Revlon Matte Suede!

I was visiting Lacquerized the other day and was thrilled to see a swatch of the Revlon Matte Suede Ruby Ribbon polish. If you haven't been you should check out her blog because it is one of the best. Lots of great tips for nail care as well as BEAUTIFUL photos. Anyways I fell in love with the Ruby Ribbon polish as soon as I saw her photos. I thought to myself that if I saw it in the department store it would be mine. :) Well I did and lo and behold there were three other colours available too. Do you think I could say no? :P

Say hello to Emerald City, Ruby Ribbon, Fire Fox, and Powder Puff.


Application was pretty awesome, but I needed three coats of Fire Fox and four coats of Powder Puff to get good coverage. Still the Powder Puff one was not quite opaque enough for my liking. I'm slowly getting the hang of my little camera. I'm pretty pleased with my photos!



Fire Fox has a lustrous shimmer and is a slight blue undertones. Sorry about my dry dry skin! I've been mucking around dying wool for mittens. Also I think I might have to file my nails down to nubbies again because my pointers are quite damaged.



Powder Puff is sort of reminds me of pearls. It has a bit of a blue shimmer in it.





Here's Ruby Ribbon. Sorry the Ruby Ribbons are a bit blurry! I was taking the photos with my left hand and it was a challenge!



If you love the Ruby Ribbon colour here, you MUST check out Lacquerized's beautiful photo of it on her blog. The link is at the top of this entry. Her photos put mine to shame!



And last but certainly not least Emerald City! I think you can tell from the photos that this one is my favorite!





Absolutely gorgeous deep blue green with just a bit of emerald shimmer. LOVE!

Thanks for stopping in,
<3 JQ

More giveaways!

Lucy's stash is giving away 19 polishes! Really awesome stuff! Check it out!



And Perfection is Possible is giving away a big bag of nail stuff! Click the link for info!

link

Glamorous Geek Chic is giving away some of the China Glaze Vintage Vixen collection and the OPI Swiss collection here:

Wet n' Wild Wild Shine Night Prowl

This began as my first attempt at a swatch, but I couldn't help myself I just had to jazz it up. These are my Wet n' Wild Night Prowl nails. :)


I had to take pictures all squished up against my north facing window today, as it was pouring rain, but the colour is fairly accurate. It's a fuchsia (micro? It's quite tiny) glitter in a purple-grey base. It took three coats of polish to get full coverage, and the overall look is that of a deep plum.


I'm pretty happy with these photos! I'm finally getting familiar with my camera. :)
My ring finger bling. :)


Sorry this last one is a bit blurry. I was trying to trick my camera again but it looks like it didn't bite this time. A shot of my rhinestone flower.


I try not to post my toes too much but I couldn't resist.


My piggies. Sunflowers! I call them my Van Gogh toes. But his paintings don't have red backgrounds so I was a bit off there. Oh well! :) I'm making friends with rhinestones. So much so that I am getting crazy urges to go buy out the local dollar store, which I've discovered sells wheels for $1.50!


Thanks for popping in!
<3
JQ

Naomi's Choice...

Metallic frilly french tips:


Naomi wanted me to do a mani using pink, silver and black. I think she might have meant bright pink, but I was sifting through my collection and found Sizzlin' Rose in my in my Sally Hansen Chromes. I love the colour.


So I used that as my base colour then brushed on a slightly off center chevron french tip in Crystal (same brand).


I placed large black dots of Wet n' Wild Black Creme along the chevron tip, then dotted Crystal on top of them so that the top of each black dot was erased, creating this frilly effect:



Then I added my rhinestones along the base of each nail. Topcoat and voila! Naomi's choice!



Some of the dots went on a bit too thick, and the metallic polishes tend to show off any little fault in the application, or the nail beneath, so it isn't a perfect mani, but people would only really notice up close and personal. Anyways, I had fun!

I expect my BM image plates any day now! Maybe today...*GLEE*

Cheers and thanks for stopping by!
JQ

Life is a Highway...

This was my entry for the latest PHD challenge. The challenge theme was song inspiration. The goal was to try and have the viewer realize what song you were describing on your nails. I chose a song I knew most everyone would recognize, because all my other ideas felt too obscure. However I also felt like I cheated a little by putting text on my nails. But the rules didn't specify. Anyways I think I might have to use some of my favorite more obscure songs as reference just for fun in the future. :)

All the entries were pretty awesome. Check out the gallery!

I have another post to make a bit later today with Naomi's choice of colours: pink, silver and black! I think she's gonna LOVE IT!

Later gaters!
JQ

Guest Manis!

Ben's neon mani!



We used a Wet n' Wild "Black Creme" base colour, and Konad plate# m65 with the special polish in white. Afterward we took ICING "Grooving Green", and my neon yellow and orange Ardene polishes and sponged them on top of the whole nail. This slightly altered the colour of the black as well. Topcoat and VOILA!


And Ben's Girlfriend Jenna told me I had free reign, but that her fave colour was orange. This is what we came up with:

I LOVE this mani. Sorry the below shot is a bit blurry. Ben was showing me how to trick my camera into getting closer shots, but I'm still learning. We used Wet n' Wild "Sunny Side Up" for the base colour, sponged on a gradation using my neon orange Ardene polish as the mid range and Rimmel Lycra Wear 10 "Tequila Sunrise" for the dark orange tips. Using Konad plate #s6 we stamped this groovy pattern on. I added some baby blue rhinestones which really punched out on the orange. The photos don't do them justice. Topcoat and VOILA!

In this shot of Jenna and my manis together you can see a bit better how the rhinestones popped against the orange. Still not super accurate though!


And a few shots of my mani that I did when I was waiting for them to arrive. It reminds me of licorice:

STILL a bit fuzzy. And my hands are super dry. Ick!


The best close up I have of a single nail. If I did this one again I'd use a coloured rhinestone instead of just a clear one.


So that's it for the guest manis I did this past Thursday. Instead of writing a completely new entry for today's mani, I'll just post a few pics here.

I loved Jenna's TigerTiger-ish mani so much that I just had to do a version on myself:


My topcoat bubbled quite a bit especially around the rhinestones. I guess I put it on too thick. :(



I used Wet n' Wild "Tickled Pink for my base colour, then sponged on Sally Hansen's Diamond Strength "Chocolate Kiss" and Avon "Cherry Jubilee". Using Konad plate #s6 I stamped the circle pattern on using special polish in black, then added my baby pink rhinestones, and finished with a topcoat!

One other guest mani done on my sister in law when she came to visit on Friday:


Blue sponge gradation using Toma (The colour wasn't on the bottle) and Revlon Top Speed "Royal". I stamped on the argyle using Konad plate #m60 and special polish in white.

Thanks for stopping in! I'll have a post tomorrow of my submission to the latest PHD challenge!

Cheers!
JQ

I'm all organized. It feels Groovy.

I got a fantastic tool box for 10 bucks today, and I couldn't wait to get it home and round up all my polish. It fits all my other nail things as well, except my remover, which is too tall. You can see my Konad, rhinestones, pedicure kit, nail pen, toothpicks, cotton wipes etc here:


And of course all the polishes underneath. BTW my crying fit a few days back? Sheepish!!! because once I got all my polishes in the same place I realized I have been over dramatic. I still have PLENTY of polishes, though I really need to get my hands on a bottle of thinner.


This is a nifty pedicure set I got today for 6 dollars. Tried out the clippers and they seem sharp.

The new polishes I procured yesterday. Bit blurry but the colours are pretty accurate. The Ardene nail polishes are all neon and don't have names. The Wet n Wilds are from front to back: Blue Moon (navy), Sunny Side (orange), and Night Prowl (a sort of fuschia sparkle in a black base).


These are my nubbies. Glaze Craze was just lamenting her shorty nails the day before I went to the park with my boy and totally tore both my pointer nails! Arg! But on the plus side I get to try growing them out again with a more squared shape instead of the ovals I had before. Anyway there are tons of cute things to do with shorties. :)

Here is my first nubby mani:


I used 2 coats of the Wet n Wild Sunny Side for the base, and tipped it with the Blue Moon. Then drew a line with my brush up one side of each nail just left (or right on my right hand) of center. Where it joins the tip I placed an orange rhinestone.

Closer...sorry I am still having issues with my camera.


And one more for good measure :P



That's it for that but I'd like to post a link to yet two more giveaways while I am at it. I will try to set up a separate page for these entries next month. Please go see Oh My Polish and sign up! Her blog is full of fun nail ideas!
And check out Magic Maid's superfantastic polish giveaway too!

Last but certainly not least Polish Hoarder Disorder has posted the latest Challenge Gallery for last week's challenge: Just the Tips!

Cheers everyone!
<3 JQ

China Glaze Vintage Vixen Giveaway

All You Desire is having a super awesome giveaway too. I was just coveting this box set earlier this afternoon as I was surfing online. Click the Pic!



I know I've been posting these like crazy! Every time I do I think "Okay, that will be my last giveaway" but then the next one is too awesome to pass up the chance!

Thanks for stopping in! I'll post my latest haul and a new mani tomorrow!
JQ

Found another groovy giveaway!

Lacquerized is having a Kiko polish giveaway!

I'm entering these like mad since I need to start rebuilding my polish collection. :)
Check it out! The colours are splendid!

Kiko Giveaway

I'm going to wear my fancy tips today and see how the rhinestones fare with me chasing my 14 month old around the park while I try to absorb some of The Merry Wives of Windsor. YAY! Shakespeare in the Park!

My First PHD Challenge...

This is my very first entry in a PHD challenge. The challenge theme is "Just the Tips!"


I used my Nailene French Tip white as the base so my colours would show up brighter. Once that was dry I painted pin striping using Revlon Top Speed in #730 Royal, and Icing's Grapetini. I also put a line of royal along the base of the french tip to make it cleaner. It was SO hard to do this on my right hand! Plus I'd only had two cups of coffee and nothing more this morning! SHAKES!


I finished off the mani with some rhinestones, mostly clear, but in purple and blue on the thumb nails. Then I painted on some China Glaze Denim and Diamonds' Diamond Diva (predominantly pink and blue sparkles) over the tips only. A splash of clear topcoat and I was done!

Thanks for stopping by!
JQ

Another Giveaway!

I'm posting another giveaway that I want to participate in!

Oooh, Shinies has a very fun looking one with several cool polishes, some nail stickers etc.

Please go check it out!

Two New Manicures

Hello Beauties!

This first mani is what I wound up with on Monday after several failed attempts. I used Rimmel#331 Speed Date for the red base and then stamped using Konad Special Polish in White with Plate M65. Then I french tipped them using Wet and Wild Black Creme, put a few white dots and added some lines and square rhinestones. I'm still trying to get a handle on line work. I find it exceptionally difficult using my left hand. I need to invest in a good brush or maybe a decent nail art pen.


And this is the mani I am wearing now:

I used one coat of Rimmel Lycra Nail Tip Whitener with a coat of Nailene French Manicure over top. The Nailene is a thinner polish so it gave me a nice finish over the thicker Rimmel. Once that was dry I used the water marbling technique with Sally Hansen's Diamond Strength in Chocolate Kiss (which is actually the red-pink), Pure Midnight, and one from their Chrome line called Crystal.


Then I used Konad plate m60 to stamp the daisies randomly where the spaces would allow. I used both the black and white special polishes to do this.


I dribbled a little of my new Cover Girl holographic Nailsparkle Topcoat called Disco Dazzle onto a plate and picked out the larger sparkles with a toothpick, placing one in the center of each flower. I finished with a topcoat. By far it isn't the smoothest mani I've ever had but I really enjoy the way the Chocolate Kiss melded with the Chrome and created a pretty pink sparkle. I might even have to try my first franken. :P

I found those Sally Hansen Diamond Strength polishes to be very thin when applied as a straight polish. You need like 4 plus coats to get a nice coverage from the Chocolate Kiss, but they work super well for the marbling as they are thin and drip off the brush fast, spreading quickly on the surface of the water. The marbling technique is really only successful if you can do it FAST.



Cheers!
<3

JQ