March 5, 2013
I have another beauty from Shimmer Polish for you today! I created a glitter gradient using Shimmer Polish “Kim” over China Glaze Spontaneous, topped with two coats of Seche Vite for a shiny finish. Kim is a mix of purple and blue glitters in a clear base, and it was very easy to apply and work with.
*Products provided for review.
 |
February 28, 2013
Today I have another Shimmer Polish called Jasmine. The description of this polish says it has aquamarine, light blue and green glitter, but I also see some metallic gold or copper glitters as well. I was originally going to pair this glitter polish with a teal blue color, however I picked up China Glaze Four Leaf Clover yesterday and wanted to see how they would work together. I personally think the combo turned out really cute. If you check out Shimmer Polish’s Etsy page for Jasmine you can see that it also looks great when paired with different shades of blue.
To get this look I polished my nails with two coats of Four Leaf Clover and then painted the top two-thirds of each nail with Jasmine. After letting it dry for a little while, I added some gold nail art striping tape across each nail to define a line between the glitter and base color. The glitter polish is a bit top coat thirsty and just as a general practice I normally apply two layers of top coat over any glitter so I topped this off with two coats of Seche Vite for a glossy finish.
*Products provided for review.
 |
November 11, 2012
It’s been a crazy week and I haven’t had much time to do my nails or post. I hope to have more time this coming week to play with my 2012 Bundle Monster stamping set. I was having an issue with many of the plates where I couldn’t get the design to pick up on my stamper. I finally concluded that the impressions in the plates were too shallow and I contacted the company. They very graciously sent me a new set, and these ones are working perfectly so far. The first design that I tried out is this paisley pattern from plate BM315. This is China Glaze Stella stamped with China Glaze Magical.
 |
November 8, 2012
It’s been a crazy day and I almost didn’t have time to do a mani today, but I really wanted to show my support for this anti-bullying movement. Like many, I was bullied in high school and it can be really detrimental to a person’s self esteem. We are all unique individuals and deserve to be treated with respect.
Bullying is not funny. It is not cool. It is not right. And more importantly, it is not okay.
Most of us are, thankfully, residents of countries that support tolerance and many of our families have settled in these places simply for that reason. Generations later, it is our responsibility to perpetuate that message of tolerance across our new social platforms, including the internet.
As members of the nail polish blogging community, we all share a love of beauty, color, and lacquer. Other than that, we are remarkably different: from our race to our religion to our hair color…even to our polish application techniques. To marginalize anyone because of those differences is completely unacceptable and today I take a stand against that. I refuse to allow other people’s view of “normal” dictate how I behave, believe, and blog.
In solidarity with a multitude of bloggers linked below, my purple manicure represents my proud commitment to the No H8 movement. Today, November 8, I dedicate my post to ending bullying of any kind and to encouraging diversity and imperfection among our colorful community.
 |
November 1, 2012
This is another China Glaze that I just picked up, Smoke and Ashes from the Hunger Games collection. In the few swatches that I saw it looked like the shimmery flecks were silver/grey, but they’re actually green. The swatches below show two coats of this polish with one coat of Seche Vite on top. I actually got great coverage with just one coat, and didn’t really need the second coat. I wore this for a few days and really liked it. I apologize that my fingers look a little icky in the photos though… I did a messy job when polishing and had to do a lot of cleanup with acetone and forgot to moisturize before taking the pics.
 |
November 1, 2012
I recently purchased several China Glaze polishes that were on sale. I’ve heard from many people that the Romantique collection is great for stamping, so I grabbed several shades from that collection. Below are swatches of Fifth Avenue, which is a lovely dusty rose color. I stamped it with Passion and BM314 stamping plate from the 2012 BM plate collection. I’m actually having some problems with these plates and am talking with BM about getting a replacement set. The impressions in my plates seem to be too shallow and I’m having a hard time picking up images. This is one of the good ones of the bunch, and you can see that the stamp quality isn’t great. In person it doesn’t look horrible, but you can really see the imperfections when it’s magnified.
 |
October 10, 2012
This mani started out with a base of Color Club Fashion Addict. It’s a light purple holographic polish and it applies very evenly with just two coats (or one thick coat). I used some nail guide stickers to achieve the triangular cut-out effect and painted over top with China Glaze Grape Juice.
 |
September 20, 2012
Fall has officially arrived in Cleveland, Ohio. Brrr… these last few days have been chilly. I broke out the sweaters and jeans, but I still refuse to turn the heat on in hopes that we might get a little more warm weather yet. So here’s my first fall manicure… I’m sure there will be a few more to come.
I started with just a few colors that I thought were complimentary: OPI Chocolate Moose
 |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
