100 posts!!

I just realized that my last post, the Freebies at Freddie's, was my 100th post! Wow!
Big blogs with 500 followers and such would probably do a give-away at this point. Well, I'm a college student with ~15 followers, so I suppose I'll just post excitedly about it. xP If anyone want to help me get to 500 followers, though... :)

Gosh. I feel like I should do something special in recognition. Maybe some blasts from the past?

Most Popular
My most popular nail art by far is my rainbow butterfly nails. (Image clickable to the post.)

I like these nails and everything, but I have no idea why they're so popular! They have a shocking 3 comments here, but 63 comments and 971 (and counting) favourites on Deviantart.

My Favourite
However, I think my favourite nail art that I've done was my Mickey and Minnie nail art for Valentine's day.

 I spent a while on these, and I loved how the came out. I loved the holographic, I loved the Mickey and Minnie, I loved the challenge.. I just thought these were super cool. They didn't get a lot of attention, so I guess I'm the only one, but whatever. :p

One I Want to Try Again
And the last special mention is this one:

 This one is a bunch of coats of glitter, some dotted butterflies and tips, and then some more glitter. This one was so fun to look at, so colourful, so glittery. Of course taking it off was a pain and somewhat frighening, so I haven't done another "glitter bomb" type nail art since. But I think one has to happen soon, since it really was a lot of fun.

Well, that's all I have today! Thanks for sticking with me these past 100 posts. Hope I'll get some more followers and can do something more exciting for 200 posts!

09/22/12 - Freebies from Freddy's!

So as a new college student in Oregon, I got the opportunity to got to a Freebies at Freddy's night - a night that Fred Meyer's has with discounts and freebies for college students. I bought some things I still needed for my dorm, but of course the fun discovery was... FREE NAIL POLISH! My boyfriend described it best when I told him and he said, "You're in heaven, aren't you?"
Of course, it was just minis of Essence - not any random polish of choosing in the store - but I'm still stoked. There was also some free makeup.

Above is the whole line up.
I've never even seen Essence nail polish in stores, and now I own 11 bottles!
xD I can't possibly say no to free nail polish. Even if I have similar colours to some of these.
Here's on my swatch plate:

My first thought was that most of these are gorgeous. Sweet as Candy (the pale pink) looks like it might be too sheer for how I usually do my nails. Trendsetter (the brownish) is kind of a really ugly colour to me, but will probably do well in some nail art that calls for it. I was initially disappointed that Black is Black seemed sheer, so it would need two or three coats to be a pure black base (since I'm used to Wet 'n' Wild - Ebony Hates Chris, which is a one-coat black), but I thought it would work well as the pen/pencil for my binder paper nails, since those aren't really opaque on paper either. So it's workable with. :)
I'm really excited about Choose Me!, Time for Romance, and Make it Golden. Those look the prettiest to me, and I hope to use them soon.
'Til next time! :D

Swatch Post: OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls

So obviously this is all over the internet, which is why I decided to get it. My swatches will not be particularly unique, but here they are nonetheless.

Here's just one coat:

 It probably would have worked as a one-coater, but I'm almost out of my base coat so it applied a little bumpily, which in turn made this apply a little bumpily. The formula was beautiful, though.

On to the two coat pictures:

 Sorry, I dinged my ring finger a little.

The above were all with the lighting in my room. Below is with flash:

 And here's with flash, compared to a white blanket:

As everyone has been raving, this is a nice not-quite white, very pale grey. Great formula, light without being stark, good base for nail art. Since I just got it, I've only used it in my notebook nails, and it's a great match to the not-quite-white of the paper.

09/23/12 - Notebook/Back to School Nails

Well, as I mentioned in my last post, I'm now up in school! The 24th was my first day of college classes (ever!). But I wanted to redo my nails for the occasion. I'm still figuring out the best way to do things in my dorm room, so bear with me please!

Anyway, I've been wanting to try this for a while, and I figured first day of classes was a perfect excuse to try it. I think they came out pretty cute. :)

I basically just did the binder paper design and then doodled random drawings and words on.
 Here's a couple close-ups:

 The base colour is OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I'll talk more about it in my swatch post, but basically I decided I needed this colour after I kept hearing so many good things about it. The red is an Icing mini (no name), the blue is CQ - Tropics, and the black is Essence - Black is Black.
Here's a picture with binder paper to show how well it matches:

But yup! I think this is cute, and pretty well matches what I had in my head.

09/18/12 - Go Oregon Ducks! Nails

Well, the 18th was the day I left to move up to Oregon. So in preparation/celebration, I did these nails.

I think they're pretty darn cute, and I got a lot of compliments on them.
It's a base of Tip Toes - Irish green, with tips lines with Migi Nail Art gold, then a lazy French with Dabble - Sand and Sally Hansen - Diamond. The duck is all Migi Nail Art pens. The Oregon O is a fun thing I picked up during orientation from the Duck Store.

Cute little temporary tattoos for your nails or your skin! They worked so well on my nails, that now I'm curious about using regular temporary tattoos. Well, further experiments await. :)
Here's some close ups:

But yup! These came in handy helping to get to know people while moving in. Plus those little ducks are just cute, right? :)

09/11/12 - Haul from Big Lots

I wouldn't have pegged Big Lots as a place to get nail polish. I actually can't remember the last time I've even been in a Big Lots. But Mom and I went in looking for dorm stuff, and though we didn't end up with any dorm stuff, we both left with some seriously discounted nail stuff.

My happy find is this:

A Colormates trio for $2. I've never heard of Colormates nail polish, but three colours that look pretty for only $2? That's like 66 cents a nail polish! I'm sold!
I also got this two pack for a a $1.50.

Here's my swatch:

 Yeah.. The $1.50 ones look a little weird. Well, they might work for nail art or something.
Lastly, here are some bottle shots from the Colormates. I haven't figured out what I'll use these for yet, but they look really pretty and pretty nice quality, too!

:)

09/09/12 - Stash Update

As I've been mentioning, I've been getting new polishes and running out of space for them. So I finally got a new storage solution, after searching for quite a while.
I wanted something transportable. Ideally so much so that I could just grab my nail polish collection and do my nails out on the grass if I so chose. But it needed to be at least transportable enough that I could take it from my bedroom and move it with me to my college dorm. (By the way, that's happening in a couple days. Wish me luck!) I also wanted something with drawers, because those are the easiest to get into and out of if your nails are still wet. No fumbling with lids and whatnot. I also wanted something affordable.
So I would find things that were easily transportable, but the drawers were at most 3" deep. Most nail polishes seem to be between 3" and 3.5" tall, making a 3" drawer unusable but for the minis. Or I would find things that were too deep (5-6") and not transportable at all. Or I would find things that looked like they could work but were well over $50, or even over $100.
Finally I went to The Container Store in San Jose and picked up three of these, and a strap-a-handle.

 So there it is, empty but with the strap, next to my old storage. The drawers are specifically stackable so they nestle nicely the strap seems to fit around them.
And here it is filled with nail polish:

It's sorted by colour. Top drawer has pink through blue:

Second drawer has purple, brown, silver/grey, white, black, crackles, glitters, and metallics:

And last drawer has my nail art pens, paint brushes, some accessories, my manicure set, and my base coats and top coats:

Now that all the nail polish is in there it's really too heavy to just grab and go out with, but it should be easily moveable into my dorm, and moveable enough if I do want to go somewhere with it. So I guess it works. :) I just worry that if I need more drawers whether it just won't work at all. Well, time will tell, I suppose!

You may be wondering what some of the new polishes are. And if you're not, you're going to see them anyway. :p
I got this pretty one from Forever 21:

It's this lovely grey with blue shimmer. Boring name, though: Love&Beauty - Light Gray/Multi. They also had one with a pink shimmer but identical name. Oh well, the polish is pretty and I'm looking forward to using it.

There's this great store in San Jose that was recommended to me, called US Nails Supply, and I finally got a chance to go. It was recommended because they have a LOT of nail polish, and it's CHEAP compared to other places. Like, pretty much everywhere OPI is at least $8. There? It's $4.75, if I remember right. Most of the brands are half-off what they are anywhere else. The only thing is they don't allow you to even open the bottles, which is a bit of a downside as I like to see what the consistency is like. Oh well. I'll just try to look up reviews or look at them else where, then go there to buy them. :D
Anywhere, here's what I bought from them after an unfortunately very short stop there:

They pack it in a box for you. So cute. xD
I've heard so many great things about OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls that I decided I just had to get it. I mean, nearly everyone I'm following right now uses it. I also picked up China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss, because I've been looking for a kinda sandy colour as a base for nail art. This isn't quite what I was looking for, but it's close. And it's still a nice looking polish. I also picked up a crystal nail file.

Here's a couple shots of all my nail plate swatches:

 

And here's a close up of the recent additions:

Ta-da! :p

09/10/12 - Professional Pedicure

The last time I got a professional pedicure, I went out with my friend and got mani/pedis. Which was in July 2010, before I really painted my nails. (I thought I had retroactively made a blog post about it, but I guess I didn't.) Then, I just picked out some colours I thought looked nice, got a flower added to my ringer fingers, and was content.
Well, this day I went out with that same friend and got pedicures. I had forgotten about all the other fun things that come with getting it professionally done. Lotion, massages, warm water soaks, no effort.. Ahh. :) When I do my own toes I'm all hunched over painting my toes and painting my fingers at the same time and hoping I don't mess either up.
It was also a bit odd because now that I'm obsessed with nail polish and follow so many blogs and own SO much nail polish, I recognized so many of the options and even owned some of them. So I had to make sure I chose colours I didn't own or wouldn't take a billion coats to look nice.
Finally I settled on OPI - Save Me, a polish I've been curious about, and Essie - Mint Candy Apple.

 

I settled on this combination after trying several on a little piece of paper, and I think I love it. Now I want both these polishes. xD
Here's a close up:

(Hmm, she missed a bit! :P) Save Me is this cool polish with little silver glitter and holographic bar glitter in teal tinted and warm tinted varieties. It creates a cool effect.
Here's a picture in the shade:

And a bonus pic with a shoutout to my BFF since kindergarten:

Funny how we both individually decided on going with glitter over a cream. :)
We both had a wonderful time relaxing and catching up before we head off to college. It will be the first time since we met that we'll be going to different schools!

But anyway, there's my pretty toesies!

Swatch Post: NYX - Moonwalk

As you saw in my Metallic Swirls nail art, I used NYX - Moonwalk as a base.

 I just used one coat since I knew I was covering it up. If I were to wear it on it's own, I might have done two coats just to confirm opacity.

It's this nice kinda purple tinted silver metallic colour.

As with the metallic mani, it seems to be so reflective I had issues getting colour accurate or not super reflective pictures.

But it's like somebody added a couple drops of purplish pink to a bottle of silver.

I've used it before in my metallic swirls nails, my Halloween nails, my sister's nails, and my cupcake nails.

09/07/12 - Rainbow Metallic Swirls Mani

Remember those metallics I mentioned being really excited to use? Well, I used them! :D
Here's the completed look:

Aren't these fun?! :D

First I started with a base of NYX - Moonwalk. Then I sponged on 6 out of 7 of my new JLB metallics collection.This included JLB - Chocolate Lava, Cherry Pop, Immortal Gold, Jade, Deep Sea, and Purple Rain. Here's a picture of that:

It was hard to get a nice picture in my room because this manicure was so shiny and reflective it kept reflecting my light. But hopefully you can kinda get an idea.
Anyway, after that I topped it with one coat of Glitter Gal - 3D Silver Holo (one of my favourite polishes!).

I am in love with this background! I almost regret putting a design over it. This looks so amazing in the sun (as you can see in the top two pictures). The sponged metallics are already rainbow, and then the holo top coat makes it explode with rainbow awesomeness. :D It's so great.
Anyway, then I painted over that with Maybelline - Sapphire Siren. Just kinda random swirly patterns. This was inspired by a design, but unfortunately I don't have the original source saved.
Here's a picture in less direct sun, and a picture in the shade:

And here's one of the thumb in the show, really blasting off that rainbow goodness:

So yup! These are so much fun to look at in the sun. :D