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!

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!

sunlight

shade

inside

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?

Frankens are fun for everyone!

I really love when people post pictures of their frankens. I've always been intrigued by the idea of making a totally unique polish, but the idea of figuring out what works and what doesn't stresses me out. Crazy? A little bit, but I'm working on it. So anyway, Alexandra (who does the awesome nail art posts here) posted pictures of a couple of frankens she did on MUA one day. And I fell soooo in love with this one I'm about to show you. I messaged Alexandra begging her to make me one haha. I sent her the ingredients to mix, thanked her roughly a thousand times, and now am the proud owner of two bottles of this gorgeous franken!


sunlight

more sunlight (too pretty for just one picture)

shade
inside

The sunlight pictures are pretty accurate; it's a darker purple holo. This is one of my top five favorite polishes EVER! It's a mix of Milani - Hi-Res (the purple holo) and OPI - Lincoln Park At Midnight. So it's easy to make, which is excellent because I feel like I need a few more bottles... I wear this a lot! I think it would be fun to use all of the Milani holos to make frankens... I want to make a dark blue holo! Any suggestions on what to mix with it?

Have you made any frankens? What are you favorites?

Subtle Holo

I don't think it's any secret how much I love holo polishes. I go bananas for them. I'm always on the hunt for new ones to add to my stash, but I was surprised to find one at Rite Aid! I had been eyeing CQ- Gem Green in the store but hadn't purchased it until someone posted pictures of it on MUA and pushed me over the edge. It looks pretty unassuming in the icky Rite Aid lighting, which is part of the reason I hadn't gotten it until I saw pictures online. Let's see if my pictures push you over the edge too :-P It's a pale green subtle holo and I don't have anything like it! Here it is, CQ- Gem Green


sunlight
shade

inside

You can click to enlarge all the pictures to check out the holo out. As you can see, the holo shows up in sunlight and inside, but not so much in the shade. I didn't expect to like this as much as I did, but ooooh is it pretty in person. The sunlight picture is pretty accurate color-wise. I'm thinking this was a few dollars well spent! The holo in this is scattered, which I actually prefer more than linear holos. Which type of holo is your favorite? And what do you think of Gem Green? I always feel like I'm typing the name wrong, that it should be Green Gem; that seems to just have a better flow to it, in my head at least haha.

I've Got A Fever.. And The Only Cure Is... More Holo!

Hooray if you got the Saturday Night Live reference! I love that skit. Today I'm going to show you one of the Milani Holos, Hi-Res. It's chock full of purple and holo goodness - for under five dollars! Life doesn't get much better than that in my book.


Silly hand postion in the sun, to try and get the holo on as many of my nails as possible for the picture haha.


Shade, the holo sometimes shows in the shade/indoors (which you'll see below) and sometimes doesn't so I wanted to show you what it looks like without the holo showing. Still very pretty I think.


Inside!

I really like the Milani holo polishes, especially this one. I think they were really well done. It's extra awesome that Milani made them core, unlike some nail polish companies we know... Whether or not you're a holo addict like I am, I think these are a great buy. A lot easier to find than those elusive China Glaze and OPI counterparts. I know these have been out for a while, so which ones do you have?

Also, don't forget to enter my giveaway :)