Clouds in My Coffee with Nail Art!

About a month ago, I managed to purchase myself a mystery gift bag from Llarowe. Contained within this mystery bag of polishes was Pretty and Polished Clouds in My Coffee. I remember wanting this polish when it first came out. SO happy it was in that bag!

Clouds in My Coffee is a gorgeous light brown mocha with various sizes of glitter in a few different shades of blue. It's such a gorgeous combination! Shown is 3 coats with HK Girl topcoat.

I wore it like this for a day and a half, and decided to do a little something extra to it! What better way than to keep with the theme of clouds and do the cloud technique! I used Zoya Breezi and Skylar to make it happen! I love this combination!

 I got quite a few ooohs and ahhs while meeting with wedding vendors this weekend. That always makes a gal happy!

Thanks for reading!
-Amanda

Julep Rose and e.l.f. Dream Maker

I broke down and got a Feburary Mystery Box from Julep. I got 6 really nice polishes and a lip gloss out of the deal. One of these polishes drew my attention right away. Julep Rose. It's an orange based red that in the right light, sort of takes on a bright watermelon color. It makes me think of sour gum and that makes me happy.

For my birthday last month, my sister gave me an e.l.f. polish called Dream Maker and I thought it would be the perfect topper for Rose. All pictures show 3 coats of Julep Rose with 1 coat e.l.f. Dream Maker with topcoat.

 direct sunlight

  direct sunlight

 direct sunlight

shade

Thanks for reading!

-Amanda

Let it Snow! Challenge #5 New Year's Theme

Happy New Year to you all!!! (says the blogger that is a day late to the show)

Now, this manicure appeared differently in my mind than how it translated on the nail. Let me explain before you jump ahead and check it out.

The end of 2012 was a time of chaos and tremendous stress for me and my family. My grandparents were both injured and in the hospital (my grandma still is) and on top of that I had to deal with school related things. Now, as I look forward to 2013, I am hopeful. This is the year I marry my best friend (May 18th is on its way! Holy matrimony!!) and it's also the year I finally leave home. Big changes are coming!

When I think about the theme of "New Year" I think of a time of new beginnings. What better way to symbolize that than a clean slate. So, with that in mind, I began my manicure with the most nude color in my stash- Orly Kiss the Bride. Man oh man this isn't the best nude color for me and the quality of this polish is lacking. Very streaky but it did the job.

Another thing I think about in regard to New Year's is celebration so I added an amazing glitter polish (Lex Cosmetics Arcoiris) on top of Kiss the Bride to symbolize confetti and the act of celebrating. It didn't look quite right so I grabbed my new bottle of Zoya Bethany (a sheer french manicure nude) and applied one coat to each nail. It created a milky glittery pastel creation! It looks like something an Indie polish maker would create! I personally love it but it doesn't really scream HAPPY NEW YEAR! as much as it whispers Happy Easter! But it's alright. It'll do.

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading!
-Amanda

Autumn Fever?

Hi all! I'm back! I'm so sorry for my absence! I've still been doing my nails, but not with any artwork on them, and really nothing worth showing. Life has been busy and my last bit of grad school is starting up next week. Along with that is my internship! 600 hours of working with elementary and junior high school counselors! I'm nervous and excited all at the same time.

I've been in such an Autumn mood lately. The last few days have been cooler around here and I'm finding that I cannot wait for my favorite season! Since today has proven that summer is certainly still with us (it's hot  here!) I decided to pull out some Autumn colors and put them on my nails instead!
Nothing fancy today, folks, but I hope you like it just the same.

I used one coat of Smoke and Ashes from the China Glaze Hunger Games Collection and one coat of Electrify from the same collection over that. I sealed it all with one coat of Hong Kong Girl topcoat (good stuff!).

No idea how there's so much rogue glitter on my hands, but oh well!

Thanks for reading!
-Amanda

Flip Flop Typewriter Keys

Hi all! Sorry I've been so quiet lately. My summer classes are all coming to an end and I had 2 huge research papers, a presentation, and 2 power points due....Needless to say, I've been busy and I'm burnt out! So, I needed to remedy my fatigue with a nice new manicure!

I received my Pahlish order last week and one of the 2 polishes I bought is Typewriter Keys. Love this one! It's a clear based glitter polish with at least 2 different types of shredded glitter, iridescent glitters, and some micro ones thrown in too! I love this type of polish.

I knew I wanted a bright base color. I loved how China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy looked on me for my Summer Ombre (you can see it HERE), so I used it for a full manicure. Below pictures have 3 coats Flip Flop Fantasy, 1 coat Typewriter Keys, and top coat.

Thanks for reading!!
-Amanda

Elixir Lacquers- With a K

I love this polish! Oh. my. goodness! To me, it doesn't match the picture on the Elixir Lacquers website, nor does it really match the description, but it's completely alright because it's gorgeous!
The description from Elixir Lacquers website says:
"Silver and electric violet holographic micro glitter with violet prismatic hexagon glitter, suspended in a violet jelly base."

To me, on my nail, in the bottle, and in the pictures below, this polish is pink. Not purple, not violet. Maybe it might lean toward a mauve, but it's more in the pink family than anything else. There is scattered holographic glitter throughout which adds this amazing sparkle to the polish. Then, there are bigger chunks of holographic glitter. I can't decide if these chunks are hex or more of a shredded glitter. Maybe more of a mix of both? Eh, it's amazing. I'll stop rambling. These pictures are 3 coats With a K with one coat Seche Vite. 

 Direct Sunlight

 Direct sunlight

 Direct sunlight

 Shade

 Macro

Shade

I love the sparkle of this polish in the sunlight! My absolute favorite part of this polish, though, would be the larger chunks of glitter. That really makes for an interesting mix!

Hope you enjoyed!

-Amanda

Ocean Potion and Sprouse

Today, I have two amazing polishes for you to see! I decided they needed to be layered and I adore the results! First up, I applied two coats of Enchanted Polish Ocean Potion and stepped out into the sunshine and let my fingers glow!

I just love the random glitter piece I have on my middle finger up there ^. 

Such a gorgeous polish!! But you know me, I need more! So I grabbed my trusty Candeo Colors Sprouse....as an aside, things were very amiss with my bottle of Sprouse. I used it one other time HERE...but when I grabbed it today, so much of it was gone!! It was like the clear base evaporated or something...and when I pulled out the brush, it was all shriveled and gross. I shook it all, thinking that might help- it sort of did, but the formula was definitely not the same. I sent Candeo Colors a message about this so we'll see what happens. It was so sad! I LOVE this polish! Yet, I will say, the thicker formula really helped me get more on the nail! It was a little gloopy, but yeah...

Thanks for reading!

-Amanda

Pretty and Polished's Sand Art with Neon Green Base!

I love matte glitter. I really do! Well, I love ALL glitter, but we're only talking matte glitter for this post. I used Pretty & Polished's Sand Art in a previous post, but I wanted to give it a full manicure opportunity!
Not much else to say except I used 2 coats of Color Club Twiggie as the base and 2 coats of Sand Art! Summer fun manicure for sure!

Hope you enjoyed!

-Amanda

More Rainbow Honey Frenching!

Well, before I went wedding dress shopping the other day (for those who missed it IN MY LAST POST, my first time out wedding dress shopping was my last time! I got my dress on the first visit!) I wanted to have a light and fun manicure. I chose Rainbow Honey's Pinkie Promise and Elixir Lacquers' Bad Kitty.

Let me tell you, these polishes are meant for one another! I love how light and eye catching this one is! Before I show you, I just need to apologize for the tip wear in the pictures. I wasn't able to take a picture before this.

It's like I have jewels on my nail tips!!!

Macro of Pinkie Promise

Rainbow Honey can be found HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Elixir Lacquers can be found HERE, and HERE.

This manicure design seems to have a bit of a bridal feel to it. What do you think?

Thanks for reading,

-Amanda

Mint and Magic Manicure

I had such a hard time deciding on which of the Rainbow Honey polishes to use first!! I'm telling you- they are all beyond gorgeous and look even better than I thought they would! One way or another, I picked The Element of Magic- a lovely purple based polish with tons of gorgeous glitters packed on in there! There are even some holo specks!! I think that is exactly what gives this polish its "element of magic" <-- Eh? See what I did there?!

I wanted to try something a little different with this manicure. A variation of a funky french. I looked through my stash to find the perfect color to offset my new polish! I love the way purple and green look together, so I went with Ulta Mint Condition as my base color. I applied 2 coats. Next, I took The Element of Magic and began my work on the nail tips. I brought the polish down further on one side of the nail and left everything uneven, for a modified drippy nail. I went with 2 coats of The Element of Magic just to give it a deeper coverage.

Artificial Light

Direct Sunlight

Macro of goodness!!!

I'm super bummed that I'll have to take this off tomorrow. I worked today and my nails chipped so bad! Nothing to do with the polish- just me being careless!

I can't wait to try out the other colors! This one was amazing and I found myself staring wide eyed in awe as I applied it to the nail. Super easy application and my lamp was catching the glitter in such an amazing way. I feel these pictures don't even do the polish justice!

Rainbow Honey can be found HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Thanks for reading!

-Amanda

Rainbow Honey Equestria Collection

My Rainbow Honey pre-order came this past weekend!!
The lighting was horrible, and I forgot to take a picture of the full collection OUT of the boxes, but I still need to share this now!
I am BLOWN AWAY by the beauty of the packaging!!! Best I have ever seen!

Look at these awesome boxes!! These are the full Equestria Collection. All made and named after My Little Pony ponies!

Just trying to catch the little details! The boxes are sealed with cute silver hearts!!

I love how the names are on the tops of the bottles. This is going to make it so much easier to find the one I want to use when it's in storage!

For those that ordered the full collection, 2 mini secret polishes were added to the order!!! Rainbow Honey recently unveiled them on the Facebook page, so I'm safe in showing these!

I'll be showing one of the full sized polishes- The Element of Magic- in action in my next post. 

Rainbow Honey can be found HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Thanks for reading!

-Amanda

All That Glitters- The Jean Genie

So, remember that giveaway I won back in March? (Click to see when I received the bottles)
Remember when I swatched half of my prize? (Click to see the swatches)
Well...I finally did #3 of the 4 polishes I received!
Today I have for you The Jean Genie by All That Glitters.
This glitter polish GLEAMS! It reminds me of ice. This polish is a silvery blue with oodles of glitter in it. It was easy to apply- no digging for glitter! I could have stopped at 2 coats, but it was still a little sheer for my taste.
This is 3 coats Jean Genie, 1 coat Gelous, and 1 coat Seche Vite.

Do you see how metalic/ shimmery this polish is!?

*Above picture is color enhanced so as to better view the glitter details*

To purchase this polish, or any of All That Glitters' polishes, click HERE.
Be sure to like the All That Glitters HERE.

I hope you enjoyed!
Thanks for reading!

-Amanda