St. Patrick's Day nail art

Happy St. Patrick's Day, all!

I have a bit of a smorgasbord of nail polish on my nails today.  Last year, I won a great six-piece collection of nail polish from Salon Perfect and Manicurator.  It arrived on St. Paddy's Day last year, and I was a bit too busy to do a themed mani and have it up on the blog before the day ended.  I've used some of the solid colors in various other manicures since then, but I haven't yet used the special glitter toppers that I got!  (The glitters were limited edition, and are no longer available, so I have not included links for them like I usually do.)

 

Also, a few weeks ago, I purchased some nail polish from Swatcher, Polish Ranger in her destash sale.  Courtney was kind enough to throw in a bonus polish - Fiona by Daily Hues Nail Lacquer.  The shade of green is perfect for today, so I added that to my mani, too!

I was really impressed with Luck of the Irish.  The glitter density on the brush matched the density in the bottle!  I have two coats on top of Loopy Lime on my pointer finger, and only one coat on top of Gold Leaf on my ring finger.

Sadly, the glitter application of Sham-Rock Your Socks Off was not as smooth as with Luck of the Irish.  I actually have three coats on my pinkie finger!  Based on how much glitter is in the bottle, I was expecting one coat to look like what I ended up with.  And I fished for the glitters quite a bit, too.

Fiona is holographic, but it's been an annoyingly cloudy week, so I wasn't able to get any sunlight shots of it.  I'm so tired of all of these clouds!  Sheesh!  I guess this week's weather is better than last week's freak heat wave, though.  (It was over 80 degrees last Thursday! eurgh!)

This was a pretty simple mani, only taking me about half an hour from base coat to top coat.  I like manicures like that!  Spending two hours or more on intricate nail art is only fun for me about once a month. :)

What are your nails sham-rocking for St. Patrick's Day?  Let me know in the comments!

St. Patrick's Day Giveaway!

I decided to take a peek at the nail polish when I was grocery shopping over the weekend, and when I saw the limited edition St. Patrick's Day glitter by Sinful Colors, I thought, hey, it's been a while since I had a giveaway!  So I decided to host this quick little giveaway.  Hopefully, the prizes will get to the winner in time for St. Patrick's Day!

San Fransisco

This one is just such a beautiful emerald green that I thought it needed to be included with the special glitter.

The formula is quite thin - I have three coats on my nails, and you can see that it's still a tiny bit sheer!  For full opacity, I'd recommend layering it on top of a solid creme.  (Black or a matching shade of green would probably look best!)

It photographed surprisingly horribly.  Under my lamps, it actually showed up blue!  This photo is much more color accurate, and I was standing in indirect sunlight.  For the photos under Feelin' Lucky, I was under my lamps and I had to edit the colors as best as I could.

Feelin' Lucky 

Feelin' Lucky is a really fun glitter topper.  Sadly, the shamrock glitters that you see so many of in the bottle are nearly impossible to get onto the nail.  It probably took me a good 5 minutes of fishing just to pick out the 5 glitters for this mani!  That's a bit disappointing.  But the other types of glitter are much easier to get on the nail, and they're still fun and St. Patrick's themed.

From left to right, I have it on top of San Fransisco twice, Salon Perfect Loopy Lime, and Salon perfect Sugar Cube.  The small green glitters show up much better on top of a lighter color!  Personally, I like it best on top of Loopy Lime - the bright green has a faint shimmer to it, so it adds to the fun effect of the glitter.

The glitters are quite spread-y, so during application it's best to dab the glitters on, rather than spread the brush across the nail.  This one showed up on my camera much more accurately than San Francisco did!

 

As a little bonus, each polish in the giveaway will come with a cozy crocheted by Kate's Crochets, which is unsurprisingly my crochet shop!  I have a lot of fun making these because they only take about ten seconds.  Okay no, not really, but they are quick and fun for me!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway Rules 

As in the past, I'm running this giveaway through Rafflecopter.  Enter through the widget above!

1. Prize is only available to residents of the United States.

2. Giveaway opens on Wednesday, March 9 at 12:01 am EST and ends Sunday, March 13 at 11:59 pm EST.  Winners will be contacted by 12:00 pm on March 14.  Once contacted, the winner will have 36 hours to respond and claim their prize or I will be forced to draw another winner.

3. No following and then unfollowing immediately after the giveaway ends.  Unfollowers will be noted and banned from future giveaways. 

4. Any posts for giveaway entries must be made public.  Private posts/accounts will not be able to be verified and therefore will be disqualified.

5.  The only entries required in order to be eligible to win are entering your location and e-mail.  All other entries, including re-posting images and visiting/following pages, are optional. 

6. Please be kind!  Anyone stirring up drama or being rude (to me or to other contestants) will be disqualified.

7. This giveaway is entirely sponsored by me, Kate of Kate's Nailing It and Kate's Crochets.  It has not been sponsored or endorsed by Sinful Colors or any of the platforms it is shared on (including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+).

As always, have fun with the giveaway and good luck!