No H8!!

 

Here is my post in support of today.  I am home sick today, and this is not a current manicure, I pulled it from the archives.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the significance of Nov 8th and the purple manicures being posted in honor of it, Amanda from www.amandalandish.com created this message which I fully support:

Bullying is not funny.  It is not cool.  It is not right.  And more importantly, it is not okay.  

Most of us are thankfully residents of countries that support tolerance and many of our families have settled in these places simply for that reason.  Generations later, it is our responsibility to perpetuate that message of tolerance across our new social platforms, including the internet.

As members of the nail polish community, we all share a love of beauty, color, and lacquer.  Other than that, we are remarkably different: from our race to our religion to our hair color and even to our polish application techniques.  To look down on anyone because of those differences is completely unacceptable and today I take a stand against that.  I refuse to allow other people's view of "normal" dictate how I behave, believe, and blog.  

In solidarity with a multitude of bloggers linked below, my purple manicure represents my proud commitment to the No H8 movement.  Today, November 8, I dedicate my post  to ending bullying of any kind and to encouraging diversity and imperfection among our colorful community.

 

This manicure was done with essence a lovely secret as a base, and then Cult Nails Spontaneous sponged over topped and used as an accent on the ring finger, then a coat of NYC Starry Silver Glitter over top.

 Please note that Llarowe will be donating $2.00 of every purple polish sold on her site from 12am Thursday, November 8 through 12am Friday, November 9 to Pacer.org, an organization devoted to anti-bullying education.

If you or someone you know suffers from bullying, there is help.  Please visit the following sites for support and encouragement:

StopBullying.gov
Report Cyber Bullying
National Suicide Prevention Hotline - 800.273.TALK (8255)
Eradicate H8

Fall Inspired Mani ...

Howdy Polish Junkies!!

This was one of those manicures that never seemed satisfactory or finished, and ended up being one huge big fat FAIL!  It started off beautifully with Julep's Jodie and Felicity.  They are gorgeous and I should have just left them be the stars of their own show...have a look for yourself...

  

Jodie is a Berry color with gold shimmer, it is opaque in almost one coat, but I always apply two.  Felicity is a Gold Chrome and also is almost opaque in one coat, however I applied two.  

These colors go very well together, and now looking back at these pictures I should have maybe done some stamping with Jodie over Felicity, but NOPE... I had to ruin it by doing a saran technique (if you have a weak stomach or get squeamish by horrific sights, look away now)...

I thought maybe it might photograph better with the flash on...

But it's still ugly!!  I then tried to cover up the mess with Orly Flash Glam So-Go-Diva, which is a coppery brown chunky glitter which just made everything worse... I won't even offend you all by posting a picture...  it is a great polish and I hope to try it over a Robin's egg blue in the very near future.

Julep makes the best polishes and I should have known better to try and get all fancy with them!  I feel incredibly awful that I created such a mess with these polishes... I should be sent to Maven jail for committing such a horrendous nail polish crime... look at them, they look so innocent and sweet...

If you would like to become a Julep Maven and receive one of their Introductory boxes for a Penny, click HERE and take the quiz to find out what style you are and then and use the code PENNY at check out.  You won't be disappointed!  But if you are, you can cancel your subscription before the 24th day of the following month and not get charged a PENNY more :)  I don't think I have heard of anyone doing so. 

I promise to be back shortly with a much prettier mani.  Tell me about some of your epic fails ... I would love to know I am not alone in this!

Nail'd It Unique's Candy Corn

Well it's getting to that time of year where the furnace kicks in, blankets are brought out from the closet and stew's and soups are simmering on the stove!  In light of the new Season I decided to try and get in the spirit with a fabulous Fall inspired mani.

This is Nail'd It Unique Nail Polish's Candy Corn....

It really looks like Fall on your nails.  It consists of small glitzy copper glitter, white and black matte, larger orange and yellow glitter in shapes of bar, hex and round.  It also has larger white hex glitter and even bigger black dot glitter.  I'll stop talking and let the photos speak for themselves...

I layered Candy Corn over Quo by Orly Coffee & Cream...

This polish was so easy to apply, I didn't have to dig for glitter or try and strategically place it on the nail.  All Nail's It polishes are so amazing, and jam packed full or glitter!  You can keep apprised of all her restocks and shop announcements on her facebook page.

I will be doing more posts featuring more of her polishes... as soon as work slows down a bit.  I am a travel agent and this time of year motivates people to start thinking and planning their winter vacations! Its a great time of year for me, however, the realization of the looming winter that accompanies all the travel bookings isn't so great!  The joys of living in the Great White North!

Have any of you tried polishes by Nail'd It Unique?  If so, which is your favorite?

10 day nail art challenge Part Deux!

Erica's Nails and More's 10 Day Nail Art Challenge flew by!!!  Here are the remaining entries I submitted:

DayFive-Gradients:

I LOVE doing gradients, I do them all the time and I always get tons of compliments on them.  This was done using the paint directly onto the make-up sponge method.  I started with a base coat of Avon nailwear pro in Jade (2 coats) then I painted rows of Avon Jade, Daphne by Julep and Walk on Air by essence onto the sponge and lightly dabbed.  I repeated the process on each nail twice.  Then I topped it all off with NYC Starry Silver Glitter.

 

Day Six-dotticures:

The polishes used for this dotticure are:

Pink-Island Girl's Big Island Magic-its a gorgeous bubble gum pink
Brown-Jessica's Glamorous Gladiator-a medium brown with fine micro gold glitter (a perfect shade for fall)
White-Julep's Kate-my "go to" white shade.

  Day Seven-Flowers:

I used a dotting tool for the flowers, base color is NYC Times Square Tangerine Creme, yellow petals are Joe Fresh in Butter, the center is Jessica Glamorous Gladiator and I sponged Wet n wild Hallucination on the tips for some sparkle.

 Day Eight-Galaxy Nails:

The base is Finger Paints Where Art Renoir?, sponged with Color Club Take Me to Your Chateau and China Glaze Desert Sun. A dotting tool was used with white polish for 'close up' stars, and China Glaze Fairy Dust was strategically placed randomly for the millions of stars in our universe.  

Day Nine-French Tip Variant:

For this french tip variant I decided to honor my Husbands love for the New England Patriots.  I started with a base coat of just base coat and then sponged the tips.  Blue is done with China Glaze Dorothy Who? and then along the very tip I used Cult Nails Living Water.  The red is done with NYC Broadway Burgundy Frost and along the very tip is China Glaze Lubu Heels.  The white accent nail is Julep's Kate (of course) and the awesome glitter is Lacquer Conventions Mondrian. I then topped it all off with China Glaze Fairy Dust.  I know this is sort if in between a gradient and a french tip variant but I wanted to do something non-traditional.

 Day Ten-Recreate your favorite:

All good things must come to an end I suppose.  I decided to re-try a french tip variant for my last submission as I wasn't 100% happy with my original entry.  The polishes I used for this mani are Loreal's French Tip White (I thought it was appropriate), Julep's Daisy and Leah, and essence Walk on Air and Ultimate pink.  This was my first time doing a paint drip manicure.  I hope you like it! 

Erica is having a contest for Day 10 entries, and the one who gets the most votes will win a prize. Voting will start tomorrow, Tuesday September 25 and will be open until this coming Friday September 28th at 11:59PM EST.  The link to vote for my entry is HERE.  I hope you all will help me win!!  

I will most likely re-post the link in a fresh blog post and on my face book page daily.

Do you like entering Nail Art Challenges?  Erica will be hosting another one which I will post about as soon as I have the information.  She did a wonderful job hosting this one... I can't wait to see what she has in store for the next one!

First nail art Challenge Entries!

I have been MIA as of late... working 2 jobs and having the need to change my nails so often really takes a lot of time!  Below are my entries for Erica's Nails and more 10 day nail art challenge.  This is the criteria:





Day 1-Favorite Color 

...is sadly Black but my second is pinky/purple, so this is Quo by Orly Purple Daydream, and wet n wild black creme stamped over Julep's Kate.
 

Day 2-Favorite Animal

...is my dog Jersey, she's a reverse brindle boxer, however, I do not have the skills to create her on my nails so I have chosen my favorite animal print.  This was done with Arabella's Raspberry ice (its a brand a local salon uses and its great)-a rust shimmer, the white is Julep's Kate, and the leopard spots were done with Cult Nails Nevermore and Raspberry Ice. 

 Day 3-Favorite Season...

is the Christmas season, and in my house it runs from the 3rd week in November until the first week of January.  My color theme is red, white and silver...this manicure represents that and the stamped star looks just like my tree topper.  The Red polish is a local Hawaiian brand that I picked up in Honolulu last year called Island Girl and the name is Old Lahaina, and the shimmery/silvery white is CHI Ceramic Nail Lacquer's Snow Angels in Central Park (I needed 4 coats for this color to be opaque. I also added a red rhinestone in the center of the star.

And Today is Day 4-Saran Wrap

This was done with Julep's Leah as a base, 2 coats for opaqueness and then CHI Ceramic Nail Lacquer in Subway to Wall Street, a concrete grey creme color, was brushed on and a scrunched up ball of saran wrap was used in a dabbing method to remove some of the grey so the green shows through.  I love how it looks marbelized (yup, that's a new word I just created :)

 This really has been very fun so far... Everyday I look forward to heading over to Erica's blog to check out all the entries!  Head over there by clicking here, let me know what manicures you like and perhaps are inspired by to try on your own nails!