Zoya Pixie Dust Collection

Chances are, you've seen the Zoya Pixie Dust collection around the blogosphere. I've been trying to decide how I feel about them, and now that I have I wanted to share my findings with you. So sit back, it's gonna be a graphics-intensive blog today!

The Pixie Dust collection was intriguing from the very start for me. The press photos looked fascinating, but I wondered what they would be like in person. The reality is an interesting textured polish that is very difficult to describe but absolutely beautiful.

These polishes apply very easily, unlike some glitters which can leave you with patchy coverage. I used two thin coats for all of the photos in today's blog, and while Godiva is a bit sheer, they are all beautifully even and textured.

There's that word again- texture. I'm not sure quite how to describe it... it's almost like sand, very rough to the touch, but doesn't catch on your clothes or hair. The Pixie Dust polishes dry down to a beautifully matte finish, sparkling and beautiful. I honestly don't know how else to describe it... these polishes are truly something special.

As if they aren't gorgeous enough on their own, the Pixie Dust polishes have a secret. If you add a coat or two of thick top coat, you're left with a polish that's almost magical to view. The depth that shows when they're first applied returns and stays, and the finish almost glows with inner texture. I definitely prefer them with topcoat, and I could stare at these for days.

As always, the Zoya Pixie Dust polishes are BIG5FREE - all formulas are completely free of harmful industrial chemicals such as toluene, camphor, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) that are known to cause cancer and birth defects. Polishes are available at Zoya.com for $9 each.

 So tell me- which Pixie Dust polish is your favorite?

Polishes were provided by the brand for consideration.

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Holy cow... 1000 Youtube Subscribers!!

Holy cow... I checked my mail this morning and found out that today I reached 1,000 YouTube subscribers! I'm blown away! This has made my cold/virus so much less miserable! So here... have a celebratory graphic!

Video killed the radio star.

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Rainbows... yes, it's ANOTHER gradient video!

Does anyone remember a nail design I did a couple of years ago that looked like this?

I got quite a few requests for a tutorial on how to achieve this look, but I was never able to capture the process using photographs. Now, however, I have a brand-new tutorial showing you what you need to make your own soft, streaky rainbow! It's coming soon, so let me know if you're interested!

Yea, it's a teaser. Sue me. :D

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Adorable, Sad Kitty Video

Have I ever mentioned that I absolutely love animals? It's true, I am seriously crazy about all sorts of animals- cats and dogs and sloths and penguins and... yea. I'm that person. :D

When I saw this video, I giggled so much. The silly kitty is just standing there, and could jump out at any point. But no, instead he chooses to do this:




Yea, that video has been open on my laptop for DAYS now. I play it whenever I want a giggle, and it works every time!

Poor kitty!

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A New Layniefingers Video Series - Tips & Tricks

Hi! I'm so excited to finally have some new content for everyone! While recording some videos, I realized I have lots of little tips that don't really need a whole 5-10 minute video explaining them. So, I'm going to do these as they come to me and collect them into a playlist of tips and tricks!

This first one is extremely useful, and I use it fairly often! I find that the cotton swabs you buy tend to be large, so when I'm trying to either clean up my cuticle area I take polish off my nails accidentally. Plus, if I make a mistake on my nails, they're entirely too big to do a quick spot removal.

The solution? If you have a toothpick or a bamboo skewer, you can make your own tiny cotton buds for easy cleanup! Watch the video to see how.



Be sure to leave a comment if you find this helpful. Plus, let me know if you have any quick tips you'd like to share or see!

*Edited to add: For those of you who saw the first tweet about this post, I apologize. Apparently, I am still quite a video editing noob and ended up only posting MOST of the video. When I went to add in the annotations at the end, I realized that woops, I messed up. It took about 5 hours to reupload the fixed version... ahhh, my internet sucks. :D

Sometimes the best tools you have are the ones you make!

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Fibro flares, the plague, hospitals, and getting back on my feet.

You may have noticed there has been a slight... lapse in posting this winter. I would love to tell you I had a great reason- I won the lottery and was wandering Europe, tasting amazing foods and seeing amazing sights, or perhaps joining the space program and going into an intense period of training. Maybe I could have joined the witness protection program and had to assume a new (cooler?) identity.

But no, nothing that interesting. Instead, this winter has been filled with emergency room visits, hospital stays (none mine, thankfully), fibromyalgia flares and entirely too much pain to deal with. I've spent the last two months trying to manage the fibro while the weather played yoyo, sometimes going from 80° to 30° in one day. (For those of you using celsius instead of fahrenheit, that would be 26.6° to -1.1° in one day.) In short, weather changes hurt, and this winter has been full of them.

However, don't give up hope- I'm working on editing video I managed to record but hadn't had the brain power to edit (the drugs that help manage the pain tend to turn me into a mental cucumber.), so there are fun things coming. I learned how to water marble, and I've done some fun layering things. I've also got plans...

So bear with me. The weather is warming up a bit (well, in theory, even though it's supposed to be 30° tonight!!) and I've got plans. I really hope you'll join me in this new exploration of video. Also, if there's anything you'd like to know how to do, leave me a comment and I'll add it to my list of videos to shoot!

Love you all!

I am here, and I am somewhat coherent. Yay.

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