Jessica Fall Collection- a quick preview!

Enlarge this photo, it's worth it!

Wow!! I checked my mail a couple of days ago and was excited to find an unexpected box from Jessica Cosmetics. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but I absolutely ADORE Jessica polishes. The range of colors is fabulous and the quality is unbeatable. I couldn't wait to tear into this box and see what was there!

I wasn't disappointed. In the box was a set of 12 polishes that included the Fall 2013 collection and the Jessica Effects- Glitzy collection. That's right, it was a collection of glitter polishes that made my eyes almost pop out!

Oh yea, that's a LOT of testing!!

I was so excited that I had to experiment immediately. I pulled out my favorite notebook and began swatching on paper, and I was absolutely in LOVE!! (This page also includes the swatches from the latest Zoya collections. Expect a post on that soon as well!)

Seeing all of these colors together just made my afternoon, and I fell in love with two of the polishes. Usually when I get a collection, I let it sit for a while to come up with ideas that work with the colors. But not this time...

No, this time I couldn't wait to tear into this set and start wearing them. I started with two coats of Jessica Overture, a rich coppery, sparkling orange. I topped that off with a coat of Jessica Sizzle, an absolutely amazingly beautiful red glitter. The glitter in Sizzle comes in three sizes- a moderately large hex, a smaller hex, and then tiny pieces that are still larger than the microglitter in a lot of polishes.

These colors go so well together! I wasn't sure if red glitter over orange/copper polish would work, but ZOMG it SO DOES!! This is one of those manicures that just keeps me looking at my nails, loving how the light plays across them.

Of course, all this sparkle and shimmer made these nails almost impossible to photograph. I'll try to get some better ones tomorrow, but I'm not promising anything.

I've got the nails painted, so hopefully I can get the review of all the polishes up soon. I was just so happy that I had to share this! Hope you like it too.

Til next time!

Polishes were provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Valentine's Day Candy Cane Water Marble- a Layniefingers tutorial

A while back I mentioned that I was finally figuring out how to water marble nails! I still haven't managed to do both hands with water marble, but I'm finally getting the concept down at least. Once I'd finished with today's design, I was struck by a couple of things: the colors were very traditionally Valentine's day to me, and the pattern reminded me of a candy cane for some reason. That's why this is a Valentine's Day Candy Cane Water Marble in July... because that's what it felt like!

If you like the look of this one, why not check out the video? It shows step by step how I achieved this look. Thanks for watching!

Some polishes may have been provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Zoya Suri topped with Zoya Daul

Have you ever had one of those days where you just felt the need for some glam? That was me a couple of days ago. I was feeling blah and I wanted a bit of sparkle to cheer me up. I wanted something purple and glitzy, and boy did I get it!

I started out with a base of Zoya Suri from the Diva collection. I didn't get a photo of this, unfortunately, but I know the photos are out there. Suri is a gorgeous shimmery purple that is absolutely fascinating. The depth of Suri is absolutely delicious on its own, but it wasn't quite enough for me. I wanted more!

Since my Diva collection was still out, I saw Daul and decided to do an accent nail with it. The accent nail quickly turned into a full manicure, and I couldn't have been happier. Zoya calls Daul "a medium red-toned purple base with heavy purple and gold iridescent metallic sparkle," and they're not kidding at all.

From some angles Daul is a bright sparkling gold that completely overwhelms the purple base of Suri. From others, Suri's deep purple is visible with bits of sparkle from Daul. It's a shimmering, sparkling smorgasbord of color that seems almost ever-changing.

Application of both of these polishes was easy, as I've come to expect with Zoya polishes. Cleanup was easy enough, and these polishes are wearing nicely.

If you look at my middle finger in the photo to the left, you can see a bit of bare nail at the tip of the nail. This isn't tip wear. Instead, this is shrinkage from my quick-dry topcoat.



For whatever reasons, some quick-dry topcoats shrink as they dry. This can pull your nail polish back from the edges a bit, and in extreme cases it can even lift your polishes off your nail, causing it to peel off in a solid chunk. I've found using thinner coats of topcoat can help with this, as can wrapping the tips of your nails. Apparently I didn't wrap the tips of my nails as thoroughly as I thought.

I'm including this out-of-focus shot to show the amount of sparkle this polish has. It's a real show-stopper!

Overall, I think this combination is an absolute winner. What do you think? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Zoya polishes were provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Halloween Nail Art

Halloween is coming, and I wanted to share some nail art designs with everyone! I've been experimenting with some nail tips, and I've come up with a variety of designs. I'll be sharing these designs over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully these will give people some more ideas for Halloween.

This more traditional design uses black, orange, and gold in a nod toward the holiday. It's simple to do: paint the nail with a shimmery orange, then add stripes in black and gold. I finished with some black hexagon glitter pieces as an accent.

I've got a doctor's appointment today, so I'm going to cut this short and try and sleep a bit. Wheee!

Halloween is my favorite holiday!

See my disclosure statement for more information.

A fun floral look

While using the camera flash, the colors
are washed out but you can see the depth
of the blue background.

Whew, I just woke up from sleeping almost 24 hours! I'm not exaggerating, either. My husband was in the hospital over the weekend, thankfully for a false alarm. But I spent 3 days "not sleeping" on the awful pull-out loveseat, being worried sick and waking up every time something beeped. In short, I didn't really sleep for 3 days.

I'm super-thankful, though, because my husband is ok! All the tests showed that his heart is strong and healthy, so now we get to follow up with the primary care physician and go from there. We can do that. I just want to keep him around. 20 years together is a good start, but he can't go anywhere yet. :D

The good news is that while we were waiting (and waiting and waiting!), we came up with a TON of great blog ideas! Since it's going to take me a while to get them started though, you get to see this older nail doodle I did and then forgot to post. Oops!

This is actually a very simple look to create. Let me list the polishes I used before I get started, just to make it easier.

1. Nutra Nail Gel Perfect in Two-Step
2. Jessica Strawberry Shake It from the Gelato Mio! collection
3. Jessica Tangerine Dreamz from the Gelato Mio! collection
4. Jessica Lime Cooler from the Gelato Mio! collection
5. Zoya Evvie from the Designer collection
6. Orange loose glitter

Natural light shows the actual colors of
the polishes I used.

I know, it looks like a lot. It's easier than it seems, though, I promise! I started with Two-Step (1) to create a gorgeous background with a lot of depth. I then put down a drop of both Lime Cooler (4) and Evvie (5) next to each other, then
dipped my brush into both. This let me slightly mix the two, but still get striations of both colors through the leaves and stems. I think this gives an interesting look to them.

For the flowers, I put down a large drop of Strawberry Shake It (2) on my palette, then used my large dotting tool to make 5 dots in a circle around the top of each stem. I went back with a bamboo skewer and drew from the center of each dot to the center of the circle the dots made. This gave me a five-petaled flower at the top of each stem!

To complete my flower, I put down a dot of Tangerine Dreamz (3) in each flower center. After that dried, I realized I wanted a bit more sparkle there, so I put a dot of clear polish on each flower center, then put a bit of loose orange glitter on top of the clear polish. Unfortunately, it went everywhere, and I didn't notice that until after I'd put a coat of Seche Vite over everything. That's why there are bits of glitter on the petals and the stems.

Overall, I like this. It's fairly simple to do once you get started, and it's a fun happy design! You could use any background and flower color you like!

As for what's coming up? Stick around, it could get fun in here!

Polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.
I make no money from the links provided. They're just for your convenience.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Let's Get Bronzed- Jessica Pumpkin Delight topped with Jordana Bronze Fest

Jessica Pumpkin Dreams in the bottle

You know how sometimes you get a new nail polish and you're almost obsessed with it? I have to be honest here- Jessica's new Pumpkin Delight (from their Fall 2012 Spicy Dreams collection) is one of those polishes for me. I've worn it twice, and I am absolutely in love with it!

This really is my sort of polish. It's a shimmery metallic bronzey golden duochrome that has flashes of red and gold and copper that's almost impossible to photograph. I finally managed a couple of decent photos, after taking probably 50 or more bottle shots alone!

Jessica Pumpkin Dreams in the bottle

This bottle shot gives you a slight idea of the complexity of this color. At the top of the bottle you can see reddish coppery tones with sparkles of red and green, while at the bottom of the bottle there are golden-greenish shades. If you never enlarge any other photo here, enlarge this bottle shot to the right. You'll be amazed at the flashes of color, and how stunningly beautiful this polish is!

Ah well, enough babbling about Pumpkin Delight. I love it, and it's obvious. Hopefully it's obvious why as well! But now I have to explain the next step I took. It was a rather odd one, but I think it worked out nicely...

If you've been a reader for very long, you probably know I have a thing for glitter. Big glitter, small glitter, holographic glitter... I love it all. So when I got the Jordana collection of special glitters I sort of lost my mind a bit. They're amazing, and I'm having problems picking a favorite. Heck, I don't think I can even pick five favorites... they're just that awesome!

Jordana Bronze Fest in the bottle

Enter Jordana Bronze Fest. Can you see that amazing collection of coppery, bronze, and gold glitters? There are large hexes and tiny microglitter, and flashes of so many shades... It's definitely one of my favorites.

As I was looking through the box I got to thinking... what if I did a gradient from Pumpkin Delight to Bronze Fest? They're very similar in tone, and I liked the idea of going from small shimmer to large glitter. Why not, right?

People? Let me just tell you that I fell in absolute LOVE. They aren't quite as close in color on the nail, but they look fantastic together. It's definitely a magpie heaven! Unfortunately, no matter how much I tried to photograph this, it just didn't work. I tried natural light, I tried flash, I tried in shade and full sun. I finally gave up and shot a video. Hopefully this can convey a bit of this polish combination's amazingness!

Polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Jessica Fall 2012- Spicy Dream

Holy wow. Can I just say I'm in love with the Spicy Dream collection from Jessica? Seriously, I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love these polishes.

When I saw the flyer for this collection, I have to admit my first thought was, "Meh." Gee, more browns and bronzes. Yippee. That only lasted til I opened the box containing these sweet polishes, though, because even in the box I could see the texture that these polishes have! There are two creme polishes, a shimmer, and three gorgeous glitters.

Let's look at the cremes first. Crimson Tattoo is a red so deep it almost looks brown. This is my kind of red...rich and lush and dark. It makes me think of fall, and maybe of steamy activities better left to the imagination! ;)

Brown Sugar is a creme brown that's well named- it's the brown of brown sugar, like the gingerbread cookies that appear every winter. Both of these polishes are gorgeous on their own, but they make amazing bases for the glitters... but we'll get to those.

Next is the single shimmer of the collection- Cinnamon Kiss. This color? Omg. There are no words. This is the color that I bought and rebought for years, loving the deep red and the gorgeous shimmer. It's not terribly unique, but it sure is gorgeous. The first car I bought using my own money was this color!

I actually wore this color first, and loved the way it looks against my pale skin. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of it. I'm scatterbrained, apparently. It's gorgeous, but I made the mistake of applying it right before a bath, and soaked a bit too long. I don't know WHAT I was thinking!!

My favorite polishes of this collection are definitely the glitters, though. When I opened the box, I saw these and actually squealed in delight! The glitter in these is so incredibly fine that they're almost a foil finish. It was really difficult for me to figure out what to call these!

Champagne Bubbles is a very pale, almost white glitter, and I haven't tried it on the nail yet. Gingersnap is a golden/silver-leaning polish, and Pumpkin Delight is more bronzey/red.  Gingersnap and Pumpkin Delight both have a duochromey, color-changing feel to them that's really difficult for me to describe.

So, instead of wear these as they are, I knew I needed to layer these. I paired Crimson Tattoo with Pumpkin Delight, and let me just say that I am absolutely in awe of the finished look.

See what I mean about the color? It's so dimensional, and it looks simply magical on. I've gotten compliments wearing this too, people asking just what I'm wearing because they can't stop looking! It felt good to share the Jessica love!

If it will stop raining for a bit, I'll try to get outside and show you what this looks like in sunlight. It's definitely worth looking at. It's been so hard to photograph!

Since it's 3am, I'll go ahead and show you the rest of the photos and hopefully get to bed. But I had to share this with you... these colors are simply magical!

The Spicy Dream collection was provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

My Spring Garden Fail

Once again, I've got an interesting story to share, and a somewhat failed manicure at the end of it all. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't altogether successful, either. It all started in the scrapbooking aisle...

We'd gone walking again, as we so often do. I don't like going for walks outside for several reasons- temperature fluctuations, bugs, traffic, etc. But mainly I find that it's really easy for me to overdo, and with the fibro I often won't realize I've done too much until exhaustion slaps me in the head and I just can't go any more. If we're walking at a shop, most of the time my husband can go pick up a scooter and I can make it back out to the car without having to call 911.

Having to call 911 isn't fun. People stare. :D

So, a few days ago we were walking through the scrapbooking section of my local big box store and I saw a punch I absolutely needed to have. It's the cutest little flower, and while it's a tiny bit large for nails, it's definitely doable.

Of course, the moment I saw it, I could envision so many ways to decorate it- adding a rhinestone in the center of it, adding glitter pieces to the center, making polish strips with swirls or gradients to use with it.

I knew this was going to be a fun one. I just didn't realize how MUCH fun it would be!

The first thing I did when I got home with it was to make some polish strips to punch flowers from. Once again, I primarily used the China Glaze Electropop polishes, simply because they're so versatile. I did several patterns- basic yellow with a topping of Love My Nails Dazzling, a set of diagonal stripes. a set with blobs of color painted on semi-randomly, and a strip of light pink topped with round stamps of yellow and red.

I knew these strips wouldn't result in actual flower-like patterns, but I was ok with that. I wanted something whimsical, and this worked pretty well!

While those were drying, I decided to experiment with a piece of foil my son had brought me. He'd gotten a jar of Nutella and thought the seal from the jar might make interesting nail decals. He's so sweet! He was right, too... the foil was sturdy enough to punch and lightweight enough not to be problematic.

I managed to get 28 decals from the foil. The best part? They're double-sided, gold on one side and silver on the other. I get to choose what side I want to be the top when I use them.

Once the strips were dry, I punched them as well. I got a lot of decals from the few strips I made, and I let them dry for a couple of days before putting them in the box to store them.

I love how these turned out. The colors on them ended up looking sweet, and there's so much variety even with the few I made. Note the decals that aren't complete- these aren't a waste. I use these on the edges of my fingers to make it look like the pattern continues off the nail. Don't toss the incomplete ones!

Speaking of storage, I went with this cute little favor box I found on sale after Valentine's day. I got twelve of them for something like a dollar. LOVE sales!

Since I have so many of the boxes, I decided to label the top of this one and make it clear what was inside. Instead of writing on the box, I dabbed on a bit of clear polish, then pressed a decal into place. Another coat of polish on top and now I know at a glance what's in the box!

Finally, the manicure! This was easy, but took quite a bit of time. I ended up using quite a variety of things to make the centers, like loose glitter, glitter polishes, and rhinestones. I think I'm wearing five different colors/shapes/sizes of stones! Over the top? Actually, it kind of works.

And since it's once again 3:30AM and I'm tired, I'll just share the photos. The process for these was easy- base coat, 3 coats of Gaga for Green, dabs of clear polish to set the flowers into, dabs of clear polish to set the stones and glitter into place, and finally quick dry top coat to finish it all off. Took me about two and a half hours, but lots of that was me trying to decide what to use for centers!

The big blue rhinestone is from Born Pretty, the pink flower is from my Fing'rsnail gem kit, and the black rhinestone is from Viva la Nails.

Unfortunately, my polishes didn't play well with my quick-dry top coat this time. Maybe it was the number of layers of polish, I don't know. But the next morning, I noticed these two enormous gouges in my left thumb! So sad.

I didn't remove this, though. I figured you couldn't really see the gouges unless you were super close to  my nails, so I didn't worry about it.

Frankly, if someone is 6 inches from your nails, you've got bigger things to worry about than your nail polish!

Ok, now it's time for me to see if I can convince my brain to shut off for a while so I can sleep. I'm starting to feel better overall,which is making me feel more creative. Unfortunately, creative doesn't mesh well with sleep!

Various items have been provided by the manufacturers for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Magnetix Polish

Magnetix polish with two magnets.

I am so excited! Last night, my family and I were out running some errands and I decided to stop off at Rite Aid to see if they had any fun new nail goodies. Talk about a score, I found a display of magnetic nail polishes!

They weren't too horribly expensive, either. The Magnetix polishes are $7.99 each, and come with two magnets! I was excited about that, since it seems most magnetic polishes either come with one magnet or make you buy the magnet separately!

The polishes come in a plastic box, and the display was on the bottom shelf. I could easily have missed it if I wasn't specifically keeping an eye out for interesting polishes! Unfortunately, I didn't notice how many colors there were, but I saw quite a few, including gold, silver, green, blue, deep pink, and a sort of putty brown color. They all had the same two magnets, so you can't get more patterns by buying more than one bottle.

Still, the patterns are nice enough. The magnets are somewhat flexible too, which let me sort of bend the magnet around my finger, so tht the magnetic field reached more of my nail instead of sitting right on top.

One strange thing, at least to me: the bottle shape is downright bizarre! While the bottom of the bottle is round, the top is triangular, and slants off to the left! It's sort of like a Nicole by OPI bottle, if you turned it to the side and the top was triangular. I don't know, it's weird!

It doesn't affect the polish inside, though, and it wasn't hard to hold or anything. I just find the shape weird. Maybe it's interesting instead. Whatever.

The big question for me was would it work. I've been dying to get some magnetic polish, but I didn't want to spend $20 on a bottle, I'm just too poor for that. I can deal with $8, even if it is a bit more than I'd like to spend, but I would be heartbroken if it didn't work. Thankfully I wasn't disappointed...

  

So, the final verdict? This stuff is kind of tricky to use, but it's absolutely gorgeous. It can be worn as a normal polish, worn with the magnetic stripes, stamped over a different polish... (yes, it stamps like a dream!)

Take a few minutes to get used to using the magnets, though. If you use too little polish and you won't see stripes, and if you use too much you won't see the stripes. Expect to have to redo a few nails, or do like I did and just live with it, since it's pretty no matter what you do to it! I'll let the rest of the pics speak for themselves...

What are your thoughts about magnetic nail polish? Are you itching to rock the trend, or is it leaving you bored and waiting for the next big thing? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

Yay for finding inexpensive magnetic polish!

See my disclosure statement for more information.