KB Shimmer Totally Tubular

Back on land! To celebrate, I'm having a Veronica Mars marathon! I'm also trying out some new KB Shimmer polish I just got :] I'm really loving this turquoise with the pink and blue glitters! I'm not sure who started making circle glitters, but I am a huge fan.

Darling Diva T.N.T.

I'm currently in the middle of a Veronica Mars marathon! It is actually ridiculous how many episodes in a row I have watched today... I felt like a super lazy bum, and I figured that doing a little nail work would make me seem more productive! I'm not sure if this counts as work, but now I feel a little better about myself :]

I tried out one of my new Darling Diva polishes - T.N.T. I'm pretty smitten by it! It's a black jelly with green and gold flecks. It's a little tough to see the colors, so I took a bunch of different angled shots. I might have been singing the song the whole time.

Neon Accent Dots

I'm headed back offshore today! I meant to do a lot more nail designs while I was on land, but I got a little busy. I caught up on The Fall and started Breaking Bad, and between the two I've just been too overwhelmed with drugs and murder to do much else. Next time! I have been playing around with some neon polishes I bought last month though. The pictures are a little less intense than what it looks like in real life, but you get the picture. :]

Polishes Used

Essie Lights

Salon Perfect Sugar Cube

Salon Perfect Summer Escape

Salon Perfect Yowza Yellow

Marbled Foil

A few months ago I bought a bunch of nail foil from the Born Pretty Store. I've never used this stuff before, but the site has application instructions and a video tutorial! The video made this look super simple, but I had some difficulties with it. I think my major problem was getting the base polish just the right amount of sticky so that it'd pull the foil to it without being too wet. I guess I need to practice a little more. But not today! I've had enough foil fun for a little while.

Tips from a Shopaholic - Etsy Nail Polish Edition

Hello. My name is Laura, and I am an internet shopaholic. I spend hours meandering through my favorite sites, adding shiny new items to my invisible shopping cart. Just a few more clicks and these glittering gems are on their way to my doorstep. Over the years I've collected quite a list of fantastic online retailers that the novice shopper may not know about. Here are a few of my favorite nail polish shops on Etsy.

Pahlish
Pahlish has quite the collection of creams, jellies, and shimmers chock-full of a variety of glitters. Plus they have a clever name! Here are a few of the ones on my wishlist.

Dark Paradise

Toxic and Timeless

Smitten Polish

This shop has a knack for coming up with polish names that perfectly describe their color combinations. Some of these look edible!

Mint Chip

Chocolate Bunny Soup

Glimmer by Erica
Glitter attack!!! Seriously, if you love glitter polishes this shop is for you. Every time I wear one of these polishes I spend most of the day staring at my blindingly blinged-out nails.

Muy Caliente

Worlds Away

KB Shimmer
This is one of my all-time favorite shops. They also have a website which posts products a little earlier than the Etsy site if you're like me and need things immediately. I've actually camped out on this site eagerly awaiting the release of new collections. Many of these collections are seasonal, and if you don't jump on them quickly they are phased out.

Get Clover It

Jack

These are just a few of the dozens of polish shops I frequent, and I hope you like them! Do you have a favorite? Let me know in the comments! Next time I'll pick a different genre of shops to point out, and I'm always open to requests or suggestions.

Party Rockin' Mermaid Tails

I spent a good six episodes of Arrested Development attempting to do this quilted nail thing I saw on Pinterest. It looked so cool! But apparently it is impossible.... Hrmph.

After taking another episode to ponder my options, I decided to try this mermaid technique I saw on Chalkboard Nails. Since I'm trying to use household items for these manis, I used a couple bobby pins as dot makers! They worked pretty well :] I need to go out and get a couple more polishes (I only have 6 with me right now) but I like the way this scheme turned out.

Colors Used:

Sally Hansen Butter-fly Stroke

Sally Hansen Man-go Team!

Sally Hansen Blue-ming Fast

Essie Lights

Summery Saran Wrap Nails

A couple weeks ago I put 95% of my belongings into storage, including almost all of my nail supplies. So for the next few months I'm going to be doing manis that either use super cheap supplies or stuff around the house. I'm not sure how my family is going to feel about me going through their belongings looking for makeshift nail art supplies, but I think they'll get over it.

Today I did a saran wrap mani! I've been meaning to try this out, and it ended up being way easier than I thought! All you have to do is apply one layer of polish and let it dry. Then you paint on another color and dab it with crumpled up saran wrap. It looks a bit like sponge painting, but without any sponges to clean up.
;] I picked some summery colors even though today is a bit gloomy.

Colors Used:

Sally Hansen Butter-fly Stroke

Sally Hansen Man-go Team!

Teal and Orange Wedding Skittles

Two of my favorite people in the entire world got married this weekend!!! It was the cutest wedding ever! I like to think I had something to do with that - I suggested the wedding colors and voiced a strong opinion about the bridesmaid dresses - but really I was just along for the ride. Since I thought it was a little inappropriate to have wild colored nails for the ceremony, I went with a traditional French mani. But here's what I would have done!

Colors Used:

OPI A Roll in the Hague

China Glaze For Audrey

Here's a couple pictures from the wedding! 

Wedding Nail Sampler

I have no words when it comes to the Boston Marathon bombings today... I'm still going to upload this originally cheerful post, because during stuff like this sometimes you just need to look at something else for a while. My prayers go out to everyone in Boston today.

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One of my bestiest besties is getting married on Saturday! Today I put together a variety of sample nail designs for us bridesmaids. 

I think I like the middle finger the best! Perhaps as just an accent nail for a normal French mani..? I'll keep you posted on what I choose!

Golden Glitterati

Have you guys seen all of the "Draw My Life" videos on YouTube lately? I think they're super adorable! Too bad I'm not a YouTuber or else I'd join in lol. Maybe one day... Instead I have some glittery nails for you! I kind of just started painting and ended up at this... It's not really a gradient because the gold I used is flakey and makes little clumps, but I like how it turned out. :]

Polishes Used

China Glaze White Cap

Rimmel London French Ivory

KB Shimmer We Three Blings

OPI Goldeneye

Lacey French Tips

I have been doing laundry for what feels like an eternity! Bleck. While I was waiting for the 19384th load to dry I whipped up a little lacey number. These nail stickers are a little tough to keep flat... and I don't see them lasting too long, but they're pretty to look at!

You can get these stickers and tons of others at the Born Pretty Store!