Inspired by... Pinterest!

Hi everyone, sorry I've been so lazy with these lately. I tried a gradient recently and I think it was enough for me to swear off nail art forever lol. Anyway, my Pinterest nails today are inspired by Dressed Up Nails' Dotty Hearts post. She did hers in a number of colors so each nail was different but I just chose two colors to alternate. Basically, the technique here is to use dots to create dot shapes and then outline it in another color. I used the same dotting tool but applied different amounts of pressure to get varying sizes and then went back with a tiny one to fill in gaps. The teal ones came out pretty cool but the purple on pink is a bit more subtle than I'd hoped.

Oh! The base color is Julep Carrie and the dots are Sinful Colors Sweet Nothing and Sweet Tooth. Go see what Amanda's got for you! (PS this entry counts for additional comments for my giveaway I posted earlier if you comment and let me know in the Rafflecopter widget!)

xoxo,
Amanda

Valentine's Day Nail Ideas

Hey everybody. You may or may not know that I love Valentine's Day. I love hearts, pink, purple, and candy so it's the perfect time of year for me to get all of that in one day! I tend to look at it more like a day to express fondness for others and not just a significant other so it's kind of like Thanksgiving for people... if that makes any sense. Anyway, the big day is tomorrow so I did some nail art (ha. loosely using the term) and wanted to show you!

First up was a really easy look I did using glequins. I started with a base of Nicole by OPI Kim-pletely in Love (very apropos name, right?). Like its name sake, this polish was a little tough to work with and sheer. (Just kidding, low blow? I don't really have any feelings towards Kim Kardashian but I couldn't resist.) I think this was 3 coats. Then I made the red glequins into a heart shape on my accent nails - voila! Instant easy nail art!

 Next up, I tried to get a little more creative. My base color here is Catherine Arley Hologram (I'm not sure if that's the name or the collection name but it's the only identifier I found on the bottle) which is a red scattered holo. Then I grabbed my white Migi pen and went to work with some different heart designs. I really grew fond of my middle finger's design but wasn't sure if anyone would know what it was. And I realize some of my hearts on my pinky look like Mickey Mouse. Shut up.

Finally I have another simple mani if you have heart glitters. I used OPI DC Cherry Blossom as a base and put a row of heart glitters across in a couple patterns. The alternate nails are just topped with I Lily Love You (another apropos name) which I'm pretty meh about. Super simple and I love the base color!

What do you plan for your nails this Valentine's Day?

xoxo,
Amanda

February Untrieds 3!

Good morning! Today I'm back with Sarah and Amanda for our untrieds challenge. But it also is the week of Valentine's Day so you bet your bottom dollar I have a twist in this cremes challenge! I have another Butter London polish for you today, this is Kerfluffle, which I admit I would have bought just for the name. A quick google search tells me it means "a commotion or fuss" so there's your fact of the day. Learn some knowledge, kids. Anywho, Kerfluffle had perfect perfect perfect application! Below is 2 coats with no top coat (or clean up, actually! boom!). I thought this was baby pink when I bought it but it's more of a peach with pink undertones as you can see below. Loves it! *snuggles bottle*

But for Valentine's Day I'm using hearts hearts hearts galore! So here it is with Different Dimension ...more on top. Every finger has a heart but they're different colors so the lighter ones blend in a bit. I had to fish LIKE CRAZY to get the hearts out of this and was not super pleased but I was determined so here we go!

Thoughts? Disbelief that there's even more heart glitters in my stash?

xoxo,
Amanda

Inspired by... Pinterest!

Hello everyone, happy Monday! Today is my second Pinterest inspired mani with Amanda. On my Butter London Molly Coddled post, I alluded to the fact that there'd be another post with that color, so Molly Coddled is my base color for a mani inspired by this post by Dori Davis (which is a new-to-me blog but I'm obsessed with it now):

Dori used tape to create the hearts but I'm a rebel (Dottie? anyone catch that reference?!) and decided to freehand it (which should indicate to you why last week's Pinterest mani involved using heart glitter rather than my mad freehand skillz). Also, since it's "Inspired by Pinterest" and not necessarily "Copy Pinterest", I decided to only do hearts on my middle two fingers and used Candy Lacquer Love-ly Lavender on my pinky and pointer. The gray crackle is the one from China Glaze but I know you guys don't really care about that so I'm going to channel my inner lazy and not look up the actual name.

What do you think? I was amazed how perfectly my middle finger's heart cracked and even mentioned it on twitter haha! I think this is a good, muted way to show a Valentine's mani that isn't all red and pink and hearts. (Though there's nothing wrong with that in my book!)

xoxo,
Amanda

February Untrieds!

Hey everyone, first of mine and Amanda's February untrieds and this month's challenge is cremes/shimmers/NON-GLITTERS. It'll be the hardest challenge yet though I have some tricks up my sleeve ;) Today I am starting with Illamasqua Lament, which is a beautiful pink-coral creme that I swapped for not too long ago. This applied perfectly in two coats but I probably could have even gotten away with one.

Then because I'm a sneaky dickens I added a glitter. I know, I know... it's supposed to be creme month! But I showed you a creme and it's also Valentine's Day month, so I needed to include my Valentine's (HEART!!!!) glitters too. <3 So I added Candy Lacquer Love Rocks on top:

I think it's a lovely combination :) (Come for the nails, stay for the puns.)

xoxo,
Amanda

PS Today is the last day to add entries to my mom's tribute post - please let me know if you have a photo I can add even if you didn't do a blog post!

Inspired by...

...Pinterest! Amanda and I decided to try our hand at some of the nail art we see on Pinterest and Instagram. (By the way, if you want to follow me, my username is amanda_npe on both!) My inspiration came from Pinterest, where I saw this post from Beauty Tips n Tricks.

My version is a little different as I chose different colors and rather than trying to draw hearts, I used iridescent/white heart glitter (I can make one heart well, two will be good but not the same, and three I get into rocky very mismatched territory).

For my version I used a set of scented minis that Amanda sent me, actually. I was fairly naive and didn't realize they were all scented until I started using them and HOLY COW was that a nasal nightmare. I didn't keep this on long because of the smell of four different scents going on at once. I used Cherry, Blue Raspberry, Orange, and Grape from Jolly Rancher/Nerds sets available at Claire's. They applied okay but were actually pretty difficult to remove, which surprised me. On the second coat, I added the hearts while wet and voila! Very easy start to my Inspired By... series :)

xoxo,
Amanda

Lumina Lacquer Swatches

Hi guys and gals! I'm really excited for these swatches because they represent two of my favorite things: Valentine's Day and Third Eye Blind! Lumina Lacquer made a collection featuring names of Third Eye Blind songs and the polishes are gorgeous so I immediately broke my no-buy to buy all four and I don't even regret it. Since I'm featuring four polishes and music videos, this will be below a cut so loading time for my main blog page isn't really slow. Check out below the cut for pictures and music!

Lazy 15: Fairy Tale

Hi everyone. I think it's my duty to warn you: today's post is kind of mushy. I think it might be vomit-inducing. I warned you...

Today is fairy tale themed and rather than going with the typical fairy tales, I decided to go with my own personal fairy tale: my boyfriend. So without getting into mushy-gushy-vomity details, I'll just say that he's a very special person in my life and this was inspired by him.

The base color is Sinful Colors Island Coral and the rest of the design used loose heart glitters, pink rhinestones, and my white Migi pen. Nothing too fancy and just so we can all be assured that I'm not a lunatic, I didn't go out in public with this on haha

So there you go, lovey dovey foofy adorable-ness. Hope you made it through without meclizine ;)


xoxo,
Amanda

Darling Diva Polish: Rescue Me

Hey everyone! How's it going? I hope all your weeks are going faster than mine, ugh. Where is the weekend?!

I have for you a very lovely indie glitter by Darling Diva Polish called Rescue Me. Today's polish is very near and dear to me because the entire cost of the polish is going to benefit Basset Hound Rescue. Yes, you read that right - the entire $10 of this polish is going directly to them, not just the profits. (I can verify this because when she sent me this advance bottle, she had me donate the $10 directly to the charity, not to her.)

Rescue Me is made up of "black and white (bars, hexes, squares) with holographic pinky red hearts" (as DDP describes herself!). Side story: I had messaged her on Etsy (her shop is here) and told her I needed more heart glitter (I'm obsessed) and she mentioned this was in the works and I believe my exact response was "sign me up!" without ever seeing it. I'm definitely not disappointed!

So for today's swatches, I couldn't decide what to layer it over, so I did 4 different ones: OPI Atomic Orange, Essie French Affair, Essence Let's Get Lost, and Mattese Elite Lilac Me All Over, from left to right. I used the dabbing method to apply and spread it out, but it self-leveled pretty well (no TC in these photos) so that nobody would have noticed lumps or bumps. I did some fishing for hearts but it wasn't very difficult to get them out and on my nail.

Flash

Flash

Indoor "natural" lighting

I absolutely ADORE this over the Essence blue, so stunning. This made me totally regret selling my bottle of Lynnderella Connect the Dots and brushing off black and white glitters. I love love loved this, and I'm not just saying that for the puppies! The polish, IMO, is definitely worth the cost and you can even justify it by telling yourself you didn't buy polish, you donated $10 to Basset Hound Rescue. Pretty polish, rescued doggies, glitter = win, win, win (kudos if you get the TV show reference...)

Rescue Me is available at Darling Diva Polish for $10 a bottle, with the entire $10 going to Basset Hound Rescue! What do you think, will you be purchasing?!

xoxo,
Amanda

Indie Invasion: Love Bug

Hi girls! Quick little swatch today. My week has been horrendous, so I was in need of a pick-me-up, which came in the form of this post I had in my drafts! You know me and my heart glitter, so this seemed appropriate to cheer me up! <3

Today I have Love Bug by CustomNailArt on Etsy. She recently had a promotion for free shipping, so I decided to grab her heart glitter polish in a mini size that I'd been eyeballing.

Indoor lighting (swatched this at night, sorry!)

Bottle shot!

Overall, application was tricky. I had to fish around for hearts and dab them on, which made the finish a bit lumpy. Obviously a topcoat would smooth this out but for the sake of swatches I didn't use one because I am lazy, haha. The hearts look really dense in the bottle but it's somewhat difficult (although clearly not impossible) to get them out. I'd definitely buy it again considering it was a good deal and it'll be another good one for Valentine's Day (clearly I will be featuring about 95 manicures with just pink, red, and white glitters...).


Thoughts? Happy Friday!

xoxo,
Amanda

NOTD: Love-ly Weekend

Hello hello hellooooooo! What are you all up to this weekend? I'm away... again! This time I'm away with my boyfriend for my birthday, which was last month but we're celebrating now. We were planning on the beach but, like last weekend, it's predicted to rain so we're going to be in Boston exploring Harvard and stuff. He's adamant that we will be walking the beach in the rain and to be prepared. Rain boots? Flip Flops? Barefoot? I'm uneducated on rainy beach wear!

Anywho, today I'm showing you my weekend mani! It's really simple but it conveys what I was hoping for! I used two (or was it three?) coats of Essie French Affair, which, according to the sound of the name, should be a French mani type polish but is definitely opaque pink. While the top coat was drying, I added hot pink holo hearts to the accent fingers (ring and thumb) and then two coats of Gelous on top.

Low light

In artificial light

I got a little help from my friends on this mani: Alaina, Robyn, and Amanda all helped me via Twitter to decide which base and which color hearts looked best. They didn't know it was all mushy-gushy-lovey-dovey-weekend-with-my-boyfriend themed, but they helped nonetheless ;)

xoxo,
Amanda