Sparkling Saturday - Glitter!

This glitter manicure is part of Sparkling Saturday hosted by Lisa's Nail Obsession

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An all indie manicure. Two coats of Jessica Rabbit by Lacquistry topped with

 one coat of Lynnderella's Bride of Franken (original version)

The glitter freaked my camera right out... This was the best photo I could get. I love the way the blue of the BoF stands out over the opaque red glitters!

Next Saturday... a gradient!

Love and Light,

Amy

Check out the other Sparkling Saturday blogs!

My Favorite Things Nail Art Challenge: Day 6 - Stripes!

I am mad for plaid! Back to school time always makes me think of plaid.

I chose 4 fall colors to work with.

 Ah, so pretty! For the base color I used China Glaze Swanky Silk, a champagne gold with a pink shift, two coats. In the plaid, I started with China Glaze I'm Not Lion - a champagne sparkle and then did the crosses with two from the OPI Germany Collection, Danke-Shiny Red, a glowy red shimmer and Every Month is Oktoberfest, a deep purple with red and purple shimmer.

This is my second try. The first was, well let's just say that it looked better from further away...

My lines got a little gloppy. This was my first time trying this many stripes at once... It still looks better from further away.

Slightly scary close-up. Don't mind the cuticles....

Definitely another learning experience and I think I need a thinner brush...

Love and Light,

Amy

Don't forget to see if the other stripey manis fared better than mine!

My Favorite Things Nail Art Challenge: Day 5 - Polka Dots

I adore anything polka dotted. Especially fingernails. Dots with a dotting tool is the nail art technique that gives you the most effect for the least effort. I can even do my dominant hand and have it turn out adorable!

I'm in complete and utter denial about the end of summer coming. I have so many summer polishes that I haven't worn yet. So sad... So many polishes, only ten fingers. Today I worked with all Zoya polishes. I used the Zoya Pinterest Mini Trio that I was lucky enough to get for free earlier this summer in the "Take Three Free" Pinterest event.

The girls showing off on a Quartz cluster from Arkansas.

Kimber - Bright magenta pink with gold shimmer

Myrta - Coral shimmery foil

Zuza - Turquoise foil with gold and silver shimmer

As a base for my polka dots I grabbed Zoya Snowsicle off the rack. This polish is pretty sheer. I ended up using 3 thin coats. Snowsicle is a sparkling snowy white with tons of shimmer. So pretty that it's worth the three coats.

 I dotted the colors on with my trusty dotting tools, going for a random colorful look.

So summery and cute! I love these nails!

Thanks again to Kelly of Ooh La La Polish for hosting this challenge. Please check out her blog as well as the other lovely participants!

Love and Light,

Amy

Better Late Than Never - My Favorite Things Nail Art Challenge: Day 4 - Favorite Food

Ah, the joys of procrastination! It was my birthday this week and I got completely and totally caught up in the celebration.

I did the nail art but never manged to photograph it and then I broke a few nails and just ugh.

I re-did it today, though I think it was cuter when my nails were a little longer. Oh well. I'll never regret a celebration!

My favorite food since I've moved to New Mexico is chile. The official state question (I'm not kidding... Official) is Red or Green? This refers to chile, the spicy sauce that covers everything in New Mexican cuisine. You can also request Christmas, which is half red and half green. The end of August when the current harvest of chiles start to show up in the markets.

Photo credit: www.hatch-chile.com

All the supermarkets in town sell giant sacks of these green chiles and have giant rotating propane chile roasters in the parking lot. The entire town of Santa Fe smells like roasting green chiles this time of year. Late summer-early fall is my favorite time here. The monsoons are almost past and there are entire fields of wildflowers blooming and sunflowers along every roadside. It's magical.

After the green chiles ripen they become red chiles, which are then dried and ground up into powder or made into ristras, which are decorative strings of peppers that hang everywhere around the state.

Red chile ristras

Photo credit:  MyEyeSees

So, of course I had to choose chile peppers for my nail art. This is my second attempt at freehand nail art. This time I used acrylic paint from Michael's on top of  Cult Nails Princess.

 Oh my nubbins....

 Slightly different angle.

These freehand nail art challenges have been really fun and have forced me to leap out of my comfort zone. I am glad that next up is polka dots, though... 

Love and Light,

 Amy

Please check out all the other awesome Favorite Things bloggers.

My Favorite Things Nail Art Challenge: Day 3 - Favorite animal

The Favorite Things challenge by Ooh La La Polish today is Favorite Animal!

No question about it, right now I have two favorite animals, my sweet cats Pye and Gopala.

Here they are:

Waiting for their kitty massages...

Gopala, the oldest...

and Pye, my baby, doing his best Willie Nelson impression...

I did the best I could to put their little heads on my nails... I've never really done any nail art more complicated than dots, stripes or sponging, so this is really out of my comfort zone.

They look a little wonky, but I like them....

Here's another shot:

I covered the other nails with black flocking powder for a furry look. I bought the powder from Amazon. It looks neat but feels REALLY weird. I did the whole other hand in the fuzzies.

I'm going to leave it on overnight and see what happens. Right now, the fuzzy texture is freaking me out a little bit...

Love and Light,

Amy

Next up is favorite food! Stay tuned and check out all the other bloggers...

My Favorite Things Nail Art Challenge: Day 2 - Favorite Nail Polish

Today's challenge from Ooh La La Polish is Favorite Nail Polish. 

 

Favorite? 

Gulp.... Hmmm..... Favorite..........  

How does one choose such a thing? As nail polish addicts know, there's no such thing as a favorite nail polish. These things will clearly fluctuate with mood and fashion and fascinations.  

I decided to go with the polish that I felt most sentimentally attached to. Should I choose the polish I wore at my wedding? How about the polish that I bought at the Times Square Sephora after the wedding? How about my most precious, long-coveted, spent too much money for polish? 

No.

I eventually chose The Polish That Started the Obsession.

I've always been a collector of makeup but my polish passion is only a few years old. I didn't read any nail-specific beauty blogs then but I kept seeing one particular polish pop up in the blogs I was following. It was a deep blue jelly polish with bright blue, teal and green glitter. Once I saw it I couldn't get it out of my mind. The polish? Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe   

 Isn't she lovely?

On the nails... This is two coats, swiped on the nail first and then I dab the glitter left on the brush in places where I want more glitter. It's still a little sheer at two coats, but I'm ok with that.

One of the reasons that I love this polish so much as it reminds me of two of my favorite crystals, azurite and malachite. They're both copper bearing minerals, one deep blue, one bright green. 

They're often found together.

Be still my heart...

All photos 2 coats DL Across the Universe over Cult Nails Get It On and topped with two coats of Cult Nails Wicked Fast

Love and Light,

Amy

My Favorite Things Nail Art Challenge: Day 1 - Favorite color!

I'm so excited to be participating in Kelly of Ooh La La's nail art challenge! Day 1 is all about my favorite color, purple.

I'm wearing the lovely purple OPI Grape...Set... Match from the Serena Grand Slam England set. The polish is a warm purple base with tons of blue and fuchsia sparkle. I did an accent nail of SOPI Traffic Copper Stopper on my ring finger.

Here she is in the bottle, the blue sparkle really stands out here.

Indirect natural lighting, no sun this evening in Santa Fe...

With flash to show the lovely sparkle...

A different perspective...

All photos 1 coat Cult Nails Get It On base coat, 2 coats OPI Grape...Set...Match, and 1 thick coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast on top. Accent nail is 2 dabbed coats of SOPI Traffic Stopper Copper.

Love & Light,

Amy