purple prism

here's my favorite creation from my recent franken mania. i present to you purple prism, as suggested by the lovely karen from frazzle and aniploish :).

3 coats purple prism franken

for months, i've been lusting after purple jelly polishes with purple and holo glitter, like candeo colors orchid, lacquerlicious strawberry cosmo, and elixir lacquer with a k. but most indie polishes are a bit too expensive for me, especially when i only wear a polish once or twice :(. sad, but true. so i had the genius idea- why don't i try to make one myself with polishes i already own?? jelly polishes with glitter are pretty much the easiest frankens to make (in my opinion). so this is what i came up with, after lots of pouring, mixing, shaking, and testing-

i used a bazillion different polishes to get my final result. here are all the glitters-

born pretty store diamond nail art glequins #1, wet 'n wild wild shine kaleidoscope, l.a. colors color craze glitter bomb and glistening purple, maybelline color show sequins rose bling

and here are all the cremes i used to get the perfect purple shade-

l.a. colors color craze nuclear energy, julie g peep toe pumps, sinful dream on

whew, that was quite a list of polishes. but they combined into exactly what i wanted, which makes me happy. and i didn't have to drop $10 or more plus shipping to get it! my mother would be so proud lol.

 

jasmine inspired

i'm sure you've all seen pictures of the princess jasmine compact mirror by sephora. sooo pretty. but unfortunately, i wasn't able to get in on that one before they sold out. so instead, i thought i'd use the compact as color inspiration for my nailz~.

 base color: 2 coats sally hansen xtreme wear golden-i

magenta dots: julie g peep toe pumps

purple dots: l.a. colors color craze nuclear energy

lavender dots: sally hansen xtreme wear lacey lilac

lest you think i'm a creative genius (because i'm not), i stole this design from the polish you pretty blog. such a great design concept! i love discovering new ways to use dotting in a manicure. pretty darn foolproof :P.

well, i still don't have the beautiful princess jasmine compact, but this manicure is a pretty nice consolation prize. i really love the way it turned out. plus, i think purple and gold is always a winning combination :).

necklace nails

what goes better with peep toe pumps than a cluster of glittery necklaces?

base color: 1 coat julie g peep toe pumps

white stamping: jordana white

image plate: cheeky plate xl b 

gold dots: milani one coat glitter gold glitz

as soon as i saw this image on my new cheeky xl plate (yay~!), i knew i wanted to add gold glittery dots to emulate the look of jewelry. i really like the result, except that it kind of reminds me of this album cover from my childhood lol. anyone else feel old?

i love gold glitter. i pretty much want to add it to everything. is that a problem?

peep toe pumps

plum and berry cremes always turn darker on me. much, much darker. look at this pic for proof. in the bottle, manhattan looked like a lovely medium plum. on me, vamp city. but i will not be outdone by a silly creme polish. one day i thought, "hmmm, maybe if i pick a shade lighter than what i want, it will dry to the perfect hue." and it worked!

1 coat julie g peep toe pumps

i was feeling much too lazy to add a second coat, which would've probably made it darker and more vibrant. but i like the look with just 1 too. it's like a creme-jelly finish. very shiny. and not streaky at all! sweet.

oh yeah, and my pinky finger is back. the nail's still a lot shorter than the rest, but i can't bear to trim down the other ones :P. the good news is that my nails grow super fast now that i'm pregnant, so i'm sure it will be back to normal in no time.

i've now tried 2 julie g polishes, and i like them both! and i really like the square bottles (why, i'm not sure. i just do). you can pick this one up (and a slew of new, gorgeous shades) at rite aid for $3.99.

31DC2012 DAY 25: inspired by fashion

i used this particular day of the 31 day challenge as an excuse to try ruffle nails (originally by chalkboard nails). i've been wanting to test this out for myself for a while now!

base color: julie g 9 to 5

pink: spoiled club rat

yellow: revlon colorstay buttercup

purple: sally hansen xtreme wear lacey lilac

orange: wet 'n wild wild shine blazed

this took forever, but it was worth it because i love the outcome! my poor little bobby pin got quite a workout lol. here are all the polishes i used-

my husband (and my brother. . . . and my best friend) all said my nails look like easter eggs. . . . i guess i'm several months ahead, or behind, depending on which way you want to look at it. i don't really care, though, because it's super fun to look at. i could use something bright on my nails today, what with the nasty grey, rainy weather outside.

5 more challenges left! woot~!

9 to 5

i thought it was time to feature a new (to me) drugstore brand on my little blog today- julie g.

2 (thick) coats julie g 9 to 5

most color-accurate

9 to 5 is a chameleon of a polish. in direct sunlight, it is seriously florescent, bordering on neon. makes my skin look grey and dead lol. but in softer lighting (like the picture above), it looks like a subtle peach pastel. hmmmmm. strange. i wasn't quite sure about this one, but you wouldn't believe how many compliments i got on it today and yesterday. i guess it's unique enough that it gets some attention?

i paid $3.99 for this at rite aid, which is a fair price for such an unusual shade. because of its neon-like tendencies, it was a little hard to apply. it's not thick or gooey or anything like that, but you have to do thick coats to keep it from dragging. and you definitely need top coat to smooth everything out. i'm ok with that, though, no big deal.

what i don't get is why it's called 9 to 5. . . . this, to me, is not exactly a work-friendly shade. i mean at my job, i can wear whatever i want, but in a super conservative office setting? neon pastel peach is probably not the best thing :P.

polish purchases: september edition

julie g 9 to 5, color mates spring fling, sinful supernova

nail pattern boldness flipping out hard, opi sit under the apple tree, pure ice heartbreaker (good version!)

with flash to show the shimmer~!

color mates spring fling ($1)- i saw this brand (color mates) at dollar tree the other day, and had never heard of them before. they had a large variety of shades, and they were (duh) $1, so i decided to try one. haven't tried spring fling yet, but i'll keep you posted when i do!

pure ice heartbreaker ($1.99)- if you haven't read about this online, heartbreaker is a gorgeous green shimmer layering polish that you can get for super cheap at walmart. however, it's been reformulated into a dull, boring turquoise shimmer. boo. while "grocery" shopping the other day, i found several of the old (amazing) version still on the shelves, so i had to snatch them up! my 1st bottle was running dangerously low. . . .

sinful supernova ($1.99)- i found this in the new sinful colors hot flash metallics display at walgreens. it's a gorgeous champagne/rose gold foil that's opaque enough for stamping! if you see one, i suggest you grab it!

julie g 9 to 5 ($3.99)- i'd been picking up this one every time i was in rite aid, so i finally decided to bite the bullet. it's kind of a neon pastel peach, if that makes any sense. love it!

opi sit under the apple tree ($6.80)- i think this was originally $8.50 at target, but i had a little bit of money left on a gift card, so it brought it down to exactly $6.80. this is a sheer yellowish green shimmer polish which looks killer over blues and greens. to be honest, i bought it just for layering. 

nail pattern boldness flipping out hard ($8 + $3 s/h) is definitely the most expensive polish this month. but totally worth it! i'd been wanting nail-venturous floam for months now, and discovered this very similar one on etsy! i'm loving the blue and green matte glitters. this is only the 2nd indie polish i've ever purchased! very excited :)

GRAND TOTAL FOR SEPTEMBER: ($26.77)

waaay better than last month. i only added 6 polishes to my collection, and stayed close to my $25 a month budget. since my collection has gotten so large, i'd like to be more selective about ones i buy. these days, i'd rather buy something really special than just whatever's on sale.

polish purchases: august edition

lilacquer puca, lilacquer bakeneko, julie g peep toe pumps, milani hot pink, milani hd

nicole by opi a million sparkles, la colors treasure island, sinful gorgeous, nina ultra pro electric slide, nina ultra pro holographic topcoat

lilacquer puca (FREE~!)- i bought lilacquer bakeneko (the full-sized one) and cathleen, who owns the lilacquer etsy store, sent me a free one! so cool!

la colors treasure island ($1)- a polish i used to own, but gave away to one of my little piano students because she liked it so much. wasn't that nice of me? i thought i didn't really like it that much anyway. but sure enough, after i gave it away, i decided it was gorgeous and i needed it. so i kept stalking dollar tree until i found another one. good story.

sinful gorgeous ($1.99)- it seems like i buy at least one sinful polish every month doesn't it? well here's a spoiler alert: today's september 1st and i already bought another one for this month. heehee~! anyways, back to gorgeous. it's a fitting name because it really is gorgeous. it's a chrome duochrome (is that redundant?) that flashes blue, teal, and green. very mermaid-esque, which is always good in my book.

milani hd ($2.49)- i had a $3 off coupon at cvs, so i decided to pick up another bottle of the awesome hd. my other bottle was getting dangerously low from making too many holo frankens. i just love these milani holos. click here to see the rainbows that hd produces.

nicole by opi a million sparkles ($3)- you might be wondering how i got this polish for $3. well i'll tell you. i randomly got a $5 off coupon when i bought a drink at cvs the other day, and of course i decided to use it on an awesome polish! i've never tried bar glitter before (truth be told, i've never found it particularly appealing), but this one looked so sparkly that i couldn't resist! and plus, you know, the coupon.

julie g peep toe pumps ($3.99)- this is the first julie g i've ever tried. i saw swatches of it online, and it looked like the perfect raspberry shade, which i've been hunting for for a long time.

nina ultra pro electric slide ($4.69)- this combines two of my favorite things- green and iridescent glitter. it's a super bright green that looks like jelly sandwich in a bottle. awesome.

nina ultra pro holographic topcoat ($4.69)- it's not really a holographic topcoat, like i've said before. it's mostly just gold iridescent glitter, which i love~!

milani hot pink ($5.49)- i loved milani lavender so much that i had to try another jewel fx (even though hot pink doesn't say "jewel fx" on the bottle like lavender does. . . . hmmm).

lilacquer bakeneko ($9 + $2 s/h)- the tiny sample size of bakeneko that i bought was making me feel panicked that i would run out of such a glorious polish, so i pretty much had to buy a full-sized bottle. it's seriously amazing, if you haven't heard me blabbering about it already. see swatches here.

GRAND (POLISH) TOTAL FOR AUGUST: $38.34

ok, so at this point, i'd already spent waaaaay too much on actual polishes, but then i just had to buy-

mash plates 26-50 ($13.99)- these came with free shipping! and they're just so darn cute! click here to see all of the plates i got from the awesome oooh, shinies! blog.

THE REAL GRAND TOTAL FOR AUGUST: $52.33

eek :S. i went just a little (a lot) overboard. i will do better this month, i swear!