Nails fit for dinner with the Boys Parents

Josh and I had a date to eat dinner with his family on Sunday, which of course always makes me nervous, when it shouldn't, but I can't help it. I love that boy and want his family to like me too :) Lucky, I took Josh to the Dentist earlier in the week and had the chance to browse through some magazines and by chance came across an interview with Essie Weingarten, the founder of Essie cosmetics. I wish I could remember which magazine it was in, but i read through sooo many waiting for him to finish with the doctor!!
Anyhoo, I know the article says "mother-in-law" but I took it's advice anyway because, well because it was sound advice. I had met Josh's family before, but I still want to do everything perfectly. Since Josh's step-mom is a super trendy lady, I took Essie's advice and went for a seasonal shade of polish, but amped it up a bit and made it almost a mock Burberry pattern. I loved this mani! I used Essence Irreplaceable as a base, and used 3 coats to get it to a nice opaque tone. I then used my new Konad plate and Butter London polish is Toff to do the stamping :) Finished it off with two coats of SV. You can sort of see in the picture above how the SV caused some shrinkage to my mani :(
I know you are dying to find out, but dinner went really well, like always. I love his family, they are incredibly nice people :)

Pink Wednesday & Cotton Candy Feelings

It's Wednesday!!!
My variation for pink Wednesday this week, is brought to you by my girly in love heart haha! I literally have felt like the biggest dreamer the past few days, its funny how boys can do that to a girl! Anyway! So here is my fun Pink Wednesday mani :)
This was my first time experimenting with the Sally Hansen nail art pen, which I found annoying to use at first. Since it was new the polish wasn't flowing out thick, and I had to go over the designs a few times before they even became opaque. It was quite discouraging and also caused some flooding in the designs. :( I added some Swarovski rhinestones for sparkle...and quite frankly because there was absolutely no way I could hand paint little designs using my left hand!
So my right hand just got a ton of different bling added to it :P But I do love the contrast between the two hands, my left hand is all girly and drawn and my right hand is just like a rock star lol Reminds me of Taylor Swift a bit!
Here's everything that was used (SV isn't pictured) Sinful Colors Pink Forever; Orly pink glitter (no name); OPI Princesses Rule; Essence You Belong To me; Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in white
I actually met up with my friend Jess at Starbucks and we caught up on life and she watched me paint my nails lol
She captured the moment for all you guys :) haha, we definitely left Starbucks smelling like a nail salon, whoopsies!

The work space haha I love spending time with good friends and nail polish! And after our lovely time at Starbucks I got to meet up with my man for a perfect end to my evening <3

How to: Stamp your nails

By reader request :) A quick picture tutorial on how to stamp your nails. Woohoo! So, first I put on 3 coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White.
I know its a little sloppy, but stamping in itself is a messy process :)
So, pick out the plate you'd like to use! I use Bundle Monster plates, and my Konad stamping system. Pictured above is the polish I chose to use for the stamping, my stamping plate, my stamper and my scrapper.
Step 1) cover the stamp you pick with your nail polish choice, it's generally best to use a deep opaque color that shows up vividly in one coat. I used Essence Just Rock it!
Using your scrapper, scrape off the nail polish, so what remains of the polish is stuck in the stamping plate etching.
Immediately roll your stamper through the nail polish so it picks up the design.
Then, roll the stamp out on your nails.
and Ta-da!! perfectly manicured nails :) As you can see from the above picture the stamp tends to get on your fingers, but its easy to clean off with some polish remover or warm water :)
The aftermath of nail stamping :)
The finished product!!

Deborah Lippmann Dupe :)

Ok, so it's not really a dupe, more like creative layering! :) I used Essence "You Belong To me" Which is a really pretty cream sky blue, and layered Wet n'Wild "Party of Five Glitters" over it :) Completed the mani with 2 coats of SV!
What do you guys think? I personally adore this combination :)

Oil Slick, turned Purple gold

I completely forgot to take a picture of this mani with just the base coat :( I deeply apologize guys! But, I will say that it was a disappointing polish color! I got this AMAZING (in the bottle) Looking polish from essence, called Where Is The Party? Look at how awesome it looks in this picture, just like an oil slick:
Isn't it fantastic?! Well, when it was on my nails...it was...purple. And thats it. I was pretty disappointed. I did two coats of it, hoping for the oil slick effect to happen. Never did :( So! To make the mani more exciting, I used SH X-Treme Wear polish in Purple Gala. I never used this polish, but I've had it since December. I can't believe I hadn't used it! It's gorgeous!! Its a sheer deep purple with tons of small gold sparkle!
I Loved the layered effect it gave my nails. So much sparkle!! I finished the mani with a coat of SV.
The polish looked almost 3-D with the layers, reminded me of a galaxy :)

Blue Navy and my Best Friend

THIS is my best friend, Lisa, on the left, and me. I love this girl like crazy. We've been best friends for almost a decade. She's my rock, without a doubt. Lisa is in the NROTC and will be an officer in the Navy in a year!! (congrats girl!!) So, part of being in the NROTC requires that she goes on "cruises" every summer with the Navy, and this summer she's lucky enough to get to Japan! She left a little over a week ago and won't return home until July 8! Which makes me pretty sad :( So to celebrate Lisa and how proud I am of all of her accomplishments, I did a fun blue sparkle mani, since blue is her favorite color!!
I apologize for the horrrrrible lighting on this photograph, it was seriously impossible to get a decent picture of this awesome mani! I started with a base coat of Essence Denim Wanted! nail polish in Forever mine. It's a really gorgeous royal blue. I then topped it with 2 coats of a WalMart find (with Lisa of course!!) of Pure ICE in "Strapless" and BOY does this glitter shine!
This is the mani with 2 coats of SV over it. See how hard it was to get the sparkle without the flash? But I loved this mani, probably one of my favorites of the summer!!

Stressful Day Pick Me Ups

I had a pretty rough day yesterday, for some reason all the stress and sadness of my break up just hit me hard. So whats a girl to do? Go out and buy more nail polishes of course! In Ulta I saw that Sally Hansen has come out with crackle nail polishes, I scooped up the silver one called "Fractured Foil" There were also crackles in gold, purple, white, black and pink I believe. I'm going to have to go back and scoop up some more!
Then, I saw that their Essence section had some new polishes in, so of course I scooped them up. In order from left to right: You Belong To Me, Just Rock It!, Where is the Party?, and What Do U Think?
In Bed Bath and Beyond! I found that they have a new Color Club display where I scored these two beauties: Wild and Willing and Koo-Koo Cachoo! These are my first Color Club polishes :)
Back in Ulta, on my way to the check out these caught my eye. Essence now has Nail Fashion Stickers, so I scooped up two different patters and I can't wait to give them a try :)

Shopping sure does cheer up a girls heart <3