My April Purchases

I didn't go too crazy in April spending money on new polishes and I try to use what I already have, but you all know, it's fun to use new colors!!

Here is what I bought this month:

(Left to Right)
-Sally Hansen Salon Effects - Ay,Ay, Captain!
-Sinful Colors - Flutter
-Wet 'n Wild Megalast - I Need A Refresh-Mint
-Sinful Colors - Savage
-Sally Hansen Salon Effects - Show Your Stripes

(Left to Right)
-Pretty & Polished - Candy Coated
-Wet 'n Wild - Bow In My Presence
-LA Girl Fruity - Sparkling Peach
-Ulta - High Roller
-Ultra - X-Dry

(Left to Right)
-Sinful Colors - Rich In Heart
-Sinful Colors - Cream Pink
-Sinful Colors - Neon Melon
-Sinful Colors - Fiji

Clearly if I had to pick a favorite brand in April it would be Sinful Colors. What was your favorite brand in the last month?

My Aunts Nails - Chocolate Poptart

My Aunt lives in Oklahoma so seeing as I am in Pennsylvania we don't get to see each other too often. Thanks to Facebook and nail polish we have been reconnecting! These are her nails:

My little cousin told her that they remind him of Chocolate Poptarts! How cute! I know she used Sinful Colors - Nirvana for the base color but not sure what brand the glitter topcoat is. How fun that we can reconnect over nails!

P.S. Her nails remind me a lot of my mom's nails which you can see here, which is weird because she is my dad's sister.

Saturday Stamping

Do you ever have an idea that looks really good in your head but didn't translate to your nails? That is this one:

Polishes Used:
-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus (1 coat)
-Sinful Colors - Cream Pink (2 coats)
-Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Celeb City (Stamping)
-Ulta - High Roller (Stamping)
-Out The Door TopCoat

Sinful Colors were on sale this week for $0.99 at Walgreens so I picked up this pink and a couple other colors which I will show you in my April purchases post at the end of the month. It is a nice solid creme hot pink with a subtle gold shimmer to it. Thats where I got the idea to stamp with some metallics that I have, however, they were not opaque enough to be stamped with and they definitly didn't want to be photographed, thus, you get today's mani. Next time I will definately stick with the special Konad polishes or something that is completely opaque in 1 coat.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Swatch: Jesse's Girl - JulieG

When I was at my parents house this weekend I also did my own nails. I was going through my sister's polish collection and she has some of the "Jesse's Girl" polishes and JulieG looked fun for spring!

Polishes Used:
-Jesse's Girl - JulieG (2 coats)
-Sally Hansen Diamond Strength - Glass Slippe (1 coat)
-Out The Door TopCoat

I completely forgot to put on my basecoat when I did these nails so when I applied 2 coats of the color, although it was opaque, you could see the ridges in my nails, so I "hid" it with Glass Slipper. Unfortunately, my camera hates to photograph Glass Slipper but you get the picture.  This was my first Jesse's Girl polish and it wasn't my favorite polish; the brush seemed small for the size of the bottle so it wasn't as easy to get clean lines as I would like; oh well, it still looks cute!

Do any of you girls have Jesse's Girl polishes and if so, what are your thoughts?

My Mom's Nails

Happy Tuesday!
As I mentioned yesterday I got together with my mom and sister this weekend and did their nails. Below are the nails my mom ended up with.

Polishes Used:
-Wet 'n Wild - Flirty Rose Creme (2 coats)
-LA Girl Fruity - Sparkling Peach (2 coats)
-Out The Door TopCoat

Sparkling Peach was also one of my new shimmer polished that I picked up at Rite Aid. It is supposed to be scented when dry but I forgot to ask my mom to check, lol, also, do you think it will still smell through a topcoat? I let her pick the base color for this design and the colors looked very pretty together; I will probably try out this topcoat over top of a black and white base colors just for comparisons sake.

Have any of you tried out scented nail polishes? If so, do they actually still smell with topcoat over top? I remember having blueberry scented glitter polish when I was in middle school. I think it was blue glitters with larger raspberry hex in it as well.... oh the memories.... lol. Does this sound familiar to anyone else from the mid-90's?

My Sisters Nails

This weekend I got together with my mom and sister and will be posting their nails today and tomorrow. I apologize ahead of time as the photos are not super clear because I only had my iphone with me. Here you go!

Polishes Used:
-Sally Hansen - Lacey Lilac (2 coats)
-Wet 'n Wild coloricon - Bow In My Presence (1 coat)
-Out The Door TopCoat

I had just bought Bow In My Presence earlier this week and wanted to try it out so I let her pick a color she would like it over top of and she picked one of my favorite springtime colors, Lacey Lilac. I really like BIMP (lol) and I think it would be opaque on it's own in 3 coats. I plan to try it on myself later this week. I like the application of it as well so I will most likely be going back to Rite-Aid later this week to pick up some more of the Coloricon collection.

Happy Monday!

Pens in 7

The Penguins are in the Stanley Cup Playoffs so I wanted to do something to show my support for the team! Currently the "slogan" for this round of games is "Pens in 7"; each game could be our last but we had an awesome game on Wednesday night; hopefully we can pull off another victory tonight.

Polishes Used:
-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus
-Ulta - High Roller (2 coats)
-Kiss Nail Art - Black
-Kiss Nail Art - White
-Zoya - Pippa
-Out The Door TopCoat

As I mentioned earlier this year, all Pittsburgh sports teams colors are black and gold so I wanted to incorporate those colors and the Penguins. Obviously, the team logo penguin isnt as cartoon-ish as mine but they were cute and pretty easy to do; lol. Does anyone else follow hockey? Did your team make the playoffs? I also did my thumb as an "accent" nail with some black and white stripes (which is what I am wearing on my right hand now).

High Roller was my first Ulta brand nail polish and it went on very nicely. It covered completely in two coats and has a pretty shimmer too it. I didn't own any other golds but I think this was a good choice for my first one because it goes fairly well with my skintone.

Swatch: Essie - Fair Game

Getting the last two days of mani's off was sort of a pain in the butt. I almost wanted to use the foil method since there were so many layers. LOL.

Today I wanted something simple, and I have really been into blue's lately, as I was going through my polishes I came across THIS Essie that I didn't even know I owned! Fair Game is a lovely blue / green / gray / creme / shimmer / etc.

Polishes Used:
-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus (1 coat)
-Essie - Fair Game (2 coats)
-Out The Door TopCoat

This polish is almost opaque at one coat but I had too many brush strokes to leave it at just one so two coats was complete coverages as I like. I am really glad that I found this color in my stash and will have to keep it on top to use again in the future :) Do you own this color?

Upcycled Tape Mani

My Scandal mani from yesterday wasn't chipping off yet (aka. I hadn't started to pick it off myself) so I decided to do an "upcycled" mani without taking yesterday's off. Here we go!

Polished Used:
-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus (Yesterday)
-Pure Ice - Scandal (Yesterday)
-Out The Door TopCoat (Yesterday)
-Funky Fingers - Cheshire (2 coats) (Today)
-Sally Hansen - Lacey Lilac (2 coats) (Today)
-Out The Door TopCoat (2 coats) (Today)

What do you think? It's a tape mani! I like this mani but I wish that the lines were cleaner; If I would have taken the tape off sooner they may have been cleaner. Oh wells, it's still fun!

I want to use some of the Sally Hansen Nail Strips that I got over the last couple of weeks but I will feel wasteful if I do use them and just take them off so I may be absent for a couple days if I do end up putting them on ;) I'll keep you posted!

Happy Wednesday!

Swatch: Pure Ice - Scandal

Quick post today, just swatching one of my favorite colors that I haven't worn in a while. This is Pure Ice - Scandal.

Polishes Used:
-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus (2 coats)
-Pure Ice - Scandal (2 coats)
-Out The Door TopCoat

So these photos make this color look almost black however, it's actually a dark wine. I have on two coats and it definitly does need at least 2 coats, 1 is just streaky. Sometimes I don't like to wear dark colors in the spring but I don't mind this one, it's one of my trusty favorites.

Do you girls have one (or two, or three...) "go-to" polish that you really like to wear no matter what season?

Swatch: Sinful Colors - Flutter

One of the other colors that I got this weekend was Sinful Colors, Flutter. I am wearing this today with some accent nails with stripes.

Polishes Used:
-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus (2 coats)
-Sinful Colors - Flutter (2 coats)
-Kiss Nail Art Paint - White
-Kiss Nail Art Paint - Silver Glitter
-Out The Door TopCoat

Flutter is a nice shimmery pink, at first I thought it may be similar to OPI's Pedal Faster Suzi but it's more pink than that.

In case you didn't know, Picnik is closing on April 19th. I used to edit and label my photos on their site, but starting with this post, I am trying to use photoshop, unfortunately I just don't think it's as user friendly for a photo editing novice like me. What programs do you ladies use to watermark your photos? Is there one program you like over the others?

*Winner* 50 Follower Giveaway!

Congrats to Michele for winning my 50 Follower Giveaway and thanks for everyone who entered! I have contacted Michele and she has already replied so I will be sending her polishes out in tomorrow's mail.

Thanks again to everyone who entered and I hope that you all enjoy reading my blog; it's greatly apprecaited.

Happy Sunday!

Amazing Giveaway

Check out this awesome giveaway!

http://konadlicious.blogspot.com/2012/04/konadlicious-500-awesome-3000-followers.html

New Teals

Went to the store this weekend and picked up two teals, so here we go!

Polishes Used:
-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus
-Wet 'n Wild Megalast - I need a Refresh-Mint (2 coats) (lighter color)
-Sinful Colors - Savage (2 coats) (darker color)
-Out The Door - TopCoat

I dotted some accents onto my ring finger with the two colors just to add a little something extra. When I used Savage I got something that I didnt expect; it's MATTE! It was fun matte so I will definitly be using it again as a plain matte, maybe adding some silver stamping or something could be cute. Both colors had nice application too.

Tomorrow I will picking/announcing the winner of my giveaway so stay tuned and good luck! Thanks for everyone who entered :)

Swatch: Pretty & Polished - Candy Coated

Today it's time to swatch Pretty & Polished - Candy Coated! I got this over the weekend from one of the girls in my facebook group, MidAtlantic Nail Polish Enthusiasts. I couldn't wait to try this out but waited it out until today; such self control. hehe.

Polishes Used:
-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus
-Pretty & Polished - Candy Coated (2 coats)
-Out The Door TopCoat

I LOVE THIS COLOR! We all know that I love pink and this one has such a great application. This is the only Pretty & Polished polish that I own but I plan to buy some more. Chels' store on Etsy, is currently closed but she will be back on 4/13. Hopefully I remember to go order lots more polish! Jawbreaker....wishlist!

Do you girls have any Pretty & Polished colors?

P.S. My giveaway ends on Saturday; enter here!

Leopard Accents

Leopard Nails; haven't done these in a couple months so I was in the mood to do something fun! I know I am always complaining about how bad my natural nails are so I'm going to throw in a picture of my nekkid nails too, eeek!

Polishes Used:
-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus
-Revlon - Sheer Rose (3 coats)
-Sinful Colors - Nirvana
-Kiss Nail Art - Black
-Out The Door TopCoat

I like doing leopard print because it's like there is never a wrong pattern and so you can't screw it up! Revlon Sheer Rose was a "rescued" nail polish that my sister was going to throw away because she didn't want it anymore. I don't love the color, it's a little too peach for me, but I couldn't let it get thrown away!!!

Keep reading if you're willing to see naked nails!

They aren't pretty but unfortunately this is the best that they have looked in a while. See the peeling? The discoloration? The damange from having acrylics? BLEH!

Thanks for sticking with me through that last picture! Only a couple days left to enter my 50 Follower Giveaway here!

Swatch: Essence - High Spirits

Today I am swatching Essence High Spirits, which is one of the polishes that I picked up last week during my "mini-haul".

Polishes Used:
-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus (1 coat)
-Essence - High Spirits (2 coats)
-Out The Door TopCoat

Essence is quickly becoming one of my favorite brands, the prices are right and the application is nice. These photos were taken with two coats but the polish was almost opaque with just one. I also like this color although it may be more of a fall color, I don't normally like greens but this one is just clicking for me :) Do you guys have any Essence Polishes? Do you where I can get full size bottles instead of the minis?

Don't forget to check out my 50 Follower Giveaway!

Easter Jelly Sandwich

It's Easter! (I love holidays!) It's also time to post my first ever Jelly Sandwich :) whoohoo!

Polishes Used:
-Essie - Marshmallow (2 coats)
-Spoiled - Jewelry Heist (1 coat)
-Essie - Marshmallow (1 coat)
-Out The Door TopCoat

I am very happy with how this turned out and it's perfect for Easter. I am also excited that I am finally trying out a Jelly Sandwich and will be doing this technique again for sure!

Let's keep this one short and sweet since it's Easter and I hope you all enjoy the rest of the day!

P.S. If you want to win my 50 Follower Giveaway, you have to sign up here!

Pittsburgh Pirates Nails

Today I am going to my first Pirates Game of the season. I really enjoy going to the baseball games... even if they don't normally win; that's ok! Maybe this will be the year for them.

Polishes Used:
-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus
-Zoya - Pippa - (2 coats)
-Kiss Nail Art - Black
-Sally Hansen Diamond Strength - Glass Slipper
-NYC - Matte Me Crazy

If I had to do this mani again I would have used a larger dotting tool for the black outlines. Right now it looks like I just have squiggly lines but it's actually tiny dots.

I heard on the radio that Pittsburgh is the only town that all of the professional sports teams share the same team colors, Black and Gold (Steelers, Pirates, and Penquins). Do you ladies follow sports? What's your favorite team?