31DC2014: Day 31

Today is the final day for the 31 Day Challenge! OMG, I am always so happy when today rolls around. I get super excited to do a nice manicure and leave it on for an entire week. Actually, I think I'll leave this manicure on for an entire week.
The final theme is one of my favorites - Honor Nails You Love!

Usually by the end of the challenge, my fellow challenge participant and bestie Sarah of Chalkboard Nails will do something so amazing I feel the need to instantly put it on my nails. Cue her dripping chevron manicure. I didn't get to do it instantly, but I did get to do it today!

Tada! UGH I'm so in love with these. Totally patting myself on the back for the effort I put into these to finish the challenge strong. Also do you like my strategically placed ring to cover my worsening booboo?

I switched up the colors from Sarah's original look to make it more me. Basically I can't stop using these colors so therefore can't stop won't stop the sunsational manis.
Here's what I used:
Color Club - Wicker Park (the lightest pink, used as a base and left peeking out for some stripes)
Color Club - Peppermint Fusion (brighter pink)
China Glaze - Too Yacht To Handle (blue)
China Glaze - That's Shore Bright (purple)
OPI - Golden Waves (This color is one of the weird mystery OPI shades that have been popping up at Winners or TJ Maxx, etc, that are legit OPI but not from any OPI collection, thus they are mostly renamed exclusives from other stores or rebottled Nicole shades, yadda yadda. This one is lovely.)
I did a coat of Seche Vite first and then added a coat of Butter London's matte topcoat which I found today of course after using a failure of a matte topcoat yesterday. Sarah adores matte everything and I think I might be a convert now also.

UNF I love these soooooo much. Maybe I'll just never take them off. (If that were possible.)

Thank you so much to those of you who have been following me along this journey once again! And congrats to those of you who've completed it as well.
Stay tuned tomorrow for the round up post where me and blogger will have our annual fight about photo alignment and then call it a day on the challenge for another year.

Now take a walk down memory lane and check out my previous day 31 designs:

• 2013: Sunsational Mix'n'Match
• 2012: Glitter Leopard
• 2011: Half Moon Leopard

31DC2014: Day 18

Here's a fun fact about me: I am afraid of the moon. It creeps me out!!
However, I am not afraid of today's theme - Half Moon Mani!

Sometimes I feel like challenging myself and today was one of those times. I saw Pink & Polished's take on today's prompt and the outline looked so coool, and it reminded me of those hot swimsuits and bras that are like pastel colors with black trim. So I decided to go for that look!

I started with China Glaze - Lotus Begin as my base color. It was a bit difficult to deal with and kinda runny. It needed three coats for coverage which didn't make me happy but it did dry quick.
I used a small detail brush to do the outlines with black acrylic paint. It took a lot of patience and a steady hand but I am really pleased with how I did!

What do you guys think?
Now take a walk down memory lane and check out my previous day 18 designs:

• 2013: Glitter Moons
• 2012: Girly Moons
• 2011: Moons For Audrey

31DC2014: Day 6

Hey everyone! Today's theme is violet and it's one of my favorite days of the challenge because I just love everything purple. I put together two great purples and added a cute new stamp!

The gradient is OPI - Do You Lilac It and OPI - Funky Dunkey.
The stamp is from Sugar Bubbles plate SB 020, stamped with Konad White.
I used China Glaze - Fairy Dust for some added sparkle. (Anyone else find their Fairy Dust has gotten unusually gloopy? I feel like I've barely used mine and it needed a lot of shaking to be usable.)

I am lovinggg this diamond stamp, and the plate has a couple more great ones too. Definitely going to do another diamond mani or two in the future!

Now take a walk down memory lane and check out my previous Day 6 purples:

• 2013: Warning
• 2012: Let's Go Crazy
• 2011: Dannii

copycat polka dots

Sometimes my bestie Chalkboard Nails will post a mani and I'm like "BRB doing it now." That happened recently when she posted these awesome jelly gradient polka dot nails!
I hunted for a dupe for the blue she used, pulled out the same purple, and away I went!

I love how it turned out! And it's ridiculously easy to do gradients with jelly polishes. You just keep layering it to build color towards the tip. Once you add topcoat, it's practically seamless. I've previously done it a whole bunch of times including here with a little tutorial, and here and also here.

The blue base is Color Club - Bright Night.
The purple jelly is the appropriately named China Glaze - Are You Jelly?
My go-to white for stuff like this is Color Club - French Tip. 

My stupid camera is giving me mad grief lately and I couldn't get it to really take a warm enough photo (and I don't have Photoshop on this computer) but the above photo from my iPhone shows the colors much more accurately! The jewel tones really go great together and the polka dot pop makes it even better.

Do you often see a picture of a manicure and feel the intense burning desire to create it instantly? Let me know which manicures had you running to grab your polishes and start a masterpiece!

OPI - Do You Lilac It?

Yo. Just found another random purple OPI swatch not unlike my last post! Lighter this time.

OPI - Do You Lilac It?
Yes, OPI, I do lilac it. Very much. This is once again a very popular OPI polish and a lot of people have this one in their stash. However, I only got it pretty recently. Actually I think I got this one and Funky Dunkey together at Winners... Random purple score?
Anyway, you can see that I wasn't being careful with the application and there are some patchy areas but I bet that two coats would be perfect if you were paying more attention. Ha!

Purple love for dayssssss!

OPI - Funky Dunkey

Hi! While searching for some things to schedule for this month, I found a random swatch of a cult-favorite OPI polish that I picked up somewhat recently. I have no idea what took me so long to get it!

OPI - Funky Dunkey
This is a straight up purple creme. Perfect OPI formula, and such a fun color. This is one of those OPI shades that everyone should have in their arsenal! 

I can't remember wearing this, though... I must not have had it on for long! I will need to try it again soon. Dat purple tho!

Maybelline Brocade Collection - Lavishly Lilac

Hola! Remember I'm Feeling Sashy from yesterday? Here's how I wore it!

Maybelline - Lavishly Lilac
I added two accent nails in this beautiful glitter from Maybelline's Brocade Collection. It only needed two coats for full coverage on top of my purple base, but you may need three on a bare nail.

The glitters in this collection are really different, with blends of different glitters and shimmers, creating a really unique look. Don't you love it when you see a new polish in a display and can honestly say you don't already own something like it? I actually bought three of them... Haha.

I also added a quick gradient to my thumb to complete the look. I just did the gradient with the polish brush - making sure there was very little on the brush to blend the glitter down onto the base.

Don't these polishes go well together?

Did you pick up any of the Brocade glitters? At only 3 or 4 bucks a piece, they're pretty hard to resist! I'm itching to wear the green one now... I think I will go put it on!

OPI - I'm Feeling Sashy

Hey everyone! Before I start this post I wanna take a moment to mention the changes happening to Facebook for pages. You probably have seen people mentioning this already: Facebook is going to be showing posts from pages like mine to less and less people. For example, I have 8.5k "likes," but in recent weeks only around 300 people get to see any posts I make. That's a tiny amount! Scrolling back a few months, 2,000 people were seeing every post.
A Facebook spokesperson said, “the best way to get your stuff seen if you’re a business is to pay for it.” Frankly, I am not paying Facebook to share posts that I create and share for free.

This means you may not receive my content anymore in your news feed. If you want to be sure you get my updates, head over and try to interact with my page! Like something, comment on something, post something. If you interact, you should be able to keep seeing posts from me.

If you wanna be even more positive that you'll get my updates, why not subscribe via email? The box to sign up is in my side bar.
You can also follow me on Twitter. I don't use it much, but as of today I'm gonna be sure to post all new blog posts on there, in case some readers prefer to catch up with me that way.
And if you wanna interact with me even more, you can check out my Instagram! I love me some IG.

And now let's see some polish!

OPI - I'm Feeling Sashy
This is a nice dusty purple polish from the Miss Universe 2013 collection. Originally I passed on this color, but then a few people said it reminded them of Parlez-Vous OPI? and then immediately I wanted it because I love that color so much. They're not quite the same, but... Hold on, maybe I should do a comparison. Lemme go do that...

Tada! It's been a while since I did one of these!
Parlez-Vous OPI? is the more gray of the two shades, and it also has a better formula than I'm Feeling Sashy, which can be a bit patchy if you aren't careful. I think they look more similar in the bottle than they do on the nail.

Verdict? If you are looking to soothe your desire for PVOPI, I don't think this will cut it. But it is a really nice shade on its own!
In my next post I'll be showing the mani I wore with this polish! Hint: it involves glitter.

The Lacquer Legion: Adoration

Hello and welcome to the second Lacquer Legion monthly manicure! Social media is already blowin' up with fantastic manis from all you lovely people, and now I'm here to throw in my design.

I had originally planned to do a look inspired by my new Jeffrey Campbell Litas... But my nail art spikes did not arrive in time! So it was back to the drawing board.

What else do I adore? Crochet... Hockey...Cupcakes... Urban Decay... WAIT. 
"Self, why have you not done UD nails before?!"
Now's the time. 

Tada! I'm sure you UD junkies like me already know where this look came from.

Considering I am totally in love with my Vice 2 palette (both the product and the packaging,) obviously it needed to go on my nails.

I started this manicure with a base of none other than Urban Decay - Vice. Yes, the polish matches the palette.
To get the Vice look, I used the watercolor technique, which I have a tutorial for here. Instead of using a big brush to get a very watery look, I used a small one to make it a bit more distressed looking.

I wanted to include some more UD polishes in the design, so I dug out my Rollergirl Nail Kit from the beginnings of my UD addiction, and used the pink shades to start the watercolor:
Urban Decay - Woodstock
Urban Decay - Miss T

Even though the look is overall dark purple, using lighter shades of purple plus a red and a blue really brought the look together. Here's what I used, in order:
China Glaze - That's Shore Bright
OPI - Do You Lilac It?
OPI - Paint My Moji-toes Red
China Glaze -  Sky High-Top

I finished off my ring finger with two tear-shaped rhinestones to mimic the bejeweled UD logo on Vice 2.

And then I got even more adventurous. I painted the Urban Decay logo on my thumb! Totally freehand. Sometimes I'm boss.

I am so so so ridiculously pleased with how these turned out. Already the Lacquer Legion has pushed me to create what I think is one of my best designs ever! That's totally what this nail art initiative was meant for.
BRB, gonna share these nails all over Urban Decay's social media in hopes they might see it and I can have a fangirl moment.

________________________________

Have you done a Lacquer Legion manicure yet? It's not too late! Be sure to tag your posts on social media with #LLadoration so we can see them! And share 'em on our Facebook page.

OPI - Baby Please Come Home

Hey everyone! If you're reading this on a blog reader you might not have noticed, but I have a new blog layout! And I am pretty darn fond of it. Yet another step into the new year of blogging for me!

Another thing to note - OMG I hate the winter and I never leaving my house again! If you're in Canada or the parts of the US suffering from this storm you probably know all about it. So much snow... And so little electricity. We lost it for most of yesterday and we froze our butts off. And now they keep shutting it off to different places periodically throughout the day to "conserve" the power so we don't blow it all again. I feel like I am living in the dark ages! HA! Energy conservation? What is that?! iPad, iPhone, laptop, camera, charge charge charge!
I think we are in for a loooong, hard winter.

Today while I've got some power I decided to post about another Liquid Sand from OPI.

OPI - Baby Please Come Home
This is another polish from the Mariah Carey holiday collection from OPI which was a giant collection with 12 shades plus 6 Liquid Sands and a special white gold/silver flake topcoat. 
I've picked up my fair share of products from the collection and I will definitely be posting about all the sands because that's how I do.

It's hard to tell from my photos but this has a bit of a lilac hue to it, and can look really purple in certain lights.

I think I photographed this late at night so the purple wasn't coming out to play, and just the rich gunmetal tones. It looks gorgeous either way. I really like wearing this one because it's not neutral but it isn't crazy either. Feels a little luxurious.

Not to mention how cool the metallic + textured finish is. It's so sparkly and reflective that you almost forget that it is matte! All of these Liquid Sand releases were huge hits for me!
Also check out my swatch of Kiss Me At Midnight, with more to come soon.

Urban Decay - Vice

Hey guys! Today I'm going to be posting about one of Urban Decay's new relaunched nail polishes!
A couple of months ago they released two shades and then two more have come out for the holidays. So far I own three... I gotta get that last one but I have spent so much money on UD in the last few months, I need a break! (Plus it ain't on Sephora...)



Aren't these the most badass bottles you've ever seen? I'm in love! They're the kind of bottle that does not hide away in my drawers of polish, and they get to sit on a shelf and look purdy! Not to mention the beautiful polish within them.

Urban Decay - Vice is a deep dark purple with multi-tonal shimmer showing sides of pink or blue depending on the way you look at it. The formula is dreamy, needing just two coats to look nice and smooth and rich. 

The bottles are so detailed, it feels like they really put a lot of effort into creating this product and I just love seeing that from a brand. That's one of the reasons I am so obsessed with everything by Urban Decay - you can just tell they love creating their products and spend a lot of time making them perfect.

I legit think I should work for Urban Decay. Dreamssssssss.

I am an Urban Decay hoarder and I am not sorry! Do you own any of these beauties?
I'll be posting the other two that I have in the near future to keep up my new-year-new-posts attitude! Hehe!

31DC2013 - day 30

It's the final day of September, the second last day of the 31 Day Challenge.
Bittersweet, isn't it? Doing the challenge is always fun because I enjoy challenging myself and also seeing what others come up with based on the same prompts, but at the same time it is a big hassle!
Also I am sad that September is ending because that means my birthday month is over and I can no longer use it as an excuse... "I've been too busy to clean my room, it was my birthday."

Today's theme is Inspired by a Tutorial. I wasn't sure what to do so I hopped on YouTube and did the first one that caught my eye.
I've always been meaning to try out the Cartoon Nails from Cute Polish, originally by Nancy Mc Nails I believe. What better time than now?

I'm in love with the look! I could wear this forever, it is just too cute.
The last time I wore an outlined nail I did not like it at all, but this I dig.

They look cute with my "&" ring, no? (From Forever 21. Of course.)

You may have seen this photo on my Instagram already. Loved it, so I'm posting it here too! Haha.

I used what seems to be my go-to color, China Glaze - That's Shore Bright. I use it all the time.
The black was done with an It's So Easy striper.
The white is Sally Hansen - Whirlwind White with a small brush.
For the matte finish I added a coat of Butter London Matte Finish Topcoat.

I also tried it glossy by adding some Seche Vite on top, but I'm not sure which one I like better.

Hooray! Just one day left. Hope you guys liked these nails, and see you tomorrow for the finale!

31DC2013 - day 26

OMG it is Day 26 of the 31 Day Challenge and I am even doing this post before 11pm at night! I must have had a lot of free time today... Not really. But enough to get this done before the last minute!

The theme for today is Inspired By A Pattern and I decided to do a manicure I have been meaning to do for a long time...

A LEOPARD MANI TO MATCH MY HAIR BRUSH OH YEAH.

I am stupid obsessed with my hair brush. Not only is it beautiful but I just love how it feels. It doesn't rip my hair out and the little balls on the tips of the bristles are actually part of the bristle and don't break off and turn your brush into a scratchy weapon of scalp death.
I love my brush so much I bought backups. Yeah. I got 99 problems and a hairbrush ain't one.
I got mine at Winners and Ross, so check those types of stores for them if you want one.

If the people at Ionika are reading this post I would totally accept free hair brushes as a perk for this kind advertisement. LOL.

(I also have a mini hair straightener from them which I got at Marshall's for only TEN DOLLARS and it is totally awesome too and dual voltage so you can take it to Europe without electrocuting yourself.)

Maybe I should moonlight as a hair blogger, too.  

Back to the nails for a second, I went on a throwback and broke out an old favorite Sally Hansen from when I just started blogging. (Hey it is Thursday! Throwback Thursday! #TBT!)

The base is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure - Trouble Maker.

The leopard was done with Sally Hansen X-treme Wear - Lacey Lilac and some black polish with a dotting tool. 

FIVE MORE DAYS LET'S DO THIS GUYS.

31DC2013 - day 19

Hey everyone! Today's theme for the 31 Day Challenge is a fun one! Galaxy Nails!

I chose to do a pastel galaxy again because I think they are just soooo pretty and dainty.

Isn't it out of this world? Bad pun.

I started this manicure with a light pink-nude base, OPI - Steady As She Rose, to allow the various shimmers I sponged on top to stand out.
I don't know if this is all of the ones I used, but here's what I can remember:
China Glaze - Shaken Not Stirred
China Glaze - Martini Pedicure
China Glaze - Grape Juice 
OPI - You're Such A Budapest
OPI - Pedal Faster Suzi
OPI - Give Me The Moon!

Using white acrylic paint I added some stars to enhance the galaxy effect.

AND I ADDED A UNICORN. Yes. Yes I did. A unicorn galaxy.
It's from Mash plate Mash-39.

I lurveeeeeee this manicure. I actually had this done before I went away because I just tried to get as much done as I could.
And I'm glad because again I had practically no time today... But I have tomorrow off!

I hope you guys like these as much as I do!

31DC2013 - day 15

Hellooooo! I'm sheduling posts like a monster! The 31 Day Challenge rolls on.
Today is the third day of Riot Fest and I am depressed that I will be leaving Chicago soon.
I wonder how much crap I have bought this far... 

The 15th day of the challenge is Delicate Print.

This. Is. So. Cute.

I started with a base of the purple polish from Essie's Naughty Nauticals collection, Essie - Full Steam Ahead.

The stamping was done with China Glaze - That's Shore Bright, my fave neon purple. The formula is nice and opaque so you can stamp with it!
The image is from the Cheeky Gals Fairy Set, plate GA-36.

Essie has lots of purples like this but hey, it's cute. 

I'm so pumped about these nails! Do you guys like them? One more post to schedule and I'll be home...