Christmas pudding



Popping in with a quick Christmas design today! I hope you're all enjoying a lovely holiday (no matter what you're celebrating!) with family and friends. :)

Colors used:
China Glaze Midtown Magic
Zoya Snow White, Wyatt and Janel

Twas the night before Christmas...


Merry Christmas Eve (to anyone celebrating)! 
Here's a fun Christmas inspired design done with 
Essie Like Linen, and China Glaze Resting Grinch Face, Holly-Day, and Pure Joy. 

Swatch of the Day Roundup!


It's time to round up another week of swatches! Can you believe I've actually made it two whole weeks? It's nearly Christmas, my little one has been sick, I've had MEGA tons of things to do at home and at work and yet...I haven't missed a swatch day yet! I'm super proud of that.  I've found some serious stunners this week as well. Things I'd forgotten I even had.  That's really the fun of this for me. At one point or another I really wanted all these polishes and now we're to the point I don't even remember them anymore. So part of the fun is to find those hidden gems and it sure brings back memories of why I bought them and when and all the things that were going on in my life and in the nail world at that time. I promised to stick to China Glaze this week and I mostly did but I did throw in one that wasn't just because it was a late night and it was sitting on my nail desk.  I think it's OK to throw in some odd ones though because all China Glaze may get boring.  Anyway here goes the round-up. I'm going to start throwing the art in as their own blogs so no art to show you this week but you're welcome to check out my Instagram if you want to stay ahead of the game. :P


Sunday we did this crazy glitter called You're a Hoot. This is from the 2013 On the Horizon collection and it's a clear base with yellow, orange and black matte bar glitter.


Monday I showed you this Megan Miller Collection deep purple called Velvet Lounge. This color DID NOT age well. It was ridiculously thin and needed tons of coats to be opaque. The cap has also cracked and the cork part came right off when I went to use it. Still a pretty color though. These were available online and at Anthropoligie stores.



Tuesday we got fancy with this crelly packed with glitter from the 2012 Cirque de Soleil Worlds Away collection. Another coat or two would have made it more opaque but I like the slight opacity of the base.


HOLO Wednesday! This one is OMG it's a UFO from the Hologlam 2013 collection. This collection wasn't nearly as holographic as its predecessor, the OMG collection but it does still have a nice linear holo effect. It's better in person than in pictures and it's better in sunlight than natural light. Unfortunately it's winter so...;P 


Thursday we kept the holographic theme running with this black holo from the Paint it Black collection from -- wait for it -- Halloween 2018! That's right ya'll I purchased a polish this year. 😂 Anyway this one also has a nice linear holographic effect but it's not AS holo as the OMG collection either. Still gorgeous though.


Friday we threw it all the way back to 2013 for this fancy pants wild and weird Crinkle Chrome polish, Aluminate. Basically the Crinkled Chromes are a chrome finish with bar and round glitter throughout them. In person it does have a rather crinkled effect but in photos it looks a little more haphazard.  At any rate it was a fun one and it definitely brought me back to the days when companies were trying to outdo one another for newest weird finish. 


On Saturday my nails betrayed me and one of them broke at the quick. PAINFULLY. Honestly this time of year my job is hectic anyway so it wasn't the end of the world since shorter nails are easier to type with BUT it did make me a little sad to chop them all so short. Oh well. I picked a bright happy color for this one, Kinetic Candy from the  2012 Electropop collection. That one remains one of my favorite collections they ever did. Muted but bright pastels, gorgeous shiny finishes and holo glitter topper. Ahhh...those were the days. ðŸ˜‚😂

So that's the round up this week!! Art work will be popping up all week long so stay tuned! ;P

Swatch of the Day: Week One Roundup



If you've been following me on Instagram then you've probably noticed I've started a little thing called Swatch of the Day. It's pretty straightforward; everyday I swatch a random polish and then sometimes I add a little art or a stamp to it later in the evening to give you an idea of what you can do with it and how art looks over the top. Today I want to do a little round up for you of the polishes this week and then also explain a little bit WHY I decided to start doing this. Let's start with the roundup!!


The very first swatch was Zoya Wyatt. This is the only Zoya you'll see swatched this week and the reason for that is pretty easy. I pulled this off my nail station to do a swatch of for some Christmas art I was planning for my company's Ugly Sweater day.  When I went to do that I noticed that...well...my nail station is a MESS. Which is largely the reason I hardly polish my nails anymore and when I do it's usually the same brands/colors. My helmers are bursting at the seams and polishes are tossed on polishes and honestly, finding anything worth using in that mess is just not an option. So hence, the swatch of the day was born. Wyatt is a gorgeous green by the way. It's a nice blue tone which is super flattering on me! 

  
Wyatt got a little fancy sweater action with some white patterns. :P


Tuesday saw some pretty blue/grey polish with Intelligence, Integrity, and Courage from the 2014 China Glaze The Giver collection. This one is an old favorite of mine because it looks blue or grey or a combination of both depending on the lighting. That whole collection was full of muted and really unique shades and this one was no exception. 


I jazzed this one up with some delicate floral and woodland designs.


On Wednesday I played with greens again and swatched another CG shade --Holly Day. This one from the Let It Snow 2011 collection.  This one is really cool too because even though it's a pretty true Hunter green (perfect for this season!) it's got an almost jelly-like feel to it. It's just SLIGHTLY transluscent and squishy as it dries. Super shiny as well. 


This one's fancy pants day was taken in a serious hurry...but these are meant to be quick swatches not full on reviews. At any rate some Barry M Gold Foil and a China Glaze glitter from the Grinch collection this year gave this one a fun twist. 



Butter London Hamstead Heath was the pick for Thursday.  It was sitting on my desk after I had gone through a box of polishes so I grabbed it and threw it in the mix. How gorgeous is this one though? Butter London is pretty well known now days for their creams and they don't do a ton of fun finishes anymore. I really miss the days of gorgeous polishes with serious depth like this one. Macro shot below for maximum droolage.


Seriously stunning. This was from a 2012 limited edition collaboration with GOOP. 


Another Barry M Gold Foil design. I really loved this one so much. Glad I picked it up. It's definitely going in my keep pile!


On Friday I showed you another blue (and another China Glaze!). This one is Sea Spray and it's another oldie; the 2011 Anchors Away collection.  This one is a pretty blue with a touch of a blue flash shimmer.  


It got winterized with some sweater pattern. :)


Saturday we got really extra with this MASSIVE glitter bomb from the China Glaze  2012 Prismatic Chroma collection. This is a serious SERIOUS glittery festival on your nails. Because I'm not a savage and I don't hate myself I used a peel off base for this one. If you don't...well...be prepared to break out a chisel. 😂 Still a real stunner though.


A close up gives you a better idea of how much actual dang glitter is in this thing. Also you can really see the shift of the purple and blue base. It's a pretty sweet color but again, a peel off base is a great idea with this and also be aware that heavy glitter polishes have a tendency to seize up overtime so a thinner is a must if you plan to store this. 




OK so why so much China Glaze and why the swatch of the day? Here is a snippet of ONE of my China Glaze drawers. Yes, you read that right. One CHINA GLAZE drawer (I have three of those. ðŸ˜‚😂).  So the idea is I empty out the drawer, I pull one random shade out of it each day (toppers and special effects will be swatched over polishes of my choice), swatch it, potentially jazz it up and then it either goes in the keep, recycle (this will be for any polishes unable to be saved by thinner), or sell box. I'm also using this as an opportunity to clean the tops of them and possibly reorganize the drawers. Once I finish this first CG drawer I'll start a new brand or else we'll be looking at a solid year of CG. ðŸ˜‚ And if I get bored I may toss random shades from my desk top in there. 


So far it's looking sparse. ðŸ˜‚ But we'll get there!! What was your favorite swatch from this week?

Zoya Jubilee Holiday 2018 collection

zoya




It's here! The Zoya Jubilee collection. I did some first opinions on this collection on my YouTube channel and some swatches have been popping up on my Instagram but here it is in it's full glory.  This collection contains seven creams, one shimmer, two pixies, a glitter and a special effect topper. The special effect topper also contains Zoya's brand new Z-wide brush and I'll talk about that a little further down in the blog but for now, let me say it's really helpful when applying the topper because with very little effort you can swipe your entire nail in one go. Perfect for tricky crackles since the direction of the crack depends on the direction of your swipe! This crackle effect ONLY works as a leopard crackle over the pixies and over any other finish you'll get a standard crackle effect which you can see on my YouTube video! All of these are swatched with two coats and all with no top coat as per usual. Here we go! 










Zoya in Astrid can best be described as a liquid gold foil that adds a festive touch to any holiday look- wear as an accent or alone for optimum impact. I think this one is really pretty on it's own but it's definitely sheer so you may want to use it as a topper if you don't like that look. It is a bit warmer in person.




Zoya in Leigh can best be described as a full-coverage perfect winter nude - rich and warm cream with just a hint of pink to compliment any skintone




Zoya in Carson can best be described as a full-coverage muted nude pink cream - a beautiful shade to create an understated elegance and perfect for the cold weather months




Zoya in Maxine can best be described as a full-coverage a rich red cream with an evenly balance undertone - bright, yet still appropriate for the season




Zoya in Allison can best be described as a full-coverage plum-toned ruby cream - a more amped up version of a traditional plum shade




Zoya in Taryn can best be described as a fiery fuchsia micro-irredescent shimmer with blue undertones - a shade that brightens even the gloomiest of winter days




Zoya in Chiara can best be described as a full-coverage deep purple cream - a gorgeous compliment to the rich jewel tones of the season




Zoya in Danica can best be described as a full-coverage rich deep teal cream - a new twist on a holiday green that gives you an edgy, yet elegant look. This one is a favorite of mine and it's PERFECT for the season.




Zoya in Kateri can best be described as a full-coverage beautiful midnight brown cream - think of it as the new black! I swear when I was swatching this one I could SMELL chocolate. It's such a rich color.







Zoya in Juniper can best be described as a sparkling teal textured PixieDust- especially unique when paired with our new Leopard Spots special effect topper. (This was one of my favorites of this collection! It sparkles and changes and looks so luxe in person!)




Zoya in Juniper can best be described as a sparkling teal textured PixieDust- especially unique when paired with our new Leopard Spots special effect topper






Before we talk about the Leopard Spots topper let me show you the wide brushes. I tried to get a good picture of these (there will be videos on my insta!) but it just didn't work out so I'm using an image straight from Zoya here! You can see though, how much wider the Z-wide brush is and it's also flat versus being rounded. I love Zoya's original brush but I also have more narrow nails and I struggle a bit with wider brushes like OPI. So I wasn't like, SUPER excited for the wide brush but I think Zoya has struck a nice happy medium. It's not as thick as OPI's brush and it's not quite AS wide either (although it's still plenty wide to do my nails in ONE swipe) so it's super easy to work with and if you do happen to have a wider nail this will definitely make things easier for you. Bonus: they fit into Lippman and Butter London polish bottles so if you struggle with their brushes you can pop these in them as well. ;)  Ok on to the leopard spot topper....




While I preferred Juniper to Cookie on it's own, the topper shows up MUCH better over Cookie. You can see how it cracks and makes rounded spots. While it doesn't look exactly like leopard print from a distance and in person it's surprisingly close! Obviously no top coat on these either as it would ruin the effect.




I had issues getting a clear shot of this one for some reason but here's the topper over Juniper. In person, just because they're both so dark, it's a bit trick to see the effect. It's still really pretty but it comes across really muddled. I think with some of Zoya's lighter pixies this will be magic though!  What did you think of this collection? Any you're planning to pick up?

Polish and Potter and Phising...



Well let me start this blog by saying it's been a ROUGH couple weeks. I got locked out of my blog for awhile due to some sort of phishing mess and then between that and vacation recovery and personal struggles and my daughter being in the hospital for what feels like the hundredth time...things have fallen through the cracks again. But we're back in action today so I wanted to give you some little updates and then I assure you that the Zoya Jubilee collection will be on the blog TOMORROW (WOO!) as well as some holiday collections coming on Monday and then I also have some new wide brushes from Zoya to show you and that will happen along with the Jubilee polishes tomorrow as well as in a vlog next week. Whew. That's a lot. So what else has been going on....


New polishes! I actually went out and bought about six new polishes which is crazy for me. I review for Zoya (which means they send me their collections free of charge to review for you) and I rarely get a ton of time to sit down and do art anymore which is sad but a reality unfortunately. So I can't remember the last time I bought much polish. But I spotted some OPI's on Facebook I figured I needed to have and then while I was hunting for those these China Glaze Grinch polishes caught my eye and I went ahead and bought a few of them too. They're SUPER pretty and full coverage glitter so they're gonna be awesome for the upcoming holidays. I'm sure they'll see a lot of action on my Instagram but maybe not so much here. 


Voting! Me and my little one went out for her first vote in an election. She was excellent while I waited in line and voted and then she got herself a little sticker. I think it's really important, especially today to teach her the importance of having a voice and of using her voice to speak out about what she believes in. Voting is an incredibly important tool for using your voice! We didn't get all the results we wanted but I'm so happy to see that our Congress has gone from mostly older, white men to a Congress filled with women, people of color, and people from different walks of life. Looking around where I work and live there are lots of minorities, people of varying faiths, members of the LBGTQ community and of course WOMEN. So I'm excited to see that our Congress is finally starting to look like US.



New décor! So awhile back I was in the mall and I realized that my PB Teen store suddenly looked like Hogwarts threw up in there. No complaints about it either because I LOVE Harry Potter. I'm literally that person who's read all the books, seen all the films (still prefer the books though!), and even knows her own official house (Hogwarts AND Ilvermorny!). SO...yeah I wanted this stuff. I went on their website and added this set to my cart and you're not going to believe it (or maybe you will if you have any familiarity with Pottery Barn), the total came to just shy of $1000. ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS YA'LL. That was for one sheet set (with two pillowcases included), one duvet cover, two decorative pillows, a quilt and two quilted pillow shams. That's it. For a person who previously balked at paying $80 for a duvet (which I did three years ago and no regrets) there was just no way I could justify $1000 for some bed sheets. Plus there was still lots of room décor items that I wanted that were also hundreds of dollars. Recently the bedding went on sale but the sale price only dropped it to around $500. Which is awesome since it's half off but it's still way more than my little budget can handle. Via a series of happy events (coupon codes, sales, and gift cards) I managed to snag the whole thing for shy of $200. Still a lot! Don't get me wrong. But enough that I can justify the purchase. I will say that this is NICE bedding. It's fluffy and soft and luxe in every way. My bed is like a soft, fluffy dream and I want to stay in it forever...but I'm still glad I didn't pay $500 for it! So now I'm working on DIYing some of the other fun pieces I wanted since I can't really spend another couple hundred on my room now that I blew the whole budget on sheets. lol so I'll be sharing some of my DIY projects for the room on here. Other than that life has been pretty busy with work and my daughter and various other things. How have things been with all of you? ;)

Travel and toddlers....



I intended to have this blog up sooner but between vacation hangover, internet issues, work and a toddler...well it got a little delayed! So first I want to assure you that more polishes are coming soon! You can check out my first impressions of the new Zoya collection on my YouTube channel and those will be swatched and up here for you as well very soon. It's a collection I'm super excited about so I can't wait to see what you all think.  But for today I want to talk to you about another passion in my life; travel.  I try to travel at least twice a year but typically I go somewhere every four months or so.  Of course now that I have a daughter it's a little trickier to go places, but it's definitely not impossible and I hope that as we travel more she'll get used to it so it will continue to be pretty stress free. In future blogs I'd love to outline more of how we budget, save, and plan for travel since I know quite a few people who think that travel is out of their reach when it reality it may be more accessible than you think. It doesn't' have to be outrageously expensive and there are TONS of ways to save money and travel on almost any budget. Sometimes I go somewhere just because the price or deal is too great to skip out on and I've enjoyed everywhere we've been so far. Today this is just a quickie blog though, to give you some fast tips when traveling with a toddler! My daughter took her first flight at 9 months old and just recently returned from Maui, Hawaii which was her third trip with flights and probably her 12th or 13th actual flight. Her first flight she was pretty young and the flight was short; I think the longest one was about 4 hours so nothing too crazy. She slept through almost all of it and honestly, I think traveling with infants when they're really young like that is the easiest.  She was still nursing and eating only a little solids so it was super easy to feed her and since the flights were short she didn't need a meal mid-flight. You can bring seats for infants and this is considered the safest way to travel but I never have brought a seat for her and I don't think she'd sit in it without a fuss even if I did. One thing I didn't know though, is that if your baby is under 1 and under 20lb you can actually book a bulkhead seat and request a bassinet. So that's something to think about if you have a really little one. Our last set of flights totaled 15 hours of time and a six hour time change. I thought she was going to be a mess but we did SO well. I learned a lot from her first two flights which I think made her last long journey A LOT easier. So here they are in no particular order:

Snacks! 
Bring lots of snacks! Seriously. LOTS. Snacks are one thing that's so easy and that will surely keep your toddler busy and content.  I brought way more snacks than I needed but better to have too many than not enough. Some great snack options are fruit (check your final destination to see if fresh fruits are OK. If you're travelling internationally, or you don't want to worry about a mess then take dried fruits instead!), pretzels, dry cereal, crackers, and a few cookies or sweets that they can eat if you really get desperate! I considered taking a cooler but decided against it since it can be a hassle with TSA but you can pack a cooler with yogurt and frozen cheeses or other cold treats if you like. Just be sure to use a frozen ice pack so you don't get held up at TSA! Juice boxes can also be carried through TSA but again, it can hold you up so I ended up purchasing some toddler formula packets and filled up her sippy with water at the fountains to mix them up as needed. Some airlines have milk but most don't so don't rely on it on board. You can always get juice though if you like! 

Toys:
Toys are a given but most toddler toys have loud noises or lots of parts and that's a no go in a plane with a baby who's going to throw them everywhere. One toy my daughter loves that's TINY and super easy to take on the go is the Dimpl toy. She can play with it for hours and it's great for ages baby to 4 so it's one I hope will last. I also brought her a Fischer Price toy with lots of moving doors and windows and lights, a book we could read, and...go ahead and kill me now...an iPad. I loaded up the iPad with a few games, three episodes of Little Baby Bum, and Moana; her favorite movie. We watched the LLB for most of the flights and never used the other things. But it never hurts to have backup plans. 

Other things I brought on board are her pacifier which we securely attached with a clip, a change of clothing, and then the obvious wipes and diapers. I really love this cloth wipe clutch because it clips onto her diaper bag, it's super soft (she used it filled with cloth wipes as a pillow at one point but disposables totally fit as well!), and it's so easy to just pull a wipe out on the fly! The main trick is to pack light but efficiently! Have you ever flown with a toddler? Any tips or tricks you have? 

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