Playing with Polishes

I have finally made it a priority to get my polish hoard collection set up in my upstairs bedroom, so now it's so much easier to play with them.  This should mean y'all will be seeing a lot more pretty nails around here.  

While I was at it, I figured I should re-sort them, since I was overflowing in some drawers:

The ones in the plastic are my Indies!  Mostly my first love Lacquistry (over 50!), but KB Shimmer and Pretty & Polished also have a pretty strong showing.  I sort by colors, and I re-distributed my polishes to fill up that empty drawer a little more, so I'm content for now.

I'm a sucker for unique polishes, and the China Glaze Tranzitions lines appeal to my love for "magic" effects. These polishes change colors when you apply top coat, which isn't really practical since you can't top coat the entire mani.  But it sounds so fun, I caved and bought 3 of the colors: Modify Me, Split Perso-nail-ity, and Duplicity.  I found this You-Tube video, and was inspired:

This is 1 coat each of Modify Me (blue) & Split Perso-nail-ity (pink) applied diagonally on the nail.  I used NYC "Grand Central Station" as the top coat, which made the dark areas.  It was really fun to watch it change, but it seemed a little streaky to me when all was said and done.  I do love the colors, though!  

On an un-related note, my step daughter has been asking me to do her nails, and we finally had some down time to figure something out.  The poor thing bites her cuticles & nails, and she had acrylics taken off last month, so it took some prep to get the nails looking decent.  But she had the cutest idea, and we picked out the polish to make this:

How cute is this?  I likey, I likey!  This was the first time I did nail art on someone other than myself and it was definitely a different experience.  Not too bad, but I felt like I was applying everything backwards.  She was very happy, and that's all that matters ;-)

Where Has January Gone?!?!

Sorry to have been MIA, but over the holidays we moved, got the kids settled in a new school, and did I mention we moved?  I hate moving!!  

Anyway, I've not had very much time to play with polish lately, but here are the mani's I managed to eek out.  Please don't mind that these are all cell phone pics...I seem to have mis-placed my camera's charger among the dozen or so boxes that still need to be unpacked.

Chirality's holo skittles for the New Year! 

Zoya Feifei & Lael 

This is my current mani!  KB Shimmer "Toucan Touch This" with Zoya for flower accents.  This gorgeously bright polish has been calling to me for a couple of weeks now...probably because of all the grey skies and rain we've been having here lately...this Cali girl needs her sun!! 

We're more settled in, and my awesome hubby made me a little polishing nook area in our huge master bedroom, so I'm planning on getting my polish on a lot more often!  Thanks for sticking around!

Quicky with Zoya "Aurora" & "Storm"

I've been super-busy with the Holiday craziness and our impending move.  I cleaned off my Christmas nails and did a simple mani with a couple of my new Zoyas, but haven't had a chance to show you till today:

This is "Storm" and "Aurora" at about 2 days old, and after tons of packing.  And they are much more beautiful IRL.  I <3 Zoya!!

I can't wait till I'm settled in the new place and can finally do my nails!

Lacquistry's "Wonderland of Sand"

I've had this mani on the entire work week since December 17, but just realized I haven't posted about it.  Anyway, I got an awesome bunch of Lacquistry polishes from her Winter/Holiday collection, and "Wonderland of Sand" seems to the the perfectly quintessential Christmas-y glitter polish.

I also used Zoya's "Sarah" (red) and "Ivanka" (green).  It was super-pretty all week at work, and it wore like iron!  It's much more sparkly in real life.  I used 2 coats of WLOS, topped with a coat of Gelous, and finished with Seche Vite.  BTW, I do have a layer of glue under that accent nail, so removal should be a breeze!  Christmas perfection!

If you've never tried a Lacquistry, GO NOW!!  At the time of this posting, she still has polishes stocked in her Etsy shop HERE.  Check out swatches on her FB Page, too.  Jenna's the BEST when it comes to gorgeous glitter bombs!  

White Flag

I'm disappointed to say that I am officially admitting defeat, and withdrawing from Iced Lacquer's 12 days of Christmas Challenge.  My mom was just diagnosed with skin cancer (although her prognosis is very good), my moving-in date was moved up by 3 weeks, and all the Christmas shopping and festivities are just not leaving much time for challenge mani's.

I feel really bad, but I just had to take the pressure of these timelines off my plate.  I will definitely still be doing holiday-themed mani's, although just not at the challenge's pace.

Well, that's it for now.  I've cut down my nails, and I'll need to do something for the up-coming week.  Keep on admiring the other participants' creations, though! :-)

XOXO Alexis Leigh

Purple Castle

It's All About the Polish

A Ginger's Nail

The Polished Mommy

Robyn Loves Nails

Teen Polish Junkie

Mari522 (on Instagram)

Day 5 - 12 Days of Christmas: Holly/Wreaths

My Day 5 post is only 1 day behind!  Here's Iced Lacquer's 12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge:

 

I decided to do holly nails inspired by THIS CUTE POLISH VIDEO.  You'll see I changed it a bit, and did red gems instead of dots for berries.  

Who knew holly leaves were such a biotch to paint?!?  I had to re-do these leaves 3 times!  I was trying to use a small paintbrush, but I ended up using a good ol' toothpick to finally get the job done ;-)

I used China Glaze "Merry Berry" and Sinful Colors "Last Chance" & "Snow Me White".  I like  how this manicure came out, and I think it's pretty festive! :-)

Check out the other challenge peeps and our hostess Iced Lacquer!

XOXO Alexis Leigh
Purple Castle
It's All About the Polish
A Ginger's Nail
The Polished Mommy
Robyn Loves Nails
Teen Polish Junkie
Mari522 (on Instagram)

Day 4: 12 Days of Christmas: Candy Canes!

OK, this challenge is kicking my rear!! I just found out our escrow will close sooner than I had thought, so now we'll be moving next month, which means that packing & planning is in over-drive around here!  I'm going to have to nub the nails pretty soon to protect them from becoming victims of some painful misfortune with all of the manual labor ahead :-/

But in the meantime, here are Day 4's nails:

Candy canes made with stripers.  I'm not so impressed with my green striper because the polish was pretty thin, but the red was awesome!  I still need practice with my striping, but I always think I'm getting better :-)

OK, gotta go and get Day 5 done! :-)