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

Hard Candy Beetle and *gasp* I finally got OPI Black Shatter!! :D

Let's start off with yesterday's nails:

I had heard about Beetle for FOREVER from various blogs like Lovelyish, but it wasn't until I was at Walmart on Tuesday and saw it that I knew it must become my own.  And it's only five dollars!

I think I actually managed to get a pretty good pic, considering that it shifts through pink, green, and yellow depending on the light and the angle.  It must be a pretty interesting polish for me to wear it just by itself!!

Then, at the mall (I'm pretty much always at the mall before work, because of bus schedules,) I passed by Trade Secret and decided I must go in... and there I found:

And, despite the ticket price of $8.50, (with tax it cost $9.20!!!) I knew it must become my own.

I then ventured on to work, where I of course showed my newly acquired bottle to my coworker Nicki, and when our boss decided to leave for the day early... I couldn't wait to try it any longer!

I tried it on my ring finger (which is always my preferred accent nail), just in case I didn't like it.

As you can see, it's fairly matte with no topcoat.  (And for the record, while it looked pretty over Beetle, it also negated Beetle's color-changing abilities.)  But that was alright!

Obviously, today, I knew I had to do a full Shatter mani.  So I layered it over the bottle of Jesse's Girl nail polish in Glee that I received from Chloe's Nails and this was my result!

I wish I had a better picture, because this really doesn't do this gorgeous mani justice.

I used two coats of Glee, one coat of Shatter, and two coats of SV because I really wanted a glass-like finish-- Shatter is definitely lumpy on its own.

Glee is a gorgeous teal blue with glitter in normal lighting, but peeking out from under the Shatter all you really see is jade green glitter flashing through.  The effect is so pretty that I might actually keep this mani for two days!  *GASP!*

I also went to the mall today and since I was open to buying more polishes (I think I'm using nail polish as a silent therapy for dealing with the stress of my parents' divorce), I spent some time in Ulta.  I didn't find anything interesting until I came across...

THE CLEARANCE RACK!!!

LOOK AT IT!  Ulta brand, Zoya, OPI, China Glaze... all for $5 or less!!  What a temptation!!  But despite the lovely price, there weren't any colors that I either didn't already have or that interested me, (although I did briefly consider the tan China Glaze one you see on the right.)  So no new polishes today. :)