More Blog Awards...

I was lucky enough to get tagged with a whole bunch of awards by the lovey Antallex of Notes on Nails. Thanks so much! If you have not seen her blog yet, then you are missing out. She has amazing nails and swatches that I'm always drooling over...

I have gotten most of the awards in her tag before, so I will post here the two that are new to me...

I'm not sure on the specific rules for these, but assuming the standard rules of say something about yourself and pass it on. Also, I usually just re-post things about me from previous tags, but I decided to write something new this time since I love reading other bloggers' interesting facts...

So here are ten things about me... :D
1. I "met" my boyfriend when he called a friend of mine who couldn't talk to him at the time and so she handed the phone to me. We had a great conversation and kept calling each other for about 6 months before actually meeting... that was 13 years ago and we are still together :)
2. Every year, I donate to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. It is a great organization treating childhood cancer and they never deny treatment to anyone for inability to pay. This year I donated to them through a local radio-thon which was raffling off a bunch of stuff every hour to get callers. I ended up winning the "raffle of the hour" when I called - a guitar autographed by about 15 country singers including Toby Keith, Keith Urban, Martina McBride, Carrie Underwood... also got to go see Toby Keith and Eric Church in concert...
3. I love the idea of decorating, but hate the execution of it. I look through magazine and online to collect ideas. I can picture what I want most of the rooms in the house to look like, but I have lived in my house almost two years and am still at the bare minimum in furniture and hardly anything on the walls. I even bought curtains I want to hang, but they are still in packages... more than a year later...
4. I collect shot glasses from places I visit, but never actually use them for drinking...
5. I also collect other memorabilia from trips with the intention of someday making a scrapbook. I now have tons of stuff and have only made two scrapbook pages ever (and they were not even trip related...)
6. My first career was as a web developer writing code and helping develop/maintain a web application. When the dot-com crash happened I went back to school and became a pharmacist...
7. During pharmacy school we had to do required "volunteering" for which I visited a nursing home once a week and gave sweet little old ladies manicures. I often think that I should find time to do that again!
8. I'm a Gemini which apparently explains why I get easily bored with stuff and jump from one thing to another. I have tried many crafts as they all look so interesting to me. The ones that stuck the most were cake decorating, candle carving (some of which you can see in my previous award tag...), and jewelry making... my favorite is definitely making earrings...

9. I'm really bad at small talk. I can sit next to a person and be completely blank on anything interesting to say. Once I get to know people I can talk to them for hours...
10. I have a bit of a sweet tooth and cannot resist anything with sweetened condensed milk in it...

My 10 tags (in alphabetical order)... sorry if you have gotten this before :)
Andayn Nails 
Chikisnails 
Girly Bits  
Kimskie's Nails  
Legally Lacqured 
Like a Candy Shop 
Mini Nail Blog
Polish Amor
The Nail Addict 
Vique's Varnish


Hopefully I have not bored you all to tears :P

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Zoya Sabrina Starring in a French Manicure...

Yesterday my boyfriend and I went the wedding of two very good friends. We had a great time and I'm so glad that I was able to get the day off from work to attend. For my nails I went with the traditional white french tip. I know a lot of people think the french tip is outdated, but I still like the look, so I wear it for special occasions.

I started out with two coats of Zoya Sabrina, a soft milky pink which was perfect for this. I added tips using Wet 'n Wild French White Cream and another coat of Sabrina on top. To spice up the french tip I added blue stamping using Zoya Ibiza to match my navy blue dress. Then, topped the whole things off with a topcoat and was ready to go! In hindsight, I probably could have used only one coat of Sabrina to begin with and gotten the same result...

In the shade...

What do you think, is french tip outdated or classic?

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Tutorial: Blue Jeans

Today I have a tutorial of how I did the blue jeans manicure yesterday. I hope you enjoy it :)

	Supplies: - Polishes - dark blue for the base and white for the sponging (I used Essence Underwater for the base and Wet n Wild French White Cream for the sponging) - Cosmetic wedge - Tweezers - Toothpick - Qtip with acetone/polish remover for clean up (not pictured)
	Set Up: - Tear off a small piece of the cosmetic wedge
	Step 1: - Apply desired number of base color coats (I used two coats here)
	Step 2: - Place a drop or two of white polish onto your palette/work surface. (I'm using a ceramic tile that I can clean for next time, but you can use a disposable surface such as paper, foil, etc.) - Pick up the torn off piece of cosmetic wedge with the tweezers - Dip the wedge into white polish and tap a few times on your palette to work the polish into the sponge - Tap the sponge over your nail adding more white as necessary.
	Step 3: - This is about what it should look like when completely sponged
	Step 4: - Using a Q-tip dipped in acetone/nail polish remover clean up any white polish that may have gotten onto the cuticles - You can also do this clean up step at the very end if you want (I chose to do it now so the next steps look cleaner :D)
	Step 5: - Dip a toothpick into white polish - Draw "stitches" along the edge of the nail
	Step 6: - Add a second row of stitches, following the 1st as a guide
	Step 7: - As an accent, using the same method as above you can add a "pocket" using a toothpick and white nail polish. - Add a top coat and you are done!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!
Let me know what you think... what you like or what I should improve :D

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Day 5 Continued - Blue Jeans

The Essence Underwater from yesterday's blue challenge really reminded me of blue jeans so I decided to just expand on that idea. I added the jeans "texture" and a pocket accent on the ring finger. I'm so excited about how it turned out! I considered adding something sparkly to the pocket, but in the end left if simple...

UPDATE: Tutorial for this manicure available here!

I'd love to know what you think about this!

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Day 5 - Blue - Essence Underwater

For day 5 of the challenge, I chose a blue from Essence called Underwater. In the bottle is has a gorgeous micro-glitter which I was so excited about. It applied easily in 2 coats and overall I'm really happy with the color. I did have the issue of cleanup... if any of the polish got on the cuticles it was difficult to remove even with pure acetone, but I think this is common with a lot of dark colors. Also the glitter didn't transfer to the nails as I would have hoped, it showed up as random glitter specks instead of what is seen in the bottle.

Here it is using two coats + a topcoat in partial sun...

In the shade...

This one shows the micro-glitter in the bottle (click to zoom in), but as you can see not much of it transferred to the nail...

I had a plan for nail art, but ran out of time, so I'll try to do it tonight and show you tomorrow... :D

Brand: Essence Collection: Colour & Go Color Name/Number: Underwater, 24 Formaldehyde, Toluene, and Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP) free

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Day 4 - Green - Maybelline La La Lime

See how fast my nails grow? It is like magic... ok, so maybe more like slightly cheating because this is a manicure I wore a few weekends ago (pre nail break). When my bf and I went out of town for his birthday I asked him if he had any color requests and much to my surprise it was "lime"... I was happy to oblige, it was his birthday after all, but have not gotten a chance to post about it since we came back. I figured it would be perfect for the 4th day of the challenge which is green.

The color is La La Lime from Maybelline. The formula is nice although needs a pretty quick hand as it starts to dry and get stringy. I applied three coats + a topcoat for full even coverage. It has a gorgeous micro-shimmer when the sunshine hits it...

In the shade...

Brand: Maybelline Collection: Express Finish Color Name/Number: La La Lime, 634

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Day 3 - Yellow - Color Club Get Your Lem-On

I'm glad that the 3rd day of the challenge fell on a weekend because there is just no way, I would wear this manicure to work. For the yellow, I chose Get Your Lem-On from the Color Club Wicked Sweet collection. It is scented to have an artificial lemon-y smell once dry. I actually didn't mind the scent as much as I thought I would. The color itself is a very bright almost highlighter yellow with a green shimmer. It is fairly sheer, but applied well in three coats with a slightly visible nail line.

I decided that it was such a toxic yellow that I could not resist adding the toxic and bio-hazard symbols to the manicure...

The color by itself in the sunshine...

In the shade...

Brand: Color Club Collection: Wicked Sweet Color Name/Number: Get Your Lem-On Formaldehyde, Toluene, and Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP) free

As always, I'd love to know what you think :)

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)