It's a Major Award!

I'm sorry, I've been a terrible blogger lately!  I haven't posted anything in almost 2 weeks.  I just haven't felt up to it.  The last couple of months have been rough and I've just been in a funk.  I hate using that as an excuse but there it is.  I've been painting my nails but I haven't really been doing any new nail art so I felt like I didn't have much to post about.

HOWEVER, I just got nominated  for an award from 2 lovely ladies! One of them is Melanie from Samples By Entaeyen and the other is Alyssa from Frugal Polish.  Thank you, ladies  I really appreciate it, it motivated me to do this post!

The rules for accepting the award:
Post the rules on your blog.  Name five of your most fabulous moments, either in real life or in the blogosphere.  Name five things you love.  Name five things you hate.  Pass the ribbon on to five other bloggers. (Leave them a comment to notify them of their win.)

I liked it, so I put a frame on it!

Five Most Fabulous Moments:

1. Finding all these ladies I can share my polish obsession with!
2. Getting my car running again.
3. Winning Floam! OMG FLOAM!!!
4. Receiving this award from 2 gals I love!
5. Getting to travel to Ireland with my dad.

Five Things I Love:

1. Uh...nail polish, DUH! 
2. Zombies.
3. Watching weird documentaries. (I just watched one on Pinball machines)
4. Singing loudly in my car where no one can hear me. 
5. Legos!

Five Things I hate:

1. The sound of mass chatter, like in a crowded mall during Christmas.
2. Cleaning the tub.
3. Driving with my boyfriend as my passenger. 
4. Messing up a perfectly painted nail.
5. M. Night Shyamalan movies.  I just watched "The Happening" and I was disappointed AGAIN!

ONTO THE NOMINEES!

1. Angel from Mega Nailattude
2. Carrie from Ink & Polish
3. Lou from Tips and Topcoat
4. Jess from Kyoti's Nails
5. Joanna from Polished Dezinez Addict

Oh man, I'm kinda glad that's over!  Choosing was so hard, there's way more then 5 people I would like to award! 

Thank you for reading my blog and a big thanks again to Alyssa and Melanie for the award!

My Very First Guest Post!

I am excited to say that Alyssa from Frugal Polish asked me to do a guest post on her blog!  She held a mini mani contest on her Facebook page for the best manicure of the day and to my surprise, I won!  I was kinda shocked honestly.  I wasn't exactly trying to do anything special, I just submitted my NOTD which was Color Clubs Fame and Fortune.  I just wanted to participate and show off what a beautiful polish it was!  She also ended up buying the polish for herself after seeing how full of awesome it was!

I'm not going to show you the mani I did for her blog here because I want you to hop over to her page too!  Check out the post I did for her blog here at Frugal Polish.

If you haven't seen Fame and Fortune here it is!  This is the mani that won me my first guest post.  If you think it looks good here in my photos then trust me, it looks 100X better in person!

This picture prompted 2 people (that i know of) to buy this polish!  What do you think?  You want it too now, don't you?!

OPI - Just Spotted the Lizard

This is my very first bottle of OPI!  I won it in a giveaway from XO, Noelle. 

I always put off buying OPI because...well because I'm broke right now!  So I usually go for the more frugal options. I figured it didn't make too much of a difference!  Now that I've tried it, I am in lust!  This polish applied so smooth and evenly.  It dried quickly, was opaque in 2 coats but I think I used 3! I love the brush, it made application very easy and the color is just fantastic.  (I've been trying to get a Peridot type dupe.)  I think I will be splurging on some more OPI polish when I get the chance.

Here is is!  Hopefully I will be able to use the camera my friend gave me soon.  I haven't been able to get a memory card for it but when I do you can expect some better pics!

 

I tried to show off the color change the best I could.  That might be easier when I get my new cam working!  This polish looks so cool in my shower, the light in there was able to let me see the blue color change in the polish.

Do you have Just Spotted the Lizard or a similar polish?  Don't you just love looking at it!?

My First Indie - Sticks & Stones

Finally got my hands on a bottle of Sticks & Stones!  It's just...just fantastic.  Let's see if I can get everything in here.  Sticks & Stones has big, medium and small white hex glitter, white bar glitter, big and small black hex glitter, big and small black SQUARE glitter (love square glitter) black bar glitter and just a hit of holographic glitter!   It looks great over all the cremes I've tried it on and on a couple jellies too!  Next time I post about this polish it will probably be in a pink jelly sandwich so stay tuned!

On with the show! Here it is over my skittle nails.  Thumb to pinkie I used Hard Candy Splendid, Unnamed pink jelly from the 99cent store, Unnamed Green jelly from Icing(sorry!), Wet&Wild Blazed and Sally Girl Chillax.  Then I topped them with Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love.

OoOoOo, Aaaaah

My sister said it reminded her of a garage floor!  I think she meant one of those kinda fancy garage floors.  My boyfriend even thought this looked cool, he really liked the bar glitter.

Do you have Sticks & Stones or any other black and white glitters?  Are you as madly in love with them as I am?

Crackle - A Torrid Love Affair

I was thinking the other day about what exactly started my nail polish obsession.  I've always liked polish and I have always kept my toenails painted but I never used to be so into painting my finger nails.  I had a small collection of pinks, a couple reds and some pretty sheer pearly whites but I rarely painted my nails.  Then one day I bought a neon pink, you know the kind that it almost hurts to look at.  Well, I painted my nails with it and I was in love!  Still, I wasn't knee deep in polish addiction yet.

So what was it, what really sent me over the edge? SHATTER!  When I saw the OPI Katy Perry collection in InStyle I went bonkers!  I had to have it.  I looked all over for it but it was sold out everywhere.  Finally one day I found the Icing brand Crackle and of course I bought it right away.  I loved it, I still do!  I've only collected 4 colors but I'm so glad I have them.  While other people lost interest in crackles I remain enamored! I don't use them terribly often but I'd never toss them to the wolves.  Today I decided I needed to show my Silver Claire's Crackle a little love with one of my favorite color combos.  Teal/Silver.  Enjoy!

Did you fall in love with the crackle craze?  Do you still enjoy using them?

Summery Water Marble

I was driving home from work the other night and I thought, "I think I want to do a water marble tonight." So I did!  Let me tell ya, if you just suddenly get an urge to do a water marble, you might want to take it as a sign.  It's not something you should try to force or do when you aren't feeling like you have a little extra patience!

I was really happy with the way my left hand came out.  The right, well that was another story.  I didn't like it so I forgot to take a picture of it.  Yeah, that's it...I forgot!

For this one I used a white base color under the marble.  Then I used Claire's-Secret Garden, Grasshopper and Hard Candy-Splendid.

I love the water marble look but it can be such a pain!  Do you enjoy doing them?

Sally's Visit - Skittle Mani with Gradient Accent

So I just renewed my Sally's Card (YAY!)  They sent me my monthly flyer reminding me that it was about to expire and there was a coupon on the back for 15% off and a free Ion or Silk Elements product!  I  ended up being good and just bought some Seche, renewed my card and got a free Ion Conditioner for just a little over 10 bucks!  I think their card is a great deal.  If you don't have one, GET ONE.  I know you might be thinking you don't want to spend the 5 bucks for a card but you get a $5 off coupon for your next visit and there is no set amount that you have to spend to use it.  You can just buy $5 worth of product if you want to.  You also get discounts on just about everything and sometimes it's a pretty good discount.  Just browse around the store and look for the Beauty Club price.  You can save a lot of cash! 

The next day I went back (since I had my $5 coupon) and bought some of the Sally Girl polishes and a bottle of the Beauty Secrets brand thinner.  I used to have the Orly Thinner and let me tell you, the Beauty Secrets brand works just as well!  The bottle is bigger and a little less expensive.  The only down side is the bottle design.  The Orly Thinner has a really nice squeeze bottle top and it's very easy to dispense just a drop or 2.  The Beauty Secrets brand thinner has a flip up spout.  It doesn't just spill out but it's easy to get carried away.  Aside from that, it's great!  I accidentally left a bottle of polish partially open and didn't realize it for a long time.  It was all but completely dried up.  I poured a good deal of thinner in there, mixed it up with an orange stick and then shook the hell out of it!  It totally saved my polish.

Anyway, I didn't intend to ramble on like that but I really love that card and wanted to tell you about the more frugal option of thinner!  What I really wanted to do was show you the mani I did later that night with my Sally Girl minis! (plus one Spoiled)

Unfortunately I can't positively remember the name of the pink on my index finger!  It might be Blink Of Pink but I can't find it on the site. However the rest (middle to pinkie) are Chillax, Epic and Spoiled 2 Weeks Sober. Chillax is more blue then it looks in this picture.

I love the Sally Girl polishes, they always apply really well and dry quickly for me!  Have you tried them?  What did you think?