Hey guys! Valentine's Day may be over, but I wanted to share my look for the romantic weekend with all of you.
Looking through my Jamberry collection, I found the very pink wraps that I won last year in Jamberry's Mother's Day giveaway. They're much more pink and frilly than I like for my everyday style, but they're totally perfect for Valentine's Day, so I decided to use two of them!
Thus far, every time I've donned Jamberries I've had to remove them within a day. Despite my best efforts I always end up with ripples at my nail tips AND at my cuticles. Ugh. But then one of my friends showed me the baseball method! Cutting a tiny notch out of the side (or two sides, if your nails are suuuuper curved) allows the wrap to actually lay flat on my nail. It only took about an extra 30 seconds per wrap and it allowed me to don the wraps for a few days until I was ready to redo my nails!
This was also the first time I tried out the cloud mani. It was super easy - although deciding what order I should arrange the colors in took a while thanks to my indecisiveness. ;) The darker purple at my cuticles is Zoya Demi, the lightest shade in the middle is Zoya Rue, and the medium rosy pink at my nail tips is Zoya Kate. (Yay Kate!)
I didn't think to make a tutorial for this, so here's a link to the one that I followed to achieve this look. Some day, I will remember that I bought a tripod for my phone so I can take videos of my nail art!
Derek and I went out to dinner on Saturday night to our favorite Mexican place, and we spent Sunday watching Netflix and playing games. (I may or may not have played Sims 3 for a couple of hours.) What did you do for Valentine's Day? More importantly, what did you put on your nails for the holiday? Let me know in the comments!
I was super in to Hello Kitty when I was a kid. I had a pretty decent collection - pencils, a cute little set of rainbow erasers, tiny sticker books whose stickers I never wanted to take out, the GameBoy Color game, and even a fairly nice matching pen/pencil set that came in a tin case. It's been years since I've seen any of this, but I seem to recall having a little Hello Kitty basket to store everything in.
So when I heard recently that OPI was coming out with a Hello Kitty collection, I was totally stoked! I knew I'd have to snag a few of the polishes in order to honor my little past self. At a recent trip to ULTA, I was disappointed to see that they didn't have the entire collection, just two different boxed sets. One set had minis of several of the colors, but being regular colors like blue, red, yellow, and black, I wasn't too impressed. My polish collection, as you know, has grown to such a size that I need to really feel that I need a polish in order to buy it. The other set had a pink creme and a pink glitter, and it came with a Hello Kitty coin purse. Naturally, this is the one that I decided to go with.
Look At My Bow!
Look At My Bow is an adorably delicate shade of pink. It's a perfectly Barbie-girlie-Hello-Kitty-feminine-so-sweet-it's-almost-disgusting shade of pink, really. Its formula is a little on the thin side, not quite watery, but thin enough that cuticle pooling is a hazard. Two coats is mostly opaque, but I could still see a tiny bit of my VNL. I almost wanted to add a third layer, but I swatched this one while my friend Allison was visiting me and she assured me that it was fine.
Starry-Eyed for Dear Daniel
I honestly have no idea what the name of this polish refers to. I was a huge HK fan, but I didn't really get in to her friends as much. Nor did I care to learn much about her creator/s. So, if anyone knows who Daniel is, please let me know!
This glitter is really fabulous. It applies as smoothly as a creme - the glitters don't smear or cling or stick at all! Its coverage is also very nice. I have one coat of the glitter on top of Look at my Bow, and as you can see the base of the glitter is tinted a slightly different shade of pink. I'm really impressed with the glitter coverage in just one coat!
Allison helped me with the Kitty on my middle finger. I used Salon Perfect Sugar Cube to make Kitty's face, but I was nervous about the stability of my hand so Allison did the rest of Kitty's details. The black is Finger Paints Ch-ART-coal Black, and the yellow for her nose is Zoya Darcy. And I fished a bow glitter out of Ellagee Fancy Mister Waddlebutt. Those bows sure have come in handy for nail art!
The coin purse that came with the two polishes is really cute! It's almost big enough to be a clutch, or at least a wallet. And as you can see, especially in the photo above, the glitter on Kitty's bow matches Dear Daniel super well!
I'm definitely glad that I bought these two polishes. I'd like to own the other glitter in this collection, Charmmy & Sugar, as well, but sadly I haven't been able to find it anywhere!
What is your favorite polish from this collection? Who else was a huge Hello Kitty fan as a kid (and/or remains one now)? Let me know in the comments!
I was super busy over the holidays! Derek's parents came to visit us in mid-December, and we went to the Poconos for a week. They were with us for the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve, as were Derek's brother and his girlfriend. Six of us in one apartment sure was crowded, especially for a whole week! Derek's parents stayed with us until halfway through the first week of January. And then two days later, Derek and I headed out for Jamaica for his former roommate's wedding! It. was. incredible. We stayed at the Half Moon Resort in Montego Bay, and it was absolutely paradise. A week after we got back, my best friend since 8th grade came to visit us for a few days! So, basically, I was in vacation mode from mid-December to mid-January. It was a lot of fun but honestly kind of exhausting - I'm really happy to be back on my regular schedule.
Despite all of the awesome things I did throughout the month, I still had time to do my nails several times, plus Maddie's and Allison's. Rather than spread everything out over the course of several posts, I figured I would just dump the month's nail art into one post. Get ready, there are a LOT of pictures ahead!
First up is my first Christmas-themed manicure, which I did in the first week of December (I think. it's been a while.) I used Zoya's Naked system to clean up the color of my nails and brighten my white tips, then painted on stripes using Spoiled by Wet n'Wild Show Me the Money, OPI Wocka Wocka, and OPI My Voice is a Little Norse.
This look was inspired by Juli of Juli's Nails and Co. Her original post can be found here. I loved her design so much that I had to recreate it using Christmas colors!
Right before we left for the Poconos, I once again recreated my favorite winter wonderland scene. Only this time, I used a different color for the background: Julep Margaret. The white is Salon Perfect Sugar Cube, and the glitter flakes are once again Nicole by OPI Heavenly Angel. I also threw a coat of Nicole by OPI Confetti Fun on my middle finger, because more glitter = more fun!
Since we were in the Poconos for a whole week, I of course wanted to redo my nails. We were planning on going to see the new Star Wars movie while we were there, so I did a sort of abstract representation of the Force: Dark Side/Light Side. For this look, I used Gothic Gala Lacquers The Search For Spock, Sally Hansen CSM Hi Ho Silver, and China Glaze Fairy Dust.
I kept the Force look on for as long as possible, but sadly we didn't end up going to see the movie. On Christmas Eve, I did both my nails and Maddie's for Christmas!
My middle finger nail was inspired by one of the Christmas ornaments that I made! I used Sugar Cube as a background and topped it with Twisted Colors Elf Vomit and some Fairy Dust. I also used Gothic Gala Make It So and It's Green, Sir.
The overall idea for this look was vaguely inspired by an old mani made by 3girlsnails on Instagram. I actually can't find a link to the original post because I can't find 3girlsnails anymore! I've had a screenshot of her mani on my phone since last May, and this user must have changed her IG handle or something. If anybody knows what she calls herself now (or if she has disappeared from the nail art community), please let me know!
Maddie wanted a very similar look for Christmas, although she didn't want the glitter accent. I used the same colors on her as I did for my own Christmas nails - after all, I only had a small assortment of polishes with me on vacation! One difference I made for Maddie was that I used a thin layer of CDB Lacquer Spirited underneath the red and green to make the holographic features of the colors pop a little better.
Maddie and James have a pretty big group of friends who live quite close to us near DC, so we all went to party with them on New Year's Eve! I wanted to have another chance to wear my gorgeous flapper dress that I won from Unique Vintage, so I asked Maddie to glam it up with me. Only this time, I did my makeup and nails in a more modern fashion!
I went for a glitzy gray-to-blue metallic gradient on my nails. The blue is actually a thermal nail polish, but I think because of the gradient you couldn't really tell. Either that, or because it's winter my nails were just constantly super cold ;) I sponged CDB Lacquer Angelic Demon and He Sees All on top of Zoya Ryan. The two CDB Lacquers are from the Apocalypse Averted collection, which I own in its entirety and will eventually get around to swatching! And because I was feeling glitzy, I put two little star studs on my pointer and ring finger nails.
The main reason we didn't get around to seeing The Force Awakens is because Maddie had never seen the original movies, and she wanted to see them first. We did manage to watch the three films over the course of the two weeks that we spent together, but unfortunately we didn't see Episode VI until their last day with us. So after they left, Derek and I FINALLY got to go see the new one together! (I solemnly swear to see the next two episodes on opening weekend. Waiting three weeks to see this one was agony for me!)
I of course wore my Han Solo dress from Hot Topic. And I figured that if Han Solo was a girl (Hanna Solo?), she would totally paint her nails to match her favorite outfit. So I did just that!
I was quite proud of the vests I painted on my thumbs. :3
Naturally, I did paint my nails to match my dress that I wore for the wedding in Jamaica, but I didn't take any pictures of the look. It was a very simple mani - Zoya Zuza with an accent nail of China Glaze I Brake For Colour. Since I've swatched both of those polishes on the blog already, I didn't really feel like taking photos of it for the blog.
Allison's nails were something new for me! Her nails are usually very short, but she got some acrylic tips put on right before she came to visit us. I've never painted acrylics before, nor such pointy stilettos! There were a lot of exciting things I would have liked to do, but Allison prefers a more simple look, so we went with a black and silver French manicure using Oil Slick and Hi Ho Silver.
I like interlacing fingers with someone when I do our nails together:
Ugh, please ignore the giant ugly cut on my knuckle. There will be more details on my pink nails next week!
What do you think of all of this nail art? Which look is your favorite? What kinds of holiday designs did you wear during the holidays?
Okay, so even though I used a whole bunch of water decals back in October for the Halloween nail art challenge, the first time I actually used any decals was way back over the summer. I just found this post in my archives and figured I'd come back from my long, holiday hiatus with this bright spring-y look! Don't worry, I'll show you all of my Christmas and New Year's Eve looks soon - probably next week.
My cousin got me a whole bunch of nail art supplies for Christmas in 2014. For months, all of those awesome things sat around waiting to be used. I did play with the water decals a little bit a while back, but it was highly experimental and did not yield a blog-worthy mani. So I finally decided to put them on the blog!
I really enjoy picking out nail polishes that match a certain item - a particular dress, a pair of pajama pants, a tissue box, or a nail decal. In this case, I went with (from thumb to pinky) Zoya Demetria, Sinful Colors Why Not?, Pop-Arazzi Lime-ousine Ride, and Virago Varnish Faith Hope Courage. I have Zoya's Naked system on my ring finger to even out my nail tone and brighten my white tips.
I took this second photo on my phone at a really well-lit store just to show my Mom, but I was really impressed with how shiny the lights made my nails look!
This was a really simple and fun mani! In the future, I would totally take the time to use a decal on more than one nail - but this was actually kind of rushed because I started working on it a little bit too late for my schedule that day. Applying the decals was really easy, though, and I don't see myself losing patience while trying to use more than one!
I did learn two things about water decals: One, they are not like temporary tattoos. You don't place the design face down on your nail and then peel the paper off; you have to peel the design off of the paper and place it on your nail. Using it like a temporary tattoo will give you a solid white decal. And Two, decals are not like stickers. Once you peel a decal off of the paper, you either have to put it on your nail or throw it away. You can't stick it back on the paper, re-wet it later, and peel it off again. I hope you guys can learn from my mistakes so you don't end up wasting two decals! :) The brand for these decals is pretty vague - I tried Googling "Nail Accessory," which is on the packaging, and of course that mostly turned up thousands of different types of nail art tools and accessories. I usually like to give you a link to the products that I use, but in this case I just can't find it! The product code on this particular sheet of decals is BLE1518.
What do you think of this design? Have you ever used decals before? What is your favorite type of nail decal? Let me know in the comments!
Okay, I know I've only been blogging for a year and 3 months or so, and I've already gone on two or three hiatuses. That seems like a lot of breaks in such a short amount of time, I know. Most of those hiatuses (except for the one that I took this time last year, which was because I was on vacation for 9 days) have been because I burned out a little; keeping up with a regular schedule of doing my nails and blogging got too exhausting and I needed a break. But this time, I'm taking a break to avoid the burnout, and to make sure I'm only blogging when it's because I want to, not because I need to.
As you may know if you follow me on Facebook, I've started a crochet business. I started out selling to family and friends via a Facebook group, but I'm actually working on opening up a big-girl shop on Big Cartel! I absolutely adore crocheting, and I'm super excited to be able to make money off of such an enjoyable hobby. In the last week, I got four orders from friends - plus I've been neglecting a fifth order for my aunt, which she placed months ago. On top of that, I want to make a Christmas-themed table runner, which I'm hoping to finish before my boyfriend's parents fly in from China in mid-December. And, even though I was super productive and finished making ALL of the Christmas (and Christmastime birthday) presents for my family in Michigan, I still have three gifts to make for the people I'll be spending Christmas with. To be honest, with all of that on my to-do list, I'm a little scared to open up my shop before Christmas! I'm afraid that I simply won't have the time to make anything for anyone else in time, and I certainly don't want to start out my business with frustrated, giftless customers.
So, as you can see, I have a TON of crocheting to do. Some of it has a pre-Christmas deadline, which is fast approaching. With all of that going on, plus my normal life like looking for a full-time job and doing chores and not neglecting my boyfriend, and family staying with us for the entire second half of December, I fear that trying to keep up with blogging will absolutely break me. So in order to prevent that from happening, in order to remember that I do my nails and blog because I like to, I'm going to put a hold on the blog for a few weeks. I might do one or two posts in the coming weeks - I was hoping to do at least one Christmas nail art design like I did last year! - but I almost definitely won't be posting once a week. I might end up skipping December's Do I Need Them All post as well. We'll see.
As with my previous blogging breaks, I'll probably still be active on my various social media accounts! Since Twitter and Instagram are also my personal accounts, you might get to see some of my crochet updates and pics of holiday celebrations. And at the very least, I'll be around on Facebook to keep you in the loop for awesome nail polish sales and giveaways!
I just wanted to let you all know what's going on, because I know how sad it can be when a blogger just stops posting. I will be back some time in January, I'm sure. Hopefully I'll be able to stick to the same schedule that I've been doing since summer!
I want to wish you all Happy Holidays. Whether you celebrate any of them or not, I hope that the next month is filled with joy, happiness, and love.
PS If you're interested in seeing what I crochet, feel free to visit (or join!) my Facebook group. And check out my shop, http://katescrochets.bigcartel.com/! It's now open and I'm even running a giveaway!
Got any nail polishes that you love the look of but never wear and don't want to get rid of? Do you own any Mentality nail polish that you don't feel safe wearing? Or are you like me, and have a ton of polish and want to actually use some of it up? Then I've got a craft that I think you'll enjoy!
I got this idea from Elizabeth of My World Sparkles Lacquers. At first I was a little weary to dump out significant amounts of polish at a time, but then I was like "oh please, look at how many bottles of nail polish you have! Do iiiit." So I bought a 12-pack of small glass ornaments from JoAnn Fabrics (I assume you can find these at most craft stores and pretty much anywhere with a good selection of ornaments) and decked them out!
Elizabeth used much bigger ornaments, so she set hers up on top of open mason jars while they dried. Since the ornaments that I bought are so small (probably about 1.5" in diameter), I propped mine up on top of opened lotion bottles and their caps.
The process was simple, though a bit lengthy:
1. Pour polish into bulb
2. Swirl polish around, coating entire interior
3. Pour out immediate excess (back into polish bottle - no need to waste yet!)
4. Set ornament tilted downwards, so that no polish will drip out, and allow excess to gather
5. Pour out excess polish (at this point, it's probably thickened enough that you won't want to put it back into the bottle. I laid out paper towels and newspaper.)
6. Set ornament upright
7. Repeat steps 4-5 if necessary
8. Set ornament upside down and allow to drip out. (Keep an eye on it, though - I let too much polish drip out of one of them and it ended up less opaque than I wanted it!) Elizabeth put paper towels into her mason jars for this step, but I didn't really want to clean out all of my lotion bottles. What I ended up doing was only dripping out one ornament at a time into an empty water bottle.
9. Add a second coat if necessary, and repeat steps 1-8 (but don't pour the excess back into the bottle in step 3 if you're using a different color!)
When layering different polishes in these, be sure to do it in the opposite order
of painting your nails! Apply glitters/toppers first, then the base
color.
Since I was doing so many of these, I usually started the next ornament after step 3 of the previous one. It was so much fun! My dining room was filled with lots of odd scents between the opened lotion bottles and all of the nail polish! Not exactly the smell I'm used to when decorating for Christmas. :)
Here's a video tutorial of my process:
I'm so excited to hang these on our tree this year! Since we don't have a tree yet (it's in the mail!), I used a bobby pin and my regular light box to take photos of my lovely new ornaments. Pretty crafty, eh?
I actually bought Twilight Twinkles specifically for this craft! I'd hoped that I would use most of it up, but there's still plenty left. These small ornaments probably only use about 1/4-1/3 of a full-sized bottle of polish. If you really want to use up a whole bottle of polish, either get bigger ornaments or do multiple ornaments in the same color!
I was hesitant to use Twisted Colors polishes in these ornaments, because sadly Twisted Colors has closed their shop, possibly forever. But the three Christmas polishes that I got last year are just so perfect for these that I decided to sacrifice some future manis.
I considered adding a white background to this one, but I rather like it clear! Hopefully I can place it strategically in front of a light bulb on the tree so the light can sparkle through.
Okay, I'm going to need to swatch this one soon. It's amAzing. All that density is in only two coats! I'm sure that on the nail, one coat would be almost completely opaque.
Wet n Wild Rockin' Rubies and Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips
Youch, my phone really messed this one up. It's nowhere near this neon red in person - and it's actually quite sparkly! But cameras hate the color red, as I've learned quite well over the past year.
Twisted Colors All Spruced Up and Spoiled by Wet n Wild Green to be Heard
I mean, how could I NOT use this one for an ornament?! It's so perfect!
Wet n Wild Back Alley Deals and Sally Hansen CSM Blue My Mind
This is the one that I accidentally let too much polish drip out of. Oops! I still like it.
Wet n Wild Diamond in the Rough and Hi Ho Silver
The Wet n Wild polish is actually pretty black, but even two coats of it was super sheer in the ornament. I chose to use a silver background because I figured black would be a bit too dark for a Christmas ornament! (As in, literally too dark. Not that I think black is too depressing or whatever.)
Twisted Colors Star of Wonder and Essie Style Cartel
Unghhh. So pretty! It's much darker and more sparkly in person, but as always, dark colors + camera = bleh.
I couldn't decide which of these glitters I'd prefer to use, so I mixed them! I really like the glitter ornaments that I didn't add a background color to. They look like snowglobes!
Wet n Wild 24 Carats
The little flakes don't show up so well in this shot, but this polish has some gorgeous red flakies in it! It's super gorgeous and very Christmasy.
Have you ever done anything like this? What are your favorite Christmas/holiday decorations? Let me know in the comments!
This is my first KB Shimmer nail polish purchase, and I couldn't have chosen a better polish to start with!
I've never owned a true multichrome polish like this one. I seem to recall a weird rose-gold-to-snot-green shift that my Mom had when I was a kid, but the awkward green shift rendered it pretty much unwearable. I guess multichrome technology has gotten better since then - either that, or the color shift effects just work better when the different colors blend together well!
I almost have to wear gloves when I drive with this polish on. It is so hard to take my eyes off of!
Above you can see it has a reddish shift at this angle, and next up it becomes a bit more goldish-red-purple:
See that streak of very very gold near the edges of the bottle? Usually a shift like that doesn't show up on my camera. But this one absolutely does!
WHAT. HOW IS THIS THE SAME POLISH. I promise I didn't get my photos mixed up! This incredible red-copper color is indeed still Pigment of My Imagination. The first three photos were taken under my yellowish lamps and inside my light box (which softens the light and helps reduce glare.) The photo above is directly under the same lamp, without the light box. I found that the more direct the light, the more pronounced the colorshift is.
Direct sunlight makes Pigment of My Imagination lean more blue-purple. But indirect sunlight...
... makes the color lean more towards that reddish-coppery tone, though it's still very purple at the right angle.
This one was taken in the whitest light I have - my bathroom, haha. In whiter light, this polish continues to lean towards the blue end of the purple spectrum, still with a flash of the coppery tones.
I swear, this polish is at least half magic potion! This is another picture taken under my yellowish lamps, without the soft box. It's a completely new shade of purple that we haven't really seen in the other pictures! I seriously couldn't stop taking pictures of this polish. It just shifts so much! I love it!
Formula-wise, Pigment of My Imagination is quite lovely. It's thin, but not watery. The first coat is pretty sheer, but the second coat makes it perfectly opaque.
Although I think my pictures have captured at least most of the different colors in this polish, I think a video does it much better! Feast your eyes (or click here to watch the video on YouTube):
What do you think of this polish? Do you own any multichromes? Did you own any of the unfortunate snot-green multichromes of the late 90s/early 2000s? Let me know in the comments!
By the way - Happy Thanksgiving weekend to my American followers! My birthday is on Thanksgiving this year so I'm going to have an amazing weekend :D What are you doing for the holiday weekend? Let me know in the comments!
