Hare Asteroid Turf

I wonder what people who aren't in the polish world think when they read that title!? I love this polish as I do all of my Hare polishes. Two coats and done! One coat of top coat and smooooth. Nikole is a wizardess mixing lacquer. Check her facebook for news if you are interested in this or any of her other creations.

Hare Asteroid Turf - bright grass green with medium fuschia hex. It looks like Finger Poppies or here. :) Hmmm.. I'll add that to my Texas collection.

Have you tried Hare? They really have a wonderful formula! I've also decided I don't need a watermark in my photos, my cats seem to provide one without fail.

A note about yesterday's post. I have a link to the song Promise Me that the Girly Bits polish I blogged about was named after, enjoy!

Have a great day! ✿

Girly Bits Promise Me

I love this. Pink with pink shimmer and holo glitter. I love it!

Pam's description of Promise Me and the story behind it is:
Holographic and opalescent hex glitter, and pin point holo glitter, floating in a sparkling pink. Soft and feminine. This one is inspired by my oldest daughter, who is a singer. She is releasing her first album of originals soon, and one of the songs is called Promise Me.

No special top coat needed. Just a regular top coat will do. This one is not top coat hungry. LOVE it! Girly Bits can be purchased here. Be sure to check Pam's blog for more information here.

Here's a preview of another of my polishes. It would appear I'm working on a Texas collection. This is Don't Mess with TeXas. It can be used as a stamping polish! *\o/* I used another image from XL-H to stamp here.

Hope you had a great Arbor day! ✿

Layla Hologram Mermaid Spell

I tried a new base coat with this. One that Ulta forced on me, OPI Natural Nail Base Coat. I would never buy it. The only good thing I can say about it is that it dried fast, but you know what, the first coat of every polish I've ever put on has dried fast. So, that's not saying much. I need to try it with a polish that stains, *glances at Sally Hansen Grass Slipper* and see if it prevents staining. Otherwise, there is no reason I see to buy this base coat. I'd rather use one of the binding or hydrating bases.

I put on two coats of Mermaid Spell, then a coat of Sally Hansen Diamond Flash. It seemed to dull the holo just the tiniest bit even after good dry time. So, I added another coat of Mermaid Spell.

I had to try out a new plate from Amazon, XL-H and my new Konad Princess polish. The lines on the plate are a tiny bit thick but I like the image. I thought it looked a bit like fancy seaweed for this mermaid. Love having new stamping polish. It stamps so much better! I topped the stamp with Diamond Flash and had no smearing.

Mermaid Spell alone. Inside, with diffused daylight.

Outside

Have a great day! ✿

Texas Wildflowers

Today I have a polish I made. I posted earlier about it in the giveaway, Texas wildflowers. As the name implies, the wildflowers of the Texas roadways were my inspiration. I really should have done an entire post about them for earth day. The America the Beautiful initiative started by Lady Bird Johnson who is credited as our environmental first lady. This is her centennial year.

"...As long as wildflowers bloom Lady Bird will live" What a legacy.

The roadside wildflowers are not only in Texas, but in my travels, they are very beautiful here. These colors were chosen to represent them. Among them most prominent in my mind are the Bluebonnet, pink buttercup, Sweet William, purple dandelion, purple coneflower, golden eye phlox, Texas oxeye, and Giant Brown-eyed Susan. Some of these are only distributed in Texas.

These are pictures of a full mani. It was very smooth. Just a regular top coat. :)

The pink shimmer shows better in this shot. It's very subtle.

Here's a color dot on a white background of this polish.

I hope you like it.

Yay! I won something...

Thanks Essie :)

Hope to see you soon! ✿

Revlon Mystical

This is an oldie, but a goodie. Revlon Mystical. It is not B3F. It is full of the bad stuff and it is SO good. A gorgeous duochromy blue from days gone by.

Have a great day! ✿

Essence Let's Get Lost with Cult Nails Power Thief for Earth Day

This is my final Earth Day post, just a bit late. These are all some lovely polishes. I really wanted to wear the teal and brown and could not decide how. Earth and air was my thought and I knew it needed green. This picture is the best representation of the colors I believe. *All pictures are under artificial lighting.

I started with my Barielle Hydrating Ridge Filler, then Instant Artificials. If you cannot tell, I also took off some length. My pinkie was long enough that it was bugging me when I type. I then did two coats of Essence Let's Get Lost and two coats of Cult Nails Power Thief. Cult Nails is also an indie brand that can be purchased here. The formula on Cult Nails is excellent.

This picture is before I dotted. It is not color accurate. But it does show you the pretty shimmers. I added Icing Rock Star from Mars on top of the Essence nails only.

I used the end of a paint brush to dot the larger dots and a dotting tool large tip for the smaller dots. I probably could have just used both ends of the dotting tool, but I don't dot a lot. :)

This picture is only color accurate for the Icing bottle and the green dots are Sally Hansen Grass Slipper (again). I just took that one off from my previous leopard nails. It stained through both base coats and my nails are limey yellow. It is a very pigmented polish.

I top coated with Nubar Diamont. I did a test check on the nail I dotted last and had no smearing. But of course, the nails I painted first smeared. *sigh*

I'm showing you this final picture just for the Cult Nails shimmer in the bottle. It's pretty. Actual color is slightly darker as in the above pictures.

Hope to see you soon!

Giveaway winner is...

Thank you to everyone who took the time to comment and enter the giveaway. Thank you so much!!!

The total number of entries was under 20, so I decided to use a method I had see posted before and I thought Jack could help. I took strips of paper and wrote each entrants name on them. Then I folded them into these little puffy stars. They're blue, I thought it was appropriate for this month, Lady and Jilly love them too.

I know this is what you really want to see though...

You can't argue with Jack!!! Congratulations Darling Diva!!! Please send me your mailing information. :)

Lady says that was fun...

I couldn't agree more! I hope we get to do another giveaway soon. 

Here are some blue nails for the day. It matches the stars almost perfectly. Sally Hansen Dive Deeper. A nice shimmery color, very sheer though, so you definitely need something underneath it. I used Sally Hansen Barracuda.

Again, thank you to everyone who entered the contest. To me, that makes it fun. Congrats again to Darling Diva!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! ✿

Marble mani for Earth Day

This is from the vault. I love it and will no doubt do this combo again. It was my very first water marble. I read and read before I started. So, some of the success was due to the great tutorials on My Simple Little Pleasures, some was beginner's luck.

(Please excuse the dry cuticles)

I learned on my first nail (my pinkie) to base coat. See how sheer it is? That was in all the tutorials. I just skipped it.

I had a great pattern planned out on a test nail. I think I forgot which way I had drawn the pattern and rethought as each nail progressed. You can also see a couple of water bubbles which the tutorials will also tell you how to avoid. I really love these anyway. Maybe it's the serene color combo. 

Awkward right hand photo. I think I will do another marble again very soon. I really enjoy them.

Have you attempted a water marble? Do you like them?

All the names are in for the giveaway. I will draw the winner in the morning (or have a kitty help me). :)

Giveaway update

Here is the final lineup for the giveaway. Some I've swatched and some I just finished. It looks like I  stayed on one end of the color spectrum which was entirely unintentional. I love pink and red also. In fact, there is a pink rumbling around in my head, it just hasn't popped out yet.

From left to right these are:
You Concrete Me
Acertment
Sour Apple
Gladys
Le Roy Wannabe
Texas Wildflowers

You Concrete Me is a soft grey. It is a very simple blend of white and spectraflair. It gets the grey color from the spectraflair so that's how packed with the flair it is! I again have no sun (only when I want a photo of course) so, this will have to suffice. It's very subtle because white likes to hide the rainbow. If you put it over a color, it's sheer enough to act as a dusty holo topcoat. So, it's a two fer!

Le Roy Wannabe is an attempt to reproduce a franken of my own! The first one is on it's way to a special person who was meant to own it. It is one of a kind and I know she will love it. This is just a wannabe. It's still very pretty. Here is the original. Le Roy Wannabe is just a little less dusty and brighter blue.

And finally Texas Wildflowers. Every year they sling wildflower seeds along the roadways in Texas. It makes the easements so beautiful. Instead of weeds in the spring we have wildflowers. These are my favorites and some of the ones I see most often.

This is my interpretation of those (one coat). 

It's in a purple base with a slight pink shimmer because I remember loving these buttercups when I was a kid. I don't see them anymore.

There they all are. If you're a follower and haven't left me a comment that you want a chance to win the giveaway, please do so. Also, be sure I have a way to contact you. Either through your blog or leave me your email.

May the odds be ever in your favor! Right now everyone has really good odds :)

Exotic Earth Day Leopard

I don't know what to call these. I saw ones similar to them in the banner on Professionaldq. I bet if I looked long enough, she has a tutorial.

Hers are much better of course! But, I'm happy with these. I used One Coat Sally Hansen Grass Slipper

One Coat Heaven because the SH wasn't bright enough. The Heaven is too sheer though. Then I sponged Nubar Baby Blue at the base of the nail. I cut a makeup sponge into quarters and used my Cotton Claw tool from Sally to hold it.

The SH Grass Slipper is so strongly pigmented that it resurfaced through and the baby blue just lightened the base rather than leaving any blue. I sponged Icing Mood Swing Stormy/Serene at tip. I love this color. It has a gorgeous purple flash when worn alone. However,the SH Grass Slipper color again pulled through and altered the color ever so slightly. Plus this color changes with temperature, so it's very interesting. (Please excuse the random kitty hair.)

I used Konad plate M-57 to stamp it with Konad Special polish. I only used parts of two different patterns on this plate. 

I top coated again with Sally Hansen Diamond Flash. Today, it was not as great as yesterday. It smeared this stamping polish even though I gave it plenty of drying time. I'll have to try it with the other stamping black and see if it was just this one. This one was super runny.

Don't forget about the giveaway! ✿