I'm Ready For Fall!

Good morning, darlings :)

I don't know about the rest of you but I am soooooo ready for the season to change!  I love Autumn.  The cool temperatures, changing leaves, peacoats... I love it all.  It's just now starting to cool off in Southern California but the mani that I have to share with you today is one I did when it was 107 degrees (Fahrenheit) outside.  I was miserable... and very angry lol.  So I made a plea to the Fall god's and came up with this...

 

 Colors Used (L to R): Julep Gwyneth (base), Revlon - Tuscan Sun, Love & Beauty - Nude, O.P.I. - The "It" Color, E.L.F. - Party Peach, Sinful Colors - Nirvana, Julep - Felicity.

 I started with 2 coats of Gwyneth, a super sheer pink polish.  Then, with my striping brush, I added streaks of Autumn colors...

When it was all said and done, it came out looking more like Thanksgiving than just Fall... but I'll take it!  Hahaha ;)

The weather is finally starting to cool and I can feel Fall coming around the corner. I'm a happy Girl!

With the holidays coming up, I've been brainstorming some nail ideas and I can't wait to see what my fellow bloggers come up with :D  I haven't forgotten about my promised giveaway (2 more posts to go!).  I will have more details for you soon-ish.  This might be my last post until after the wedding (October 6th) :'(  With that being said...

Until next time!

Stef <3

Chevron/Fishtail Mani, First Attempt!

Hello hello hello!  Happy Tuesday everybody :)

In my last post I talked about this mani that I saw from Sarah at Chalkboard Nails.  I had tried this swooping-v technique on a few previous mani's and when I saw that she layered it with different colors I was even more thrilled!  (Again I will say that Sarah's blog is well worth checking out if you haven't already).

So I took this idea of layering the swooped-v's and combined it with some colors that I saw on this maxi dress at Target (side note: I tried the dress on and the bodice doesn't fit my bosoms, otherwise it would have come home with me instantly!)...

 Colors Used: E.L.F. - Coral Dream, Julep - Robin, Love & Beauty - Purple

I love love love this combination of colors and I want to wear this mani all the time!  I did 2 coats of the Coral Dream (which I really think should be named Peach Dream because it barely passes as a coral) and then 1 coat of Robin and Purple.  I topped it off with Julep's Fast Dry Topcoat and I was good to go.  I did this mani on Saturday, so I sadly had to remove it for church on Sunday (hence why Sunday's nails were a chevron/fishtail frenchie... it all come full circle lol).  I was a little bummed but I definitely plan on doing this again in the near future.  If you're interested in achieving this look it really is fairly easy.  Sarah has a video tutorial that shows you step by step how to do it and she adds some great tips as well :)

One last pic...

So what do you think?  Will you try this out?

Until next time!

Stef <3

I'm A Little Scotch-Irish?

Not really.  Well, I might be on my father's side, but we're not 100% sure.

Hello!  Lol.  I don't really have a great way to put this down into words so I'm just going to make bullet points as to what inspired my mani and we'll go from there :D

• I have always been intrigued with Scotch-Irish customs and traditions, even as a child.
• I am beyond excited to see the new Pixar film "Brave" that's coming out next week.
•  I am marrying into a Scotch-Irish family (most likely resulting in black kids with red hair lol).  I wanted to pay homage to their heritage <3
• I am a little obsessed with plaid right now :P
• Green is an excellent color on me, in my opinion, and I haven't worn the color in a while.
• I needed more practice with a striping brush.

So here it is, my Scotch-Irish mani...

 Colors Used: Julep - Leah, E.L.F. - Party Peach, Sally Hansen - Mellow Yellow, Green With Envy and White On

I am in love with this mani.  Leah is the perfect green!  It painted on like a dream with 2 coats.  3 coats of the peach (which really is quite orangey) and then easy-peasy stripes.  If I didn't feel so compelled to change my polish daily, I would wear this for at least a week if not longer.

I topped this off with the fast dry topcoat that Julep sent to me in my June Mystery Box.  It smells extremely skunky and acidic to my nose, but it dries faster than any other topcoat I've used.  I am in love with it as well lol.

One last pic...

 Alright all, I'm going to enjoy my day off now!  Happy Thursday :)

Until next time!

Stef <3

Think Pink.. and Plaid!

It's Friday!  Yaaaaaaaayyyy!!!  :D  Lol good morning all!

For today's mani I decided to attempt an actual plaid look.  A couple of weeks ago I did a plaid-ish mani, but really i was just layering stripes.  This attempt was different...

Colors Used: Elf - Flirty Fuchsia, Elf - Coral Dream, Sinful Colors - Snow Me White 

My striping abilities having been lacking as of late, so I was really excited when this turned out as well as it did hahaha.  

But of course it couldn't just stay perfect.  I don't know how I did it, but in the middle of the night I messed up my thumb :(

This made me very sad and a little irritable.  Alas... earwax!  A couple more pics...

So there you have it!  What do you think?  I was contemplating doing a tutorial on this but I don't know if anyone would really be interested.  Let me know! :)

Until next time!

Stef <3

I almost forgot!  I broke my middle finger nail yesterday while making my bed D:  It hurt quite a bit but I fixed it with a silk wrap

"It is not slime, it is mucus!"

Happy Friday everyone!  The weekend (for all intensive purposes) is here and I am glad, glad, glad!!

I understand that princess week was last week?  I don't know how I missed that, but it's been bugging me!  So I decided to do a princess mani to make me feel a little bit better lol.  I tossed around a lot of ideas as to which princess to choose (Aurora is my fave, but I hate pink... Alice doesn't really count... etc.), what to do design-wise and which colors to choose.  I decided to go with Tiana :)  She is an incredibly fierce princess and I haven't really seen a lot of nail art for her.  Here 'tis...

 w/o flash...

w/ flash...

 For the colors used I'm going to list them in rainbow order (yellow, blue, green, blue, pink, purple black, white and grey).  Color's Used: Confetti - They Call Me Mellow Yellow, Sally Hansen - Green with Envy, NYC - High Line Green, Love & Beauty - Teal, Confetti - Bayou Blue, E.L.F. - Flirty Fuchsia, Sinful Colors - Dream On, Confetti - Black Tie, Wet n' Wild - French White Creme, O.P.I. - Skull & Glossbones, NYC - Mulberry Street and China Glaze - Fairy Dust.

As you can see, starting at the thumb, I did Mardi Gras beads, a crown, Tiana's dress, a frog and a firefly. I think I covered the basics lol. I really had fun with this mani and I think they're pretty cute :)

I had said in a previous post that I'd have some guest nails to show buuuuuut... so far, the girlies have asked for cupcakes... and cupcakes... and... cupcakes!  I guess I'll just have to do some more mani's on myself.  Drat ;)  Have a safe weekend ladies...

Until next time!

Stef <3

My name is Stefanie and I'm addicted to polish! :)

Yellow, Yellow!  I hope the day is treating you well :)

What I've got to share today are my recent polish purchases... which might be a little out of hand at the moment.  I have no shame!  :P

I've collected these beauties over the past week and a half to 2 weeks (I've lost track :/).  To start off with I have my recent purchase from Foever 21...

From L to R: Baby Pink, Faded Rose/Multi and Orange (I wish they'd come up with better names for their polishes!)

I've swatched these on my color wheel and, aside from the orange, they paint beautifully.  My only complaint would be that the Baby Pink is stupidly sheer.  I'm still glad I bought them :)

My next purchase was a few days later while I was at Target with my honey and 2 dear friends of ours.  I stumbled upon E.L.F.'s Spring Collection (I wish I had kept the box!).  These polishes are usually $2 a pop but the boxed set was being sold for $5... I had to bring them home lol.  And I'm so glad I did, they're wonderful :)

 From L to R: Coral Dream, Flirty Fucsia, Party Peach, Smokin' Hot

I don't know if it's just my set but the Coral Dream and Party Peach, in my opinion, should get together and do a name swap because they are incredibly confused!  I've double checked online and the bottles are labled correctly, so... I dunno... maybe I'm the confuzzled one...

These next 3 photos are from my VERY FIRST trip to an ULTA store... I thought I'd died and gone to my own personal polish heaven!  And here is why...

I've been looking for simple glitters and Essence for a while:

 From L to R: Pixel - Pixel Dust, Essence - Space Queen and Essence - Wanna Be Your Sunshine

These swatched beautifully on my color wheel :)

Swatched these on my wheel and loved them all!  I can't wait to wear them :)

I found ULTA's dupe for OPI's Rainbow Connection and a very pretty blue creme (scratch and flip):

 From L to R: Blue Streak (which is a little streaky at first) and Pinata-Yada-Yada

That dupe is definitely going in a jelly sandwich soon. Oooo maybe the Baby Pink!!  Idea formed... *ding*! :D

 But the most exciting part of the whole trip were these 2 pretties!

From L to R: Revlon's Posh and Whimsical! :D:D:D:D:D

I was acting like a giddy little girl in that store lol.  I've been eyeing Posh for a long time and they had it at a great price but I never, NEVER thought I would find Whimsical!!  I figured I'd jumped on the nail train too late and she (I'll call her Whimmy) was gone forever. She was the very last one, sitting next to Posh, and I almost walked right past her... YIKES!  To be fair, Whimmy was sitting in the display slot for Dream On aaaaaannnndddd she didn't have a place of her own anywhere that I could see.  She obviously was waiting for me to come and take her home.  And I'm so excited :D

One last thing to share!  I love painting others nails just as much as I love doing mine.  My Future Mother-in-Law (from here on out referred to as my FMIL) asked me to give her a mani that would match her outfit for Stagecoach (a country music festival) this year.  Together we brain stormed and came up with this...

She's happy, I'm happy and I hope you're happy :D

Until next time!

Stef <3

Time for Something Sweet!

Good evening, friends!  I hope everyone had a safe and happy Sunday :)

This is the mani that I had on this past Thursday.  It was inspired by a pin I saw on Pintrest.  I did a search for more images and then started painting and this is what I came up with...

Base Coat - Sally Hansen Hard as Nails .  Top Coat - Seche Vite

Colors Used (starting at thumb, then L to R): Elf - Smokin' Hot, China Glaze - Hey Sailor, Confetti - Margarita Senorita, Cosmetic Arts - Explosive, Sally Hansen - Green With Envy, NYC - High Line Green, Revlon - Blue Lagoon, Confetti - Bayou Blue, Essie - Lilacism and Sally Hansen - Rock Bottom.  

For the frosting I used Wet n' Wild - French White Creme, the sprinkles are Spoiled - I Have No Reception and for the cherry-on-top I used Love & Beauty - Red/Multi.

I got a lot of compliments from the kids and staff at work.  I thought they were very cute but a little tooooo busy for everyday wear (plus, what outfit would I wear to match them?? lol).  So then I simplified it to this...

 Base Coat - Sally Hansen Hard as Nails .  Top Coat - Seche Vite

 The darker blue on the tips is Confetti - Bayou Blue.

This personally was much more manageable and subtle.  More "me" :) 

I generally change my nail polish every other day.  I had these on until last night (Saturday) because they were just so darn cute!  And I would have kept them on for longer but I sing in a church choir on Sunday mornings and the dress code is a little strict.  I didn't want to take the risk.  I'll post my "Church Mani" tomorrow with a more detailed explanation (maybe I'll make it a regular Sunday thing?).

So what do you think?  Any questions, comments, advice??  Love to you all :D

Until next time!

Stef <3