Plum and Gold

Hey, happy Monday!

Did you have a good weekend? Mine was great- we had an awards banquet for an organization that I'm a member of on Friday,  and the DH's birthday was this weekend too, so, shocking- we visited a new brewery about 40 minutes away.  (It was awesome).

I did this nail look for the awards banquet for Friday.  I didn't want to be too crazy, so I stumbled upon a similar look on Pinterest.  I tried to find the original source of this, but the links are dead. If anyone knows, comment below so I can give proper credit.

Their look was black and gold, but I love, love, LOVE OPI'S Do You Vant to Bite My Neck, and I wanted to do something less harsh. The gold I used a dotting tool and my favorite accent gold polish, Maybelline Bold Gold.  I swear by that polish. It's fantastic.  I did do a few dots of a lighter purple on my left hand, and I didn't really care for it, but it wasn't too noticeable.

Classy, but with a punch. Kind of like me.  =)

Have a great day ladies!
April

Cult Cosmetics Classic Collection

Ok, so I had the coolest mani to show you all this morning, and guess what? Instead of emailing to myself from my phone, I frigging deleted them!!! Ugh!!! They were super cute purple ones with hand painted details.  I hope you all are as mad as I am right now,  because I think I might have steam shooting out my ears.


Remember when I said I have the worst luck ever with sub boxes? Well, when Cult Cosmetics changed their box from brand names to their own line in October,  I told them to take a hike. I got an email not too long ago saying that my order had shipped... *blank stare*. After several emails to their customer service line and attaching confirmation of cancelation emails,  I was credited the charge and bonus! I got to keep the polish they sent me.

I got the Classic collection,  which is 3 colors and a set of Mash dotting tools. Love the tools, I previously only had one tool I picked up from Sephora, and I used a sewing pin with a yellow plasic ball at the tip for my big dots. These will definitely come in handy.

The polish... Cult claims that these are "one and done" polishes,  meaning they only need one coat for full coverage.  I didn't find that as being the case. And of course,  as my luck would have it,  one of the polishes I got is a red.  Ugh. (Although it's free... I can't really complain).


This is El Matador,  a bright red creme. I found this to be slightly more warm toned than expected,  and although I probably could have gotten away with one coat,  I wouldn't have due to some patchiness.

Lighting : shade

Lighting : full sunlight

Next is Boneyards, a charcoal grey creme. Better on the opaqueness of the formula,  but again I used 2 coats for the same reason as above.

Lighting : full sunlight

And finally is Stay Gold, a golden glitter topper. Totally not my cuppa tea. I placed one coat of Stay Gold over El Matador.

Lighting : shade

Lighting : full sunlight

These weren't terrible,  and if I would have gotten some different colors,  I might have a different tune... but we all know how I feel about red, and dark greys are ok, just tend to make my skin tone feel a little washed out.  My other concern is that the brush is huge. Like HUGE. These make OPI look like Essie. With OPI, I feel as though the large brush isn't as full to make application on tiny nails difficult. For me, I have extremely small nail beds. (My pinky nail is only about an 1/8 of an inch- my thumb: 1/4.) I don't have a ton of trouble with OPI, but I think that's why I use so many Essie polishes, because their brush is smaller. These Cult brushes were not only big, but thick. I had a lot of clean up to do due to this. If you have larger nails, great. I think these would work extremely well for you. For me, it was somewhat of a nightmare.


I know some friends that love this line, but I'm still on the fence. What are your thoughts?  Cult Cosmetics polish can be purchased here.

April

Deco the New Year!

Hi guys! I hope you all have awesome New year's eve plans. I have to wotk, so for the past 10 years I've been ringing in the new year with my co-workers. But every year we have VIP parties with a different theme, and this year is 20's Prohibition style. Give me a theme that I can dress up for, I'm all over it.

Our color scheme is black and gold, so this is what I did. First off, can I say how proud of me I am for planning ahead so that I could successfully tape my accent nail?

I originally had the black nails all taped off to, to show gold underneath but it was banana balls busy. So I went with the glitter instead and I love it!!!

Bonus: I can wear this tomorrow to watch my Hawkeyes beat LSU!   =)

I hope you all have a very happy and safe new year. I am so blessed that in these shorty 3 months I have almost 1500 page views, and I am so tickled that other people care about my little hobby.

See you all in 2014!
April

It's Very Purpley

I totally fail. I have an excuse though.  My Hawkeyes won on Saturday so now we are bowl eligible! I may or may not have drank for 13 hours straight that day.  Hmm.

Anyways,  you all know I have a thing for purple polish.  I'm not sure what inspired me to mix it with gold,  but I LOVE it!

I've got so many purples here that it's probably better for me to start with the gold.  It's Maybelline Bold Gold... I saw someone else using this as their preferred stamping gold,  so I picked it up. I agree.  It's a great stamper.  Get it.

My middle finger has Pueen plate #42 with a base of OPI Do You Vant to Bite My Neck.  Vant to Bite is also the base for my pinkie finger. The gold glitter on the pinkie is Zoya Maria-Louisa.

For the ring finger,  that is OPI I'm Feeling Sashy and then I cut scotch tape with chevron scissors and it's colored in with Bold Gold.

On my pointer and my thumb (even though it's not pictured) is OPI Pamplona Purple... Which has turned into one of my new favorites. The glitter on top is an old Sephora by OPI that I got when they closed out the collection.

I'm such a nerd.  I wore a purple sequined top today that matched my pointer fingers perfectly.

Thoughts?  I think I'm getting better at stamping,  but still need some  practice.
Did I mention we got snow today? Snow. Ugh.  So it begins...

April

Dark blue matte

Best day of football ever on Saturday.  It's no surprise to some of you that I love the Iowa Hawkeyes and I have season tickets this year.  We've had our ups and downs,  but we won in overtime this weekend. I have never yelled so much in my life.  I do a black and gold mani every game, so maybe I need to create an album of just those.


Today I have a quick mani to share.  I was fumbling around on Pinterest and saw a lovely manicure that was a super dark blue shimmer that was mattified and decorated with silver studs.  I totally stink at studs.  I get nail glue all over the nail and on my fingers.  Hate it.  So, I dug out my new Pueen stamping plates, and did that instead.

My blue is Essie's Aruba Blue.  This is just two coats and is a deep royal blue. The accent nail is Pueen plate #33 and the polish is Maybelline Bold Gold. The matte finish top coat I use is Essie's Matte About You.

I love how royal and elegant this looks when matte.  I'm not usually a big fan of blue nails, but I'm totally loving this.

I also need some more practice with stamping. I'm fairly new to it, and I'm having issues every time. Either the polish is not working, or the stamper doesn't grab the image. Top it off with that then I tend to put it on crooked.  I just need to sit down and mess with them more I think.


Also- I uploaded a ton of pics to Instagram on Sunday.  Follow me here and help a sister out.  ;)


Any tips with stamping? What's your favorite matte finish?
April

Day 22, Inspired by a Song

Hello lovelies... I hope you all had a great weekend.  My football winning streak is over. We played like poo, it rained on and off all morning, and now it's super cold and I am freezing.

Bonus though, I got caught up on the challenge and I can see the end!! Today's prompt is inspired by a song, and I love music so this one was tough. I have several playlists on my ipod, and one is just my favorites.  I was flipping through them and trying to think of what I could translate into nail art... and stumbled upon this diddy.

The Black Keys are a phenomenal band. I've liked them for a long time, and was super stoked when they recently won a Grammy.  Gold on the Ceiling is one of the songs on the aforementioned playlist.

I painted the nail entirely white, using Essie Blanc. I then freehanded the keys on there with black polish. The tip, or the ceiling, I used Nicole by OPI The Next CEO and topped it off with some gold glitter.

Overall,  I'm okay with how this turned out.  But I do need to purchase a new paintbrush.  The one I have is jut not fine enough,  so the lines weren't as neat as I wanted them. But I like the concept.  Not exactly a literal interpretation of the song, but hopefully ya'll get it.

So, what's on your favorite playlist?
April

Here's the video if you've never heard the song.