How I Made My Swatch Sticks/ Swatcicles

Good morning everyone! Today has started off on the right foot; I went to class this morning, and my professor called in sick so no school today! Yay, more time to play in my polishes. I do have an exam tomorrow so I'll have to keep this blog post short and to the point.

I posted a blog a few days ago on how I've decided to swatch my nail polish collection. I've switched from nail wheels to swatch sticks. There were a couple of you that wanted a step by step on how I made them and where I got my supplies so I recorded a fairly quick video on this for those of you interested. If you have any further questions, or need something clarified, don't hesitate to ask! I'm off to study! Hope you enjoy the video and find it helpful! See you guys in the next post!

-Amanda

Wanna Know What's In My Stash?!

Hi guys! I'm not sure how many of you guys are subscribed to me on YouTube, but I get requested quite a bit on there to do a detailed nail polish collection video. I havn't done one yet because my collection grows almost daily and by the time I film one and upload it, I'll probably have added another couple polishes to my collection so the video won't even be up to date. Sad, I know! LOL. "Then stop shopping for nail polishes Amanda!" Seriously, it's easier said then done. So, what I've decided to do, for anyone that is interested in knowing what polishes I have, I have created a little tab titled "Nail Polish Collection List", and there I have listed in alphabetical order by brand (you can  thank my OCD) all the polishes in my collection. Since I do monthly hauls and record haul videos on You Tube, I thought I would update my list on here every month as well. You can find the tab up top but in case you don't see it, I'll link it here as well.

See you guys in the next post!!

-Amanda

Swatch Wheels vs Swatcicles

Hi guys! How was everybodys weekend? Mine was awesome despite the weather. It was really cold and rainy all weekend where I live so I opted for a productive weekend inside. I actually got two major projects done this weeked: switching nail polish swatches from nail wheels to swatch sticks (also known as "swatcicles") and I also started on and completed about 80% of my nail room! It looks so beautiful. I'll blog about my nail room once it's completely done but today I want to show you the swatcicles I made.

Swatcicles and nail wheels both hold the same purpose; they allow you to easily see what a particular polish looks like on the nail before painting your own nails. Some polishes can look different in the bottle than it does on the nail so this is a convenient way to see their true colors so to speak. When my polish collection was fairly small, nail wheels were ideal and worked really well. However, as my collection has grown, so has the amount of nail wheel I've needed and they've just become a huge nuisance.

Swatcicles are much easier when you have a larger collection. It's easier to keep them organized by color, they aren't oddly shaped so storage isn't difficult and they're easier to swatch on than the nails wheels where the nails were so close together. As you can tell, I'm really loving my new swatcicles. :)

Here are the 'cicles I made this weekend. The styrofoam cups they are in are only temporary until I can decide how I want to store them or display them. I wasn't able to finish my entire collection but I made a huge dent! If you'd like to see a step by step on how I made these, I'd be happy to show you, just let me know!

-Amanda

St.Patty's Day Pot Of Gold Water Marble Manicure!

As I attempt to write this blog, I keep distracting myself with random outbursts of laughter. I didn't notice this until now, but the water marble portion of this manicure reminds me of a couch my mom had in our living room when I was growing up. It's a pretty design and color scheme for a manicure, but a couch? Not so much. It makes me wonder what my mom was thinking when she bought it!? Love you mom :)

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March is an awesome month for me and not just because I happen to have a birthday this month. St. Patrick's Day is this month and it brings back some fond childhood memories. Being that I have quite a bit of Irish in me, my grandparents always embraced our Irish heritage. It was common to see Irish flags around their house and my grandfather sipping on Guinness while playing Irish music. I loved it. One of my fondest memories is singing Irish lullaby's with my grandfather as a little girl. I'd crawl onto his lap and together we would sing for hours on end and I knew every song word for word. I loved to hear my grandpa sing. Sometimes I would just sit there and watch him, mesmerized at how soothing his voice was. His voice was perfect and for some reason, I always liked the slight hint of Guinness on his breath.

 I went off on a tangent. Back to nail talk.

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So, when March comes around, I always enjoy embracing my Irish heritage by doing a manicure that celebrates it and St. Patricks Day! It also helps that my favorite color is green. It's like a win, win for me! So here's the water marble that I came up with.

Love this! This is what I like to  call an accidental masterpiece, if I may. I forgot that I had already done a St.Patty's Day water marble manicure on my YouTube, so I decided instead of removing the design I'd just add a little more to it; make it a little more Irish-like. So, I added a little pot of gold. Cute, right?!

Polish Used For Water Marble:

Ulta 'Dance Teal Dawn'

Sinful 'Innocent'

Sinful 'HD Nails

*All of these nail polishes were untried. Yay!*

Products Used For Pot Of Gold:

Black acrylic paint

ChG '24 Karat'

Gold glitter pieces

If you'd like to see how I did this manicure, you check out my YouTube video below :)

I hope you enjoyed this manicure and I'll see ya in the next post!

-Amanda

A Girlie Vintage Floral Manicure!

How often do you do a manicure and fall absolutely in love with it? Not just like it, but LOVE it?!  I'm quite hard on myself when it comes to my manicures and I feel like there is always room for improvment no matter what. I am quick to point out any flaws in my application and/or design but this one I oogled over for days. DAYS! Very rarely can I completely ignore the minor mishaps and admire the manicure in it's entirety. This one was one of those; where I couldn't stop staring at it kind of a thing.  This vintage floral design has been running rampit all over YouTube. Some people's interpretation of vintage is different, but this is my take.

Polishes Used:

*ChG 'Designer Satin'

*ChG 'For Audrey' (accent nail color)

Girly, pink and fun! Just the way I like it! Until the next post... :)

-Amanda

MoDiddie's Must Have: Essie 'Pink-A-Boo'

Hi guys! This absolutely phenominal nail polish I am swooning about today has prompted a new blog idea. This was the first time I had ever layed eyes on a polish and thought, "I need to blog about this!" This sparked the idea to do a "MoDiddie's Must Have" series where I will do random posts about a nail polish that I am really loving. So here is the first post: Essie's 'Pink-A-Boo'.

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I was at Target gathering up some house hold necessities and as usual on my way to check out I casually made my way towards the nail polish section just to "check it out". I never just "check it out" but it's great verbiage to convince hubby that I have no intentions of buying anything. That is, until I get there, see something I love and tell him why it's so important that I have this/these polishes. Does anyone else do this? Poor hubby never complains; I think he's grown use to this kind of behavior from me. LOL

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Ok, I won't keep you guys waiting. This is what I stumbled upon; this delicate pink. I generally pass on these types of colors because they are so dupable and common but this one.. this one is different.

I struggled majorly trying to get a good picture of the pink and blue sparkles in this polish. The pink showed up, but the blue is shy apparently. It has a slight duochrome to it, but nothing too obnoxious which I like because I am not too much of a fan of duochromes. The application was fairly easy and I was able to get total opaqueness in three coats. Here are a few pictures I took trying to capture it's true beauty. Like I said, I struggled getting a decent picture that shows the flecks of pink and blue but just know, in real life this polish is amazing!

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This picture was taken in the shade. You can see the blue flecks faintly in the bottle.

 This is in direct sunlight :) My neighbors probably thought I was crazy pacing around my front yard taking pictures of my hands! LOL

 This is the best picture I got as far as showing the flecks of color. Here you can see the loads of pink flecks in this! Gorgeous, right?! Nothing like I own and so pretty!

As usual, I can never leave a plain manicure alone. I dusted off my Konad stuff and started stamping. I originally was going to record it and post it on YouTube, but it didn't go as planned.

For the stamping I used Pure Ice 'Outrageous' and the zebra design on plate M57.

Essie 'Pink-A-Boo' is part of the Resort 2012 collection. There are several gorgeous polishes from that collection so I'm sure I'll be back to snag some more! I hope you enjoyed this post and I will catch ya in the next one!

-Amanda

Hollister Nails?

           These last couple of days I have been unmotivated when it came to painting my nails. With over 300 polishes in my stash, no matter how long I sat there and stared at them, none of them were appealing to me! So for the first time in two years, I went two days with naked nails! All I wore was Rimmel base coat on and I actually really liked it. It was a nice break I guess you could say. This morning I woke up, and like a smoker fiends their morning cigarette, I was beyond ready to paint my nails again. Colette (MySimpleLittlePleasures) posted a video a few days ago declaring March a month for her to use her untrieds. So I'm jumping on that bandwagon. That is what I decided to do today. Every manicure this month is going to include atleast one polish that I have yet to wear. This is what I came up with today! Something simple, but pretty and for some reason it reminds me of Hollister.

I bought this bottle of Rimmel white nail polish expecting it to be a normal bottle of polish! Boy was I in for a suprise. You should have seen my face the first time I opened it and went to paint my entire nail! LOL! Although not what I expected, it was a nice suprise! This little striper brush came in handy for this manicure! It's lovely for intricate details and such!

This manicure was pretty basic. The first polish I used was the untried; Finger Paints 'Artist's Azure' which is a lovely shimmery dark blue. I painted my tips with that color. Then I used the Rimmel striper polish and created a white line under the blue. On my accent nail I used China Glaze 'Velvet Bow' and a dotting tool and created a simple heart which I then lined in white with that same Rimmel polish. I sealed in it with Seche Vite and boom! Thats it! Simple right?!

While writting this blog, I happened to glance up and look into my closet, Here is why this manicure oddly reminded me of Hollister. LOL! It's super similar to a Hollister shirt I own! :) Same color scheme any way.

So, that is all. One more polish I can take off my untrieds list! I hope you enjoyed this manicure and I will talk to you in the next post!

-Amanda

February 2012 Haul Swatches!

February was a fun month to haul in. So many fun collections out and lot's of sales too! Those two are the main ingredients for a successful and exciting month of hauls. So, here are the swatches of the polish I hauled in the month of February. Enjoy!

The magnetic polishes and I are not friends right now. I tried to swatch the colors magnetized and not magnetized. As you can tell, I am aweful at using that magnet. I will say though, that I am not the only one complaining about this. Other people have complained about the strength of the China Glaze magnet, so maybe I'll give these another try and just try another brand. :) So, thats all. I will talk to you all in the next blog!

-Amanda