Easter nails! and new organization :)

Hello! I hope everyone had an awesome Easter.  I did... for the most part.  Ate a ton of awesome food... but when home early to take a nap and make a project.  The nap gave me terrible dreams, though, and I couldn't get to sleep til 4 a.m... I think it's an effect of the stress of my parents' divorce.  When you're an adult... you just kind of internalize all that stress. :/  but I prayed with my friend Randi about it today and God's gonna take care of me! :)

Enough about me... to the nails!

For my Easter nails, I wanted something colorful but edgy.  Although you can't really tell in the pic, the colors under the Shatter are pink, yellow, and TEAL, not green.

The pink is Forever 21 Magenta, the yellow is a very old bottle of SH Insta-Dry in Lightening, and the teal is also SH Insta-Dry in Mint Spring.  (The shatter is OPI black Shatter.  I started with the pink all over and then used scotch tape to make the angled lines as I layered the next two colors.  It took forever!  And when it was all said and done, I honestly didn't really like the effect.  I wish I would have sponged some gradient between the colors before Shattering it... I think that's more of what I was picturing.  (Oh, and I of course used layers of SV take make it all dry quickly.)

Unfortunately, my pinky nail on my right hand didn't Shatter well. :/

So that all came off last night and I created a french tip style mani with a vampy twist...

It feels very va-va-voom!

I started off with two layers of 10 Pinky Promise for a nice base (I've taken to doing this on all my manis now, and it makes them come off much easier!) and then scotch-tape french tips of Revlon Perplex, which is deep purple.  (I added an extra little stripe on my thumbs for interest.)  When that was all said and done, it looked great! ...except for some smudges on my left hand that I couldn't repair.  So I added on layer of SH Xtreme Wear in Night Lights and BAM! The final effect was a color that reminded me of sheer, grey tights... very vampy.  I actually liked this a lot!  And Night Lights has such a lovely holo glitter to it. :)

Today, I went to Hobby Lobby with my roommate and some of her friends.  Of course, I ended up buying some crafty things... for my nail polish addiction. :)

I got an awesome set of four skinny brushes that hopefully I can learn to use for freehand! :D

I also got... *drumroll*... my pride and joy... a lovely sturdy box for my nail polishes! :D

The box was actually a photo holder box or something, but it was plain white, sturdy, and big enough to fit my polishes with room to grow.  Also, you see all those feathers?  Also new acquisitions. :)

This all leads into my mani for tomorrow... 

FEATHER MANI!!! :D

Left thumb...

Right thumb!!

Okay, no lie, these were much more difficult than I expected.  Even now, I can't get the top of my nail smooth.  It took multiple coats of Seche Vite to get the feather all glossed in and it all feels imperfect.  I added little X's on my ring fingernails (seen a few pics up) to try to balance it out.

Even with the difficulty, it does look pretty cool.   The base color I used it one I made myself by mixing a white and blue polish. :)

K, I've used all my pictures and it's time for me to hit the sack!  Night my dears!

~Steph

Autism Awareness nails and my Freebies from Chloe's Nails!! :D

Hello all!  Today my nails are themed for Autism Awareness.  I used to work at a major toy store back during my first year of college, and during April customers had the option of donating a dollar or more to Autism Speaks, an organization dedicated to funding research for and raising public awareness of autism.  Most of the cashiers (myself included, at first) typically ignore these and don't bother with it unless the customer specifically asks, but God really put it on my heart to start asking every customer if they wanted to donate.  So in the two or three weeks left, I did... and by asking every single customer, I managed to raise up a donation of over $300!  (One girl raised higher than me--she raised over $500, and some of the other cashiers raised about $50 each.) So even though I don't currently know anyone autistic, I always remember the organization as the one God pointed out to me, because He really cares.
So today's nails are autism awareness!  The blue is Forever 21's Love and Beauty in Dark Blue, and the light blue is Dark Blue mixed with some NYC white and SH Celeb City. (At first, I tried just mixing Dark Blue with Celeb City and they would not mix!!  They just swirled!  So I added the white and it meshed them all together.)  Oh, and of course a top coat of Seche Vite.

I don't have a pic to upload, but that's just my left hand... the thumbnail on my right hand also has a puzzle piece, but it's a differently shaped one.
This is only my second Forever 21 nail polish; I bought it yesterday because I was super excited to find a non-shimmer dark blue, although admittedly I would have preferred a creme.  Dark Blue is a jelly-like blue color that's streaky, but with three coats (my middle finger up above has three coats,) it's a nice, opaque dark blue.  I was surprised to see that before the SV, it had a leather-like finish--not matte, not glossy, but somewhere in between.  I definitely needed the SV, though, because the Forever 21 polishes are thick, streaky, and take forever to dry.

On another note, my five polishes that I won in the giveaway over at Chloe's Nails arrived today!  I am so so so so so excited!!!

From left to right:  10 Professional Nail Lacquer in Pinky Promise; Milani Jewel FX in Gems; Jesse's Girl in Glee; Revlon nail enamel in Perplex, and Sally Hansen's Extreme Wear in Night Lights.

I am freaking thrilled about these, mainly because they are all colors I don't already have!  Jesse's Girl in Glee doesn't look like much in the picture, but it is the prettiest mermaid Barbie blue with green/blue microglitter.  I've heard a lot about Perplex on the blog sites... we'll see about that one.  And Night Lights is a grey-tinted HOLOGRAPHIC GLITTER!!  I've been soooo dying for a holo!  And I actually almost bought Gems last week... glad I didn't! :)  I've totally been needing a pale pink polish too, so I am super excited about these!  If you haven't checked out Chloe's Nails, go over there and read it.  All of it.  It's magical, and it's what got me really excited about nails again! :)

That's all for now... Will swatch/take pics of all the new colors later.  Ta-ta!