Venus Di Violet Working Hands

As you can see my nails are now short and in terrible condition.  They have been very soft and prone to tears recently.  I just finished Spring cleaning for my garage sale this weekend.  I cleaned through the entire house and left nothing untouched.  How does things accumulate so fast.  All closets and cabinets are now neat and orderly.  That took a toll on my nails.  Also, my little one will soon be four years old and I am prepping all the activities and games for her party.  Totaling about thirty children if everyone attends.  Crazy, I know.  She is in preschool and made a lot of friends.  It's My Little Pony themed.  One activity is pony decorating.  I cut 30 ponies from cardstock and now need to make about 35 yarn tails so they can pick what color tail to add to their pony.  There are four additional activities I need to prep.  My car has also been giving me problems and completely died on Saturday.  I NEED MY CAR!!!  It's my starter.  The shop is now repairing it.  I will be doing some walking in the mean time.  My daughter is excited because she can ride her bike on the street for now. 
I took these aweful pictures in 7 a.m. overcast natural light.  I've had these on for several days.  I need a mani/pedi badly.  The pinkie is a jelly that I frankened using Step 2 the Beat of My <3 by Nicole and Siberian Nights.  Pointer and ring is a coat of Steady as She Rose with a coat of Venus Di Violet over.  Middle is Siberian Nights with a coat of Venus Di Violet.  There was some dragging but it gave it a nice effect.  Stamping was with When Stars Collide from the recent China Glaze Hologlam collection.  When my nails grow back, I want to redo this because the combo is very pretty. It does shimmer in the sunlight and I want to show you the effect. 

Venus Di Violet from OPI is close in color to Steady as She Rose, but with a purple shimmer.  It is semi sheer and would need 2-4 coats depending on how you apply it.  I recently found it at a Salon and was very excited.  I felt like I found treasure or something.  I had never heard of it before.  It was originally from the 2001 Collezione Italiana and rereleased in Summer 2009 Colorcopia collection.  Its finding polishes like this that I collect polish and not radomly buy polishes.  I had spent most of 2010 finding past OPI collections.  It was exciting looking up small salons all over and seeing what they still had and giving my want lists to people.  A lot of people are just as passionate and helped me with my list.
Whew that was long.  I have more to say, but I better save it for the next post.  If you are still reading this, thank you.

Don't Burst My Bubble

I broke my camera while taking pictures of my previous mani.  I was walking through my doorway and then turned  around because I forgot something.  Needless to say, my camera went flying out the door with the lens extended.  It dented the lens.  No matter how I tried to pop it back in, it won't work.  My pictures look like it is in a bubble.  I can't be without a camera-no blogging and no pictures of my children.  Can't have that.  I ordered another Canon on Amazon.  A power shot A2300. I previously had a IXY that I really liked.  The power shot has a plastic body that makes it very light compared to the IXY. My first reaction upon taking it out of the box was that I had some cheap, cracker jack camera.  Not true.  The power shot is a good point and shoot camera.  It is very easy to use.  Adjusting the color balance is faster than the IXY.  The pictures are crystal clear.  I really don't have anything bad to say about it.   I ordered it in bright blue.  All my cameras previously have been black or silver.  I'm being very careful with it.  It is so lightweight that I'm afraid this camera could really go sailing through the air. 
On my nails is two coats of OPI Don't Burst My Bubble with I Lily Love You on the tips.  I had this on a couple days before my camera arrived and it had started to chip.  My nails have been soft lately and my pointer is always the first to start chipping.

Chrome Fishtail Braid

Happy Earth Day everyone.  All last week, both my daughters have been learning about endagered animals, oil spills, pollution, how planting trees affect our environment, etc..  All leading up to Earth Day. It's so great listening to them excitedly explain everything.  We recycle and garden at home, I tell them about littering and taking care of our environment, and  they watch shows that enforce all those things.  Somehow, it seems more important when their teacher tells them at school.  Like yeah, mom does know what she's talking about.  I'm excited to hear all about their day when I pick them up this afternoon. 
 This is my first fishtail design on myself.  I usually do my daughters big toe as a fishtail braid. I started with a coat of Unpredictable as the base color. Then alternated between No Plain Jane, Unpredictable, and Swanky Silk from the China Glaze Bohemian Lustre Chrome set.  Using different finishes of polish will make a more outstanding design.  I liked using all chromes because it resembles printed silk.  To me anyway.

Get Outta My Space

The China Glaze Hologlams have arrived!! I was excited until I broke my no buy (5 successful weeks) and tried them for myself.  On the salon swatches, the Hologlams are beautiful!  It shows a strong holographic property on all of the colors making it hard to decide what do get.  On the nail in normal lighting, these are a slight disappointment.  The holo is very subtle.  Get Outta My Space is a lavender/pink that looks like a chrome unless I'm outdoors. The formula is thick and I didn't experience any dragging.  I'm using two coats over bare nails.  I tried using a base coat, but the polish bubbled and I retried without base coat.  I don't have an aqua base coat and my Seche Vite base coat has a stuck cap and refuses to open.  I stamped lightning bolts over with Sci-Fly By to give it more demension. The stamp is not noticeable in person, but it creates more of a holo illusion indoors.   Sealed everything with Seche Vite top coat.

All pictures shown were taken outdoors in natural sunlight.

I got mine from Trade Secrets and paid $7/bottle.  I was expecting $14 like everyone online was mentioning.  For the price, I can't complain too much.  Just wishing Get Outta My Space was more in your face holo and less chrome looking. 

Lights of Emerald City over Grape, Set, Match

This is a quick post today.  I'm using Lights of Emerald City over OPI Grape, Set, Match.  I almost used Funky Dunkey, but switched last minute.  Grape, Set has a slight duochrome shimmer that pairs better with LOEC.  I'm really happy with the 4 colors I bought from the Oz collection.  I've used all 4 multiple times.  Considering all the untrieds I have in my collection that is really saying something.

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I prefer using Lights of Emerald City and also When Monkeys Fly over jewel tones and bright colors instead of the soft shades they were originally paired with.  Have you tried these polishes and what polishes do like pairing them with?

Euro? Not Euro.

I'm referring to the OPI Euro Central. Such beautiful colors! The design I did looks like it could be from the Euro Central collection. Only one of the colors actually is. I wanted to do an Autism Awareness design and this is what I came up with.

I started with one coat of Sinful Colors Sweet Nothing. It is a dupe for Can't Find My Czechbook. I'm saving my teeny tiny bottle of the actual polish. Sweet Nothing applies slightly thick and one coat was enough for this gradient. I also have to say that this was the tidiest painting that I have ever done.   Barely any polish got on my cuticles. The irony was that this was a gradient and getting polish on my cuticles is a given. I did want to keep the neatness up and brushed on cuticle oil before sponging the colors on. I then used a napkin to wipe off the oil right after each finger was sponged. No fuss cleanup.
The purple used is the actual You're Such A BudPest. Sinful colors did have a dupe in their Sugar Rush set. I now wish I had grabbed the two purples from that set when I saw it.
For the stamping, I did try using Eurso Euro. The result was too light. To achieve that same blue in the bottle, I pulled out Revlon Moon Candy in Galactic.  Perfect. The glitter on my pointer and pinkie is obviously not Polka.com. It is Spolied in Trust Fund Baby.

The Impossible

Currently I'm on week 4 of my 9 week long No Buy. Here is my progress so far.
Week 1- Failed terribly.
Week 2- Failed on Sunday, but did good the rest of the week. It could count as a successful week.
Week 3-SUCCESS!!! Almost two weeks!
Week 4-Success on a technicality. I got a polish, but my aunt bought it. It could be considered a no buy since I didn't actually buy it. Right? It was also the last bottle on the display. And it completes my Mariah Carey Liquid Sand collection. She knew I was on a no buy and has been teasing me since my fail in week 1.

This polish is The Impossible. Perfect, since it is nearly impossible for me to do a no buy. I am really loving this color. Maybe it's because I haven't had a new color for 2 1/2 weeks and am appreciating it a lot. I also discovered that it is the same grapefruit red/pink shade as my plastic mixing bowl.  The Impossible is a bright shade normally saved for my toes.  I found myself trying to coodinate what I wore with it, which is something I normally would not fret about. There are star shaped gliiter throughtout the bottle and no matter how I fished-could not get one out on my nails.  I'm going to store my bottle upside down.  Removal of this was very easy. 

Hard Candy Jubilee

Hard Candy Jubilee is one of the Crystal Confetti polishes.  When I purchased it, I was really excited with it because it is unique.  It reminds me of a cucumber salad with olives and grated carrots.  I swatched it over Who the Shrek Are You?.  On my nails, I didn't like it so much.  Application is fine, I just didn't like the look of it as a manicure.  Jubilee went right back to the store. 

 

I still have So So Sequin and Tinsel Town to try on.  They are the only two I picked up from the Glitteratzi group.  They both seem more my style.

Can't Let Go Alteration

Good morning.  Hope everyone had a nice Easter weekend.  Ours was great!  We went to church and had an egg hunt after service.  From there, went to a relatives house for a get together.  Today is April Fools.  It's a good thing my daughters don't know about that yet.  They can be little pranksters sometimes.  This is an eventful week.  I live on the Big Island and Merry Monarch is in full swing.  For those of you who don't know, it's the biggest hula competition held annually.  Halaus (dancing groups) come from all over the globe to compete.  It lasts the whole week.  There are craft fairs and other events that accompany The Merry Monarch.  The roads are packed and the stores and local places are full of visitors.  Besides this event, we have a couple family birthdays and one more next week, dentist appt. tommorrow for both girls, and a family vacation this weekend to pack for.  I have two more scheduled posts for this week and none the following.  I should have something posted again by next weekend.

Today, I am showing Can't Let Go-a liquid sand shade from the January release of the Mariah Carey collection. I like wearing it on its own for the "sand" effect, but after a couple days I wanted to change it up a bit. I applied a coat of NYX Girls Dreamy Glitter. I chose it because of the star glitter similar to that in The Impossible liquid sand. The Impossible is the only liquid sand that has star glitter. I think it would have been great if all four had some kind of shaped glitter in it (diamonds, hearts, etc.). After applying Dreamy Glitter, it was too shiny for what I was going for and added two coats of Revlon Matte Top coat. The result looked pretty unique and I got a lot of comments on it.