Zoya - Cassi, Pink Wednesday!

Today is Pink Wednesday! When I made my first Zoya order I ordered a sparky pink and have been saving it for a Wednesday. Too bad I was really not impressed.

Zoya Cassi is a bubblegum pink with silver shimmer. I had confidence that I would love it, but I don't. I think I would have if it didn't look like poop on my skin. My pointer and middle fingers have two coats while my ring and pinky fingers have three.

These pictures also stink, but I took the polish off already so this is all I have haha

So have you guys ever been super disappointed with how a polish looks on you?

China Glaze - Pelican Grey; Argyle Tutorial

Hey guys! Even though I'm super busy, I made you all a tutorial! I promise to be a good blogger soon and respond to my comments and show some blog love but I'm so swamped right now!

I don't know about you guys, but I've been seeing argyle all over lately. I've seen a few bloggers do their take on it, but none of the tutorials I've seen have taken out the mystery of how it was done for me, so i made my own!

I used a base of China Glaze Pelican Grey. I love this! I picked it up at Sally's thinking it was a grey creme, but I was happily wrong! It's a dove grey with a barely detectable shimmer in it. So in love. This is two thin coats. So to make the argyle, this is what I did. I used all acrylic paints for these!

Make a diagonal line in whatever color you want. I wanted to use black, white and grey, so I used black for this part.

Then make another line to make sort of a y. I find this easier than just doing an 'x' pattern because I'm less likely to mess up.

Connect another short line to finish the criss-cross, and fill in the left and right triangles.

To make the dotted lines, I found that it was more precise and even if I first made four dots where the four corners of your dotted square will be.

On these, make small 'v' shapes, then in between your v's make short lines.

There you go! Easy argyle! Don't mind my smeared ring finger. I banged it a bit but I have no time to fix it!

So who of you watches Glee and was REALLY angry with the ending of tonight's episode!! Wah!

Revlon - Scandalous

Really quick post tonight since I have about a million things to do before school starts back up tomorrow. Today I went to Walgreen's to get some notebooks and, as always, ended up moseying in the nail polish. I saw Revlon's Scandalous and after seeing so many swatches across the blogishere, I knew I needed it.

Scandalous is a purple glitter and large purple hex glitter in a purple base, and absolutely gorgeous! This applied super easy and in only two coats.

Isn't it gorgeous with the flash? So in love.

That's it for today, happy MLK JR Day!

Zoya - Luna

I swear that Friday the 13th is totally killing me today! I'm not one of those people who believe in Friday the 13th, but today may have made me a believer. No, nothing terrible happened but it did take me literally five tries to do my nails! For some reason, every time I did them either I would ruin them in the last moment or just hate it and start over. Finally I went to my fall back - sparkles.

I got my first two Zoyas the other day and this brand is awesome! Luna is a silver glitter in a dove grey base. I used one coat of China Glaze Pelican Grey as a base and one coat of Luna. It had really good coverage and the only reason I put a base coat on was because swatches I saw on other blogs that alone the glitter made it look sparse but I think if applied with an even hand that two coats would  give full coverage. I'll be sure to try it soon, I just could. not. bear. doing my nails again.

Look at that shine! I'm so easily distracted by glittery things...

So, do you believe in Friday the 13th?

Nicole by OPI - Kim-pletely In Love

Today I have for you guys Nicole by OPI's Kim-pletely in Love. It was from the Kardashian Kollection and it's definitely worthy of your time and money. It's a very light pink shimmer with blue and green shimmer. The only problem I could find with it is that it is very sheer, but I fixed that by putting it over white. I still needed three coats though. This is three coats and a top coat over the white base.

The other problem is that it is impossible to photograph! I tried so many different angles, but nooppee. The shimmer would just NOT show up. Ugh, sigh. Maybe I'll try it again when it's sunny out and take some pictures outside. But for now, it's rainy, icky, and night time here in Jersey. Here's me attempting to get an angle that shows the shimmer... aaaannnd... fail.

So, are you guys as Kardashian obsessed as me?

Pink Wednesday - OPI Pink Friday

Something magical happened to me the other day. I bought my two of my new favorite nail polishes. No lie. This is a big deal to me, who is super ADD and finds it hard to like the same thing for two days in a row. What are they? OPI's Pink Friday and Save Me, from the queen herself, Nicki Minaj.

I knew Pink Wednesday was coming up, so even though I bought these (and Metallic for Life) on Sunday, I saved them for today, figuring that it would work. I also knew I wanted to keep it really simple. So here's what I did!

I'm so in love with these two. I layered Save Me over one coat of Julep Leighton, but since I fully plan on doing a full mani and review on those together, I'll save it. Just know that I'm in love. Pink Friday was a dream. An awesome pink that isn't quite bubble gum pink, maybe a little lighter. Full coverage in two coats. I had hopes for this being my barbie pink, but nope. Still looking. I know it seems impossible, but this is the kind of subtly gorgeous pink that you could wear alone to say, an interview, and feel both fun and beautiful and professional. Who'd have thunk it from Nicki Minaj?

All in all I adore this mani and can't wait to go.. everywhere to show it off. Which means I need to find somewhere to go.. well, I'm off then!

So did any of you pick up the Nicki polishes?

China Glaze - Secret Periwinkle

Today's a simple color and glitter, mostly because I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary today or tomorrow. I got China Glaze Secret Periwinkle from Sally's with gift cards on a whim, and it's a really pretty color that I don't already have.

two coats, top coat, no flash

I thought that this was going to be a no good polish because after one coat it was really thin and just seemed like it would take a few more coats than I'd like for full coverage, but nope! Only two! Also, Look how weird the color came out when I put the flash on!

I thought that the plain color, while lovely, could use some oomff, so I added Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Set the Stage. It's a clear polish with small gold glitter and big hexagon glitters. I love it for putting on top of so so colors.

two coats of CG, one coat SH, no flash.

That's it for today! I did pick up three of the six Nicki Minaj colors the other day, so keep an eye out for those!

dog paw prints!

As promised, here's how I did my right hand. I'm not so talented to be able to do much on my right hand since I'm a righty, but I kept with the dog theme and did puppy prints! Here's a really simple tutorial I made on paint for how to do quick paw prints with a dotter, tooth pick, or anything that can made dots. (I used to use an empty mechanical pencil.)

 Super easy and super cute. I've done this with silver glitter as the background and black paw prints and it looks awesome. The best part is that they don't have to be perfect because dog's feet aren't perfect and you can stagger them to look like they were walking! Here's how mine looked finished.

So, what do you guys think!? Do you have an suggestions for future nail art? I'm open to any suggestions! Just let me know in the comments or in a quick e-mail!

my dog in nail art, pt 1

Three years ago, I rescued a chihuahua dachshund puppy, who is now my little baby. His name is Milo, and I decided today that I'd make him in to nail art!

I started with a base of China Glaze's For Audrey. It's a tiffany blue creme that get full coverage in two coats.

 no flash, artificial light.

with flash.

Then using Revlon's Espresso, I made the outline I wanted. This worked best for my dog because he's a dachshund, making him notoriously long. Espresso is a brown shimmer. I'll be sure to swatch it separately one of these days because it's actually a really nice polish for a cheap price.

Then I used Finger Paint's Putty in my hands along with black and white acrylic paints to add the details. All I really needed was a lighter belly, feet and ears, then an eye and nose. It was all pretty simple since none of it had to be perfect. This picture is post-top coat. I don't know why, but my camera picked up some smearing that I didn't even notice on my nails. I'm actually pretty annoyed by this, especially since I haven't had this happen in quite a while. Oh well. 

On my thumb I decided to do a comic style speech bubble. For this, I used acrylic paints. I did a black base first so I could have a small outline around the white because I wanted it to be comic book-esque. This isn't necessary, but I like how it turned out. 

After you do the basic black bubble in the shape you want, carefully re-draw it in white leaving a small gap. Don't worry about the middle just yet. As you can see, I had to wipe off the paint a few times from mess-ups and some residue is left in the middle. That's fine.

Fill in the bubble with white! Then you can write whatever you want in it.

This is how it looked in the end! I love it a lot. 

And  here is my inspiration! 

I didn't do the same thing on my left hand, but this is getting too long for one post, so I'm gonna put it in another post!

I Pink I Can + Nail Art

So after staring at I Pink I Can Do for a while.. I needed to spice it up. Since it wasn't my perfect barbie pink, I couldn't just stare at it alone. So I added some dots! First, here's what I used.

Forgive me for the messiness, but I used a black acrylic paint, white acrylic paint, the dotter end of a double sided brush, and a pointy q-tip with the tip cut. I do this because at the moment I only have one sized dotter. I use acrylic paint for my nail art for two reasons. One, it's super cheap, about 79 cents a bottle, so I don't feel bad about dumping a lot out. Two, it wipes of with water, so one little mess up doesn't mean a total do-over.

For some reason, I deleted the picture of the white dots alone, but pretend it's there. Big white dots in a staggered pattern. Nice, right? Then I added smaller, black dots on top, going for a kind of mod look. 

This is the finished picture, all cleaned up and with top coat. Nice and easy, right? The other thing I like about acrylic paint is the fast dry time.

So, what's your easy go-to nail art to jazz up an okay polish? Mine is definitely polka dots!

My first Pink Wednesday!

The first time I saw Mean Girls was with my dad when I was thirteen. Now every time I drink with certain friends of mine, we do nothing but quote the movie thanks to having seen it about 74729 times. My mom likes to call it my generations Breakfast Club. I love that movie, so I don't see it, but whatever.

When I stumbled across On Wednesdays We Wear Pink, I was thrilled. I mean, two of my favorite things in one? Sign me up please!

For my first Pink Wednesday I went with a polish my friend gave me for Christmas. It's from Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure and called I Pink I Can. It's a really pretty bubble gum pink creme that my friend called my perfect 'Barbie Pink', which I am constantly on the look for. 

Three coats, top coat, no flash, artificial light.

The gorgeous color of this polish is about all the good I can say about it. I personally am not a fan of the brush for this line. I feel like its too square and picks up waay too much polish and often makes the lines near my cuticles look really straight and sharp. It took three coats for full coverage, but you can probably get away with two if you're reaaaaallly careful, have no staining, and/or do not mind a little but of streaking. 

Three coats, top coat, flash, artificial light.

 

The picture with flash better shows the true color of the polish, which is a pretty bubble gum pink as I said.  I really do wish that this polish impressed my more because I love the color, but I just can't say it did. 

If you're interested in participating in Pink Wednesday or just seeing what all the other bloggers did, go to the website and sign up or look at the blog roll! I'm really excited for upcoming Pink Wednesday and seeing what everyone else has to share for the day!

So, do you have a perfect color you're constantly searching for? Or do you have a suggestion for a perfect barbie pink for me? Let me know in the comments!

China Glaze - Designer Satin

I'm still sick from Saturday. Because of this I have been doing nothing but sitting in my bed, reading and watching my favorite 'feel good' movies. (Beauty and the Beast... It's been my go-to sick movie since I was six and had pneumonia.) Reading books requires me to stare at my nails a lot, and having two chipped thumbs was getting to me. So I decided to try out one of the new polished I got for Christmas, and am I glad I did!

This is China Glaze Designer Satin. Designer Satin is a purple-y magenta creme. With the flash for some reason it looks a little more purple but without the flash it looks more red. So it was almost impossible to get a good picture of it. My favorite part about this polish it.. wait for it.. it's only one coat! So exciting!

As you can see, in this picture it looks more pink/red (and blurry, wooomp) but I promise you it looks a little more purple in real life. This polish took a little longer to dry, but I was okay with it because of the whole one coat thing. Plus, with one quick coat of Out the Door and I was able to take a nap with out worrying about sheet prints! Well, I'm off to watch Beauty and the Beast.. again.

So, are any of you guys reading any good books lately?

New Year's misery and DS Extravagance by OPI

I had big plans for New Year's this year. This was my first 'legal' NYE since I turned 21 a few weeks ago, and the boy who has patiently waited for me to turn of age since we began dating was going to take me to Philly with a bunch of friends to party in the new year.

That is, until I woke up Saturday morning at five thirty as the boy was leaving for work, unable to breath. I've had asthma since I was a kid and knew that this was a simple, run of the mill asthma attack. Uhm.. no. None of my medication was working and by seven I found myself driving to my dad's house a half hour away so he could go with me to the emergency room. Five hours later I was out, exhausted but able to breath. In the end, I made it to about ten thirty before I passed out on the couch in the lap of my unbelievably understanding boyfriend.

But before this all happened, I had an outfit planned. And with every outfit, at least in my world, comes a nail polish. Enter DS Extravagance. DS Extravagance is a purple holo that blows my mind every time. It's that one nail polish in my collection that until I put it on, I always forget how amazing it is, but once I do, I just stare at it all day.

This color applies in two thin coats for full coverage and dries within ten minutes without the help of a quick dry topcoat. That's another one of the reasons I love this color.

On top of this I had the plan of 2012, a champagne glass, and a bunch of rhinestones but I obviously never got to it..

One last picture just to show you all the pretty colors in this polish!
So, what did you end up doing on new years? Did you have a polish plan like me?