NYE 2011 Manicure

I'm fairly certain I won't be changing this before tomorrow, or if I do I'll just be adding a TON more glitter somehow, but this is pretty much it.

I used Wet n Wild Black Creme and the Essie Matte About You top coat, followed up by China Glaze Fairy dust for the dots! I know, I know, more polka dots Lisa?  Well.. yes. Yes, more polka dots.

I like it. It's simple, elegant, and still has that bit of sparkle. That being said, this NYE I'm aiming for a LOT of sparkle so we'll see if I change it up a bit before tomorrow night.

HAPPY NEW YEAR :D

Melmer Stash Pics 2011 (Pic Heavy)

I hope everyone had a great holiday! After working so hard all month it's nice to have a few days off to actually relax and get things done around the house. That being the case, I had a moment to put together my brand new Melmer I got for Christmas! Melmer is the nickname for a 3 drawer storage unit from Michael's, basically the mini version of Ikea's Helmer storage.

The new space gave me a whole new organizational opportunity, so instead of storing everything by brand like I was doing before I decided to arrange my bottles by colour instead. I think this is going to be an ideal way of doing things for now, finding a colour or comparing a few is going to be a lot easier now that they're all in the same spot!

So to bring 2011 to a close I thought I'd show you the new and improved stash au Lisa!

Oh hello top drawer

Featuring: Blacks, whites, greys, silvers, gold, yellow, orange, red, pink, brown and crackles

Silver glitters, whites

Black, grey, silver

Yellows and golds

Oranges

Pinks

What? MORE pink? Who would have thought..

Browns and crackles/shatters

Reds

More reds

Drawer 2: Blue, green, purple

Purples that lean pink

Purples that lean blue

Blues

Blue that leans green/turquoise

Blues that lean green and various bluish glitters

Greens that lean blue

Greens

Greens that lean yellow

Third drawer! Base coats, top coats, treatments, tools

Isn't it exciting? I went through and  made a spreadsheet of all the name brand polishes I have (a handful of my polish came from department store kits that were gifted to me as a teenager) and it came to 164 bottles. I didn't count the top coats and base coats either. So there we have it! If someone had told me I had that many greens I would have told them they're crazy... Funny to see I have loads of 'em!

I hope you enjoyed, feel free to ask me about any polish you see above.. whether you want the name or even a swatch.

Lisa

NOTD: Christmas Lights!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

This mani was definitely more of a process than almost any other that I've done. It wasn't hard, just time consuming. I got the idea from I photo that I saw on Pinterest, but I haven't been able to relocate the link I found to credit the original poster.

Hooray!
The base colour is OPI Gargantuan Green Grape, then I used thread (that's right, thread) on my nails which I adhered with some top coat, and I used acrylic paint to make the bulbs. After that I used a Stripe Rite white polish with a thin brush to do the detailing on the bulbs, and for the dots I used Rimmel French Tip White and a bobby pin.

Look at all the things I had to use!

Holy smokes! Here's a couple more shots I took closer up.

I hope everybody has a safe and happy holiday! Surround yourselves with the people you love and indulge in the good company of friends and family.


EDIT

I found the post!!
Click here for the original idea/tutorial.

<3
Lisa

NOTD: Santa Baby Dotticure

Another Christmas mani for you! I've been even more into vintage lately than I normally am, so naturally red nails and polka dots have been very appealing to me.

The base colour was Sally Hansen Red Carpet (which I'm going to need a back up of, I'm running low) and for the dots I used Sally Hansen Green With Envy and Rimmel  110 French White Tip Pro. If you've never done a dotticure before you don't have to go out and buy a dotting tool, all I used was the tip of a bobby pin and it worked out great.

I hate posing with polish bottles

One of my mom's Christmas presents

I'm basically in love with this look. I didn't use any base coat (shhh!!) so I hope it doesn't chip soon, I want this to last until at least mid-week. That will give me time to think up something to hopefully top this one, but that might prove to be tricky. 

Hopefully you're not sick of Christmas music yet. This is my favourite, classic version of Santa Baby by Madonna.

Think of all the fun I've missed

Think of all the fellas that I haven't kissed

NOTD: Santa Wears Faux Fur

Hm, seems as though time really got away from me there. It's funny how life throws all sorts of things at you at once: a new job, the end of a relationship, Christmas season... Anyway, what matters is I'm here now (and a special shout out to Jenny, who gave me a bit of a nudge to come back).

So here's my current NOTD and it's super festive! I used OPI Double Decker Red for the base layer, So Easy Stripe Right for the "fur" and Finger Paints Private Collection on  top of the white to give it a bit of a shine.

Whaddaya think?? :D

P.S. Yes, those are Christmas socks

Recent NOTD: OPI Zom-body To Love + Splatter

I layered OPI's Zom-body To Love over OPI Gargantuan Green Grape, which I don't think was really necessary at the end of the day because Zombody seems to have turned out pretty opaque after a few coats. Did I mention it's glow-in-the-dark? WIN.
To make it more Halloweeny I threw some black splatters over it with the method I used in this tutorial using Wet n Wild Black Creme.

My glow in the dark photo capturing skills are definitely sub par, but for once I actually managed to get something to appear so that's good enough for me. However, I didn't get a chance to take any pictures of the manicure during the day but the flash actually did the colour justice.

Left hand

Right hand

GLOWING

Not too shabby, huh?

Past NOTD: OPI My Private (Original Holo Version)

This was the result of a swap through Makeup Alley with a lovely lady named Ashley. My Private Jet is an infamous polish known for having two released versions: a FABULOUS holographic one which is really hard to find, and a really boring dud version that doesn't have the rainbow-y goodness of the first. Luckily for me, Ashley sent me pictures of the polish beforehand to ensure that I was indeed getting the real deal.

So MPJ is a brownish greyish polish absolutely riddled with linear holographic sparkles.

Look at all the rainbows! YAY! Best swap ever. Sorry for all the pics I just got so so excited :)

Past NOTD: Revlon Valentine

I love when nail polish has a story. This colour is one of the only ones I own that actually comes with a tale to tell so I'm happy to be able to share it with you.

One morning last November, I left the house to go to my student placement for school with naked nails. This wouldn't have really mattered if halfway through the day I hadn't made plans to meet a cute boy I liked (currently my dear boyfriend) for coffee. Again, why did it matter? Well my nails were rather stained from the polish I'd worn previously, and if you've never been for coffee before let me tell you: hands tend to be instrumental in the act of holding a cup, sometimes even a focal point when bashfully avoiding eye contact. By the the time we'd planned the date I was already at placement, so on my break I scurried out to the drug store to buy myself some polish. After making sure it was okay with everyone's noses, I proceeded to paint my nails while completing my work and as a result (directly or indirectly... though I'm going to go ahead and say directly, just for the fun of it) the night went off without a hitch.

DBF always laughs at me when I tell this story, because I'm fairly certain he didn't notice my nails at all, but I'm also fairly certain that had they been stained and gross - he would have.

So here it is! Revlon Valentine - a juicy red jelly. Sorry for the crappy car pics!

Direct sunlight

Shade

Hooray for red polish and happy stories!

Past NOTD: China Glaze Fairy Dust

Right off the bat, I'm going to admit that I thought I would hate this more than anything I've ever worn. Fairy Dust is a clear polish with teeny, tiny holographic glitter. I don't really like it as a layering polish, which is what it's intended to be, so I thought I'd give it a shot on naked nails and thought to myself "who would want to wear a sheer polish like this? I mean, what's the point?"

It was stunning. The subtle hint of little sparkles frequently caught my eye and I found myself totally enamoured with this look. It was elegant but youthful and not "in-your-face" by any means.

Click me!

The only downside to this polish is the obvious fact that, being sheer, any staining or dirt under the nails is visible. Other than that I absolutely LOVED this! Thoughts?

Apologies and past NOTD - Hard Candy Beetle

First off, allow me to state that I should be renaming this blog to "Lisa's Blog of Neglect" because, if you hadn't noticed, I haven't actually posted since September. To all my followers: Thank you for sticking around, I promise I will keep up to date as much as I can from here on end.

That being said, it's not as though I haven't been photographing my nails to show you (eventually), so tonight is the night where I'm going to flood the internet with past NOTDs. Expect about five posts (including this one) to trickle through as the hours pass. I would put them all in one post but I feel that separating them will not only make cataloging them a lot easier, but also finding them again will be too.

This polish comes to me with a wonderful story. I frequent a nail polish board and a lovely lady named Tyra had posted a photo of her nails sporting Beetle by Hard Candy. I love, love, love that polish and was unable to get it in Canada (ridiculous) and it was driving me batty. She messaged me saying that she was willing to go to Walmart and buy it for me, free of charge and  no expectations of me sending her something in return! Of course I absolutely had to send her something for her generosity and kindness, but if that's not good karma I don't know what is.

What a sweet lady! I didn't get the chance to photograph it at the start of wearing it, but I managed to take some pictures a few days in. Very noticeable tipwear, but I hope you'll at least get an idea of why I wanted it so badly.

This is such a spectacular multi-chrome! You've got purple, you've got gold, you've got copper, sometimes you've got some green, sometimes you've got some pink, and sometimes you've got brown. Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. 

The world never ceases to amaze me, and on occasion it's in a good way. Thank you Tyra! 

NOTD: Rusty Pumpkin

Last night I got a little layer happy, and I'm now currently wearing probably the most coats of polish I've probably every worn. Ever.

So it started with the Joe Fresh Pumpkin that I had on in my last post, then I applied 3 coats of Sally Hansen's Pumpkin Spice (still going with the fall theme, if you didn't notice) and then I topped it off with a layer of Love & Beauty Rust. Love & Beauty is Forever 21's make up and nail polish line, and since the store opened in Ottawa these past few weeks I was really excited to get out there. Rust is acting as sort of a surrogate until I get a polish I really want. I've been lemming Sephora by OPI's Traffic Stopper Copper for some time now, but considering it's $12 and Rust was only $3.80 I went for it. My biggest problem with this one is the density of the glitter, and the amount of the small glitter vs the larger hex glitter. There's way too much little glitter, it looked messy and overrun the first time I swatched it.

So let's see - American Classics Bridge the Ridge, 2 coats of JF Pumpkin, SH Mega Shine, 3 coats of SH Pumpkin Spice, Gelous, SH Mega Shine, 1 coat of L&B Rust, Gelous, SH Mega Shine.

Did I just count 13 layers of polish?

>_>


<_<


Good luck to me taking this off. At least it was worth it, I'm in love with this. I have a really hard time capturing
glitters in all their glory so bear with me. Trust me when I say it's beautiful.

As you can obviously tell, I experienced a great deal of shrinkage due to all the layering and the thickness of the Gelous/glitter. In regular lighting (ie: not direct sunlight) the base colour looks like a darker brown giving it a more Halloween-y kind of feel, and boy is it ever shiny. I can't help but grin when I look down at my nails!

NOTD: Joe Fresh Pumpkin

I love Joe Fresh polish. It's inexpensive (only $4 a bottle or 3 for $10) and the formula is great, this polish only needed 2 coats! It works phenomenally well with the season too, all I want to do is eat squash and pumpkins when I look at my nails.

There's not much else to say about this other than it's a fabulous polish, and definitely worth picking up for the price.

What's your favourite thing about fall?