Back To School Giveaway!

I am part of a very exciting collaboration giveaway with some of my blogger friends from across the globe!  Since everyone is going back or already back in school this is a "Back To School" giveaway!  Full of great items to make you look and feel like your best self while sitting through those lectures and study groups.  Or maybe your kids have gone back to school and you now have a chance for some "me-time!"   
Here are the prizes I'm giving away…. 2 Revlon Lip Butters - Tutti Frutti and Berry Smoothie. I picked these colors because I felt they would be great transitional colors for the Fall season.  And sometimes it's fun to play with cosmetics that aren't nail polish!  

And here are some of the other prizes!

Barbara

Cynthia (3 bottles of your choice)

Ida

Alex

Marie-Luise

Amber

And here are the links to the other bloggers participating in the giveaway - go ahead and follow them via GFC (or Facebook page where applicable), it's a requirement to enter the giveaway!

Ida at Piece of Pie

Alex at Nail Lacquer Addict

Barbara at Betty Nails by Barbara

Cynthia at Alter Ego Nail Enamel

Marie-Luise at Laurestrodes Fun With Nails

Amber at Adventures in Mommyhood

And now to the giveaway!  
RULES & INFO
This is an international giveaway EXCEPT for New Zeland and Italy (because of shipping issues)
Ends on October 15th
It is MANDATORY to follow all of the above blogs (or facebook page where applicable) - don't get disqualified!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hello Kitty Nails

My baby girl celebrated her first birthday last weekend.  It was a Hello Kitty themed party so of course I had to do Hello Kitty nails to complete my outfit (which basically was a hot pink HK tshirt).  You know I am not huge into nail art so this was my take on the theme.  Thankfully I had HK nail decals to make life easier.  I was up until 3 am the night before the party preparing everything.  I can't imagine how much longer I would have been awake trying to draw a HK face or bow.  Jeesh…I don't know how some of you ladies do it - I'm looking at you Jackie from Adventures in Acetone - seriously!  Look at her post with a hand drawn Ariel!  Jealous over here!
Anyhoodle…here is my easy way of doing a theme!  I used 2 coats of Zoya Rory.  Rory came out with the Summer Surf Collection and it's a really beautiful pink.  I have used it before in a Zoya combo mani here, but I liked it even more as a full mani on it's own.  It's a light pink foil-esque finish.  There is a slight undertone of purple to me…maybe mauve or fuschia?  I can't pinpoint it, but there is definitley a purple tone to the pink.  Rory was almost a one coater, but I held my hand up and could see the light shining through my tips.  That bugs me so I did a second coat!  The formula was perfection.  I love everything about Rory. But I do remember it being a tad stain-y.  Oh well. 
I topped Rory with 2 coats of Elevation Polish Daisen.  Daisen was just released with the store opening this month.  Shut the front door….Daisen is gorgeous!  It's a light pink-clear base with the most amazing round glitters I have ever seen.  When have you seen circle glitters…EVER??  I know I haven't and Elevation has a couple of polishes with these great glitters!   Daisen is full of small and large round glitters in light pink, dark pink and copper.  There is also an irridescent micro-glitter to give it that extra bling effect.  It's gorgeous.  I used 2 coats and had zero issues with getting a good assortment of glitter out of the bottle. The glitter lay very smooth and flush with my nails.  
I used a coat of gelous to smooth everything out (it didn't need it, it's just starting to be habit when I use glitter) then placed a HK nail decal on my ring fingers.  Topped it all off with a layer of topcoat.  Done!  What do you think??  Have you used nail decals before?  
You can get Zoya from their website and some beauty supply stores.  You can get Elevation Polish from the Big Cartel store and keep up to date by following their blog, I Dig Brown Nail Polish.     

Wagon Trail + Zultanite

I attended Fashion Night Out the other night.  It was a really fun event full of fashion (of course), drinks, eats and then shopping!  A few stores had after parties and there were dj's and bands with bars set up.  Quite a fun outing and much needed for a mom of 3 (that's me).
But I digress…I want to tell you about my FNO nails!  I can't stop staring at them and may actually cry a little inside when I have to remove this mani.  I wore a yellow dress with taupe and ivory spots, tall tan cowboywish boots and a camel cardigan - I was channeling Sandra Bullock in Hope Floats.  For my nails though, match made in heaven!  
I started with 2 coats of China Glaze Wagon Trail.  What a stunning color WT is on it's own.  A dark chocolatey brown with gold/yellow, green, blue shimmer.   LOVE!  It was amazing to apply.
I topped WT with 1 coat of Ninja Polish Zultanite…drool!  Zultanite had and nice wide brush that covered my nail in one swipe.  Zutanite is an amazing polish that is full of a color changing micro-glitter in green, gold and red.    I wouldn't recommend wearing this or the others from the colection on their own - they definitely come alive over a dark base color.  Indoors and outside Zultanite is absolutely gorgeous!  A Fall colored smoorgasbord on my nails.  
You can get Ninja Polish Zultanite (among so many other amazing polishes) at the website, or keep up to date with news on the Facebook page.  

And here are a few of my favorite outfits from the fashion show!

German-icure + Pegasus J*zz (yuck)

Honestly!  I've seem some pretty crazy names for polish lately!  They literally make you go ewwwww (Pegasus Jizz, Unicorn Sharts, Pegasus Poop, etc…).  Notice the mythical creature trend?  They are pretty funny no matter how yucky.  But to stay pc from here on out I will refer to Pegasus Jizz as PJ (much like I abbreviate all the polishes I talk about).
German-icure by OPI is a stunnining reddish-brown color shimmer that just release with the Germany collection.  This color SCREAMS fall to me and I was so excited to bring it home!  It reminds me of changing leaves, hot mulled cider, cinnamon sticks..you know all the good Fall stuff that we all love. GBO went on super sheer with the first coat, almost watery.  The second coat brought it up to perfection!  
I wanted to up the ante and put 1 coat of Sassy Lacquer PJ on top of GBO.  I was so happy with the way it turned out, simply gorgeous.  I was in awe of my own nails!!  PJ is a color changing shimmer top coat.  It flashes red, green, teal and gold depending on the lighting.  Over GBO it mostly showed off the red and green.  I suppose that if I layered it over a blue or purple the teal would be prominent.  Not sure how to get the gold to show more though.  I used 1 layer of topcoat and it was a color changing, shiny, glossy victory in my book.
You can get Sassy Lacquer PJ (amonsgst others) at the Sassy Lacquer store.  And I'm sure you know where to get OPI.  

sorry for the bad indoors pic, I wanted to show German-icure with and without PJ.  Left = without, Right = with.

Annalicious + Unicorn Sharts (lol)

I feel like I don't give my Cult Nails enough love.  I have so many that are untried!  The colors are vibrant, the glitters are fun, the collections are well thought out, the formula is always great.  Annalicious comes from Coco's Untamed Collection.  It is a gorgeous reddish-orangeish base with glowing red-orange-gold shimmer.  
Annalicious went on so smoothly!  It was perfect coverage in 2 coats.  I still had a lightly visible nail line - 3 coats probably would have made it dissapear.  But if not I still love the color.  It's like the red cousin of China Glaze Riveting.  I'm pretty sure these glowing polishes are some of my favorites.  
I was sent a funny little bottle of glitter polish from my friend Gina.  It's just a little something she threw together for fun - and she decided to name all her mini's "starts."   So this one is Unicorn Sharts.  Funny name, no?  US is silver holo hexs with a rainbow of other glitter hexs: yellow, red, green, blue - you get the idea.  There is also a micro glitter in the mini bottle of fun.  I used US on my accent nails and I thought it was a flashy addition.  Lots of glitter came out of the bottle with each dip and spread easily.  No clumping, no problems with application.  Not even that hard to remove.  I used 2 coats of US.  I slathered a layer of Gelous on top and then my usual topcoat.  Smooth, shiny, sparkly!  

isn't this a cute bottle…hand drawn picture too!  I feel so special!