Whimsical Idea by Pam: Kitty Glitter

Kitty Glitter...hehe...the name always makes me laugh.  Whimsical Ideas by Pam has so many great polishes to offer, plus she has an adorable kitty named Kismet as a mascot of sorts!  So, if you like her Facebook page; not only do you get to drool at and buy awesome nail polish, but you get to go "Awww" at Kismet!  ☺  Kitty Glitter is a silver glitter with light blue base.  I originally thought of painting all my nails with Kitty Glitter, but then decided to add a little stamping to jazz it up!  I used my trusty Bundle Monster plates; BM04 and BM206.  BM206 is on my middle finger and is balls of yarn, I think?  BM04 is on my thumb and is a kitty!  I love the kitty stamp, I wish I would have put it on my middle finger instead.  The yarn stamp is cool, but it just didn't transfer that well.  Either way, I still like the finished look!  I forgot to mention, I did use another polish as a base coat for Kitty Glitter.  I used Lime Crime Once In A Blue Mousse as a base for all my nails, and one coat of Kitty Glitter on the non stamped nails.

Happy 1st Blogiversary To Me!!!!

Happy Friday everyone!  This post is a milestone for me, today marks 1 year since I started this little blog!  I cant believe its been a year already.  I feel like I have learned so much in just a year!  That especially goes for the 31 day challenge, I learned so much from it.  You may notice that I have not done anything momentous for this celebration, such as a giveaway.  I thought about it, but decided to hold off because to be honest my little blog is still in the early stages of its life and Im not sure I have enough followers to warrant a giveaway...I want to do one, but Im scared that nobody will enter!  So, I have decided to give it a little more time and do a surprise giveaway sometime here soon.  Only in the last 31 days with the challenge have I really learned how to network with my blog, I never realized how important it is to get out there and promote yourself.

Now, lets move on to what I chose for my anniversary polish!!!!  In the last few months I started getting into Enchanted Polish.  I have been wanting to share them with you all, but did want to use them durring the challenge, because I honestly felt like they would be wasted due to how quickly you change your polish in a challenge.  As soon as the challenge was done I knew what I wanted to wear!  Today I have Enchanted Polish Time To Pretend.  It is this awesoeme purple holo that is...AWESOME!!!!!  Purple is my favorite color, and holo with purple is just craziness!  This post is a bit photo heavy, but thats only because of how great this polish is!  I used various lighting sources to try to get the most out of the holo effect.

31DC2013 Day 31

Its here!  Today is the last day of the 31 day challenge!  I'm so glad I decided to take the challenge and try many new things I might not have otherwise tried.  Todays theme is Honor Nails You ❤.  In the beginning of the challenge many people were wondering what this theme meant, and in a Facebook post we were told its pretty much anything you want.  Its your day to be free!  Of course not being told what to do actually might make it harder!  There are so many options.  I chose to keep it simple and clean, and use the same color I have used more than any color in this challenge...Zoya Purity!  There are so many colors I have that I have never used and Orly Peaceful Opposition is one of them.  It is a great white/gray base with lots of silver square sized glitter.  I painted 2 coats of Zoya Purity and 1 coat of Orly Peaceful Opposition on all nails but my middle finger.  I left my middle finger pure white and added some studs to accent the glitter in the Orly polish.

There are so many things I have learned through this challenge; new techniques, how to use acrylic, how to manage my blog posts better, the list goes on and on.  As excited as I am to have participated in this challenge, I am also excited to not have to paint my nails tomorrow!!!  LOL  I enjoy painting them and admiring my hard work for a few days.  This challenge has been great and I am excited to give it a go again next year, hopefully with some added improvement! :)

31DC2013 Day 30

I have been looking forward to this day since the beginning of this challenge!  A while back I bought some feathers from the Born Pretty Store and have been itching to try out a feather tutorial.  I choose to use The Nailasarus' Real Feather tutorial for a few reasons.  The Nailasarus is one of my favorite blogs, this is the first place I saw the feather technique, and its a great tutorial!  I followed this tutorial to a T, even the colors I used were similar.  I ordered 2 colors in the feathers; Red(AKA #2) and Brown(AKA #8)  I thought about using a maroon polish to make the red stand out in the feathers, but then decided the color might not show up that well.  I then chose to use Zoya Flynn for my base color.  I love Flynn, I had been wanting an awesome camel color for fall and this color is perfect.

As I said before, I followed the tutorial exactly.  The only surprising thing was that I had to use a TON of top coat to get a smooth look.  After the first top coat, I noticed the finish was a bit rough, so I applied another...then another...then another...it kept going.  I finally started taking the photos and noticed the finish was still rough.  I guess it is from the feathers?  So, I settled on quickly slapping on a top coat and snapping as many photos as possible before the finish got grainy again.  All said and done; I have no idea how many layers of top coat I have on...LOL

I am super excited that I finally got to try out this tutorial!  The Nailasarus made it easy to follow.  My only suggestion if you are planning trying this out would be to buy at least 2 packs of the feathers.  I only bought 1 and only had enough to do 5 nails.  Thank goodness thats all I needed!  I suppose you could get them from a craft store too...I will have to look into that.

31DC2013 Day 29

Its day 29 of the challenge and we only have 2 more themes to go!  Todays theme is Supernatural.  I immediately thought of a stamping plate I ordered from Llarowe.  The plate is made by Lealac and is labeled LLC6.  I tried searching the internet for more info on this plate, but cant seem to find anything on it..it was on sale when I got it from Llarowe and I am super glad I snagged it!  It has one full coverage image of planes and ufos.  My husband has his private pilots license, so thats why I got this plate.  It also has a little video game martian looking guy, a rocket, a planet, and stars.  I used the planes and ufos with the little martian guy for this theme today.

I painted my nails with Color Club Masquerading and stamped with Julep Dendrie.  On my middle finger I reversed the stamping colors.  I have never bought Color Club polishes, but own about 15 or so because they were gifted to me from family.  I must say I was super impressed with the Color Club I used today.  It was nice and opaque, it was easily a one coater polish.  I started out with a glossy finish, but didn't like how my lights reflections were making it hard to see the design.  So, I painted my handy dandy NYC Matte Me Crazy on.  With the matte finish, my nails photographed much better.  I liked how both finishes look, so I decided to share both!

American Heart Association Heart Walk

Happy Saturday everyone!  Today is technically day 28 of the 31 day challenge, but it is also the day of the American Heart Association Heart Walk for my town.  I was not feeling particularly excited about the flag theme today, but was however eager to paint my nails to match my t-shirt for the walk today.  I work at my county court house as a clerk, AKA the person you pay tickets and such to, and we participated in the Heart Walk this morning!  We had these hot pink t-shirts with vibrant lime green writing that said "Clerks With a ❤"  In the spirit of the event and shirts I decided to paint my nails like my shirt!  I painted them with Julep Lauren which almost exactly matched the t-shirt color, and then made adorable little hearts with a dotting tool using Lime Crime Pastelchio.  I absolutely love this mani, its simple but so adorable!

31DC2013 Day 27

Todays theme is artwork.  At first I browsed the internet for art, then finally narrowed my search down to modern art.  I wasn't really seeing anything I felt I could do homage to, then I saw a splatter painting and had a "light bulb" moment.  I've been wanting to try the splatter nail art out and it is artwork!  Just the other day I was looking at The Polishaholic's splatter tutorial and decided to give it a try today.  The splatter technique is great because your making a mess while making art!  Thats right up my ally!  I used 3 colors for this design and ran into a problem I can't seem to stop running into...my colors were all too similar.  However, that is why I choose them.  I love seeing colors from the same family together, but the camera does not.  If you stare hard enough you can see that there are 3 colors in use here...I used all China Glaze; For Audrey, Too Yacht to Handle, and Highlight of my Summer.  In person I can see the distinction between the colors pretty well, but the colors are too similar for the camera.  I think I need to make a sign above my nail polish storage that says "Put those colors back and choose more contrasting colors!"  LOL  Either way this splatter technique was very fun and I am excited to try it out again!