Happy New Year's Eve!

I hope you have a fantastic (and safe!) holiday. I decided to re-create my glitterbomb manicure for New Year's Eve. I went a little nuts this time - I used a full eleven layers this time around, not including base/top coat or a little bit of brightening.
So. I can't exactly remember what order I went in, but I started with a base of China Glaze Frostbite. I used China Glaze Meteor Shower, Essie As Gold As It Gets, Kiko 261, China Glaze Snow Globe, Confetti Ice Ice Baby, Finger Paints Asylum, and Island Girl Island Volcano. Whew. Then around the bottom, in a kind of U shape, I added an "accent" of BeYu 209. I then topped everything off with China Glaze Fairy Dust.
Although it didn't come out really thick - I did use thin layers - even with a fast dry top coat, it took forever for this baby to dry.
I have pictures in full sun for you to get an idea of the bling, and the last shot is in low light. It's probably nowhere near as awesome as it looks to me, but you'll get an idea of it anyway. I really, really love how this turned out.

Is that crazy nuts or what? Hahaha, I love it. Have a great evening!

Birthday Sammich!

Helloooo everyone! So tonight I officially turn 40. I was in serious debate over what to use for my full on birthday manicure, when my girlfriends Jeanette and Diana suggested a glitter sandwich of epic proportions - seriously, this one came out so stunning!
Okay, so I started out with Confetti Happy Birthday, which is a gorgeous glass fleck purple jelly. I added Confetti Tazmanian Devil on top - this is my favorite of the Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday dupes, I love the fine silver glitter in it. I did two coats of this - I've included a picture of what it looks like at this point also. Then I topped the sandwich again with Happy Birthday, and added a layer of a polish that I got from Jeanette - the amazing BeYu 209, Brilliant Shiraz, on top of everything else. Lotsa layers, but boy is this stunning. Happy Birthday is a midtoned, blue leaning purple, so when you put Brilliant Shiraz over it it turns into a reddish purple. Brilliant Shiraz is a multichrome, take a look at the bottle in my shots!
I got photo happy and couldn't figure out how to cut any of these out. Make sure you click to enlarge these, so much better at full size!
This first shot is just two layers of Happy Birthday and two layers of Tazmanian Devil.

Here is the next step, another layer of Happy Birthday.

And then topping everything off with BeYu 209. Check out that bottle!

A bright sunlight shot.

Oh my gosh, is that an amazing combination or what? I will be experimenting with layering 209 some more, I want to try it over a green jelly and some other goodies. Hopefully I can get the green to come out and play more than I did here!
I'm off to eat country fried steak and blackberry cheesecake - my hubby and my mom are making my birthday dinner! Have a great night y'all.

Confetti My Favorite Martian and Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoat Antiqued Gold

That's a long title, huh?
Confetti My Favorite Martian should be pretty well known to folks by now, I know it was really popular among green lovers, everywhere when it came out. I was on a no buy....well, forever and when I finally came off of it, I didn't pick it up for the longest time. I don't EVEN know why. I love this so much! It's an olive green jelly base jam packed with emerald green shimmer. Three coats here. So freaking awesome. You can kind of see that olive base color peeking out at the base of my nails, so this is definitely a yellow tinged green!

And since I'm not sick of crackle yet, I tried out the Sally Hansen gold crackle - Antiqued Gold.

Oh yeah, that came out awesome. The green is kind of oozing underneath that gold, haha! I love it. So, as you can see, the fluke application trouble I had with their purple crackle was just that - a one time fluke. I'd used it before with no troubles! And this one came out great. I kind of want to snatch up the red crackle now, as I don't have one of those. Also, I must be a glutton for punishment, because I want some of the new China Glaze metallic crackles coming out - they look super pretty!

As you can see, I'm not sick of the crackle craze yet. I know many folks are.

Layering: Revlon Emerald + Confetti Ice Ice Baby

Bad me, I forgot to get a photo of Revlon Emerald by itself - it is an awesome dusty shade of mid-toned green, maybe just a hint of yellow to it. I did get a bottle shot, below, with Confetti's Ice Ice Baby. I'm convinced this is a dupe for the now discontinued Sinful Colors' Pearl Harbor - both of which I've seen in stock all OVER the place. My local beauty supply stores, as well as Rite Aids, are carrying Pearl Harbor, and my CVS' are well stocked with all the Confetti displays.

I don't think I quite captured the awesomeness that this layered mani was, but it was definitely stare-worthy. You can click to enlarge the photos, if you like.

After a day of staring at this, I decided to slap on some China Glaze Matte Magic, and it came out SO cool. Please to be ignoring that weird shrinkage on my pinkie finger, I'm not sure why it happened.

I swear, I'm a layering fiend.

I just can't get enough of layering. If anyone at all is interested in seeing side by sides of Confetti Ice Ice Baby with Sinful Colors Pearl Harbor, I'd be glad to post a picture.

Also, because I lol'ed so hard about the Confetti name:

Yeah, I'll leave you with that little bit of nostalgia for tonight.