I recently did a polish swap with Debbie over at The Crumpet.

 I sent her some of the Milani 3D's and in return I got some of the lovely OPI Muppets polishes.  OPI are not particularly difficult to come by where I live, but it's always more fun to get things in swaps, isn't it?  I've gotten pretty into swapping recently and I've recieved a number of interesting and exciting things in my swap packages.  I'm always curious to see what other people will send because it gives me ideas of what to send others.  But wow.  Debbie really stepped up her game on this swap.  As soon as I opened it I noticed a familiar and lovely aroma.  Tea.  Not just ANY tea either.  Multiple types of tea.  Including my most favorite standard tea...PG Tips.  PG Tips tea puts Lipton tea to shame.  But it's SO hard to find around here.  Although some of my local groceries have started carrying it, it's also fairly expensive.  So you can imagine my surprise and excitement to recieve some in the mail!!  There were also some peppermint tea bags and some spiced apple ones.  It's actually quite amusing to receive tea this week as I've had a sore throat for awhile and I've been drinking more tea than usual.  Tonight I needed to edit about a hundred pictures for my various blogs and I also have a lot of cleaning to do following a busy week.  So I thought I'd sit down with some pretty polish and a nice, hot, cup of Spiced Apple tea.  :) So yummy. 

And because she can never keep out of things...you know who had to poke her fat little nose into my tea.  She particularly enjoyed the peppermint bags. :P

Ok. So ONE more Halloween mani!!  Last night I was kind of bored and I remembered that I had some Halloween polish I hadn't used yet--well--not Halloween persay, but creepy!!  A few weeks back someone mentioned that you could snag the Essie Morticia's Nails set for only $10.  Where I live, ONE Essie will run you $8 so three for the price of one is a steal in my book.  I even got free shipping!  They arrived awhile back and I put them in my drawer and kind of forgot about them.  Until last night.  I was watching The Simpson's annual Treehouse of Horrors with my husband and got inspired to do ONE last Halloween mani.  I keep seeing these blood drips popping up (mostly from fans of True Blood) and I thought it would be a quick easy mani I could do for today.  And it was!  One thing I love about the Morticia's Nail's set is that all the polishes inside are jelly finish.  So while I had to use a bit more red to get a more opaque look, it was also more blood-like since blood is not really opaque.  I'm taking these off tonight before I trick or treat with my neices since I'm going as a Poke-girl (pics to come!) but they're fun for the day!! Enjoy and have a wonderful Halloween!! :)

So these are my second (and final) Halloween design this year.  Hopefully next year I'll have more time and motivation to do more but it seems all I had was trouble with them this year!!  This was my second attempt at these as well although I was smart this round and tested my designs on a nail wheel before I started on my nails.  The first round was nice but the colors were all wrong.  So I started again with these murky greens.  I did kind of like the end result but the haunted house looked a bit more busy than I wanted.  Oh well. Next year! :P

Enjoy and thanks for following! Hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween!

Base coat is: OPI Stranger Tides with reverse french in Essie Sew Psyched.

Swirls on all nails but accent are Models Own Moody Grey

Ghost is Konad White

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  I love dressing up and being crazy and all the scary things that go along with it.  So I don't know why I've had such a hard time getting motivated to do Halloween themed nails.  I've seen this mummy design on a hundred other blogger's sites and this is my THIRD attempt at it.  I still don't love it but it didn't come out nearly as bad as the other two attempts!! It's much harder than it looks!  I used my Models Own black nail art pen to do the lines for that and the spider web and let me just say, I. LOVE. THIS. PEN.  It's SO easy to use and you can really get some tiny lines with it.  The spider web is my favorite part of this mani.  Oh...and the fact that it glows in the dark! I used the glow in the dark polish UNDER the nail art pen and then again over the white on the eyes so that the design would appear in the dark.  It worked great although it wouldn't photograph for anything! :/  I hope you enjoy the nails and hope everyone is having a great Halloween!! (One more creepy design is on the way :P)

Thanks for following! 

Base is: OPI Skull & Glossbones

Topped that with China Glaze Ghoulish Glow

Black is: Models Own Nail Art Pen in Black

Eyes are: Ulta Snow White

Centers are: butterLONDON La Moss

Then coated the non-designed nails with: Wet & Wild Tangled In My Web

This past week my sister had a little girl (she's SO cute!) and decorated her room with little owls with the theme, "Owl always love you."  I thought it was the custest thing (and I love owls!) so I thought I'd do some similarly themed nails.  I added some glitter to the top of the owl to add a bit of depth but I think it made it look a little lumpy. It didn't look that way in person!! (hate it when that happens!) :)  

Enjoy and thanks for following!! 

All colors by Barry M: 

Mint Green, Berry Ice Cream, BlueBerry Ice Cream, Yellow

These nails are loosely inspired by a design I saw at Sephora a few weeks back.  They have out a new brochure filled with different nail art that you can do with their products.  Of course, I didn't use their products for this!! But they suggested a red polish over the tips of a leopard nail strip they were selling and then they lined the edges with tear shaped silver gems.  I did the leopard on a metallic background to mimic the shiny 'minx' like strips they had and then used a super glitter to do the 'gems'. Enjoy and thanks for following!!

Base is: Orly Luxe
Tips are: butterLONDON Scoundrel
Leopard print is: Hard Candy The End
Gem dots are: Burlesque Collection by OPI Glow Up Already

About a month ago I did my first BIG international swap. And by big, I mean more than two or three polishes. This particular trade was for 6 I believe and these two were among them.  I'm really excited about this swap because it earned me my very first GOSH polish.  :)  Metallic Green.  I follow a lot of blogs and there is one girl in particular, Sam, who always posts the most AMAZING stamped nails.  Stamping is an art let me tell you and while you can create really awesome things with minimal effort if you're good at it, it can also be a real pain.  She uses GOSH metallics frequently for stamping so when I got a chance to snag one I wasn't passing it up.  This is over Catrice Dirty Berry, a gorgeous dusty purple with tiny holographic shimmer that lights up in the sun.  It didn't pick up on film well but it's sort of a purple versin of butterLONDON All Hail The Queen which is one of my favorites! 

Enjoy and thanks for following! :)

Catrice: Dirty Berry

GOSH: Metallic Green