Day 1: Red Nails

YAY! for the start of the 31 day Nail Challenge! Day 1 is red nails, now I didn't know what to do, I'm not really a "red" person, so I thought i would try a new nail technique. I used my SV base coat and painted two coats on my nails, then using the color club top coat, I painted a thick coat over the base coats and promptly shook red glitter all over my nails! I used Recollections ultra fine glitter in Cherry. :)
It was a bit of a messy process, so much extra glitter haha but i loved how glittery and sparkley this mani is!! Although, without a coat over the glitter, it liked to wipe off, and putting a top coat over it didn't work out too well...
But for the time, I really enjoyed this mani and it's a technique that I would definitely use again for a special occasion :)

Fire Fighter Halloween Bash

Lets pretend this date never happened.

Katy Perry Nails for Halloween

SO! I'm blogging to you from my man's house today :) I had to use his reading light for my pictures haha, sorry!! Tonight is the Fire Fighter Monster Bash party, and I CAN NOT WAIT!!!! I'm super excited because I made my own Katy Perry costume and it looks fierce! :D Anyway! To accompany my Katy perry Cupcake bra, I went with a layered pink mani! I started off with two coats of Sally Hansen Extreme Wear in Bubblegum Pink, this color alone is gorgeous! I wish I had gotten a picture of it before I started layering the glitter :( I'll so a swatch some time soon, I promise!
After the Sally Hansen, I layed two coats of Wet'n'Wild Hannah Pinktana, which is also another STUNNING polish! It's a pink small holo and I love it. It's one of my all time favorite polishes in my collection :) But still, I was going for the Katy Perry Glitter Everywhere effect, which led me to put a layer of my unnamed Bon Bon pink holo on top! I finished off the mani with a top of SV :)
While driving back to Josh's house on my way from picking up my costume at my place, I couldn't help but almost crash as I admired my pretty sparkley nails :D I took a picture with my phone so you guys could see just how sparkley this mani truly is!
Then, I made a pit stop at Walgreens because I realized I had forgotten my bobby pins at home-fail. I need them for my wig tonight! And on my way to check out I just happened to catch sight of the new Limited Edition at Walgreens Exclusively Wet'n'Wild Collection, I picked up one of the polishes in Diamond in the Rough. It was hard not to snatch up all 8 of the polishes, but I have put myself on a strict No-Buy for awhile :(
Here's a sneak peek of my costume for tonight! I took this pic using my webcam earlier in the week to show Ryan part of my costume that he helped me create!

the Woes of a teacher's nails

I'm sorry for my lack of updating lately :( It's so hard to find time lately to update you guys on my new awesome mani's because, well because I teach second grade and when I paint my nails in the morning, in the afternoon when I get a chance to actually photograph them...then end up looking like the picture above :(
Anyway! This is one of my Butter nail polishes in Wallis. I LOVE this color!!! It's like a gorgeous olive green/black. Its phenomenal!!! This is with 3 coats, plus a top coat of SV.
I'm very pleased with my Butter polishes! I'll be redoing my nails tonight to match my costume for the fire fighter costume party tomorrow, here's a hint of what you can look forward to:

Sweet Sunday Moments

It's been one heck of a rainy weekend here, and Josh worked again today, so I had a lot of time to stay inside and get some work done for my classroom, and of course...on my nails! I was looking through my nail polish collection wondering if I should paint my nails before seeing Josh tonight and I decided that I should just do it! I've been using a lot of bland fall colors recently and I needed something bright and cheery for such a rainy day. I busted out my Color Club Starry Temptress boxed set that I got at Ross a while ago but never used. I chose to use Space Case-and I love the color!
It's a really pale neon pink, think bubble yum gum color. This is the only color in the collection that also has a soft shimmer of iridescent shimmer to accompany the holographic sparkle. I used 3 coats of Space Case, two coats was really sufficient but I wanted to make the color pop, so I added a third coat. The polish dried in a weird almost matte finish and the glitter is not too noticeable, which made me a bit sad to see...
but thats when I added the AMAZING Starry Temptress topcoat!! And boy oh boy does this sparkle polish really get the dazzle on there. I have never used a glitter polish that actually PUTS glitter on your nail. In one swipe of the brush my entire nail would be covered in a perfect coat of glitter.
I finished off the mani with a coat of SV to give it that signature glassy shine that I love!

I've had a lot of time the past few days to reflect on some things, like my relationship with Josh. And the quote above describes how I feel about my relationship perfectly. I got to visit him today at the fire station for a few hours. We sat and talked to the other firefighters and medic for a bit, and I couldn't help but stare at him. Not in a weird creepy stalker type of way, but looking at him is mesmerizing to me. I just love him, so much.

So after I saw Josh, I met up with a dear friend of mine, Heather, at Applebees and we girl chatted for a few hours! It was a ton of fun, and always is with her. She's a super good friend of mine...and the best part is, I totally got her into nail polish!! haha! she just bought her first OPI polish, I'm so proud I could cry <3

Hot off the Press! Newspaper Mani

Josh picked up a shift at work yesterday, which gave me some unexpected time to myself..so what did I do?? Searched youtube for fun nail polish videos! One of my favorite nail enthusiasts to watch is Cute Polish. She does the most amazing, cute and quirky nail designs :) I've seen the news paper mani done before, but after watching a quick video on it, I decided to give it a shot!
I used one of my unnamed Color Club minis from a set that I picked up at ross a little while ago. I wish this color had a name because it is such a sweet gray/lavender. It was pretty sheer so I had to apply 3 coats to get it to a nice opaque finish. I made the mistake of putting a thin coat of SV on it before I started to apply the newspaper. Doing this caused the news paper print to transfer really lightly :( I know for next time to not apply a top coat before doing the transfer! I finished off the mani with a coat of SV to protect the news print from rubbing off.
This picture captured the color of the polish super well. It's a great fall color, and one that I would use again some time soon! :)
ALSO! some exciting news! My new nail plates arrived yesterday from Born Pretty!!! I received 16 image plates!! ahhh so excited!!

Classy Halloween Mani & Julep Polish

Last night I finally had a moment to breathe and decided to try to do a tape mani using my new Julep nail polishes! I became a Julep Maven 2 months ago (I'll post about that later!) and just received my second package from them on Wednesday! I'm writing this while my students are at lunch, and I entirely forgot to bring my polishes with me to get their names :( But anyway..
This was my first time using my Julep polishes. I was impressed with their quality, they gave a nice opaque cover in just one coat :) I used two coats of the gray polish (I'll update the name when I get home!) Pictured above is Julep polish without a top coat, you can see the nice sheen this polish has!
Then I couldn't decide if I wanted to keep my nails glossy, so I painted my right hand with my Hard Candy Matte top coat :) And I quite like the look of the mani matte :)

I Absolutely LOVE the red gel glitter polish, it's called Brooklyn and the only reason I remember that is because I fell in love with the name before I even saw the polish haha! Overall I am super happy with the way Julep nail polishes go on. They provide a good smooth application and leave your nails looking extremely fresh and sexy for the fall season :)