Merry Sparkle-mas

It's still Christmas, this post still totally counts. I've been really busy today... killing dragons. Skyrim has been resurrected from the pile-o-games that I never quite finished the first time around. It's still just as addictive. I'm missing my family a ton, but being so far away means playing Skyrim all day in my pajamas guilt free. I'm taking a small break from dragons to post these sparkle overload nails.

I used a ton of polishes for these nails.

Thumb: Spoiled, Daddy's Credit Card; LA Colors, Sparkling Diamonds and Tinsel

Index: China Glaze, Seeing Red; Milani, Red (large hex glitter); 

Sally Girl, Red Glitter (snowman bottle)

Middle: Orly Color Amp'd, Hollywood Royalty (Christmas present from mom. Thanks!)

Ring: China Glaze, There's Snow One Like You; Zoya, Cosmo

Pinkie: Spoiled, Distant Memory; Milani, Teal (large hex glitters)

Most of these took three coats for complete glitter awesomeness, but were chosen because I know they have great coverage in about 2 coats. The Milanis are great for being packed with dense glitter. I feel like my nails are covered in metallic wrapping paper.

If not for the 75% off clearance sale at Sally's tomorrow, I wouldn't be leaving the house at all this weekend. Aside from that one short excursion I'm looking forward to two more solid days of dragon killing, looting and general mayhem. What are you up to this weekend?

Snowflake Gradient Nails

I love winter! It's even better here in Oregon where actual weather happens. Last weekend we got our very first snowflakes of the year, but they all melted as soon as they hit the ground. I got to spend the whole weekend inside all cozy making these snowflake cookies. I gave away a lot at work, but it didn't prevent me from eating way too many this past week. At least my nails won't make me fat.

For these nails I started with a base of Sally Hansen Complete Manicure in Ion. Over that I layered Lost Soul from LA Colors. This one is a really pretty shimmery grey, but it's very sheer so the creme base was needed for opacity.

For the snowflake stamp I used Bundle Monster plate BM-323 and grey and white stamping polish from Mundo de Unas. I swirled the grey and white together in the middle with a toothpick on the plate before scraping to blend the colors together and create the gradient effect with the stamping.

I can't believe Christmas is next week! Are you ready yet?

Keep Calm Lip Balm- Review and Giveaway

I don't know about you guys, but I always have a hard time keeping calm around the holidays. Every year I get the idea that frosting sugar cookies with royal icing is a good idea and that this time I won't get tired and bored after the third cookie even though I know I will and the recipe makes about four dozen million. I've gotten the itch again and just ordered 7 new cookie cutters from Amazon so I'm pretty much committed now. Between that and trying to shop while absolutely everyone else in the city is also out shopping it can be tough to have a relaxing holiday. Luckily this year I've already finished all my shopping so I'll just hermit up inside and bake for the rest of the month. Here's a present idea that might help keep your shopping list a little calmer this season.

Rimmel has come out with these adorable Keep Calm lip balms just in time for Christmas which I think would make really cute stocking stuffers for people who are addicted to lip balm. I already have about 20 different kinds hiding out around the house, but I'm always more than happy to get a few more. If I have to move more than 3 feet to get to my closest balm I become the opposite of calm so I make sure I'm stocked up. I received a couple of these balms to review so read on to see what I thought (these are a press sample, but opinions are my own/honest). I also got an extra set and wanted to do a holiday giveaway for all my favorite readers. Enter at the bottom of this post.

The colors I got to try are Keep Calm and Rock (berry blush) and Keep Calm and Party (violet blush). There are five varieties total including Keep Calm and Shop (clear), Kiss (pink blush), and Play (rose blush). They aren't scented to match the colors, but all seem to smell the same. To me it's a mix of rose water and baby powder which I actually rather dislike. I'm not a big fan of most scents in general and especially not so close to my nose. I could only manage to wear these for a few minutes before I had to wash it off due to the perfumey smell. If scented products don't bother you then I'd say go for it, but if they do you might want to skip this one.

The Keep Calm Lip Balms claim to increase lip moisture by 22% vs bare lips. The texture was nice and felt pretty moisturizing, so I could agree with this claim. The tints are nice as well. This is something I'd probably throw in my purse for when I'm too lazy for lipstick (which is about 98% of the time). The packaging is probably my favorite part though. I love the bright colors and Keep Calm theme. These are sold at most major drugstore chains for $2.50.

I've swatched these on my arm to show the colors. The top is Keep Calm and Party (violet blush) and the bottom is Keep Calm and Rock (berry blush). I think the tint is just enough to give lips some color and still look pretty natural.

And here are the obligatory nails.

I'm glad I finally had a valid excuse to use my Keep Calm and Polish On stamp (Bundle Monster plate BM-619). I painted each hand with colors to match the balms so you get to see the mythical right hand this post. For the Rock nails I used LA Colors, Static Electricity for the base and stamped with Mundo de Unas #15 with Bundle Monster plates BM-610*, BM-320*, BM-411 and BM-423 (*also used on the other hand). For Party my base is LA Colors, Hysteria (a white base is highly recommended to make this yellow pop) and MdU #21 with plates BM-414 and BM-202. When I took these of my cotton balls looked like neon cotton candy.

Giveaway Time!
The prize is one Keep Calm and Rock and one Keep Calm and Party as pictured above.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rules:

1. Must be 18 or older.

2. Must be a resident of the US.

(Sorry, still too poor to afford international shipping.. someday though)

3. No giveaway accounts- these will be disqualified.

4. Giveaway ends 12/12/15, 12:00 am PST

5. The winner will be notified by email and will have 48 hours to claim their prize. If the prize isn't claimed within 48 hours a new winner will be chosen.

6. Other legal stuff I forgot/don't know about? So official, these rules.

Pumpkin Pie Nails

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm about to rush off to family dinner where we're having pizza instead of turkey, and no pumpkin pie, but that's really fine with me since I don't actually like pumpkin pie. I do like turkey, but what a lot of work. Maybe next year. I think it looks much tastier on my nails than my plate. My favorite is chocolate silk and homemade whipped cream. Do you have a favorite/least favorite pie?

I found this perfect pumpkin pie shade- Spat! from LA Colors recently at Dollar Tree. I'm usually really impressed with these polishes for the price, but this one had a terrible formula. It was really streaky and took 3 coats to cover completely. It dried with a slightly matte finish like a neon, but did dry reasonably fast. My pie crust is Finger Paints, Don't Make A Scene with shading in Spoiled, Pumping Gas. The whipped cream is Sinful Colors, Snow Me White with Spoiled, Pearly White Teeth accents.

Harry Potter Inspired Nails

This weekend Eugene hosted its first Comic Con in 10 years. What a lucky coincidence that we just moved here right? I actually hadn't ever been to a Con before, but very jealously look at pictures from San Diego every year wishing it wasn't so far/expensive/tickets sold out within 30 seconds of going on sale. I think this smaller Con was a great first experience. I got to meet Vegas PG (she was awesome) and check out a lot of cool vendors. 

I didn't dress up this time, but you know at least my nails had to be in costume. I've been listening to the Harry Potter series on audio book the last couple months and right now I'm on the last one. I read all the books when they came out years ago, but it's been really fun going through them again. This cute little drawing of Harry Potter symbols was the perfect inspiration for the nails I painted for Eucon. It's got little hallows, lightning bolts, Harry's glasses, golden snitches and flying keys.

I started with two coats of 4 In the Morning from OPI which is a dark grey/black matte polish. I used Sally Hansen Color Foil in Liquid Gold to hand paint the symbols, then finished it off with Wet n Wild Matte Top Coat for good measure.

Here's a picture of me next to an awesome Tardis. I also saw lots of Doctors but unfortunately none of them offered me a ride. So I'll just keep on blogging for you all in the meantime. I'm really exited to check out some of the bigger cons in Portland next year. It's going to be really hard deciding what my next costume should be though.

Inspired By Rainy Weather and Misty Trees

Today's nails were inspired by a picture. It's been cloudy and raining off and on all day so when I was complaining about not knowing what to paint, my husband suggested something to match the weather. Coincidentally one of my nail groups has a running inspiration challenge where everyone paints nails based on a picture. I love this picture and today was the perfect day to match it. I've been enjoying views of mist and clouds in the trees outside my window. Good thing rainy weather is my favorite because I think we're going to be having a lot of it for a while.

I did a radial gradient in shades of grey for my misty background using Five Rules and Intelligence, Integrity & Courage from the China Glaze Giver collection and Your Turn from Sinful Colors. I used Bundle Monster plate BM-407 for the trees with Mundo de Unas black stamping polish and then topped it with a pale grey jelly that I frankened. I don't think it shows up too much, but it was meant to give the trees a misty look. 

The other nails are two coats of Milani, Bella Blue. This one is a shimmer polish with a black jelly base which covers quite nicely in two coats. As you can see below the micro shimmer has a slight blue to purple shift. In regular light you mostly see a teal shimmer. I added silver glitter (Atomic Splash by Orly) to look like the the wet leaves that are catching the light in the picture. Overall I think this has the look of a dark misty forest.

This was a really fun picture to replicate and now my nails go perfectly with the weather outside. I can't wait to enjoy them with the rain coming down outside all week.

Broken Glass Nails

This broken glass thing has really been taking off lately. I'm not one to neglect the latest trends in nail art, so here's my version. This is actually a really easy and inexpensive look to create. I've been joking that I'm like a raccoon. I can't get enough of the shiny bits stuck to my nails. It's very disruptive to my productivity at work.

I started with two coats of Let's Talk from Sinful Colors. I'm kind of dying over how this polish is a perfectly rich shade of blurple- my most favorite nail polish color. The formula was a little thinner than I like and wanted to pool at the cuticles, but it was workable. Totally worth it for how vibrant this color is. 

My broken glass is holographic cellophane from Dollar Tree. Each package comes with 4 large sheets, so I don't think I'll ever be able to use it all up. First, I top coated my base color so it wouldn't bleed up over the "glass" bits. Next, I cut the cellophane into little bits following the shapes that were already outlined by the holo designs. I put top coat on my nails one at a time and stuck on the bits with tweezers to fill in my nails. Last I gave it two generous layers of top coat to make sure no corners were sticking up. The cellophane is pretty thin so it was easy to get it to lay flat against the nail unlike some run-ins I've had with mylar shards.

What do you think about this trend? Is it something you'd try?