Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge!

Just a little post to let you know I will be starting a Halloween nail art challenge. I had a case of commitment issues, but decided to give it a chance at the last minute. I really loved doing themed nails last year. My challenge of choice is the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge by datyorkLOVES.

It is a self paced challenge which is what sold me on it. There are 10 themes to complete during the month of October. My plan is to start on the 4th and post every 3rd day with the last challenge falling on the 31st! I might shift a few of them, however, if they fall on a Sunday so I can keep up with the stamping challenges. For more information on the challenge or to join head over to this Facebook event...

There are other Halloween challenges to consider and follow along...

Sunday Stamping: Using a French Tip Design

I'm back with a Sunday Stamping challenge for the group Adventures in Stamping after missing last week's challenge. By the way last weeks theme was to let someone else pick a plate and I love the idea, so it is now on my to do list for another time. This week the challenge is to use a french tip design. Now you have to understand, to me, french tip designs in a set of plates are wasted space. No matter how long I allow my nails to grow out, those things are always too big and cover at least half my nail. I generally figure that I will never use them when I decide to purchase a set. Really, I keep hoping for the day when the manufacturers hear our plea and stop wasting space on "french tip" patterns.

OK, so I might be a bit harsh since I've used the french tip patterns once or twice before, but never as they are designed to be used. That is why this week's challenge is so great. It forces me to try to look at those images in a different way. A way that would work for shorter nails and still hopefully look good...

Barielle Soho at Night vs Zoya Monica

I mentioned yesterday that Barielle Soho at Night reminded me of Zoya Monica. The two are very similar dusty plum creams from this year's Fall collections. It is pretty clear from the bottle shots that they are not dupes, but just how different are they on the nail?...

Barielle New York Style Collection (Fall/Winter 2012)

It is officially Fall and while I'm not excited at the prospect of the weather starting to turn, it is my favorite when it comes to polish colors. Barielle does not disappoint with two new collections, New York Style and Runway Fever, released for the season. Today I'm going to show you swatches of the Barielle New York Style Collection which features six smooth creams...

Progress!

I just want to say thank you so much for all your kind words and support in restoring the blog! They really mean so much to me and were truly my driving force as I was reloading the photos. It took the majority of my day off yesterday plus the day before to finish, but was completely worth it just too see all the photos back up in their place. I still need to restore the press release page, but the swatches page, tutorials page, and all the posts are done!!

Complete and Utter Defeat...

Some of you noticed the rather nasty looking black squares all over my blog yesterday where pretty photos should have been. I'm sorry to say that they will be there for a while longer. You see, Google and I got into a bit of a battle and it won. I might be a sore looser in this case, but it is not at all a graceful winner. Not only did it defeat me, but it jumped up and down, sang a victory song and quite possibly even did a body slam...

The result is the loss of six months worth of photos. If you look at the snapshot view of my blog you can see each post represented as a square. The squares with actual photos are ones I have gone through one by one and re-uploaded the photos. That took about three hours yesterday. The black squares are all the ones still left to redo...

If all the photos were not watermarked with my .blogspot URL, I would move the blog to a different provider without so much as a second though, but sadly that it is not that easy.

Looking at this image right here, I feel quite defeated and wondering if it wouldn't be easier to just shut this blog down...

Anutka :(

Essence Grey-t To Be Here

Last weekend was my cousin's masquerade ball birthday party. I made a lacy black mask and of course my nails had to match with a swirly pattern. It was great to be back in a crafty mood. Now if I could just keep the momentum going. Although that would probably dig into my manicure time so for let's just look at this....