Destash Sale!

This has been inevitable for months now.  My nail polish stash has finally reached its breaking point, so I'm selling off some of my underappreciated stash!  Please note that there are no flaws with these polishes (save for some separation in a few of them, which can be fixed).  And I'm not hating on any of these polishes or brands.  In fact, I'm selling these off because I recognize that they're too pretty to be stuck in my Helmer, getting passed over for my other shades!  It's just that I either never reach for these shades, or I have another bottle or two of a very similar color by a different (or the same) brand, or some combination of the two.

Some are lightly used (LU) - one full manicure or 4-nail swatch; some are barely used (BU) - used in nail art or Do I Need Them All but never fully swatched; and some are like new never used (LNNU).  (I say "like new" instead of "brand new" because most of these have been sitting in my stash for a while and I feel weird saying that they're "brand new.")

Note to indie makers: if you feel that I am doing your business a disservice by reselling your polish at these prices, please contact me!  I don't want to offend any of you, because I truly love you all. 

$6 Polishes

Finger Lickin' Lacquer Rockin' Robin: LNNU
Philly Loves Lacquer Wooder Ice: LNNU

Zoya Sage: LNNU
China Glaze Don't Be Foiled: LNNU
Jamberry Ruby: LNNU

$5 Polishes

Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat Fuzz-Sea: LU
Sally Hansen Big Smoky Top Coat Smoky: BU
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Trouble Maker: LU

Zoya Frida: LU
Zoya Mikka: BU
Essie Style Cartel: LU

OPI Pineapples Have Peelings Too: LU
ORLY Saturated: BU
ORLY Hook Up: BU

Virago Varnish Faith Hope Courage: LU (some separation has occurred)
Firecracker Lacquer Purple Peep-le Eater: BU
Smoky Mtn Lacquers Eggstra Special: BU
6 Harts Polish Blue Eyed Bunny: BU

Finger Paints First Edition: BU
Finger Paints Monet Money: BU
Finger Paints Magritte's Masterpiece: BU

China Glaze Ingrid: BU
China Glaze Flying Dragon: LU
Julep Elle: LU

$4 Polishes

Sweet Heart Polish Peach Cobbler: LNNU
Zoya Anais: LNNU
Jior Couture Seeing Is Believing: LU

$3 Polishes

CDB Lacquer Passionate: LU
CDB Lacquer Everyone's a Star: LNNU
Gothic Gala Lacquers Pretty in Peep: LNNU
Live Life Polished (I'm not 100% sure if that's the right brand) Blue Moon: LNNU
ULTA Aubergine Queen: BNNU

Amelia Knight Color Couture Gold Glitter: LU
Amelia Knight Color Couture Coral Creme: BU
Amelia Knight Color Couture Silver Metallic: BU
Amelia Knight Color Couture Purple Metallic: LU
Pop-arazzi Lime-ousine Ride: LNNU

Covergirl Glosstini Pyro Pink: BU
Covergirl Glosstini Flamed Out: LU

As a special, I'm offering my nail polish cozies at a reduced price with every bottle of polish that you purchase!  Standard size cozies are regularly $5, Long cozies are regularly $6, and Mini cozies are regularly $4.  But if you're buying from my stash sale, then you can get Standard/Long cozies for $3 and Minis for only $2!  Polish cozies are a great way to help protect your pretties in the mail; they're also adorable when giving polish as a gift!  Colors will be random but I promise that they'll be pretty.  You can order up to one special-priced cozy per bottle of polish that you order; if you'd like to order extra cozies, they'll be regular priced.  (Large sized cozies are not applicable to the special pricing as none of the polishes that I am selling require a large cozy.)

Shipping charges & payment

Shipping costs $4 for up to 4 bottles.  Add one dollar per bottle above that.  So if you order 3 bottles, shipping will be $4; if you order 8 bottles, shipping will be $8.  Orders of $50 or higher will receive free shipping.  I will ship USPS First Class, which includes a tracking number.  If you wish to add insurance, signature confirmation, or any other USPS add-on, you will be responsible for the additional cost.  These prices are for United States postage ONLY.  If you are international, shipping charges are likely to be quite high but they can be arranged.

Payment will be done through PayPal.  After you fill out the form below, I will calculate your total and send you a PayPal Friends and Family request.  There is no fee for this if you use your bank account directly (rather than a credit/debit card)!  Please allow up to 24 hours for a request to be sent as I am a human who can't just hit refresh all day. :)  If your total is not what you expected, feel free to contact me before paying and we'll figure it out.

I will do my best to check the form responses quickly and make sure to update this post with the polishes that have been sold.  In the event that multiple people request the same polish before I get a chance to update the post, I will solely go on a first-come, first-serve basis according to the time stamps on the Google Forms response.  I will NOT allow bidding on any of the polishes, nor will I play favorites to anybody.

If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at katenailingit@gmail.com.

Okay, I think that covers everything.  Fill out the form below, and share this post with anyone you think might be interested in buying off some of my stash!

October nail art challenge day 28: Monsters

Well, here we are.  The second to last theme of this year's Halloween nail art challenge.  Today's theme is monsters, and I cooked up a lot of them on my nails!

 

Once again, I had to use the dreaded flash because the deep green of Frankenstein's monster wouldn't show up without it.

My nails house a mummy, Frankenstein's monster, a witch, and a vampire.

On the opposite hand, I painted something that abstractly represents each creature - except for the mummy, for which I couldn't think of anything else to represent.  So I painted the Bride of Frankenstein['s mosnter], some stitches to represent the monster himself, witch-y colored stripes, and dripping blood.  (Sadly, the purple that I used didn't show up very well at the top of my ring finger - nor did the drips show up very well on top of the purple metallic background.  Oh well!)

On my thumbs, I painted a werewolf on the left and a full moon (sort of) on the right.

I used a whole bunch of different polishes for this look, and once again it's much easier if I just list them rather than describe which polish I used where.

Salon Perfect: Sugar Cube, Oil Slick, Loopy Lime, Escape to Neverland, A Royal Affair, and Traffic Cone
Zoya: Ziv, Nyssa, and Ana
Finger Paints: Monet Money and Ch-art-coal Black
OPI My Dogsled is a Hybrid
China Glaze Intelligence, Integrity & Courage
Heather's Hues Vampirette
Creative Cuticles Nail Polish O Negative Please
Sally Hansen Big Smoky Topcoat

I want to point out the awesomeness that is the vampire's skin color.  I applied a coat of Vampirette, thinking that I would do a smaller vampire face on a purple background, but then decided against that.  And I didn't want to bother with removing the polish and starting over from basecoat, so I put a coat of Ana on top of the purple.  It turned out to be a sort of grayish-purple skin color, perfect for the skin of the undead!

Other than the witch-y stripes and the dripping blood, which I made using vinyls from KB Shimmer and Nails Redesigned, respectively, all of these monsters were made totally freehand.  It took forever but it was a lot of fun!

All that's left in this month's challenge is nails to match my costume.  My options are limited because of limited nail polish technology in the 1920s, but I'm pretty excited for my costume!  We're going to be having some relatives over for the weekend of Halloween, so I might not have that blog post ready until the Monday after Halloween, but you'll definitely get to see my design for my flapper costume!

What are you dressing up as for Halloween this year?  Do you plan on painting your nails to match?  Let me know in the comments!

October nail art challenge Day 19: Pumpkins

Oh boy, was I ever excited for this theme!  Partly because of the awesome water decals that I have, and partly because I finally found a good rusty orange, my pumpkin mani is totally en pointe.

OPI It's a Piazza Cake is my favorite orange nail polish ever.  It's such a realistic pumpkin orange!  For the white backgrounds, I turned to my favorite white, Salon Perfect Sugar Cube.  And the green stem and vines on my middle finger is Finger Paints Monet Money.

I originally wanted to use the pumpkin string decals as a French tip border, and I considered either doing orange nails with white tips or vice-versa, but I decided against that when I tested it out on a piece of paper.  A dual-layer string of pumpkins still looked great to me!

The only thing I wish I could have done differently about this design is to make it glow in the dark.  Just imagine how great it would be if the jack-o-lantern faces could glow out at you, just like a real jack-o-lantern!  But the only glow in the dark polish I have is Dr. Franken-sparkle, which you saw in my ghosts mani, and that wouldn't really work for a pumpkin face.  Maybe I need to find a clear glow in the dark top coat...

Anyway, here's the challenge image as always!  Which design are you most excited for?  I still need to research how to do my nails as a historically accurate flapper...

October nail art challenge Day 16: Graveyard

Today's theme was another decal-heavy design, thanks to the awesome decals I got from Naildrobe!  I don't know what I would have done with this design if I didn't have the decals.  It definitely would have taken several hours!

Apparently I have a small cut on my middle finger.  I can't even see it in person!  I wonder how that got there.

As I've done before, the background is Salon Perfect Sugar Cube topped with Sally Hansen Big Smoky Topcoat.  Somehow I love that look so much more than a gray polish - I think it looks so much creepier!  I topped everything off with a matte topcoat to give it a slightly spookier, more natural look.

That ding in the polish came from trying to pinch an air bubble out from under the decal when I laid it down. 

I decided to add some grass to some of my nails, for a little bit more depth.  I did that by painting on Finger Paints Monet Money using the dry brush technique.  (I applied my coat of Big Smoky after doing the green on these nails, to make the grass a bit darker.)  Sadly, the green made the gravestones pretty hard to see, but overall I really love this design!

As always, here's the challenge image!  I'm very much looking forward to pumpkins in a few days.  And I really, really need to research how to do my nails for my costume!  I'm going as a historically accurate flapper, and nail polish as an industry and a technology wasn't very advanced back then.  Which of the remaining themes are you most excited for?  Have you been participating in this challenge?  Let me know in the comments!

October nail art challenge Day 10: Trick or Treat - plus #mavenmeetup!

What is the number one most important part about trick or treating?  Candy!!!!!

There are all kinds of candies on my nails for today's theme.  You've got Skittles, candy corn, Reese's Pieces, M&Ms, Nerds, and (attempted) Twizzlers.

Then, on my thumbs, I have a house (is it haunted? is it the house all the kids avoid while trick or treating because it's just too scary? or is it the coolest house on the block because the owners go all out for Halloween? who knows!) and a dark tree in front of a mist-covered moon.  Because nothing says trick or treating like the creepy house down the street and a full moon in a misty sky!

The house, tree, and candy corns are water slide decals from Naildrobe.  I used Julep Bunny as a background for every nail, with a coat of Sally Hansen Big Smoky Topcoat on my thumbs for a darker look.

I used a whole bunch of polish for the candies:
Zoya Tilda (green)
Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips (red)
Finger Paints First Edition (purple)
Zoya Darcy (yellow)
OPI How Great Is Your Dane? (Reese's brown)
Zoya Nyssa (M&Ms brown)
Sally Hansen Orange Zest (orange)
Finger Paints Margritte's Masterpiece (blue)
Essie Strut Your Stuff (bright blue)
Sally Girl Peace (neon green)
Sally Girl Crazy (neon orange)
China Glaze I Brake For Colour (pink)

And to seal it all in, I used a super-thick coat of Out the Door to avoid streak marks, then Zoya's matte top coat - because candy is more matte than glossy.

Today's challenge is yet another one that forced me to really think outside the box and get creative - and, most importantly, trust in my nail art skills.  I'm having so much fun with this year's Halloween challenge; possibly even more fun than last year!

 

Here's the challenge image for you - I really hope you'll join in on the fun, even though it's already the 10th.  This challenge has been a lot of fun for me so far, and there are some really fun themes coming up!

This past Thursday, Jane Park, CEO of Julep, hosted a meetup for Julep Mavens right here in Washington, DC!  I only heard about it like three days beforehand.  We met at the W Hotel in DC for drinks, sneak peeks at November's new polishes (hint: they're AWESOME), and sneak peeks at some other amazing beauty products coming out in the next few months.  I'm honestly not sure if I'm allowed to talk about them, but they're awesome, too!  I don't usually get excited about non-polish beauty products, but what Julep has in store for us is great.

The ladies swatching the new polishes - yes, we got to open them up and play with them!  Wee!

Jane also chatted with us for a while, and she told us about her family's history in Korea and her own history with starting the company.  It was tons of fun, and it was so nice to meet the CEO of a company in such a laid-back, casual setting!  Jane is incredibly sweet and down-to-earth.  

We got to ask Jane questions about polish maintenance, how Julep polishes are conceptualized and created, and all sorts of other polish- and beauty-related tips and tricks. 

I wish the lighting was better in there!  We're so grain-y!

I really hope that there will be more Maven Meetups in the future - both in DC and all over the country!  This was a really really fun night.

ALL the Christmas Nail Arts!!!

I spent a lot of time this month NOT painting my nails.  But there were TONS of Christmas-themed nail art designs that I wanted to try out, so I decided to do ALL of them on my nails at once! :D

I used ALL the colors for this, and rather than describe them in order of appearance, I'll just list them all at the bottom of this post (which is going to be pretty photo-heavy).

Here's my left hand:

And my left thumb, because I was too proud of it to only show it at the horrible angle above:

 

I took inspiration from a few different sources for this nail art.  The Christmas tree and Santa coat are from this awesome nail art compliation off of FabArtDIY.com.  The Santa corset was inspired by Instagram user arita888.

On my right hand:

Okay, this did not go as I had planned.  The Santa hat (also inspired by the FabArtDIY list) turned out awesome, but my cable knit sweaters... Not so much.  I got the idea from this image, and found this YouTube tutorial on how to do it with gel polish.  What I actually used was 3D fabric paint on top of one coat of normal polish, then one coat of polish on top of that.  I think the technique was good, but the execution was ah... less than good.  It ended up looking far less delicate and much more messy than I'd been hoping.

And then, since I used my glue basecoat, my pointer finger design ended up falling off very quickly.  So I redid it with a different pattern:

This one turned out messy too, because I'm not so great at stamping.  It was perfect in my head: red, green, and silver snowflakes stamped over white and then matte-d for wrapping paper, and then a very sparkly purple ribbon.  The overall design was inspired by Instagram user anas_manis.

By the way - do you recognize the pattern on my left ring finger?  Like, REALLY recognize it?  I did that same design on my nails last Christmas!  Here's the original, complete with my super-short, pre-Biotin nails:

I loved this design so much that I decided to redo it this year.  It's a simple enough design that there isn't too much obvious skill improvement between the years, but it's always nice to have a visual reminder of how much nicer my nails are now. :)

Aaaand I absolutely adore my tiny little Christmas tree, so I decided to show off my nails in front of it. :D

 

This nail art took me a whomping three and a half hours and 18 nail polishes.  WOW.  But it was tons of fun, and I watched such Christmas classics as The Muppets Christmas Carol and American Horror Story while doing this! ;) 

Sigh.  My right thumb, middle, AND ring finger nail designs all fell off too, so I had to redo them!  I liked the Santa hat so much that I kept that design, but I decided against redoing the sweater designs and instead chose two more Christmasy patterns: a Santa face and a penguin!

 

 The Santa face turned out pretty nicely, though his eyes smeared a little when I put on my top coat.  And sorry about my messy cuticles - I was too excited to take these last two pictures to bother waiting until my cuticles were clean!

This penguin...  Poor little guy.  His right eye was a little bit lopsided, so I tried to even it out by making it a little bigger.  But instead, my hand slipped and now he's a mutant penguin with two and a half eyes.  I can't stop laughing every time I look at him. :) :(

Which design is your favorite?  Is there another Christmas/winter design that you love doing?  Let me know in the comments!  And Merry Christmas Eve :D 

As promised, here's a list of everything that I used for this:
Zoya Trixie
China Glaze Innocence
China Glaze White on White
Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips
Sally Hansen White striper
Twisted Colors All Spruced Up
Zoya Nyssa
Zoya Ziv
OPI How Great Is Your Dane
OPI An Affair In Red Square
Essie Bikini So Teeny
Nicole by OPI Heavenly Angel
Heather's Hues Santa Baby
Finger Paints Ch-Art-Coal Black
China Glaze Fairy Dust
Spoiled by Wet n Wild Green to be Heard
Julep Bunny
Zoya Haven

Zoya Posh

Nina Ultra Pro Black

Finger Paints Master Muse
Cheeky Beauty Jumbo Plate 10
Scribbles 3D Fabric Paint in White
ULTA Sweet&Shimmer studs

Birthday Nails!

Happy birthday to me!
Happy birthday to me!
Happy birthday dear Kate,
Happy birthday to me!

:D

I know I'm on hiatus, but I prepared this post early because I wanted to share my birthday nails with you on my birthday!

I spent an embarrassing amount of time deciding what to do for my birthday nails, even testing color schemes out on paper and on fake nails.  But I wanted my birthday nails to be super special awesome as this is my first birthday since starting blogging!

I snuck in a turkey on my right hand because tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I won't have time to redo my nails.  But also because Thanksgiving has always fallen on or near my birthday, so it's kind of a part of my birthday.

I used a bunch of different colors for this look.  The blue background is Zoya Robyn, and the gold background is Zoya Ziv.  (You'll see a full swatch and review of Ziv in a few weeks!)  The glitter gradient is Twisted Colors Alas, Earwax on top of China Glaze Fairy Dust, while the glittery "23" is Formula X Free Fall.  (I'll probably also do a swatch of that one fairly soon, too!)  The numbers stand out a lot more in person, but because everything is so sparkly and shiny, on camera it doesn't stand out much from that Fairy Dust.

My birthday cupcake is made up of many colors: Zoya Nyssa, China Glaze Ingrid and Sunset Sail for the wrapper; ALIQUID Lacquer Wolverine Loves Spartan for the frosting/sprinkles; and Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips for the cherry.

The turkey is OPI How Great Is Your Dane, and his feathers are Nyssa, Red My Lips, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, and Finger Paints Master Muse.

Okay, back to my hiatus.  I'm spending the day with my sister and nephew, and in the evening we're having dinner at Mongolian Barbeque with the rest of my family!

Also, don't forget to enter my birthday giveaway!  It's continuing for another two weeks!

LPL Glamghouls Day 20: Spiders and Spiderwebs

Today's challenge theme isn't one I was super excited about, but it ended up being a lot of fun!

I decided to be a bit simpler than with previous challenges, and do roughly the same thing on every nail.  Five different styles of pattern just takes way too long, even for this out-of-work blogger.  But I spiced it up by using a few different colors for my background.  I considered doing a gradient background, but decided that I was too lazy even for that.

So, I used my three favorite Halloweeny colors: PS I Enjoy Acid Pops by Twisted Colors, Ablaze by ORLY, and Hot Tropics by ORLY.  I've used these three in several of the Glamghouls challenges now.  They're all just so bright and fun!

I got a little bit confused on my first three spiderwebs, but definitely didn't feel like starting over, so I just went with it.  Then I watched a few different YouTubers paint on their spiderwebs and realized that I was drawing my curved lines backwards!  I started out using my white Sally Hansen striping poilsh, but it was a bit too gloppy for the small curved lines, so I switched to my white Sally Hansen nail art pen.

Obligatory "my thumbs look cute but don't photograph well with my other fingers" shot

My spiders are also a bit sloppy... I think their bodies are too small for their eight legs.  I started out using my black Sally Hansen nail art pen on my left thumb, but sadly the ink inside just doesn't stay thick - it all ends up pooling somewhere and it gets way too sheer.  So I switched to using my black striping polish, which is a little harder to control in such small detail.  So don't mind my wibbly, lopsided, chunky-legged spiders!

 

There are only four challenges left this month!  Which one are you most looking forward to?  Let me know in the comments!  I'm excited for candy corn and matching my costume!

LPL Glamghouls Day 16: Witches

All right, I missed day 13, which was bats.  I had some business things to attend to during the day, and I also had an important networking event in the evening.  And I didn't think to paint the designs the day before - I was busy swatching the We'll Take the Lot collection that day.  Anyway, nevermind all that, because today is...

 

Witches day!  Holy crap, these designs took forEVER.  At least three hours.  There's just so much going on here!

At first I thought I'd do the same designs on both hands, like I have previously during this challenge.  But when my left hand started taking for-freaking-ever, I decided to just do plain socks on my right hand.

I used a kajillion different polishes to do all of this, and as before I gathered inspiration from a plethora of different YouTubers.

 

Those darned thumbs are just too hard to photograph with my other fingers! 

My left thumb was inspired by PackAPunchPolish, and I used Nina Ultra Pro "Black," Zoya "Malia," Zoya "Mitzi," and Sally Girl "Crazy."

The cauldron on my pointer finger was inspired by part of HotPinkZebraPolish's video.  I used Sally Hansen CSM "Trouble Maker" for the background, Finger Paints "Ch-Art-Coal Black" for the cauldron, ORLY "Ablaze" for the fire, and a combination of Sally Hansen "Peace" and Spoiled by Wet n' Wild "Show Me the Money" for the potion bubbles.

The witch face on my middle finger comes from IHaveaCupcake's Halloween monsters video.  Her face is Sephora "Caipi Freeze," her hair is Finger Paints "Monet Money," the buckle on her hat is Zoya "Ziv," the hat stripe is Ch-Art-Coal Black, and her hat is ORLY "Hot Tropics."

I LOVE the bubbly potion on my ring finger, which I borrowed from ArcadiaNailArt.  The background is a mix of Malia, Trouble Maker, and Zoya "Nyssa" - I wanted a murky purple like in the video, but I think I just ended up with a slightly lighter version of Trouble Maker.  The potion bubbles are Twisted Colors "PS I Enjoy Acid Pops" with a thin coat of Show Me The Money on top.

My pinky is pretty simple - a broom, inspired by the same HotPinkZebraPolish video - though I think she did a much better job of it.  By the time I got to my pinky, I was beginning to get impatient with this nail art and I just wanted to be done.  The background is Ablaze, while the broom is made up of Nyssa, OPI "How Great Is Your Dane," and a few stripes of Ch-Art-Coal Black.

My right hand is a lot more simple - just some solid-colored witch socks and shoes.  I still really like them!  From thumb to pinky, I used Spoiled by Wet n'Wild "Green to be Heard," Malia, Mitzi, Crazy, and China Glaze "Happy Go Lucky."  I actually painted all of these colors on top of Black, because originally I thought I'd do striped socks on my right hand - but then I decided that it'd still take way too long.  The shoes are all Ch-Art-Coal Black, and the buckles are all Ziv.

What do you think?  What's your favorite design that I used?  Let me know in the comments!

And as usual, here's the challenge image for you!