It's Fashion Baby!

babies r us


Well this week on Project Runway was certainly...interesting!  I was actually really glad they did this challenge because I think it brought some fun to the work room and it got the contestants out of their comfort zones! The challenge was to create a piece for Heidi's children's line at Baby's 'R Us. The kids were SOOOO cute! But if it weren't bad enough that the designers were working with pint sized models, (thank God Ven was out, no? Can you just see him flipping out about REAL bodies?! The horror!) they also had to take care of 'babies' Heidi left them in the workroom.  This sparked off some of the funniest comments of all season.  Dmitry and Elena were especially disgusted to have to care for their babies while designing.  Elena even nicknamed her baby, A$*hole.  Too funny.  Fabio seemed oddly attached to his plastic child  and Melissa became completely overwhelmed.  I was shocked that this season it seems none of the remaining designers have kids! How did that happen?  Anyway I chose to base my design on this wicked cute little piece Dmitry made.  This kid looks like he just fell out of a video game and while I think it is a bit too modern for some parents personally, I'm in love with it. It's so graphic and fun!  Here are the nails!



I used butterLONDON Pillarbox Red for the base and then used a Models Own Nail Art Pen to outline and add the truck detail.  Sonjia won this week for her boys outfit which was warranted.  It was much more accessible to the average mom.  Christopher also won with his girls outfit which was SO cute even though the mother of his model seemed embarrassed by it.  Elena went home this week and I really felt like it was unwarranted. Melissa should have gone home for sure since her whole outfit was basically a throwaway.  But I digress. Did your favorite win this week?


Don't forget to check out what Emma and Jewli came up with this week!!

A Week of Shimmer Polish: Natalie

blue glitter


It's here! It's here! The final day of my Shimmer Polish week and my most favorite of the bunch.  This stunner is called Natalie and *sigh* she's just absolutely gorgeous.  The Shimmer Polish store describes Natalie as a dusty blue, copper and turquoise melange.  She's definitely blue and copper and she's oh so pretty. One of the things I love most about the melange polishes is that there is so much color to them.  This is blue, yes, but it's also got a multi effect and when you put it over other colors the whole picture changes.  It's just magical.  Here's a close up shot of Natalie:





It makes you swoon, no?  I'm totally in love with this one.  It's a must have!! I'm so glad I had the chance to try these out.  They're really amazing to look at and they sparkle an insane amount on your nails!  Totally worth the investment!  Now I'm dying to get my hands on Airriann and Karina!!




You can purchase ShimmerPolish directly from her Etsy site for $12 each.  She also makes amazing custom polishes for just a little more. This polish was sent to me for my honest review.

Who Are You Wearing?

A-England

Everyone has noticed lately that celebs are getting into the nail art trend.  Rihanna, Katy Perry, and even less daring celebs like Zooey Deschanel are getting in on the fun.  In fact Adrienne Bailon even chronicled her nail polish line debut on her television show, Empire Girls. So with everyone getting in on it, there are more and more fun polishes coming out (Barry M Chameleons, Ciate Velvet Nails, etc) and art supplies are getting easier and easier to find. Minx has even released their infamous nail strips to the public recently.  So with all that going on and all these awesome designs showing up on celebs Twitter accounts and television shows and even on the red carpet...I decided to have a little fun with it myself!  I'm starting a blog series called, Who Are You Wearing?  In each WAYW post I will be copying the nail art of a famous person for you to see.  Even though these celebs are getting their digits professionally dressed up, most of the art they're getting is totally accessible to even  beginner artists!  I'm going to show you the celebrity nails, tell you what you need to have and do to achieve them (in extreme cases I'll be telling you how you can wear the trend at home) and then show you the recreation of the nails.  So here we go with the very first in the series!!



This gorgeous nail art was sported by Busy Phillips recently and posted on Instagram. Other than the colors, which are fab, I love that this mani is both unexpected and random but also classy and wearable at the same time.  The pattern is simple, the lines are easy to achieve and the overall effect is eye catching without being flashy.  You could easily wear these to work without drawing too much attention to yourself.  So what do you need to get the look? First you'll need two contrasting colors of polish.  I'm copying this look to the T so I used A-England Galahad for the teal tone and Barry M Navy for the deeper blue.  You'll also need some thin gold striping tape and some gold half studs.  If you can't find these or don't want to order online you can substitute a gold striping polish and use a dotting tool to replicate the studs.  Here are the nails I did to match Busy's:




Since she isn't showing her thumbs, I did this hand with a solid teal thumb and the other I did a half and half with the gold tape.  I started by polishing my index and middle finger with A-England Galahad and the other two fingers with Barry M Navy. Both are basically one coat polishes so I didn't need a second coat but if your colors do be sure to get to full coverage before going to the next step.  For the stripes you have two options.  I'm pretty steady with my hands so I free handed the teal and blue stripes but if you're not then use some tape to tape off the area you don't want polish on (make sure the bottom layers are TOTALLY dry) and then add the blue stripes on the first two fingers and the teal stripe on the ring finger.  Last I used my striping tape to section off the striped areas and then added the gold studs.  Follow with two coats of top coat (I used Seche Vite) and voila!! Celeb worthy nail art. 

Thanks for following!

A Week of Shimmer Polish: Adrienne

adrienne

 Continuing with my five days of Shimmer Polish, today we have Adrienne.  Of the five colors I got this one was the most color forward.  Adrienne is an obvious dark blue polish.  Like the others, she has a plethora of other colors strewn throughout her clear base.  But overall...she's very decidedly blue. Shimmer Polish describes her as a blue and gold polish and that's very much the case.  She has large blue hex glitters, medium gold hex glitters, and smaller holographic, blue, red and gold glitters.  It really amazes me with all of these Shimmer colors how many types and colors of glitter are in these bottles.  It's really crammed full and even though there are so many colors and shapes it really looks great on the nail.  It isn't chunky or bumpy and it doesn't look like the glitter display at the craft store tumbled into a bottle of clear polish.  These are well thought out, smart matches.  Here's a close up of Adrienne on my nail:


Like the others, Tracy aside, this is two coats and there is still some nail showing.  You could probably do three and have a full coverage glitter or you can do one ot two over another color for a fun glittery flash.



You can purchase ShimmerPolish directly from her Etsy site for $12 each.  She also makes amazing custom polishes for just a little more. This polish was sent to me for my honest review.

A Week of Shimmer Polish: Wendy

etsy

Day three of my week of Shimmer Polish  is here! Today I have Wendy for you to drool over. Wendy was my second favorite of the five I tried out.  I love that she has a two toned effect and it makes it a little hard to pinpoint a color for her!  She is described as a purple, copper melange on the Shimmer Polish store and ultimately, that's pretty much what she is.  The site says she's reminiscent of the 70's and I'd agree with that! I love the look of the copper and purple together but then there are flashes of other colors as you turn your nails.

Here's a close-up of her disco goodness:


You can see the large copper hexes and the smaller purple ones.  But there is also small blue and holographic glitters in there.  I think overall she reads as a purple but it's certainly hard to tell!  This had a similar formula to the others. Slightly thicker but easy to work with and it was less dense than Tracy.  About the same as Erica.  Two coats left my nails still bare in places but still very sparkly and well covered.  I have two more of these bad boys for you and I'm saving my most favorite for last so don't miss Friday's post!!


You can purchase ShimmerPolish directly from her Etsy site for $12 each.  She also makes amazing custom polishes for just a little more. This polish was sent to me for my honest review.

Weekly Wrap Up: butterLondon, Nutella Milkshakes, and kitty snuggles

weekly wrap-up
Yep. It's Tuesday and I'm just now getting around to last week's roundup. Well...stuff happens! Here we go...



Sunday I went out to breakfast with my husband. The waitress asked us if we wanted our checks together or separate. I'm not sure why but this tends to happen a lot.  Hmmm...also my order from Coterie came. Yay for cheap butterLONDON's!!



This week at work we're decorating Christmas tree's.  I came home covered in glitter MORE than once. This pic is of the glitter from a single tree. ONE tree.  Even my socks had glitter in them. Redic. But decorating these hideous tree's is also the highlight of my year! lol...so it's worth it.


After I got off on Sunday (at 10AM) I went to the international market and IKEA with my husband and a friend. Snagged this picture for my wall for just $10.  It's actually on a pretty thick foam board so it's easy to mount and I didn't even have to frame it. Steal. I also decided to make my Butter Beer from last week into Giggle Potion. Just add vanilla ice cream. Yum.


It was a long week and for some reason (I think it's the cold) Aoife was especially cuddly.  She's always following me around but she's been rather snuggly lately and is on me all the time.  We had to switch her and Eoghan to new food this week and it's taken ages to choose a new one.  We're still not set on one but I think we might be on our way!

Just a thought...lol I finally got around to catching up on my DVR this week.  For some reason I always forget that I can skip the commercials and I ended up seeing tons of them. :/ Fail.

My iPod, iPhone, and computer are officially full this week. Again. And I can't get the new iOS for the iPhone either til I clear out some space. So hubby got me a new computer and an external hard drive this week.  I still can't figure out what to remove from my various devices but at least there's room for more now!


And...for some reason I decided that not eating anything but six cookies all day was a good idea. It was not. It's rare day when I eat sugar, especially white sugar, and I don't think that helped.  I cured my sweet tooth earlier in the week with a Nutella Shake. Yum. :)


How was your week?




Charmed, I'm sure...

Barry M




So you all know I've been doing a Project Runway series this year.  I don't know why but I feel like this season is some of the least inspired designers to date.  I just can't really get into any of the contestants.  My favorite? Buffi Jashanmal.  Who, incidentally went out very early in the season.  Not that I really thought Buffi was going to make it to NYFW because let's face it, her aesthetic is not very public friendly.  Girlfriend is rocking leopard print hair for Pete's sake!  But I loved her bubbly personality and her fun outfits.  Despite having a wholly unappreciated style, she managed to stay true to herself and make things that were always fun to look at!  And...OK I totally loved her accent too!! She's kind of like an untamed Betsey Johnson and we all know I love Betsey.  So I decided to do some tribute nails to my favorite fun designer this year.  Below is my tribute. These are very similar to the nails Buffy was rocking on her very last challenge day.




I used Barry M Cyan and Shocking pink for the bases and then sponged Orly Luxe onto the tips of the blue ones. :)  Happy nails!  Thanks for following along with me!!

A Week Of Shimmer Polish: Erica

erica

Today I have another gorgeous Shimmer Polish for you as promised!  Here we have Erica.  Erica is described as a Crystal Periodot Glitter Polish. She leans greenish and goldish and also a little blue-ish. Overall it's sort of a holographic green but as you can see from the macro shot below, she definitely has some other colors to her! There is also an intense amount of silver holographic glitter in Erica and boy does she shimmer!


 


You can tell from the macro shot that there is mostly holographic silver glitter in this polish and only micro green glitter.  Still the overall effect is greenish.  Erica had the same formula as Tracy and was a little on the thick side but nothing difficult to handle.  The coverage was a little more sparse than with Tracy -- two coats of Erica, above, still left some bare spots on my nail.  But three coats would have likely given full coverage and I think these are awesome in that you can layer them as a glitter top coat or go all out with full coverage. You literally don't even have to move your hand for them to sparkle and they light up in any light and at all angles! Gorgeous.



You can purchase ShimmerPolish directly from her Etsy site for $12 each.  She also makes amazing custom polishes for just a little more. This polish was sent to me for my honest review.

A Week of Shimmer Polish: Tracy

gold glitter

I'm so incredibly excited for the swatches I have for you this week!! I'm not normally a big indie polish lover. Don't get me wrong, there are a few I really adore, but many of them are difficult to get a hold of, expensive, disappointing, and don't have longevity.  I can't speak for the longevity of this polish myself since these are my first bottles and I got them at the beginning of the month. However, from what I've seen and heard (and the appearance of my bottles after several weeks) I can vouch that they are good quality polishes.  These are from a brand called Shimmer Polish.  I've seen these around and they're just lovely but I hadn't tried any for myself until these stunners came in the mail.  I have five total to show you from the new line and they are all as amazing as the one before them!  I wanted to give them each their own post so you can really see all of them in their glory and appreciate them!  This is the first on the list!  She is called Tracy.

Tracy is described on the Shimmer polish store as a tarnished holographic gold and that's exactly what she is.  More over there are SO many colors packed into Tracy and it gives your nails a very disco ball effect.  There are glittery polishes and then there are Shimmer polishes.  If you own any of the China Glaze 3D glitter polishes then you'll understand what I mean when I say these take sparkly to a whole new level.


This picture is a macro shot from the ShimmerPolish store.  You can see that it's just completely packed with glitter. Most of the glitters are gold and there are several sizes and shapes including bar glitters, hex glitters and micro glitters. It also has reddish bronze glitter, green glitter and holographic glitter.  As far as application and formula I would liken these to the infamous OPI Burlesque glitters.  You can absolutely layer them but I only used two coats above and as you can see it's not hard to achieve full coverage.  The polish is thicker but mostly because of the amount of glitter inside.  Despite being on the thicker side they are not hard to work with and dry pretty quickly.  They do NOT dry shiny but that's also to be expected with such an amount of glitter. Two coats of Seche Vite sorted it right out and it was smooth and shiny and...I really wish I could capture the amount of sparkly! I have four more of these glorious beauty's to show you this week so stay tuned for them!!


You can purchase ShimmerPolish directly from her Etsy site for $12 each.  She also makes amazing custom polishes for just a little more. This polish was sent to me for my honest review.

I Get A Kick Out of Fashion

christopher


This week's episode of Project Runway asked the designers to design a costume for the Radio City Rockettes.  I liked the idea of this challenge but I thought most of the designers kind of missed the mark.  The above design was the winner and it came from Christopher.  I liked that he was inspired by the city and I love the top of this but I think the bottom is a throwaway and let's face it, it's doing nothing for her figure.  I did my nails this week based on Christopher's design BUT I have to say I feel like Dmitry was absolutely robbed this week.  If you take away the New York skyline in this design you have what amounts to a boring, unflattering, lifeless dress.  These are the Rockettes for Pete's sake!! This is just so muted and lifeless. :/  I think he won based more on the love of New York than anything and that irritates me but that's neither here nor there I suppose.


 I felt this costumer by Dmitry was amazing. It hugged all his models curves and moved even when she was standing still.  The lines and color of it were far more interesting and it just looked amazeballs. Although...you can kind of see her nipples! :o

Anyway I didn't use Dmitry's design for my nails so I digress...


I used Juelp Malin for the base on these so that it would just have a nice pearly sheen but still be fairly neutral.  Then I used butterLONDON Diamond Geezer to create the buildings and accentuated them with Barry M Silver Foil.  Last I added some sequins to the remaining two nails.  I do really love the way these turned out.  I'm trying to experiment with texture more because I think it's fun and unexpected but it's also difficult for me because I work with my hands and it just seems to come off so easily!  

Bonus Instagram pic!
 

Ven went home this week and it was definitely warranted.  His outfit was a hot mess. I think I'm also kind of still jaded on his attitude from the Fix My Friend episode and I haven't been wowed by anything he's done since the Candy Couture challenge.  Whose outfit did you like best?

Don't forget to check out what Emma and Jewli came up with for today's challenge!!

It's All About Me

butter london


So this week's Project Runway episode is the classic "Make Your Own Pattern" challenge.  I actually really like this challenge in general and I LOVED it for this season because freaking no one works with prints!! It's so annoying! It's like every week is a funeral on this darn show because everything is so monochromatic.  This week that didn't change much despite the pattern making.  Most of the patterns were black and white.  I LOVED Sonjia's pattern although it reminded me a little bit of elephants.  I also really loved this one which was Melissa's.  It was definitely outside her box and in a very good way. I think one of the things I love most about this dress is that it has a really great silhouette and it would be amazing in a simple black or solid color as well as the pattern. I also think it looks very easy to dress down for the office by throwing a sweater on top, or to dress up at night.  Perfection.  Of course, it didn't win.  Dmytri won and while I thought his jacket was innovative and fun I didn't think that it really went with the pattern challenge that well.  I mean, yes his pattern was cool and his jacket showcased that.  HOWEVER, he essentially made a simple shirt with the pattern and then went right back to doing what he always does with solid black. ARGH!  At any rate...here are the nails:




I used Wet and Wild White On for the base and then stamped on a pattern with butterLONDON Pillarbox Red.  I tried to randomize the pattern a bit but unfortunately I didn't do it in the right order and so it just looks like my pinky and index are going rogue!   Still I liked the effect.  I wish the stamp hadn't dragged in places too.  I was experimenting with different top coats! Back to Seche I go!!  Gunnar went home this episode and I was sad to see him go but let's be honest, his outfit was a throwaway. :(  Sad times.  Did you watch this week? Which was your favorite design?


Don't forget to check out what Emma and Jewli came up with this week!!

Starving Artist

China Glaze
 

So this week's episode of Project Runway was called Starving Artist. The remaining contestants were split into groups and then asked to fund raise for money in order to put together their looks for the runway.  I'm always intrigued by group challenges because it's a guessing game as to how the contestants will get along and what kind of glorious (Chris and Christian, anyone?) or grotesque (I could list so many!) things they will come up with.  I hate the way everyone gets all snarky about it too.  I mean, in the real world of fashion do you honestly think that you'll never have to collaborate with anyone? You can't all start out Karl Lagerfeld. I digress.  I was fairly underwhelmed again this week by the fashion they came up with.  This ended up being the winning look and if you ask me, it's pretty boring. I do like that the jacket has a bit of flair in the folds but as far as being innovative it falls disturbingly short of the mark.  In either event it WAS arguably the most interesting piece that walked the runway and that's why I chose to base my art on it. 



,


I used a combination of China Glaze Foie Gras and Lime Crime Milky Ways for the base which is meant to emulate the two tone skirt.  Then I used China Glaze Emerald Fitzgerald for the french to capture the jacket on top.  They kind of remind me of football season.  The brown ball and the green grassy field? No?   Alicia went home this week and I felt like while it wasn't warranted this challenge per say, it was about time she went home at any rate.  Did you like the winning look this week best? Do you think Alicia should have stayed?

Don't forget to check out what Emma and Jewli came up with this week!!

Flakie Sandwich

flakie


I have another swatch for you today!! Sort of. This is actually a jelly sandwich even though it looks like it's just a few coats of polish.  I've been wanting this color, I Lily Love You, for sometime now but it's kind of hard to find since the collection has been out of stores for awhile.  This is why I love my Kroger.  It seems like while they always have the newest collection, they also always have random collections popping up.  I remember passing the new Burlesque display half a million times and asserting that I wasn't interested in them.  Months later when I decided I loved them I was heartbroken to find that they were ridiculously expensive on eBay. Then...Kroger!! They popped up again. Same with Shrek and same with this gorgeous jelly.  I Lily Love You is a flakie jelly and it's a beautiful bright pink color.  I also like that the flakies are sort of iridescent.  It's just stunning BUT it requires quite a few coats to build up the color.  So...I decided to pair it with what is quickly becoming one of my top ten polishes; Zoya Paloma.  I used two coats of Paloma underneath the I Lily Love You and then topped it with one more coat.  The effect is to die for.  Paloma is nearly exactly the shade of the I Lily Love You base but it packs much more of a punch AND you don't have four layers of overlapping flakies since there's only one coat of the I Lily Love You on there. :)  Loving this.  

Bonus Instagram pic!!


What's your favorite jelly sandwich combo?


Dollish Polish: The Hero of Time

dollish polish

Here we have the other half of the Zelda duo from Dollish Polish.  This is The Hero of Time.  It's such a gorgeous color. Much as I loved the Hylian Princess I think this one is my favorite of the two.  It has green, gold, bronze and brown glitter and it really looks cool over different things.  Here I have layered it over both butterLONDON Bossy Boots and Orly Buried Alive. While I think the effect is really great over Bossy Boots I'm DYING for it over Buried Alive.  The darker glitters kind of disappear into the bronzy brown of it and the green pops with the gold. Fab.  The application was similar to Hylian Princess but for some reason on my index finger all the glitters wanted to have a party at the free edge. Annoying.  I think perhaps the polish underneath wasn't all the way dry or something because you can see that it wasn't an issue on any of the other nails.  Here's a close-up of the Hero for your pleasure:


Kick-ass, right?  Which was your favorite?

Weekly Wrap-up...a day late...oops!


 Here's my weekly round-up post. It's a day late this week and honestly, it's lucky it's only ONE day!  Same as last time you can find a little paragraph below each pic. :)



None of my tweets and photos really match up this week, sadly. It was a LONG week.  I was meant to work three days and ended up working five and tripling my hours! Crazy talk. So I had planned to catch up this week and...didn't.  On Sunday my husband's grandma celebrated her 90th birthday so we had fun spending time with his family.  I got some new gold eyeshadow and decided to do a little Cinna-style liner for the day. :) And if any of you are tennis fans, you probably saw Andy Murray snag his very first Grand Slam at the Open. I was SO happy for him. I actually saw him play (and BEAT) Roger Federer a few years back and he's just fabulous.

Haven't been listening to much pop music lately but I caught the premier of Christina Aguilera's new song on Friday. Wow. It's not subtle at all.  I wish she'd use her vocal talent to do something more classy. :/  Also tried a pickle-tini this week. Yummy. :)  Spotted this couch on Sunday when I went to IKEA with the hubby and a friend. I seriously NEED it. It's amazing.

 I wasn't super into the butter London BOGO event this week at Ulta.  I don't know why.  I love butter London. I just...couldn't bring myself to be excited.  Good thing my husband loves me. :) He snagged me six off my wishlist: Dodgy Barnett, Bluey, Knees Up, Artful Dodger, Marrow and Trout Pout (Bluey I hadn't updated but had already purchased so I swapped it for Aston.) Also snagged another freebie from Klout.

 Mmmm...butter beer. Any Potter fans reading along? This stuff is amazing!

 Finally found some time to cook this week and I really miss doing it.  I love cooking.  This was tofu cakes, turnip mash, some tangy sauce and corn chowder (all vegan! woo!). :)  Also kept getting these random and progressively more annoyed voice mails. This guy called me TWELVE times before I was finally able to answer the phone (working) and then he didn't seem to believe me that Rick wasn't at this number.  Yeah buddy, I'm holding him hostage cause I LOVE getting voice mail. 

 We bought Eoghan a tower awhile back.  Well...it was meant for both kitties but Eoghan claimed it and if he see's Aoife in it, on it or near it he makes it his business to kick her off. So I built her a smaller one this week and she spent all day inside it.


Dug out my sand garden this week.  I love these things.  And I needed the stress relief! I got NOTHING accomplished this week. :/  I hate that. And after working at 4AM yesterday, I'm pretty fried today too. You may notice my Project Runway posts are missing from the past two weeks.  Well...if you've been watching the show you probably know why. Hello, suck?  I'll try to get them up sometime this week though.  If I don't get called into work!!

How was your week?

Popular Posts

Like us on Facebook

Flickr Images