Merry Christmas to all

Hello all,
it is Christmas eve so I do not have much time. Its a quiet night with the family, I don't have anything to show you tonight. Well I do but don't have time to show them. I just wanted to say a quick MERRY CHRISTMAS to all my followers and fellow polish lovers. May you all have a very merry Christmas if you celebrate it and all the best for the new year to you and your loved ones. Here's to another great year of fun nail stuff. Thanks for following me all:) Love seeing all your blogs as well:) See you soon!!

xxx

Whimsical Ideas by Pam "Hatched"

Hey Hey,
Hows everyone's evening going? Mine is quiet so I decided to do a post. And I have a gorgeous, and adorable polish to show to you guys. If you haven't heard of Whimsical  ideas by Pam's polishes, you are missing out. I have showed you guys my other polish I have by her called "Suess". If you missed it, take a look at it here. Its another beauty. Also, take a look at her facebook page which is where you can see her polishes and where you can find her e-mail address to order some polishes. She does , however, only ship to the US. I had to go through a third party to get mine and it was quite a hassle. It took about 3 months for me to get them. I thought they were lost. So I was beyond happy when I finally got them and appreciate them that much more now!!!

So on to "Hatched" which is a pretty pastel yellow with dark and light pink glitter along with blues, greens and even tiny silver bright and hex glitter. I know it is the Christmas season but this polish just reminded me of Easter! It has great application. I have on 3 coats because I wanted it to leave no VNL. And what absolutely made this mani beautiful was my Seche Vite top coat. I never really wore top coats before. I would here and there but never really thought they were that important. Especially since I change my nails so often, way before any chipping usually happens. But I have to admit, seche vite, which for those who don't know and with me being French can easily translate , means "dry fast". 'Another thing I didn't know was that you're supposed to add it when your polish is still wet. Well tacky. I used to always wait until it was completely dry and then add it. But I added it at the right time and it makes more sense. Helps with the drying. It just made it look so smooth and perfect. Exactly what this polish needs to give it that soft, smooth look. And this contradicts what I just said about always changing my nails but I was super busy the week I was wearing this so I ended up keeping it on for 9 days. 9 DAYS!!! For me that really is something! Not only was I busy but I really am in love with this polish and it just looked great. There was no chipping, even after all this time. Will show you a pic of that later but for now, on to the polish!!! Enough of me babbling:)

So, as I said, these are 3 coats topped of with seche vite.

Just look at all the glittery goodness:) This polish is just so pretty, delicate and cute. Total girly polish;) 

I think "Hatched" is the perfect name for this polish:) So reminds me of Easter. Just the pastel yellow and all the pastel glitters.......

What I love about this polish is that by adding more then 1 coat, you really get that perfect "jelly" look:)

Sorry about the lack of clean up in some of these. They always look fine to my naked eye and its not until I look at the pictures to I see all the bad spots..:(

Prior to putting this on, I did a major cleaning of my hands. You know how much I hate showing my right hand because of al the yellow stains I have. Well I bleached it and scrubbed it with whitening toothpaste and they came out quite nice. Therefore, I will show some right hand pictures:)

And now, they're not the best pictures but I just wanted to show how great seche vite works. These were taken 9 days after I first put my polish on. And look at that! Would think it was but a couple days old!:) 

I am definitely a seche vite customer for life!! And, of course, Whimsicals for that matter:) WE must try and convince her to ship to Canada!!! lol....

So I hope you guys enjoyed my pictures. As always, my posts are very picture heavy:) What do you guys think of "Hatched"? Does it remind you of Easter as well? Which , if any, Whimsicals do you own? Or which would you love to have??

Till next time:) All the best:)

And remember, lets stay drama free but never polish free:):)  

Stripping tape mani using China Glaze "Blue years eve" and "Icicle"

Hey hey guys,

So how is everyone doing? For those of us celebrating the holiday season, are you getting ready? I put up my tree this week which is early for me. Usually doesn't go up until a week before Christmas.  My shopping on the other hand, has not even started and I wont say I will soon because I know I wont. I am the worst procrastinator  I was actually shopping on the 24th the last 2 years in a row....... But I have been seeing a lot of gorgeous Christmas manis around and I am horrible at freehand drawing and wanted to do something christmas-y but not all out there. Will be doing that this week perhaps. So, I still had never tried my stripping tape to do cool designs like I had seen others do and wanted to try that. So, I have for you, albeit not the best and messy, my first stripping tape mani. TO be a little Christmas y I used 2 China glaze polishes "Icicle" and "Blue year's eve".

The silver one is "icicle" , a silver foil polish. It is not too unique but sure is Christmas-y. I love the foil look of it:)
"Blue years eve" is a gorgeous dark  deep blue with glass flecks. It has a sheer blue base packed with different color shimmers. I love it:)
 Now, if you have never done a stripping tape mani, it really is not hard to do! Just paint your nails with a color (or 2 or 3, go wild. If its your first time, to get the trick, try one color and go from there) and let it dry. Once they are dry, take you tape and start making any design you want on your nail. Meaning  make horizontal or vertical lines. You can overlap the tape with other pieces (just remember what order you put them on) and try to make star shapes. Its time to get creative. Once all the tape is on (I did all the tape work first. You could do it by nail) choose which color you want on top. So remember, the color you put underneath is the one that will be popping out. Most likely the one you will see less. So apply the polish and then WHILE WET (this is very important. I didn't believe it myself when I read it and looked up a few more to make sure, but yes) remove the tape. if they are overlapping each other, take them off with the last one you applied first. This will now give you a cool design. When  you apply the top polish, I suggest doing one nail at a time because you don't want the polish to dry. You want to remove it wet. So, let's have a look at mine:)

Must add that these were done a few days ago and I didn't add a top coat so there's a lot of chipping . And it was my first time so these are , well I will just say it, A MESS!!!! But I wanted to show them because it was fun and if they didn't have all the chips and scrapes and such, they would look great. So please see the potential, not just what I am showing....lmao:) Also, in spots where the polish looks smushed, particularly my index finger on my left hand (picture below) its just part of taking off the tape when the polish is still wet. Its a learning process. You have to be careful because , like me, you can make a mess....

I just did a bunch of different designs on each finger and changed the base on two fingers:) You can do whatever it is you think of:)

Here's my other hand. I was going to add a glitter top coat but once I saw what it looked like, I decided against it. But that's what's on my pinky...

and just to highlight some of the different designs I did, here are some individual fingers:) Again, sorry about the no clean-up.

Not to sure why it looks so scratched up but...

SO there you have it. I hope you were able to see the potential. I will be doing these again:) You can also do it with normal tape and scissors or with scissors taht have different designs. I got my stripping tape on ebay for quite cheap. It can also be used to make these designs with the tape only.

Have any of you done these type of manis? Whats your favourite design to do? Did you have a hard time such as I did. I have since done it on some other nails as accent nails and it turned out much better. So like most things, practice makes better. Hope you guys enjoyed my post and love to hear all opinions from you guys. Till next time.....

                                   XXOXOO

Charity auction for KCPP

HEllo all,
Especially hello to  my many new followers. Great to have many new people:) Hope everyone likes what I am doing. Before I do my next post I wanted to share with you guys a great cause that I feel real strong about. As you all know, I have a cat, Karma, whom I love to death. Shes my furbaby. Who am I kidding, shes my kid!!! Hehehe. I have posted pictures of her here and there seeing as she is always right next to me, especially when I am doing my nails or taking pictures. She is so nosy. If you haven't seen her yet, here she is:)

AWE.. This is when she was a kitty. Miss her being that tiny:( She was so cute:)

And look at this close up!!! Looks like a bear:) 

Here she was last xmas. Not looking forward to putting the tree up. Came home and found her half way up , sleeping inside of it last year....

As you can see, shes very loved and very spoiled. She also the first cat I have had that actually fetches like a dog. She even comes to you and drops her little toy mouse at your feet and waits for you to throw it across the room. She runs after it and brings it back. Its awesome and just adorable...

So that brings me to the point of this post. A gril that goes by "Crystal Catlady McLeod Baker" posted about an auction she has going on. I will just copy and paste what she wrote. Will be easier to explain that way:)

CHARITY AUCTION FOR KCPP
Runs 12/2-12/8 at midnight, drawing will be 12/9 when I get up =)

http://kcpp.chipin.com/kc-pet-project

HELLO! If you don’t know me very well, let me introduce myself. My name is Crystal and I am the Feline Care Supervisor at the Kansas City, MO animal shelter run by KCPP. We are a 501c3 nonprofit caring for an average of 400 animals at a time, about 100 of them cats. Our

 goal is to home ALL healthy, treatable, adoptable animals. This is our first year running the shelter and we have had an average 90% live release rate for the year! In the shelters previous 20+ years, the highest live release was only 65%. We have been so much more successful this year then we could have imagined!

To help raise some money for my kitties, their supplies and projects, I am auctioning off these two FABULOUS and RARE polishes: Lynnderella Remember AND Nerdlacquer Event Horizon (see pictures). Both were purchased through blogs/groups, so the usage is unknown, but both appear full and are assumed to be swatched only. Here’s how this works:

1. Use the Chip In link above to make your tax deductable donation to KCPP. $5 for 1 entry to the raffle, $12 for 3, $20 for 5 which means you get one FREE! This donation IS tax deductible, so save your receipt!
2. PLEASE DO NOT NOT NOT make any notes in your donation this is a raffle!!! Chip In runs through Paypal and if they find out there is a raffle being held, they will shut it down and close my account.
3. I will get an email you have made a donation and will list the names in the order they come in. I will have a spreadsheet available to the public so you can see how many entries there are and what your number(s) assignment is. (http://tinyurl.com/cuh68b9)
4. I will use random.org on 12/9 to draw TWO numbers. The FIRST winner will get their CHOICE of polish first, and the SECOND winner will then get the other.

This raffle is being run in four FB nail polish groups. Odds will depend on how many entries are made before close on 12/8 at midnight.

If you have ANY question please PM me. I have held raffles in this manner many times before to raise money for my needy kitties. So if you have any concerns please let me know. 

I did further talk to her and she is a very nice person and doing a great job and its a great cause. I am a huge animal advocate and its great people do things like this for those that don't have a voice for themselves. There are so many animals out there, not just cats, that need good homes. It is simple for us to go and adopt one, which in itself is a great thing to do, but we sometimes forget all the hard work and money it takes for these places to do what they are doing. And if you are a pet owner like I am, I am sure you know how expensive vet trips are. So I don't need to say again how great of a cause this is.

But the great thing is that on top of being a great cause its also an auction for AWESOME polishes! I would love to win these!!! So even if it is just 5$ for one ticket, every dollar helps. And just think, you may just win:) Wouldn't that be awesome!!! I know that it is tough this time of year. Money is tight for a lot of us but just remember everything helps. If you cant afford it, try to do what you can , especially this time of year, but also all year round as well. Even if it is just donating some food to places like this or food and/or clothes to shelters for people, you would be surprised to know how even the littlest things can help. And don't forget, time is often a great gift, even more then donations at time. So if money is tight, try and see if you can do some volunteer. I find you tend to get more out of it yourself . Don't forget, a lot of people aren't as lucky as many of us are. Even people like me who don't have much money but never have to worry about a place to sleep at night or dinner on the table. To some people that would be a huge blessing. I wish  to all my readers very Happy Holidays. Be safe, have fun and be kind to others:) I will be posting before then, of course, but just wanted to say it.

SO, I just wanted to help spread the word for Crystal and hope you guys can also do the same:)

Thanks for reading guys:) 

xxx

Christmas collaboration giveaway!!! This one is HUGE!!!!

HEllo all,
I am so happy and excited to be participating in my first giveaway. I am involved with a lot of great , fellow bloggers!!! Its a HUGE one and there will be, I believe, 28 winners! SO make sure you all participate! Jill over at jilltastic nail design is the wonderful and gracious host. She deserves a great big Thank-you for all the hard work she did for putting this huge thing together. I am sure it was no easy task and quite time consuming. So make sure you send her some love and participate! I am terrible at computers and such. I am surprised at what I am able to do and have learned just from doing this blog! LMAO!! Point is, I am not to sure how to put the rafflecopter on my own page and all that so for now I will just give you the link to Jill's page and you can find all the info that you need there. So good luck to all and have fun:):)

Enter here>>>>>>> giveaway


That is all for now! Talk to you soon:)
xxx

Essie "Butler please" and "Where's my chauffeur" with China Glaze "Its a trap-eze" accent nails.

Well hello yet again:) Hope everyone is doing great tonight. I am sitting here having a quiet night so thought I would do a post about the mani I am wearing at the moment. I am in love with it! Exactly a week ago today, however, I was at the red hot chili peppers concert, having the time of my life!!! It was such an amazing show!!!! I wish it was a week ago right now:( Oh well, at least nails make me happy. Thank Goodness.
So, I went to my nail shop this week and was pleasantly surprised to see that they had the new China glaze "Cirque du soleil" line in. Usually we are so behind on new lines, I was very shocked to see it. I picked up "Its a trap-eze" and "whirled away" but will be showing you "Its a trap-eze today" which is the one I was most looking forward to. I also tried color blocking with tape for the first time and was happy with the results:) I used "Butler please" and "where's my chauffeur" from Essie's "Leading lady" collection:) I also picked up my first bottle of "Seche Vite" top coat and must say, it is incredible!! Really makes a difference. SO, on to the polish:)

First of, I will describe "Its a trap-eze" to you guys. Its is a really beauty! As I said, it was the one I was most excited for:)  It is a milky white base filled with lots of colorful glitter. I love these types of polishes. I own quite a few dupes for this but they are all indies. I was quite happy to see a store brand come out with one. Same with the other one I got. For the longest time I was dying for black and white bar glitters. Glad CG has one now. Back to "its a trap-eze" I will let you guys see for yourself how gorgeous it is!

Just look at it! Doesnt it remind you of ice cream or birthday cake and just crave for some sweets?? This is 3 coats with Seche Vite on top. I was never one to really use top coats all the time but I see now that it is a must. Takes away that gritty, harsh look especially with glitters.

and just to quickly show you a comparison of some other polishes I have that are close to this one but not quite. 

on the top wheel, 2 from the left of the colored ones, are Lush Lacquer "Birthday cake"" and Pretty and Polished "Party on my Yacht" . Close but no cigar. Luckily I love these so much that I don't mine. I also have Whimical by Pam "Hatched" which is in a yellow base, same with my 365 days of color "Soak up the sun" and I have one in a pink base also by 365 days of color "Too pink to function". All gorgeous polishes! 

Closer look at them.

And bottle shots. From left, China Glaze "ITs a trap-eze" , Lush Lacquer "Birthday cake" and Pretty and Polished "Party on my yacht" .

Now the reason I only showed you random fingers is because, as I said, I used it for two accents nails on each hands. On the rest of my fingers, I took a shot a color blocking. For this, I used stripping tape. There are many tutorials online that use regular tape for more funky designs but I wanted to keep it simple. I used 2 colors from Essie's "Leading lady" collection. First up is "Butler please" which is just a gorgeous and vivid deep marine blue creme. You know how much I love my blues and this one is definitely one of my new faves. Most blues tend to be on the light side. I love how this one is just dark and rich. First coat, like most Essie's was streaky but all you need to do is add another 1 or 2 depending on the color. I went with 2 since it is so dark. The second color I used was "Where's my chauffeur". Now if you own "Turks and Caicos" by Essie ,you probably think it is the exact same polish and skipped. It is very similar however it is a bit lighter and more on the blue side then the green side. Reminds me of that iconic "Tiffany" blue, just as CG "For Audrey" does as well. IT is a light blue turquoise/aqua creme. It is not too unique, there are a lot of dupes or close to dupes out there but I can never pass up such a beautiful color or an Essie. I do think it is a must have, especially if you don't have a polish that resembles it. I must also say that this collection is quite gorgeous. I was a bit turned off at first because of all the reds but they are all beautiful, rich cremes. There is also two glitters that are just perfect for winter. Anyhow, on to the manicure:)

right hand.

UGH!! I hate showing this hand but wanted to show the different patterns. My pinky got messed up on this one but ended up being a cool pattern:) As I said, I kept it simple. And now, all together..

You can see a bit of a knick on my pinky. That is due to the tape:(

Sadly, when I took pictures, I did not notice that little spot on my thumb:()

Now I know that these colors don't necessarily go with "Its a trap-eze" but I tried to find colors that matched some of the glitter. I was quite happy with how this turned out. I loved this mani and got quite a few compliments on them which always makes my day!!:)

So what do you guys think of it?? Think they go together or is it a complete miss?? Ever match colors that don't necessarily go together but somehow just end up working? Thats what I love about nail polish:) 

What do you think of Essie's "Leading lady" collection? Own any? If not are there any you want? How about from  China Glaze's "Cirque du soleil" collection? I have heard a lot of talk about them/

Well hope you guys enjoyed yet another post. Hope to hear from you guys. Till next time..:)

xxxx

NFU-OH #65 and NFU-OH aqua base

HEY HEY,
How is everyone doing this evening? Im cold!! Just put my pj's on and big wool socks, so I should warm up shortly. Im just a baby, no one else in the house says they're cold.... But anyhow.... I want to share with you a polish that has been in my collection for a little while. Its NFU-OH #65, a gorgeous, light blue holo with a strong linear effect. So, I tried this when I first got it. I had got this and #63 and was so happy. They were my first ever holo polishes. I had to put them on right away, I had not, however, heard about the aqua base or issues with applying. So I just put it on as I do with any other polish and it was a huge miss. I had bald patches all over the place. Even with adding coat after coat to try and cover the bald patches, it didn't work. I was disappointed  Then some girls told me not to wear any base coat at all. That did work a bit better, but it wasn't as gorgeous as I had seen in swatches. I really didn't want to order the aqua base. I hate buying a polish that is not a polish! But I did and must say, if you are going to get any of these babies, I strongly recommend it. I have also tried it with other holo polishes and it works just as well with them. So I was happy...BUT THEN, I went to put it on yesterday and when I opened my bottle, the polish was all thick and gloopy:( Apparently  I was not the only one to face this issue. Many others have had the same issue and said that adding thinner didn't help. However, all were talking about the gry holo (not sure of #), apparently that is the worst one for getting thick.) So, being that I never throw away polish (I have some that are 6 years old..) and that its a beautiful and pricey polish, I decided to try it on anyhow. And, even thought it was thick, it went on fine, so I am happy. My other bottle is also a bit thick but not as much. Guess I will just have to use them up quickly.....
Back to the polish, as I said, it is a gorgeous and VERY holographic polish. As I have said many times before, I LOVE blue and this shade certainly did not disappoint in color. All application issues aside, it is a great color. And they dry super fast as well. By the time I went to work on my second hand, the first was dry:) You guys wanna see pictures??? Well, I wanna share them!!

All are 2 coats of the aqua base, followed by 3 coats and taken indoors with artificial light. (summer is gone and we have had nothing but grey days out here)

Just look at that holo goodness!!! SO gorgeous!!:):) I love how you can see a sort of "rainbow" of colors in certain spots. It's right wherever the light hits it.

I do have on my new seche vite top coat on top but something I did not notice while wearing it but I see now is that  in certain pictures, it kind of looks matte? See that?

I added this one, which to some may seem like a bad shot, because I LOVE the way the ring finger looks. You can really see all the beautiful holo of the polish:)

Something I forgot to add, which is a trademark of this polish is there bottles. They're so very cute. The cap is a corset. Quite unique for a polish:)

I also added this one to show that, at certain times, this polish may not seem as awesome as everyone proclaims it to be. Without light, it doesn't shine but once there's light and especially sunshine, its just POPS!!!

and here is the aqua base I was telling you about. It's a lot darker then most base coats. When I just had that on, it actually looked good alone. I mean, for just a clean nails look. I always have polish on but if ever, for some strange reason, I wasn't wearing any, I would consider putting this on to make my nails white and shiny, if not for the price of it.

HEHEHEHEHE:) and of course,  as always, Karma was around for the fun. She's always nearby, curious as to what I am doing. It also always seems, that as soon as I am done my nails, she is just desperate to play or be pet. It's as if she knows and is trying to make me choose!!!! I love her to death but my nails must dry Karma:)





And there we have it. I would recommend these if just for their colors. They do have a lot of the core holo colors and they are beautiful. I do however have some called "Up colors' and I also got a light blue holo from them and it was just as pretty and cost less. ( I got those from  llarowe) I would not recommend buying a whole bunch at once since I heard from a few people that they also experienced their polish thickening on them. At the time I got these, not many brands had holo polishes out. Now it seems every brand is coming out with some so I am sure there're are many around for cheaper and good quality. I have heard a lot of good about the Color Club ones and those are cheap. Sadly, I don't get those out here. I would really like to get my hands on the Layla ones as well. I have so many of their magnetic ones and now my store just got the "mirror effects" ones. Hope the holo ones come out. They're also quite pricey though. I had to purchase my NFU-OH from nailpolishcanada.com which is a great site for fellow Canadians. Shipping is free for purchases over 25$ ( I always wait until there is 25$ worth of stuff I want) and shipping is fast! It's also my go to place for many polishes I can not get out here.

So, what do you guys think of NFU-OH polishes?? Do you own any? If so which ones? And did you experience thickening? Are you on board with the whole holo phase? Which holo brands do you like? Love hearing from all of you. Hope you like my post and keep coming back for more:)
And remember, stay drama free but never polish free:):)_