Versatile Blogger Award!

I got my first award!!  How cool is that?!  I was nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award by Sarah over at All This Polish.  Go check out her blog…some very fun stuff on there!!  I especially love her ladybug stamping post!  How cute is this?!  


So this is a much over due shout out to Sarah for the nomination.  It's so cool to know that amazing nail gals & guys read my blog and I have a teensy weensy impact in this fabulously colorful corner of the world!

Rules:

1. Nominate 15 fellow bloggers who are relatively new to blogging

2. Let them know that you have nominated them

3. Share 7 random facts about yourself

4. Thank the bloggers that have nominated you

5. Add the Versatile Blogger Award picture to your blog post

7 Facts:

1. I have 3 kids and a blog dedicated to them (and my life as a wife/mom/professional)

2. At one point in time I owned over 200 chapsticks (a variety of brands)

3. My first car was a Chevy Citation (gag)

4. I'm the jock of my family

5. I'm an over-acheiver

6. I love horror movies

7. I know the lyrics to 99.9% of every song I hear

Fellow Bloggers:

1. http://lauriestrodesfunwithnails.blogspot.com/  check out her awesome X-Men themed mani!

2. http://silverinator.com/  butterfly nails…I die!

3. http://carislittlecorner.blogspot.com/  neon + zebra, need I say more?

4. http://jessicasnailtales.blogspot.com/  adore her pink "fish egg" mani!

5. http://ambianceshop.blogspot.com/  Tristam's Eyes (Princes Sabra) with a seahorse stamp, how sweet is that!

THANKS AGAIN SARAH!

Across The Universe + Hera

I love turquoise and teal (and sea foam green).  Like you couldn't tell.  So this combination of fabulous has me swooning.  I have spent the majority of the day staring at or showing off my nails.  I'm pretty dang pleased with myself right now because of how great this combo turned out.  


I started with 2 coats of OPI Ski Teal We Drop as the underwear.  STWD is a very pretty teal creme and it applied smoothly and fully opaque in 2 coats.  I decided to have a little fun with the stars of the show and alternated polish on each nail of each hand.  For both Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe and Hits Hera I used 2 coats.  


Across the Universe is a drop-dead gorgeous glitter bomb.  It's a dark blue base full of blue shimmer and hexs in green and light blue.  It applied perfectly, no sparse glitter, no digging for hexs, and it went on smoothly with no dragging.  I used 1 layer of top coat to seal it all in and make it uber shiny.


Hits Hera is a holo from the No Olimpo collection that everyone was gaga for a few months back.  I'm still gaga for the collection and this is a primo example of why it was so sought after.  Hera is a stunning teal linear holo.  You don't need much sunlight for her to show off her beauty.  Hera applied smoothly with no dragging, no patches, no fuss.  Topcoat didn't effect the holo effect.


You can get Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe at Nordstrom or HSN.  You can purchase Hits No Olipmo (and other lines from Hits) at Llarowe.  Happy shopping!

Are Mermaids Real? + Full Spectrum

Good morning!  Today I am wearing a fun purple french style mani!  It's fun, it's purple and it's sparkly.  


I'll start with Are Mermaids Real? by Spoiled - a line created by Wet n Wild.  There is a huge range of colors, but the one that has always caught my eye is Are Mermaids Real?  AMR? is a beautiful medium toned purple with heavy gold shimmer.  It's a really beautiful combination and a unique polish, at least in my collection.  I used 2 coats of AMR? to reach full coverage.  My only qualm with this polish - not so much this polish in particular, but the entire Spoiled line, is that the brush is awful.  It's HUGE!  It is the widest brush I have ever used, it's literally wider than my pinkie nail.  So you have to be careful to not paint your skin.  


I wanted to bling it up (as usual) and decided to paint sparkle tips.  I used China Glaze Full Spectrum from the new-ish Prismatics line.  Full Spectrum is a purple shimmer with small green and silver glitter pieces.  It's really beautiful and sparkly.  And it goes really well with ARM?!  I free handed the french tips, using 2 coats of FS.  Then I topped it all off with a coat of out the door topcoat.  


Good news about these polishes - you can get China Glaze Prismatics at beauty supply stores like Sally's and Ulta for around $7.  Spoiled is at CVS for $1.99.

Nail Polish Ring

I am so obsessed with Nubar Reclaim that I ordered a ring made with it.  It showed up yesterday and I absolutely love it!  It's perfect and it's beautiful and it's all mine!  I bought this from Beads Ink and the creator/owner Stephanie was very sweet - made my ring custom order and had it shipped super fast.  If you are interested in getting a ring, pendant or earrings of your own check out her store on etsy, or take a look at her website Beadsink.com.

Adorable wrapping

Comes with a polishing pad

oooooooh

aaaaaaaaah

Flash Black + Mercury's Rainbow

Layla and Lynnderella.  I think that's about all I need to say about that.  


Ok, I will say more.  I got a few Layla's for my birthday and have been trying to figure out which to wear first.  Flash Black because the obvious choice when my Lynnderella order arrived at the same time.  I felt that Flash Black with Mercury's Rainbow would be a pretty awesome combination and I am uber happy with the way it turned out.  


I initially started with 1 coat of Flash Black on my index finger.  But it was so thin and sheer I didn't think it would build up without using an exorbitant amount of coats.  So I decided to conserve a little and layer it over black.  I restarted with 2 coats of Orly Liquid Vinyl, a shiny black creme, it goes on perfectly.  I layered 2 coats of Flash Black, a gorgeous black linear holo.  It's a very strong effect, I even took some pictures inside so you can see that the rainbow show indoors as well.  But FB was a little tricky.  If you go too fast you will get drag spots up by your cuticles.  If you try to move the polish around too much you get streaky bare patches.  So I figured out that if I use a big drop, I get one stroke down the middle and a side.  Then I needed to use one more dip for the other side of the nail.  This gave me good coverage with little to no mistakes.  I used 2 coats of Lynnderella Mercury's Rainbow on my ring fingers.  MR is another gorgeous polish - a grey base with micro glitter, micro shimmer and holo hexs that throw off tons of rainbow colors.  Just for kicks and giggles I used top coat on only my index finger to see if there was difference.  I think there was a slight difference in that finger nail from the rest.  It seems to diffuse the linear quality of the holo over so slightly - almost like blurry pixelation.


Anyways - I hope you enjoy this combination because there are ton of pictures.

Indoors

Indoors

Indoors

Man-Maid Dreams

You know me and my crazy attraction to all polishes that are turquoise, sea foam, or are named mermaid.  Well this one is a triple threat!  It's Nail Venturous Lacquers Man-Maid Dreams and I love everything about it!  I was lucky enough to get this from my friend Marnie over at Ambianceshop.com, but if you stalk Nail Venturous on Etsy you may be able to snag one of her beautiful creations! 


Man-Maid Dreams is a beautiful sea foam green bordering on turquoise polish with loads of shimmer.  Inside the bottle you can see copper hexs and what I believe are tiny gold glitter flakies.  There is also a blue micro-shimer. The polish itself gives off a metallic-foily look, minus the troublesome brushstrokes that come along with that type of finish.  All together it's a bottle full of awesomeness.  


I used 3 coats with no top coat for the pictures below.  The polish applied smoothly and easily with each coat.  There were no dragging issues.  M-MD is slightly textured, so if that bothers you I would suggest using topcoat.

Let's get to 300!

I'm thinking that once I get to 300 GFC followers I will host another giveaway. What do you think? Can we do it? Yes we can! Tell your friends to sign up and follow my blog!