It's Just So Riveting

When I started my journey to acquire six polishes from the China Glaze Hunger Games collection I certainly didn't think Riveting was going to be one of the hardest won polishes. The only harder to find polish was Luxe and Lush ... which I did expect. Riveting seemed such an odd and out there color that I didn't think many would hurry out to buy it.


How wrong I was! I searched everywhere and finally had to break down and ask a professional friend to buy it at a cosmetology shop.

I am so glad I did. This color is amazing and so eye-catching, especially in sunlight. As you can see, it practically glows in direct sunlight!!

Riveting before its name change was known as Fire in Flight and was inspired by the flaming Mockingjay. I can certainly see why. The metallic orange turns a fiery reddish orange and the golden shimmer flickers through turning the whole nail into flames.

For those wondering what this mani looks like out of direct sunlight here's a picture. :)

Giveaway Winner

After removing the invalid entires, out of the 530-some entires ... I was left with 493 valid entires to choose from. Not bad for a first giveaway!! Or any giveaway really. :)


Putting the number of valid entries into the random.org generator returned the winner, #44, Miranda W.


Congratulations to Miranda. She has already replied, and I will have the new additions to her nail polish collection shipped out as quickly as possible. :)

Thank you to everyone who entered, new followers and old!!

Giveaway Reminder & Questions

My Follower Appreciation Giveaway is ending very soon! I can't believe it's been a month already. However, I'm very excited to finally get to choose a winner and get the prizes shipped out.


There's still time if you haven't entered or simply want more chances to win (each time you post about my giveaway on Facebook or Twitter is one extra entry) go do so now!! If you don't enter you can't win after all.


Good luck to all those who have or will enter!!


As for my next giveaway, I have a few ideas. I'm trying to come up with things that can be shipped internationally this time. With this in mind, how do you gals feel about artificial nails? What about if they are designed and painted by me? What about preferred lengths? Short, medium, long? What about things that aren't nail related but simply beauty related? With this idea, I've heard that some countries don't allow the shipment of cosmetics. I would have to do a bit of research to find out which countries.


I'm open to suggestions for prizes. If you have something you'd like to see in a giveaway you can post ideas in the comments or use the 'Contact Me' section of this blog to find my email.

Dots Galore

Hello, my lovely followers!! I hope everyone is doing great today. I would be better if it didn't insist on raining. Still, I managed to get enough sun for pictures so I can't complain too much.

I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but I did a standard trim before painting my nails for the last post. I hadn't realized how long they were getting, and I'm really beginning to enjoy them short. I'm happy to say that this nearly evened out the break of my index nail. It's nearly unnoticeable now. Yay!


I also want to give you an update on my 'Electrify on Fast Track' mani. Electrify may be the prettiest glitter I own, but it's still a glitter. I seem to have forgotten that while I was enjoying it so much. It took me nearly an hour to remove Electrify from the tips even using the foil method. It was a painful reminder of the tediousness of removing glitters. By the time I was done there was bits of red and gold glitter everywhere and my nails were scrubbed raw. Glitter reminds me of sand in the way that it gets everwhere!!!

Full Sun

My left hand with its pretty purple thumb.

With this fresh in mind, I went for a very simple mani today. It's a recreation of The Polished Perfectionist's Polka Dots mani. I went with a different color theme and they turned out nice, but I still think hers are prettier. I definitely recommend that you go take a look at this mani as well as others by her. :) I loved her idea of taking a picture with hands wrapped around a cup so you can see the full effect, so I borrowed that as well.


Have I ever mentioned my love of my dotting tool? I bought it years and years ago as a tool for clay working. While I left the clay behind I found another use for it with my nails. I would love to pick up a set of various sized dotting tools but for this mani my medium sized dotter gets the job done nicely.

Natural Light, Slight Cloud Cover

My left hand with its mint green thumb.

I think these are a perfect combination of Spring and Easter. Everyone who saw them thought they were Easter egg nails.


Polish Used

• Borghese - Brillante
• Sally Hansen - Mellow Yellow
• Borghese - Buon Viaggio Mauve
• China Glaze - Secrete Peri-Wink-Le
• Sinful Colors - Beautiful Girl
• Sally Hansen - Mint Sorbet
• L.A. Colors - BCC 561 (White)
• Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri

Electrify on Fast Track

I am absurdly pleased to start this post with the happy, happy news that I now own both Electrify and Riveting from China Glaze's Hunger Games collection, Capitol Colours. I'm still trying to find Luxe and Lush, but that's not what this post is about.

Cloudy

2 coats Fast Track, 1 Electrify, 2 top coat.

Taken while out; I didn't have a nail polish bottle handy so forgive the partial zombie/lobster claw I have going on.

I was hoping to get better (read: sunny) pictures of these nails, but we'll all just have to make due with what I do have because it's a rainy mess in small town Pennsylvania right now.

Still, look at just how great Electrify looks with Fast Track. Personally, I think Electrify is one of the prettiest glitters I own with its small gold hex glitters and its larger bright red hex glitters. The red and gold really brings out the golden shimmer in Fast Track and adds spice to it's nude/tan color.


Luck shined upon me today ... with sunlight!!

Morning Sunlight

Ignore the wear at the tips. I was particularly hard on my nails this weekend. Actually, they held up much better than I expected with only slight wear & no chips.

This is definitely one manicure I have no want to remove! :)

Vintage Inspired

Can I just say thank you for all the wonderfully sweet comments on my Spring mani? I know I don't answer the comments as often as I should, but I just want you guys to know that you really know how to turn a bad day around and make a girl happy!! I treasure each and every comment.


I decided to stick to the theme and do something with flowers again. I know this has been done a thousand times before by others but this is a mani I haven't tried before.  So, I figured, why not give it a try? Vintage inspired, here I come!

Natural Evening Light

I tried to keep everything soft without bright sunlight. It just felt right with these nails.

Yep, that's a broken nail. Both index nails broke yesterday and contributed to my very bad day. Sadly, this hand, my left, is by far the worst. And it just grew out from the last break too!! :(

I did a Google search for vintage and came up with this vintage floral wallpaper. That and the tons of other vintage floral nails are where this idea comes from. With this design, I really don't think I can claim anything as mine since it's all been done before. So I give credit to all the nailers out there who have done this design before me!!

I think I'm finally getting the hang of swirled roses. It only took two days of near non-stop practice.

Is there anything you guys would like to see me do on this blog? I'm open to suggestions. :)

Polish Used

• Borghese - Brillante
• Sinful Colors - Beautiful Girl
• Wet n Wild - French White Creme
• Sally Hansen - Mint Sorbet
• Sally Hansen - Green With Envy
• OPI - Uh-Oh Roll Down The Window
• Hard Candy - Matte-ly In Love

Hello Spring!

And hello to all you wonderful followers, and happy spring! I became oddly attached to my 'Feeling Blue' mani, so I left doing a Spring mani to the last second.


Forgive me for at least some of the messiness of this design. My beloved nail art brushes are beginning to fray. They are old and I knew this was coming, but I'm still terribly sad to see them go. I've been putting off get new ones, but I think it's finally time.

I had a lovely sun going on my thumb but bumped it while it was still wet and sloughed off half the polish. :(

Today was a lovely day to begin spring in my small town. Slightly cloudy at various points in the day but it reached into the low 70's so I can't complain. I had the blinds and the windows open enjoying the sun and cool breeze. It's turning into a perfect evening as well.


How is the weather in your part of the world?


Polish Used

• Sally Hansen - Blew Me Away!
• Pure Ice - Free Spirit
• L.A. Colors Art Deco - Bright Green
• Sally Hansen - Green With Envy
• Sally Hansen - Mint Sorbet
• OPI - Uh-Oh Roll Down The Window
• Wet n Wild - French White Creme
• Revlon - Cloud
• Sally Hansen - Sun Kissed
• Sally Hansen - Fuchsia Power
• Revlon - No Shrinking Violet
• L.A. Colors Art Deco - Yellow (unseen sun)
• Pure Ice - Siren (Whoops, forgot this one)