Polish Us Pink: Heart Tree

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. 1 in 8 U.S. women will develop invasive breast cancer in her lifetime, and even men can get this cancer. To the survivors, the people struggling with it today, and the people whose lives have been touched by it, this is for you. Read my first post for more about how cancer has effected my life.

 Another Monday mani for Breast Cancer Awareness! Yea I know it isn't Monday anymore...whatever...I got distracted :P. This is kind of a nail fail so forgive me, but the idea is cute so I still posted it. Feel free to laugh.

 I used Barielle Big Apple Red for the base, with one coat each of Barry M Pink Iridescent and Color Club Fame and Fortune. The accent nail is a base of Milani white with Barry M Dusky Mauve for the tree. The hearts are stamped in white, Orly Pixy Stix, Barielle Big Apple Red, and Revlon Electric Pink.

This image was my inspiration for this mani. I was searching for images about breast cancer awareness and this cute pink heart tree with ribbons in it came up. I didn't add the ribbons as I thought it would be too much detail, but this is what I was going for.

I swear I waited a good amount of time before the topcoat....but it never seems to matter. The hearts weren't really showing up over the red, so I decided to double stamp them over white. I've seen loads of people do it even with full nail designs. Line em' up...BAM! Fail...lol.

But ooh that glitter! I love Pink Iridescent and those big flakies from the Color Club are pretty cool.

 The flakies give off a dark color at some angles. This one isn't so bad, right? The little tree is at least ugly pretty :D. So this mani isn't predominantly pink, but it's the thought that counts!

Feel free to join in the fun this month as we post a mani in support of breast cancer every Monday in October. Don't forget to tag your posts on Twitter/Instagram with #PolishUsPink!

Secret Summer Santa Swap!

 A group of friends on Twitter arranged a secret santa swap in the middle of Summer. It was a lot of fun! Here is what I got in my surprise package from the lovely Maria at Nails Made Simple. 

 Here is the total haul!

 Some lovely real flowers for nail art

OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OPI, Color Club Fame and Fortune, Color Club Wild and Willing, Color Club Wish Upon a Rockstar.

 Claire's unnamed silver glitter, Loreal Amazon's Flash, NYX Gilded Glitter, Jade Hollywood Nights, NYX Prismatic Gold

 2 coats Color Club Fame and Fortune, 1 coat Color Club Wish Upon a Rockstar, 1 coat Color Club Wild and Willing, 1 coat Color Club Wild and Willing over a chocolate brown

2 coats OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OPI, 1 coat Claire's giltter, 1 coat Jade Hollywood Nights

2 coats Loreal Amazon's Flash, 1 coat NYX Prismatic Gold, 1 coat NYX Gilded Glitter

This was a lot of fun! My favorites are Gilded Glitter, Wild and Willing, Fame and Fortune, and Wish Upon a Rockstar. Thanks again Maria!!

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 And just for fun, this is what I sent to my lovely swap partner Jamie!

 So much stuff! some cheapies and samples, 2 mini lipglosses, MS glitter, 2 liquid liners, 2 mascaras, Nfu Oh 63, and Orly Glowstick.

 All packaged up and cute. This was the really fun part :). My husband even helped me wrap some!

I also made her this card. She said she liked pink lip gloss, rainbow colors, and her favorite color was glitter, so I made her this card with nail polish as the paint. Those are some super glitter bomb nails lol!

If you want to see more of the hauls from this swap session check out our hash tag thing on Twitter.

Beyond the Mistletoe Layering

Layering these Color Club collections is fun! This post will show you how some of the Beyond the Mistletoe glitters look layered. I already used Holiday Splendor on my toes. A lot of people layer them on top of the corresponding color, but I like to spice it up a bit.

Layered over Color Club Perfect Mol-ten from the Foiled collection LtoR:

Beyond the Mistletoe - Light blue and silver holo glitter that flashes green, gold, teal, silver, and blue, in a clear base

Holiday Splendor - silver holo glitter in a bright tealy green jelly base, which makes the glitter flash a lot of green

Candy Cane - Hot pink and light pink holo glitter that flashes pink, silver, and red, in a slightly pink jelly base

Gingerbread - Gold holo glitter that flashes blue, green, red, purple, orange, and gold, in a clear base

This is Color Club Cold Metal with a coat of Jingle Jangle on the ring finger.


Jingle Jangle - light teal and silver glitter in a slightly purple jelly base, which makes the silver look purple sometimes

These glitters are pretty awesome, but some could be more exciting. I thought Gingerbread had red glitter in it, which would have been awesome. I think I'll do a mani with it and throw in red glitter :D. You like them?

Color Club Foiled Collection Swatches

I picked up the Color Club Foiled collection from Ross the other day. I never thought I liked foils until now! All the colors in this collection have a glitter/foil sort of finish. They're very metallic, which is part of being a foil, but if you look up close there is tiny metallic microglitter. Each color has particles of silver and particles of the base color. All swatches are two coats


Cold Metal - Rich royal blue foil. I actually like this and I'm so not a blue person.


Lumin-iceient - Light cloudy blue foil.


Antiquated - Champagne gold foil


Hot Like Lava - Hot pink foil


Foil Me Once - Light dusty pink with a touch of lavender foil


Perfect Mol-ten - Bright light green foil, really pigmented but a little more silver at the same time.

I really never thought I liked foils until now...honest lol. The wear seems to be average (a couple days), and the application was great. I thought it would be streaky when I was applying it, but looking at my nails now you can't see a single imperfection.
And by the way this was my first collection swatch. I have never before put polish on JUST to photograph it. What an interesting feeling lol...

Have these? Love them? Want them?

Defiant Pedi

MeMeMe Defiant, that is :). It's a European polish. Drool ladies.

I was feeling something dark. This is two coats Defiant with one thin coat of Color Club Holiday Splendor from my haul yesterday.

Here is Defiant in a couple different lights. At its darkest it only looks black out of the corner of your eye. When you actually look at it, it's just super dark teal.

Here is is topped with the thinnest coat of Holiday Splendor I could muster, to add a little glitter bling.

Holiday Splendor is holo glitter in a bright green slightly teal jelly base. The glitter flashes blue, green, and gold.

My combo ended up a slightly darker ChG Atlantis....crap lol but quite a bit more green. The more I look at it, the more I like it and realize that it's different!

Haul: Holiday Color Clubs

I went to my Ross to look for Color Club sets, originally for friends because I was undecided. I saw them in person and had to have them.

Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe Collection

LtoR: Beyond the Mistletoe, Holiday Splendor, Sugarplum Fairy, Gingerbread, Candy Cane, Jingle Jangle

Color Club Foiled Collection

LtoR: Perfect Mol-ten, Antiquated, Cold Metal, Hot Like Lava, Foil Me Once, Lumin-iceient

And then a friend mentioned to me that the colors in both collections match up quite well...

Interesting huh? Ooh I wonder what one Foiled would look like with a light coat of a different Mistletoe? Or of course I could layer them for a little more pow.

Thoughts? Have them? Want them? If you are nice to me I'll pick some up for you :). 

Happy Pink...Crap I Forgot

Yea yea so I blogged about something else on Wednesday instead. I did do a guest post for Amber while she's gone to Europe on holiday, and it's totally a pink wednesday post :D. Check it out yo!

Sneak peek pic!!! :O

Spa Day - Alzheimer's Association

We had a Spa Day at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the elderly residential facility I interned at. We had massages, facials, and manicures available in exchange for a donation to the Alzheimer's Association. I, of course, did manicures! The amazing Color Club was of course very popular!

And I don't know what it was about the french manciures that day! One person got one, then the next person said "I want what she had" lol...and so on. Candy Girl from Color Club was the go to french color for sure. 

And again, we have my lovely hand model from OLPH, Dee!

She loves her peachy, natural, and neutral colors. Don't they look nice on her? She is such a Color Club fan! Honestly I think it was french manicures for most of the time. I did have someone request China Glaze Bare if You Dare from my stash, but of course I forgot to take a picture of that!

Go go Color Club, and thanks again for your amazing donation to OLPH and the ladies there!!!

Easter Lily - Color Club Revealed

I just got acrylics for the very first time and I'm really self-conscious about them. They're awesome because now my nails don't break and they're super hard. My cuticle line is odd though and not perfectly smooth. I guess that's what I get for going to a student to get my nails done really cheap lol. When I take this mani off maybe I'll try buffing them more. It's kind of hard!

This was my Easter manicure with a pretty lily and tips from my new Bundle Monster plates. I tried and tried using the actual tip stamps, but I actually found using part of a full nail design worked better. Since I had done my base color the night before and it was super dry, I could just rub off the stamp that wasn't in the right place. Do that next time you stamp, it's so much easier and less stressfull when you mess up!

Color Club Revealed is a pinky coral creme with a hint of coral shimmer. Sadly the shimmer doesn't translate to the nail very well, but even without it the color is very pretty. This is two coats and it's fully opaque.

For this manicure I used Color Club Revealed for my base color. To paint the Lily I first used Stride Rite White to make the six petals. I let Color Club Get a Clue melt into the middle of each petal to add some light pink. Then I took a toothpick and added lines of Zoya Areej down the center of each petal. Areej was also used for the dots, and the tips on my other nails. Pure Ice Excuse Me made the center of the flower with China Glaze Peachy Keen for the stamens.

What did you do for Easter? I live 8-10 hours away from any family, I don't have kids, and my boyfriend is on deployment, so Easter was a little rough for me this year. My friend Amber invited me to come to family dinner with her, her super cute daughter Judy, and some another friend of ours. It was really nice :). My family is English, so for Easter I made a traditional English Easter Simnal cake. It's a fruit cake with marzipan in the middle, marzipan on top, 11 marzipan balls to symbolize the apostles (Judas was a baddy so he doesn't count lol), and a nest made from a chocolate flake bar with mini-eggs and little chickies in it :D. I love it! Isn't it cute?