making a comeback.

HELLO! I've taken an unintentional almost month-long hiatus, but I'm back now (I hope). If at least just a weekly post, that's certainly better than nothing. I guess like many others (at least I think) the upcoming new year has me thinking about resolutions and bad habits I've acquired this year. Read: my constant lack of blogging and my horribly inconsistent healthy eating and gym visits. Those are really the only two things I'd like to change. I'm quite happy with everything else... 

I'm dating someone amazing who I love very much... I can't remember the last time I was able to say that, but I am so grateful for him. Work is good, which thus means money is good... which will hopefully also mean my savings account gets to see some of that. I'm also starting my student teaching the end of January which I'm so very excited/extremely nervous for. 

I'm hoping to get back to posting here regularly because I have so many exciting things going on that I need to share with the world! :) For now let me share some of my recent manicures that haven't been featured in blogland yet. 

 

I wore this on Christmas. Candy canes! 

 

This one I wore to my family Christmas party. Not crazy about the colors but I was in love with this rhinestone tree!

 

This was my first encounter with rhinestones, and as you can tell from all of these manis I am OBSESSED ! 

My nails have been pathetically naked for about five days now, but I'm about to dazzle them up for New Years Eve, my FAVORITE HOLIDAY! I still don't know what the boy and I are doing but I'm super excited! This'll be my first NYE as a 21 year old ;D 

Now time to go do my nails and get myself ready for bed. I have an early wakeup for work tomorrow. Have a great (& safe) New Years, everybody!

snow, snow, snow...

We're experiencing the first snow fall of the year here in Massachusetts.. and I am not all that thrilled about it! I hate the cold weather, and seeing snow makes it completely evident that the warm weather is over for a while. It's just so cold and bitter out, makes me want to do nothing but stay in bed and sleep. Here was my view when I got out of work today...

 

Okay, not that bad... but still. Yuck.

Argh. Last night in anticipation for this snow, I decided to do a weather-appropriate manicure. I pulled out my snowflake stamping plates and got to work: 

 

I used two coats of OPI Russian Navy for my base, a classic in my book. This was one of my first polishes, and I still love it so much. Application is very easy because the formula is great. The color is so opaque and rich that it's almost dreamy.

 To stamp, I used Color Club What A Drag. On my ring finger, I stamped with bm 319. My thumb is bm 14, and the rest of my nails are bm 323. What A Drag is a great stamping polish. I really like how it looks over RN. I also like the look of different snowflake stamps in one mani, it mimics how all snowflakes are different in real life. :)

What do you think? 

peacock print

Hi all! Happy Tuesday! I'm actually writing this Monday night and scheduling it for Tuesday so I can get this out of the way and study for a Spanish exam that I have tomorrow (well, technically today at this point). There are a bunch of different verb tenses on this test and I want to make sure I'm ready for it!

I'm pretty excited about the manicure I'm showing you today! It's something that's not necessarily complicated, but it looks great and really professional, at least if I say so myself. 

The print I decided to recreate was peacock feathers. I originally wanted to do a full peacock on my thumb and peacock print on the rest of my nails but that was a bust. I was happy that I decided against this, and I went with peacock print on all five of my nails:

 

The base color I used on my thumb is Zoya Ivanka. I used Zoya Charla on the rest of my nails. My ring finger has Charla topped with Ivanka on the top diagonal half. These two polishes are a match made in heaven. They go together so nicely. I stamped with Color Club What A Drag, a really great & inexpensive stamping polish. The plate I used is bundle monster 212. 

What do you think? Is this a look you'd try?

Let's go to the beach, beach!

Yep, I just quoted a Nicki Minaj song! That's because I'm going to the beach tomorrow! Wheeeee! Now as most of you know, I'm definitely a country girl when it comes to my taste in music. Buuut, whenever I'm at the gym I always listen to Nicki Minaj-esque music. This is the first song lyric that pops into my head when I think about the beach (of course right as I'm posting this, a Nicki song comes up on shuffle. hahahaha). So excited!

I wanted to do a more beachy manicure... everyone is posting fall collections and I am not ready for summer to end !!! I love the summer, and it always freaking flies by. Ugh. Here's a simple summery manicure:

This is Color Club Space Cadet. I have China Glaze Hang-Ten Toes. I stamped with Nina Ultra Pro Black. I like this Color Club color, it's so girly & fun. Application wasn't bad either. What do you think?

My Favorite Shade. Ever.

It's the age old question- "You have so much polish in your collection, Emily. If you could only have one, which would it be? Which is your favorite?" To me, that question sounds like a scary ultimatum. Only one? What? Up until recently, there is no way I could answer that question. I love all of my polish babies equally! Well, no more. I have a favorite. Here's an older picture of my favorite (today I'll be showing you a dupe of my favorite- but I love them both equally as much).

 

Ladies & gentlemen (although I doubt a gentlemen audience is present), I present to you OPI's Catch Me In Your Net! *eyegasm* GAH! This polish is just so perfect. Too perfect. I love it. Blue, green, shimmery goodness. Unfortunately CMIYN (a cute little polish-world acronym) is hard to find. I got lucky last summer and found it at a salon when I was getting a pedicure. It was only 3/4 full (maybe less than that), but I bought it and swaddled it in the car the whole ride home. We've been happily in love ever since. However, I keep my CMIYN usage to a minimum so as to prolong her little life. 

Thankfully, CMIYN is so easily dupe-able. It's in the same family as Zoya Charla, Essence Choose Me! and a new, long-lost cousin... Forever 21 Patina! 

I didn't do any die-hard swatch comparisons but these look close enough for me. I can't stop staring at this manicure. It's so simple, but I freaking love it. Something about the blue polish with silver stamping. To. Die. For. Plus, this polish is only $2.80 USD. Yup, AMAZING! If you're looking to buy online, go here. You know you want to! The formula is great, no problems with the brush either. This is 2 coats and 2 coats was enough. It builds to great opacity pretty quickly, so I didn't see a need for a third coat. 

What do you think? What are some other CMIYN dupes that you can think of?

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!

Blue Paradise

Hiii everyone! Happy Thursday !! I got back to work yesterday, so it feels so early in the week! Super exciting that tomorrow is Friday!!! On Monday while I was at the beach, I found out that myself and my two best friends won meet & greet tickets for the Josh Turner show tomorrow! AAAAH! I can hardly contain my excitement.. I'm currently planning a manicure based on my favorite song of his, Time Is Love. Wheeee!!!

Today, I'm featuring the first vacation mani that I did. Check it out!!

 

I really liked this manicure, and wore it for maybe four days or so... which, as you all know, is WEEKS in polish-land time! Tomorrow, I'll be showing you the manicure I'm wearing right now. For those of you that use Instagram, go over to my page (username = c4rped1em) for a sneak peak of that manicure! Fun stamping, similar to last post's manicure!

Have a great day everybody- it's almost F R I D A Y  !!

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

Color Club Noveau Vintage

Hi guys! Today I'd like to show you one of the only two Color Club polishes I own. I picked up this brown beauty at my local supply store. It's really pretty but got bland fast.

Haul Pictures

Hey guys! Happy Hump Day! Because Unicorn Puke is so gorgeous, I didn't want to do another manicure and take UP off last night. So, today you all get to see my haul pictures from the past few days. See, I'm unlike a lot of other nail bloggers in that I don't just paint one hand for swatches of colors to post on here. ALL of which you see are polishes I wear for full manicures. I like doing this because I can get an overall feel for a particular color/brand/ regarding wear time and appearance.

I'll start with a picture of yesterday's/my current mani.. *drool*

Two girls in my math class yesterday were like "I can't stop staring at your nails! They're so beautiful!" Yes, ladies, I agree.

On to the haul...