Bold Gold Stamping...

If you follow me on instagram, then you may have already seen a sneak peak of this manicure. I'm not in the habit of giving sneak peaks, but I'm just a bit a lot hooked on instagram right now and it makes it so easy to share even when I don't have time to process all the photos or do a full write up. Now I'm not even sure why I resisted for so long. Sidetrack aside though, I got the most perfect stamping gold polish as an unexpected gift from a friend and I was so excited to try it out...

Textured Stars and Stripes...

I have another attempt at a 4th of July manicure to show you today. This one features some sparkly Zoya PixieDust and striping tape. I will let the photos do most of the talking today...

Sunday Stamping: Colors of My Holiday Decorations

The holidays can get kind of hectic and I have been struggling to find the time to blog. That is partly why I am showing you the Sunday Stamping manicure on a Monday. This week the challenge was to create a manicure with the colors of the holiday tree decorations. I took that quite literally and went looking through my ornaments for inspiration. I wanted something that wasn't a "typical" bright color so I chose for a gorgeous matte white ornament with gold glitter and rhinestones...

Nail-aween Challenge Day 5: Ghost & Goblins

It is time for day five of the Nail-aween challenge which calls for a ghost and goblin manicure. I wasn't in the mood for anything creepy or spooky, but definitely in the mood for silly and wacky. Luckily the little ghosts were more than willing to make silly faces for me....

Ulta Concrete Evidence Stamped with Barielle Surf's Up

As soon as I swatched Barielle Surf's Up*, I knew I had to try to stamp with it. My first thought was that it would work perfectly stamping over white to create a nice traditional porcelain china look, but I ended up going a slightly different way. As you might know, I tend to inject a bit of gray into my manicures. Maybe it is the gray Seattle weather, maybe it is to match my mostly black/gray wardrobe, maybe just my personality. Whatever it is, I like it and I'm sticking with it and I hope you don't mind...

Ulta Snow White Stamped

I'm not sure if any of you remember the Sunday Stamping gemstone manicure from a few weeks ago. I had mentioned then that it was my second attempt at a manicure for the challenge, since I didn't feel that the first one captured the gemstone look as I wanted. In any case, this is that manicure. I had attempted to create an opal base by layering flakes and even though the opal effect didn't show up well in photos, I still love the manicure...

Sunday Stamping: Favorite Stamp

Is it just me or does it seem that every week Sunday comes faster and faster. This week for Sunday Stamping in the group Adventures in Stamping, the challenge was to use a favorite new stamp. To be honest, I don't really have favorites when it comes to a particular stamp. I do have favorite sets that I will reach for vs others when selecting images. It all depends on the mood of the day or an idea. Just in the last month I've gotten the new Mash and Bundle Monster sets as well as the large DashicaBeauty plate, making it really hard to choose a new favorite. They are all excellent quality and I'm still exploring and getting inspired by all the different images :)

Sunday Stamping: Something I Love with Ulta Into Astrono-Me?

I had every intention of making and posting this manicure in time for Sunday, but time just got away from me. The weather in Seattle has been amazing and sunny and I have been spending what little daytime I have before work outside. Partly because of the weather and partly because my front (and back) yard are in major need of a clean up. My HOA gave me 30 days to clean up or else... so I got an estimate to see how much it would cost for someone else to do the work and let's just say that the $800 quote was just the push shove that I needed to get my butt outside and weeding :D

Ok, back to the topic at hand. The theme for this Sunday Stamping challenge in the group Adventures in Stamping was "Something you love." I rather enjoy open ended challenges such as this because everyone creates something completely different! One thing that I love is astrology. This love comes from years of listening to my boyfriend tell me all about the different signs of the zodiac. We enjoy analyzing the different signs and seeing how they fit or don't fit the people in our lives.

For my manicure I chose to go with the zodiac signs of my boyfriend (Leo) and me (Gemini )...

Green with Envy over the Budda-Ful Silver Mercedes

Today I want to show you a manicure that I have been wearing all weekend long. I created it to match an emerald green taffeta dress which I wore to my cousin's birthday party. I tried quite a few of the dark green polishes in my stash, but none of them matched the iridescent look of taffeta. Instead of using as single polish, I ended up layering Barielle Budda-Ful* over Ulta Green With Envy. The combination of the two polishes was the perfect fit for what I wanted, mimicking the iridescent look.

Ulta Recap...

Now that I have swatched my last Ulta polish, I thought it would be fun to do a recap of them. I have been very impressed with the consistent quality of these and will definitely be getting more in the future. I already have some on my wish list...

You can click on any of the images to go to the original post...

Paint the Town and Glitterati Mini Sets
Ulta Devious Stamped with Ulta High Roller
Ulta Army of 1 with Prestige
Ulta Ruby Slipper Dressed Up
Ulta High Roller Stamped
Ulta Wild Night with Sally Hansen Celeb City
Ulta Chocolate Kiss
Ulta Lilac Chrome and After Party
Ulta Casual Mauve with After Party
Ulta Chic Peek Polar Bears
Love My Blackberry
Ulta Green with Envy Stamped with LA Colors Current
Ulta Smoke Screen with Ludurana Relampago
Ulta Femme Fatale stamped with Essence Enchanted Fairy
Ulta What a Maroon and OPI Rainbow Connection Sandwich
Ulta Blue For You

I hope you enjoy this recap of the recent Ulta polishes...

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Ulta Blue For You

This is the final Ulta polish in my current collection and it is yet another blue. In the bottle it appears very similar to Love My Blackberry that I wore just a few days ago. Both are a blue purple that photograph blue. However, even those they looked similar in the bottle, Blue For You was actually blue on the nails, while Love My Blackberry was purple.

I added some free hand art using Sally Hansen Celeb city, a dense metallic silver glitter. I think I was aiming for flowers, but  got snowy pine cones instead. I like them regardless. Can never get enough of the blue with silver combo...

UPDATE: I finally located the tutorial from Tartofraises that inspired this manicure. You can find it here.

Blue For You is a dark navy blue with a blue shimmer. In the bottle it has a strong purple shimmer, which didn't translate on the nail at all. Application was decent, although I had a hard time getting it to wrap around the tips. This is two coats plus a top coat...

Swatch Details
	Brand: Ulta Line: Professional Color Name/Number: Blue For You Number of coats: 2 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

I realize I have one too many dark navy blues in my collection. Note to self, stop buying them! :)
Is there a color you gravitate towards buying every time?


Thank for looking!
Anutka :)

Ulta What a Maroon and OPI Rainbow Connection Sandwich

Today I have for you my 1st ever glitter jelly sandwich. I have seen quite a few of them, but have never tried one myself. As I was applying a third coat of Ulta's What a Maroon and thinking how sheer it was, it dawned on me that I should try the sandwich technique. For the glitter I used one coat of OPI Rainbow Connection which I got in Carolina's giveaway. It is by far the most glittery polish that I own. I'm quite pleased with the result, although next time I'll try to be "neater" with the glitter :)

Here is one coat of OPI's Rainbow Connection over three coats of Ulta's What a Maroon (before I added the final coat of What a Maroon).

What a Maroon on it's own, aside from having a creative name, is a deep red jelly. The formula is easy to work with and applied well. The polish is as I mentioned already very sheer. This is three coat plus a top coat and the nail line is still visible.

Swatch Details
	Brand: Ulta Line: Professional Color Name/Number: What a Maroon Number of coats: 3 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Have you tried glitter sandwiches before? What do you think of them? I know I'm late to the party :)

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)