piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2012

I have been so well behaved and have kept this a secret for so long now! Today is piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2012 and I am THRILLED to be participating! I am both so excited and so nervous to be a member of what I would consider a group of superstar bloggers that are swatching the new piCture pOlish shades. Today I have two beautiful polishes to share with you, Attitude and Tease. This is a really picture heavy post because I included some bottle shots and some comparisons between Attitude and Tease.

There are QR labels on each shade that you can scan and it will take you straight to the piCture pOlish on-line store or to the Network member, depending on where your shade was purchased!

First up is Tease! Tease is a new 'Mesh' shade that is Barbie pink with silver glitter. I am not really a pink person, but this polish is just so sparkly and pretty! I really like it! It's like every other polish that has a colored jelly base with glitter in it (China Glaze Dorothy Who?, etc.) - but better.  This is just one coat of Tease on all nails, no top coat because I wanted to see how it would dry. There is a little bit of a texture due to the glitter pieces which I didn't find offensive; one coat of top coat would make this glassy smooth. I thought the formula on this one was great; I paint with fairly thick coats, and I only needed one coat! This polish is not a collaboration shade, so it is available from Picture Polish and all Network members. 

with flash

Next is Attitude! I had a very hard time narrowing down which photos to include (I took like 100)! Attitude is a new, special shade because it is part of the new 'Collaboration Collection' and was jointly created by Kim from Overall Beauty. I love Kim because she is so sweet whenever I email her and I love shopping at Overall Beauty. I'm really happily surprised that I got this shade to swatch and review :D Attitude is a blurple polish with these really beautiful, irregular holographic flakes in it. This is two coats of Attitude, no top coat to see how it would dry. Attitude is fairly opaque, but has more depth as you add coats. The formula on this one was a little smidgen thick for me; I think I'll add just one drop of thinner for the next time I use it. FYI - because this polish is a Collaboration Collection shade it is only available at Overall Beauty or piCture pOlish on-line.

Read more to see some comparisons!

New Layout Celebratory Nail Art!

I like to switch up my blog layout from time to time; I think it annoys my Boyfriend with the constant "Do you like this one or this one?" and "Do you like this shade of blue or this other, similar shade of blue?"(probably a lot like all of my nail polish related questions, too). Anyhoo, I've finally settled on a new blog layout and wanted to do some fun nail art to match :D

with flash

All of these photos were taken with flash, so the colors are not quite as bright in person - the blue especially is extra bright in this photo compared to real life. I grabbed some neutral colors and a dotting tool to layer dots of color all over my ring finger; I even left some nekkid nail peeking out!

I didn't put any topcoat on my accent finger because I liked the 3D texture of all the little dots! I can't way to try this again with brighter colors in the future so my bare nail stands out a little bit more. I've seen a lot of designs featuring peek-a-boo windows of bare nail on tumblr lately and I'm loving it.

L-R: Orly Decoded (pinkie finger), Sinful Colors Nirvana, Pure Ice Kiss Me Here, Nubar Classic Camel (pointer finger), and Zoya Yummy (middle finger)

So, what do you think of the new layout? There are some small kinks that I'm still ironing out (weird little details like borders, etc.) but I'm really enjoying the general theme change so far. I think it's a nice, simple change from the bright blue one I made this summer.

I'm looking forward to the rest of this week; I have lots of other new stuff that I'm really excited to share with you besides my new layout :)

BFF Challenge: 80s Nails!

Today's theme is also chosen by Bec and today is 80s day! Being born at the end of the 80s, I don't really know a lot about it - so I went with general chaotic patterns in neon with black and white. I decided to do another mix and match set of patterns that I hope are 80s enough :) These photos do look a bit weird because the patterns are all skewed differently; I think they make everything look off-kilter, so my apologies.

I love these so much more than I thought I would! They're very bright and super fun and put a smile on my face. My pinkie is meant to be PacMan, while my ring and middle fingers are more random patterns. For my pointer, I did the neon Rubix cube from this image I found for inspiration. I wanted to add some stamping to my middle finger, but Boyfriend said to leave it as-is. I really like my pointer nail and my ring finger - the mini aqua french tip is my favorite part :)

Don't forget to check out the other punk nails for today's challenge!

Thiamere of On Beauty Stuff & What Else's

Pram of My Nail Polish Addiction

Bec of Lacquer Dreams

Kerrie of PishPosh and Polish

Caitlin of Caitlin's Creative Corner

Emma of Manicurity (that's me!!)

Alyssa of Fancy Phalanges

Sally Of Nail Pron

Here's the other upcoming themes we have planned!

Next week we'll be doing themes chosen by Kerrie - should be lots of fun :)

PS. These were tricky to photography because there's not top coat on my pointer and ring finger (I liked the matte lightning stamping and I wanted the texture of the black lines on my pointer to be more apparent) and the patterns are all over the place. I've been feeling really critical of my photographs lately :-/

Olympic Opening Ceremony mani featuring flags!

I am so excited to share these nails with you today! I really loved the Union Jack I did for my punk nails, so I kept it and did some other flags to celebrate the Olympics. These are all freehand with striping brushes and I am super proud of them. I do wish I had left the flag on the pointer finger well enough alone because it got messy when I tried to add some extra details.

Fun fact: I have lived in all of these countries! Can you figure out what each country is?

I used the same red, white, and blue colors on all my nails, which made them look a lot more consistent. red - FingerPaints Primary Color
blue - Pure Ice French Kiss
white - Wet n Wild french white creme
green - CND Green Scene
yellow - SH Lightening
black - Cult Nevermore

From pointer to pinkie, the countries are USA, South Africa, Great Britain, and Singapore. The poor Singapore flag is sort of lame because my pinkie nail is tiny and I couldn't do a lot of details for the stars and moon.

Will you be watching the Olympics this year??

BFF Challenge: Punk! AGAIN!

I woke up this morning a little underwhelmed (or maybe just 'whelmed', thanks 10 Things I Hate About You) by my BFF Challenge 'punk' nails because I knew they just weren't all that I wanted them to be. It took me probably 45 seconds to fix 'em up, and now I LOVE THEM SO MUCH I wanted to show them to you again!

I tried doing the grungy/acid wash technique yesterday, but used an entire cotton ball instead of a Q-tip/cotton bud because I always forget that you need a small surface area to rub a little bit of the other layers away - not almost remove all the polish on your nail (forreal, I have tried this over and over again and I always do it wrong because duh). So now my pointer looks much, much better and a lot more like I envisioned! Then it took just seconds to drop some top coat on my nails and pop on the studs for my middle and pinkie fingers.

Ta-dah! Punk nails for real, now! And because it's Friday, I'll be back with my 80s nails tomorrow! Also I may or may not have had a lot of coffee and am thrilled with using my exclamation points :)

BFF Challenge: Punk!

This week Bec is choosing the themes! And today's BFF Challenge theme is 'punk'. I did my best on this one, but I think I might have missed the mark anyway. Bec told us to use the Sex Pistols as visual inspiration if we were stuck, which I did - but I think mine just come off more grungy than actual 'punk'. Oh well, I'm loving my two colorful nails!

My pointer nail is just weird, bright grungy colors. My middle and pinkie nails are a layer of crackle over some other stuff. Then I freehanded some black creme on top leaving some pixelated half moon sections. These nails have a cool texture - shiny, but cracked, like a purse!

The Union Jack is on my ring finger, and it was surprisingly easy to do! I just had to be patient and think about which stripes to do in the correct order. I think I'll keep it on and do some 2012 Olympic nails for this weekend.

Here are some pics I used as inspiration for this mani.

Don't forget to check out the other punk nails for today's challenge!

Thiamere of On Beauty Stuff & What Else's

Pram of My Nail Polish Addiction

Bec of Lacquer Dreams

Kerrie of PishPosh and Polish

Caitlin of Caitlin's Creative Corner

Emma of Manicurity (that's me!!)

Alyssa of Fancy Phalanges

Sally Of Nail Pron

Here's the other upcoming themes we have planned!

Check back here Saturday for my 80s nails!!

First EOTD on Manicurity!

A bit ago I asked if it would be cool to share some make-up here, and most people that commented said I can do whatever I want (ha) - so here's my first eye of the day look! I really liked this EOTD by Prettymaking and did some rainbow-y eyes inspired by it; I started out wanting to just use pastels, but then I dipped into my Sugarpill yellow and decided to make it a full on rainbow! Here's my look and the eyeshadows I used via Instagram; I don't have anyone to help me take pictures of my own eyes right now... But perhaps I'll be able to ask someone nicely to take some pictures of my eye later (can only imagine Boyfriend will be thrilled by that prospect).

I used a combo of Lime Crime and Sugarpill eyeshadows. I numbered the eyeshadows I used in the order I blended them across my lid and then down across my waterline (so in a clockwise circle starting from my inner eye) in the photo below.

Lime Crime Palette d'Antoinette - Royal Flush [1], Absinthe-Minded [4], Macarooned [2], and Ribbonesque [8] (I didn't use the silver on the end)

Sugarpill Buttercupcake pressed single eyeshadow [3]

Sugarpill Heart Breaker palette - Velocity [6], Acidberry [5], and 2AM [7]

Other Products I Used
- Urban Decay Sin primer
- L'Oreal Lineur Intense felt tip eyeliner in Carbon Black
- CoverGirl LastBlash Fusion mascara in Very Black
- Bare Escentuals Buxom mascara in Blackest Black

And here's the original from Prettymaking if you were curious!

So, what do you think?! Yay make-up or nay make-up on Manicurity? I am super proud of the blending on the outer corner of my eye!

Adventures in Stamping: New Fave Stamp featuring Bundle Monster!

Today's theme for Adventures in Stamping is basically whatever we want! Yay! I thumbed through my new Bundle Monster plates and the paisley design on plate #315 jumped out at me. I used another new polish toy and stamped with my new Essie mirror metallic polish, Penny Talk. The base color is a recent franken inspired by Tony Moly Shooting Star - a milky grey-lilac base with multi-colored glitters (you will probably be seeing this swatch soon!).

Hopefully you can look past how derpy the lighting is in this particular picture below; I thought the stamping itself looked pretty crisp and nice in this shot, though. Sorry the top of it is so weird and bright...

If you want to join in on Adventures in Stamping, you can check out the group here!

What's your favorite new polish toy right now??

Blog Sale Time Againnnn! some indies and OPI HTFs *edited*

Absolutely Alice, 2 suedes and a matte 

I'm having another blog sale; this one includes some semi-HTF OPIs and some indies!!

I also have 5 mystery grab bags available! $22 including shipping + a delivery confirmation # in the USA for a random (but balanced) assortment of 7 polishes, with at least one indie polish in every package

**Edited to add: the mystery polishes are all brand new or like new, meaning they have been lightly swatched on a single nail. For international mystery grab bags, please get in touch! Thanks! Sorry I forgot these important details the first time

To view all the details, click here

Happy shopping!

BFF Challenge: Book Cover featuring 'A Storm of Swords'!

Woo hoo! Another BFF Challenge day! Seriously, this challenge is keeping me going lately with nail art and I am so happy to be in this little group of talented ladies. Today is Pram's second theme choice - book cover. Currently reading the George R.R. Martin series A Song of Fire and Ice, I picked the cover of my favorite book so far, the third book, entitled A Storm of Swords.

indirect natural light

I tried doing saran wrap nails for the first time! But I wasn't feeling their subtlety, so I went in with a make-up sponge for more coverage with my yellow polish, Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow. I used pinking shears and did the bronze tape portions to mimic the helmet on the front, like the awkward photo of me holding the book shows!

sunlight

flash

SH Mellow Yellow, SC Adventure Island, CND Green Scene, SH Bronze Ablaze

Don't forget to check out the other book covers for today's challenge!

Thiamere of On Beauty Stuff & What Else's

Pram of My Nail Polish Addiction

Bec of Lacquer Dreams

Kerrie of PishPosh and Polish

Caitlin of Caitlin's Creative Corner

Emma of Manicurity (that's me!!)

Alyssa of Fancy Phalanges

Sally Of Nail Pron

Here's the other upcoming themes we have planned!

Thursday's 'punk' nails will be super fun to do; I have some 3D pieces I haven't used yet...

BFF Challenge: Striping Tape!

Today's BFF Challenge theme was chosen by Pram and it is striping tape! This is my first time doing a striping tape mani successfully - usually I'm too impatient and the tape doesn't stick very well. The base color is Glitter Gal White Gold Sparkle and the purple is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Loves Me Not (which was an RAOK from Kirsten, such a sweetie!)

I really enjoyed doing two nails that were more 'complicated' - the middle and ring fingers, and then doing some more simple patterns on my other two fingers. My favorite in terms of idea is my ring finger, but the best execution is my middle finger. I think it's too easy to see small mistakes when the pattern is very geometric, like on my ring finger, but it's also the first finger I did so *shrug*

And finally, I wanted to show you what's to weird about this polish - in the bottle it has this truly awesome duo flash of blue to purple to fuchsia to green-gold, but that somehow doesn't come through on the nails. This polish is super pretty on, tho, very dark and vampy with little embers that catch the light - it just never has the same color flash as the bottle!

So, don't forget to check out the other ladies doing striping tape manis today!

Thiamere of On Beauty Stuff & What Else's

Pram of My Nail Polish Addiction

Bec of Lacquer Dreams

Kerrie of PishPosh and Polish

Caitlin of Caitlin's Creative Corner

Emma of Manicurity (that's me!!)

Alyssa of Fancy Phalanges

Sally Of Nail Pron

Here's the other upcoming themes we have planned!

I haven't figured out which book cover to do yet, hmm... Saturday will be fun!!

What have I been doing...?

Okay, real talk time. I've been really lame about this blog lately. And this is not one of those "wahhhh, so busy, I am such a bad blogger, I'm so0oo0 sorry" posts. This is just a "hey, I've been busy doing nail polish stuff without taking pictures, sorry..." post. So, what on earth have I been doing?? [Because I'm sure you want to know]

Polish Things

• swatching and purging my stash because I have too much polish (thanks, orange stash post for making me have the sads about this)
• contemplating selling mystery boxes of polish instead of a simple blog sale since I've been going thru my stash; is anyone interested in getting a cool grab-box with a least one indie or HTF polish along with 6-7 other polishes for $20-$25?? Let me know if it sounds cool and I can finally publish the page I keep thinking about...
• Trying to decide if I should let go of some NerdLacquers
• Trying to decide when is a good time for a giveaway when I can't think of any dope prizes anymore...
• frankening my own version of some popular indies that I can never get ahold of that I don't feel good about posting since it's sort of a polish/frankener no-no to dupe things on purpose...I'm not doing it to profit, except from my own glee and hand clapping after getting things done the way I want
• entered my 'dream color' for the RBL fan collection; my idea is SO COOL, y'all!! I will have to work on my own fraknen of it if it doesn't get made

Personal Accomplishments

• watched the first and second Jurassic Park movies this weekend
• watched the entire first season of The Glee Project recently - it's such a cute show and I may or many not be obsessed with that one guy...with the dreads...whatever.
• have watched almost 6 seasons of How I Met Your Mother in like a month and a half
• I love Netflix (oops, this is a statement)
• have almost finished reading a hilarious and wonderful summary of someone reading 50 Shades of Grey; it's NSFW because the book itself is NSFW. Also, it is awful. 
• have also almost finished reading A Feast for Crows - I really like the character development in this one, which apparently other people don't like? But I can't really ready about how people feel about it on the internet yet because I always ruin things on accident (i.e. every show, actor, book I have ever tried to look up, I always just end up seeing the ~*totally awesome*~ plot twist)
• generally have been buying less polish - hooray! Color Boyfriend semi-impressed. Maybe not impressed, but at least he noticed, which is rare!!
• am awesome at Hero Academy, and iPad game - please play with me if you have an iPad and like cool games!! My name for stuff like that is emtha

Now here is a fun picture + sale announcement, as a reward for scrolling past all those words up there!

A-England is having this awesome special! The entire Mythical collection is only £5 (roughly $7.8 USD) each July 18-22nd! They have free worldwide shipping, too, so this is a great deal when their polishes are usually £9 (roughly $14 USD, i.e. half the price!)


tl;dr
I'm feeling kinda blah about nails lately, and I'm hoping to feel more YEAHHH soon. And I do have a cool mani all prepped for tmrw! Right now I have a lot of polish I want to sell and I was thinking of doing mystery boxes - how do you feel about that (the details are in the second bullet point in the first list)? Do you h8 people that franken dupes of other polishes for themselves if they aren't planning to sell - i.e. does anyone want to see the things I made recently that are dupes on purpose? Lemme know!

BFF Challenge: Girly Nails!

I did a 'girly' mix and match for today's BFF Challenge nails! Today's theme was also chosen by Thiamere. I tried to do my best 'girly' patterns - apparently for me that just means lots of polka dots? I really like my first two nails, but not so much my last two nails :-/

with flash

The pink is Orly Beach Cruiser from the new Feel the Vibe collection and the blue is China Glaze Bahamian Escape. I just grabbed a random white for the details - this one in particular was Wet n Wild French White Creme. I am pleasantly surprised at how much I like this pink; in person, it doesn't have as much of a blue tint, except when it's layered over blue (derp)!!

sunlight lamp

Please check out the other ladies doing this challenge with me!

Thiamere of On Beauty Stuff & What Else's

Pram of My Nail Polish Addiction

Bec of Lacquer Dreams

Kerrie of PishPosh and Polish

Caitlin of Caitlin's Creative Corner

Emma of Manicurity (that's me!!)

Alyssa of Fancy Phalanges

Sally Of Nail Pron

Here's the other upcoming themes we have planned!

I will try and take some better pictures of how vibrant the Orly neon pink is tomorrow; it was rough going at night even with my trusty sunlight lamp.

Glitter Gal White Gold Sparkle Swatch + Seashell

Seashell? Whaaaaa? Today's theme in the Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge is 'seashell'. I just got my tiny, adorable, precious bottle of GG White Gold Sparkle in the mail this week and omg - it is beautiful!  I really love it; it makes me feel all sparkly and pretty. This is just one coat of GG White Gold Sparkle over a quick coat of Wet n Wild Private Viewing, a sheer nude. Using a quick coat of Private Viewing spared me from needing to paint multiple coats of White Gold Sparkle and makes it extra glamourous by leaving a teeny hint of VNL. First photo is indirect natural light, second photo is flash, third photo is flash. I used Seche Vite to top this; you need a thick-ish top coat because the holo particles are really gritty on their own.

I got my new Bundle Monster plates in the mail this week, too! I thought I would try out a new design to make an accent 'seashell' nail from the first plate - BM 301. My boyfriend bought them for me and so he opened the package when it came, only to be surprised that something addressed to him wasn't for him - baww :(

Earlier today I tried doing a Friday the 13th mani and it was less than stellar, so I did this seashell mani instead. It's so pretty though, I can't bear to take it off and work on anything else right now! I'll have to take it off soon so that I can do my girly nails for tomorrow's BFF challenge. Tomorrow is also my blog's technical birthday!!! So weird how time flies! I wouldn't really consider my blog to have been in full swing until maybe October, and that's being gentle. I think I really started getting into things a little in December and then a lot in January - so it doesn't feel like a year yet at all.


Final thought: OMG, this is so darned pretty! I feel like this is the most amazing 'conservative' holo-y color I have O_O *drools*