Blog Awards!

Hey folks!

Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised with the 'One Lovely Blog' award from Laura of Clothes, Cosmetics and Chat. Her blog is pretty cool, so check it out if you haven't already! And thanks again Laura :)

 

Here are the rules of the award:
Link back to the blogger who gave you the award
Share 7 facts about yourself
Share the award with 10 bloggers

So 7 facts about me...here goes:

1) I love animals, especially dogs.

2) I work as a geriatric nurse, and I love the seniors under my care like family :)

3) I haven't finished college, but hope to go back once I develop a passion for something that pays well.

4) I love to knit and crochet. Hats are my favorite thing to make, since they take the least amount of time. But I can also knit gloves, socks, scarves, afghans, you name it. I've been called a granny on several occasions :)

5) I'm a major couch potato. I can spend hours watching television and feel no guilt whatsoever.

6) I'm engaged to my high school sweetheart. Getting married at the beginning of next year!

7) I love roller coasters!

I follow a lot of blogs, so having to choose only 10 to award this to was a bit tough. Know that I love you all!
So without further adieu, in no particular order, I present this award to the following 10 lovely ladies:

Nails in Nippon
Nevorpurify's Nail Art
I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous
Neverland Nail Blog
Adventures In Acetone
Nailside
Spellbinding Nails
Nail Nerd
My Nail Graffiti
The Nailasaurus

Check these blogs out, you wont be disappointed. And as always, Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday to Me!!

Hello Everyone!

Today is my 24th! And so far, it's been great. I got some great gifts, and got to spend the day with my family, so it's been pretty good :)
For my birthday mani, I wanted to combine elements of my favorite things. This mani incorporates my favorite color (purple), my favorite insect (butterflies), and of course glitter!

Materials Used (in order):
Milani 3D holographic Hi-Res
Sinful Colors Purple Diamond
Wet n Wild fastdry Hannah Pinktana
Sinful Colors Fiji
NYC Long Wearing Nail Enamel Starry Silver Glitter (2 coats)
Konad Image Plate m1
Konad Special Nail Polish in Black (stamping)

It may be hard to tell, but this was actually a gradient mani. My first successful one! I used a make up sponge to apply the polishes, and it was a breeze.

I got money as birthday gifts, so guess what I bought? Polish of course!

L to R: Milani Garnet Gems, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Red Carpet, (2) NYC Long Wearing Nail Enamel Starry Silver Glitter, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Wet Cement, Revlon Not So Blueberry

L to R: Revlon Blue Mosaic, Starry Pink, Facets of Fuchsia

 When I saw these 3 beauties in Target for $3.36 each, I literally squealed. My mom looked at me like I was a nut or something. She couldn't understand why I was so excited over polish. 3 lemmings satisfied in one go!

L to R: Sally Hansen High Definition Nail Color in Spectrum, Milani 3D Holograpic HD, NYC Long Wearing Nail Enamel Top Coat, Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat.

 I got the four above from CVS. I haven't been to CVS in years and was shocked to see that they had a good selection of Orly products! Of course, at $7.99 a pop, I wasn't about to go crazy. The basecoat sounded good, so I decided to grab it. On the back of the box, it says that it prevents nail lacquer from wearing off for up to two weeks. I will definitely be putting this claim to the test soon.

$5 for this set at Target! The polish junkie in me simply couldn't resist.

Shades from Payless. I paid $9.99 for one and $4.99 for the other! Payless is buy one, get one half off of everything.

Spin Pins by Goody. Greatest hair invention ever made! It holds my bun up all day long.

Inked Wet n Wild Craze Collection: $1.99 ea. at Duane Reade

Pretty decent birthday haul! And I'm totally happy!

Thanks for stopping by!

Opi DS Coronation + Bundle Monster

Hello :)

I'll start this post off by warning you: I cut my  nails down considerably. My pinkie nail had a crack in it, and rather than start cutting up tea bags and possibly driving myself nuts trying to salvage it, I cut it off at the crack. Since having one single short nail didn't look cute, I cut down and filed all the rest of my nails to match my fresh nubbin of a pinkie.
I immediately regretted the decision, and wished I had tried to salvage my poor pinkie nail after all. But after looking at my  hands for an entire day, I think I'm actually preferring the look and feel of my freshly cut talons! I'm usually able to type quickly and accurately, but my longer nails slowed me down considerably. Now that they're shorter, I type better again, my polish doesn't seem to be chipping as quickly, and they just look neater and more uniform in shape to me.
But enough chat, on to the pictures:

Materials Used:
OPI DS Coronation (base color)

Color Club Wild at Heart (stamping)
 Bundle Monster Image Plate BM-221


I rely on natural light for the majority of my pictures, and since its been raining for what feels like a month, I haven't had many photo-ops with ol' mister sun in a while. The pictures don't do OPI DS Coronation much justice. It's packed with scattered holographic particles that sparkle when the light catches it a certain way. To me, the brush looked diamond encrusted with the wet polish on it. The formula on this was really easy to work with, and it dried relatively quickly. I can't say enough good things about this polish. You can see a really good swatch of it here. Color Club Wild at Heart is great for stamping. In the light you can really see the scattered holo effect of both polishes. I'm really disappointed that the sun wasn't out :( But the sun will come out tomorrow...or so the weather man says :-). Maybe I'll get some brightly lit pictures then...



Thanks for stopping by!

Autumn Leaves Mani

 Hi there!

 Today officially kicks off my favorite month of the year, O glorious October! Not only is it the month of my favorite holiday, Halloween, but it's also the month of my birthday. October is also the first full month of the Fall season, which happens to be my favorite season. I love to see the leaves change colors :).

All pics are enlargeable when clicked!

Right hand  (with flash)

Left Hand (with flash)

Left Hand  (no flash)

Right Hand (no flash)

Materials Used:
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed ( 2 coats)
Wet n Wild Fastdry The Gold & the Beautiful (1 coat over Sun Kissed)
China Glaze Haunting (2 coats)
Bundle Monster Image Plate BM04
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Rapid Red (red leaves)
China Glaze Passion (gold leaves)

On my left ring finger, I tried to use Sun Kissed and Passion to make a sort of dual color effect with the leaves, but Sun Kissed didn't show up over Haunting so well. So if it looks like I have half a leaf stamped on just that finger, that's why. I'm really enjoying using multiple colors and alternating colors on each hand.  I hope you folks like it :)

Thanks for stopping by!