Mistletoe Kisses for New Year's Eve

Hello lovelies! Just a quick post for you tonight before 2011 is upon us. I've got China Glaze - Mistletoe Kisses for you today. I won this a little while ago from Mary at Body & Soul and it's so pretty! Maybe my favorite from the Holiday collection this year.

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Pretty right? Sorry there are a few stray glitter pieces on my ring finger in the pictures. I'm actually wearing this on my toes right now. It's easy to work with, sometimes glitters can be a little gloopy but the formula here is good. Mistletoe Kisses is one of three I have from this collection, I'll show you the other two soon. Do you have any from this collection? What's your favorite?

I hope you all have a great New Year's Eve! I won't be kissing anyone at midnight since I'm sick, but hopefully you will be :)

Diamond Cosmetics Winter Collection, Part Two

I've got the second half of Diamond Cosmetics' Winter Collection for you. If you missed part one you can find it here. I've got pictures of Starshine and Hypnotic to show you today! Have I mentioned how much I like the names of the polishes from this collection? Because I definitely do. If you've been reading JeweledTips for a while, I'm sure you've noticed that polish names that don't make sense drive me crazy haha. Yay for logical names!

First up, Starshine!

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(click to enlarge all of these to see the glitter better)

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Diamond Cosmetics describes it as, "Dark blue like the cosmic abyss, flecks of glitter in this polish twinkle like stars." I'd say that's pretty accurate! The bits of glitter aren't quite as obvious on the nail, it's more subtle but you can definitely tell they are there. These are all without topcoat, which I think would make it even prettier. The application was good, I used three coats but could've gotten away with two. I have polishes in my stash that are like a cousin to Starshine but no dupes. I'm a sucker for any polish with Star in the name too haha. As soon as I put this on, I thought it would make a really cool base color for something similar to the Space Nails that Asami did a while back.

Now let's check out Hypnotic!

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Oh myyyy goodness is this gorgeous or what? Diamond Cosmetics describes it like this: "Get lost in your fantasy with this shimmery blue green hue." Cute! Shimmery definitely fits this, although I'd say it's more a green that leans blue than a true blue-green, if that makes sense? There is a little more blue to it than my camera captured, but still predominately green I think. Application was great, very easy to work with and full coverage in two coats. I don't have any dupes to this for sure, it's crazy pretty though haha I can't wait to wear this as a full mani!

I don't think I can pick just one favorite from the collection, they all fit different holes in my collection (if you can have holes in a collection closing in on 300, you know what I mean though) I do know for sure I'm going to wear Moonsand on New Year's Eve! Do you have a favorite out of the four? Will you be picking one or all of them up from Diamond Cosmetics? If you're celebrating this weekend - I hope it's wonderful! And if not, I hope your weekend is amazing too :)

(these were sent to me for an honest review)

Diamond Cosmetics Winter Collection, Part One

Hello lovelies! I've been buried in a pile of papers, articles to edit, and school work for the last week and a half, but I think I've finally conquered it haha. I did get a bunch of swatching done in the meantime, including the beautiful Winter Collection from Diamond Cosmetics. I'm breaking it up into two parts, today and tomorrow, so it won't be too picture heavy for you. So today I'm going to be showing you Moonsand and It's Electrifying, check out the pictures below!

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I love Moonsand! Everything from the name to the color to the application I like. I've been jonesin' for a charcoal-y silver polish for the last few weeks and I think this fits the bill! It only took two coats to get full coverage and wasn't bad to remove either. Diamond Cosmetics describes it as, "This charcoal foil shines like the full moon; eye catching and magnificent." I think this is going to be the base for my New Year's Eve mani, maybe with some glitter on top.

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"It's Electrifying... do do doo, better shape up dun dun dun cause I need a man, do do do, and my heart is set on youuuu" hahah, doesn't this name make you immediately think of Grease? Maybe it's just how my brain works. This color is fantastic. The formula gave me fits a little bit though, this picture is four coats. The VNL (visible nail line) is a little visible in pictures, but not in real life. This was a little bit patchy when I was applying it, but I was rushing a little bit so that could be partially my fault. It's Electrifying is a squishy color for sure, I know a lot of people will love it even with less coats, but I'm not into VNL so four was what I needed. Diamond Cosmetics describes it, "Give him chills with this powerful and sassy blue." Perfect description right?

What do you think of the first two colors from the Winter Collection? I hope your holiday shopping is almost finished! :)

(these were provided to me for an honest review)

Festive!

Hi again! Second post today... told you I was playing catch up here haha. I just finished my radio show and I'm sneaking in really quick to show you a perfect holiday mani that Alexandra just did! And it's super easy, I promise.

base colors
close - up of some of the stickers

finished product!

Alexandra alternated Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Emerald City and Orly - Bus Stop Crimson for the green and red base colors. And then topped it off with some holiday Cina nail stickers from Sally's Beauty Supply. I think most of the time you can find these seasonal style stickers by the registers at Sally's if you want to pick some up to try this yourself!

I love it! I need to get to Sally's to get a pack of these stickers, they are so adorable :) Thanks again Alexandra!! Have any of you started doing holiday manis yet?

Lots Of Neat Stuff Happening Right Now!

Hey everyone! Sorry my computer has been uncooperative the last few days... the display settings changed themselves and four days of various techs and people working on it and it's still not fixed, yuck. So my laptop is now hooked up to a separate monitor and keyboard so I can finally start playing some catch up here! I've got a few press releases to show you of some cool stuff that's going on in the nail polish/beauty world.

First up, some of the amazing people in the beauty blogging community have put together BeautyBloggers.org

"BeautyBloggers.org is the collaboration of almost 50 different beauty bloggers and brands. In the spirit of the holidays, we wanted to make a meaningful contribution to charity — knowing that the most effective donation to any charity is cash.
So we’re putting our makeup on the auction block. Winning bids will be donated directly to Doctors Without Borders.
We’re raising money for Doctors Without Borders because women are always disproportionately affected in any disaster. This organization is committed to bringing quality medical care to people in crisis, regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation. They treat rape victims in Papua New Guinea; they make sure women don’t die in childbirth in Pakistan; they helped flood victims in Mexico and earthquake victims in Haiti. They work in 65 countries around the world, and your donation will make an immediate impact. "

So go check out all of the amazing make-up and nail polish that's being auctioned off at BeautyBloggers.org to donate to a great cause and get yourself something pretty in the process :) The auctions are live now and run through December 20th at 5 pm CST.

Color Club has exciting news about their partnership with Amethyst Jeans, and a contest!

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"Enter to win on of 20 holiday totes given away over the next five weeks!
You and your BFF will each receive an Amethyst Jeans tote filled with a pair of Amethyst Jeans, shimmery lip glosses and a holiday set nail polish set from Color Club and a shampoo and conditioner set from Totally Texty!

Contest runs from November 29th through December 31st, 2010. Go to http://www.facebook.com/amethystjeans to enter! Happy Holidays!"

Glitter Gal has a new partnership to announce as well! They have teamed up with Australian shoe brand, Wanted Shoes!

"Glitter Gal custom created Limited Edition nail polishes for “Wanted Shoes”
We have collaborated with “Wanted Shoes” and custom created six nail polishes to compliment this season’s shoe collection.

Stockist: Wanted Shoe Stores
Available now"

Toxic Seduction

Hi lovelies! Sorry it's been a few days, my back has been crankier than usual :( but I'm sneaking on here for a minute to post for you! Today I have Misa - Toxic Seduction to show you. This is my first Misa and a lemming that I've had for a while that was recently fulfilled, a really sweet lady on MUA gave this to me as an EXTRA! Honestly I can't get over how kind people are sometimes, that was so sweet. I love that when I get amazing things like this, everytime I use the polish, I'm reminded of how nice and generous the person was. Enough of me rambling haha let me show you how gorgeous this color is:

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Toxic Seduction is this great dark green lit from within polish. It was super easy to work with formula-wise, I only needed 2 coats. I've really only branched out into using dark-er colors over the last 6 months or so; this is kind of perfect in my opinion haha. It's dark but you can always tell it's green, it doesn't look black in shade or inside. All the pictures are accurate representations of how it looks in the different settings. I think the name is a perfect fit too, Toxic Seduction... I feel kind of seductive with this on my nails haha :) Names that fit the polish make me so happy. But after finally getting this in my hot little hands, I definitely want to get some more Misa polishes soon. Maybe a post holiday haul?

Don't forget!! My giveaway ends tomorrow December 3rd at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time! If you haven't entered yet, what are you waiting for silly goose? Go and enter here: http://jeweledtips.blogspot.com/2010/11/giveaway-nail-art-style.html

I have some great things coming up... some gorgeous necklaces from Ginger Kitty Designs, Revlon - Perplex swatches, holiday manis and nail art, and showing you one of my all-time favorite polishes for my birthday mani on Tuesday! Yay for lots of pretty upcoming things :)

Let's Boogie, Bogie

Haha I really like this post title! China Glaze - Bogie is the color I was most excited about when the Vintage Vixen collection came out; I'm always drawn to purples. But then once the collection actually came out, my lemming sort of hit the back burner - I don't really know why though. Eventually I came to my senses and bought it thankfully, because I really really love it.

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My fingers look big in these pictures, yeesh. But I'm totally into Bogie! I don't really have anything like this in my collection. It's a dark purple eggplant color with pretty pink and green subtle shimmer (which by the way I've noticed this shimmer in multiple other polishes, but that's for another post, I digress) My neighbor came by when I was wearing this and liked it on me so much she borrowed it! If that doesn't say it's a pretty polish, I don't know what will haha :) This was easy to work with too, 2 coats and you're good to go, which is always a bonus especially with dark colors.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving/weekend (depending which applies to you :) ) and don't forget about my giveaway!

I'm Sew Psyched Guys

I really thought I posted about this weeks ago, but I guess not haha. So I have Essie - Sew Psyched to show you today! This is a gorgeous dusty green with what I call secret shimmer. The shimmer is very subtle and not unlike what many Chanel colors have shimmer-wise. I've worn this twice already and really like it a lot - check out the pictures!

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If you click on the first picture you can see the silvery hints of shimmer the polish has, which gives it some added depth. Many people have said this is a dupe for Rescue Beauty Lounge - Diddy Mow, but I don't have that to compare myself. There are a lot of pictures out there that are enough for me to say just owning one or the other is probably good for most people. :) This was very easy to work with, Essie's formula has gotten a lot better with the last few collections. I used to really not buy them at all because of it, but I'm changing my stance on that now. Essie has been putting out some awesome greens lately, don't you think?

Don't forget to enter my giveaway if you haven't already! And have a Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate, and if you don't then have a great weekend!

Have You Ever Woken Up In Vegas?

Well, I haven't, but if I ever get married I already told my dad that it's happening in Vegas haha. I have an incredible polish to share with you today. I'm sure you've seen it other places, most notably on Lady Gaga. It's Deborah Lippmann - Waking Up In Vegas. I was lucky enough to win this from the lovely Kellie over at Also Known As... and honestly I didn't expect to like this color on me at all, but was I ever wrong about that! Check out these pictures first

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GUYS! The application is out of this world on this. I've heard people say "it practically applies itself" about polishes before, but this is the epitome of that phrase, seriously. 2 coats and it looks perfect and dries fast all on it's own. Now before I got Waking Up In Vegas in my hands, I really thought greige would never work on me, because I'm so pale I thought I'd look like a corpse. I think it actually ended up looking very elegant and sophisticated! I can't gush enough about this polish. I think it would be an interesting base for a little konad or nail art too. Looooove it!

Have you ever tried Deborah Lippmann colors? What are your favorites or number one on your wishlist?

Catherine The Grape

Today I have an older OPI polish to show you! It's OPI - Catherine The Grape. This isn't easy to find, but it's not incredibly hard to find either... kind of in between haha. It's not readily available in stores, but you can find it online still I believe. I got this with a few other polishes in a swap with a really sweet MUAer and I'm so excited to finally have my hands on it! I also like the name, it fits the polish. The color absolutely reminds me of a grape, so I have pretty nails that also make me a little bit hungry for fruit haha!

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As you can see, Catherine The Grape is reddish-purple with soft gold shimmer. Depending on how the light hits this on your nails, it's going to look a little different, which is fun. Like in my shade picture it seems like a slightly darker purple, but indoors you can see the shimmer and it picks up more of the red in the color. I really like how this has character but is still a somewhat subdued color, you know what I mean? This feels perfect for fall to me right now, just fits with the weather :)

First Ever Franken! - Stormy Waters

If you follow me on twitter, you probably saw that yesterday I finally got my courage up and made my very first franken! I'm really excited about what I ended up making and can't wait to share it with you. I also took some pictures of the supplies I used to put it together so hopefully I can help inspire some of you to get your franken on :) This post is picture heavy, just giving you fair warning!

Okay first some pictures of the franken, which I've lovingly named "Stormy Waters" and then I'll tell you how to make it!

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bottle picture

The bottle shot is color accurate for the base color, it's a teal with scattered holo. I like scattered holo better than linear holo, so I like using the Milani holographic polishes for frankening purposes. I'm going to make a second bottle of this I love it so much. Stormy Waters is a sibling to China Glaze - DV8 and China Glaze - Atlantis (only holo instead of glitter, obviously) So it's similar to other polishes out there but still fairly unique. Remember the franken I showed you a few weeks ago that Alexandra made for me? This is basically a teal version of that!

Now for how I made it... It's about half a bottle of Milani - HD (silver holo), maybe a fifth of a bottle of OPI- Ski Teal We Drop (pigmented dark teal), and 5 drops of Milani - Hi-Res (purple holo). You don't really need to use Hi-Res, I just thought it gave it a bit more depth. Very easy and inexpensive to make haha, just how I like my polish. It's totally opaque in two coats and was very easy to apply!

you can see in the picture exactly how much of HD and Ski Teal We Drop I used, they were both brand new and never used bottles, I bought them just to make this franken with. Ski Teal We Drop is super pigmented so you don't need much of it.

If you want to take the foray into making your own franken, I suggest you pick up some ball bearings for mixing. I'd recommend stainless steel, anything else is going to oxidize in your franken and ruin it! Here's what I use:

And I hit up my local Dollar Tree (a dollar store) and got a few 2-packs of old style NYC bottles, because I like the shape of them and the labels peel off easily. But you can buy empty bottles online - places like ebay or polish e-tailers as well. Also you can clean out old base coat/topcoat bottles or polishes that are old and you won't use again. Here's a picture of my NYC bottles before I cleaned them out:

I like the shape of these a lot

I also used a small glass bowl and orange stick to mix to figure out an idea of the ratio before I make a whole bottle. All very easy to find things! I couldn't be happier with how Stormy Waters turned out, I'm wearing it right now and honestly can't take my eyes off my nails :) Do any of you franken or are you planning to in the future?

Giveaway! Nail Art Style

I've got another little giveaway for you all today! This one is a bit different from the last few that I've had, it's going to be for nail art, specifically stamping. I'm not very good at freehanding nail art designs, but I do love konad and faux-nad plates; they are much more my speed :) I recently heard about a place to get different kinds of nail art materials and stamping plates http://www.bf-beauty.com/ A few weeks ago I placed an order for a few plates, and got them earlier this week (about a week and a half after I ordered, pretty good for coming from Hong Kong!). Everything arrived perfectly and I've already played with the plates and they are wonderful! No problems at all, and since I (and many others) have had such great experiences with BF Beauty, I'd like to give you the opportunity to as well

Win your choice of FOUR stamping plates from www.bf-beauty.com!

(these are the four that I recently got)

you can go to: http://www.bf-beauty.com/en/category/165_172/index_home.html to view all the different plates - and there are a TON of choices! (the website is a little slow loading, don't let that discourage you!)

Now on to the best part - how to win! This is open internationally!

1) You MUST be a public follower! Please tell me how you follow and the name you follow under along with an email I can contact you at (1 entry - Mandatory)
2) Let me know which four plates you would choose (1 entry - Mandatory)

For additional entries:

1) Blog about this giveaway or put it in your side bar - please leave a link in the comments (1 entry)
2) Put Jeweled Tips in your blog roll - leave a link in the comments (1 entry)
3) Follow me on twitter (@JeweledTips) and tweet about this giveaway (make sure to include the link to this post and @JeweledTips) - leave a link in the comments (1 entry)

So you can have a total of FIVE entries!

This giveaway will be open until 11:59pm (that's Eastern Standard Time) on December 3rd and is open to all! Good luck everyone :)

Fun With Layering Wednesday: My Version Of Chanel Riva

Once bottle pics of Chanel's newest offering, Riva, came out I've been intrigued by it. I don't spend that much on a single nail polish so I never planned on actually owning it, but I loved the concept. A pale blue with shimmer? Pretty! So I set about figuring out a layering combination that would satisfy my craving, and I think I came pretty close - at least close enough for me. Check it out!

I started with a base of Color Club - Take Me To Your Chateau, which I showed you yesterday, but here's a refresher:

And I picked NYC - Scandalous Blue Glitter to layer over it. The name is a little deceptive, it's not actually glitter, but more of a shimmer with a hint of pearl finish. Very pretty and very excellent for layering.

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I personally love it! I think it turned out pretty well, and cost me about $4 total for both polishes, much less than a Chanel would set me back. I've got another one or two layering ideas that could produce something close to Riva that I'm going to try out soon too. I'll post those and let you guys decide which ones you like best! Whether or not you buy Riva, you should try this combo out, it's very delicate and pretty. So what do you think, did I get close? What do you think of Chanel - Riva, will you be buying it?