A Samurai Princess goes On A Trip and says I Need A Refresh-Mint...

Hi Everyone!

Ok, so not the most clever of titles, but that's alright.

I'm excited! I ordered my VERY FIRST Indie polish, Sonnetarium's "Samurai Princess" from Beauty Pop Shop , and it arrived in the mail yesterday, nicely packaged. When I opened the box, here's what I found:

Wrapped up like a Christmas present! YAY! I wasted no time in unwrapping it. Here's the bottle shot!

My word, look at all that glitter! Black and white micro, small and medium hex, and black and white bars make up this polish, in a clear base! Horray!

Application was really smooth, didn't really have to do any fishing to get the glitters I wanted. The brush is black so I was never sure with each dip how many black glitters I was getting, or what kind, but that's alright! 

So I polished my fingers with WnW's On A Trip (you all know purple is my favorite) and did a ring finger accent with WnW's I Need A Refresh-Mint.

Then I did one coat of SP on each nail. I am kindof digging the randomness of the glitters on each nail. I probably could have done two coats of SP, but I didn't want to overdo it. I like the way this looks! What do you think?

Peace.

It's Autumn!

Hi everyone!

I am so happy that Autumn has finally arrived! It's my favorite time of year - the turning of the leaves, the wonderful scents in the air and around the house, the wonderful dark polish colors.....ahhhhh!
On my nails today is one of those polishes...a wonderful deep plummy color by WnW called "Disturbia". This is one of my favorites. I love dark colors, and I love the color purple. Please excuse my terrible short nubs, work is forever taking it's toll on them, the poor things. On my ring fingers and thumbs I have put a thin coat of "Cheatin' " from Pure Ice. The subtle purple and teal sparkle isn't in your face, but it definitely catches your eye.

Are you as excited as I am now that Autumn is here? Do you have any favorite polishes you plan on wearing during the season?

Peace.

My Sunday Dotticure

Hi everyone!

I hope you all have had a nice weekend....it's back to the grind tomorrow morning. boooooo. I cheered myself up by doing a quick and easy dotticure today using Sally Hansen's "No Hard Feelings" as a base color, and my dotting tools and China Glaze "For Audrey" to make various sized dots on just my ring fingers. I love a purple and teal/turquoise combo, don't you?

Enjoy what's left of your weekend, and I hope you all have a great week!

Peace.

A sort of "TIOT", Orly "Royal Velvet"

Hi everyone!

So tomorrow I am back to work, so needed to cover my nails with something. I was rummaging thru my polishes and I happened upon Orly's "Royal Velvet", a lovely blue-purple duochrome with a shimmery finish that caught my eye. Since I just finished two coats and a topcoat about an hour ago, the sun has long since gone down, so I cannot show this beauty in the sunlight, but I did try to take a couple of pics that would show the shift between colors. The pics shown, as I mentioned, are two coats and a clear topcoat, but I really think that three coats would have been better, I was just impatient.
Here are the two pics trying to capture the shift difference between the purple and the blue:

I really like this polish, I've never worn it before, but I like the shift and the shimmer of it. Tho I think I really need to look into getting (making) myself a light box to try to get my pictures to turn out better.
Do you have this Orly polish? What do you think of it?

Pepe's Purple Passion!

Hi everyone!

I wanted to share with you a swatch of this A-MAZ-ING OPI I just got from my friend on FB for my Birthday Do-Over...this color is awesome!!! Dark, dark plum with what appears to be a fairly reddish shimmer - oh my word it's gorgeous!! It's called Pepe's Purple Passion.... and I LOVE IT!

It is awesome all by itself, needs nothing over it. AWESOME for Autumn!

Peace.

One Stroke Fail Nails

Hi everyone!
If you have been following me on Facebook , you may remember the youtube video tutorial I posted not long ago detailing how to do one stroke flower painting on your fingernails. To watch the tutorial, click right here .
On my Facebook page, I said that I wanted to try this. So tonight, I tried it.

And failed. Really bad.

I have some acrylic paints that I have had since....oh....forever...so I decided to break them out and try my hand at this one stroke brush painting thing.
It looks so easy.......but don't be fooled!! I think my acrylic paints were too runny or maybe I just sucked too hard or something, but wow. It looks like a three year old scribbled on my nails or something.

I showed it to my mom (who is usually the first to see my new nail art and give her honest opinion, and I love her for that!), and she said "Well, I like the one on the middle finger".....hahahaha. I love you, mom!
I am thinking that I have got to practice this one stroke brush painting a lot more before I attempt this again. What do you guys think? Have you ever done the one stroke brush painting on your nails before?

P.S. The base color on my nails is the wee "franken" I did last night by mixing white and black to get myself a light grey. Still have to come up with a name for it, but i'm leaning towards naming it "Steam".
Peace.

Very Lovely

Hi everyone!
A day or so ago I was doing my regular blog browsing (and also re-following blogs I'd been following before the icky blog deletion catastrophe of mine), and I happened to get back onto a wonderful British blog I had been following, The Nail Newbie . Several days ago she did a post that had a very simple but oh so lovely nail art design that made my wee nubs go "SQUEE!", and I knew I had to do it myself. You can see the inspiration for this new nail art right here!
At first I was going to go with a light pinkish base color like she did, but nothing I had in my stash cried out to me. Then I saw it....an untried, unnamed Hello Kitty polish in a purplish taupe that made me smile. You know I love HK. A Facebook friend of mine sent me this polish a while back, along with a PLETHORA of other yummy polishes. So, I made that the base coat.

Then, since I am still really clumsy when it comes to using my new nail art brushes, I instead reached for a fine-tip black sharpie, and very (sortof) carefully did each letter of the word "love" on my nails. (I have fairly shaky hands so the lines were a tad wobbly..)

After I got the letters on my nails, I thought they needed a little "something-something", so I broke out my MASH plates. On plates 16 and 17 I found little heart images, so I used #16 on my thumb with WnW's Disturbia, and #17 (cleaning one or two hearts off with a q-tip) to stamp on my other fingers. Then, at the suggestion of a couple ladies on my FB page, I added little gold dots to each nail in various places.

Pay no mind to the center of the "o" on my middle finger - I overstamped and tried to clean it up, but just ended up smudging things around. D'oh!
So ladies, what do you think? Win or Fail? Do you think you'd ever do this on your own nails?
Also, don't forget, you can follow me on Facebook by liking my new page in order to get notices of updates to my blog or just random pics and ramblings - check it out by clicking here!
Until next time,
Peace.