jelly (bean) sandwich

you guys knew i couldn't leave a mint creme alone, right? a solid green base makes me very creative :). i finally tried a manicure i've had in my head for a while now- not just a plain old jelly sandwich, but a jelly bean sandwich!

1 coat sally hansen xtreme wear mint sorbet + 1 coat spoiled pet my peacock + 1 coat unnamed love & beauty

man, i love this. look at that shimmer! the last coat of polish i used is a love & beauty polish (from forever 21) with a really cute leopard print cap. i first saw this polish on chloe's nails over two years ago, and basically ran to forever 21 to find it. i'm very sad that they don't make this anymore. i would describe it a super sheer pale yellow-toned green with lots of silver and green micro shimmer. lovely.

i don't really know why i'm calling this a jelly bean sandwich, other than the fact that my nails remind me of jelly beans and are making me hungry. . . . but everything makes me hungry these days lol. today i was on my way to work and had overwhelming urge for chocolate. so i pulled over at dollar tree and found a toblerone bar! score.

frank n. gray glitter

have you ever seen a mani on a nail blog that just screamed at you to recreate it? i saw this picture on the nail network and knew i at least had to try to replicate it. . . . although it didn't come out the same, i still liked the effect. and hey, new ideas for manis are always appreciated. sometimes i feel totally stumped and out of ideas, you know? i'm not alone in this. . . . right??

1 coat frank n. gray franken  + 1 coat nyc big city dazzle + 1 coat spoiled jewelry heist

i used big city sparkle for the tiny pieces of glitter. love this one. it contains red, blue, and fuchsia glitter in a clear base, and also the smallest specks of gold holo glitter. see pics of it here. jewelry heist is another gorgeous jumbled-up glitter that's hard to describe. from what i can tell, it's made up of gold and pale pink hexes, little tiny pink squares, and little tiny iridescent squares that flash blue and green. i'm not sure i did that justice with my description, but it's beautiful nonetheless. it should definitely be added to my "most beautiful polishes under $2" list, which i haven't made yet. . . . but someday!

nyc big city dazzle sells for $1.72 at walmart, or $1.99 at other drugstores. spoiled jewelry heist is $1.99 at cvs stores, but they often run 2/$3 deals on spoiled polishes. so even cheaper! woo.

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~!

31DC2012 DAY 8: metallic nails

i can't think of anything creative to say about this manicure. . . . i've been home with a raging headache for 5 days now. . . . i feel miserable. i'm just ready for it to go away so i can go back to working and making money. money is good, i could use some. you know what else is good? glitter on my fingernails.

1 coat sally hansen diamond strength white veil over 2 coats spoiled i'm ba-roque

what do we think about this combo? it looks prettier and sparklier in real life. white veil is still one of my favorite layering polishes ever. too bad it was limited edition.

sorry to be such a downer today. . . . a nail polish blog should be a happy place where we only focus on pretty things, right? more pretty things coming soon!

if it ain't baroque. . . .

i'm dedicating this post to my little music students. well not really, because my students don't read this (i hope). but if they did, they would get a kick out of this polish's name- spoiled i'm ba-roque. we just studied baroque music, and hopefully they still remember what it is. . . .

2 coats spoiled i'm ba-roque

most color-accurate

not color-accurate, but see how shiny and sparkly it is?

i bought i'm ba-roque as a replacement for wet 'n wild craze shield, which is now discontinued. click here to see how similar they are. i did 2 coats, which made it mostly opaque. 3 probably would've been better, though.

not much else to say about this one. . . . except that this is another gorgeous polish for less than $2!

31DC2012 DAY 6: violet nails

i'm not sure if this color is actually violet or not. actually, i'm not sure if i even know what violet is or not. i mean, i know it's a kind of purple, but i keep reading different things online- some say it's red-toned purple, and some say it's blue-toned. well whatever it is, this is a very pretty (blue-toned) purple polish-

2 coats spoiled are mermaids real?

whoa, so much gold shimmer! there's nothing subtle about this shimmer. i really like it though (of course i do, i like anything with gold shimmer). although i keep looking at it and wishing it were more red-toned. like a cross between are mermaids real? and zoya faye. hmmm. . . . maybe i should make one!

did i mention that this is a $1.99 polish available at cvs?? i think i might start working on a post- "the most beautiful polishes under $2." this would definitely be on the list.

hidden treasure over magenta

sally hansen complete manicure hidden treasure is a polish that needs no introduction. it came out in 2010 (i think?) as a limited edition collection, and basically started my obsession with nail polish. i remember seeing a photo online of hidden treasure layered over a pastel purple. the flakies looked like opals and i pretty much lost my mind over how gorgeous it was. i didn't really try to hunt a bottle down in all of the drugstore-stalking craziness, because i assumed i would never get my hands on one. wrong. one day i randomly stopped at a walgreen's to get a drink (and peruse the polishes, of course) and spotted it in the clearance section. marked down to $3.99. just insane.

here's hidden treasure layered over yesterday's not-quite-hot-pink manicure:

1 coat sinful fig + 1 coat spoiled club rat + 1 coat sally hansen complete maniure hidden treasure

i'm not quite sure how i feel about hidden treasure over medium shades. in some lights, it looks like glowing orange embers, which i love. but in other lighting (like the last picture of my nails), it looks more like a rainbow trout. i think it's the green flash with the magenta that i'm not so sure about. i may stick to layering it over light or pastel shades, which is awesome because it looks like opals. have you tried this over white yet?? soooo pretty.

ok, so to review, here are the 3 polishes i used for this look:

sinful fig, spoiled club rat, sally hansen complete manicure hidden treasure

glass fleck layering

pink is not my thing. it's just not. now sometimes i like really pale ballerina pink, or peachy pink, but mostly i hate pink. especially hot pink.

nevertheless, when cvs was running a 99 cents sale on spoiled polishes a couple of weeks ago, i had to pick up this hot pink glass-fleck shade. mostly because of this swatch that i saw online.

as pretty as club rat is, i wasn't quite ready for hot pink. so i layered it over one of my favorite polishes, sinful fig, a beautiful red-toned purple.

1 coat spoiled club rat over 1 coat sinful fig

aren't the glass flecks gorgeous?? in some lighting, they even flash blue. so pretty! club rat is pretty sheer on its own, so i would try 3 coats, of 2 coats over some sort of underwear polish. here are the 2 polishes i used for this combo:

spoiled club rat and sinful fig

foily peacock

*thank you stephanie for posting a link to my blog today! you're awesome and i've loved your blog for a long time.

today i added something fun over yesterday's green foil (revlon punk). this is pet my peacock by spoiled, the new-ish line of polishes from cvs. so, a couple things about this brand. . . . so many of their shades are dead-on dupes for sinful polishes. clearly, this was wet 'n wild's answer to the huge rack of sinful polishes available at walgreens. same price ($1.99), similar bottles, lots of dupes, you get the picture.

the other point i wanted to raise- am i the only one who thinks the name of this polish is super dirty?? pet my peacock?? i keep accidentally wanting to call it other things like "don't pet my peacock", "pet my pet peacock", etc. it's a goofy name, but a very pretty glitter.

spoiled pet my peacock over revlon punk

from what i can tell, pet my peacock (yup, still dirty) contains purple, bright blue, silver, gold, and teal hexes that are all the same size. this is just one layer, but i tend to like my hex glitters sparse like that. it makes them look more like individual polkadots! i bet this would look great over navy blue too.

spoiled pet my peacock

weakness wednesday: purple shimmers

specifically purples with gold or copper shimmer. i can't get enough of them. here's proof:

pure ice purple reign
l.a. girl color addict habit
spoiled are mermaids real?
zoya faye
nicole by opi purple yourself together

i just think purple goes so great with gold and copper. such a beautiful combination. manicures featuring these colors coming up in the near future!