TOTD: Claire's Glam

I've had this on for maybe a week but just got around to taking pics.  I thought it would be a fun bit of brightness - I also thought that it would wear great, as glitters usually do, but I see in this pics I've already got a piece peeled off =(  Maybe I'll just fill it in rather than change the whole thing... anyway, here is Claire's Glam:

 

Stayed home sick today, feeling both better & worse ... my head is clearing up which is good but unfortunately it's moved to my chest.  I'm not coughing out of control, but when I do cough it's pretty gross.  Planning to be back to work tomorrow though.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

~Colette

Semi-Fail NOTD: Claire's Memaid Funky French

I don't know quite what to say about this.  It was disappointing on so many levels.  I knew that Claire's Mermaid was sheer, and I thought I had a pretty good plan for dealing with that - a black french tip with a silver smile line.  I used Color Club Black for my tips - I really should have used some polish thinner on it beforehand, but it was sooo late, and I was sooo lazy.  I used Art Club Satin Silver striper for the smile line, a very pale silver.  I did 2 coats of Mermaid over the top.  And got this:

 

 

Poor application all around, sloppy french tips - if it hadn't been 11 o'clock I'd have taken it off & started from scratch.  I should have picked something more foolproof in the first place ... oh well.  I even had one girl at work tell me they weren't up to my usual standard, which horrified my mother that anyone would say anything so mean - of course, she liked them & didn't see most of the glaring errors that bugged me all day LOL.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

~Colette

NOTD: Ulta Always A Bridesmaid + Holiday In Turqs & Caicos + BM10

Just a quick post, that I forgot to do last night.  I started with a base color of Ulta Always A Bridesmaid, then sponged the tips with Ulta Holiday In Turqs & Caicos, then did the stamping with White Special Polish & used one of my Bundle Monster plates for the first time, BM10.  I did include one pic pre-stamping:

For some reason this mani was just OK for me.  Not sure what I didn't like about it since it turned out pretty much exactly as I intended, but I was happy to change it.  Thanks for reading =)

~Colette

NOTD: China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise + Hidden Treasure

Another manicure that I "stretched."  On the bottle this China Glaze polish is labeled Turned Up Turquoise (Neon) - so does that mean there's a non-neon version out there somewhere?  Either way, it was tricky to photograph as neons usually are, it is a little darker & just more vibrant than I was able to capture:

For the second day I added Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure.  I had a video of this but decided against uploading it - the hard to capture color combined with less than ideal lighting made it less than impressive in motion.  The still shots don't do it justice either but I do have a few:

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

NOTD: L'Oreal Passport to Paradise Water Marble + Tutorial

FINALLY got around to this LOL.  I got the idea & mentioned it I think like 2 weeks ago?  It turned out pretty subtle, since the colors are all so close, but I liked it.  Would have worn it longer than a day ... if I hadn't apparently jinxed myself yesterday saying how pleased I was with my nails.  I got a big crack in my left middle before I even got in the door to work.  I had some topcoat in my desk - I will, after tomorrow have proper nail glue in my desk - so I put that on & it lasted until I could get home & patch it properly.  But it's worse than my thumb nail & I may have to file my nails a bit just to reduce the strain on this weak point.

On to the pretties.  You may be able to see the crack in some of these pics ... for this marble I used all 3 of the colors from L'Oreal's spring collection, Passport to Paradise:  High Tide, Waters Edge & Ocean Breeze.  My favorite nails are left index & ring, they picked up more of the "petals" as well as the swirl, like I originally envisioned.:

What do you guys think of the last pic?  I can't decide if i like it or if it just makes my hands look like some kind of octopus creature.  When I'm taking pictures of both hands I feel like I always end up with the same generic couple of poses though, so I try to do something different ... and that's the least objectionable of what I ended up with LOL.

Here's the tutorial:

Thanks for reading =)

~Colette

Guest NOTD: Icing Peacock

I only managed to get 1 pic of this on my mom's nails. She still had some VNL as seen below, at 2 coats; she ended up going back & adding another & it pretty much fixed that problem.  Here is Icing Peacock:

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

NOTD: Glitter Bomb (ChG Atlantis)

So, I think I mentioned when I showed this when I bought it that I originally thought I could resist. Well, I'm glad I gave in ... I haven't worn much glitter lately because it's so hard to take off, and with all the patches I have on that can make them need to be changed more often. But they need to be changed after I take this mani off anyway, so I went for it. China Glaze Atlantis, from the Glitters & Chromes collection:


How can that not put a smile on your face? Hopefully it will =)

I'm posting at a kind of weird time for me, because I'm off today & going to see my grandparents. I was supposed to go out with my cousin Tee last night for her birthday but I punked out & bailed on her but then she was kind enough to stop by the house & we still did a few ... well, several ... shots of Petrone (tequila). So it was still a good thing I could sleep in & recover this morning. Maybe she'll even read this apology for me going all anti-social on her =)

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Sunday Post-A-Thon: The Nails

So, I thought I'd get some of this done Friday evening, but T came & kidnapped me for drinks, then I thought I'd post on Saturday & she came & kidnapped me again! So I'm going to make this a Sunday post-a-thon & try to get caught up on all that I've been procrastinating on. I will start - of course - with the nails.

This NOTD is from a few days ago, from my recent haul (pics of which are forthcoming), Icing Laura's Fave Konied with Misa Toxic Seduction & plate m56:


I also have a guest NOTD, my mom, who I've finally convinced to wear blue polish! Yay! This is Nina Ultra Pro In A Tiff:


So, now I've got the nails out of the way, on to the other stuff =) Stay tuned & thanks for reading.

~Colette

It's My Birthday! (Part 2)

Otherwise known as the good part with the pictures =) First things first, my birthday mani, Nubar Indigo Illusion. This polish was a large part of the reason I ever placed a Nubar order, and I was waiting for my nails to be long enough to do it justice. The only downside - really of the whole day - is that it's been overcast at best & raining at worst pretty much all day so no sun shots but still lots of pics:

So, with rain on my birthday, I was all ready to be in a crappy mood all day, but as soon as I came in the door, I could see balloons over top of the cubicles, and I started laughing. This is what my cube looked like today:

Complete with vampire-faces on a couple LOL:

For those that don't know, Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Mysteries have been turned into a TV show True Blood which I love. My friend Sam at work has also read the books & watches the show, and she conspired with Julie to get me this cake:

And here's my little corner of presents:

The Sephora by OPI colors, if your interested, are Underwater Fantasy, Domestic Goddess, & Mermaid to Order.

Then, there was another person's birthday, and so more cake:

So overall a pretty good day at work =)

I usually get a gift from me to me, and I do have intentions of a haul, but I think I need to restrain myself at least until I resort all my existing polish into my Helmers, which I guess were also kind of a from me to me gift. And, just so you know I'm not making them up LOL, here's a pic of the finished product, snugged up under the edge of my desk:

I promise that I'll get around to posting up pics of the whole process (eventually). Thanks for reading =)

~Colette