Fairy Dust Feng Shui

I've been a very bad blogger lately, not because I don't love you all haha it's just been a little crazy lately. I've steadily been taking pictures, swatching, and polishing so I have plenty of stuff to share with you :) Thanks for bearing with me during the unintended absence!

So what I have for you today is a layering combination that I la-la-love. Perfect for fingers or toes! This is 2 coats of OPI - Suzi Says Feng Shui and 1 coat of China Glaze - Fairy Dust. It's glittery but not overwhelmingly so; colorful but not in your face because of the dusty quality of Suzi Says Feng Shui. It also makes me very happy that the glitter in Fairy Dust lays flat, I hate bumpy glitter.



outside, sunlight


more sunlight outside (the pictures were too pretty to just pick one)


outside, shade

inside

There's just something about the dusty blue color and the light hitting the holographic glitter that makes me very happy. I need to wear this combo again ASAP! Do you have any colors or combinations that have that an effect like that for you?

When Nail Polish And Jewelry Come Together...

I've been a little MIA this week, sorry about that. I've had a ridiculous amount of work to do and my back is not playing well with the rest of my body. But I'm back! Get excited because I have some incredible necklaces from GingerKitty Designs to share with you! I seriously can not get enough of her jewelry, it's phenomenal. My biggest problem is trying to narrow down what I want from a wishlist of, well everything haha. At the end of November I finally got my act together and ordered a necklace from Tracey and then a few days later, I won a second through the Overall Beauty Scavenger Hunt!

I'm going to show you the one I originally ordered first. It's even more stunning in person than in pictures, but I tried to capture it as best I could in the late afternoon sun


look at it sparkle in the sun!

more sun

a deliberately blurry indoors picture to show the holo and glitter sparkle

Holy moly, how insanely pretty is that?! It's made with China Glaze - Octa Gone Wild, China Glaze - Emerald Sparkle, OPI - Ink, and OPI - Purple With A Purpose.

Okay, the second necklace I won through the Overall Beauty scavenger hunt at the beginning of December and it's so perfect for the holidays and Valentine's Day!

quasi-sun haha

inside, so you can see the design

inside, blurred some to show the sparkle!

This one is red and silver, made with Color Club - Art Of Seduction and Zoya - Trixie

Ever since I got these pretties in the mail, I've worn them a couple of times a week, I can't get enough of them! They add a pop of color and sparkle (without being over the top) to everything from jeans and a t-shirt to dresses. I seriously cannot say enough about how much I love these and they are even more stunning in person.

You have to go check out the GingerKitty Designs Etsy Store and you can read her blog too. (You definitely want to do that, she has great giveaways!) Tracey has a huge list of polishes that you can have her make pretty much any kind of custom piece for you, or you can pick from some of the gorgeous ones she's come up with. Lately a lot of pieces with crackle polish has been ordered I believe.

What polish (or polishes) would be in your dream piece of jewerly from GingerKitty Designs? I want more holo ones!

Three Press Releases that I'm Excited About!

I've got some new information about collections from China Glaze, Color Club, and Cult Nails to share with you. There are a lot of colors I'm excited about from all of these brands and I want to know which ones are on your wishlist! Check them out:

First up, China Glaze - Anchors Away

Sail away this spring in 12 nautically-inspired colors from China Glaze. These bold and confident brights are reminiscent of a carefree natural getaway, with soft ethereal hues that inspire leisurely thoughts of sand and sea. Colors in this collection include:

· Life Preserver: Highly pigmented and luxurious poppy crème.
· Hey Sailor: Vibrant crème red.
· Ahoy!: Delightfully intense pink that flashes with reflective glass speck.
· First Mate: Sophisticated and rich navy crème.
· Starboard: Hip and playful green crème.
· Lighthouse: Multi-dimensional, bright yellow glass speck.
· White Cap: Whimsical and sparkling multi-dimensional white.
· Pelican Gray: High shine, cool toned grey crème.
· Sea Spray: Calming pale blue crème.
· Below Deck: A flirty mix of taupe and violet.
· Sunset Sail: Delightful peachy pink high shine crème.
· Knotty: Micro-particle beige shimmer.

This collection is available at your favorite etailers now! Keep in mind that snow has slowed down some shipments, so if it's not listed yet give them a few days, I know for sure Victorias Nail Suppy is slowed down by snow right now. And it will be showing up in stores soon, if immediate gratification is your thing. I'm looking forward to Below Deck, Sea Spray (feeding my Essie-Sag Harbor love in a big way haha), and First Mate!

Color Club also has just released the information about their Alter Ego collection for Spring

Color Club lets you create high-fashion looks for every identity with Alter Ego, their latest collection of diverse, long-lasting lacquers!

Alter Ego’s consists of 12 shades! Go incognito with our opaque shades or rendezvous in full view with our sheers of Alter Ego ‘LIGHTS’ and ‘DARKS’!

Alter Ego’s ‘Reveal Your Mystery Collection’ 7 piece salon pack includes Get a Clue, Revealed, Incognito, Secret Rendezvous, Sheer Disguise, and Give Me a Hint shades plus Milky White Base Coat. Their ‘Keep It Undercover Collection’ 7 piece salon pack includes Alter Ego, Secret Agent, Total Mystery, Alias, Ulterior Motive and Masquerading plus Vivid Top Coat.

Those purples! I'm also really into how Incognito, Secret Rendezvous, and Sheer Disguise from the lighter collection look too. I think a lot of these Spring colors are going to be coming home with me as soon as they are released in February :)

As you may know, one of our own nail bloggers, Maria from R3Daily has been hard at work on her own line of polish called Cult Nails. Her first color, My Kind of Cool Aid is finished and ready to be purchased! It looks seriously incredible! You can read more about it and see pictures HERE at Maria's blog. And if you want your own bottle of My Kind of Cool Aid, it can be purchased HERE. How cool is that?

Are you planning on purchasing any of the new colors from China Glaze or Color Club? Have you or will you be ordering My Kind of Cool Aid?

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.

sun (you can see how the silver glitter is more apparent sometimes depending on the light)

shade

inside

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 :)

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.

sun

shade

inside

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!

Rodeooooo Fanatic!

Left Hand Alert! My left hand is making a rare appearance in today's post. Why? Well mainly because when I wore this, the sun didn't come out for like four days. And I was playing around with different layering combinations on my right hand and the sun came out for a few minutes so I decided to take pictures. So I apologize for two things, number one- that my hand positions are a little screwy, I need to practice with my left hand haha; and two - that the mani looks a little raggedy around the edges, this was the fourth or fifth day of wearing it. (Yes, I generally wear manis for 4-5 days - I very rarely get chips, just growth)

On to the color... This is China Glaze - Rodeo Fanatic; it's from the ah-mazing Rodeo Diva collection. I got this in my first ever e-tailer order when my nail polish addiction first took off.

sunlight

shade

inside

This is a color I wear frequently, I loooove it for pedis and rock it on my tips in the fall/winter. It's a dark blue-green (more so blue, but there is some green in the mix for sure), but it never ever looks black, you can always tell what color it is. Nothing makes me crazier than a color that looks black, I don't wear black polish and don't like my colors to look black inside, just my preference. I have a few colors that are siblings or cousins of Rodeo Fanatic, but no dupes. I definitely would recommend picking this beauty up it's soooo worth it!

I hope everyone's Sunday is going well :) Go Cowboys!

Pretty BCA Polish

I know it's almost the end of October, but I wanted to wait to do my breast cancer awareness post because so many happen at the start of the month. I have been fortunate enough to never have a member of my immediate family affected by breast cancer, but many other kinds of cancer have taken people that I love from me. Please make sure to check yourself periodically and remind your friends and family to as well! It's not about saving boobies, it's about saving lives.

Today I have one of the polishes from this year's China Glaze - Fight Like A Woman collection, Encouragment. This is a very delicate and sophisticated looking pale pink color.

sunlight

shade

indoors

I love just about everything about Encouragment. As I said above, it's very delicate looking, at least in my opinion. Although, it is a little sheer, so maybe next time I wear this I'll use a pale pink base and layer a coat or two of Encouragment on top, but I will definitely be wearing this color a lot! It's appropriate for any setting and a little more interesting looking than regular pinks, because of the silvery shimmer. I have two weddings in my future and this is a front runner for my mani for them especially since I will be a bridesmaid. What do you think? Did you get any of this year's Breast Cancer Awareness polish offerings?

Beautiful Dusk...A Tale Of Fate.

When I was first getting into nail polish, I saw a picture of China Glaze - Dusk and it immediately went on my wishlist. I was so totally in love with it, just from pictures. But it's an older China Glaze for sure, and pretty hard to find. It's one of those polishes I had on my list that I never really thought I'd get my hands on, but oh man did I ever search for it. I've never even seen it on ebay. But then I found it on a blog sale so I was elated, then saw it was pending, rats! I took a chance and emailed the lady selling it, luckily her original buyer ended up changing their mind so I finally got my hands on this beautiful, beautiful polish. Nail polish karma is real people! Whenever I have access to something someone is lemming, I help them get it...build that nail polish karma and your lemmings will find a way to you! Haha it's for real. Now that story time is over, would you like to see the pictures? ;-) There are a few extra, just a heads up.



sunlight



shade


indoors

You know how it feels when you finally find something you were looking for and then it doesn't live up to what you hoped? Well I totally don't haha. This is even better than I thought it would be! Love love love love it. It's a smoky dark purple with this wonderful subtle shimmer in it. It's not too dark that it looks black inside, you always know it's purple, which is important for me - I hate when colors look black inside, makes me crazy. Thank you for listening to me ramble on and on about this, but I just can't help it! What do you think of Dusk? Do you have any favorite older China Glaze colors?

Light As Air

An unoriginal title, but descriptive haha. Today I'm going to show you China Glaze - Light As Air from the Up & Away Collection. This is one of FIVE polishes I have from the collection. I didn't really realize how many I had from Up & Away until now, I really liked it huh? haha! It's entirely possible another one or two could find their way into my stash one day soon... But for today we'll focus on Light As Air! It's a kind of stark pastel purple. Really light, which I thought I wouldn't like from the original swatches, but I definitely did in person. This is one of the best pastels in my stash, application wise. Gotta love a light color that isn't a total pain to use!

sunlight

shade

I didn't post an indoor picture because it was pretty much identical to the sun picture. No need for overkill :) I like using this as a base for konad or to use for konading over a darker purple. I think light colored polka dots are cute over their darker counterparts. Because this is nicely pigmented it's good for nail art. A pretty polish with multiple uses, yay! Have you ever bought a whole collection or a large chunk of it? Which one(s)!

I've got some cool stuff coming up in the next few days... a new giveaway! And I was able to kill one of my big lemmings so I have that to show you, and my own version of Paradoxal via layering. I'm realllly excited about all of these and can't wait to show you!

Strawberry Fields Forever

How on earth did it manage to be a week between blog posts?! This last week was a little insane. I helped move my brother into his new house, which was exhausting. But as a thank you gift he gave me an autographed hockey puck I'd been hunting down. One of our friends plays with this player in a summer league so he arranged everything and got it personalized for me, pretty sweet. I collect nail polish and autographed hockey pucks.. I'm a strange girl :) Luckily, no nails were broken in the process! Boo for Mother Nature lately though, any day I have free to swatch it ends up overcast...annoying. I need to make a light box or something soon I think.

Today I have a quintessential summer color for you, China Glaze - Strawberry Fields. I fell in love with this when Brooke, over at Babbling Brooke, posted swatches of it. And this is one of those colors that just screams summer time to me. I even have flowers in my backyard that match this color perfectly! Check it out!


Sunshiiiine


Shade, and the matching flower :) I love this picture. Please excuse my slightly crooked middle finger.. it's compliments of a flag football league haha


Inside

Pretty in all lights I think. But I also think it's a color I love wayyy more on other people than I do on myself. I think we all have one of those, where it looks amazing on everyone and than you get it and it just doesn't look quite right on you. So this might be mine. I waffle on whether or not to swap this. Maybe I will like it better on my toes? Only one way to find out haha. Do you have a color that you liked more on other people than yourself?

Don't forget to enter my giveaway!! Only a few days left!

Obsessed with this color.

I have a serious love affair with China Glaze - Cowgirl Up. Right now in my mind there aren't a lot of things prettier in the world than this nail polish. I know it's completely not summer-y in the traditional sense, but ever since I got it 2 months ago all I've been thinking about doing is wearing it for a full mani, haha. These are swatches from a few days after I got it and earlier today I finally gave in and put it on so it would stop haunting me! It's going to rain for a few days here anyway so I won't be able to swatch - this is a perfect opportunity. :) Check out this beauty!





Look at that shimmer! Perfection in a bottle. I got this and Let's Groove at the same time and it was like sensory overload trying to decide what to wear first haha. Another thing that made me ridiculously happy today was the layering combo I put together for Wednesday for you guys... just wait til you see it! And on Thursday I've got some more nail art from Alexandra to show you.

Also... I all of a sudden started to really like OPI - Glitzerland today, from the new Swiss collection. I originally liked three or four of the colors, but Glitzerland never appealed to me; until today. For whatever reason, the two pictures I saw of it on MUA today just made me want it so bad! Has this ever happened to you? Where you really weren't into a polish and then all of a sudden something made you love it? What polish had that effect on you?

Fun With Layering Wednesday comes on Thursday this week.

Shiny! Glittery! Possibly close to a hard to find OPI color?! Purple! Today's (day late) Fun With Layering Wednesday combo has everything I could possibly want. And I actually don't know for sure if it's close to the OPI..but we'll get to that in a minute. I'm pretty jazzed about this mani, so there's a lot of pictures. Prepare yourself accordingly.

What wonders lay ahead? China Glaze - Light As Air with Sinful Colors - Purple Diamonds on top. Looking at all these pictures makes me want to wear this again ASAP.




ohhhh the sun makes it looks so nice!


outside in the shade


inside

Now, let's chat. I found a slightly used bottle of OPI - Vio-Let's Surf in a local nail salon a month or two ago. I haven't swatched it yet. (It's going to be a part of Hard To Find Week that I'll be doing in the future) But once I put these two colors on, it made me think about Vio-Let's Surf. So I grabbed my bottle and took it outside to hold next to my nails to see if it looks close in the bottle or not.





So it could be close. It intrigued me enough that I may need to swatch Vio-Let's Surf sooner than I had planned and compare these. Wouldn't that be cool if they were close? Those pictures make my hands look huge too, which is strange because I have really small hands in real life haha. But I digress. Would you guys want to see a comparison of this layering combo and Vio-Let's Surf soon? I could make that happen :)

First Post Deserves A Gorgeous Polish!

Today I have China Glaze - Let's Groove to share with you. This is one of my all-time favorite nail polishes; it's so pretty! It kind of reminds me of grape jelly, expecially indoors. Which then makes me crave a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, haha!


You can click to enlarge the photo

You can see the red and blue shimmer where the sun hits my nails directly. This was two coats and I probably could've used just one if I were a little more careful. I know Let's Groove isn't a typical summer color, but right now I'm in a darker color phase. What do you think about dark colors in the summer? Do you wear them too or just stick to more usual summer colors like neons?

Now for a little introduction:

My name is Jana and I really got into nail polish when I stumbled upon Essie's North Fork collection (and promptly bought all three). Searching for swatches of the colors before I bought them took me into the wide world of nail polish blogs and Make Up Alley. After that there was no turning back :) I've done a few guest posts over at Babbling Brooke and will still post over there occasionally, in addition to here of course! My first love is sports though. I also write for a hockey website and will be co-hosting a fantasy football show starting in late July.

I've got some great ideas and swatches already together for you all, so keep checking back! I hope to be able to do some giveaways as I get more followers too.

So I showed you one of my favorite polishes, share with me some of yours!

Coming up tomorrow... Fun With Layering Wednesday!