haaaaappy monday.

Ladies! Hi! I hope you all haven't forgotten about me! Life is super duper crazy as of now, which is of course why I haven't been blogging. I've been working a bunch, studying a little bit, and trying to sleep as much as possible. As great as working this much is, I've been playing the "make a lot of money, so assume I can spend a lot" game. Oy. 

I have some goals for the new year. Not necessarily New Years Resolutions... those always fail me. More so, some new.... turnover goals:

- get my ass back to the gym

- blog regularly again

- save lots of money

Okay, so it's not a WHOLE lot... but I miss the gym, this blog, and having lots of money in savings. I need to get to it. I'm currently procrastinating doing some homework by writing this post... oops. Also gotta stop that, too. However, classes are almost over THEN student teaching in January and THEN I am out of community college for good and on to bigger and better things at the four year!

I finally had time to do my nails last night! I chose a light pink with some stamping. 

 

And I'll leave you with that! Have a great night, all! :) 

nude paisley

No, the title is not referring to Brad Paisley... how I wish it were! He's hilarious, sexy, and has a wonderful voice. Mmmmmm. He always comes to mind whenever I see paisley print. The paisley that I'm referring to comes from bundle monster's third collection of nail stamping plates (the plate I'm referencing here is #315)! If you ask me, this is a genius idea. Who doesn't love paisley?! You can do so much with it. I always like the look of black images over a nude or tan creme, and that's what I decided to go with for this manicure. 

At first, I started out with two coats of OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons. I wanted to think of some clever, unique accent nail... but I failed. I originally went with this look:

 

Then, I fell in love with how the paisley stamp looked and I wanted to add more. I didn't like how this looked with only two nails stamped. Thus, I added more stamping and an accent of Cult Nails Happy Ending, from the Fairytale Collection that was released this summer. This was hands down my favorite Cultie collection to date. 

 

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this combination. I love the paisley, but I don't like how dark the black is in comparison to the glass shard-looking multicolored glitter. It's something different, for sure. Overall, I seriously LOVE Don't Pretzel My Buttons. It's my ideal nude polish, for real. I'll probably wear it a million more times. My only problem with this shade is that I hate my application of it. I usually suck and mess it up by making it too splotchy or by accidentally flooding my cuticles. Oy.

What do you think? Are you a fan of paisley? What about nude polish?

With that, I'm out. Have a great weekend everybody! Tonight I have my first Saturday night off since my vacation in July! WOOO!

james bond chevron

So, I'll be honest... I wasn't completely sold on the new OPI collection... in fact, I wasn't impressed with much of any of the shades. I didn't plan on buying any of the colors. I thought they looked gorgeous in the bottle, but not as gorgeous on the actual nail. Well, needless to say I caved and bought two of the colors from the 007 collection, OPI's Holiday 2012 collection. I picked up Goldeneye and The Living Daylights, planning to use them together in a manicure. Well, that's what I have to show you today! 

I'm not totally in love with what I came up with, but I'll show you guys anyway. I was in the mood to break out my chevron stamp and do a cute manicure with it. My new James Bond polishes were staring at me, begging to be used (ok, that might be a stretch). I decided to use them as my base for my chevron:

 

First, I painted three coats of OPI Goldeneye. This is shown above without any top coat. It's so gorgeous and blingy on its own!

 

Then, as shown above, I added a thick, generous coat of OPI The Living Daylights on to my accent finger. Then, I top-coated each nail with some Seche Vite, my go-to top coat for stamping. 

 

Last but not least I stamped with Fingerpaints Black Expressionism and bundle monster #201. This plate always stamps really clean and it fits my entire nail pretty well. 

I personally think this is too busy. I sort of wish I didn't add the chevron. I think Goldeneye would look stunning on its own, which is impressive to say the least. Next time I wear it I'll probably leave it alone and wear it as a full manicure. I've never stamped over a glitter, and I don't care much for it here. Meh. 

What do you think? Did you pick up Goldeneye?

black and orange

I can't sleep.  I don't like using this as a place to air my dirty laundry so I won't go into details as to why I can't sleep, but I can't. And I'm absolutely miserable because of it. I want to scream my head off but I can't. A. NNOY. ING. I guess the silver lining to this is that there isn't all that much to do at 4am so I wound up on my laptop... and on Blogger. I'm usually reaaaally lazy about blogging (at least, as of late) but I legitimately have nothing else to do right now so I figured I'll share my Halloween manicure with you all. 

PS: If anyone happens to be awake at this ridiculous time, too (and wouldn't mind hearing me complain my head off), please feel free to let me know! I could use somebody (Kings of Leon, anybody?)!

Let's get this show on the road. Here is my current mani, and the first EVER Halloween manicure I'm sporting, at least I think. Last year I didn't do any fun Halloween manicures because we got smashed with a storm so early in the season. Actually, hilariously enough, last year around this time I did a snowy skittle manicure. Ha ha ha, bipolar New England weather, you are so funny! As I'm sure a lot of you ladies are as well, we're bracing for Hurricane Sandy. Kinda crazy and a little bit nerve wracking, but I'm excited. I love extreme weather conditions, even though they do pose so many risks. Maybe that's the part that's exciting? Who knows. We'll see what happens tomorrow. As for now...

 

My base coat is two coats of Fingerpaints Original Orange. I stamped with two different bundle monster plates (not sure which ones off the top of my head- google "bundle monster lightning bolts" or "bundle monster pumpkin" if you're dying to know) and Fingerpaints Black Expressionism, of which I'm almost out of! When it runs out, I'd like to try Cult Nails Nevermore as my go to black stamping polish.

Original Orange applied very nicely. It suited its purpose as your average orange. I actually put a coat of China Glaze Ghoulish Glow over this manicure before I Seche-d it... it smudged the stamping a bit. Boo. I'll have to try and get a picture of the glow in the dark-ness tomorrow (well... technically today -___-). I completely forgot to do that today.

What do you think? What are you sporting for halloween?

inspired by... gray cheetah

Hello hello! Happy Friday! As of late I haven't been working on Fridays, just babysitting for a few hours. So glorious! Especially with my newfound constant headaches. I had a CT scan yesterday for them so hopefully we can find out what's wrong. Not sure if it's due to nerves or something but I haven't been able to get much good sleep the past few nights, most especially last night. It was a battle the whole night. I just felt like shit and kept waking up every hour, nearly right on the hour. Ugh. 

Now for the good news, I got the job I interviewed for the other day. It's at a beauty supply store that sells OPI, Zoya, China Glaze, Essie, Color Club, pretty much everything. AhHhHhHh.. I am so excited. I get everything either 50% off or at cost... come to mama, OPI! I can't wait. It's only part-time, so probably like 20 hours or so, but that's okay. :D

Today's manicure was inspired by this bracelet:

 

Gray cheetah print is really popular in clothing and accessories, and it's something I've never attempted before. I really like how this came out. I just wish I had a lighter gray to use as the base, and use the gray I did use for accents on the cheetah print with the black. I used two coats of Essie Power Clutch from last year's fall collection, my one and only gray. The black is Fingerpaints Black Expressionism and I sponged on China Glaze Silver Lining on my thumb, pointer and pinky. I used the same silver glitter to accent the cheetah. 

What do you think?

pastel tribal nails

Not feeling too talkative so I'll get right into my notd. I was feeling very inspired last night. I originally planned to do a solid nude color with black stamping, but I saw this manicure using the exact same stamp I planned to use and I loved this way more.

 

For this manicure, I started off with a base of OPI Alpine Snow- just one coat. I then painted on stripes with my three pastel colors. Using white under any polish will simply make it brighter on the nail. I started painting without a white base and I just didn't like how it looked. 

On the bottom-most part of my nail near the cuticle is Piggy Polish Poet-tree. The middle is Essie Tart Deco, and the top (and bottle shown in my pictures) is China Glaze For Audrey. I started with the green, then did the blue. I then went halfway between the two to add a stripe of the coral. All of that polish looked pretty clumpy, but I smoothed it out with a coat of Seche Vite (after letting it dry a long time; no way was I gonna mess this one up). After waiting a while, I stamped using Fingerpaints Black Expressionism with bundle monster image plate #315. I love this image! Absolutely love it.

All of the polish I used cooperated quite well. I have no complaints with this manicure. In some areas my stamping was a little funny but I've gotten so many compliments on this manicure; others don't really notice the imperfections quite like your own self does. 

What do you think? Do you like my color choice? What about the tribal look?

Day 13: ANIMAL PRINT

Hi everyone! It's Thursday, and a GREAT one at that! My last class of the day was cancelled, and I don't have to work today because I'm going to a concert tonight! Yup, another country concert.. I've gone to at least thirteen this year. Definitely my guilty pleasure (besides nail polish...).

I wanted to do a sort of... closure manicure. Closure of the end of summer. The last full out neon manicure before they sit in my melmers until next spring/summer. Not that I strictly follow color/season rules but I like wearing darker colors in the fall and winter. Here's what I came up with.

 

I used Nina Ultra Pro Solar Flare and China Glaze Pool Party. I have a serious weakness for China Glaze neons.. they are just beautiful! This manicure didn't photograph too well. I personally like how it looks in person better. I used Konad stamp m57, which had both a zebra and a cheetah print stamp. I used Fingerpaints Black Expressionism to stamp. This manicure is so much fun. I actually really like the yellow. I layered two coats of each polish over two coats of OPI Alpine Snow. Using white for a base under neons makes them really really bright, as you can see above.

What do you think? 

Day 2: ORANGE

I apologize for the lateness of this post! I work the entire holiday weekend and it blows. Sometimes, work gets to the point where you wonder if the money is even really worth it. For day 2 of the challenge, I decided to use the color I used for my senior prom! While all of the other girls in my class were getting tacky acrylic tips with French manicures, I was scoping out Sally's for a color to complement my turquoise blue dress. I fell in love with the orange/turquoise combination. Here it is!

This is two coats of Fingerpaints Original Orange and a coat of Icing Tiger's Blood on my accent nail. I like the way this came out! I wore Original Orange by itself with no accent nail for prom; I wasn't that into nail design at the time! Of course I've gotta include a few pictures from that wonderful night...

The top picture is of my date & me, the second picture showcases my mani! Had to cut a guy out of it lol! That was such a fun night- definitely exceeded my expectations. & I'm glad I did my nails myself! I got so many compliments on that color.

What do you think? I'll be posting my yellow day three mani later today.

Color Club Stamping

Hello everybody! Happy Tuesday! Glad I made it through the day so quickly... sometimes, Tuesdays drag on. But, alas, I have made it! Today I'm bringing you a manicure I did right when I got back from vacation last week. I had a lot of fun with it. 

 

The black base coat I used is Fingerpaints Black Expressionism, one of my favorite blacks! It's my go-to black for stamping, too. I stamped with a bunch of different Color Club foils- I did a different color on each nail! The glitter on my accent finger is Sation Miss Bling It On. Sation is a brand I discovered at Transdeign a few weeks back- WOW! It's amazing. They have some GREAT glitters, and for a great price too. If you have the chance to get your hands on some, I highly recommend them! I've used them in pretty much every manicure I've posted since I've gotten back from vacation because they are just so AWESOME!

Have a nice night, loves! xo

PS- Do you like my new layout!? My best friend designed the header. I'm loving it!

I'm Baaaaack! Featuring a fun glittery-stamped manicure!

I survived my long, crazy road trip and I'm officially back home sitting on my own bed! Aaaaahhh, what a whirlwind it was! I had SO much fun with my best friend. It's always hard to believe how crazily fast vacations fly by...

I did two manicures while I was on vacation; this was the second of the two (I'll show the first one next- I just like this one so much it can't wait!). While on my road trip, I just so happened to make a pit stop at Transdesign, a HUGE nail supply store. Here's what I snagged (it's almost embarrassing, really):

Yep. Super embarrassing. I saved SO much money, though: I spent $220 on what would normally probably cost double that amount. :D

Here's the long-awaited mani!

If you couldn't tell, I gave my nails a more rounded shape! I am liking it!

I took this one at the beach in Maryland. For some reason, all things just look so much better at the beach!

This is just SO beautiful! I love how the glitter looks over the Color Club. The CC polish seriously went on like a dream. I am now gaga over all things Color Club! These Sation glitters are also amazing.. I wasn't familiar with this brand until I discovered it at the supply shop, but I bought a ton of them and will be featuring another in my next post! I'm addicted! Now to go catch up with some friends I haven't seen in a few weeks. Hope you all enjoy this manicure! xoxo

Good Intentions... So-so Execution: Stamped Ombre Nails!

Sometimes I get cool ideas in my head, but due to a lack of creativity/artistic ability I just can't execute them as well as I had originally planned.. that's not exactly what happened with this manicure.. I'm blaming the stamping plate here. It just wasn't agreeing with me for some reason. I decided to try an ombre mani using various oranges. I wasn't sure how I'd like the look plain, so I decided to stamp over it. Here it is!

I was trying to pose my hand in a way as to cover up the nails that didn't look so hot and this little guy landed on me... thought it was pretty funny lol!

Colors Used: thumb -> pinky Essie Tart Deco, Fingerpaints Original Orange, OPI A Good Man-darin Is Hard To Find (middle & ring), Essie Meet Me At Sunset

I wish this manicure came out better because I'm in love with it, but I guess it's okay... when I get my new Bundle Monster plates in I'm going to try these same colors with a different stamp over it to see how that looks.. I might even make that my first vacation mani! So excited! 6 days until my road trip!

Cult Nails Flakie Heaven: Feelin' Froggy

my giveaway ends soon! don't forget to enter to win Floam, Fantasy Fire & Flecked !!

Continuing on with the Cult Nails feature! In my last post, I posted swatches of Evil Queen. Today, I'm going to show you two additional polishes from Cult Nails' newest collection, Feelin Froggy and Happy Ending.

 

Colors Used: Cult Nails Feelin Froggy, Fingerpaints Flecked, Cult Nails Happy Ending

I went out of my comfort zone with this one- I am NOT a fan of green polish, which is ironic because green is my favorite color! Makes no sense, I know! Anyway, I wanted to use a flakie from the Fingerpaints Special Effects Collection to give this manicure more dimension. I think it worked! Using the same-colored flakies (greens) in Flecked combined with the multicolored flakies in Happy Ending, this manicure really popped. 

Even though I don't dig green polish, I like the way this manicure came out! :)

Zebra Print is always in style!

 my giveaway ends soon! don't forget to enter to win Floam, Fantasy Fire & Flecked !!

Happy Monday! I apologize for my ongoing lack of posts.. I have just been SO busy, painting my nails any chance I get, but never consistently being able to post on the blog. I'm working on that! Today, I have a very fun zebra print manicure to show you that I wore almost all of last week. I was going to do a pink-orange gradient, but instead I decided to do an orange accent nail.

Colors Used: Essie Meet Me At Sunset, Sephora by OPI It's My Pink, Fingerpaints Black Expressionism
 
It's My Pink is a Betsey Johnson exclusive for Sephora. It's one of my favorite pinks because it applies like a dream. Not to mention, it's infused with Betsey's signature fragrance so it smells amazing! I'm always smelling my nails when I wear this polish, lol!

Stamping is great because it's quick and easy but looks fantastic! I got a lot of compliments on this manicure, even if it was really easy and didn't take long to do. Sometimes, those manicures are the best, especially if you're in a time crunch (like I almost always am). 

Hope you all had a great Monday, and that your week continues just as such! :-)

Fingerpaints Special Effects Flakies Collection

Hi everybody! First off, I would like to thank all of my new readers for the huge jump in followers I've received over the past two days. If you haven't noticed, I've topped 200 !!! This is SO exciting for me, as I only started my blog in the summer. I love blogging and promise to get on here more over my winter break!! 


Anyway, on to what matters. I stopped in a local Sally's to see if, by any chance, they had the new flakie collection out. I was browsing around and didn't see the display, so I decided to see if there was anything good on clearance. I stumbled upon this...

WHAT? The new collection on CLEARANCE? Already?! I checked the bottles to see if they were damaged or anything, then promptly grabbed EVERY bottle on the rack to purchase. The manager caught me- "This is a new collection that shouldn't even be out!" She wouldn't give me the sale price and I should've fought it, but I was just excited to find these that I didn't care much. On to the swatches...

From thumb to pinky: Asylum, Flashed, Flecked, Motley, Twisted

Fingerpaints Chroma Coral

Today I'm going to show you one of the few Fingerpaints polishes I have. I actually love this brand- I think their name is cute and the colors are awesome. I found this one on the $1.99 clearance rack at Sally's and I'm glad I did.






Nicole By OPI Imagine If is on my accent nail. This is my new favorite look- accented glitter!




In the car. My nail shape looks so weird here.

I promise that this polish looks better in person than it does in pictures. I think I may do this on my toes tonight for the beach tomorrow. It's a hot color.