Added to the Polish Horde + Nailette Subscription!

A PSA to all nail polish-a-holics out there, ULTA is having a 2 for $4 sale on their ULTA brand nail polishes! You have until April 5th to go grab some new colors. I couldn't pass up that deal. Most nail polishes are at least $6 a bottle. So I splurged a little! Here are some swatches! Please pardon my nail painting skills in these. I knew I'd be taking it right off, so I wasn't as careful.

From left to right: Total Eclipse, Grin & Berry It, Howl at the Moon (Not pictured: Snow White)
I love all these colors! Total Eclipse isn't quite black, but more a really dark grey. Grin & Berry It is just lusciously reddish purple in color, and Howl at the Moon is a very dark blue!

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As if I didn't have enough nail polish in my life, I stumbled upon a cute little subscription called Nailette! For $9.99 a month, you'll get a little box with two nail polish minis. Nailette uses Orly, OPI and Essie! All high end brands that are, on average, $8.50 a piece for a whole bottle. So basically you're paying the price of one bottle to get two half size bottles. What a great way to try new shades!
My first box showed up yesterday:

Isn't the packaging super cute?

I received Find Me An Oasis from Essie's Resort Fling 2014 collection and Amazon Amazoff from OPI's Brazil 2014 collection! So two new colors, not only to me but also to everyone. Pretty awesome!

Aren't these just the cutest little bottles? I know, I know but seriously they are cute. 
Find Me An Oasis is a very light ice blue, extremely close to being a white. You wouldn't be able to tell them apart unless it was compared against white. I think this will be a layer color. I'm not a fan of it on alone.
Amazon Amazoff is a total win for me! This is a very pretty, shiny teal color that goes on smooth and wonderful. I see myself wearing this color often, and going through this little bottle fairly quick. In fact, this might be the color I do my nails tonight! We shall see.
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So that's the round up! I'm not going to allow myself to buy anymore nail polishes now that I have this subscription box. I will, however, keep letting you know the colors I receive!
Now to go play with my new colors.

The Polish Chronicles: Part 2

I've gotten in the habit of painting my nails about once a week :). It's pretty much my Saturday afternoon ritual at this point. I was hoping that my new nail polishes would come today but, alas, they did not. So once again my nails are a pretty fuschia color (Ulta's Fuschiamania to be exact) and I decided to play around with nail stamping this time!

Nail stamping is something I've been reading about, but was hesitant to try. It sounded cool in theory! So when my co-worker was kind enough to lend me her kit to try out, I was excited!

The basic premise is this:
* Spread the special polish on the stamping plate
    - They have these awesome designs stamped in to a metal disc
* Use the scraper to scrape any excess polish off of the top of the plate
    - This leaves polish in only the picture!
* Push the stamper down onto the plate to pick up the picture
* Quickly move to your nail and gently roll it over to transfer the picture!

It took about two tries for me to get it exactly right, which is why I only did one nail per hand. Again, so much easier to only fix one! You can see the finished product to the left though! Super cool!


If you search on Amazon you'll see that there are all sorts of plates filled with different kinds of pictures. Hearts, swirls, leopard print, pretty much anything you can think of. What an easy and amazing way to decorate your nails!

I'll have to play around with this more, but as it stands I'm hooked.

I'm a nail polish-a-holic and I don't care who knows it :).

The Polish Chronicles: Part 1

Every year, without fail, I pick up a new hobby. Some I keep (see the many blogs I own), some slowly disappear (see sewing) and some I find so frustrating that I never pick them up more than once (see making candy).

This year, since I'm on a quest to understand where I fall in the beauty regime spectrum, I've fallen in love with nail art. It might sound odd, but painting my nails is zen for me. It's calming. Now that I've decided to keep this thing going,I'll post periodically about my nail polish adventures!

This week it was all about Accent Nails.

I'm trying to break out of my pink phase, so I picked up a purple polish called "Ultra Violet Femme" at ULTA. It's so pretty! A perfect shade of purple.

I wanted to do something a little different, so I decided to try an accent nail. It makes it easier when you only do one. That way if you mess up, you can fix one nail ;). I might be more ambitious later, but for now it's the perfect way to practice.

While browsing Etsy, I stumbled upon SSPVinyl, who makes these awesome vinyl nail templates. I just painted my nails purple, let them dry, put two squiggles on the nail, painted over it in silver, and then pulled them off right away. I was so gosh darn excited to see the finished product! Easy peasy.

Finally I layered on two coats of top coat! I want to keep them nice.



Let me share some things I've learned over the past month of painting my nails:

* Wear a base coat. Seriously. Lots of dark colors stain your nails, and slightly tinted pink nails are not cute.

* Put Vaseline around your nail beds when before you paint! It makes any nail polish that sneaks off your nail way easy to clean up. Just wipe it away with a tissue.

* A small brush helps a lot with any tiny polish errors. Just wait until after your polish dries entirely.


More to come! Next week I'm going to try pinstripes :).