The Nail Challenge Collaborative Presents - Inspired By A Tutorial - Week 4

Today I am back with my last January Nail Challenge Collaborative mani! I really liked this theme because I finally was able to try some looks that I had been meaning to try out when I saw some of my favorite bloggers creating them :)

This look is inspired by Paulina's Passions Roses Nail Art Tutorial. You can see her tutorial post HERE. In my opinion, Paulina's roses are famous! She loves creating them and they are always absolutely gorgeous!

Here is my look:

Polishes Used:
-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus
-KB Shimmer - I'd Rather Be With Blue
-Sinful Colors - Orange Cream
-Sinful Colors - Hazard
-Essie - Plumberry
-Revlon - Emerald
-Out The Door

Although my roses aren't perfect, these are the best that I have ever done so I am so happy with them! Paulina's tutorial was really easy to follow and I also recently got a tiny striper brush in the hopes of improving my nail art skills and I think it may be working; lol. I decided to use oranges and reds against the blue background to change up Paulina's look and create this as my own.

Have you seen Paulina's tutorial? Have you tried it out yourself?

The Nail Challenge Collaborative Presents - Inspired By A Tutorial - Week 3

Happy Wednesday!

Today I am back with my 3rd installment of the Nail Challenge Collaborative January themed, Inspired by a Tutorial! For this look, I followed a tutorial from Jaunty Juli for Abstract Zig Zag Nail Art (see her video here) This is not the first Jaunty Juli tutorial that I have followed, I did a Halloween look that you can see here if you want. I like watching her videos because she makes all the looks so easy to recreate!

Here is my look:

Polished Used:
-Nailtiques Formula 2 Plus
-Essence - Black is Back
-Assorted Acrylic Paints
-Out The Door

As you can see, I decided to go with bolder colors than what Jaunty Juli originally used  and I think that the colors I selected and perfect for me. (AKA pretty much the best colors out there, black, white, pink and teal lol). This look was really easy to re-create although the striping brush I used was a little larger than the one she did so I simply adjusted the number of lines in the look!

What do you think of this look? I am pretty sure that this is a technique that I will be using for many manis in the future, maybe nude colors to wear to the office even!

Don't forget to check out what the other lovely ladies of the NCC did for their 3rd Inspired by a Tutorial Look!

Colors by Llarowe - Yo, Cupid, Take a Hike

I recently received a pretty blue holographic polish from Colors by Llarowe called Yo, Cupid, Take a Hike. This shade is available exclusively as part of the February, "Anti-Valentines Day", A Box Indied.

Polishes Used:
-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus
-CbL - Yo, Cupid, Take a Hike

I am wearing two coats of Yo, Cupid, Take a Hike with no topcoat. As you can see, it is a vibrant blue with linear holo. Although I am a huge pink fan and am always excited by Valentine's Day collections, I do like that CbL is mixing it up with a blue.

Do you like this shade? Are you one of the folks that love pinks for Valentines or like to go in the opposite direction during the season?

You can purchase Colors by Llarowe HERE.

The Nail Challenge Collaborative Presents - Stamping Week 2

Happy Saturday!!!

So today's post is my second mani in the May Nail Challenge Collaborative theme, Stamping. Since I have been loving all the JulieG Gumdrop polishes this week, I decided to incorporate those into my post for today.

Polishes Used:

-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus

-JulieG - Hot Cinnamon

-JulieG - Sugar Rush

-JulieG - Tangerine Dream

-Konad - White

-BM209

I love the gradient moving from the orange to the red on these nails; and with the stamping, let me let you in on a little secret, I didn't actually do a gradient! Just put on the orange, then the red-orange, then the red and freehanded each color; once I added the stamping, it really smoothed out the look of a gradient. I love this look and was happy that I got to use this image which I hadn't used before.

Make sure that you have entered the Spring Fling Giveaway and check out what the other lovely ladies did for their second May Stamping Manis!

NYC - Soho

Sorry for once again not posting anything over the weekend. This weekend we went to my in-laws to celebrate my niece's 3rd birthday. They live on the other side of the state, so we always make an entire weekend out of it. She is too cute, but a total 3 year old ball of energy!!

Anyway, today I decided to do a palette cleanser mani with one of my favorite go-to polishes from before my blogging days, NYC, Soho.

Polishes Used:

-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus

-NYC - Soho

-INM - Northern Lights

Please excuse that lovely scratch I have on my pinky finger. Not sure how that happened but I don't really see a way to avoid that in my pictures. Anyway, this is a super simple mani but something refreshing that reminds me of the "olden days". The Northern Lights adds just a little something extra to this mani without actually having a "glitter" topcoat.

Sometimes do you just need a day to do something fairly neutral? 

P.S. I have a couple different nail mails coming, hopefully they will make it this week but who knows, I think that the mail has been slowed down due to Sandy, but once they arrive, I shall be swatching some new lovelies for you all :)

My Nails - Then and Now

Back when I was in high school and college, and even when I started this blog, I NEVER thought that my nails would grow. I can't believe that I now have nails that grow and are on their way to being back to healthy.  I remember previously if one of my nails broke it was the WORST thing EVER and I would always keep going back to acrylics. Now if one of my nails breaks, I am upset, but I think, OK, in one or two weeks it'll be back to a good nail.

So for all you ladies who may just be starting out in nail blogging, or getting into nails/nail art and are upset with your nails, have no fear. Here is what my nails looked like in my FIRST blog post, in January 2012.

Look at those sad little nubbins, and back cleanup, and bad camera. LOL. 

Here are my nails in April 2012; as you can see, back in April, I provided my comments on these naked nails.

Getting a little better with the pictures and nail shaping but you can see that my nails are really bad with ridges. 

And here are my nails in October 2012. 

I only have one a clear coat in this picture, but you can see that my nails look a lot healthier. They still aren't perfect but they are getting there. I just need to work on getting them stronger.

So what did I do?

• I use Non-acetone nail polish remover, in the "strengthening" variety. I don't buy any special name brand, just the target/walgreens/etc brand
• I switch between a combo of Nailtiquies Formula 2 Plus and OPI Nail Envy; NF2 really seems to help when my nails are super weak to give them strength and when my nails are stronger, I just use the  Nail Envy

What do you use to keep your nails strong and healthy?

Hope you liked this post, and if you have short brittle nails, there is hope!

P.S. I am currently out of the office on a business trip so posts may be a little sparse this week. 

Rainbow Polish - Trooper

Sadly, today is the last day of reviewing the polishes that I got from Katee. It was an awesome prize, much more than I ever expected, and I am so grateful I won. Once again, if you're not yet following her blog, A Girl and Her Polish, you can check it out here!

The final prize was a polish of my choice from Rainbow Polish. I was having trouble deciding on which polish I wanted because she has so many awesome choices, so I narrowed it down to two, and let my hubby choose. He picked Trooper, and what a good choice :)

Polishes Used:

-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus

-Sinful Colors - Savage

-Rainbow Polish - Trooper

-NYC - Matte Me Crazy

I wanted to showcase this over a fun color, so I chose Sinful Colors Savage, which is a nice matte teal, so I decided to keep this mani matte when it was done. 

 

Trooper is a fun glitter polish which has multisized and multishaped white glitters, along with black hex's and micro flakies! So gorgeous. This is another one of my favorites from Katee!

Which of the prizes was your favorite? Do you know any polishes from Rainbow Polish?

Once Upon a Polish - Whosits & Whatsits Galore!

Hello Lovelies!!!

Today I am showing you one of the final polishes that I won from Katee. Today it is Once Upon a Polish - Whosits & Whatsits Galore! It is a mixture of matte coral, green, red, white, and black micro glitters; looks like it may even contain some pinks too!

I wanted to wear this overtop of something and Katee has shown it over grey before on her blog so I decided to follow in her footsteps and do the same. I started with a base of Sinful Colors - Slate.

Isn't Slate a lovely color?! I had to take some pictures of it by itself since it has such a nice shine to it. But wait til you see how amazing it becomes with Whosits & Whatsits Galore!

Polishes Used:

-Nailtiques - Formula 2 Plus

-Sinful Colors - Slate

-Once Upon A Polish - Whosits & Whatsits Galore!

-OTD

I REALLY love this polish! The micro matte glitters are so pretty - wonderful color choice and this will be great going into Fall/Winter season. I have to say, I am pretty sure that this is my favorite polish out of all the glitters that Katee sent me! 

Tomorrow I will be showing you the polish that she let me choose (and I let my husband choose) from Rainbow Polish.

Also, I will be going through and verifying the entries to my giveaway this week, and thanks again to all my loyal readers!

Fall Into Autumn Challenge - Football

This week's theme is "Football". It is going to be fun to see what all of the ladies come up with! Living in Pittsburgh, football = Steelers. Instead of doing something JUST black and gold, I did some generic nails too! I am sure there will be plenty more Steelers mani's this season.

I used a ton of different polishes for these so I am not going to list them out (bad blogger, I know). If you're not familiar with football or the Steelers, I will go through the nails. 

Pointer - 50 Yard Line

Middle - Colors from the Steelers Logo

Ring - Football

Pinky - Black and Gold (and white); Steelers Colors

Thinking back I probably should have used more black in this mani, however, I still think it's really fun. I REALLY love the football nail and how the dimples look!

Make sure to check out the other ladies participating with their football nails!