Misc Nails 2012 - Part 2

Good day, Kitschies.  I'm back for another installment of random manis from 2012 that I found when trying to clean up my desktop.  Good times.

You can find Part 1 HERE. 

And now for Part 2.

Starting off strong with Zoya!  This is Jem and Aurora.  I am so glad that holos are making a comeback because each one is more beautiful than the last.

Pretty glitter gradient using a black creme base (don't remember which one, exactly) and Walking on Broken Glass from the Ulta mini collection Glazed and Confused.  I liked this collection so much that I picked one up for a polish exchange thing I do every month. 

I am embarrassed to admit that I have no idea what this color is.  I want to say it's a China Glaze but damned if I know.  How horrible is that?  *sigh*  I can tell you that I didn't think there was enough little tiny purple glitter so I added a coat of Milani One Coat Glitter in Twinkle.

Maybeline Downtown Brown.  I want to like this color, but I don't.  It's so pretty in the bottle but just does not deliver for me.  It's a red-based brown with a teal flash.  The formula was HORRIBLE and I just couldn't get it to cover completely.  I searched for a month for this color (it was LE) and I am disappointed I found it.

NerdLacquer Event Horizon.  Hello, gorgeous!!  I've heard rumblings of NerdLacquer coming back but nothing concrete.  I hope she comes back - she had the BEST nerd-tastic polishes.  This one finished a little bumpy but an extra coat of topcoat cleared that up, no prob!

This was a second Halloween mani.  I started with a base of OPI Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow, a green so dark, it's almost black, and sponged on Zoya Ivanka for a glitter gradient.  I love glitter gradients (if you couldn't tell).  I wore something very similar to this for Halloween 2011. 

I have a very love-hate relationship with matte polishes.  It seems the only way I can handle them is if there's chunky glitter on top...like this.  The green is actually a matte polish: Zoya Veruschka.  The glitter is one of my faves: China Glaze Party Hearty.  Great combo for Christmas!

Don't worry...there might be more...I have more cleaning to do!  Hope you liked them.

Misc Nails 2012 - Part 1

Hello, again!  I went through some of my manis from 2012 and I thought I'd share some of them with you now. 

Ready for lots of pictures?  I'm splitting this up in to two parts because there were quite a few pictures and I didn't want to overload you all in one sitting.

Part 1

Orly Snowcone with KleanColor Blue Holo as an accent.  I waited a long time to get Snowcone and I have no idea why.  It's super pigmented and *bonus*, it doesn't stain!  A big thank you to Nailstah for the KleanColor way back in 2011.

Zoya Evvy (dark green-grey creme) and Zoya Quinn (deep berry).  The contrast of these colors was really great IRL...couldn't exactly capture it in pictures.

Zoya Bevin (mint) and Zoya Kristen (blue-based grey) with a little NYC Love Letters for some sparkle. 

Color Club Revvvolution (black holo), Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Orange Crush, black striping polish and a bit of silver holo glitter to give it some pow.  Obviously, this was a Halloween mani.  I was feeling kind of uninspired for Halloween this year.

Milani Violet Dash (purple creme) and Milani Jewel FX Lavender as a glitter gradient.  I wore this for the first annual Southwest SparkleCon 2012 as organized by Makeup Zombie.  SO much fun meeting some new sparkle friends!!

A plastic wrap mani using a pale pink (I haven't a clue what it was) and China Glaze Designer Satin.  Super easy mani with maximum bang for your buck.  I loved this one!

And last, but definitely not least, a really pretty water marble using Zoya Anja (purple) and Zoya Midori (green).  This is the first marble I'd done in a while and I was happy how it turned out.  I really like how some of the green faded in to the purple.

I don't usually post makeup pictures but I wanted to share this one.  I did this as my look for a derby bout in October.  This is Fyrinnae Velvet Vampire (red) and Raven's Prophecy (black).  This look took me FOREVER but it turned out just like I wanted it and it was so pretty with gorgeous sparkle (that I couldn't capture). 

Stay tuned for Part 2 - coming soon!

January 2013

I'm not announcing my comeback, I'm just going to say...I have some pretty polishes to share with you.

With everything I have on my plate, I just can't blog like I used to.  I still do my nails (all the time) and I usually take pictures of them, but I rarely get the time to sit down and edit the pictures.  My plan, right now, is to compile my manis over the month and share them with you, in bulk, at the end of the month.  Sound good?  Here we go.  And, like always, all pics are clickable to make bigable!

This was my New Years mani.  It's kinda Christmas-y and it's all Winter.  I started with a base of Milani Juno.  Then, using BM14, I stamped snow flakes using ChG Designer Satin and a random white.  To finish it all off, I applied a layer of ChG Snow Globe for a little extra sparkle.

I picked up this gorgeous polish at Ulta while on a "we gotta get out of the house NOW" trip with the bestie.  I don't usually even look at the Layla polishes because they're pretty pricey, but this happened to be on sale (and I had a coupon).  Layla Ceramic Effects Green Galaxy (CE 54) is a gorgeous, gorgeous deep green jelly with green micro glitter, small round green glitter and big green hexies.  This polish wore like iron - definitely worth the money!

I was feeling in a nail funk when I did this and it snapped me out of it right away!  I started with a base of Revlon Royal (probably one of my top 10 fave polishes ever).  After that, I stamped the pretty flowers using Orly Snowcone and BM224.  I added pretty purple rhinestones in the center of one flower on each nail.

I did this one originially for a "glitter" challenge for a FB group I'm in, but I couldn't get a good picture of it.  You can't go wrong with a classic red nail!  This is Zoya Alix with Milani Glitter FX in Red.  The Milani claims to be "one coat" but for this much coverage, I started with a coat of Alix and then layered 3 layers of the glitter.  That's not what I'd call one coat!  I wore this for 4 days and love it.

This is what I ended up using for the glitter challenge.  Let me tell you...this is a mess polish!  I started with 3 coats of Orly Fowl Play then added a coat of Finger Paints Twisted (I loves me some flakies!).  And because that wasn't enough, I ended up using a coat of Milani Jewel FX in Twilight.  I am NOT looking forward to removing this (can you say "foil method"?).

So...there's January.  Maybe...if you're lucky...I'll post a review of a couple manis from last year later!

Randomness

*peeks out*  Hey, there Kitchies!  How the heck are ya?!  I've been busy (yeah, shocker.  I know.)  I thought I'd take a few minutes and share some random manis with you today!  Ready?  I have no idea when I wore any of these.  Sorry about that.

This is one my top 10 favorite polishes.  Revlon Royal is a gorgeous, squishy royal blue jelly.  I made it jelly sammich with Jordana Pixie Pink glitter.  I loved this!

I caught flakey madness like everybody else did when Finger Paints released their flakey collection.  This is Orly Charged Up with Finger Paints Twisted.  You can't go wrong with a good flakey polish, but this mani was just kinda meh to me.

Zoya Faye.  I want to love this.  Really, I do.  But I just...don't.  I want the rosy purple to show through more.  Most of the time, all you can see is the bright gold glass flecks.  It is a pretty polish in theory.  Just give me a *little* more purple...please.

This was better in my head than it was on the nail.  The green is Sinful Colors Mint Apple.  I don't remember what the blue is, but it's a pretty sky blue with just a touch of shimmer.  Maybe a Milani?  Yep.  I'm pretty sure it's Milani Beach Front.  The flowers are Milani White on the Spot and Yellow Whiz (worst. polish name. ever.).

I don't usually like white nails because they're so stark.  But, when you pair it with a pretty glitter and make it a gradient, it's a win for me!  This is Milani White on the Spot with Fuchsia Jewel FX.  I say I don't like glitter because it's such a PITA to remove, but looks like I use it pretty often when you lump manis together like this.

There ya go!  Hope that holds you over for a little while.  Sorry I've been so sporadic with posting - life doesn't slow down anymore.  Be back soon...?

Sugar Plum Yum!

Good morning, Kitschies!!!  I don't know about you, but I am *beyond* happy it's Friday.  It has been a very, very long week.  Work has been a roller coaster.  The boys are being PitAs and the hubs is the hubs.  So, I'm really looking forward to having a few days off.  Well, not really off since I'll be at home, but at least I won't have to worry about work.  Unless they call me.  But I'll worry 'bout that when it happens.

I was at Sally Beauty Supply before Christmas and I had heard some girls who had found some Color Club glitter polishes there.  I was skeptical because my Sallys has never had Color Club, but wonders of wonders, they had the holiday display!

This one was a little hard for me to photograph, but I started with two coats of WnW Black Creme and then used two coats (I think it was 2 coats) of Color Club Sugar Plum Yum (SPY).  I was a little worried about SPY because it was scented and the last scented polish I tried, I couldn't stand the scent, but I pressed on.

SPY is a clear based *packed* with large purple hex glitter and smaller green hex glitter.  The scent on this was not as offensive as Revlon Grape Fizz - I didn't even notice it by the next morning!

The thing I didn't like about SPY was some of the large purple glitter wasn't all the way flat, so it didn't lay flat on my nail.  But, overall, I did like this mani.  I wore it around Christmas and it was a nice change to the other more Christmas-y manis I did.  It was festive without being in-your-face.  You can click on that image to see the pretty, pretty glitter better.

Did you pick up any of the Color Club holiday collection?  What did you think?

Hope you all have a great weekend!!  I have a lot to do this weekend (as always) and I hope I get it all done.  Oh!  And I have to remember to go to the store because we're having THIS for dinner tomorrow night.

Once in a Blue Moon

Good morning, my lovelies!  It's Thursday (and sorta my Friday) and I'm glad this week is drawing to a close.  Nate doesn't have school tomorrow (in service already?!) so he and I are going to spend some quality time together.  I don't know what we're going to do yet, but we'll do *something*.  I kinda wish he knew how to skate so I could get some practice in, but if I were to take him with me right now it would be rather counterproductive.  Anyway...we'll do something...maybe bake a cake...

I finally got my stuffs together and prepped some pics for you.  Well, for me, but I digress.  Let's get to the pics, shall we?

I started with WnW Blue Moon as a base (2 coats, 3 in some areas).  I picked this one up at Walgreens in July when they were on sale for 99-cents.  This is outdoors in filtered sun.

This really is a pretty navy blue with just a hint of shimmer.  And for 99-cents, even like this, you really can't go wrong!  This is outdoors in shade.

But I didn't leave it there.  I really wanted to do a jelly sandwich, but I couldn't find my one jelly polish, so I did something a little different.

I put a coat (or 2) of Milani Gems over the top of Blue Moon and then finished it off with a coat of ChG Matte Magic.  Now, usually I don't care for matte finish.  At all.  But, every once in a while, I find something that works and I like it.  Like this one.  Indoors with flash.

Outdoors, filtered sun.  There's another thing I *want* to love but usually don't once it's all said and done: glitter bombs.  Partly because it just looks like a mess on my nails and partly because I hate the removal.  But, the matte finish really kinda subdues the bling of the glitter and that's what makes me like it. 

I'm sure you won't see this kind of mani on my blog very often, so look while you can.  LOL

I'm gonna get back to work.  I hope it's not too hot wherever you are today and I hope work goes smoothly.  See you soon!