Sparkly Red Snowman Nails

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Janelle

Let the Christmas manis begin! Here’s how I kicked things off this year:

The red and white are nail polish, but all of the details on the snowman are craft paint. Here’s a better view:

I was tempted to add stripes to his scarf, but I just didn’t quite trust that I wouldn’t screw up the whole thing.

Oh, and I must tell you about this amazing red polish.

It’s Broadway Nails – Hot & Sexy. It’s a red micro glitter in a red jelly base. When you apply it to your nail, the glitter sort of sinks down so that the surface of the polish is incredibly smooth and shiny. You know how some micro glitter polishes have a textured finish and if you want them to really be sparkly, you need to add like, four layers of top coat? Well, this is not like that at all. The sparkle on this polish has such depth! I’m really going to have to fight the urge to make this the base of every Christmas mani.

That’s all for now! Thanks for reading, liking, following and commenting!

November Favorites

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Janelle

Wow, it’s December 1st already! That means it’s time to talk about November favorites. Here are the polishes that I was loving last month:

The first one is Wet n Wild Fergie – Gold Album. This is just the prettiest, sparkliest gold polish. I love it more every time I use it! Here I used it for the leaves in this my Golden Leafy Nails.

The base for these nails is NYC – Royal Chic. I am seriously in love with this polish right now. I know I’ve said this before, but it is just the perfect chocolate brown. It’s such a rich color. So dark, but it never looks black. I also used Royal Chic as the base for these next nails:

The polish I’m holding is one of my favorites for November also. It’s Spoiled – Vitamin C. These polishes are available exclusively at CVS for $1.99.

Vitamin C is pretty sheer on its own. It takes about 4 coats to be opaque. It’s almost an orange jelly base with tons of orangey-gold shimmer. I’ve layered it over orange polish in the past, but this is the first time I’ve ever tried to layer it over a darker polish. I was actually really surprised with the results! I fully expected it to add a bright orange shimmer to my nails, but it it really more of a golden – almost greenish – shimmer. I always love to discover that polish I have owned for a while can be worn some new and different way.

Here’s another one of my favorites:

This is NYC – Precious Peacock. This was really sheer and took 4 coats to be opaque, but the results were totally worth it! Such a beautiful shimmery teal polish! Most of the time this polish looked teal on my nails, but there were times when I felt like it was an emerald green. Such a perfect color for this time of year!

I was also a huge fan of this polish:

This is Fresh Paint – Let the Games Begin. In this picture it looks almost navy, but in real life it’s not quite that dark. It’s just a really beautiful creamy blue, and it’s opaque in one coat! I don’t know how much I’ll be wearing this color this month, since I plan to hit the red and green Christmas colors pretty hard, but I’m sure I’ll wear this a bunch in January and February. By the way, the white crelly polish with the colored matte glitter is Funky Fingers – Jawbreaker. The formula is just a little too thick and gloppy for me to call it a favorite.

Lastly, I loved this pale blueish-grey polish last month:

The base for this mani is Fresh Paint – Firefly. The second picture shows it on the right next to a white polish, just to prove that firefly isn’t actually white. Firefly’s formula is a little on the thick side, but it is a one coat polish, which is pretty amazing for a light polish! It’s a great color to us as a base for nail art if you don’t want to use a really stark white. I’m not sure how this color compares to OPI – My Boyfriend Scales Walls, but I think it might be close.

So, those are my favorites for last month! I plan to dive head first into Christmas nail art next. ‘Tis the season!

Water Marble Turkey Nails

Posted on November 25, 2014 by Janelle

I thought it was about time that I give water marbling another go. I sort of did a bunch of experimenting, and as a result, every finger looks pretty different. I’ll just say that’s what I was going for.

And here are select fingers from my other hand:

I think the polishes I was using were not really in the mood to be marbled with, because they were not very good spreaders. I was using bottled room temperature water, so I don’t think my water was the problem…. You know, these close up pictures really show what a pain clean up is after water marbling. Ugh.

Anyway, here’s another untried that got tried:

This is NYC – Rule the City. It’s a gunmetal shimmer with red micro glitter in it. The red glitter sticks to the sides of the bottle, but not a whole lot of it transfers to the nail. It’s still an interesting polish and I’m glad I have it in my collection, but it didn’t change my life or anything.

That’s all for now. Have a blessed Thanksgiving, fellow Americans! Everyone else, have a good forth week of November.

Peacocks, Gum Wrappers, and Crochet

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Janelle

I’ve turned two more of my “untrieds” into “trieds”. I know, those aren’t even words.

Here’s NYC – Precious Peacock:

This polish is pretty sheer, so it took either 3 or 4 coats to get it opaque like this, but it’s so pretty! The color is just so rich! Sometimes I felt like my nails were an emerald-y Christmas green, and other times I felt they looked more turquoise. Such a good color for the cooler months! My hubby even liked it, and as a rule, he hates anything that has to do with peacocks.

I’m sure you are all dying to know why my hubby, Mike hates peacocks, right? Okay, I’ll tell you. The first apartment we lived in after we were married was out in the country in redneck territory. One particular redneck owned a peacock that he just let roam around the country side. I don’t even know if that’s legal. Anyway, the peacock, who our little-old-lady-landlord called “George” liked to sit in the tree right outside our bedroom window. Well, every morning from April to August, George would sit in that tree at do his mating call, starting at about 4:00am. Here’s a youtube clip of what it sounds like. I’m a pretty sound sleeper, but Mike is not. He assaulted George with tennis balls, golf balls, rocks, a super soaker,…. George would just hop to a branch that was out of Mike’s reach. George would not be deterred. Anyway, we moved from that apartment after about 3 year when we bought our home. After we moved, we heard that George was hit by a car. We were not sad.

Back to nail polish. I played with my gum wrapper in church and came up with this:

Did you know that you can actually peel the foil off of the paper part of the wrapper? It takes a little bit of work, but then you are left with a really thin foil layer that has a little adhesive on the back.

Here’s another untried that I finally used: L.A Colors – Berry Red

This is a jelly formula. This is four coats and you can still see my nail line a little bit, and the color is still not as rich as it is in the bottle. It is nice and shiny and I’ve actually gotten multiple compliments on this one. I think I’ll have to do some jelly sandwiching with this one in the future.

You may or may not be wondering why I have not been posting as much lately. Well, I’ll tell you. It’s crocheting season for me. I mostly make hats. I do a handful of craft fairs this time of year, and I’ve been working to bulk up my inventory a little bit. Here’s one that I jut finished yesterday:

The “hair” is a whole bunch of loops like a Cabbage Patch Kid! And the eye patch is removable/adjustable.

I actually have a little etsy shop, but I don’t have any items listed for sale now since I’m offering them at craft fairs. I’ll let you know when I have some items back up for sale in my shop, just in case any of you are interested.

Ferny Nails and My Pile of Untrieds

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Janelle

So, first off, here are some ferny nails that I did:

These were inspired by Mr Candii Pants, who actually is a miss, not a mister. Check her out on youtube and/or instagram. She does some of the coolest free hand nail art.

The base color for these was Fresh Paint – Firefly. It’s an almost-white-but-actually-a-pale-bluish-grey color. And it’s a one-coater! By the way, do you prefer “gray” or “grey”? I like “grey”. It just seems like a nicer, softer spelling.

I painted all of my purple ferns first, then blue (I think), and then green. It’s just way easier to do all of one color at a time, when possible. I used a shiny top coat, but I think these would have worked well with a matte top coat also.

Now onto a completely different subject: My untried polishes. Here they are:

Now, some of these are untried because I got them on clearance when they were out of season. Others are untried because… I don’t know. I don’t really have any good reasons. I decided that I really need to tackle this pile, so I’m going to make a good effort to reach for these polishes until they are all tried!

I’ve tackled two so far. Here’s Wet n Wild – Echo Dark from the recent matte collection:

It’s a little tough to see, but I actually did a jelly sandwich with this polish. I was pleasantly surprised that the polish still looked blue in person instead of black. I didn’t love the formula though. I can’t quite pinpoint why I didn’t. It took a while to really dry, so my nails ended with some little marks in them. That irritates me like crazy.

I also tried Sally Hansen – 3K or More:

The sun came out for me, so I got a nice sparkly picture! This is a nude polish with a gold shimmer in it. I don’t know how I feel about this polish yet. I feel like it looks really pretty in the picture, but I don’t think this shade of nude looks the best with my really light skin. There’s a bit of a yellow undertone, and I generally do better with cooler shades. It’s growing on me, though. This is a good pallet cleansing polish. After wearing Echo Dark for a few days, I felt like I needed something a little more neutral. This polish might be a little hard to find. I got this in a clearance bin awhile ago.

Oh, can you tell my nails are shorter in the last picture? I had some nail peeling going on, so I just gave them all a chop before one just broke off.

Well, thank you all for reading! Find me on instagram and facebook!

My Fall 2014 Limited Edition Polishes

Posted on November 12, 2014 by Janelle

I just sort of realized that I’ve picked up a few limited edition nail polishes recently that I haven’t shared on here, so… Shame on me. These are all drugstore polishes that cost about $2 each. Really, I love a good polish, but I’m no snob.

I haven’t gotten around to wearing all of these on my nails yet, but if I wait until that day comes, these will be long gone. The swatches that are next to the bottles are all two coats.

Let’s start with the Wet n Wild Megalast Matte collection. There are 6 polishes in this collection, but I just grabbed the two that spoke to me the most.

This is Careful, It’s Vine-tage:

This is a beautiful dusty purple in the bottle, but it does dry a good bit darker. My swatch looks REALLY dark, but when it’s on the nail, it’s still clear that it’s purple, not black.

This is Echo Dark:

This is a beautiful deep blue in the bottle, but on the swatch it really does look almost black. The formula is a jelly, which seems weird for a polish with a matte finish. I’m a little disappointed that it dries so dark. I haven’t done a full mani of this yet, but I’m pretty sure that it will just look black once I have it on. I wonder if I could make a jelly sandwich with this… If I try that, I’ll let you know.

Next I have two polishes from the NYC Fashion Queen collection. This collection of six polishes has been around for a few months, and I didn’t think I wanted any of the polishes…. Until I got a $1 off coupon. That prompted me to pick up two.

Here’s Royal Chic:

I highly suspect that this is a dupe for Essie – Little Brown Dress, but I don’t know for sure. This looks like Hershey’s Syrup when it’s wet. It’s such a rich chocolate brown! It’s dark, but it is definitely brown, not black. I used this as a base for my recent Golden Leafy Nails. I’m a little bit in love with this polish right now.

I also have Rule the City:

This is a gunmetal grey micro-glitter polish with slightly larger red hex glitter. The red glitter tends to stick to the sides of the bottle, so on the nail it looks like it has less glitter than it does in the bottle. The finish is a little bit textured. I have yet to wear this, but I’ll bet it would look super pretty with a shiny top coat…. It might even look awesome with a matte top coat.

Last I have Sinful Colors – Prosecco.

This is from the Sinful Shine line of polishes and the collection is called Shining Bright Off the Runway. There are 8 polishes in the collection. The display said, “5x more glossy that patent leather shoes!” Who the heck comes up with stuff like that? What kind of gloss-o-meter is used to determine that sort of thing? Anyway…

After I bought this polish, I found out that it’s kind of the big deal color from this collection. People out there are searching high and low to find it. I found mine at Rite Aid, by the way.

I have actually worn this polish, but I was a dork and deleted, so you’ll have to check it out on my instagram. I think I had to apply three coats to get good coverage. It really is super shiny! Because it’s sheer, you can sort of slop it on and it will still look good. I actually didn’t love the color at first, but it really grew on me! It’s a perfect color to wear when you need to look a little more professional for work or an event or whatever.

Okay, so that’s the end of that!

I’m looking for a little feedback from you. Would you rather see a series of posts that are color themed (my favorite reds, my favorite pinks,…) or would you rather see posts that are brand themed (my favorite Sinful Colors, my favorite Wet n Wild,…)? Or do you mostly just care about nail art? Any feedback is appreciated! Thanks for reading!

Golden Leafy Nails

Posted on November 6, 2014 by Janelle

Right now I’m spending a good chunk of my free time raking up all of the leaves in our yard, so it seems like the appropriate time to sport some leafy nails. Here they are:

I just can’t make my right hand pose nicely. It’s all awkward or something. Anyway, the base for these nails is NYC – Royal Chic. I sort of think this is from a collection that was out not that long ago, so it might be a little hard to find now.

The wet polish looks just like Hershey’s Syrup. I feel like this polish should smell like chocolate.

Then I added some leaves with Wet n WIld Fergie – Gold Album. Every time I use that polish I can’t believe how beautifully gold and sparkly it is.

I was sort of tempted to just “leaf” my mani like that, but since I had already pulled all of my fall colored polishes off my rack, I decided to go ahead and add some color. I used polishes that tend to to be sheer so that the gold would show through. I just used a little brush and added a little bit of color to each leaf. I topped it off with a shiny top coat.

After four days of wear, I had no major chips, just some tip wear. I touched up the tips of my nails with the brown polish and then for kicks I added a matte top coat.

I really like how this looks with a matte top coat! The metallic leaves just really pop off of the brown background! I think I’m going to get a full week’s wear out of these. Hooray for that!

Thanks for reading!

October Favorites

Posted on November 4, 2014 by Janelle

So I’ve been a bad blogger recently. I’ve been working extra hours at my job, plus this is the busiest time of year for my Pampered Chef business. Okay, those are my excuses. So…. October favorites. Here they are:

Now, four out of the five of these polishes I bought in Canada, so I think they are going to be next to impossible to find for my fellow U.S. Americans. Side note: Do you know the sales taxes in Canada (or at least in Ontario) are like, 13%? Ugh, it’s painful! It was like a dagger through the heart whenever I went to pay for anything. If I was Canadian, I would totally come to the U.S. to shop for stuff…. Except for these nail polishes.

Let’s start from the left.

This is Essence Effect – Glitz & Glam. Here I have it swatched over black. It’s a clear base with small and medium size pink hex glitter with a mint green shimmer running through it. When it’s worn over a dense pink glitter polish, the green shimmer sort of gives a duo-chrome effect. This also looks cool over a mint green polish. I got this in Canada, but I think you might be able to find these at Ulta. Not sure.

Next we have…

Joe Fresh – Twilight. This is a flaky polish, but the base is a sheer black instead of your typical clear. I think it took 3 or 4 coats to get the desired effect, but it was so worth it! When I had this on, I could not stop looking at my nails!

And…

Joe Fresh – Bumbleberry. I don’t think that’s an actual type of berry…. Unless is some sort of exclusively Canadian berry. Anyway, this picture does not do this polish justice. I messed around with my lighting, and I just couldn’t capture the true color. This polish is much more purple in real life. It’s just a really beautiful berry color. It seems like it should be a really common color, but I didn’t have anything really close already in my collection. It’s on my toes now. It’s just a perfect girly fall color.

Next we have…

Joe Fresh – Sour Citron. This is an almost neon color that straddles the yellow/green fence. It’s the perfect color to top with a glow-in-the-dark topper for all of your Halloween activities. The formula is really great on this, too. Usually colors like this are super sheer, but I think this only took 2-3 coats to get the color you see in the bottle.

Finally we have…

Fresh Paint – Sugar Crush. Ever since I got this polish back in the summer I have been eagerly anticipating October, just so I could wear it over black. It’s just amazing. I could go on and on, but I’ll spare you. By the way, as far as I can tell, this is a perfect dupe for Essie – Shine of the Times.

I promise that I won’t keep you waiting forever for my next post! I know all of you have nothing better to do than to keep refreshing your screen on my website to see if I put up a new post. (That’s some tongue-in-cheek, there.) Thanks for reading and commenting!

An Actual Reason to Shop at Dollar General

Posted on October 27, 2014 by Janelle

Dollar general stores scare me a little bit. It seems like you can always find at least one weirdo customer in there shopping at any given time, and I think the stores are always run by chain smoking 20-year-olds. Seriously, the last time I was in a Dollar General, there were 2 young female employees talking about how much they loved to smoke. The one was saying that she knew she should quite because she was having trouble breathing every morning. Geez. Yeah, maybe you should quit.

Anyway, there is one reason, and one reason only that I go into Dollar general stores: they’ve got nail polish. Specifically today, I want to talk about Boadway Nails High Shine Nail Polish. The only place I’ve ever seen this polish sold is at Dollar General Stores. (If you’ve seen them any where else, please comment below!) That means that if you want to try these polishes, you’re going to have to suck it up and actually go into a Dollar General store. I promise you though, it’ll be worth it.

The in store display looks like this:

Admittedly, this is not the greatest picture, but I sort of hate taking pictures of stuff in stores. It makes me feel like a creep or something. Anyway, do you see the little yellow price stickers? That’s right, these little polishes are only $1 each! As you can see, there are 4 tiers with 8 colors each. (The middle tier has lip gloss.) I don’t think there are any repeats, so that makes a grand total of 32 colors available.

So far I’ve purchase these seven:

Here’s a little review of each along with a swatch. Each swatch is 2 coats of the polish.

Starting with the upper left corner, we have Dark Night.

This is a REALLY dark purple. In person it’s not quite as dark as it appears in the photo. I thought at first that this was going to be a jelly formula, but it’s actually really opaque in just two coats. It applies really nicely.

Next is Sour Apple.

This is a super pretty almost neon green. I guess you could say it’s neon, but there are brighter greens out there. This is mostly opaque in two good coats or 3 thin coats. I really, really like this polish! The formula is really good! Like, surprisingly good for a $1 polish! Here it is in action:

Next is Space Flight.

This is the prettiest blue jelly! I used this for my glitter and my half moon manis during the 31 day challenge. Like all jelly polishes, the color really deepens with each coat.

The first polish in the second row is Hot & Sexy.

I bought this because I had been itching to get China Glaze – Ruby Pumps, but I hate spending $7 on one polish. This is a fine red glitter in a red jelly base. It’s just so pretty and sparkly! Two coats gives good coverage and sparkle, but I think a third coat would make it even prettier!

Next is Snow White. I originally got this to do a white polish comparison. Eh, its just okay. Check out the link if you’d like more info. I probably will actually use this one for some frankenpolishing down the road. I don’t actually have swatches of my white polishes on a swatch wheel because… it’s just white.

Next is Base Coat.

The dumb thing is it’s not an actual base coat. It’s just a really sheer nude color. Obviously it’s really sheer, because you can read “Base Coat” backwards through the polish. (I write the names of the polish on the back of each of my swatches.) I got this color to use as a base for french manis. It’s not an exciting color, but it gets the job done.

Last we have Paradise Water.

I was really hoping that this would be opaque on its own. Obviously, it’s super glitter packed, but not quite enough to be opaque. Oh well, for a dollar, I think it’s still worth it. I haven’t really played with this one much, but I think I’ll have fun layering it over different colors.

If you decide to brave your local Dollar General for any of these polishes, please let me know what colors you get and what you think! Thanks for reading!

Liebster Award

Posted on October 23, 2014 by Janelle

Today’s post is going be a little something different. Hopefully you all won’t mind too much…

I was nominated by Pretty Drastic Moves for this little award!

Thanks for the nomination! I found this post from Sopphy Says with a little information about the origin of the Liebster Award, if you care. She gives a nice little history lesson.

Here are the rules :

•You must link back to the person who nominated you.
•Nominate 11 blogs to receive the award who have less than 1000 followers.
•Answer a list of 11 questions set by the person who nominated you.
•Set a list of 11 questions for the people you nominate to answer.
•Inform them that they have been nominated by commenting on their blog.

Now, onto the 11 questions I was given:

1. What is your favorite dessert?

-Anything chocolate. I’m a huge sucker for anything that is chocolate and mint or chocolate and raspberry.

2. Where did your last kiss take place and with whom?

-My hubby this morning before he left for work.

3. If you could be anyone for a day, who would it be?

-Either someone who was in Jesus’ inner circle, like one of the disciples or Martha or Mary. I think it would be crazy to see Him in action, eavesdrop on His casual converstaions, watch his mannerisms… My second choice wold be Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved the Little House books as a kid!

4. Who is your favorite fictional couple?

-Mr Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennett. “In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” So offensive and romantic at the same time. And I know nobody asked, but I would like to say that I love Colin Firth covered in lake water.

5. What’s your favorite song of the moment?

-I’ll just go with the song that was stuck in my head last night: I’m a Rover by Great Big Sea. Skip to 1:55. There’s way to much talking before they start singing. I’m kind of a dork. I pretty much only listen to WJTL (the local Christian station), musical soundtracks, and music that you would find at a renaissance fair.

6. What do you get complimented on the most?

-Either my nails or my facebook status updates. When people tell me they enjoy seeing my status updates, it’s a weird reminder that I’m not just writing them for my own amusement.

7. What was the inspiration for your blog title?

-I just like the word “snazzy.”

8. Do you have any annoying habits? TELL ME! 🙂

-Oh my. I’m messy. And I procrastinate. I’ll just leave you with those two.

9. Best Movie you’ve seen this year?

-I’m blanking on this one a little bit. Maybe Grand Budapest Hotel.

10. What was the last formal event you attended?

-I don’t think I’ve been to a an actual formal event since I graduated from college in 2000. Does wearing a bridesmaid dress count? If so, then my youngest sister’s wedding on January 1, 2010.

AND…
11. What are your plans for Halloween??

-Probably to sit on the front porch, watch the neighborhood kids run around, and hand out candy.

Okay, my nominees are:

1. Finger Candy

2. WonderfulWolf

3. Seven Layer Charlotte

4. Cooking Amid Chaos

5. Inside the Miles

6. Spaghetti for Supper

7. Polished by Amy

8. Not Another Dumb Blond

9. Lacquered Lori

10. A Craft & A Half

11. Don’t Judge Me, Okay

And my 11 questions for my nominees are…

1. What is your birth order, and do you behave like a typical oldest/middle/youngest/only?

2. If a tourist were to visit your town, what advice would you give him on what he should see or do?

3. What is one thing on your bucket list?

4. What has been your favorite vacation ever?

5. Where is one place that you would love to visit?

6. What is your biggest pet peeve?

7. What is your guilty pleasure?

8. What is your favorite mode of transportation?

9. How are you different from how you were 10 years ago?

10. What is your favorite season/time of year?

11. Do you recycle?

Make sure you nominees all link back to me so that I can see your answers! And take a little time to visit these blogs! Thanks for reading!

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