31 Day Challenge! Day 1 - Red

So I'ma do the 31 day nail art challenge. And it really will be a huge challenge because I have had zero motivation to do nail art recently. And even if I do the art, I have no motivation to post. I really enjoy posting when I do, it's just getting myself out of the regular funk and doing it. Argh. Anywho... Anyone else reading this probably already knows how this whole deal works so without further ramblings...

Day 1 - Red Nails

This is China Glaze - Snow Globe over China Glaze - Winter Berry. I immediately loved Winter Berry just because it has one of my kitties' names in it and Snow Globe is just frickin' gorgeous. It's really hard to photograph all of the colors in Snow Globe, though! 

Winter Berry is a great red on its own, but I really enjoyed the outcome of adding a glitter gradient to it. Snow Globe is quite a hungry glitter, but if I'd man up and pick up some Seche Vite or Gelous I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem. Thanks for reading!

Blog Awards!

A huge thank you to Adventures of the Nailfriends for including my in their blog award nominations! There were two on there that I haven't covered and they are: The Butterfly Award and The One Lovely Blog Award!

The Rules:

Link back

Tell 7 random things about yourself

Give the award to 10 bloggers Consider everyone I follow tagged! 

Random things!

1. I have an unhealthy need for soda. I should do something about that...

2. I will someday be a guitar hero master! This I swear!

3. I think the whole zombie thing is starting to get a little played out. Except zombie nails, those will always be awesome.

4. I had never tried a chimichanga until about a year ago.

5. If I could, I would open and run an animal shelter.

6. Flannel is always awesome. It always has been. 

7. Interior design makes me very excited!

The Rules:

Link back

Answer questions

Tag Again consider everyone tagged :)

1. What's your favourite song? 

This is insanely hard. If I had to pick one song to listen to right now it would be "Liar" by Built to Spill, and probably them and At the Drive In are responsible for my favorite stuff. 

2. What's your favourite dessert? 

Red velvet cake. Also strawberry sundaes. 

3. What's your favourite pet? 

I will not choose between the awesomeness! Fern and Berry are equally special in their own ways. 

4. Black or White?

Black. 

5. What's your biggest fear? 

Heights. F that. 

6. What's your best feature?

I'm very nice.

7. What's your everyday attitude? 

It can't get any worse..

8. What is perfection?

I honestly have no idea. Right now it would be a large plate of nachos. 

9. What is your guilty pleasure?

Super buttery popcorn - but I don't really feel all that guilty about it. I guess if we wanna go TRULY guilty, it'd be the mostly crappy teen dramas I watch. Can't help it. They suck me in. Yeah, I'm 27. 

Thanks so much for these awards! It means the world to me to know even one person enjoys reading my blog. Also after reading through your blog I'm pretty sure we'd be best friends if we hung out in real life! :)

Fantasy Fire

When I started to see this little (and I do mean little!) beauty pop up on all of the nail blogs I follow, it immediately struck my eye. Unfortunately it is only available in the UK so I figured I was out of luck. But the lovely NailNewbie came to the rescue! She sent me bottle of Fantasy Fire and a deep purple for layering. I was pretty excited for the FF, but the added bonus of a new purple polish was just amazing. So here are the two together:

At some angles, it's really more bronze-ish.

Definitely hints of golds, reds, purples

It was SO HARD to pick up the green shimmer! A couple of the pictures turned out ok that way...

For some reason, without flash, none of the purple really showed up. This picture is with flash.

All in all, I was completely satisfied with this swap. The bottle may be tiny, but it's best for using as a layering polish anyway. I actually couldn't stop staring at my nails (this isn't so unusual for me though). These pictures in no way do justice to the beauty that is Fantasy Fire! Thanks again Helen :D

Kirby Crackle! (Contest Entry)

This is my entry for the contest over at Chalkboard Nails. I don't know if I'm completely satisfied with the pictures (ok, not at all), but I am REALLY satisfied with how it actually looked on my nails. This design was inspired by this:

Comic readers might recognize this as Kirby crackle! On to the nails...

That purple is the gorgeous Seniorita Bonita by China Glaze. I have a couple other random photos of it that I wanted to share, but I'll save them for a non-contest entry post! 

Thanks for reading!

Finally had enough colors to do an ombre...

..But I did it with my tips. I really liked the idea of doing nude nails with colorful tips, so I went with an ombre design. The nude is Revlon - Sheer Nude.

The blues are:

Thumb - Revlon's Minted

Pointer - China Glaze's For Audrey

Middle - Sinful Colors's Why Not?

Ring - Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's Pacific Blue (love this polish)

Pinky - Dark blue Cosmetic Arts that I actually only bought because both me and my father thought it was purple. Bleh. Still a good color.

The other nubbin nail that I spoke of in the last post...

That wooden thing that I took pictures on is what I am hoping to make my nail polish desk. It would look awesome all painted up. 

Bonus weird dots:

Does anyone else play Animal Crossing? They have a salon in town, and there should totally be an option to get your nails done. I'm writing Nintendo! ^.^

Thanks for reading!

Jordana FTW

Serious win all up in this post. As mentioned I have a serious thing for creams and also purples and greens (that almost rhymed), and Hypnotizing and Rich Green by Jordana did not at all disappoint me. They both went on in two easy coats and came off quite easily. What really impressed me though, was the formula. Of course it's not O.P.I quality, but it's better than some of the Sinful Colors of I've come across, and they're the same price. I didn't clean up these swatches of Hypnotizing, because I wanted to get the immediate shine from the Quick Shine Top Coat. Almost made it too shiny for pictures though haha

Yes, I have a nubbin nail :( I actually have one on each hand right now. Very frustrating that not even one hand is good for swatching! I'm being as careful as possible, so hopefully they'll be all normal soon. Anyway! I probably should have waited until the top coat dried more, as you'll see in the pictures of Rich Green, the shine is normal and not so glaring like in the above pictures. The color and formula of this polish were just awesome - well worth $1.99. The brush was actually really nice too. Kinda reminds of me of a China Glaze brush. Now for Rich Green:

I freaking love greens.

So... I didn't clean up these swatches either. This polish was just so easy to work with, and the brush covered so well, I didn't make any mistakes big enough to warrant busting out ye olde acetone and make up brush. After gushing over the awesomeness of this amazing green for awhile, I added some stamping so I could test the Quick Shine Top Coat for nail art effectiveness.

Not the best stamping job...

The verdict: Holy crap it works. I waited until I was done stamping my entire hand, applied the top coat, and there was no dragging! The dragging you see on the middle finger was completely my fault, I left some hangy bits of the Konad polish. I know Seche Vite acts the same way, but this is only $1.99. I cannot attest to how long it wears or keeps your mani looking fresh, but I can say it's great for nail art, dries as quickly as all of the top brands, and leaves a shine that lasts for days (well as far as my impatience would allow me to test, 3).

I had also purchased a black crackle from Jordana, it worked like any other crackle would. Nothing special to note. It did the job! :)

All in all, I recommend giving Jordana nail polish a shot. If for nothing else, their amazing top coat!

Thanks for reading :)

Purple glittery goodness

In my time in Pennsylvania I made sure to hit up a few Dollar Generals because they have discounted Xtreme Wear polishes and there isn't a single one here in my area of California. Because of this I ended up with a ton of Xtreme Wear colors, but that's ok because they water marble really well, and I need all the help I can get in that department. This is Purple Potion. A shimmery purple with hints of blue all throughout. It didn't look that special in the bottle, but once I had it on I couldn't stop staring. Two coats is what you see here. 

Then, of course, there had to be GLITTER. Rockstar Pink is another of the Xtreme Wears I picked up. This is the only thing I have done with it so far, but it's so damned pretty in the bottle I imagine it could really spice up a few manicures!

I was really just going for a light gradient and a little shine. I think this manicure accomplished both :) 

Thanks for reading!

A Manicure for the Weekend

While home with my dad, we listened to a lot of music together. Good times, food, and brews were had. We were listening to one of his favorite bands, X-Japan, and he suggested I do my nails in tribute to X-Japan! I thought it was a pretty great idea so we came up with a few ideas and this was born!

The thumbs are the name of the song that inspired this design - Weekend. Check out the video here:

The blood splatter design was taken from the video - I really do love splattering..err splatter painting? I don't know how to phrase that right now, but I love it!

The X is obviously for the name of the band, but I did it in pink in dedication to their late guitarist, Hide, who was famous for his pink hair (and ridiculous guitar skills). 

I decided to post this today because I found out my dad randomly checks my blog, so this post is dedicated to him! :) He has been insanely supportive of my nail art stuff and always has something nice to say about even the worst manicure that I do. Hi dad! Love you!

Thanks for reading!