I won something! YAY!

Since I've started this trek into the world of nail polish blogs, I've found a bazillion and thirty-seven contests to enter. So far, I've won two prizes!

First prize I won was from the Essie Blog. I posted and won the complete holiday set: Lollipop, Mint Candy Apple and Rock Candy. I've not used any of them yet. But I have used a couple of Essie's and I am IN LOVE with her formula! It was pretty exciting to win that one...I'd been trying forever to win polish from InStyle Magazine on Twitter with no luck.

A while back I tried to win a bottle of China Glaze "For Audrey" at My Own Judge. I didn't win the polish but I won some false eyelashes! I have a few pair from ELF that I bought a while back...and so far, after watching many youtube.com tutorials on how to apply false eyelashes, I am a failure. This weekend I am going to take some time to practice, practice, practice! I want to have some fun wearing them when I work the Film Festival coming up in February. But I am yakking too much as I often do...here is a photo of my win!

Notice something special? Yep, I said thank you for the lashes, and I looked forward to learning HOW to wear them, and I was REALLY hoping for the china glaze...and she sent it to me anyway! I believe that is called an ROAK and I am super grateful! I love the brand name of the lip balm too. *Snog* hehehee. I am not one to put anything on my lips though, except blistex when I need it, which is rarely, but I'll check out this Snog balm, just because the name is so darned cute!

Thank you YAYA! I am in contest win heaven. :)

Orly Sale at Bilion Dollar Babes

I've seen only one other post about this, so I thought I'd pass it on too.

Some nice Orly colors are being clearance sold here: Billion Dollar Babes

You have to be a member, but it's free to be one. So go sign up now! The six packs you see pictured here are only $18.00USD and they have single bottles to choose from as well.

Happy shopping!

Nubar Peacock Feathers and Borghese Stellar Notte Comparison

I have been by the end cap display of the Borghese Fashionista nail lacquer collection at least 134 times now...each time, I pick up that lovely bottle of Stellar Notte (or is it Stellah?) and also the deep, dark, rich purple creme as well. (I forget the name as soon as I put the bottle back!) I keep putting Stellar Notte back telling myself, "No! I already have Nubar Peacock Feathers WHICH I've not yet worn and it's pretty much the same color. No, No, NO!) Space is a very special thing where I live, so dupes are not allowed.

I remembered that I picked up the little mini bottle holiday collection with this lovely in it so I ran home to do comparison. I painted Nubar Peacock Feathers on my ring and index finger and Borghese Stellar Notte on my middle and pinkie fingers. Stepped out into the sunshine - when it came out - snapped some shots, took some in the shade and here you go. Picture heavy to truly show the comparison:

Full Sun:

PF, SN, PF, SN

SN, PF, SN, PF

Indoors with some cloud cover outside:

PF, SN, PF, SN

Indoors with the sun peeking in:

And this one is blurry by accident, but it shows how similar the colors can look at times:

These are both duo-chromes and about as similar as RBL Scrangie is to Sally Hansen Grape Going. :p (I've seen the comparisons...I've got serious lemmings for the whole blogger series from RBL, I couldn't take advantage of the year end sale since the holidays were upon us and the husband had just gotten laid-off. Happy Happy Joy Joy and all that...*reminds self to stop whining*)

Let me say, I love them both for their color. Peacock Feathers starts out as this gorgeous teal, applies like creamy buttery goodness and as you add each layer, it becomes more purple with depth and flash. It appears to be a teal jelly packed with purple - and a touch of pink - shimmer. Stellar Notte starts out kind of an icky, murky gray with a hint of teal shimmer. The first coat goes on streaky and fussy as all get out but - if you're careful - it does even out nicely on the second coat. I did 3 coats for both and they are topped with Seche Vite fast dry top coat.

This is my first Borghese and my second Nubar. Stellar Notte's mini bottle had a decent sized brush but it had a few wild hairs sticking out all crazy like. They settled down with use. The Nubar brush is pretty typical while the Borghese is similar to the Sally Hansen Insta Dri brush. I had no trouble with either one.

I know that Nubar has some staying power, I've been wearing Swiss Chocolate on my toes for two weeks now. :) I thought I would have a little fun with this mani and just finish it up as is...all skittle like, so I painted my left thumb with Stellar Notte and then did my right hand opposite my left. It will be interesting to see if anyone else notices I have two colors on...but also, I want to compare the wear on these two. I'll wear them all week if they'll last and I'll post up the results here when I have them.

What do you think? Did I help any of you decide which one or did I just confirm that we need both of them?

Thinking about trimming the nails down...

They are a few different lengths though not entirely obvious with the exception of my right thumb - poor thing is having such a hard time - and left index finger. Yesterday, I chipped the right index and had to file it down and the left index split a while back while wearing a matte polish. I'm thinking mattes don't protect the nail like regular shiny polish does. So the left index got chopped down to a more "workable" length.

My nails are almost a full centimeter long...and though I love that they are this long, I've never really worn them this way in the past because the breaking point was much shorter than they are now.

Usually, if I can't make a fist comfortably, my nails are too long and I risk that breaking point. The Breaking Point for me is when the nail decides to break below the quick...that is painful and it totally sucks, but so far, I've avoided that experience this time around. So, what am I doing differently?

I am redoing my manicures more often. I think that's the key right there. We all know how nail polish breaks down and crackles, chips and basically wears out. I believe, by changing the polish frequently, my nails are better protected from breaking from the accidental whack here and there. Also, almost every manicure involves moisturizing my hands and nails and that is probably helping. Can't say I did a lot of that in my past nail polish obsession phases.

I love the length that some of the other bloggers can maintain. (Nailphile, EvilAngel, Tartofraises, PaintedLady come to mind.) I think I can do that too, but I am not sure it's practical for me. I had set a goal for myself to get them all to 1 centimeter after seeing Tartofraises nails. Mine grow similarly to hers and so I thought I'd give it a try. Now that I have a few that aren't the same length as the others, I am considering shortening them and starting over.

What do you do when this happens? Do you think I should cut them all back to the same shorter length (about 3-4mm) and try to grow them all out together, or just keep them the way they are and allow the shorties to catch up? What is your Breaking Point?

My next manicure depends on you! So let me know what you think! Pictures coming in the next few posts...a konad fail, more about deLore, and some pics of my nakie nails at their current length.

The sun is out today for the first time in 9 days and this Lizard is going to sun herself on a rock somewhere. :) I hope you get your little slice of sunshine today too!

Essie Sag Harbor and then some. :)

I found Essie Sag Harbor and Greenport at Aveyou.com so I snatched them up. I like Greenport, but I LOVE Sag Harbor. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of it before I added some sparkle to it. I wore Sag Harbor alone for 4 days with just about zero tip-wear, (GAWD I love the Essie formula!) and I really didn't feel like a whole new manicure yet, so I decided to top it with China Glaze Wireless from the OMG collection.

At about nail #7, I realized I was using China Glaze OMG from the OMG collection and, while it was pretty awesome, I was a little bummed and really wanted to see Wireless over this..so I painted my ring finger with Wireless and finished the manicure with OMG.

I'll definitely try this one again, I love the way Wireless looks over Sag Harbor. Reminiscent of the Blue Fairy from Pinoccio...at least to me. I have a thing for fairies. I play one in my SecondLife.

We're supposed to get our annual deluge starting today. Gotta love the coastal desert. 7+ days of rain, rain and more rain. Heavy rain, light rain, sideways rain, and maybe even raining UP. I am not a big fan of the rain. I live in Santa Barbara for a REASON! LOL

But I am spending the day giving my nails a nice breather, drenched them in deLore for nails and just letting that sink in. More details of the special manicure in my next post.

Stay warm, stay dry. Til next time...

Second and Third Christmas Manicure

With the holidays in mind, specifically Christmas since that's what I celebrated as a child, I got on the bandwagon and, using Sally Girl Venom (from Sally Beauty Supply) with Emerald Sparkle on the tips. The konad was stamped using plate #M25 (it's actually a fauxnad absolute copy) and Sally Hansen's Insta Dry Whirlwind White.
The colors are all a little different because I was messing with the photos, trying to capture the actual shade of Venom...I think I got it right here:I was still learning about Seche and it's shrinkage...so pardon the sloppy application.

For the week of Christmas, I got my inspiration from Beauty Judy and Konadomania. I cannot STAND the cold though, so I added some extra fur trim to the coat and made it look "fluffy."

That's it for Christmas! Hope you all had a good one!

Black Friday and a Festive Konad

I had been telling the best mother-in-law in the world, (mine) about my new "hobby" (read "addiction") and she was curious about what that meant. We went up to her place for Thanksgiving and so I took some supplies with me and the day after Thanksgiving I got out my mini of Opi Comet Loves Cupid and my China Glaze Millenium and using Konad disk #M73, put this bad-boy together. Sorry for dim pictures, these were taken with my phone in the car during the 9 hour drive home. :p

My son approved of this one, especially where the stamp left some negative space. My kid likes to stamp his art sometimes. I know there is a name for it, but at the moment, that escapes me. He does some really cool things with it though...Like THIS except the only part that was carved from linoleum and then stamped would be the trees. The rest he photoshopped in to create the design. No one liked it much, but I did...I'm his mom...I like all of his art. :)

In closing this post, I'll share my first EVER Konad. I really got plate #M73 ONLY for this design. I am CRAZY about Music...just about every kind with the exception of most Mariachi music and gangsta rap. Some day, soon, I'd like to learn to play the piano and yes, keep my nails just the way they are. I intend to turn the keyboard up loud so won't hear the clickety-clacks.

This is China Glaze Blue Sparrow (awesomeness) with Twenty-Four K for the stamp.

Opal tips

Back in the early part of December 2009, I got my first Nfu Oh. I really wanted #51 but it was not available. I searched and searched on Fabulous Street for something that would hold me over. I found it in #49. I love opals, all kinds, and I'm lucky to have a friend who buys rough stone and grinds it into lovely gems for me to buy. :) I shared these pictures with him and he agreed my tips were quite opal like, but of course he wants to see this color over black. I've seen Nfu Oh's over black so many times, I wanted to try something different.

I decided to put it over Essie Waltz, a soft, creamy white. I love Essie's formula, it stays where I put it and has this wonderful flow about it. Waltz was so pretty, so squishy and marshmallow-y after it dried. I almost didn't want to put anything on top of it, but I was on a quest, so I did.

I present to you: Opals on my fingertips. This was truly like having glittering opals to look at all day long..I couldn't keep my eyes off of my fingers.

Blurry shot for flakie wonderment. :)

Has anyone else layers their Nfu Oh's over white? or maybe some other light colors? Point me to your photos!

Looking Forward to some Fun in February

Every February, Santa Barbara has a big Film Festival in the downtown district known as State Street. There are 5 movie theaters within a few blocks of each other! 3 of them have multiple screens and two are really big so they host concerts and plays as well as showing movies.

I've always wanted to go to the film festival here but we'd never made it until last year. The hubby and I just headed downtown to see what was happening and Mickey Rourke was receiving one of the few "career achievement" awards so we hung out in front of the Arlington Theater to await his arrival. We got to talking to one of the volunteers there and soon had two tickets to enter the building and enjoy the show. It was well done, an interview with clips from the various movies starring Mickey Rourke. I'm not a huge fan, but I have enjoyed some of his movies. Haven't seen "The Wrestler" yet though. Mickey is an "interesting" person.

Anyway, this year I was looking at the website for the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) and found that Sandra Bullock is going to be honored this year. I adore her. I have seen every movie she's been in and I enjoy every single one multiple times. That was my tipping point. I signed up as a volunteer to help with the festival the year.

I have an orientation meeting this morning at 10am down at the City College here in town...that campus is AMAZING in location and beauty. Check it out! When he was campaigning for president, Barack Obama stopped here to speak. His first words: "You all go to SCHOOL here??? Where can I sign up?" I digress...

I'm excited and I hope, I hope, I hope, I get to work at Sandy's (I like to call her that, it's fun) appearance. Volunteers also get some cool shwag: a shirt to wear when you're working, film pass that allows you to go to 3 shows, a special party for the volunteers...I am so excited!

Orientation is in 1.5 hours and then I will stop in at the "Del Sol" store downtown and take a look at their color changing nail polish...there is one - Island Fever that I really like, and a second one I might like - Day Dreamer if it truly does what it's supposed to do. Then, it's "date day" so the hubby and I will be enjoying some one on one time together.

This lizard needs to sun herself on a rock somewhere. :) Have a wonderful day!

P.S. If you want to see some photo spam of Santa Barbara, just click!

Tinks Tips

I have been eyeballing Myrza's Meadow since I first saw it posted...then I was looking at all my photos and I realized why. I had already created something very much like it using a mini Sally Girl polish "Pea-body" with a mini Sally Girl glitter over the top - maybe "So 70's". These pics aren't great, they're awful even but check 'em out if ya want.

My son was NOT fond of this one. He made fun of my "chartreuse nails" and how unflattering the color was on me. Maybe so, but for a few days, Tinkerbell was there with me as I went through my day. She always makes me smile that sassy little fairy. But Jenks makes me laugh out loud...are here any Kim Harrison readers/fans reading this?

Blurry close up (no you don't need glasses - I do)

horrible application. I'm much better at it now.

The real Thanksgiving Manicure

There is a funny story behind this manicure. Christmas 2008, my sister gave me an Amazon gift card. Coming up on Christmas 2009, we chat and agree, NO GIFTS this year. Money's tight for both of us, so let's just plan on seeing each other and spending time at our middle sister's wedding and call that our Christmas gift. Since she lives in Las Vegas and I pretty much hate that town, we don't see each other as often as we'd like. As we continued to chat, she asked me what I got with my gift card from the previous year. This is the funny part: I'd forgotten all about it! I thanked her at the time, then never used it!

So, I thanked her for the reminder and told her I would use it to purchase some Konad stamping art supplies and how happy I was again to receive her gift.

It took a few days to place the order and receive the disks, including a call to let me know they didn't have one disk I wanted and what would I like instead. Anyway, they were generally a good supplier if you wanna use Amazon, but I have since used OCNailart and I'm happy with their service so I'll stick with OCN.

Unfortunately, I never posted this one to the Facebook group so I don't have the background information. :( But I am pretty sure this is more of the Wet n Wild colors I used from the sponge mani. I just did a coppery base and stamped a flower I thought might pass for a leaf in a bunch of different, complimentary colors.
If I can find the details in my polish box in the morning...I will update...right now, it's late, I'm sleepy and I need to hit the sheets.

I wish the pics had come out better. Happy weekend!

Satin and Silk

Inspired by a fellow member on the Facebook Nail Polish Collectors group, created by Erin who also writes the Tropical Mind blog. I do believe this was pretty much an all out copy of Diane's lovely idea. I used Revlon Blackberry - a name I just don't understand but, oh well! I topped it with China Glaze Matte Magic and then went over the tips again with the Revlon Blackberry. Hope you like it. I might try this look with other colors.I can't get over how old my hands look...especially when compared to the younger bloggers out there...Trincess, Tartofraises come to mind right away.
Please ignore the big ding in my index finger...don't remember what happened there.

More posts to come, I have so many things to create and share!

Thanks for looking!

<3 Atlantis <3

I visited my local Sally Beauty to find China Glaze Khromes and this "Atlantis" glitter I was seeing in the blogosphere... I truly love this color. It's just complete and utter happiness in a bottle to me...or on my fingers or my toes...it's the one I put on when the days are gray and I need a little cheer. There's just so much going on in that teal jelly with holo sparkles.
This is also when I got my first bottle of Seche...and learned about "cuticle pull" and "tip pull" which I've since learned to avoid.

But of course, I couldn't leave it alone and all by itself, not when I had other new polishes to try! So I did my best, sans striper brush, to paint a gold stripe using China Glaze Twenty-Four K. The lines are sloppy, but I loved the combo and these nails got NOTICED! It's always fun when people actually notice what I've done...sometimes because I love it so, and other times because it took so friggin' long to do it! This one didn't take long, I just loved it. I really do need a back up bottle of this one.

Somedays, the phone cam does a good job.

Red Satin (my first Matte Top Coat)

Middle of October 2009, I wanted something simple but elegant and sexy. I started with a mini Sally Hansen that I picked up Christmas 2008 and hadn't used yet. I had just started checking out the world of nail blogs and read about Matte Top coats. So I picked up China Glaze Matte Magic and this one took my breath away. It's exactly what I wanted right then. Feast your eyes on my crappy cell phone pics! heeheehee!

I loved how they changed color depending on how the light hit them, just like satin. This was true love for a few days, I'm tellin' ya!

Huh, I just noticed these pics have dates stamps, I wonder when I set my phone cam to do that? Sometimes I'm pretty darned smart, and then I forget!

I hope I'm not cramming your readers with too much polish porn.

I am just so happy it's the weekend...and I have more to get all caught up to date!

I promise you, after reading some of your blogs, I realized my snappy camera was the best way to take photos and I worked toward more natural lighting so I didn't have to adjust for the warmth of my house lighting...hang in there, the photos get better.

Purple Passion French

I really liked the blue french, and being one who loves the purple...I thought I would try a purple version. This is also pre-Seche. Notice the sheet wrinkles on nails. This one was pretty for about and hour...I did laundry the day after application (sheet wrinkles and all) and the polish pulled away from the cuticle in a horrible way. I attributed it to the heat of the dryer, but who knows...I haven't given the ELF another shot since...I should though, shouldn't I?

I used Milani Purple Passion on the tips, and ELF Pearl Pink over the top. This if from October 2009. I do like this mani, but the wrinkles and the pull back...maybe I'll try it with Seche or Poshe and see how it goes.

Blue Mani Circa September 2009

This is where it all started - this time. Here is my first "fun" manicure once I got back into the world of nail polish. This photo is from September 20 of 2009. My husband and I were at the park where we were married the year before enjoying a picnic under the oak tree and I snapped this picture of a fun french I did.
That's a while ago and so I am trying really hard to remember what colors I used...fortunately, I have photos of the stash I had back then on my facebook! So this is Milani Pool Party on the tips and Revlon's Color Beam Sheer Bright Sky over the top. This manicure was before I learned about Seche Vite. My nails were a bit short, but they looked nice with these colors.

I had a moment of insanity and thought I would narrow my stash down to only mini bottles since I live in a very tiny space, but that didn't last and though I've already done an ROAK to a nice facebook friend from the Nail Polish Collectors group and given most of my Milanis away. I would be sad, but it made room for Nubar, Essie, Nfu Oh, Opi, China Glaze, Zoya, and so much more.

Inspired by Nihrida

Back around the Thanksgiving Holiday Nihrida created a gorgeous mani using a variety of colors then going over the mosaic with a Konad Stamp from image plate M56. I didn't have that plate at the time but I really liked the idea of the fallen leaves colors on my nails...so I did the background with some WnW colors I picked up just for this purpose.

I covered the entire nail with Orly's Enchanted Forest and, using a makeup sponge, I dabbed some of the metallic WnW's and a few Sally Beauty mini's I had on hand to create this look:

Shade

Sun

Through the blinds. :)

I really liked this and received many compliments. It was more reminiscent of the sparkly holiday centerpieces found on fancy tables for Thanksgiving, but it worked for me.

I have since acquired Konad Plate M56 but I think I'll save them for some other creation. Thanks for the inspiration Nihrida!

Shout out to Trincess

One of the big reasons I started this nail blog is because of encouragement from Trincess of Emerald Sparkled.

She asked for help in obtaining her favorite nail polish, the one she named her blog after: China Glaze "Emerald Sparkle" and I volunteered to help her out. Thus began a friendship between California, USA and Istanbul, Turkey.

Just yesterday, I shared a couple photos of a manicure I did, (photos will arrive here shortly) and she asked when I was going to join the fold of nail bloggers...I'd been thinking of doing it anyway but her encouragement was the extra push I was looking for, so I'd like to thank Trincess for her friendship and encouragement.

Now, go visit her blog, she got a full professional Konad kit from a friend. A friend, I tell you! Is that amazing or WHAT??? Go on now, go!

New Year's Manicure

New Year's 2010...hoping this year will give us all a breather.

The Hubby and I didn't do anything special for New Years, we usually stay in and off the roads and I splurge on an expensive bottle of champagne. But I wanted to do something festive with my nails so I came up with this:

That's Sally Hansen's Celeb City (2 coats) with a single coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust on top, finished off with Seche Vite, of course. I felt like I had disco balls on my fingers! These were hot! They were kinda fun in the shade too:

They looked kind up textured and bumpy and a little fugly, (that's fun and ugly..what were YOU thinking?) And here they are blurry so you can really see the bling:
I wore these for the whole first week of 2010 since they were so fun. I hope you like them too!

As Requested

A Few folks have asked me to start a nail polish blog...and since nail polish has, once again, become a passionate hobby of mine, I thought...well, why not? I have so enjoyed reading the other blogs out there, so I wanted to be a part of that community. I hope everyone will scoot over just a bit and make room in the 15782nd row. Thanks everyone!

I started loving nail polish when I was in high school. I found that, if I just polished my nails, they grew to nice lengths with minimal attention. I LOVED dramatic colors and still do. I was wearing black nail polish WAY before it was the cool thing to do. Oh the looks I got way back when and the comments! "Your hands look like you're dead." LOL. Yeah, whatever. I loved that glossy black!
I was into blues and greens way back then too, (we're talking late 70's here ladies.) I seemed to be the only one.

As I got older, I had less time to sit and wait for my nails to dry...so the hobby kind of dissapated to come back in fits and starts and fizzle out again. I'm not exactly sure how I got back into it this time.

Maybe it was the Facebook friend who turned me on to the Nail Polish Collector's group? No, I was well on my way back into the fold...OH! I remember now, I got married! Sept of 2008 I got married...so I started polishing my nails again quite a few months before the big day so I'd have pretty hands for the day. I maintained them for a while and a few broke so I started over...THEN the nail polish collectors group told me about fast drying top coats that really work! OMG!! I can polish my nails a few times a week and get on with my life??? Are you kidding me??? I am in HEAVEN!

So here I am, I've been a Seche Vite user since October of 2009 and already have quite a few pictures to share. I don't have the best of cameras though. I use my htc phone and my little tiny 4 mega pixel snapshot camera to capture the images I'll share.
Some designs were inspired by other blogs that I read, but interpreted in my own way. Others I just flat out copied. :)

I've got some Poshe to try and a ton of untried polishes to go thru yet, thanks to all the other blogs offering me Lemmings to spare! You ladies have cost me a few dollars...and still, I thank you. I'm delighted to be creating wearable art again and being able to live my life too!

I might share other colorful things and I will most likely post up some of my artistic Son's drawings and art. I might even play with some makeup. I'm not a young woman any more, but I am definitely young at heart!

I hope you'll enjoy my creations as much as I enjoy creating them, and I hope to hear from you, either way!