Spring ASBMF Challenge #6: Ombre

This past Sunday, I worked on my ombre for part 6 of the April Showers Brings May Flowers Challenge.  This also happens to be my first ombre ever.  I wasn't sure how I was going to approach this.  I definitely have enough polishes to have been able to pick 5 different shades of a color to do it that way.  But instead of fumbling through my stash, I opted to try the technique of taking one color and then adding white and black to that color to create different shades.  I ended up picking a color that was rather dark to begin with, Orly Lucky Duck, so I decided to forget about the black polish and just used white to make lighter and lighter shades of green for all my nails.

On my pinkie, I used two coats of Lucky Duck by itself.  To create the lighter shade on my ring finger, I put about 5 or 6 drops of Lucky Duck on a paper plate, then I added a drop or two of Wet n Wild White Creme and mixed it up with an orange stick.  I then took a brush from an empty bottle of Seche Vite and applied the polish to my nail.  For each nail after, I just put less and less Lucky Duck on the plate and more of the White Creme to get each nail lighter than the previous nail.  I did one hand at a time but I actually ended up getting the nails on my right hand to match up almost perfectly to the nails on my left hand.  My pinkies were the only nails that I applied more than one coat of polish, since I was using Lucky Duck straight up.  But I used just one pretty thick coat of polish on the rest of my nails, so that I didn't have to keep mixing more polish for each one.  I put it on so thick though that it actually bubbled quite a bit as it dried.  But amen for Seche Vite, because once I applied  a coat of that, all the bubbles completely vanished!

I have to say I'm pretty shocked how much I love this manicure!  I remember when they first became popular, I would see People Magazine posting photos all the time of celebrities sporting ombre manicures.  For some reason though, I just wasn't into it.  If it wasn't for this challenge, I can't even imagine how long it might have been before I would have finally tried one myself.  But having had this manicure on for about 3 days now, I'm kind of obsessed with it.  I keep looking at my fingers and comparing the shades. It's like walking around with one of those Pantone paint swatch cards strapped to your hand.  It's turned me into a bigger nerd than I already was.  I didn't think that was possible, until I found myself standing at the bathroom counter getting ready for work and started noticing that my middle finger matched the color of the sink, my index finger matched the color my soap dish..."I wonder which nail matches the wall color?"  Wow!  Stop Sarah, just stop.  Put your hands in your pockets and walk slowly out of the bathroom!  The point is that even though an ombre manicure is a pretty basic concept, it's far from boring.  

I'll definitely have to try ombres again.  But next up for the ASBMF Challenge is glitter tips!

Check out the other ladies participating in this challenge!

Hannah from Polished Prisms
Amanda from Mandy's Polish
Heidi from DIY Polish & More
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish
Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails
Tess from Football and Fingernails
Karine from Karinea0a
Victoria from Manicurator
Sharon from What Color is My Coat?
Ashley from One Nail To Another
Dani from Rustic Comfort
Sue from Creative Design by Sue
Amanda from Counting Down to Bliss
Kayono from Neues vom Kellerkind
April from Munia's Nails
Sharra from The Blahg
Jess from Nearly Natural Nails
CR from Color Me Silly
T from Mami Blogs
Alyson from Beads. Nails. Food.

Olé Caliente and Connect the Dots

This is just a quick mani I put together Thursday night.  I was getting bored with the rainbow manicure I did for the ASBMF Challenge but didn't feel like messing about with my ombre yet, since I'd never done one.  So I reached for an untried polish that I had recently bought, Essie Olé Caliente.  It was almost a one coater but I ended up using two just to even everything out.  Then I added a layer of Lynnderella Connect the Dots.

I wasn't going to do a post on this but there were two things about this manicure that made me decide to post and they both revolve around the fact that Olé Caliente is super pigmented!  I had Olé Caliente on my nails for almost two hours before I decided to do some layering with Connect the Dots, so it had been dry for a while.  But when I was adding Connect the Dots, the coloring from Olé Caliente started bleeding onto the white glitter and even transferred a little onto the brush, which I then had to clean.  It was much more noticeable in person than in the pictures, but you can definitely see the color smeared over the big white glitter on my index finger and in a couple spots on my middle and ring fingers also.  After I did my left hand, I decided to put some Seche Vite top coat on the nails on my right hand before adding Connect the Dots.  With a layer of top coat over Olé Caliente, I had no problems whatsoever when applying the glitter on my right hand, compared to my left.  Today, when I took this manicure off, there was some staining on my nails but honestly, not as much as I expected.  But the polish did a number on my skin when I was removing it.  My fingers looked like I had dipped them in Kool-Aid!  I think I spent more time cleaning the stains off my hands than I did getting the polish and glitter off my nails.  This still was a great color and formula wise, it was a breeze to work with when applying.  I'll just have to remember to add top coat to it first if I ever try to layer over it again, and to make sure I have extra time available for clean up when it's time to take it off.

Zoya Blogger Collection

So this post is a little overdue.  I received my Zoya Blogger Collection about 9 days ago, but it took me three attempts at pictures over the past week and a half to get the lighting right for these bottle shots to even come close to showing the beauty of these colors.  The Blogger Collection is a collaboration between Zoya and Birchbox, both of which I've mentioned several times on my blog.  I don't remember exactly how long ago it was, but I did participate in voting on the mood boards, created by bloggers, in order to choose the colors for this collection.  When the winners were chosen and the collection came out, I almost didn't order it.  But I quickly realized the colors were all jellies and two out of the three are like nothing I already have.  So then it didn't take long for me to place my order.  The set is $22, which is actually a couple dollars less than what you would normally pay for 3 bottles of Zoya, and Birchbox is offering free shipping on this collection.  Plus, I had some Birchbox points saved up on my account, so when I applied them to my order, it took 10 dollars off and this little set of lovelies became mine for just 12 bucks!

The blogs whose mood boards won are blogs I'm sorry to say I'm not familiar with.  All three blogs are full-on beauty blogs and I tend to lean more towards nail polish specific blogs.  But if you're an avid beauty blog reader, I would be sure to check out the three blogs behind these polish creations.  Coraline is a "warm juicy tangerine" inspired by the mood board designed by Eleventh Gorgeous.  I don't have any true orange jellies, so I'm happy to own this one.  Kate is a "pinkish grapefruit" based on the mood board designed by The Small Things.  This reminds me of a few of the OPI Texas sorbets but I haven't compared them yet.  Regardless, it's a gorgeous color!  And Belle is a "a coppery pink which features microscopic bits of iridescent glitter" created from the mood board designed by Captiol Hill Style.  That's right, it's a jelly with shimmer!  I'm most excited about this one!  Belle is definitely unique compared to any jellies I currently own.

I can't wait to try these out.  I wanted to try them as soon as I got them, but I was in the middle of working on ideas for my Rainbow After the Rain manicure and these didn't fit in with that.  But after I do my ombre for part 6, I'm thinking I might try to incorporate one of these in the glitter tips part of the ASBMF Challenge.

One of the other great things about this set was that once I ordered, I was able to forward a copy of the confirmation email to Zoya and I received 200 points towards my Zoya Share the Love points total.  The Zoya Blogger Collection is still available for purchase through Birchbox but I'm not sure if the Share the Love points are still available for redemption on this collection.  They had posted on Facebook on April 27th, that you had until midnight that night to set up an account with Zoya, if you didn't already have one, in order to redeem the 200 points.

If you're not familiar with the Share the Love Program, it's basically a system where you can get rewarded by Zoya for referring your friends and family to sign up with Zoya.  Speaking of which, if any of you do not already have an account with Zoya, but have been thinking about it, now is a great time to sign up.  If you click on my personal link and set up an online account (click "create an account" at the very top once you follow my link), a coupon for a FREE Bottle of Zoya Nail Polish will automatically be placed in your new account and can be used immediately on a current order.  TIP: If you use this coupon and add 2 more polishes to your order, you get free shipping too!  The coupon will appear in the "My Coupons/ Promos" section of your "My Account" Page.

Spring ASBMF Challenge #5: A Rainbow After the Rain

I was just thinking yesterday about how long my nails were starting to get.  Then I woke up this morning to find a chunk of the nail on my right middle finger missing.  I have no idea how it happened.  I didn't have any cracks or weak spots on that nail.  But there it was staring back at me, the whole corner missing, snapped off cleanly like someone had taken a clipper to it while I was sleeping.  So everything has been trimmed back, which I guess is ok in the long run.  I had a few nails that were taking a path of their own, so trimming them back has made them look straight again.  Then it was time to work on the next part of the ASBMF Challenge and tackle a rainbow design.  After a lot of thought, I decided to do scotch tape rays, à la Chloe's Nails.  I've done scotch tape manicures before but this was the first time I did small rays versus big sections, which would be more like color blocking.

I started out by free handing a rainbow with vertical stripes on my thumbs and middle fingers.

For the rainbow, I used China Glaze Poinsettia (red), Orly Crush On You (orange), Orly Lemonade (yellow), OPI Don't Mess With OPI (green), OPI Ogre-The-Top Blue (blue) and OPI Funky Dunkey (violet/purple).  I didn't really have any polishes that would work well for indigo so I made one on a paper plate by mixing two drops of Ogre-The-Top Blue, one drop of Funky Dunkey and one drop of Wet n Wild Black Creme.  I put a coat of Seche Vite over the rainbows so they would dry faster and I wouldn't have to wait as long to apply the scotch tape.  On the rest of my nails, I used two coats of China Glaze Liquid Leather.  Next I took 4 thin cut strips of scotch tape, which I cut at an angle so one end was skinnier than the other, and applied them to the rainbow nails.

The Scotch brand tape I used has silver and gold stars and squiggle designs on it, so that's the gold and silver blotches you see on the strips above.  Once I had the tape strips on and secure, I went over them with a thicker coat of China Glaze Liquid Leather and then immediately pulled off the strips with tweezers.

I think my right thumb actually came out the best.  I had the thinnest strips of tape on my thumb and they were angled better than on my other nails.  But overall I think the final design came out ok.  Not exactly as I had pictured it in my head but close enough that I'm satisfied with it.

Here's a look at what's up next...

And as usual, be sure to check out the other ladies participating in this challenge, either by heading over to the Facebook page for the challenge or by checking out the bloggers below:

Hannah from Polished Prisms

Amanda from Mandy's Polish

Heidi from DIY Polish & More

Katee from A Girl and Her Polish

Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails

Tess from Football and Fingernails

Karine from Karinea0a

Victoria from Manicurator

Sharon from What Color is My Coat?

Ashley from One Nail To Another

Dani from Rustic Comfort

Sue from Creative Design by Sue

Amanda from Counting Down to Bliss

Kayono from Neues vom Kellerkind

April from Munia's Nails

Sharra from The Blahg

Jess from Nearly Natural Nails

CR from Color Me Silly

T from Mami Blogs

Alyson from Beads. Nails. Food.

Spring ASBMF Challenge #4: April Showers

Back on Sunday, when I posted pictures of my glitter sandwich mattified, one of the things I mentioned was that I finally got around to doing the April Showers part of the April Showers Bring May Flowers Challenge.  Well, it's now 4 days later and I finally got a chance to edit the pictures and put this post together.  I wish I could say that I've been really busy with all sorts of important stuff, but the truth is that I just play way too many games on Facebook!  One of the reasons that I had such a hard time with this part of the challenge was that I had just recently done an April Showers themed manicure back in March.  I originally posted it about it here.  So I was kinda stumped trying to think of something that wasn't too similar to what I had already done.  When I was trying to come up with a design, I started to think about how my absolute favorite thing about rain showers is laying in bed late at night, with the window cracked open just a bit, listening to the rain hit off the blacktop on the street outside.

China Glaze Stone Cold is one of my recent buys that I had yet to try and I thought it would be perfect for representing a paved street.  The gritty matte finish would be perfect to act as blacktop and once top coat was added, I thought it might give the impression of a wet, rain-soaked road. 

I also wanted to do something different for the raindrops than what I had previously done.  That was when I remembered I had bought a set of rhinestone wheels from Bundle Monster back in January and had yet to use any of them.  Looking through the wheels, I came across these blue raindrop/teardrop shaped rhinestones that looked perfect for what I had in mind.  I had a feeling that having these rhinestones on all of my nails would probably drive me nuts pretty quickly, so I settled on just using them for accent nails.  And I decided to reuse the clouds idea from my previous April Showers manicure, but with a bit of a twist.  Rather than having bright white clouds, I had an image in my head of darker, grey storm clouds staggered with white clouds overlapping them.  My only problem was that I didn't have a very good grey polish for stamping.  I couldn't get any greys to show up well over the black polish.  So I decided to reverse my original idea and stamp white clouds first, then overlay grey clouds, so that part of the white clouds would remain intact and other parts would look darker and more stormy.

The clouds design is from Konad plate m79.  For the white clouds, I used Konad Special Polish in white and I used China Glaze Recycle for the grey clouds.  I used one coat of Seche Vite on all the nails with the clouds and two coats on the nails with the rhinestones.  I ended up only wearing this for a few days.  I put it together Sunday night, took pictures Monday and by Tuesday night I was taking it off.  That's not to say that I didn't like it.  But it was the first time I had ever worn rhinestones of any type on my nails and I was not used to my nails feeling bumpy like that.  I kept having the urge to pick at those little buggers and knock them off my nails!  I will just have to be try to get used to having bumpy nails once in a while, especially since I have so many more types of rhinestones in the Bundle Monster set that I want to try some day.  I will say that I was surprised how well they stayed on.  I just used top coat to put them in place and then, as I mentioned, used two coats of Seche Vite over them.  That seemed to be enough top coat to get rid of any edges on the rhinestones that might have gotten caught on something and gotten them ripped off my nails.

Next up...A Rainbow After the Rain.

Be sure to check out some of the other ladies participating in this challenge.

Hannah from Polished Prisms

Amanda from Mandy's Polish

Heidi from DIY Polish & More

Katee from A Girl and Her Polish

Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails

Tess from Football and Fingernails

Karine from Karinea0a

Victoria from Manicurator

Sharon from What Color is My Coat?

Ashley from One Nail To Another

Dani from Rustic Comfort

Sue from Creative Design by Sue

Amanda from Counting Down to Bliss

Kayono from Neues vom Kellerkind

April from Munia's Nails

Sharra from The Blahg

Jess from Nearly Natural Nails

CR from Color Me Silly

T from Mami Blogs

Alyson from Beads. Nails. Food.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

When I received my order from Whimsical Ideas by Pam, it was the most excited I think I have ever been about new polish.  I looked at the bottles and thought, "I need at least one of these on my nails IMMEDIATELY!"  I decided to start with Peanut Butter and Jelly, a purple/raspberry jelly polish packed with gold micro glitter and larger hex glitter.

I wore Peanut Butter and Jelly by itself, three coats total, and I topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite.  There's not really much else that needs to be said, the pictures tell it all.  It's simply a great polish...great color combination and the name is just genius.

I'm so glad I finally bought this polish.  I loved looking at the glitter and how it was layered in between all that jelly polish.  And let's not even discuss how dorky I was acting at work when I realized I was wearing Peanut Butter and Jelly while eating lunch, which was...yup, you guessed it, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!  It took all I had to refrain myself from taking a picture on my cell phone.   Maybe next time...!

Hauls: Essie and Whimsical Ideas by Pam

Back when I was deciding on what to do for the glitter sandwich part of the April Showers Bring May Flowers Challenge, one of the things I kept thinking about was this absolutely beautiful manicure I had seen on The Posh Polish.  Even though I ended up not doing something similar to Jamie's mani for the challenge, I had to go out to get Essie Marshmallow because I knew that one day soon, I would be using Marshmallow in a glitter sandwich.  So somehow an innocent trip to Target, to pick up some needed supplies and look to see if they carried Marshmallow, resulted in me coming home with 5 Essie bottles.  Target had Marshmallow in with their everyday Essie display, so I grabbed a bottle of that.  They also had a special display with the Essie Navigate Her Spring 2012 Collection.  I had seen this collection for quite a while at other stores but kept talking myself out of it.  I must have had a weak moment while at Target though because I ended up buying four out of the six colors.  So besides Essie Marshmallow, I came home that day with A Crewed Interest, Navigate Her, Ole Caliente and Orange, It's Obvious.

Essie Marshmallow in front.  Then (L-R) Essie A Crewed Interest,
Orange, It's Obvious, Ole Caliente and Navigate Her.

The other part of my haul post is from my purchase from Whimsical Idea by Pam.  I had seen a number of Pam's polishes on other blogs and I just couldn't resist any longer.  I sent her an email late one night to let her know what colors I wanted to order and by the morning I had an invoice from her.  Within a day of sending my PayPal payment, I had another email with tracking and two days after it shipped, my order had arrived and I was completely giddy over them all!  I decided on four of Pam's polishes: Hatched, Kismet's Pajamas, Peanut Butter and Jelly, and Seuss.

Other than nail polish, I've not one to be very girly-girl, but if you'll indulge me this one time...aren't these just the cutest bottles ever!!!  I seriously love the little bows on the caps and the pretty handwriting on the bottle labels.  Here are a few shots I took of my new prize possessions as I was opening the package up.

I love the little "thank you" card she put in with the order and, even though I was already familiar with the foil method, I also love the card she included with instructions for removing her glitter polishes.  I think that's a very sweet touch.  And here is the best picture of them all, a shot of the back of the bottles with a view of all that glittery goodness!

Hatched, Kismet's Pajamas, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Seuss

Ordering from Pam is a little unconventional compared to other indy polish brands, but it's super easy!  You can visit her Facebook page to view pictures of all of her polishes.  Once you decide what you want, you just have to email her your order to pea422000@yahoo.com.  Don't forget your shipping information!  You should get an invoice back within a few days with your total and PayPal instructions.  If you use a different email address for your PayPal account than the one you used to email in your order, make sure to let her know so that she can properly match up your payment to the order you placed.