Girly Girl Challenge #8: Girls Just Want to Have Fun!

Helllllo Everyone!!!!
I've stretched out this challenge as long as I possibly can but there is no getting around it.  This is the last one and the challenge is over.  It's been a great run and I've seen some fantastic manicures from my fellow participants.  Really fantastic work everyone!

So this final challenge was : Girls Just Want to Have Fun!

Since I've been doing a few "arty" manis lately, I thought I'd do something a little different and bring out the glitz!

I did a glitter gradient!  This was my first one and I was happy with how it turned out although I wasn't entirely happy with how it photographed.  This is a base colour of China Glaze - White on White with a glitter gradient of Icing - Lemme See Your Peacock.  (What a dirty name!)  The colours didn't capture too well but it is a great mix of peacock blue, a magenta-ish purple and green.  It looked great outside and I wore it all week.   It held up really well!

Thank you so much to the other participants and to Lindsey for bringing us all together.  I had a great time with this challenge! 

Please check out what the other ladies have done for this challenge!

'Til next time,
Amanda

P.S. I did quite a bit of hauling recently that I must show you!

P.P.S. Don"t forget to enter my giveaway here.
Challenge Creator: Lindsey of Neverland Nail Blog
Ashley of Follow The Yellow Polish Road
Stephanie of A Little Polish
Kelly of Devilish Polish
Jodi of Captivating Claws
Danielle of Polish. Glitter. Rock & Roll!
Elly of Polishable
Olivia of Unprofessional Nails
Kate of This Charming Kate
Bethany of A Plethora of Nails
Lizzy of The Do It Yourself Lady
Eugenia of Talon-ted
Johanna of Neues vom Kellerkind
Ashley of Smashley Sparkles
Sarah of See Sarah Swatch
Emily of The Lacquerologist
Jess of LuvMyLacquer
Tressa of O' Natur Nail

ChiChi of I'm just me...ChiChi

CR of Color Me Silly
Amanda of Berry Polished
Robin, Erin, and Anna of Polished Cousins

Bonny of Over Stuffed

Taylor of REJOICE!
Jess of Nearly Natural Nails

Giveaway Time!!!! 50 Followers!--Closed!

It's celebration time!  Earlier this week I hit 50 followers (now 58) on this blog and I'm just about to hit 100 followers (99) on my tumblr.  I think that calls for a celebration.  A giveaway celebration!

Here's the prize!

2 polishes by Quo by Orly.  Orly partnered with a Canadian beauty company - Quo last fall to start this line.  These polishes are exclusive to Canada and are therefore somewhat difficult for some of you to obtain.  I thought that would make them perfect for a giveaway! The giveaway is international!

Here's some more shots...

These are swatched from my own personal bottles not giveaway ones.

These polishes are truly gorgeous!  Amazing glass-fleck finishes.

Turquoise Midnight is supposed to be a slightly darker version of Orly's own Haley's Comet. It's a turquoise to blue shifting glass fleck.  Lots of variation of the shades of turquoise.

Celestial Star is also a gorgeous glass fleck finish.  Its glassflecks range from dark blue through indigo and to a deep purple. (Lol- inadvertant classic rock shoutout!)

I hope one of you will be happy to own these gorgeous polishes.

For anyone coming here from tumblr, unfortunately you need to follow me here also to enter but you will get extra credit for the tumblr follow also.

Good Luck Everyone!

Some Rules:
There will be one winner. I will contact them by email and they will have 72 hours to respond. This giveaway is International, however due to importing laws this excludes Italy and possibly others. If your country does not allow import of nail polish and you enter anyway, I am not responsible if package not received. In fact, for anyone, I will ship package but am not responsible if package goes unreceived.

Girly Girl Challenge #7: Sugar & Spice

So I'm warning you now, my interpretation of this round is very strange!

When I was a little girl, my best friend used to pass me notes in class with these things on them.  When I asked what they were, she told me very matter-of-fact-ly, "Killer Cinnamon Buns!"  Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. :)

Well now, that's sugar with some spice!

And so I give you:  Attack of the Killer Cinnamon Buns!

They're gonna eat you as payback for all their kin you've consumed!

I know this is a little crazy but I thought it could work as a silly mani for April Fool's Day too.

Also, it's Jodie's (she who thought up these wicked little creatures!) Birthday next week. 

Happy Birthday Jo!

ETA: Jodie has approved this message!  ;)

So, only one more entry in this challenge to go for me!

Most of the other ladies participating have already completed it but you should check out what they did!

Oh, and...  Happy April Fool's!

'Til next time,

Amanda

Challenge Creator: Lindsey of Neverland Nail Blog
Ashley of Follow The Yellow Polish Road
Stephanie of A Little Polish
Kelly of Devilish Polish
Jodi of Captivating Claws
Danielle of Polish. Glitter. Rock & Roll!
Elly of Polishable
Olivia of Unprofessional Nails
Kate of This Charming Kate
Bethany of A Plethora of Nails
Lizzy of The Do It Yourself Lady
Eugenia of Talon-ted
Johanna of Neues vom Kellerkind
Ashley of Smashley Sparkles
Sarah of See Sarah Swatch
Emily of The Lacquerologist
Jess of LuvMyLacquer
Tressa of O' Natur Nail

ChiChi of I'm just me...ChiChi

CR of Color Me Silly
Amanda of Berry Polished
Robin, Erin, and Anna of Polished Cousins

Bonny of Over Stuffed

Taylor of REJOICE!
Jess of Nearly Natural Nails

Girly Girl Challenge #6: Sunflowers and Ladybugs

Hello Everyone!

Here (finally) is my Girly Girl Challenge entry #6.  Day 6 was, Who Inspires You? Show some love to your favourite female role model by creating gorgeous nails in their honour.

So like many of the ladies in this challenge, I chose my Mom.  I thought about choosing something different just for some variety, but, when it comes right down to it, she's inspired me most in my life.

So, these nails are for her...

My Mom really likes both Sunflowers and Ladybugs so I figured, why not both?

This is China Glaze - Smoke and Ashes with Acrylic paint freehanded on.  The Ladybug is China Glaze - Red Pearl.

I really liked how this one turned out.  It's definitely the most involved freehand I've done so far.
I had two sources of inspiration for this:  A metal garden decoration I just bought for my Mom of a Sunflower with a Ladybug on its leaf and an old copy of Painting Magazine from July/August 1994!  It featured a black watering can with Sunflowers on its cover.

I was really thrilled with how this turned out as this was basically how I'd envisioned it.

Please check out what the other lovely ladies participating came up with.  Most, if not all, are up now.  The next round starts tomorrow!

ETA: I've swapped some of these photos out for new ones.  I wasn't happy with how dark those other ones looked.

'Til next time,
Amanda

Challenge Creator: Lindsey of Neverland Nail Blog
Ashley of Follow The Yellow Polish Road
Stephanie of A Little Polish
Kelly of Devilish Polish
Jodi of Captivating Claws
Danielle of Polish. Glitter. Rock & Roll!
Elly of Polishable
Olivia of Unprofessional Nails
Kate of This Charming Kate
Bethany of A Plethora of Nails
Lizzy of The Do It Yourself Lady
Eugenia of Talon-ted
Johanna of Neues vom Kellerkind
Ashley of Smashley Sparkles
Sarah of See Sarah Swatch
Emily of The Lacquerologist
Jess of LuvMyLacquer
Tressa of O' Natur Nail

ChiChi of I'm just me...ChiChi

CR of Color Me Silly
Amanda of Berry Polished
Robin, Erin, and Anna of Polished Cousins

Bonny of Over Stuffed

Taylor of REJOICE!
Jess of Nearly Natural Nails

A Snow Leopard Goes His Own Way

Hi Everyone,

I know I still owe you all a Girly Girl Challenge and that is coming, I promise.  But first, I wanted to do something for the nail art contest at rebecca likes nails.

I like leopard patterns but since I've had so much colour in my manis lately I went for a more subdued colour scheme.  A Snow Leopard! 

One of the leopards is just a little wilder than his buddies! ;) 

I love the colour scheme of dark teal and tan so I went with that.  As I was painting this, I kept singing that old Sesame Street song, "One of these things is not like the others..."

This is Base Colour - China Glaze White on White.  Spot on all except ring are China Glaze Fast Track.  Ring spots are China Glaze Shower Together.  Black lines are China Glaze Liquid Leather.

I freehanded the pattern and am pretty happy with how it came out!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post.  It's finally my GGC#6 post.  I'm absolutely in love with how it came out.  So, that's up next.

Anyway, what do you think?

'Til next time,

Amanda

A Fistful of Butterflies and A Few Butterflies More

Does anyone get that title is a reference to some old Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns?  Can you already tell I used to work in a video store?

Alrighty, so this should be my post for Girly Girl Challenge #6 but I got a little off track.  Here's why...

My favourite time to really play with nail art is when I'm about to take off a mani.  I figure it's no risk.  If I like it, it usually revitalises an old mani for a day or two more and if I screw up or hate it, well, it was coming off anyways!

So with that in mind, I sat down to play with my previous mani of Solar Power and butterfly wing ring accent.  Now after the ring finger had worked out, I chickened out and didn't want to go any further for risk of ruining it.  But now it was go time!  I did butterfly wings on all the fingers and it looked pretty good so I took it a step further...

Please ignore the tip wear on the ring, like I said this was ready to come off at this point.  Anyways, I took all but the original ring butterfly off and added China Glaze - Red Pearl on the thumb, China Glaze - Sexy Silhouette on the index, China Glaze - Riveting one the middle and China Glaze - Tree Hugger on the pinkie.  Then I flutterby'd them all up!

I liked this enough that I cleaned up the ring tip and wore it for another day!  Hence the delay with the challenge.  Also, this was some great practise for me.  It was far from perfect but I'm getting better!

Here was the full hand of Solar Power...

So what do you think?  Did anyone get the movie reference?

Also in OMG! OMG! OMG! news:

I won two giveaways today!!!!  I've never really won anything my whole life and then to win two giveaways today?!  I'm floored.

I won a custom Hunger Games inspired polish by FEVERlaquer from the lovely Casandra at The Mani-Logues.  Check out the awesome polish I won.

And

Some elf eye shadow palettes from Kimberly in her big Birthday Giveaway at Libby's Pink Vanity .

Please check out these ladies' awesome blogs if you haven't already.  I'll be doing specific posts for all my winnings when they arrive! Yay!

Also, since I seem to be on a roll, I have a lottery ticket for tonight.  Tune in tomorrow to find out how many millions I've won. LOL.
Alright, I supposed I've blabbed on long enough.
'Til next time,
Amanda

Butterflies & Sunshine

Hello Everyone!

Today I've got some more nail art for you!  I'm ready for spring to arrive although the weather here has been anything other than springlike.  It's like we're headed back for winter.  So, I thought I could at least make spring arrive on my nails.

I really liked this!  This design is not my own.  I first saw it years ago in an unwatermarked photo with a pink china glaze polish.  Then I found this youtube video from 2010 where she is talking about seeing that same photo, which she shows, then does a tutorial based off it.

I decided I wanted to go yellow to really brighten up the manicure.  It's China Glaze - Solar Power.  The black and white is just acrylic paints.  So, originally I had planned to do it on all nails.   Then I started by totally screwing up my index finger which I had to redo.  So, I figured maybe just an accent finger?  The ring finger worked out pretty well and as I wanted to wear these to work, I chickened out and decided to quit while I was ahead.

When I was a kid in Quebec, my Nana had a huge field of milkweed by her house and the Monarchs would come and land on the milkweed in almost a blanket.  It was amazing.  Year after year.  Sadly, I don't think I've ever seen a Monarch here in BC.

Here's a shot of Solar Power by itself.  You can actually see the subtle shimmer in this one.

So, what do you think?

'Til next time,

Amanda