Ericas Nails & More Nail Art Challenge! Day 5 Valentines Day Nails

Happy Valentines Day & welcome to day 5 of Erica's Nails & More Nail Art Challenge!

Today is clearly themed Vday nails. I spend my Valentines Day with my fur boyfriends and girlfriends at my local SPCA. I go about three times a week, and this week is no different :) Furbabies need loving too. Plus its way more fun than the same ol' dinner & a movie.

Anyway, I digress. Here is my manicure!

I used OPI Pink Friday, China Glaze Seduce Me, China Glaze Midnight Kiss & Rainbow Honey My Love! I was so happy to get my Rainbow Honey order so quickly & I was most excited to try the LE, My Love (my untried!). I love it! It is full of gold sparkle and pink shimmer, iridescent goodness, and silvered white and pink heart glitters! Very pretty combo. I added some stripes and heart rhinestones too :]

Do you like it? I'm quite happy with how it turned out! I like that CG Seduce Me darkens the tone of it a bit and the heart rhinestones and Pink Friday still add a bit of fun!

Oh and looky at what I got in the mail!! I was part of a Secret Cupid Swap and this is my gift that I received from the lovely Chasadie! I LOOOVEEE IT so I had to show it off! I had been lemming Zoya Aurora for FOREVER. And I wanted to try a liquid sand so badly and she picked the PERFECT colour :) I also got a ton of cool samples (I'm most excited about the John Frieda ones ;) I don't know how she knew that those are some of my favourite candies but they almost didn't make it to the picture because I ate them all up immediately!

And just for a bonus, here is a picture of my last years Valentine, Mr. Duke!! I am happy to say that a year later, he is in a happy forever home. Warm, safe & sound with a forever family. Now THAT is a happy Valentines Day story <3

Don't forge to check out the other awesome nail art from Day 5!!

Erica's Nails & More Nail Art Challenge! Day 4: Inspired By A Pattern

Hello everyone and welcome to day 4!
I can't believe we are at Day 4 already! Time flies when you are having fun :)

Without getting emotional, I was inspired by my late fathers bathrobe. If he didn't have to leave the house after dinner he would always announce "I'm going to put my comfortable clothes on!" and would go get into his comfy plaid pants and blue, green, and black plaid fleece bathrobe. I love that bathrobe. I also have the same trait as my Dad. Don't have to go out? I'll just put my pajamas on at 6pm. Always better to be comfortable.

I used China Glaze First Mate (my untried!), Holly-day & GOSH Nero. I used striping tape and a *lot* of dry time to  make the plaid pattern. It did come out looking quite close to the pattern on the robe :)

Plaid takes awhile with all of the dry time, but I like it because it is simple and looks clean! I find this manicure and pattern as  just as comforting as the bathrobe :)

Check out all the other nail art from day 4!

China Glaze Cowgirl Up Swatch

 oHello!

Today I've got a swatch of an older polish, China Glaze Cowgirl Up. This came out in the Rodeo Diva Collection from 2008. My swatch pulls really red toned but it is more purple than my picture. It is an intense (slightly frosty but NOT brushstrokey) berry purple shimmer. It has a standard China Glaze two coat formula and it very flattering and pretty. Its actually a perfect fall polish but I wear it year round.

What do you think of Cowgirl Up? You can still find this polish here on 8ty8beauty.com for under $4 :) Thanks for reading!

SMYTC Holiday Nail Art Challenge! Day 5: Reindeer!

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.......

Hi everyone! Today marks the halfway point of the Holiday Nail Art Challenge and todays theme is Reindeer! I was a bit intimidated by this challenge because I knew I would have to freehand it but I think it went pretty well! I took my time and proceeded with muchos caution.

The base color is two coats of OPI Alpine Snow with one coat of Happy Anniversary on top. Happy Anniversary gives insane amount of pink and green shimmer. It looks like glistening snow. I wish my pictures picked it up better!

Then I did the reindeers with:
-China Glaze Mohogany Magic for the fur
-Wet n Wild Black Creme for the outline & antlers
-Red loose extra fine glitter for Rudolphs nose
-OPI Alpine snow for the eyes
-HK Girl topcoat to smooth it all out

I love that Rudolphs nose adds some sparkle on the accent nail! I first saw this awesome design on www.thenailasaurus.com I believe!

Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out the awesome nails of the other gals in the challenge!

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SMYTC Holiday Challenge! Day 3: Snowflakes!

Hey everyone!

It is day three of the Holiday Nail Art Challenge! Today is snowflakes!

I decided to do some stamping. Now if you follow me, you know that I am not talented with stamping but since this is a "challenge" I thought I would give it a try anyway and I am actually really happy with the results! Check it out!

I started with a white base, OPI Alpine Snow.

Then I thought that was too boring. So I attemped a gradient. I am not good at gradients. I find it to be one of the most difficult nail art techniques. I sponged on NARS Kutki, one of my favourite light blues. I wish the colours blended a little better but the more I practice, the better I get.

Now for the stamping. I have different snowflake stamps from Konad plate m59. I did them with Sally Hansen Silver Sweep. I find the smaller stamps way easier to transfer and apply than the full nail designs so these turned out pretty good. But it looked boring.

So I added a few more snowflakes in Color Club Cold Metal. I loved how it looked. I was proud of how my stamping has gotten better with practice :)

To add some sparkle, I used a coat of China Glaze Fairy dust, a fine holo glitter topcoat. I thought it looked a lot like glistening snow!

Then just for fun, I put rhinestones in the middle of each of the blue snowflakes! I thought it was pretty cute!

Here is one with flash!

I am actually pretty darn happy with how this manicure turned out! I improved on two of my nail art techniques! Both gradients and stamping. Its not perfect, but its definitely better than I could have done before!

Don't forget to check out the other awesome ladies' nails from SMYTC!

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Minecraft Creeper Nail Art & Tutorial! :D

Hi everyone!

I am really excited about my post today! I have a nail art picture tutorial for the minecraft fans out there! Do I even have any minecraft fans who follow me?! Anyway these are my creeper nails and how I did them :) For those of you who aren't minecraft fans, creepers are the worst hostile mobs out there and they will explode and destroy all of your hard work. I have a passionate hate for them. Why did I put them on my nails? I do not know. Perhaps it is an obsession.

This is a picture of a creeper:

Photo source: http://blog.wirebot.com/2011/08/22/10-of-the-most-annoying-game-characters/

I started with base color of Color Club Twiggie, one of my favourite greens.

Then to do the pixels squares I used striping tape from the born pretty store and placed it on my nail in a checkerboard pattern. Then in the squares I applied Elevation Torres de Paines (Darker green) and China Glaze Tree Hugger (Shimmery light green)

This is the result.

Finally I added the creeper faces with a toothpick and a plain black creme. Added topcoat, and voila! CREEPER NAILS! Run!! Light torches!!! Hide!!!

I hope you liked this post!
Thanks for reading!

Last 5 days of Halloween Rolled into ONE post! PIC HEAVY!

Hey polish people! 

I finally got my camera and computer to work together and I guess this post is better late than never! So without further ado.. here is the last five days of my Halloween series rolled into one post!! I'll let the pictures do the talking and keep my descriptions to a minimum.

DAY FIVE

OPI Flit a Bit & CG Stone Cold. Flit A Bit is the perfect pumpkin orange and stone cold is the best charcoal grey matte ever!

DAY FOUR

WnW Fantasy Makers Rest In Pieces. Fuchsia microglitter in a black jelly base. Looks way better than this picture in real life.

DAY THREE

CG Riveting and CG Stone Cold in a half-moon halloween mani. I love the gold glassflecks in Riveting and CG stone cold is so opaque that it was easy and ended up looking quite cool! 

& Here it is with topcoat.

DAY TWO

OPI Alpine Snow and OPI Big Apple Red in a drippy-icky blood manicure.

Then I turned the blood into HOLO blood with Jade Vermelho Surreal! I think this is pretty cool.

DAY ONE

& Here is my last Halloween mani. This one might have been my favourite :)

Zombie-esque gradient nails using:

OPI Gargantuan Green Grape Matte

a-England Dragon

Dollish Polish Zombie Flesh

I think they turned out pretty good! But then I sponged on some red blood to add some EXTRA gross-ness. Cool, right?!

& There you have it. This is my 10 Days of Halloween series completed! Sorry that the last half was late but I am glad I finally got to post them. I hope you all had a safe & happy Halloween!

10 Days of Halloween, Day 3: Festive Glitter Tips FT Lynn & CG

Hey everyone!

For day 3 of the 10 Days of Halloween series I am sporting CG Stone Cold (such a great polish, such a great formula!) with Lynnerella Cauldron Drippings on the tips!

I liked this combination. I thought it was super festive and cute :) What do you think?

NOTD & Swatchey SPAM

WOOOO HOOO It is a spam day! Swatch and NOTD spam for your Saturday morning viewing pleasure.

Joe Fresh Cobalt & OPI Big Apple Red

China Glaze Electrify over China Glaze Kahlari Kiss!

Color Club Poptastic and Color Club Almost Famous

Zoya Ciara

Joe Fresh Iris

Color Club Almost Famous & Color Club Chelsea Girl

Zoya Marley

OPI I Don't Give a Rotterdam

Julep Pippa & Essie Theres No Place Like Chrome

Hope you enjoyed the spam!

China Glaze Kahlari Kiss Swatch!

Hi!

This is the only polish I picked up from the China Glaze On Safari collection.. Kahlari Kiss! It is a very odd colour. To me it kind of looks like a sandy-camel-yellow-toned-honey-mustatd-dipping-sauce-nude creme. Awkward description, I know!

Haha! It REALLY clashes with my skintone but I think it looks kind of cool anyway! I like it because it is unique and I don't have anything like it in my collection! This is two very easy coats. The formula was great! Dry time was also really good! These pics were taken pre-topcoat.

Looks pretty icky on me but I do like the colour anyway and think it is the most unique from the collection! I am thinking about picking up Elephant Walk, Exotic Encounters, Desert Sun, Jungle Queen and I'm not Lion next!

What do you think of odd colours like this one? Will you wear them even if they clash with your skin? Yay or nay?

Dollish Polish Legend of Zelda Duo!! Hylian Princess and The Hero Of Time Swatches !!! :)

Finally!! It is mine!! The Legend of Zelda Duo by Dollish Polish!! I have wanted these pretties for SO LONG NOW! They were at the top of my lemming list for awhile. I got them through a pre-sale at Overall Beauty! I was one of the first 10 orders so Kim happened to have these in stock! Totally excited and am so happy with them! The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time for 64 and Links Awakening for Gameboy are definitely in my Top 10 favourite games ever so I was SO SO happy to finally have these polishes in my grubby little paws. I used to sit in my beanbag chair and play these games for hours... I still do... just not in the beanbag chair... That beanbag chair died with the 90s.

First up is Hylian Princess! Inspired obviously by Princess Zelda. Its got different sizes and shapes of purple glitter, large white and lavender holo hex glitters, and a splash of smaller yellow squares. I think the smaller yellow squares are my favourite part, they remind me of Princess Zeldas hair (as I am player of the older games!) ! Love it :) After much deliberation, I finally decided to layer this over Color Club's Shabby Drab.. the most "powerful" purple I own. I didn't want to discredit this strong princess by making her look too "girly" haha. I thought it looked really good over this smokey, muted purple! Great application, this is two coats.

Next is The Hero of Time, inspired by Link! Green, chartreuse, brown and yellow glitters in a clear base. The glitters are smaller, and more sparse than in Hylian Princess.... and it almost feels more.. manly. Yes.. I am saying that these glitters are manly, just like my Link. I layered it over China Glaze Agro, a metallic-ish deep olive green. Two coats. Next time I might layer it over more of a forrest green :)

Oh man, I loved these. Application was great for both of them. No digging, no fishing. They both spread the glitter nicely on my nails. I used two coats of each for these pictures. I will treasure these for a very long time. I got them from Kim at Overallbeauty.com and she should have more in stock in the coming months!

Have a nice day!