my first one. I had a blast doing it. At first I was unsure how I would like the look of a skittle manicure on me but I have to say I am pleasantly surprised and I have a feeling I will be rocking more of these in the future.  I got my inspiration from Chit Chat Nails. If you have never been to her blog you should check it out! Her photos are amazing!

With this skittle manicure I also tried out my new Bundle Monster plates well just one design but I was very pleased!

From Left to Right I used:

Wet n Wild Wild Shine - Metallica

Essie - Marshmallow BM Plate 317 with Pure Ice - Black Rage

Zoya - Aria

Pure Ice - Black Rage

Sinful Colors - Hot Wired 

Top Coat - HK Girl 

Do you like skittle manicures? Why or why not?

Vikings Nails

So this is a little late but I have had a busy weekend. These are the nails I did for the Vikings game on Saturday. I do not really care about football but my hubby is really into it, so I figured I would do this for our "home" team. Although they didn't win - I had a good time going to my sister in law's and watching the game and grilling. It was nice spending time with family. 

Ever since my mom got me dotting tools one of my favorite nail art manicures is dottitures. Here is mine.

I used:

China Glaze - Creative Fantasy

Sinful Colors - Let's Meet

HK Girl - Top coat

Happy 2013!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's. I was planning on updating my blog during the time frame but hubby had a lot of time off during this time so we took advantage of it and spent a lot of time together. I am sad that he had to go back to work today. Oh well! 

We had a wonderful Holiday filled with family. We also spent a few days ice fishing with my father in law. It was really nice spending time with him and Daniel. 

So did everyone make New Year's Resolutions? I have a huge list and hope to accomplish all that is on my list. Our main goals this year are to - buy a second car, get a job for me finally, and move into a place of our own. I don't mind living with the in laws but I really want my own space again! We are currently trying to save up for a down payment on a house but we might be renting for a few more years - which is ok. 

For 2013 I would also like to blog more. I know I have just started out in the blogging world but I would like to build good habits and update the blog a few times a week. I have a few exciting things coming in the future so stay tuned for that! 

I have officially started my first 2013 No buy as of the 1st. A couple of ladies from the Show Me Your Top Coats are doing it with me and it will go until Feb 15th! I have a very sweet hubby who purchased 15 polishes for me this past weekend before the no buy started. So I am anxiously awaiting those polishes in the mail! I am hoping to use all of my untrieds. So I can finally put them with the rest of my polish stash. 

I have two manicures to show you today. The first one was my New Year's Eve mani. I used China Glaze Dorthy Who? and Orly Halo. It was very very sparkly. I was inspired by the mani over at Lydia's Nails. 

I don't think it turned out too bad. I am still trying to perfect the gradient nails. I guess practice shall make perfect.

The next manicure I have which is also my current manicure I am wearing is my very first Jelly Sandwich!!! I have been keeping my eye out for Essie Marshmallow but had no luck finding it in stores. Well when we were down fishing with Daniel's dad we had to stop at Walgreens and lo and behind it was the last one there. I did a happy dance and Daniel bought it for me - my last polish before the no buy started! 

I used Essie Marshmallow and Wet n Wild  Party of Five Glitters. I had a lot of fun and see many different jelly sandwich combos in my future! I apologize for my beat up skin. I took this picture after the weekend of ice fishing and the weather really tore my skin up. 

So there you have it!