In Loving Memory...

Hello, friends!

Today I'm going to share with you a mani that I did for a very dear friend of mine. She is my vocalizing partner in crime and I love her so very much.  Last week her Father passed away.  I immediately wanted to hug her and make it all better the moment I heard.  It's such a terrible loss for her and her family :(  When she asked me if I would paint her nails for his memorial service, I was thrilled!  It was finally a way that I could help my friend in this process.

When she told me she wanted Denver Bronco nails because that was her Dad's favorite team... I was floored.  Panic almost set in and I thought, "There is no way I can do this!".  I only had to start over once lol...

I wish that I had written down the names of the polishes that she brought over for me to use, but alas I did not... dumb me haha.

 Personally I feel like the Bronco looks more like a dragon than a horse *sigh*.  But the helmet on the other hand... I think it turned out nicely :D

Overall she was really happy with it and I was happy that I could make her happy!  Today is her Dad's memorial so my thoughts and prayers are with her.  Wuvs you Nini <3

Until next time!

Stef <3

Julep Demi & Essie Leading Lady

Hiya!  How's it goin'?

So the mani that I want to share with you isn't really nail art.  It's more of a polish swatch, which is not something that I really do.  Not that I'm disinterested!  I just really enjoy crafting nail designs, but I couldn't resist sharing this luscious polish with you in it's lonesome glory :D

The elusive polish is Julep's Demi.  I love it... LOVE!!  It's a beautifully deep red creme polish.  I paired it with Essies' Leading Lady which is a deep red almost-jelly with glitter...

 

 I used 2 coats for Demi and 3 coats for Leading Lady

 The one thing I will say about working with Demi that I disliked... cleanup was atrocious!  I've never used a red polish that turned into liquid stain immediately after coming into contact with acetone.  I appreciate the formula's amazing pigment but after all the scrubbing I still wasn't thrilled with my end result :\

Yay for red!  I hope you all have a fabulous Monday, don't work too hard ;)  I have a very special post to share tomorrow so I hope you'll check back in.

Until next time!

Stef <3

Church Mani: Feeling Rosy

Happy Sunday everyone!

I have been absent because of illness, my apologies.  It was one of those weeks where I was sick and feeling unmotivated.  I didn't want to do anything but curl up under a blanket and veg in front of the TV *sigh*.  I did attempt a few mani's while I was on hiatus, tho I'm not really crazy about any of them lol.  I'll be sharing a couple with you this up coming week :)  Onto today's mani!

This mani was inspired by a fan nail of the day that I saw on Julep's blog page (by the by, they shared my Princess Jasmine inspired nails this past week on their Facebook page! *squeals*).  I loved the idea and thought it would be subtle enough for church.

 Colors Used: Julep - Lisa and Hoch, Revlon - Temptress and Tuscan Sun, Wet n Wild - French White Creme, China Glaze - Love Letters

What I like... I think it's cute and fun :)  I've been crazy about grey polishes from the get-go and Lisa is just creamy beautiful-ness (it's practically a one-coater, I'm just a bit of a perfectionist and prefer 2 coats haha)

What I don't like... I need to work on my roses.  They look like something a child would do, definitely not a look I'm striving for lol.  The stripimg is alright. And I don't know what those farbeedoo's are hanging off of my nail but they were driving me crazy!

Overall tho, I am pleased with the way it turned out :)

That's all I have for now.  The next post I'll have for you might qualify as my first "swatching" post.  I dunno... either way it should be interesting!

Until next time!

Stef <3

Hey, Jasmine... Be Jealous ;)

Good morning lovelies!

It's Friday and payday (well at least for me it is) and I love that combination :D  I'm looking forawrd to a weekend of being domestic, i.e cleaning the apartment, grocery shopping, buying little odds and ends to decorate for fall... I'm excited!

Anywhosie... for today's post I want to share a mani that I did weeks ago.  I completely forgot about it, which is a shame because I'm kind of in love with it.  I was inspired by Princess Jasmine.  We'd been watching Aladdin a lot at work recently so it was a natural progression.  Just a forewarning, this post is a little pic heavy...

 Colors Used: Julep - Gwyneth, Felicity and Robin

 I started with 2 coats of Gwyneth, a "sheerest pink clear" polish according to Julep.

 I then swiped on 2 coats of Felicity, by far my favorite gold polish in my collection.  If I wasn't already married, I'd marry it!  <3

 Then I added Robin on top (also 2 coats).  Again, it's such a beautiful color.  I just love it...

I believe I topped it with Out The Door quick dry top coat, but I'm not positive :\

Simple but oh so pretty :)  If you haven't tried Julep's polishes/Maven program, I highly recommend it.  They are an awesome company and the product is fabulous.  It's the best 20 bucks I spend every month!  :D

Before I forget, I added a new page to my blog.  It's just an inventory of my polish collection.  I put it together so that I stop buying duplicates of polishes that I already own and so that I can keep a count.  I don't expect you all to be terribly interested lol.  Just a heads up in case you were curious :)

Well that's all for now...

Until next time!

Stef <3

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

The winner of my 100th Post Giveaway is Iroshi! 

I sent her an email last night at she has already responded with her acceptence :)  Thank you all so very much for your participation in this giveaway.  I really do enjoy sharing my silly hobby with you and I truly appreciate all of your support.  You guys are the best!

Congratulations Iroshi :)

Stef <3

A Vampy Plaid?

Good mornin'!  How is everyone fairing this week??  I for one am ready for it to be Friday ;)

My post today is going to be short and sweet because... well, I'm just not that crazy about this nail art.  I had an idea in my head and I just don't think I executed it well.  It took about an hour for this inspiration to even come to me in the first place!  I'm a little rusty I guess :\

The idea I had in my head was a vampy plaid.  Like if Elvira were to suddenly decided she wanted plaid nails or something.  They came out a hot mess...

 Colors Used: Sinful Colors Nail Art - My Day (red) Time Off (black), Sally Hansen - Pumping Iron

 What I cannot stand is that the black pops off of the nail and looks like a weather vein/telephone pole!  It's seriously driving me crazy!!  

I feel compelled to fix it... right now... brb...

Yeeeaaaahhh... not any better.  Gaaaaaaahhhh!!!

C'est la vie hahaha.  Just a reminder that there's only a few more hours to get your entries in, so get to it ladies :D

Until next time!

Stef <3

Tryin' Tribal

Hello hello  :)

Sorry for my absence, I had a very VERY busy weekend.  One of those weekends where you need another weekend just to recover haha.  I also can't shake this droopy fatigue I've got going on.  I woke up this morning with the worst sneezing and itchy face.  I took some allergy medicine and now I feel like a zombie... bleh!

But that's enough ranting about me.  Let's get to some nails!

Today's mani was created by using Julep + Trina Turk polishes that I received last month... Gunta and Hoch.

 

Gunta is the blue, Hoch is the green.  What's interesting about Gunta is that it's not supposed to be a navy blue.  It's more of a royal blue.  When I received my bottle, I thought it was strange but not the end of the world.  And then last week I recieved a "Mystery Color" from Julep in the mail.  It's the exact same shade.  I'm a little bummed, not gonna lie.  I don't even like blue all that much :(

 

 I used striper polishes by Sinful Colors to draw my lines.  Time Off (black) and Bad Chick (White)

 

 With my dotting tool, I applied Julep's Felicity.

Tada!

That's all for now.  I'm kind of having a nail crisis at the moment.  This last month with the wedding a packing/moving really did a number on my hands.  I neglected them and now they're have their revenge.  My middle finger nail on my picture hand broke so badly that I had to give it the chop and now my nails just look disasterous D: (hence why I pulled this mani out of the vault)  So do I continue painting mani's and hope that you'll forgive me or wait until it grows back to an acceptable length?  Decisions, decisions...

Until next time!

Stef <3

P.S. Don't for get to enter the giveaway if you haven't already.   3 more days!

Late Night Halloween Nails :D

Good afternoon all :)

In case you missed yesterdays post, I am having another giveaway!  You should go check it out.  And while you're at it, you should go tell a friend ;)

Today's mani was done a couple of nights ago when I couldn't sleep.  My new husband and I are having a very tough time sleeping in the same bed together, he moves around a lot and I like to sprawl out lol.  Needless to say, I've been reluctant to climb into bed :\  So I busted out my polishes and kep myself occupied for an hour haha...

 Colors Used (L to R): Confetti - Lonesome Dove, Revlon - Posh, Wet n Wild - Nerd Alert Screech, O.P.I. - Just Tea-Sing!, Wet n Wild - Straight A Jesse, Sally Hansen - Mellow Yellow, Sally Hansen - White On, Rimmel - Black Satin

Phew!  So many colors!

The Frankenstein and mummy were inspired by pics I saw when I Googled Halloween nail art images.  There were A Lot of them...

Sooo... it's 20 day's 'til Halloween and this may be a little premature, but I think I've outdone myself and I had to post it lol.

I suppose that's all for now :)

Until next time!

Stef <3

100th Post Giveaway!

Good morning guys and dolls :D

This is my 100th post!!!  Woohoooo!!!!  To celebrate, I have a nifty giveaway for all of you.  Here is the prize....

Oooooo... Ahhhhhh!

It includes  6 glittery Color Club polishes with 1 clear coat polish, a set of 6 mini lipglosses with 1 lipliner pencil and a diva-fied makeup bag.  This is my way of saying thank you for being awesome and sticking with me :)

I will be using the Rafflecopter widget again for this giveaway.  I know that there was confusion for some people about how it works so...

PLEASE READ THIS NEXT SECTION IN IT'S ENTIRETY :)

• I have made it mandatory that you follow me on Facebook by liking the Fairly Charming Facebook Page.  "Liking" the page will get you 5 entries in the giveaway and therefore ups your chances of winning. ;)  
• If you are a follower of the blog via Google Connect/Blogger that gets you another 3 entries.  
• Following the Fairly Charming board on Pinterest gets you 2 entries.  
• Leaving a post on my blog with some helpful advice gets you 2 entries.  
• And if you spread the news about this giveaway via FB, Twitter, your blog, etc. that will get you 3 entries.  You have the option of sharing this giveaway daily, so you could rack up a lot of entries! 
• If you do all of these things just once, that makes a total of 15 possible entries for you in this giveaway!!  :D 
•  YOU MUST PRESS THE "DO IT!' BUTTON ON THE WIDGET TO SUMBIT YOUR ETRIES.  RAFFLE COPTER WILL PICK A WINNER FOR ME SO IF YOU DON'T PRESS THE BUTTON, YOUR ENTRIES WILL NOT BE IN THE DRAWING.
• The contest ends on Thursday, October 18th at 12:01 a.m. EST.
• Unfortunately I am unable to open this to any followers outside of the U.S. and for that I apologize.  
• This contest is not affiliated to any company/organization.  I'm doing it all by my lonesome :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 Good luck and may the polish gods be with you!

Stef <3

P.S. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a message on the Fairly Charming Facebook page!

Getting Into The Spirit :)

Good morning, all :)

After yesterday's post, I decided to get back into the swing of things with a simple Halloween themed mani.  I think it's a good start...

 Colors Used: Wet n Wild - Straight A Jesse, Maybelline Color Show Shredded - Carbon Frost, China Glaze - Fairy Dust

This is the first crackle polish that I've used that I've really been able to get big cracks from... I like it!  in general, I'm not a big fan of crackle polishes.  They're a little to edgy/grungyfor my taste.  I put the Fairy Dust on as an after thought to jazz the mani up a bit.  I think it turned out pretty decently :)

Now, this is post #99.  Which means the next post will have... a GIVEAWAY!!  Yayayayayayayyy!!!  I can't wait to share it with you :D  

Until next time!

Stef <3

Be Bold!

Hello, hello lovelies!

We've moved, we're married... I'm ready to get back to blogging :D

As you all know, I haven't really had any time this past moth to do my nails :(  So the mani I'm sharing with you today is about a month old.

 Colors Used: Julep - Delaunay, Sally Hansen - Mellow Yellow, Love & Beauty - Crystal Silver, Rimmel - Satin Black

I didn't really have an inspiration for this mani.  It was just a "paint and see what happens" kind of a thing haha.  If I remember correctly, it was 2 coats for each polish and I used a striping brush for the design.  One of the little boys at work told me that I was confused... I was supposed to pick one color for all of my nails!  Boys... they just don't get it lol.

Overall I really like the way that this mani turned out :)

With the holidays just around the corner, I have a lot of work to do!  So many mani's, so little time o.O

Until next time!

Stef <3