Glamour Girl and Gold Star by e.l.f. Polish

While shopping at Target I found a cube of polish. Yes a cube. A holiday gift set by e.l.f. Nail Polish that includes 14 mini polishes for $10! I'd never used the brand before, so of course I had to try it!
I think Glamour Girl may be my favorite. It's a beautiful flesh/nude color packed full of gold shimmer. One coat is almost opaque, but 2 coats is perfect. Applies very smooth and creamy!
Gold Star is very bright hexagon gold glitter in a clear jelly polish. If you make sure the brush is loaded, one or two swipes will give you the speckled look in the pic. Gold Star stinks! Literally. It reminds me of Kleancolor polish, with a similar smell, but nothing that can't be tolerated. Beauty, sparkly beauty, can be painful right?!? :)
Glamour Girl dries quickly...Gold Star not so much. One coat of Seche Vite made everything right with the world. :)

Easy spider web nails

This was easy peasy. The Sally Hansen polish goes on pretty easy with 2 coats. It needs a smooth touch tho...or you get some streaking/bald spots.
The spider web accent nail was made with a silver striper polish. Just 4 straight lines connected with a few curved strokes. Easy Halloween nails!

Black Bean Soup

This recipe came from my friend Leslie, the Mom of my son's BFF.  Leslie made this soup for dinner one nite while Garrett was staying over and he RAVED about it for weeks!  I don't know if your kids like beans, or request beans, but mine do not.  Ever.  EVERRRRRRR.  Well, except this once.  :)

I followed the recipe exactly, except for the yogurt topping.  I had never tried Greek yogurt before, and I hope to not try it again soon.  **shiver**  Instead I topped the soup with the chopped cilantro and shredded mexican blend cheese.

Also, I chopped ALL the veggies in my little slicer dicer machine so there were no big chunks.  (my picky eaters hate chunks)  Then I threw it all into the oiled pot and continued per recipe.

Black Bean Soup

Prep: 25 min
Cook: 45 min
Serves: 6

1 1/2 Tbsp. canola oil
1 medium onion diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and diced.
4 carrots, diced (about 1 cup)
3 ribs celery, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
4 15oz. Cans black beans, drained and rinsed
Salt and pepper
6 Tbsp. low-fat Greek yogurt
2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro

1 Warm oil in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, bell pepper, carrots and celery; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 12 minutes. Add chili powder and cumin. Sauté for about 3 minutes.

2 Stir in broth and beans, then bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove 2 cups of soup and purée in a blender. Stir puréed soup back into pot and cook 5 minutes longer. Season with salt and pepper.

3 Spoon soup into bowls, top with yogurt and cilantro and serve.

Subtle Essie shimmer

This is Essie Sand Tropez as the base. Essie Shine of the Times and Seche Vite top coat. The accent nail is my attempt at glitter placement. I had a LOT of time to kill while I helped the 8th grader with his algebra homework. Like the blind leading the blind! Sheesh!
This is a pretty subtle shimmer that you could get away with if you were at a non-blingy nail event. Like work. :)

Cookie Monster nails

Finger Paints Laugh My Art Off is so so pretty! And it matches my new $5 cookie monster shirt perfectly!

Deep purple Disturbia with glitter

If it had not required so much top coat, this would have been a super quick mani. Wet n Wild Megalast Disturbia is almost a one-coater! The long, rectangular glitters were a gift that I think came from a Dollar Store.
Even with 3 thick coats of Seche Vite the ring finger glitter catches on my hair a little. But that's an OK price for super bling! :)

Silver holographic

It's a cloudy, overcast day here in Okiehoma. Too bad because sunlight makes this Catherine Arley holographic polish come to life!! #676 is a shiny silver. In this pic I'm wearing it as a top coat over the fleshy #672, which is also awesome.
Someone please pass the cuticle cream. Yikes! Didn't realize how dry they were until I loaded this pic. :)

Purplicious

Wonderful one-coat Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro in Wild Orchid as the base. Stamped with Catherine Arley holographic #673. I'm going to try more color-on-color....it was easy and the mistakes aren't so glaring! Score!!

Ahoy! A cloud mani!

This is new yellow polish. NYC Lexington Yellow is streaky and takes 2 thick coats or 3 thin to be opaque. I'm not that patient. It's such a cute color tho! Not too mustard, not too bright, not too pastel.
China Glaze Ahoy takes as many coats. BOO! But it's so so pretty!! It's like a perfect berry rich color that isn't too dark, with this inner flakey gold shimmer that is mesmerizing.
Yes, I stare at my nails that much. :)

Purple and lime green and holo OH MY!

Today I wanted to experiment layering glittery top coats.  IMHO, Pure Ice brand has some fantastic top coats that can alter the color of the base polish and for CHEAP!!  This is only a fraction of the colors I tried today, but they are the final 4 that I quit with.

From left to right:
Pure Ice Heart Breaker - final top coat over everything because you can never have too much glitter!
Pure Ice Wild Thing - should be named Ogre Pee...needs 2 coats.
Kleancolor Chunky Holo Purple - dries a little slow but it's a party in a bottle!
Kleancolor Fairy Lover - very dark with dark silver shimmer...1 coat opacity!

See?!  Party!!
The purple jelly has very little color, so all you really see is the firey glitter colors.  I put it over the pee green polish as well and you'd never know there is purple jelly on top.  Thank you to my sister from another mother for giving it to me!!  ;)
Oh yea, P.S....I've polished and re-polished so many times today I didn't bother to clean up the last time.  :)  Yes I'm that lazy.

And one more.  Because I can.  :)

Yesterday I tried painting a little skull on my thumbnail.  You can see her peeking up there.  That will be a separate post.

Metallic swirls over blue glitter

In geeky news, I'm blogging from my phone thanks to the free Blogger app. Since 99% of my pictures are taken on my phone I hope this will help me post more frequently.
Today I'm wearing Laugh My Art Off by Finger Paints, stamped with Metallic 860 by Revlon Top Speed. This silver has become my new favorite! And now that I know it will stamp...happy dance!!
Now to hit publish and see how this app works out. :)

Too Subtle Mani Redux

It was wearing so well I couldn't take it off.  So I blinged it up with Sally Hansen's Gem Crush "Big Money".

Just free handed the tips and used Pure Ice "Oh Baby" as a shimmery topcoat.  (Because Big Money is rough.)
Here's a closeup so you can see the pretty lavender bits mixed in with the light gold!

Fleshy holo + matte = subtle coolness

I went outside to take some bright sunshine pics, and the butterflies were abundant!

I don't know if they are mating, or hatching, or dying, or taking a migration break or what...but they are everywhere.  See...photo bomber!

This mani started with Catherine Arley #668.  A pretty, rich, but subtle holographic fleshy (my color fleshy) color.  Two easy, quick drying coats.  I love this brand! (sorry for the big watermark...it's from my Instagram pics...I LOVE Instagram!)

A day later I saw NYC Matte Me Crazy, and some little round jewelry tag stickers in my craft room and decided to play.  This is the only matte polish I own, so I can't compare, but I love this stuff!  One thin coat makes the matte magic happen, and quickly.

The effect is super subtle.  Too subtle really.  But it made the little light bulb go off in my peabrain...must try different color combos!  :)  Oh, and the matted holo polish almost looks like suede on my nails, which is also very cool.  But subtle.  I don't do subtle.  I think today I'll add some chunky gold glitter!  LOL!

Milani Lavender Fizz (almost) one coat glitter

It seems I am incapable of just wearing one nail polish at a time.  I can not leave it alone!  I try.  I really do.  Good grief, with 5 kids (one being a baby) I really really need to perfect the speedy mani.  Oh well.

Lavender Fizz is the 3rd Milani one coat glitter I've bought.  One really thick coat could be enough with any of them, but I couldn't resist adding more color.  I sandwiched a Sally Girl in between to add some blue hues to the lavender.

It goes: Milani, Sally, Milani, clear coat x2.  The Milani is very rough alone.  Dries quickly though!

One more shot.  Can you see the blue bits?  My finger tips are like tiny shiny disco balls!  :)

Kleancolor Metallic pink

 Kleancolor Metallic Pink 158 is awesome!  For starters, it's a one-coater.  I have not taken it off yet, so it may stain my nails horribly but I don't care.  My nails are never nekkid anyway.  :)
It's a bright, hot pink!! (see ring finger) Not a meek color.  Would be a great toe color.

I read many reviews about the stinkiness of Kleancolor polish.  My opinion?  Yes, it stinks.  It's nail polish!  It has a different smell than other polishes...but they ALL stink.  You don't see Glade offering a Harvest Spice & Orange Nail Polish scent.  :)

 Here is Pink Holo 134 over all but the ring finger.  Really pretty rainbow sparkly glitters.  Slightly gritty, but a fast dry  top coat fixed the texture issue.
Speaking of drying...the metallics dry quickly.  The holos and glitters are slow, and take forever to become "dent" resistant. 

 This mani is crazy bright & vibrant.  I wish I were a better photographer!
Here is Pinky Moon 30.  It takes some digging and luck to get a crescent, but it is worth it.  Super cute!

KleanColor haul

So I went a little overboard shopping the Kleancolor sale at BeautyJoint.com.  :)  About 6 of these are going to my Mom, so :oP  LOL!!  I can't wait to try ALL of them!  I will be spamming you with pics every chance I get.  I know you are breathless with anticipation.  :)

Catherine Arley Holo 676

It's an insanely sunny day here in Oklahoma.  Perfect for showing you my silver holographic nubbies!!
This is 3 coats on all fingers, 2 coats on my thumbs.  Next time I will try a base coat of white or gray.  

Catherine Arley holographic polish swatches

February 2nd I ordered Catherine Arley polishes from beautycosmetic.biz.  I learned about the polish and the vender from Emerald Sparkled and DROOLED over the swatches at Fashion Polish.  (seriously, grab a tissue)

The customer service at BeautyCosmetic.Biz was awesome.  I payed via Paypal, and my polishes arrived today (just a little over 1 month later) perfectly in tact.  I think that's an appropriate wait time for a shipment to make the long trek, through customs, from Bulgaria to Oklahoma, USA.  I had to sign for the USPS delivery, so I'm glad I was home.

BeautyCosmetic.Biz was out of a few colors I had hoped to buy, but I still managed to get 8 colors!!  Here are the first 4:

#666 - 667 - 668 - 672

This is 2 coats.  I was surprised how sheer and light they were, but 2 coats made perfect coverage.  No top coat in these pics.  I could hardly wait until they were DRY to take pics...forget waiting on a top coat!

In indirect light they look like normal, pretty colors.  In direct light they come to life like sparkly rainbow parties!!  I wish I was able to capture how gorgeous they are in the pics.

#672 - 668 - 667 - 666

PCFC Pastel Patchwork

These spring challenges have shown me that I don't own many pastels.  But no biggie.  I had 3, and was planning some time consuming multicolor nails.  Then Sophia (the baby) said, Oh no you aren't!!  So I went with plan B......not so much patchwork...they make me think more quilt looking.  KISS.  One base color...one stamping color.