Geek Challenge Day 4: Ultimate Geek

I thought about all the different things I do that people might call geeky. I thought about my love for sci fi movies/tv/books, all things with knights/princesses/castles, mythical creatures like elves, fairies, orcs, dragons, and more, and video games. I didn't really know where to start. In the end, I decided to go with a video game theme. Specifically, my beloved Xbox. I'm telling you, if I didn't have this thing, I don't know what I would do. It is my sole form of entertainment. If something happens to it, I will cry...and then I will go out and get another one. :) So here is my Xbox themed manicure.

I decided to use the controller as my inspiration. My index finger is the X button. My middle finger is the Y button. My ring finger is the B button. My pinky is the A button, and my thumb is the Xbox button. I love my Xbox. :)

For the blue X, I used China Glaze Ride The Waves and a mixture of Revlon First Class, Pure Ice Black Rage and Pure Ice Super Star!. For the yellow Y, I used a mix of Zoya Arizona and Pippa, and Pure Ice Super Star!. For the red B, I used Lancome Rouge Saint Honore, which is an absolutely gorgeous red, and a mixture of NYC Big Apple Red Creme, Pure Ice Super Star! and Pure Ice Black Rage. For the green A, I used NYC High Line Green, Pure Ice Super Star! and Pure Ice Black Rage. For my Xbox button thumb, I used NYC Tribecca Silver and Spoiled Permission To Proceed.

Here is a bit of a swatch I did with my base colors, so you can see these colors on their own.

Thank you so much for looking, and be sure to check out what the other bloggers did!

KKcenterHK D.I.Y. Water Decals Review + Sally Hansen Hi-Def

Hello! I am probably out on the beach right now having a fabulous time with my family, but just so you don't miss me too much, I scheduled this lovely review for you. :) This is my second shot at using their D.I.Y. Water Decals and I have to say, I learned a lot the first time around, so this time went way better. I got fancy with this one. Here is what I ended up with.

So when the decal sheet arrived in the mail, it looked like this. It is packed nicely and this is actually  resealable packet as well, which is nice. I put my leftover portion of the decal sheet back in there to use it again in another mani. :)

This sheet is the same size as the last one I reviewed, and I decided to do a partial nail instead of a full nail. Here is a pic of what one of them looked like once I had it all cut out to fit on the nail.

I had a lot of fun with these, and I got to use some polishes I haven't used much yet, too. :) Here is Sally Hansen's Hi-Def by itself. It is a very thin polish, so this is about 4 coats. Lovely color, huh?

I also wanted to mention that I tried a couple different topcoats with this mani, and this time I think the topcoats I used actually were worse. :( Here is an image with an explanation about which topcoats I used on each nail.

On the pinky/thumb, I used Orly Top 2 Bottom, which is my fave basecoat. It ate the decal. On my ring finger, I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails. It did ok, until I reach the tip of the nail, and it lifted the decal right off in one spot, which is why you see the chunk taken out on the corner, there. On my middle finger, I used NYC In a New York Minute Topcoat which did ok, but bubbled on me just because it is old and getting thick. On my index finger, I used AVON Speed Dry Topcoat, which did alright as well. It only ate the decal a little bit. So, now that I see how some of these other topcoats did, my Seche Vite doesn't seem so bad after all. I think that the NYC and AVON topcoats did the best though.

I am really pleased with my experience with the water decals this time, and super happy with my results. Definitely check these decals out. They are a great alternative to nail art if you are short on time, and look way better than anything you can do by hand without spending hours at it. :)

If you would like to try out some of the nail goodies they have, don't forget to use the 10% off coupon code that KKcenterHK has generously provided to me! It is good through 1/31/2013.

Coupon Code:  DelightInNails

*Products in this post were sent for review in return for my honest opinion.

Geek Nail Challenge Day 3 - Games & Gaming

This one was easy. I have been playing a great game on Xbox called Elder Scrolls VI: Skyrim. It is awesome. I love it so much, I have been playing since the day it came out. Of course I don't get to play every day, but I have put in more time than I care to admit. If you are a gamer, I highly recommend it. :) Take a look at what I came up with!

Heh heh. So now you will find out just how lame I really am. And by lame I mean awesome. :) On my thumb, we have a dragon flying across the sky. If you have not played Skyrim, you need to see it, just purely for the enjoyment of looking at your surroundings in the game. At night sometimes there is this awesome Aurora Borealis looking thing going on and it is just beautiful. That is what I was trying to represent. I painted the nail first with essie go overboard, then added my lights in the sky using Pixi Opal Sheen, Sally Hansen Hi-Def, Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet and Pure Ice Frosted Ice Iris. Then I painted the moon on using Pure Ice Super Star! and Kiss Me Here. After that, I just painted in the dragon silhouette using YSL Shiny Black.

On my index finger, I am representing the skill constellation for lockpicking. This is the one that I leveled up to 100 first. I LOVE opening treasure chests. :) I used Sinful Colors Last Chance for the base, then sponged on OPI Just Spotted The Lizard and Sally Hansen Hi-Def. Then I just added the detail using Pure Ice Super Star!, Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet, Zoya Arizona and Zoya Pippa.

On my middle finger, I did the Skyrim symbol from the packaging of the game. This is YSL Shiny Black with Julep Harley, which by the way, is one of their good polishes.

On my ring finger, I did one of my favorite parts of the game. I remembered this from playing through Oblivion and was super excited when the courier gave it to me. It is called the black hand...and says "we know" underneath. You get this if/when you choose to murder someone in the game. It is basically your clue that you are going to be invited to the Dark Brotherhood - which basically is just a group of assassins. I did this by painting my nail first with Sinful Colors Nirvana and then sponging over it with Zoya Pippa, then I added my details with YSL Shiny Black.

Last, we have my pinky. On this finger, I am representing the first part of the shout that I find I use the most in the game. It's called Ice Form and freezes your enemy. It's very handy when I am getting my butt kicked by some crazy dragon or something. I did this by starting with a coat of Julep Harley, then I sponged on Pure Ice Kiss Me Here and YSL Shiny Black. After that, I added my detail in Pure Ice Super Star!.

I am actually super happy with how this mani turned out. I worked really hard on this one and a game this awesome, seriously deserves a great tribute. This is the best thing I could come up with. :) Here is a bit of a swatch I did, so you can see the base colors I used by themselves.

Thank you so much for looking, and be sure to check out what the other bloggers did!

KKcenterHK Water Decals Review

I received some DIY water decals from KKcenterHK, when I got the stamping plate I reviewed a while back. The first one I want to show you is a floral design and came in a little square. I used it on a couple of accent nails and then painted the others with a solid color. Here it is.

Here it is with my polish still matte

The color on my nails by the way is Sinful Colors Dream On

And here it is after I added topcoat

 I didn't really know how to use water decals, so I went online and found a few tutorials that I used to help me. These ones are a bit different because they are not small individual images, it is one large image and you have to cut them into the shape that you want. Since this was a bit trial and error, I learned some things, which I will share a little later. First, I want to give you an idea of what these water decals looked like when they arrived. This sheet was approximately 2.5 inches tall by 2 inches wide. Here is an image from their website.

I really loved the way that these water decals looked and I had them on for about 4-5 days with minimal wear. I started out by cutting out small rectangles approximately the size of my nail, soaked it in water and then applied it to the nail after peeling off the backing. I had hoped that I would be easy to trim around the edges, but that was not the case. Heehee whoops. Thankfully, when they are wet, you can still move them around, so I just removed it, trimmed it to the right shape (very difficult once the decal is already wet!), and then reapplied the decal. However, I did learn after the fact that they will dissolve with nail polish remover, but it is better to just cut them to the right shape to begin with. That is what I did for the thumb and it turned out way better.

These decals looked great until I went and added topcoat. I use Seche Vite and it literally ate the decal, and pulled some of the color. Here is a close up so you can see what I mean. I don't really blame this on the decal, but it's something to watch out for so you don't ruin your mani. I'm going to try a different topcoat the next time and see if I get better results, so I will definitely share that when I do.

Overall, I really liked my experience with these decals. It was something I had never tried before, and i had a lot of fun learning and experimenting with how to use them. Definitely check these out when you visit their website. They had a bunch of different styles and now that you have heard my experience, you will know how to use them properly. :)

If you would like to try out some of the nail goodies they have, don't forget to use the 10% off coupon code that KKcenterHK has generously provided to me! It is good through 1/31/2013.

Coupon Code:  DelightInNails

*Products in this post were sent for review in return for my honest opinion.

Geek Nail Challenge Day 2 - Television & Movies

I decided to do a mani based on a suggestion from a good friend of mine - this one's for you, Benny!  One of our favorite pasttimes is to sit around watching episode after episode of Mr. Bean, along with my husband. That guys just cracks the three of us up. So, I decided to try to translate this onto my nails. At first, I really didn't even know where to start, but this is what I came up with.

The Reliant Robin that Bean can't stand

My attempt at drawing Mr. Bean peaking around a wall :/

One of my favorite episodes: Mr. Bean's new chair! :)

Bean's teddy.

Another shody attempt at drawing his crazy face. Meh.

In my head, these nails were spectacular. It is so hard to get as detaiuled as you need to get when trying to recreate something from a movie or television. Unless it is a cartoon, it's impossible to recreate the stuff we see on TV. These nails do still make me giggle when I look at them though, so I guess that is good.

I am just going to list out all of the colors I used for this:

• essie meet me at sunset
• Finger Paints Sketchy Character
• Julep Jessica
• Julep Harley
• Misa What A Wonderful Day
• Orly Instant Artist in Jet Black
• Pure Ice Super Star!
• Pure Ice Kiss Me Here
• Sinful Colors Nirvana
• Zoya Pippa
• Zoya Lo
• Zoya Wednesday

Thank you so much for looking!

KKcenterHK Review - Stamping Plate

I have been so busy lately, and just finished my final for my last summer class. I meant to post this on Wednesday, but I had too much studying to do. So, you are getting it now. :) I'm reviewing some items I got from KKcenterHK. 

They have a lot of items to choose from and I immediately went straight to the stamping plates (of course!). They have so many, I spent quite a bit of time before I finally settled on this one. :) I was so excited! Then I realized that doing nails with a winter theme in the middle of summer would be kind of weird, so I used the flower stamp and made it summery. :) Here is the design I came up with.

I didn't really have a plan when I did this, and you can probably tell. I just stamped randomly and then decided to zazz it up (yup I just said zazz) with some dots. This base color is a lovely turquoise that my husband got for me. It came from Pacific Sunwear and is from a company called Black Poppy, but does not have a name. I stamped over it using Pure Ice Black Rage, and my dot are Zoya Pippa. This is another new addition to my collection, which my mom got for me recently - thanks Mom!! Here is the color from Black Poppy by itself!

On to the review:

Overall, I like this stamping plate. I had some struggles in the beginning, but it was totally user error. Here are some pics to show what I mean.

When I got the plate in the mail, it looked like this. I was actually pretty upset that it was so scratched up, but decided to give it a try. That was when I realized that this scratched up surface was actually a clear protective sheet. Doh! I couldn't tell since it was clear. I think they should make it hot pink instead. :) Here is the plate looking all nice after I peeled off the plastic.

So, after I removed the protective sheet, I went on to test out the stamp. Here is a pic of the images I stamped onto white paper.

They are pretty good. I'm especially excited about the snowflakes! I also wanted to talk about the stamper and scraper that came with it. The stamper is quite small, but I didn't have any problem with it. I LOVED the fact that the scraper is plastic. It works just as well as my metal one from Konad, but it doesn't scratch the plates. Yay! This will be my new go-to scraper for all stamping. :) My experience with these products was really great, and they have so many wonderful things on their website, you will be like a kid in a candy store. Make sure you have a lot of free time before you start browsing. ;)

If you would like to try out some of the nail goodies they have, don't forget to use the 10% off coupon code that KKcenterHK has generously provided to me! It is good through 1/31/2013.

Coupon Code:  DelightInNails

*Products in this post were sent for review in return for my honest opinion.

Geek Nail Challenge Day 1 - Comics & Animation

Today is the first day of the Geek Nail Challenge. I should be able to handle this one way better than the last one since it is only once a week! For today's many, I went with comics, and decided to go more toward the Sunday Funnies than superhero-type nails. For my comic, I have chosen Dilbert. I work in an office, so this comic really speaks to me. :) Here they are!

I used a lot of colors on these, so I will just list them out:

• Milani Angel Pink
• Pure Ice Super Star!
• Julep Mandy
• Orly Instant Artist in Jet Black
• Sinful Colors Unicorn
• Revlon First Class
• Julep Jessica
• Sinful Colors Nirvana
• Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac
• Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet

This mani was so much fun to do! It took me a while to come up with what comic/animation I wanted to do, but I am really happy with this one.

Thanks for looking!

Liebster Award!

I have received the Liebster Blog Award from Polished Art.  Thank you so much!

 

Here are the rules for this award: 

• Post 11 facts about yourself
• Answer the questions the tagger has asked you and then create 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate
• Choose 11 people with less than 200 followers to give this award to and link to them
• Go to their pages and tell them (Remember no tag backs!)

So here are my 11 facts:

1. I just celebrated my 10 year wedding anniversary.
2. I have a dog and three cats (and they torture us, but we adore them).
3. I am a college student part-time and hope to graduate in less than 2 years now.
4. I have a younger sister who is a very talented musician - she can play any instrument, it's amazing, and I am so proud of her!
5.  I am an avid gamer - I play xbox and have put in more hours than I should admit.
6. I snowboard in the winter - but not last winter because we didn't have one. :(
7. I am going on vacation in less than 3 weeks and I cannot wait!
8. Ever since I saw the movie Amelie, I love eating creme brulee.
9. Speaking of movies, I love old romantic movies - anything black and white!
10. I can't stand the city - the only reasons why I will go there is for the art museum, the zoo, or good food.
11. I have quite possible the best family ever. Even my in-laws are awesome, and I feel so lucky to have all of them in my life. :)

Here are the questions that Polished Art asked me:

1. Why did you start your blog?  I had been playing around with nail art I found on Pinterest, and was posting my pictures there. It seemed to get a lot of interest, so I decided to try my hand at blogging.
2. How did you get into nail art?  I have always enjoyed painting my nails, and did the occasional polka dots or stripes as far back as high school (and that was a long time ago). I started to really get into nail art earlier this year. It takes less time than a painting and gives me an outlet for my creativity.
3. What's your go to manicure when you're feeling uninspired? Probably something with tape, but I am rarely uninspired. :)
4. What nail polish are you lusting after at the moment? That's a hard one! I really like the new Zoya Gloss polishes, and I am also practically desperate to get my hands on all the colors from the OPI Muppet Collection. :)
5. Which is your favorite brand of nail polish? Drugstore: NYC  High End: Zoya
6. Are you a fan of indie polishes and why? I am NOT a fan. First of all, I can't afford them, and they don't seem worth it to me. And secondly, as you may have noticed, I am not a big fan of all-over glitter. I love sparkle, but I think that painting your nails in one glitter polish is boring (even if the polish is crazy colorful), it's just not me.
7. Which sports do you enjoy watching in the Olympics? Gymnastics, and anything on the track/running. I used to run when I was younger, and miss it like crazy, but I just don't have the time in my life right now to dedicate to it. Hopefully that will change when I graduate from college!
8. Where in the world would you most like to visit? Oh gosh, there are a lot of places, but I think I would love to go somewhere like Bora Bora for a romantic getaway with my hubby. We never had a honeymoon, and I feel like we need to remedy that! Maybe for our 15 year anniversary we will make it happen.
9. What other hobbies do you have? Aside from what I mentioned earlier, I also love scrapbooking, photography, painting or pretty much any art, and watching old movies (from the 20's - 50's).
10. Do you have any strange fears? Well, I'm not afraid of much...but I can't eat frozen custard because the last time I had it (over 10 years ago), I was sick for 3 days (which was probably the flu and unrelated). I can't get over it though and am basically terrified of frozen custard. :)
11. And for the classic...if you were an animal, what would you be and why? There are a lot of animals I would like to be, but the one that is popping in my head now is a dolphin. I think it would be cool to swim like that and see all the awesome things that are in the ocean.

 And here are the blogs I am nominating - hopefully this will not be a repeat for any of you:

1. Scarlet Nail Diaries
2. Chocolate on my mouse 
3. Confessions Of A Polishaholic
4. Cuti-CLUE-les 
5. Girl On A Shoestring 
6. Hooked on Varnish 
7. Lacquer Pamper 
8. Mangling my Manicure 
9. My Nail of This Week 
10. Plisheriffic 

Well that's it. I'm only nominating ten of you because all the other people I would have liked to nominate had already received the award from someone else! I'll be back tomorrow with a new mani!

Geek Nail Challenge!

I have decided to take on another challenge - I couldn't help myself. This ones sounds fun, its short, and spaced out well, so I should be able to manage it. I'm excited because I already have ideas about what I want to do. I can't wait to do some of this nail art!!



Awesome, right?! Well get ready to see some weird things haha. I made a promise to a friend about what I would do for the Television & Movies theme, and have no idea how I'm going to pull it off. We will see, I guess. If you want to participate, just contact Sophia at http://girlonashoestring.blogspot.com. Whoop whoop! So excited!!