KBShimmer Totally Tubular Inspired Nail Art

(**Press Samples**)

Hello everyone and happy Thursday! 

  Today I have a crazy busy manicure haha! I'm kind of calling this my "kitchen sink mani". I just couldn't stop doing things to my nails. The whole idea originated from my bottle of KBShimmer's Totally Tubular. I kept swirling it in my hands and being hypnotized by the amazing blend of colors and shapes. And so this mani was born, inspired by the beautiful colors in Totally Tubular. I will be sharing swatches of KBShimmer's full Summer collection very soon! 

 On my middle nail is Totally Tubular by KBShimmer. I will be reviewing the polish itself soon. For now, I really want to focus on this colorful nail art that got me through my days at the Mayo Clinic.

  So, as I mentioned above, the nail art itself was inspired by the colors in Totally Tubular. I loved the mix of Teals, Magentas and Blues. So, on all my nails but my middle nail I did a White base of Cult Nails Tempest. For my water marbled nails I used Bettina Aqua, Pink Bikini and Premium Wash. I then topped off my marbled nails with O.P.I Polka.com.

 For my gradient nails I used Bettina Picnic, Sparkle and Glitter Jean. I topped off my gradient nails in Aphrodite Lacquers V.I.P Room. I finished off the entire manicure by topping all of my nails off with some KBShimmer Clearly on Top and then some INM Northern Lights sparkle top coat.

 I CANNOT believe I forgot to take pics of my thumbs! I really loved how the marble pattern turned out on them. I had never been able to get a full flower design on my nails before! So, I'm so sorry, but here are some crappy cell pics of my thumb marbles. I think they were about Four days old at this point. 

 I loved wearing these nails. My days at the Mayo Clinic were really intensive, exhausting and not entirely successful.. But my nails were looking FIERCE the whole time. I got so many compliments from  people while I was there. It was nice to have the distraction of my colorful nails and hair while I was going through all that stuff. 

  Oh and some cool stuff happened right before the Mayo trip. I got to meet the awesome Kelly of vampyvarnish.com!! It was an awesome lunch meeting with my Florida beauties and Kelly. Thank you Courtney for the lovely photo!! From L to R: Steph of Imperfectly Painted, myself (goodness I need to do my roots soon!!), Maria of Cult Nails, Kelly of Vampy Varnish, Kari of Once Bitten and Courtney of Phyrra. 

Thank you all for stopping by today!! If you have any questions about Mayo, feel free to ask in the comments, I will try my best to answer them. I just didn't want to get into all that in the post itself. 

XO!

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LVX Watermarble for Autism Awareness Month

(**Press Sample**)

Good am and happy humpday! 

  For today's look I decided to do a watermarble that used the colors for Autism Awareness. I was thinking along the lines of the puzzle piece ribbons. These ribbons usually feature the primary colors, Red, Blue and Yellow. This was my first time marbling with LVX nail polish, and they were amazing! Sorry about the greasy fingers. My tips were SO dry after the marbling and cleanup. They were starved for some moisture. 

 For this marble I started with a base of LVX Fantom. For the watermarble portion I used LVX Cerulean(Blue), Citrine(Yellow) and Fantom. Once my marble was nice and dry I accented the swirls with some small Red dots using Bettina Be Jolly. The final touch was a light coating of INM Northern Lights top coat. 

 Here is a swatch of my base shade Fantom. This is a stark White creme. The formula on this White creme was a little streaky. I had to keep a very light and steady hand to avoid bald patches. I used Three coats for full, even opacity.

 I normally only marble with Bettina polishes because they really take the guessing out of marbling for me. But these LVX cremes were just about PERFECT for this technique as well. They have a really good spread in the water and the pigmentation is just right.  I also had no issues come cleanup time. These come off clean and don't stain the skin.

Thanks for stopping by my loves!

(**Press Sample**)

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In Bettina Blues for World Autism Awareness Day

(**Press Sample**)

Good morning and happy Tuesday, 

 Today is World Autism Awareness Day, therefore my nails shall be Blue. For this simple look I went with all Bettina shades. I had not played with my Bettina pretties in a while. 

 This look started with Two coats of Bettina Vanity. For the puzzle piece stamp I used Bundle Monster plate BM219 and Bettina Over dyed. To finish it all off I added a coat of INM Northern Lights top coat and some Blue stones near the cuticles.

 Here is a swatch of Bettina Vanity. This shade is pretty much a dupe of Zoya Blu. I did find the formula on the Bettina much easier to work with. I used Two easy coats. I can't get enough of these White-Based "bridal-y" Blues.

 Thank you all for stopping by and thanks to all of you who are wearing your Blues today!!

(**Press Sample**)

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Random Thursday Spam!

Good afternoon!!

  So todayI have some random spamalamadindong for you guys. I really wanna clean out these random swatch folders I have in my computer. I have no idea where they came from or how I managed to forget about the for this long. SO! Here is lots of pretty polishes for yer eye-holes!

 To see closeup pics just continue readin ♥.

 I won't be going into detail about the polishes themselves. This is a true picture spammy post lol. I will have a few of these in the coming days to clean out folders and get my butt back into gear this year!

Orly Sashay my Way over Nicole by O.P.I Iris my Case

Orly Spazzmatic over Nicole by O.P.I Just bust a Mauve

A England Bridal Veil

Hot Ticket by The Balm That's Red-iculous

Zoya Cho

Julie G Nail Color in 9 to 5

 This particular shade, while totally awesome flattering and beautiful, has a horrific formula. Three patient coats shown here. This color is slightly neon and the formula can be draggy, streaky and patchy at points.

Julie G Nail Color in Oh Em Gee!

Julie G Nail Color in My Private Palace

Julie G Nail Color in Royal Rebel

Revlon Sheer Seafoam 

 This is a water-finish polish. I used Four coats. I've read some people add drops of creme polishes to make it more opaque but I actually like this this way.

Del Sol Foxy (inside)

 Del Sol Foxy (Sunlight)

Orly Be Brave 

Bettina Camilla

Chameleon Fandango over Color Club Muse-ical

 Thanks for stopping by today loves!!! If you have any questions about these shades feel free to ask! I will have a few more spammy posts and then hopefully I will be caught up soon! I have many exciting things planned for 2013!!

Any standouts in this batch?

(**Some products provided for review**)

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31 Day Challenge 2012! Day 31: Re-create a Mani

OMG!!!

  SO sorry I didn't post this earlier today! I had them ready to go and it totally slipped my mind that today was Tuesday!!! I'm caught up in the Holiday haze I guess lol. Too many 3-wick BBW Candle fumes? Anyways! Today is day 31 of the 31 day challenge!! We had quite a few hiccups, we lost a gal, but Sammy and I made it to the end! Battered, bruised and bloody, but we made it (dramatic much? lol) . So for my recreation I actually chose one of Rie's manis.
  I figured since I re-created Sammy's Dior nails for my day 30 nails, that I would pick one of Rie's looks for my final day. Miss Rie was not able to finish the challenge, she did make it pretty far in though. I went with Miss Rie's Tribal manicure. Now... you guys know my hatred of all things tribal right? So yeah, I was pretty much shocked at myself for loving this look so much. Miss Rie was inspired by a fellow nail blogger as well. This is a different take on tribal, and it just stole my heart!

 My base color is Bettina Starfish. The black accents were done with Milani Black Swift. The white accents were done with Milani White on the Spot, and the yellow with Milani Yellow Whiz. The accents of soft Blue are Zoya Jo. I was surprised at how simple this lok was to achieve and how much I loved it! Thank you Miss Rie for the inspiration!!

  So, that is it guys!!! I will be doing a recap post soon with all of the looks. I also want to update my 31 Days of Nail Art tab. I think it will be cool to see what a year of practice can do in terms of improvement.   I'm glad we did the challenge again, even though it took us quite a bit longer than 31 days. We did it!!! Now to focus on some Holiday nail art!! Don't forget to stop by my challenge partners Rie and Sam's to see their looks!

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Nails by Cris! feat My Two Jennifers

Good Morning loves! 

  Today I have some looks I did on Two of my lovely gal-pals. This past weekend was pretty crazy for me. As usual I waited until the last minute to do my Holiday shopping... So, that was fun lol. I have not had time to do anything with my nails since Friday! As I sit here typing this, my nails are bare... And much too long. 

  I love doing nail art on my friends because they get to enjoy it as long as they please. Many times I don't get to enjoy the looks I come up with. I simply do not have the time to "wear" polish and my looks. I have to swatch, swatch, swatch!! Usually when I do my looks, they are just that :(, not full manis. There is just SO much product coming in during the holidays that I am having a hard time keeping up. Also, remember back in September? When I had to be out for Two weeks because of my Surgery... That DID NOT help haha. That seriously backed me up majorly. So here we are, almost end of the year and I haven't even picked my top releases of 2012 or done a single X-mas mani :(. I hope to change that this week. We shall see.. My goals for this week are pretty ambitious... 

 To see these cool looks just continue reading!

Jen L's. Gator Nails 

  Jen was heading for a FL Gators game back in November so of course she had to stop by to get some fierce Gator themed nails! The Pinkie and Index have a base of Bettina Premium Wash. For the stripes I used Bettina Starfish. The middle finger has a base of Color Club Sparkle and Soar stamped with BM224 in Bettina Overdyed. The ring and thumb nails were done in the same colors as the Pinkie and Index, then touched up in Orly Right Amount of Evil and Orly Spazzmatic. I topped miss Jen off with Seche Vite. 

Jen B.'s Holiday Leopard

 I LOVE working on Jen's nails!! Doesn't she have lovely hands? So this skittle look features Zoya Storm,Gilty and Ziv as well as Cult Nails Nevermore. I topped miss Jen off with Seche Vite followed by Cult Nails Wicked fast. She told me she got about Two weeks of wear out of this mani!! 

Jen B's Atomic Nails! 

  This look is based of off Jen's biz card. Jen runs etsy shop Redhead Stepchild Designs. Adorbz knits!! I have quite a collection myself. So, Jen was going to this awesome local craft fair and we decided that she had to have some awesome custom nails based of off her adorable logo! The base color is O.P.I My Boyfriend Scales Walls. i followed that with a light layer of Cult Nails Doppelganger. For the Red freehand portions I used Zoya Sooki. The little eye was done with A-England Dragon. I topped the whole look off with some Seche Vite, followed by INM Northern Lights.

 Miss Jen is coming over again soon to get some pretty Galaxy nails done. I.am.SO. Excited!!! 

  I hope to be back later with the first of, hopefully, many Christmas nail looks. My swatches will just have to wait ;)! ♥♥♥♥

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31 Day Challenge 2012! Day 27: Inspired by Artwork

Hello and good morning!! 

  Today I finally have my day 27, artwork inspired nails for the 31 day challenge. Miss Sam is on top of her shiz and will be posting her flag nails today. Not sure what's goin on with miss Rie lol! I will be posting my flag nails later this afternoon. So, last year, on this prompt I went with Van Gogh's Starry Night. This year, after much debate (and with you guys' halp on Facebook), I landed on Munch's The Scream. Similar styles, both amazing pieces of art. It danced around these nails for a whole week. And when it came time to sit down and paint and I had to take a deep breath and jump right into it. I could type 18,746,287 words and none of them would convey the frenzy I had worked myself into over this nail art. I really wanted to push my boundaries.... Mission accomplished. 

 I must say that I feel like I greatly overestimated my freehand capabilities here, but I am actually really pleased with the end result. I think this has been the most challenging, time consuming nail art I have EVER done. So, on that basis alone; I am proud of myself for pushing through my fear of freehand nail art and actually going for it. 

  All in all, this look took me almost Three hours to complete. There were a lot of steps and a lot of waiting for layers to dry. Oh and, yes, this was all done with nail polish and nail polish only. I decided to not top coat my completed look to really give it the feel of an oil painting. I'm still kinda cracking up at my little screamer though... "Guuurrrrllll.. look at dem shoes!!!!" lol! 

 And now for a close-up of my attempt. Not too shabby for someone who pretty much curls up and cries at the thought of freehand nail art, right?

 At this point I'm not even really sure which colors are where. Luckily, I made a list of every color I blobbed out onto my paper palette. There was a lot of custom color mixing and a lot of thinning with acetone. As challenging as this was, it was really fun to see it come together and mixing many techniques to achieve the look I wanted.

  I used all the following colors from Bettina: Base #192, Brown, Earth, Birds, Sunrise, Starfish, Glitter Jean, Peaches 'n' Creme, #192, #12, #195, Ortensia, Indigo, Vintage Jean, #15, Premium Wash and Aqua. I also used  Sation I used Weed out the Wimps, Cult Nails Nevermore and Zoya Arizona. There was a lot of blending done with acetone to give the colors a paint-like consistency. 

 And for reference, here is the inspiration. I kind of forget that the task is to be inspired by the painting, not to actually replicate, but that was part of the challenge I set for myself :D. 

image source

 And there is my take on this famous painting! Now don't forget to stop by my challenge partners Rie and Sam's to see their  looks today! Also!! Don't forget to check out my Zoya Ornate Giveaway!! And I will see you guys again later! 

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31 Day Challenge 2012! Day Twenty: Watermarble

T-t-t-Tuesday!! 

  And that means it is time for another 31 Day Challenge prompt! I cannot believe we are already on Day 20! I know Miss Sammy was not looking forward to today's prompt. I'm not sure about Miss Rie but I don't think she was too excited either lolol. I remember when I used to dread marbles. They are still not my fave to work on. I love the finished look of marbles but I'm not fan of the actual process of doing them.  

  The other thing I can't seem to master is the swirls. Some girls can get such kick ass designs and swirl patterns on their nails using this technique. I seem to get blocked when it comes time to swirl my colors and I always end up with random patterns and no clear defined design. Instead of going for something specific this time I went for a flowing floral type of look. For this marble I used this image of a Parrot Tulip as my inspiration for the colors. Mr.LTHP said this reminded him of '70s Style dresses... I see it too.

 This look started with a base of Two coats of one of my "go-to" shades, Cult Nails Enticing. For the marbling swirls I used Bettina's Ortensia, Yellow, Glacinto and Zoya Monica. I wish everyone had access to Bettina nail polish. The texture and pigmentation of the Bettina polishes makes them perfect for watermarbles. I topped the whole mani off with some Seche Vite followed by a coat of INM Northern Lights. I really love the contrast of colors in this manicure and how the sparkle from Northern Lights looks like morning dew. 

Now don't forget to stop by my challenge partners Rie and Sam's to see their Marbled looks for day 20!

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31 Day Challenge 2012! Day Nineteen: Galaxies

Happy Sunday! 

  Today Sam, Rie and I will be taking on Day 19 of the 31 Day Challenge. The prompt for day 19 is Galaxy nails. Last year I had a lot of fun with this challenge prompt. Ever since I had been wanting to revisit the Galaxy mani but I had not had a chance so working on these was a real treat. 

  Last year I got kinda nervous right before I started working on my galaxies and this year was the same scenario lolol. I looked at tons of pictures of outer space I had pinned and took my sweet time picking colors. I always over think it when it comes to this type of nail art and always end up blocking myself. This year I just kinda went for it and I am really happy with my results. IDK if this is the most "galactic" mani I've ever seen but I definitely like it a lot! 

 So for my galaxies I started with a base of Two coats of Cult Nails I got Distracted. For the "galactic" sponging I used Milani White on the Spot and the following Bettina shades: Tulipani, Yellow, Ortensia, Vintage Jean, Starfish and Aqua. I just sponged the shades on kind of randomly until I got an effect I liked. I topped my galaxies out with some Seche Vite followed by some INM Northern Lights top coat. 

 I will be having full reviews of I got Distracted and yesterday's Annalicious this coming week. In the meantime don't forget to stop by my challenge partners Rie and Sam's to see their Galactic looks for day 19!

(**Products provided for consideration**)

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31 Day Challenge 2012! Day Fifteen: Delicate

Happy Sunday!! 

  Today is the day!!! The Makeup Show!!! Woo-hoo! Anywho, today is day 15 of the 31 day challenge and the list calls for Delicate nails... So this is what I came up with.

  I started with Three thin coats of Julie G My Private Palace. I love this shade, it is a very shimmery, light duochromey golden, champagne. It's just awesome. For the stamp I used Bundle Monster plate BM 310 and Bettina in Art Deco Brown. All topped off with some Seche Vite. 

Now don't forget to stop by my challenge partners Rie and Sam's to see their Delicate looks for day 15!

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31 Day Challenge 2012! Day Thirteen: Animal Print

It's November! 

 WHAT?! Anyways today Sam, Rie and I are taking on the 13th prompt in the 31 Day Challenge. These nails are inspired by, and in honor of, my beloved bearded dragon. Her name was Amelia, she recently passed. She had a long, happy and healthy life. I got her as a little baby and later on she was "adopted" by my mom and brother later on. They loved her very much too. It only made sense to do some nails in her memory ♥.

  I started with a base of Julie G nail polish in 9 to 5. I then cling-wrapped some Bettina Sunrise. You cannot really see the contrast of the cling-wrapping but it looked really cool in person. To give it some flash I sponged the tips with Julie G in Metallic Heels. The stamping was done with Bundle Monster plate BM224 and Bettina Orange. I topped it all off with some Seche Vite. 

 Here are two of my favorite pictures of Amelia. She had the prettiest peach, orange and red color scheme. She was a sweet little lizard. Beardies are great pets! 

             

Now don't forget to stop by my challenge partners Rie and Sam's to see their Red looks for day One!

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31 Day Challenge 2012! Day Nine: Rainbow Nails

Happy Thursday! 

  Today Sam, Rie and I will be taking on the Ninth prompt in the 31 Day Challenge. The task for today is Rainbow nails. I couldn't think of a better way to do a full rainbow look than by doing a watermarbled look. A LONG time ago I did a rainbow marble for the lovely Kellie and ever since I have been wanting to re-visit the look. Rainbow lollies for everyone!

 This look features all Bettina colors for the swirls. They are #15, Purple, Premium Wash, Mojito, Yellow and Starfish. The base is one coat of Milani's White on the Spot. Because, in my book, a watermarble is not complete until there is some sparkle, I added a coat of Twee & Honey's Fairy Farts. I topped the whole thing off with some Seche Vite.

 I love marbles with lots of colors. Bettina polishes are THE BEST for this technique! Now don't forget to stop by my challenge partners Rie and Sam's to see their Rainbow looks for day Nine!

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