Liquid Lacquer - Stay Strong and Cari On

Today I have something super special to share with you. Stay Strong and Cari On is a custom polish by Melissa of Liquid Lacquer that she created to help raise money for one of our nail polish friends who was going through a hard time in her personal/family life.

This is a gorgeous blue polish that contains lots of Cari's favorite colors.

With Flash

No Flash

Polishes Used:

-OPI - Nail Envy

-Liquid Lacquer - Stay Strong and Cari On

-Gelous

-No Time

I have two coats of SSACO in the pictures and it's almost opaque; I thought this was a good amount of coverage and didn't go with another coat. This polish has a gorgeous mix of pink, purple, blue, translucent, shimmery, silver, all types and shapes and sizes of glitters. 

I am glad that we were able to help Cari out because she's a great girl and completely deserves it and Melissa created a beautiful polish for her.

Spoiled - Steel The Show

Happy Sunday! This weekend is flying by! Today I am showing you Spoiled - Steel The Show. This is a very pretty neutral / gray / purple / tan color.

I haven't really tried a matte / shiny mani before, they have either been matte or shiny  not both. This was a first, it turned out OK.

Polishes Used:

-OPI - Nail Envy

-Spoiled - Steel The Show

-NYC - Matte Me Crazy

-Wet 'n Wild - Top Coat

I don't love this, but it's OK. Somehow my Matte TC got a little dried up and was gloopy and not coming out of the bottle so that put me in bad spirits. 

I'm going to keep this short and sweet, but as I mentioned before, my husband and I went to an Intro To Photography class yesterday as part of our Valentine's gift to each other. (Please note, that I didn't use any of my new skills for the above photos) My husband did play around with some of the techniques that we learned about in the class (ISO, Shutter Speed, White Balance, etc) and took this photo of my base coat when we got home. I love it and can't wait to play around with the camera a little more myself!

The one thing that the instructor keep re-iterating was that there is no right or wrong photos/settings. Change the ISO, change the Appeture, etc to that the photo that you want to take of the story you want to tell. I love when there is no right or wrong :)

I Made a Lightbox

Over the weekend I made a lightbox at home. I had seen a couple tutorials online on how to make one simple at home so I thought that I would try it. I used a cardboard box, white tissue paper, white posterboard, and a desk lamp :)

Here is a picture of the setup I have for my new lightbox in the basement.

And here are two test shots that I took in the box.

For the most part, I plan to use this when photographing my mani's in the future. What do you think? Any suggestions for improving my pictures in the future? Do you like my current pictures how I close up on the nails or do you prefer the nail photo above where you see hand and background too?

Sorry for no real new nail polish posts today, but make sure to enter my 200 Follower Giveaway.