Rainbow Skittle and Memories

 I've been depressed for a week or so...my best friend's death (over a year ago), my Nanna's death (3 years ago), and I've been wearing the necklace my Aunt gave to me for my wedding that belonged to my Nanna. I actually made a proper English meal (bangers the way she always used to make them, oven chips, and baked beans) for tonight. All the while I had no idea that today was actually the anniversary of her death until my mother reminded me. Just wow. 

So something we always used to do together is paint our nails/toes in pretty much every color. I remember as a tiny child we'd paint our toes together. I could never decide on a color, so she said just use whatever you want. We would be so random and they'd all end up completely different colors. My personality really makes sense now lol. So in honor of her today, I did a rainbow manicure and topped it with China Glaze Snow Globe. I swear we started this trend :P.

 I love you Nanna. 

 This is the picture I had at my wedding (6-23-2012) memorial for her, and now I keep it and the others (my best friend and my husband's grandmother) on display in my house.

 

 Here is a picture of me, my mum, and my Nanna back in the day :). I must have been 12? We all look so happy! 

This is my all time favorite picture of us, sharing a Tango at our favorite local pub down at the beach. Timeless. I love her permed overly red hair lol. She even wore short jean shorts at that age. She was sassy ;). You can even see a little bit of her "S" necklace in this picture, which I just now noticed.

 My rainbow nails with her "S" necklace. Her name was Sylvia...what a beautiful name. My granddad gave that to her around the time I was born and she wore it every moment of her life.

 

 I had it pinned to my bouquet on my wedding bouquet. I had expected just to borrow it from my Aunt, but was overwhelmed with love when she gave it to me. I wear it often now, and of course today. It feels so good to have something that is such a token of her.

I used China Glaze Hey Sailor, Orly Orange Punch, Hey Sailor and China Glaze Sunshine Pop mixed for the yellow orange, China Glaze Sunshine Pop, and Sunshine Pop and China Glaze Gaga for Green mixed to make the yellow green.

This is China Glaze Gaga for Green, the blue green is Gaga mixed with Breezi, Zoya Breezi, the indigo is Breezi mixed with Gothic Lolita, and China Glaze Gothic Lolita.

 I had my picture of Nanna with me as I painted and mixed :).

 I asked some friends if they wanted to do a rainbow mani/pedi in honor of my Nanna.

 My lovely friend Jenny submitted this picture for us :). She used Zoya Sooki, Zoya Robin, Ulta Sun of a Gun, Zoya Mira, Zoya Charisma. Thank you SO much Jenny. This means a lot. 

Nicole from Young Wild and Polished submitted a mani for my Nanna and me too :). 

 Thank you so much Nicole!!!

Made By Me also made a dedicated post for my Nanna and all the Nannas out there :). 

 I'm so flattered she liked my design too :).

If anyone else would like to do a rainbow skittle mani/pedi (it doesn't even have to be rainbow, just lots of different colors), I'd love to add it to this post at any time :). Thank you!

Ulta Coupon - $5 off $15

New coupon out for Ulta - $5 off $15. This expires 7/2/2011. You can use it in store or online. The online code is 19986. You can print the coupon directly from my picture, just click it to get it back to full size. Make sure if you resize it that you don't distort the barcode.

Ulta Cosmetics Swatches

Remember this from my haul the other day? I swatched everything for you!!! Overall, I really like everything in here and it's all really wearable. The lipstick is a bit dark for my skintone and I'm not a dark brown fan (for lipcolor least). The blush is also too intense for me, but that's really it! Definitely a good buy! Technically this was all free with my other Ulta purchases!! :D

Let's begin with the eyeshadow!

This has some beautiful browns, and a silver that isn't too pow. I like to use the Granite to accentuate the outer edge of my eyeliner as well. These particular Ulta eyeshadows are totally fine, but not amazing. They aren't super pigmented and don't just glide on. I will definitely use them again though, just not awesome.

These are gorgeous colors as well! As you can see we're having the pigment problem again though. The Seashell pink is so pretty and really does show up a bit more in person. I like how Stardust is like a gold, but more on the soft yellow side. Aren't the names pretty?

Here are the eyeliner duo pencils that came with the free cosmetic bag. I really like these!! I usually prefer the softer twist up kind of eyeliner, but these glide right on. Halo is subtle, but I absolutely love it. The first time I wore it I used it to accentuate my lower lid on the outer edge since I only ever line my top lid in something darker. Halo is also good for adding shadow on top of. I found that if I lined my lower lid with it then added a shadow, it made that shadow shimmery and stand out more.

I am loving the Ulta Amped Lashes Volume Mascara! I was previously addicted to Rimmel Extra Super Lash. This is a lot like that one, but a bit better even! It isn't over the top and crazy voluminous like the mascara commercials on tv, but I don't want my eyelashes to look like that anyway. It covered them well, separated them well, all of the above! I am not all the way sure yet whether or not I'll stick with the Rimmel or this one only because of the price. I usually find the Rimmel for $7 (though online it says it sells for about $3 in Wal-Mart and RiteAid...never seen that!!). The Ulta is $10. So if I really can find it for that good a price then I'll probably keep buying the Rimmel. I have to say the packaging of the Ulta mascara kind of looks like a vibrator though....

On to the lippies!!! In the middle is the brown lipstick, just their regular lipcolor. It's really pretty, just not something I would wear. On each end I swatched the lipglosses, then in between is the lipgloss over the lipstick. The lipglosses looked crazy in the tube, but they come out really nice and normal! Both have a little bit of shimmer to them. Goddess has a little bit of an orange/bronze/goldy shimmery tint to it. Orange sounds awful for lips, but I promise you it is freaky subtle. It's really pretty! Flirtini is a sheer slightly pink gloss with really tiny subtle iridescent glitter in it. Here I'm wearing Flirtini over the Sally Hansen Lip Butter (slight pink tint) that I have for you in my giveaway.

Now for the blush! I really like the fun honeycomb texture of the pressed powder. I have swatched it for you lightly, then a little darker below. It almost has a hint of brown in the pink which you can see more in the darker swatch. Again, this one is so pretty, it's just too dark for my freaky pale skin tone along with blonde hair.

I haven't properly swatched the nail color for you, but here is a really color accurate bottle picture. I did paint it on a piece of paper and it looks very opaque. It's really pretty! Usually in things like this you think you'd get a really boring ugly color, but I like this one! It's called Hot Spot :D.

Now my final swatch is not from the bag of Ulta freebies I got, but I did pick it up in the same haul and have had a couple people ask me about it. This is the Ulta Eye Crayon in Cocoa Puff.

It is an eyeshadow stick. The consistency is like a really firm cream shadow. I absolutely love this! It is easy to apply, just the right size end, looks gorgeous, stays well, and has an awesome dual end with a sponge tip that you can use to blend with instead of using your finger. Awesome!!

Ulta Haul! - Ulta Cosmetics and Urban Decay

So I was doing my usual websurfing for awesome deals on makeup and the like. I came across like a million deals at Ulta. Remember, I posted about the Urban Decay deal? So instead of buying like $50 worth of stuff to get free shipping since I was pretty close anyway, I decided to actually stop by the store and see what was going on there. I knew I was dying for the Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion, so I picked that up first for $18. The deal for UD was buy $25, get two free lipglosses and an eyeshadow. Problem is, every single thing they had was super expensive. So I couldn't really get to $25 without going way over, and I am not that interested in throwing a ton down on a brand I have never tried (heard raves about the Primer Potion though). SO I decided to look around and see what else I could find.

Ulta had a deal going on where you buy $17.50 of Ulta cosmetics and get this bag full of free Ulta products. This bag has 14 items in it and is worth $88! The collection that they came up for the bag was called Sunkissed Glow. I checked it out and I would use like 90% of what's in there, if not all of it. Awesome deal, right? I have never tried Ulta cosmetics before so I was pretty excited. I picked up an Ulta Minerals Eye Shadow Duo in Fire Opal (champagne and medium purple, $12) and an Ulta Eye Crayon in Cocoa Puff (shimmery light brown, $8).

The eyeshadow was a good buy for me because I was looking for a darker neutral (I have a super light one I use a lot) and I don't have many purple eyeshadows. I also have hardly any nice brands of eyeshadow, so I really need to branch out. The Eye Crayon is pretty awesome. It's huge so it has a lot of product, and has an awesome eyeshadow sponge brush on the other end for blending. Fab!

Final haul:
Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion - $18
Ulta Minerals Eye Shadow Duo in Fire Opal - $12
Ulta Eye Crayon in Cocoa Puff - $8
Yellow Makeup Pouch - Free with deal
Ulta Eyeshadow Quad in Silk, Seashell, Stardust, and Brown Sugar - Free in bag
Ulta Eyeshadow Quad in Truffle, Trendsetter, Platinum, and Granite - Free in bag
Small Yellow Foldy Mirror (regular and magnified) - Free in bag
Ulta Amped Lashes Volume Mascara - Free in bag
Ulta Countour/Eyeliner Pencil (dual ended) in Chocolate and Black - Free in bag
Ulta Contour Lip/Eyeliner Pencil (dual ended) in Spice and Halo - Free in bag
Ulta Lipgloss (dual ended) in Goddess and Flirtini - Free in bag
Mini Ulta Nail Lacquer in Hot Spot - Free in bag
Ulta Lipcolor in Rose Gold Shimmer - Free in bag
Ulta Cheek (pressed blush powder) in Fame - Free in bag
Ulta Contour Brush size small - Free in bag
Ulta Contour Brush size medium - Free in bag
Ulta Eyeshadow Brush - Free in bag
Ulta Sponge Tip (for eyeshadow) - Free in bag
18 items!
Total value: $126
Subtotal: $38
-$3.50 coupon
Total paid: $35.50

This deal is good till Saturday the 12th, while supplies last (so call ahead if you're going for this), and your colors may be different at your store. At my store you didn't get to pick your colors, but every bag was the exact same.

So far I am loving all these products! Though, the lipstick and blush might be too dark for me. I have another polish or two I don't want as well, so maybe I need to jump on the band wagon and do a cheapy blog sale? Swatches to come! I started but my camera battery died lol...

Ulta In the Mood - Newspaper Mani!

I used Ulta In the Mood to do a newspaper mani. Cool huh? The words sort of get reprinted on your nail. Some people like to actually put the paper bits on their nails like a decoupage, but I prefer this technique. I think it looks so much better. I'd love to do a tutorial, maybe even a video, if you're interested :D.

This is the first nail I did and I think it looks so awesome! I'm really in love with this mani. On the right is another pic of the mani I took today (I actually painted them last night. I like to take pictures right after I do them usually. just in case I mess them up lol.
I really like how it looked before the clean up too (below). You can see the ghost of the words on my skin and I thought it was neat.Now about this specific polish...If you read my previous post about my Ulta Haul I picked this up on clearance at Ulta.I think it's a pretty cool color myself. It's a light purple, not quite lavender, with quite a bit of light gray in it. It gets a good bit more purple in dimmer lights, which makes a fabulous and what I consider unique color. It's really quite pigmented and not a boring color at all. I took the above picture before the cleanup just in case it messed up. And guess what...it did. I have to say this formula was awful and I'm super close to never trying it again. I actually did it once before, and it was so bad I took it off. The application was so amazingly streaky that I felt like I had to do thick coats to make it look good. Well bad idea, because that promotes bubbles.
You can't see half the bubbles in these pictures. It looked so freaking awful...I painted my nails at night, but not that late. I got carefully into bed after they had already been drying like an hour and figured it would be fine. When I woke up in the morning not only were my nails ruined even more, but they were still wet!! Like wet enough to leave fabric marks, wrinkle it, anything. GOD!
So...I did it again this time, with nice...pretty...thin coats. It looked much better and didn't bubble, but was still super streaky and took 3 coats. It could have used 4. Now even though I was super careful, I still had trouble with the polish this time. It didn't bubble, but stayed dry to the touch (not all the way dry) for the longest time. Even after the topcoat was applied, I usually use Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear, same story. Now is this the topcoat's fault or the polish? I have used this top coat many times and rarely had this problem. I put a coat of Seche Vite QD Topcoat on before bed to make it dry and that worked wonders. Right now the mani is perfect, even a little wrinkle or two I caused with silly mistakes. That's probably the best thing about SV, it's magical imperfection perfecting skills.