TGIF: Thank Goodness, Indie Friday - Dollish Polish Urban Camo

Hooray! It's Friday, so you know what that means - TGIF: Thank Goodness, Indy Indie Friday!  Today's indie is by one of my favorite brands, Dollish Polish, and it's called Urban Camo. According to Dolly, Urban Camo is inspired by Call Of Duty, Modern Warfare and has "micro fine glitters in black and neon green, accented with medium light green hexagons and larger white hexs with black squares" in a clear base. I layered it over four different neutral colors to see how it would look, and to try and get the green glitters to pop!

I have no idea what color the brown polish is on my middle finger, but my index is Essence Nude It and my ring finger is Orly Decoded (blue-based grey). My pinkie is just a basic black. I really loved this the most over a nude color, since the micro black is most apparent there. Ilooks great over browns and nudes, but I feel like it gets lost on the grey. It is pretty much invisible over black, which is a given, but I wanted to try it anyway. As always, this one has square glitter and I loooooveee that, so hooray!

 

How do you feel about this one? Must have it or meh?

Dollish Polish is available at Llarowe ($11), OverallBeauty ($8.75), and on her own BigCartel store ($8.75). You can follow her blog here and her Facebook is here.

Don't forget to check out Kirsten's TGIF post over at Geeky Owl!

BFF Challenge: Cath Kidson Mix & Match

This is the LAST week of the beloved BFF Challenge, and it's Sally's week of fun themes. Today's theme is 'Cath Kidson', a British designer that uses a lot of flowers, polka dots, stripes, and general cuteness in her prints. I did some muted mix & match designs inspired by her prints!

These were fun and fairly easy to do! Probably the most difficult nail was the stripey one because I'm not particularly confident about getting my lines straight, and being nervous makes them even more wobbly - of course. I used Sinful Colors Adventure Island, SH Creamy Olive, Misa Dirty Sexy Money and Wet n Wild Lavender Creme (which is obvs more of a hot pink). I used Konad white and red to do the flower stamp on my index finger, and freehanded the stripes, dots, and flower buds on the other nails. A lot of the colors for the details are just different colors mixed together; i.e. the dots on the ring finger are SC Adventure Island + white = fun, weird off-white-yellow-ish

Don't forget to check out the other Cath Kidson themed 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; we only have one left :'[

See you on Saturday for the last theme in this challenge!! (And hopefully tomorrow for TGIF, too)

Neon Nails v 2.0

This is an upgraded manicure! Before I took off my BFF 'Neon' nails, I taped again and added another panel of sheerish neon/jelly color to each nail. The hope was that the new color I layered would make a quadrant of a secondary color (i.e. layer blue over yellow to make green in one corner). However, nail polish is not as easy and/or predictable as regular artsy paint and while this isn't what I had in mind - it's freaking awesome!!!

From pointer to pinkie, the new colors are OPI Fly, Revlon Royal, OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y, and Color Club Age of Aquarius. I tried to fix the line on my pointer nail which is why it looks too opaque - it's actually two coats of the color, while all the other ones are 1 coat.

Here's the Neon Nails v 1.0 in case you were wondering what the originals looked like and you didn't want to check out the original post ;p

MABB Weekly Beauty Question

Each Wednesday, the Metro Atlanta Beauty Bloggers will answer a beauty-related question just for fun! This week's question is...

What are your favorite big name nail polish brands? (OPI, China Glaze, Zoya, etc)

I love that this question asks what my favorite brands are, knowing that I would be highly challenged to pick just one single favorite nail polish brand! I love all the brands listed, actually. I would say my four very favorite 'big name beauty brands' are OPI, China Glaze, Zoya, and Orly. Honestly, there really isn't a brand I don't like - I'm not particularly loyal to any brands or colors, which means I want everything. If I had to pick one 'high end' and one 'lower end' of the big name beauty brands, I think I'd recommend Zoya ($8, but almost always $4 or less during promotions) and China Glaze ($2.5-$3 if you can find it at the right place).

Maybe I'll do some brand spotlights soon and highlight all my pros and cons for each brand so that this answer isn't too long! Plus I didn't extend this question to polish brands at the drugstore, which are also really great - Sally Hansen, Revlon, Milani, Wet n Wild, Sinful Colors, etc.

Edited to add: Ugh, so many good ones! I also LOVE CND and Color Club ;p

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Be sure to check out the other Metro Atlanta Beauty Bloggers' answers!

Bridget from Polish, and Make-Up, and Cars! Oh My!
Emma from Manicurity
Harri from TrailerHood Chic
Mandy from MandysSecrets
Missy from Gnarly Gnails
Pam from Pammy Blogs Beauty
Quinn from Mama Fashionista
SiSi from SiSi Sparkles

If you would like to see previous questions and answers, you can do so by viewing the Question Archive here.

If you're a beauty blogger in the Metro Atlanta area and would like to join us, please visit our website! We would love to connect with you!

EOTD: Industrial Mermaid?

This look is a mix of gunmetal and teal, and it made me think of a cool industrial mermaid. I wore it out for a dinner date and really enjoyed wearing it! My boyfriend is my current EOTD photographer and sometimes the pictures are...interesting. I haven't figured out the best lighting for photographing makeup yet, but slowly and surely I'm hoping it will improve.

My eyes are squinty and only one is in focus in the middle picture because I was smiling; I thought it would be nice to include a little bit more of my mug ;p

Products I used

- Urban Decay original primer

- CoverGirl Champagne in the inner corner and on the browbone

- Urban Decay Gunmetal in crease and outer corner

- Urban Decay Naked blended above Gunmetal

- L'Oreal HIP in some teal color

- Maybelline BB Cream in the lightest color, all over face

- L'Oreal Lineur Intense felt tip eyeliner in Carbon Black (to tightline after applying mascara)
- CoverGirl LastBlash Fusion mascara in Very Black
- Bare Escentuals Buxom mascara in Blackest Black
*also concealer under my eyes, and filled in my eyebrows

I think my eyebrows could have been less harsh, especially in that middle photo! Yikes! I really need to pick up a new eyebrow brush/comb/tool because my old one has been demolished in my makeup bag. Thoughts on this one?

Lazy Sunday Monday

As I said in my last Lazy Sunday Monday post, I'm continuing with the weekly re-caps but moving them to a day with less pre-planned posts because I'm picky about what content gets doubled (or tripled) on which day. This past week was not as awesome as I had hoped and it was 100% my fault for not expecting my return to work to be so completely exhausting and overwhelming as it was, and not being prepared with scheduled posts.

Recent Blog Events

• I am now a member of the Metro Atlanta Beauty Bloggers, which is a group of beauty bloggers that are all located within 90 minutes of I-285!! I didn't have a lot of time to chat with the awesome ladies this week, but I'm really looking forward to getting to know them all better. Weekly MABB questions will be posted on Wednesdays!
• 200 posts have finally been written on this blog - YAY! I finally feel major, lol
• I am really close to 400 followers, which is so exciting y'all!

Here's some nail art I managed this week!

I am including last Sunday's stuff because it was cool and people liked it, including me ;p

fall Adventures in Stamping mani

Project Runway #5

BFF 'inspired by a movie' Inception nails

BFF 'inspired by cities' - an abstraction

Project Runway #6

Current Events

• I've returned to work! Which means I won't be floating on the internet very much at all during regular business hours (7am - 5pm or so, somtimes like 7pm), but I will be around in the evenings and weekends
• Slowly but surely working on a tri-level guinea pig cage, because that's a thing I'm into
• I'm getting a moped (i.e. looks like a mini motorcycle) soon! My boyfriend is into them and has plans to buy me one as a not-surprise present

from my BFF "texture" nails

Upcoming Blog Stuff

• Fun dotty MSMD, 'industrial mermaid' EOTD, Cath Kidson inspired BFF post on Thursday, Dollish Polish on Friday
• A potential new series on Wednesday, either 'Whatever Emma Wants Wednesday' or 'Which Way?' since I tend to upgrade things before I completely remove them
• Giveaways to celebrate 200 posts will be sprinkled in with regularly scheduled posts in the next few weeks!

from my last AiS 'Can't Wait for Fall' post

Trend I ♥ Lately - Faded French 
I adore the 'faded French tip' with half-moons that I've seen lately!! It looks so great in both 'traditional' and newer colorways.

by Dana A

by U Need a Manicure

Free 4 Haul

• Since my last post I have purchased one bottle of Seche Vite
• Swapped a DL I found to be too dupey for some Hits Phenomena
• Got a Hot Mess Lacquers polish for "free" with a Copious credit
• I am so excited to have $ again, let me tell you!

Red-Headed Step Child via Hot Mess Lacquers (for a future TGIF)

Overall, I am excited for the end of August and the beginning of September because I have grand plans for next month. Changing months always give me fresh perspective. I even went to the trouble of designing these special 'blogger planner' pages to help me brainstorm and stay on track; they're printed and in a three ring binder. My boyfriend has been chuckling at me lugging it around the house all day :D

Hope you had a great weekend and I'm sure we're all going to have a great week

- Em

MSMD: Retro Peach Dots

This one has been sitting in my 'vault' for a bit and I just never got around to posting it because honestly, I think it's just so dang fugly! It was originally a comparison between China Glaze Peachy Keen and Julep Hayden that I decided to 'dress up' with some dots. As you can see, Peachy Keen and Hayden are not the same (which makes sense, as they are very different in the bottle).

It looks a little like this dotty manicure from victoriac7 on tumblr, so ta-da it is a Monkey See Monkey Do Monday Mani after all! Try and say the MSMDMM part three times quick, eh?

Please check out the other fun MSMD Manis below!

Project Runway: Ah Fancy Dress

Woo hoo! Another week of Project Runway! This week's episode was interesting; I really liked the idea that the designers were helping people in this challenge. Fabio won this challenge and he created a really cool grey dress that I would totally wear myself, so I did nails to match the winner for this episode. I thought the styling was interesting; I wouldn't have worn any of those things with that dress, but the necklace was cool!

taken with flash and white balanced, finally, duh!

I did skittles of grey, then taped and did different grey patches on each nail. The polishes I used from the photo, in order are: OPI Skull & Glossbones, Revlon Hazy, Pure Ice Kiss me Here, Orly Decoded, China Glaze Concrete Catwalk. These nails were fairly easy to do; I just had to be really patient. I liked the mix of greys because there are lots of different undertones at play and it looks really interesting in person.

Here are some of my thoughts from this episode!

• Dmitry is my favorite person to watch because I think he is hilarious; he had me cracking up again with his comment about making his client 'a uh fancy dress' :D
• Ven....oh, Ven. I don't even know where to being. As my boyfriend said, 'Dude! You're plus-sized! You're a little stocky man!!' so it is weird and sad to be so whiney about your client :( But also as my boyfriend pointed out, he/we are looking forward to Ven messing up something when the model/client is "normal" sized
• Elena was nice this week, so they barely showed her in this episode which was sad. But when they did show her, she had some ridiculous eyelashes and nails to show!
• I thought Gunnar's dress was awful! It was crooked and didn't fit her in the chest and the waist was way too high and ew. I don't know anyone that would wear that.
• Did anyone else find it really insulting that they made the clients stand up there during the judging and basically bash their taste? That poor R&B artist was pretty much made fun of the entire time for getting the dress that she asked for, but they made it seem like Nathan threw her under the bus?? Bleh.
• Hilarious to me what the judges think of as 'cool' and 'edgy' (re: the graphic designer client that Dmitry had that just looked like a walking Express ad)
• Also hilarious but maybe more bizarre that they use the word slutty so often; it's like all the thoughts they used to say to each other during judging when the cameras weren't rolling are the ones that get put into the show now. Not that there's anything wrong with pointing out how short an outfit is, I just didn't realize we all threw around the word slutty in regards to clothes so freely...
• Next week looks insane, especially considering that the previews they showed of Ven being an asshole turned out to exactly be Ven being an asshole. I'm nervous about all of the nervous breakdowns!

How did you like this week's episode? What was your favorite design this week?

Don't forget to check out what Bee and Jewli have done for their favorite designs this week!

BFF Challenge: Cities! an Abstraction

This was supposed to be posted yesterday and let's just say that I am less than thrilled with my internet situation right now. However, here it is! My manicure that's inspired by cities. I did something a little abstract and wanted to show the reflection of city lights in water and then added some twinkly holographic square glitters to represent lights in buildings. This one is weird and fun to wear because the gradient tips are subtle, and the little squares catch the light and sparkle a lot (but the sparkling was hard to catch in photos).

source

I used two coats of OPI Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees for my base color, then used striping tape to make the separate bands of reflected color. A make-up sponge was used for the gradient and some various cremes in blue, yellow, green, and purple to do the colors. 

I can't believe our last week of the challenge is this coming week! I've really loved doing these, and I feel like it's inspired a lot of great work from me and the other ladies involved. Next week will be lots of flowers :D

Don't forget to check out the other city themed 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!

See you Thursday for this challenge!

BFF Challenge: Inspired by a Movie

Today is Alyssa's first choice for the BFF Challenge and it is 'inspired by movies'. The most recent movie I've seen that's really great is Inception. My nails for this theme are somewhat subtle, but that's sort of the fun in planting an idea in someone's mind...I mean doing nail art.

My base for this mani is Sinful Colors Open Seas with CrowsToes I Make the Path, then some stamping details. I used CND Perfectly Bare and the stamped gradient image from the new Bundle Monster plates to make my first two nails look like sand. Then I double stamped my ring and pinkies with CND Perfectly Bare and Konad blue with two different french tip designs from the second BM set to make it look like crashing waves (not nearly as effective as my first two fingers, but ah well).

Don't forget to check out the other movie themed 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!

Eek, 'cities' is Saturday's theme! That one will be challenging :)

MABB Weekly Beauty Question

Each Wednesday, the Metro Atlanta Beauty Bloggers will answer a beauty-related question just for fun! This week's question is...

How old were you when you got into makeup?
I was in sixth grade when I started using makeup; my Mom bought me some really bright blue Hard Candy mascara and I loved it! It feels like I've been using makeup for forever, but I would say I got more seriously into makeup about a year ago when I decided to finally try out eyeshadow primer. For someone with oily lids (ew, I know) eyeshadow primer has made all the difference!

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Be sure to check out the other Metro Atlanta Beauty Bloggers' answers!
Bridget from Polish, and Make-Up, and Cars! Oh My!
Emma Thea from Manicurity
Harri from TrailerHood Chic
Mandy from MandysSecrets
Missy from Gnarly Gnails
Pam from Pammy Blogs Beauty
Quinn from Mama Fashionista
SiSi from SiSi Sparkles

If you would like to see previous questions and answers, you can do so by viewing the Question Archive here.

If you're a beauty blogger in the Metro Atlanta area and would like to join us, please visit our website! We would love to connect with you!
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Also, yay! I'm so excited to be a part of The Metro Atlanta Beauty Bloggers group!! I can't wait to get to know all the lovely ladies involved better.

Lazy Sunday...on Monday!

I haven't been doing lazy Sundays as often as I'd like (errr just checked and my last one was July 1st?!? *hangs head in shame*), but I do find them to be really fun for me to write and keep the blog updated with all of my brain thoughts. Technically I wrote a summary post back in the middle of July, but that feels like a thousand years ago and I've been busy being awesome since then! I've decided to move Lazy Sundays to Mondays simply because I have two potential challenge posts already in mind for Sundays right now - Adventures in Stamping and Project Runway-inspired nail art. So here we are! And for funsies, and for pretty pictures, I've thrown some random fun photos in to break up all these dang words ;p

Cool content since my last 'Lazy Sunday' post

• Monkey See Monkey Do (MSMD) Mondays are back! YAY! I love learning new techniques by re-creating nails I like from Pinterest and Tumblr (and giving people credit where credit is due, of course)
• The Blogger Friends Forever Challenge with some fun blogger ladies was born! We all chose two different challenge ideas and post nail art inspired by some of our favorite things on Thursdays and Saturdays - sadly our first round of themes is ending September 1st :'(
• Seriously, all of my awesome is going into the BFF challenges - they are consistently my most popular and creative posts! Huzzah!
• TGIF: Thank Goodness, Indie Friday! is a new weekly indie polish feature - the idea was started by my friend Kirsten at Geeky Owl and she graciously has let me join her
• a Project Runway nail art series has started; each week on Sunday I post nails inspired by any design from that week's episode along with two of my other blogger friends
• My EOTDs have been randomly popping up on the blog; they've been fun to post and have received some positive feedback (always nice)
• I've been working on more traditional swatching posts. No one likes them?

bL fall 2012 - love Trustafarian (green one 2nd in on left)

Here are some of my favey, less-loved manicures from July + August

Glitter Gal White Gold Sparkle is SO PRETTYYY

flags for the Olympic Opening Ceremony

minty-aqua mix & match

Pusheen the cat eating ice cream!

delicious macro of my black & white BFF nails

simple but striking Project Runway episode 4 nails

'crackley cupcake' - contrasting texture NOTD

Current Events

• I got to take part in piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2012! If you missed it, the post is >here<
• I have written more posts than days so far in August - word!
• got a raise at work - woo! a teeeny one, but still
• Some serious de-stashing has been happening, so the blog sale page will be updated soon!! My hope is to have it updated twice a month so I don't have to feel the pressure of major crazy de-stashing like I did this past week again, and can do it a little more frequently but on a smaller scale (ya get me?)
• I've been on vacation these past two weeks; the first week I just sat in my PJs and watched people being amazing at the Olympics ;p

latte water-marble cup

Upcoming blog content: this week and beyondddddd

• At some point this week I will cross the 200 post mark which feels so incredibly exciting and fun! Something celebratory will be sure to happen...
• I'm trying to work out a more consistent schedule for content on the blog; I feel like this has been more apparent lately and it feels nice to have something more concrete
• Going forward, the blog will be a mix of 'theme weeks' as well as regularly scheduled programing (MSMD and TGIF are constants, while BFF is more fluid and Project Runway will eventually end since it's a TV show and all)
• It feels like there should be more stamping, water-marbling, frankening and swatching on here, yes/no?

Nail Trend I ♥'d Lately

nails by disco-nail via fyeahnailart

Obsessed with little bare nail 'windows' right now! I feel like I only really see this on tumblr but it is amazing and perfect to me. I'm so glad my nails are less stained and I can do this trend; I tried using it in a lot of the first Project Runway posts.

Free 4 Haul 
My general haulage/purchasing has diminished in July and August, but I've still managed some polishes here and there in the two months combined ;D Recently I've picked up:

• quite a few Pretty and Polished creations - both on Etsy and via pre-order
• CrowsToes splurge (some of them were getting discontinued, you can't blame me!) 
• a splendid purchase from Candy Lacquer (love her)
• quite a few Deborah Lippmanns (mostly eBay, but the Nordstrom b2g1 helped)
• finally snagged Humblebee on Ninja Polish! 

I guess it might not sound like it - but I promise I've been well behaved!!

sexy polish butts

Other Stuff

• I love fall time and am really excited for the weather to get beautiful 
• Halloween is soonish! I feel like I already need to prep! My boyfriend is going to be a rock for Halloween, and I might try to be a 'roll' ...?
• My gym membership is getting renewed this week! HUZZAH!
• Our wittle baby guinea pigs have grown so much! We're working on making an even more fabulous cage for them

omg, me! and guinea pigs!

*whistles* Wheewwwweeee. That was a long post! *wipes brow* Hopefully you made it all the way through and now feel incredibly updated and excited about all the things that are coming up this month and the rest of this year. Now I'm a little worried someone's going to comment and say I hold guinea pigs wrong :-/

- Em