Nail Polish Earrings from Sparkly Dots!

I recently ordered a pair of earrings from Denisa at Sparkly Dots on Etsy. They arrived last week and I'm very excited to show them to you! I ordered the 925 Sterling Silver Stud Earrings 8mm with color shifting nail polish.

The packaging was adorable! They came in a small mesh draw-string bag and were wrapped in tissue paper with little gemstones on it.

The earrings themselves are absolutely stunning. The polish Denisa uses for the color shifting earrings is Max Factor Fantasy Fire. Since the earrings are small dome shapes, the color shifts are even more noticeable and vibrant. In some lights, you can even see all of the colors at one time.

Models Own Peacock Green

School started again this week so I've been a bit busier than usual. The first week of classes is always so exciting. So far I've been enjoying all of my classes so let's hope that it continues that way!

Today I'm wearing Models Own Peacock Green. This has been sitting in my helmer for several months now and I kept passing over it. Since I've been trying to work though my untrieds lately, I decided it was time to finally give Peacock Green a chance.
It's a beautiful jewel-toned emerald green. It looks like it has a slight duochrome to it as well. In some lighting it looks like a subtle blue shift at the edges of my nails.
The formula was nice, which I've come to expect from Models Own. I haven't tried a bad polish from them yet. This is 2 coats.

Shimmer Polish Spam!

About a week ago I purchased three polishes from Shimmer Polish: Stephanie, Caroline, and Gerry.

I liked that these mainly consisted of smaller glitters. A lot of indies seem to mostly be creating polishes with larger and multi-shaped glitters and while I love those, it's always nice to see someone doing something a bit different.
The packaging is really cute! They all have a heart on the label that corresponds to the color of the polish.
All three of the ones I own (and I believe her other polishes are this way as well) are glitters in a clear base so you could layer them over any polish.

These are very dense, I think they could be opaque in 2-3 coats but I decided to layer them over a base color because I prefer that look. They're all shown with 1 coat over a base color.


Shimmer Polish Stephanie over Zoya Robyn.
I really liked this one! The primary glitter color is blue.

Zoya Robyn. 

Application was wonderful. Zoya knows how to make a great creme polish, that's for sure. 2 coats.

Shimmer Polish Caroline over Model's Own Magenta Pearl.

My camera had a hard time taking pictures of this one. I think it was the base color that was causing problems with my camera. 

The primary glitter color is a dark magenta.

Model's Own Magenta Pearl.

Absolutely gorgeous! This polish really glows once it's on your nails. 2 coats.

Shimmer Polish Gerry over Illamasqua Jo'Mina.

This one was my favorite out of the three that I ordered! The primary glitter color is purple but there also seems to be a fair amount of blue glitters in there as well. 

Illamasqua Jo'Mina.

Every time I wear this polish I'm always amazed at how amazing the formula is. It practically applies itself and the color is one of my favorite shades of purple. 2 coats.

The creator of Shimmer Polish is also starting to create custom polishes! I'm already planning my next order!

Happy Hands Ditto + China Glaze Elephant Walk

Kristi from Happy Hands Nail Polish created this wonderful polish named Ditto and it is absolutely stunning! I'm not sure if she's going to be selling it in her shop or not but since I've already taken a picture of it, I figured I would post it.

Ditto is filled with multiple shapes of black, white, and blue (stars and hearts!) matte glitters. There is also a gorgeous blue shimmer throughout the polish that really makes it stand out! Ditto was very easy to apply and I didn't have to fish around for the stars and hearts, there were plenty of them in the polish. This is one coat over China Glaze Elephant Walk.

China Glaze Elephant Walk. Let me just say, I wasn't expecting anything special from this polish. I put it in my cart during a recent Transdesign order so I could even out the cost of shipping. I thought it was just going to be a basic grey polish but I was so wrong. Elephant Walk is beautiful!
Looking at the bottle, you don't expect much but once it's on your nails, wow! It pulls slightly green once it's on your nails and there is some subtle shimmer as well. This is the only polish I purchased from the China Glaze's On Safari collection and I'm glad I did. This is 2 coats.

Crowstoes Spam!

I've just recently received my first Crowstoes polishes and now I can understand where all the hype comes from!

Crowstoes polishes are all made with uncut suspension base so they do tend to run a bit thicker than normal polishes. I just added a few drops of thinner to the bottle and then the consistency was perfect. I would rather have a polish that is thicker and therefore suspends all the glitter than have a thinner polish and have all the glitter sink to the bottom.

Okay, onto the pictures!

Crowstoes Triple Black Diamond over China Glaze Want My Bawdy.
Triple Black Diamond was the one I was most excited for and it didnt disappoint! Small matte black glitters with slightly larger irridescent hexes throughout. 1 coat.

China Glaze Want My Bawdy.

This is from the China Glaze New Bohemian collection. There is a very faint purple shift at the edges of your nails when you tilt your nails. If this wasn't a part of a duochrome collection, I don't think I would have even noticed the color shift. 

The color is very nice and dry time is fast. 2 coats.

Crowstoes Bunny Slope over Gosh Miss Minty.

Bunny Slope is the companion to Triple Black Diamond. It is filled with matte white glitters and irridescent hexes. This was a surprise favorite! I put it in my cart at the last minute and I'm so glad I did. It has a very soft, subtle look to it. 1 coat.

Gosh Miss Minty.

A true mint green. Very nice! I did 3 coats but if I would have thinned it a bit before I used it then I would have been good with 2 coats. 

Crowstoes Cheshire over Max Factor Fantasy Fire.
Named after the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland, this polish is filled with purple, yellow, and holographic hexes. This polish is fantastic. I love the large purple hexes. This polish is going to be discontinued soon so if you don't have it yet, hurry up and buy it before it's gone for good! 2 coats.

Max Factor Fantasy Fire.
This polish is only available in the UK but if you have someone who can get you a bottle, then I think it's more than worth it. The bottle is tiny but the polish is absolutely gorgeous! Normally I would layer this over another polish but I wanted to see how many coats it took to become opaque on it's own. 3 coats.

Pahlish End of Days

Pahlish End of Days is an orange jelly with blue and orange glitters and golden microflakes. Very beautiful and unique.

The first time I wore it, I wore it by itself at 3 coats.

I didn't care much for how it looked by itself. It seemed a bit too crowded and the glitters weren't getting the chance to shine. So then I wanted to see how it looked layered over a similar color. I chose Barry M Coral for my base color and I used one coat of End of Days on top.

Much better! You can clearly see all the glitters and the gold microflakes are even more visible!

Up Colors Balada

I was one of the lucky winners of LLarowe's latest "Every Polish Counts" giveaway. She gave away one of each polish that's available in her store. The polish I received is Up Colors Balada.
Balada is a berry red polish with red to green flakies in it. It's a jelly polish and required three coats for opacity. Dry time was good.

This isn't a polish that I would normally ever pick out for myself. I rarely reach for reds or flakies but when I opened the package that it came in, I couldn't stop looking at how pretty the polish looked in the bottle.
While I do like how it looks in the bottle, I'm not a fan of how it looks on me.
For anyone out there who likes reds/berries or who likes flakies, this would be a wonderful polish for you!

Liebster Award

I checked my email last night and saw that I had two comments on my blog from Bec at Nail Gun XS and Jennifer at Little J's Nail Corner and they both nominated me for the Liebster Award!
If you're like me, then right now you're thinking, "Wait, what? What's a Liebster Award?" Glad you asked! I hadn't heard about it until yesterday either. Jennifer summed it up pretty nicely at her blog so I'm just going to copy what she said:

"The Liebster Award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. I have a tendency to Google everything so I just had to look up what Liebster meant. Liebster is the German word for sweetheart, dearest, favorite, beloved. So I guess this is for your favorite new blog!"

                                                       

The Rules:

1. Each person tagged must post 11 things about themselves.
2. They must also answer the 11 questions the "tagger" has set for them.
3. They must create 11 more questions to ask bloggers they have decided to tag.
4. They must then choose 11 bloggers with less than 200 followers and tag them in their post.
5. These lucky bloggers must then be told.
6. There's no tag backs.

11 Things About Me:

1. I'm a Junior in college majoring in Computer Science.
2. I have a cat named Pumpkin.
3. Fall/Autumn is my favorite season.
4. I'm a huge Harry Potter fan. Seriously. My roommate and I have a wall decal at our school house that says, "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir... beware." We're cool.
5. Blue and orange are my two favorite colors.
6. I love video games.
7. Target is my favorite store ever. I can stay in there for hours and just look around. I also can't walk out of there without spending money, no matter how hard I try.
8. I love ice cream. Sometimes I think the only reason I exercise is so I have an excuse to eat more ice cream.
9. I prefer salty things over sweet things. Usually when I eat sweets I'll follow it up with something salty.
10. I rarely watch movies and I'm clueless when it comes to most celebrities, so most pop culture references are lost on me.
11. I love to read! One of my favorite things about Summer vacation is that I have tons of free time to read. My favorite genre is Dystopian novels.



11 Questions For Me:

I was tagged by two different people so I decided to combine a few of the questions that were similar and then I just picked my favorite questions so I didn't go over 11.

1. When/How did you start blogging?
Back in February. I had been posting my NOTD pictures on forums for about a year and then I just decided that it would be fun to start a blog.

2. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
England. I would love to live there some day. I love all the old architecture and the history, it's so fascinating.

3. If you were stuck on an island what are the top 5 things you need?
Is it sad that I'm having a really hard time answering this question? I'm not sure if I should go a more literal route and list survival stuff or if I should answer with fun items.
- Knife
- Flint
- Cell Phone (although, if I have service out there, why am I stuck on the island?)
- Water
- Books (probably Harry Potter)

4. What's your favorite nail polish color? Favorite finish?
Blue! No shocker there! As for finish, I'm going to go with cremes. I'm so boring but you just can't beat a good creme polish and they're the perfect base for any sort of nail art or glitter.

5. How many bottles of polish do you own?
Good question! Last time I counted it was around 250 but I've bought more since then. I would say it's close to 275 because I've also been trying to get  rid of polishes I don't love.

6. If you could have a super power what would it be?
The ability to speak and understand every language.

7. What are your hobbies other than blogging?
Cycling is a big passion of mine. My whole family cycles and it's a great way for us to be active and spend time together.
Another hobby is photography. It's still a new hobby and I've still got a lot to learn about it but it's something that I'm interested in.

8. What is your favorite makeup brand?
Before I was big into nails and nail polish, I spent a lot of my money on makeup. Even back then I don't know that I had a favorite brand though. I guess if I had to choose, it would be a tie between MAC and Makeup Forever. MAC for their affordability and MUFE for their foundations.

9. What trends do you hate?
As far as nail trends go, I'm not a huge fan of Caviar or Flocking nails. I think they look interesting but I wouldn't be able to handle having it on my nails. The texture would be too strange for me. I also don't really care for the Ruffian manicures. Something about them just looks strange to me.

10. If you won a million dollars what would you do with it?
Pay off my school bills first.
I would go on vacation with my family, most likely to England and a few other places in Europe.
Buy a new bike and some new wheels.
Go on a small shopping spree.
Then put the rest of the money in a savings account so that I could save up for a house in the future.

11. What are your pet peeves?
People yelling. I hate hate hate yelling.
Chewing with your mouth open/ Smacking your gum.


11 Questions For You:

1. Why did you decide to start blogging?
2. What color do you have the most of in your collection?
3. How many bottles of polish do you own?
4. What do your friends/family think of your hobby?
5. What are your hobbies other than blogging?
6. What would be your dream polish?
7. If you could have any super power what would it be?
8. What is your favorite food?
9. What trends do you love?
10.  What is your first memory of nail polish?
11. If you could travel anywhere in the world where would you go?

My Nominations (Sorry if you've already been tagged!):

1. Hap Hap Happy Hands
2. Did My Nails
3. Blattitude Nails
4. Polished Pirate
5. The Manicurette
6. Lavish Layerings
7. Polish and Patience
8. Something Polished
9. The Frustrated Fashionista
10. Nail Soup
11. Nicely Varnished

Essie Boxer Shorts with Stamping

I apologize for not posting regularly lately. I promise to fix that.
Today I've got on Essie Boxer Shorts. Periwinkles have a special place in my heart. They're the perfect color. This one changes it's color depending on the lighting. In some lights it leans much more purple and in others it looks very blue.

The application was a struggle. I mean, I wanted to rip out my hair by the time I was done. I had to re-do my index finger three times and it bubbled like crazy (Pro-tip: If your polish has bubbles in it, put a drop or two of thinner on your nails and the bubbles should disappear). I should have thinned it a bit before I put it on but I didn't and that way my mistake. I thinned it after finishing my nails and then when I re-did my index finger the formula was much better, two easy coats.

Then I stamped with A-England Tristam. The image comes from the new Bundle Monster plates (BM-302). Look at how cute it is! Its got chicks, snails, and trees on it. It makes me so happy to look at!