Stripey Glitter Placement Nails

Hiya! Today, I wanted lots of flash and bling, so I did a glitter placement design!

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Fun fact... those glitters are supposed to be pink. They totally look orange. In my next mani you'll see an orange polish that ends up looking pink. FUNNY COINCIDENCES!

Spring Pastels | Lemon Yellow & Pink Butterflies

Hello! Yep, I'm still here. There are so many things happening in my life right now--I know I'm not updating very frequently--but I haven't given up :)

It's quite a warm spring here in sunny Queensland, so I did these bright, cheerful nails to match!

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Shimmery Rainbow Birthday Marble!

Hel-lo! Man, what an insanely busy few days! My birthday was the 16th, and as you guys know, I love rainbows and sparkles. I bought a brightly-coloured rainbow dress to wear for my special day, and did these shimmery marbled nails to go with it!

These didn't come out quite the way I expected, but I'm still quite pleased with them--especially the thumbnail! If I did it again I'd use a different orange, but I think they're still great. Read on for the deets!

Pink Ombre with Gold Glittery Tips

Hello! I've had a busy week of meetings and interviews and lots of rushing around. But tomorrow is my birthday, so I will have a great mani up to celebrate! In the meantime, you have one more day to enter my giveaway on Instagram! In celebration of one year there, as well as my birthday, I am giving away two of my favourite polishes--Essie Set in Stones and Max Factor Fantasy Fire! Entry and rules can all be found here, so go check it out!

Anyway, today I wanted something simple, chic, but with a touch of glitz. I filed a bit of my length down and then did a pink ombre with gold glittery tips!

Indie Polish Swatch Time | 38

Hello everyone!

I'm going to make this post quick, because 1) I'm sick, boo; and 2) there's a cyclone coming this way! It shouldn't hit my area directly--it's mostly north of here--but we're already getting lots of rain, and it's just going to get worse over the next day or two. Floods might mean power outages or worse, so I want to get this up now!

I recently swatched a few Indie Polish goodies for you (here and here), but I have one more to show you today!

Swatch & Review Time with Indie Polish (or, Slashers to Ashes)

Hello everyone! Today I'm very happy to be reviewing some polishes by the lovely and talented Tanya from Indie Polish! You've already seen the amazing Birthday Party in action, and it will definitely make another appearance soon :) but today I have two other beauties for you!

This is quite the pic-heavy post, so clickity-click to move... onward!

Half-Moon with AMAZING Indie Polish Glitter!

Hello lovely people!

I had a really fun day today. I got to hang out with Jessie from Nailed It NZ, who is on holiday right near me! I always jump at the chance to make/meet cool new friends--especially nail friends, and especially nail friends I've admired online for ages! (Nailmates. It's a thing. Starting right now.) And, not like I'm bragging or anything, but we're some pretty sexy people, especially when we've been rained on and sweating and roller-coastering all day:

that's me on the left, Jess on the right. Some joker in the middle. ;)

I didn't have a terribly long time to spend on my nail art beforehand, but I knew I had to have on something impressive. Perfect time to try my newest polish from Indie Polish!

*drooooooooooooooool*

Fuchsia Glitterbomb

Heya! Sometimes, when inspiration is a bit lacking, you just need something sparkly! If there's one thing I learned from Rebecca, it's that there's nothing quite like a glitterbomb for those times :D

Neon Lavish Bash

Hi everyone!

I feel like a broken record, but again, so sorry for long delays between posts! I went away to see a friend for a few days, and then came back and Halloween parties were in full swing :) I dressed as a vampire for one of them, and got a little carried away with the fake blood. My fingertips and cuticles are stained red! I have scrubbed with soap & water, acetone, oil... it's just going to take time to get them pretty again, and I can't take nice photos with them this way. (I did receive some more Born Pretty Store goodies, which I can't wait to share with you. It'll happen as soon as my hands don't look gross!)

In the meantime, I do have a simple mani for you--a neon + glitter-gradient combo that's been hanging out in the vault for just such an occasion :)

This is Indie Polish Neon Pink (my swatch is featured on her shop--yay!) with a gradient tip of Orly Lavish Bash. This gorgeous gold glitter lends itself perfectly to a gradient--building up gently with just the brush, not getting thick or lumpy at all. I love the holo hexes and bars!

I topped it with two thin coats of Seche Vite, for shine and smoothness.

Indoors with flash

Outdoors in overcast conditions

Outdoors after the sun peeked out ;)

I said it before, but the photos do not do this pink justice. It's SO bright and beautiful, and unlike a lot of neon polishes, it does not need a white base, and it dries shiny instead of matte and streaky like many neons! Such a unique formula.

Check out what Indie Polish is cooking up lately, and check back here soon! xoxo

More Indie Polish Goodies!

G'day, lovely people!

My package from Indie Polish arrived yesterday! The brilliant Tanya behind this brand created a special glitter topper called The Kids of 109--and all proceeds are going to benefit her son's special needs class at school. Basically, the teachers noticed that the children behaved and learned much better when they had healthy snacks than when they were eating sugary and junky foods--so they have been purchasing and preparing healthy foods for these precious children out of their own pockets. This polish was created to help raise money for them! I'm one of those crazy hippie health-nuts that normal people make fun of, so I jumped on the opportunity to help with this :)

By purchasing this polish, you'll not only have cute, unique, eye-catching glitter on your tips, but you'll be helping out a great cause with 100% of the money!

Learn more and pick up a bottle or two here! (This would make a great gift--imagine getting a gift you know also made a difference in the lives of so many people!)

And if you're wondering about that pretty pink base colour, or want to see more of this glitter, read on!

Cheerful Flowers in Pots

Hello everyone!

I hope you're having a great week so far! I just got back from a nice birthday dinner and drinks for one of my new friends here. It was quite hot and muggy today, which made me feel less silly about having a very spring-like design on my nails. I got the idea for these cute, cartoonish daisies in flowerpots and just had to paint them!

I love them so much!

Background sky blue is the same as the bottle I am holding above--Soulstice Spa Kona. Beautiful creamy buttery one-coater. I've raved about this brand (and this particular polish) before, so I won't again--but it's really lovely :)

The flower and pot design took quite a few steps, and I did it the reverse of what you might expect when looking at it now--I painted the black outline first, then added the details of each area with white, and finally filled in the different bits with colour. Here is a quick-and-dirty photo series of this process. Please excuse the varying quality--they were taken with my phone, which was closer and easier to grab mid-painting:

The black and white are acrylic paint, as I find this is much easier to work with when doing such small details. I filled them in with polishes and the same little detail brush. The pots are a nice brick-red I thought was suitably reminiscent of the earthy clay flowerpots you typically find--it is OPI Lost On Lombard, from the relatively recent San Francisco collection. It had been an untried in my collection to this point, so I was quite happy it worked so well for the look I was going for!

The flower centres are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow, and the green leaves are a mix of Revlon #571 Posh and a dab of the same yellow to lighten it. The flower petals are done in four pink/red shades: from left to right Zoya Jolene, Soulstice Spa Buenos Aires, Orly Frolic, and Indie Polish Neon Pink. The second and last of those were so easy to apply, by the way. Creamy and just seemed to flow right where I wanted them. Best quality a polish can have!

Finally, using the tiniest of brushes and the lightest of touches, I painted the little happy face in the middle of each with more black acrylic paint. Had to hold my breath for a lot of the detail-painting process, and especially this bit. Topcoated with two coats of KBShimmer Clearly On Top.

I know the photos show an enlarged view, but the flower centres are barely 2mm across in real life! I actually had a headache by the end of this--lol! But totally worth it, as I really like the result. They're so cheerful and cute, I can't help smiling when I look down at them.

with an actual flower :D  And only about twice as large as IRL in this shot.

I hope you liked these! I think it's an adorable idea for spring :)  Thanks for coming by today. See you with more next time! xoxo

Indie Polish Swatches, Part 2

Hello again! Finally back with part 2--sorry for the wait :)  (This is the followup to Part 1.)

Today I will show you the other two polishes in my four mini-bottle grab-bag from Indie Polish--but first, how about a pic of everything I received? It was so well put together!

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(Not pictured--the generous amount of bubble wrap that kept everything safe. Like I said, very well done.)

The polishes were all in that adorable little blue and gold bag, along with the cards--one standard business card, and one little "thank you" card with some info about the brand and social media accounts. The little orange pot on the left is a bonus sample of cuticle cream! I have been using it this week and can report that it does a very good job of keeping the cuticles hydrated without feeling greasy. Also, it smells lemon-limey. I'm quite pleased with it.

Now, the polishes! The first is the unlabelled green bottle. I contacted the mastermind behind Indie Polish and asked about the name so I could attribute it accordingly--perhaps the label fell off? But no, it turns out this was an early prototype of what became Yoshi! My bottle is much more subtle, creamy, and less holographic than the finished product. Since Yoshis come from eggs, I'm unofficially calling this one Unhatched Yoshi. :D

As you can see on my index and middle nails, it is quite sheer, and would take many coats to be opaque and cover all nail line. I noticed, however, that it's nearly the exact same colour as my favourite green polish, Orly Fresh. (Yes, I know, Fresh has been in tons of my posts lately. Don't judge. I can't help that it's so awesome.) So, I used it as a base on my ring finger, as you can see above, and it works beautifully as undies for this polish. You can also see some of that holo peeking out of the bottle!

Bottle shot in the sunlight. Again, the holo shows up best this way. Very subtle, but it's there.

BFFs :D

The last one is The Roof Is On Fire, a glitter topper: red, orange, and yellow hexes and squares in varying sizes, all suspended in a clear base.

On my index finger is two coats alone--so as you can see, this isn't something you'd build to opacity by itself. But it looks great over other colours! I tried it here over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On, Wet 'N Wild Black Creme, and OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, in that order. I can't decide which I like best. Some of the bits are more opaque than others, and I think the overall effect is really cool.

I wanted to do some art with this, and the inspiration came from the name, not necessarily the polish itself...

I kinda love this.

Kaboom! The same blue and white polishes from above serve as base colours, then the words and house silhouette were painted on with my black Stripe Rite polish. The letters were a bit tedious, but not actually as difficult as I expected! Of course it looks much better IRL at normal size than all blown up like this. The flames are done with red and yellow acrylic paints, and then this polish was dabbed over the fire to look like the sparking and embers :D

Thus concludes my Indie Polish posts... for now. I definitely will keep an eye on this for other good shipping deals. The quality of the polish is quite good, and I love the care taken in packaging! Even the handwritten labels give a cute personal touch, although they are a bit messy, but I imagine the full-size bottles are different. And even if they aren't, it doesn't really matter, does it? So, yeah. 10/10 would purchase again.

I hope you liked these! I certainly do... and now I can't get that song out of my head. The roof... the roof... the roof is on FIYAAHHHH... (see you next time! xoxo)

Indie Polish Swatches, Part 1

G'day, gorgeous!

Today's post will be part 1 of a 2-part swatch-and-review of some polishes I received recently. Indie Polish recently had a discount on international shipping, so I had to get in on that. I picked up one of their grab bags--four mini bottles of polish, chosen randomly. I'll show you my two favourites today as well as a nail art look for each. Next time I'll show you the other two, as well as a few images of the cute packaging it came in!

First up is the most beautiful polish I've seen in a long time. It is called Regal, and it's a stunning warm, medium green with a strong golden shimmer. It's incredible!

This is two lovely coats of Regal (plus topcoat). Oh my, I just have no words. It's SO pretty. The pics don't even do it justice. I had actually intended to swatch all four of these polishes in a row and get the pics up at one time, but I made the mistake of starting with this beauty, and couldn't bear to take it off. Ended up wearing it as a full mani for a day, then adding art and keeping it two more days!

"Hello, even in shade and low light, I am wonderful."

"But I'm even nicer in the sun!"

To accentuate the golden shimmer without covering too much of it, I added some Born Pretty Store gold studs...

An instant favourite in my entire collection, this one. My only regret is that I only have a mini bottle! Might have to pop back over to her shop soon :)

My second favourite of this collection is a simple neon pink. Yes, I have other neon pinks that are very nice. But do I have any others that apply smoothly, cover in two coats, and are brilliant and bright without needing a white base coat underneath? No I do not.

As is so often the case with neons, I couldn't get it to photograph right. It's brighter and more opaque than it appears here, and much more so than it looks in the bottle. Think Lisa Frank, think China Glaze Summer Neons, think "ouch, my retinas". It's wonderful.

Two coats plus topcoat gives you this opacity and shine. Fabulous! It also is the kind of bright funky pink that crosses into edgy, punk territory. And I just bought these cool black star sequins the same day... so...

Black stars and striping tape and they are totally ready for an MXPX concert. (I wish they'd play here!) Striping tape is so finicky to work with, by the way. If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen my mishap the other day. In trying to clip off the end of the tape, I slipped and clipped off a corner of my nail! ARRGHHH! Fortunately, I was able to file it down and it isn't too noticeable here--you can't even tell, can you?--but I can totally tell and it is driving me CRAZY.

My rose-scented reed diffuser thingy came with one reed that has this butterfly on it! Had to pose with it.

And one more with my awesome silver holo handbag from DSW. Look at those rainbows! I'm going to start including this bag as a backdrop in every post ever. Maybe.

So, that's it for now! Part 2 will come next Thursday. I hate to break it up like that, but I ran out of time! Tomorrow morning I fly out for a short holiday. I hope you won't miss me too much ;) I am visiting a friend in Perth, on the west coast. I will probably do a quick post from there, as we're planning a manicure night and I will definitely get pics. I can't wait! So take your vitamins, eat your veggies, drink plenty of water, and I'll see you next week. Take care! xoxo