52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge - Neon Tie Dye

Good morning everyone! I'm rushing off to work in a minute, but wanted to get this post up so that you can all see the neon glory. I decided to skip the "fugly" prompt because I have a hard time determining ugliness. I know that sounds weird, but I can think in my head something is ugly, however, I just can't create something ugly on purpose. It always ends up somehow not looking ugly to me anymore. That's a serious ego right there. Bahaha, but really, it's not ego at all. The perfectionist in me creeps out while I'm painting and before I know it, my work doesn't look half bad. I can't make it stop lol.

For this mani, I am combining prompts for two different challenges. I am doing my first week of The Stamping Plate Challenge as well here since the prompt for that is "over a neon base". I love it when challenge prompts align! ;)

I used 6 colors from the China Glaze Electric Nights collection in this manicure. They are Glow With The Flow, Red-y To Rave, Daisy Know My Name?, Treble Maker, DJ Blue My Mind, and Violet-Vibes. I painted the tie dye pattern over a plain white base using small strokes in a spiral pattern. I did one color at a time so that I could paint them on top of eachother to try to achieve the look of colors bleeding together.

After that, I stamped over it using an image from CICI&SISI plate 23 and Konad Special White.

Thank you so much for stopping by today. Make sure you take a peak at what everyone else did for this week's prompts!

An InLinkz Link-up

52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge - Patchwork + Bright and Happy

Hi again! I have been back on my blogging game lately - yay! I have a mani today for teh Nailtarts, whom I have been neglecting lately in favor of quick stamping manis! As soon as I saw bright and happy, I knew that meant it was time for me to bust out my new China Glaze neons! I bought the set of minis when it was on sale at Sally's about a month ago, and I'm really stoked on a lot of these. I went ahead and combined the prompts for a saucy neon patchwork look! ;)

I started off with two coats of white using Pure Ice SuperStar!, and then painted on blocks of colors. After that I cleaned up my sloppy lines by adding the black "stitching" using my Orly Jet Black striper.

I really like the green and blue in this collection. In the past, the neon greens and blues I have bought have been very thin and streaky. These ones are opaque and went on nice and smooth. The only one that didn't was the purple, and you can see it in the photos. :( Anyway, here are the names of all of the polishes in case you want to know:

• Pink: Glow With The Flow
• Orange(-y red?) : Red-y to Rave
• Yellow: Daisy Know my Name?
• Green: Treble Maker
• Blue: DJ Blue my Mind
• Purple: Violet Vibes

Thank you so much for stopping by to check out my mani today! I'll have my next post on Thursday with my May Mystery Bag from Rainbow Honey. :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Rainbow Honey Summer Mixtape Collection Swatches + Review

Happy Friday-eve everyone! Today, I have some swatches from Rainbow Honey's Summer Mixtape collection. They graciously sent me three full-size polishes from this collection to review, and I am so excited for the colors they sent! The collection has 12 polishes in all. To see more, head over to their website. The collection will be available to purchase tomorrow, on 7/18.

The first polish I have to show you is called Stolen Dance. Quick side note, here: I actually know all of the songs that these polishes reference. They all play regularly on my favorite satellite radio station, Alt Nation, so yay! I can appreciate these so much more because they are named after songs that I really love! This one is by a group called Milky Chance. Good song, and an even better polish! It is a lovely pale kiwi green with gold and purple shimmer. It went on very nicely, too. This is two coats.

Next up is Best Friend. I love this polish so much! It is one of the most awesome polishes that I own, hands down. And, it's named after a super-catchy song by Foster the People that I had in my head the entire time I wore this, and I didn't mind at all! It is full of multi-colored neon glitter in small hexes, large hexes, tiny squares and stars, black and white triangles, and purple iridescent shimmer! Eeeeeee!!! It went on well, this was about two coats. I didn't have to do any fishing, which made me really happy, and I didn't need to add topcoat; it was surprisingly smooth. I didn't want to take this one off, but after a few days, and some serious housework, I had some chips, so it was time to say goodbye...at least for now.

 Last, we have Fall in Love. Oh my - this one is named after one of my favorite songs! If you haven't heard of Phantogram, you need to get some in your life. Their music is awesome just like this polish. :) This one looked so pretty in the bottle...and then I realized it was a jelly, too. Bonus! It is a bright crimson jelly with blue iridescent glitter that makes in look more magenta. I went ahead and did a jelly stampwich with it so you can see it's potential!

Here is a good picture of the shimmer - it makes the bright crimson look more pink/fuschia. I like the sparkle.

Here is what it looked like pre-sandwich. :) I used Konad m63 and Mash-35 for these images.

Here it is sandwiched with another thin coat of Fall in Love on top of the stamping.

Thank you so much to Rainbow Honey for sending these beautiful polishes to me! I am so happy to be able to add them to my collection and share their loveliness with all of you. And I have something else to share, too: 20% from Rainbow Honey! Just use the code MIXTAPE20 to save on your next order from them! This promo code is good through 8/31/2014, so don't miss out on your chance to grab some of these pretties! Yay! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Golden Oldie Thursday - Neon

Hi. Today I have some neon nails for you, and since I only had two neons that I haven't used on this blog, I had to add some black here to create some fun nail art. These two polishes came to me in a grab bag, and I actually have never used them at all. They are both stripers from Kiss called Beach Yellow and Neon Orange.

I started off with a simple striped design on each nail alternating directions, and then I stamped over top of it with Konad Special Black using stamping plate Mash-40.

Here is what it looked like before I stamped over top of it.

I did 2 coats of essie marshmallow underneath to help the neons pop. Here it is on its own since I've never swatched it on this blog.

Make sure you check out everyone's neon manicures today! It will make it feel closer to summer! :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Neons To Kiss The Summer Goodbye

I actually did this manicure a pretty long time ago, but looking at them makes me realize that summer is over, school is back in full swing, and I have to get back in a good routine.

I started this mani with a coat of white, then sponged on my neons in Julep Abbie and Mackenzie, Spoiled Did I Dye It Too Blonde? and Permission To Proceed, and China Glaze Ride The Waves splodgerama style. Then, I stamped over it using Konad Special White and the plate I used was Mash-39.

I loved this mani, and wore it for a full week before it was so chipped that I had to part with it. I hope you all enjoyed this post! I'll be back in another week or so with more! :)

10 Day/Week Challenge - Inspired by a Book...Cover

For this mani, I spent a long time thinking about some of the books I've read over the past few years that I really enjoyed, and tried to come up with some nail art ideas. As I was looking at my copy of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I was inspired by the cover. I think the design turned out to be pretty cool. I painted my nails yellow first with Spoiled Did I Dye It Too Blond? and then stamped over it very randomly with Color Club Twiggie. For this I used Mash-43 and Mash-49. That doesn't really matter so much as I only took bits and pieces from the stamps with the thin lines and actually tried not to use the whole image. After that I did the same thing using just Mash-49 with Spoiled Jail Bait. I think it turned out pretty cool. Take a look!

With the flash

Without the flash

 Here is an image of the book I used as my inspiration.

Overall, I am pretty happy with this one. The colors matched the book cover pretty well, and I had fun doing it. Thanks for looking!

Copy Cat Sat - Precious Polish! + I won some AWESOME goodies!

For my Copy Cat Sat this week, I decided to do a mani I saw from Precious Polish that I absolutely fell in love with. It uses an interesting technique with the dotting tool (straight pin for me) to make some really great looking flowers. I think if I'm going to do a mani that uses so many dots in the future, I may have to get a dotting tool. That will have to go on my Christmas list (please Santa?). :) Of course I changed up the colors a bit. I had this neon green from Spoiled called Permission To Proceed that I wanted to try out and it was a pretty big disappointment. I tried using it over white polish since it is so sheer, but it still came out very streaky, so I decided I would just have to do my nail art over top to hide the streaky-ness. After I finished my flowers, it looked pretty decent! Here's it is.

I'm actually pretty happy with this one. Using the straight pin for so many dots was rough, though. It's so short, it's hard to control and be very precise with. For the flowers I used Revlon First Class for the blue (this is my new favorite bright blue!), Spoiled Let's get Sushi for the coral flowers, and Pure Ice Super Star! for the white. After I dotted all of these on, I added some topcoat, and voila!

Here's a picture of my tool of choice.

Now, for my other big news...I won a giveaway that I entered a few weeks ago from Beauty Crazed in Canada. I'm seriously so shocked by it because it is probably the biggest thing I have ever won. Ever. In my entire life. I keep feeling like I should pinch myself to make sure it's real, because the sheer quantity of awesomeness I'm about to receive is amazing. Amazing. It contains polishes that I would never have been able to afford on my own, and a set of OPI's that I have been desperate to own since they came out. That's right - it's the Muppets Collection!! The Muppets Collection(it's 4 of the minis, but that's 4 more than I thought I would ever own)! Can you believe that?! Obviously, I still can't because I can't stop smiling. And I've known since about 10 AM this morning. And I'm still smiling. Here is a link so you can see what the giveaway included. I am blown away by the generosity of these two girls, and I just hope they know how grateful I am. I could never repay them for this, but I at least want to make sure I give a big thank you from the bottom of my heart. Make sure you check out their page if you don't follow already. Everything they blog about is awesome, and they are hilarious, too.

Thanks for looking, as always. I'll have a new one to share on Wednesday!

Copy Cat Sat - Nailed It.

My mani today was inspired by one of my favorite blogs, Nailed It. This girl has such a steady hand, it's unreal. Mine shakes like crazy, but I am really working on getting more under control, so I chose this one specifically to help me master this. You can find her original post here. I don't have a yellow neon, but I do have orange and pink! So, I decided to do this with another color...and since I couldn't decide what color, I used them both! Two accent nails are better than one. Haven't you heard?! Here it is!

Spoiled Jail Bait, Spoiled Tip Your Waitress, ORLY Jet Black, NYC Tribeca Silver

I am pretty happy with how this turned out. I still struggle to get the striper brush under control, but practice makes perfect! Let me know what you think. I'll have another post for you soon!