Adios 2011

Tonight we say Goodbye to 2011. Which was a tumultuous year to say the least. My prediction for 2012? BLUE SKIES AHEAD! Now that having been said here's my New Years Eve nails! I really hope you all have way more exciting plans than I do. All polished up and no where to go.

Now while my plans involve a sweet pair of pajama's and some good TV (this is what happens when all my friends head off to tropical locations to ring in their new years)

My nails on the other hand are having a PARRRRRTTTTYYYY.

I Started with OPI Not Like The Movies

From the Katy Perry line... sidebar, her and Russell Brand are getting divorced. I'm not 100% sure why but this news threw me for a loop. I'm a bit crazy I know.

Here's it after 2 coats. Such a pretty silver. I wore this one to my work Christmas Party this year. LOVE IT

Then I grabbed China Glaze Lorelei's Tiara.

I love this glitter it's insanely sparkly. If you haven't seen Gentlemen Prefer Blondes watch it. It's a classic.

Then two coats of glitter later and.... TA DA

One coat would have probably been plenty but I'm a glutton for glitter. 

See you in the new year

Footloose and Fancy Free!

Alright so when I was all indecisive and couldn't decide what colour to paint my nails, Chelsea said PINK. So pink is what she's getting. Yes I'm aware the post title is lame. Get over it. I have a headache and keep getting distracted by Matt Dillon on TV.

So first up. Essie Foot Loose.

If you haven't guessed by now half the time I'll buy polish if it has a sweet name... even if I'm not 100% sure of the colour. I love this colour as far as pinks go it's pretty dang awesome.

Heres a pic of just Foot Loose. This is one coat. Yep it's that awesome.

Then I grabbed this wild glitter that I got from Chelsea for my birthday.

Color Club Fame & Fortune 

2 coats of polish

2 coats of glitter

 1 coat of OPI topcoat

 1 coat of SV

and this is what we had  

This manicure came out great. I'm pretty sure it would have lasted DAYS without chipping if I had left instead of changing my polish.

There you go Chelsea, PINK nails.

And a parting gift. This is how Briar Rose insisted on sleeping on her bed today

OPI DS Temptation

So I was forced to evaluate my new additions to my polish collection yesterday. Right now the count is at 17 and thats not including the polishes that I'm waiting to arrive in my mailbox. I've used precisely 4 so far. So I've been changing my polish each day,

Without ado here is OPI DS Temptation.

This polish is GORGEOUS! It's the most gorgeous royal purple sparkle in a blue base. The downside however is that because of the blue base it's hard to take a picture of the true colour. Natural light is probably a must maybe I'll see if I can get a couple pics today before I change my polish. I'm going to wait until after I head out to he barn before changing my polish. Anyways totally lost my train of thought there. Basically in real life it's the most gorgeous royal purple and in any picture it wants to come out as blue, listen to me people its PURPLE! haha sorry got carried away.

with flash

Without Flash

So I would just like to point out that ever since I started this blog one of the great things to come out of it is that my Olympus camera as finally been given a new job. Sadly since the aquisition of my iphone, my poor little olympus has been pushed to the wayside. Yay for new jobs!!

Update: Pics with sunlight. Stupid sunlight wasn't cooperating either

OPI DS Extravagance

I have been lusting after some of the OPI Designer Series polishes for a couple months now (Extravagance in particular), but couldn't really justify spending $20 on a single bottle of nail polish (who knows where this imaginary "line" came from) So when I got a giftcard for christmas to Chatters I had decided. This was it, I was getting myself a bottle of OPI DS Extravagance. Well let me tell you I LOVE BOXING WEEK SALES. I picked up a bottle of my coveted polish along with 2 other colours all for under $30!! After getting home and opening a bunch of DVD packages. (Fans of my obscenely huge DVD collection, fear not. I have not been ignoring it) I had decided my previous manicure had ran it's course. So time to see if my new polish would live up to my expectations.

It did.

The most gorgeous Berry colour in my collection.

This is 2 coats.

Nails Inc. - Trafalgar Square

I got 2 of the Nails Inc. Magnetic Polish in my stocking this year. Here is Trafalgar Square.

This colour is really gorgeous with the magnetic effect and without.

I did find that it chipped easily but I only had a basecoat, 2 coats of polish, and one coat of SV on. Baking cupcakes, cookies, and then doing the dishes was NOT manicure friendly. This manicure didn't last nearly long enough :( but I can't wait to try it again.

You'll also notice the remnants of my snow manicure all over my skin. Too excited about this one I guess.

Alpine Snowy Nails

I hope everyone had a fantastic christmas! Santa Claus was super generous to my family!

I'm really excited about some polishes I got in my stocking but more on that tomorrow.

So I had been on the fence about what kind of Christmas manicure I wanted, did I want something bright and super christmassy? Or something more subdued and classy but still with a christmas feel?

I ended up going with the latter. I really wanted to try a "Glitter Snow Manicure" I had seen on pinterest.

I was in love with the result. I'm giving you a heads up some of the pictures are absolutely terrible. I paint my nails in my basement and I usually paint them at night, so unlike blogs with great swatches who always use natural light to take amazing nail swatch pictures, my pics are never that good. Get over it. In the pictures the flash really picks up everything you don't see in real life. As I cleaned up the white around my nails (I tried really hard to clean them up before taking pics) the white washed over the skin around my fingernails and while you don't see it in real life it's really noticable in the pictures. The reason I'm still posting the crappy pictures is because even though they showcase the flaws of the manicure they also show the texture of the manicure which was my favourite part.

First I grabbed my OPI Alpine Snow. The Alpine Snow I have is a Matte which I have a love hate relationship with. I love it because it's fast drying and works great when I do Zebra print nails with my nail art pen. But I hate because it usually flakes and chips really easy. So This time I used a technique I saw on Lacquerized. The Nail polish Sandwich. I started with a base coat, I've been using OPI Nail Strengthener because I feel like my nails need a bit of help lately. Then 1 coat of Alpine Snow, then another coat of basecoat (I just used OPI's regular basecoat this time) then another coat of Alpine snow. Let me tell you this manicure wore like a BEAST! It survived opening christmas presents, and changing the sheets on my bed (which usually KILLS my nails) without chipping or anything! Two thumbs up to the Nail Polish Sandwich method!

Then I swiped on a coat of SV top coat and sprinkled some extra fine white glitter on my nails. I did one nail at a time so that the topcoat wouldn't dry before I was ready. The nails were super gorgeous and glittery without a top coat but I needed a manicure that was going to hold up. So I used OPI Top Coat to seal it. I find that the OPI Top Coat works better as a glitter sealer than SV because the OPI is thicker (at least mine is) so it smoothes things out a bit even though it doesn't dry anywhere as fast,

I was so stoked on the results of this. Yes it wasn't super glittery after the top coat was added but I loved it.



Christmas Lights

Christmas Eve!!! So that means tomorrow is Christmas EEK! So excited.

This go around I really wanted to glitter things up so I started with

OPI Rising Star, a shimmery gold colour from the Burlesque Collection

Then added two coats of OPI Gettin' Miss Piggy With It

Then one coat of OPI Servin Up the Sparkle

And then you get this. I hadn't cleaned up my nails yet in these pictures, again it was getting late.

Then here are some pics with my nails cleaned up.

When the light hits my nails they twinkle just like christmas lights, Hence them being Christmas light nails!

We also have the final day of  Chelsea's Top Coat test drive.

As you can see there is some chipping on the right hand and then after come absent minded picking on the left hand this will mark the end of the Seche Vite top coat test drive.

Merry Christmas everyone!