Pretty and Polished: December 2011

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Looky what I found today!

I found 23 Silver Cap China Glaze polishes from the Kaleidoscope Collection! AND the salon

I got them from is holding an entire box of these polishes for me! So if you are looking for

any they are available on my sales page NOW!

Some amazing reviews about Pretty & Polished!

I haven't been feeling very well lately and coupled with my hectic life/work schedule I feel like the walking dead. Luckily today is the first day in a stretch that I have started to feel myself again. I wanted to take a minute to shine a spot light on a couple of blogs that have recently done reviews of my "franken" polishes that I sell at my etsy store. I am so thankful for the many fans and customers and I have so much love for my fellow bloggers. Thank you all so much for sharing something so special to me with the world. I have so much respect for you.

First we have Miss Amy from I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous! This wonderful woman has done a few reviews of my polishes. She is a dear friend to me and she can make any of my polishes look beautiful! I urge you to take a look at her blog and you will see that she could make a chunky brown polish look fabulous!

Amy's reviews for Pretty & Polished:
Xmas Wreath!
3 Golden Rules!
Sparkle Tattoo Collection!

I have also been featured on one of my favorite blogs recently! I adore this woman's style and beauty! Carli is so creative when it comes to the art of the vintage pinup. I am quite jealous of her amazing ability to be so creative and artistic with this genre.

Carli's review for Pretty & Polished:
Labor of Love and Lost Sister!

The beautiful Sarah from Chalkboard Nails did the very first review for Pretty & Polished. Sarah also has GORGEOUS nails and she is also a dear friend. She did a review of one of my most popular polishes, Midnight Rider! Midnight Rider will be available again on my etsy page sometime in the next few weeks!

Sarah's review for Pretty & Polished:
Midnight Rider, Melodramatic, and Galax-E!

Diaries is a Sephoraphobe was a blog I came across recently. She bought two polishes from my etsy store and did a wonderful review on them. She is not only new to the blogging scene but also to the wonderful world of GIRLY things. Please show her some love and check her blog out!

Allie-bee's review for Pretty & Polished:
Labor of Love and Martian Salad!

I hope you guys have checked all these wonderful blogs out and enjoyed their reviews and all the other wonderful things they have to offer. Hope you all have an incredible New Years Eve! I will be posting a NYE mani later

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Nicki Minaj by OPI Fly and Save Me

I recently got the whole collection from a lovely lady in a polish group. I bought a set of Minis with Fly, Save Me, Did It On Em, and Pink Friday and then bought full size bottles of Super Bass and Metallic 4 Life. LOVE this collection. I love the bright colors and the interesting glitters.

Today I did a mani using Fly (a gorgeous bright medium blue creme) and Save Me (lots of holographic micro glitter and bar glitter thrown into a clear base). Fly is amazing. It goes on like butter and is a very powerful shade of azure. Save Me is very pretty but I feel like the micro glitter kind of over powers the bar glitter a little.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Frosty Winter Mani

Still cold here in the Midwest but not really any snow. Which is nice but at the same time

if we have to deal with this cold weather I wouldn't mind a couple of snow days.

I want to take the kids sledding!

Well here is a icy mani to help me cope with the lack of snow.

I started with two layers of Color Club Sugar Plum Fairy. I then used one layer of MAC Biker Blue (I bought this for myself for Christmas), and it ended with some shiny silver flakes!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Another Dusty Hunt Jackpot!

Today was intense to say the least. I bought 21 silver cap China Glaze and 6 OPI DS polishes STILL in the boxes! I'll show you some pictures. If you are interested in anything you can check my sales page for info on any that are for sale.

Isn't it a thing of beauty!?

Red and Gold Holiday Mani

Last night on a polish forum someone was playing around with NYX Gilded Glitter and I remembered that I had it in my untrieds. I knew I had to use it today. When I went to get it I seen it was next to my bottle of Barielle Elle's Spell (both are square bottles and I am obsessed with bottle shapes being paired lol). I thought they would be perfect together. THEN I remembered I seen someone put Barielle Elle's Spell over a purple polish recently and it looked beautiful. You can check out her post here at her blog Enamel Girl.

Anyways, the end result to this mani is just beautiful. I don't want to take it off! If it chips I might have to re-do it and keep it for the Holiday.

This is Zoya Dannii, one layer.

The purple really came through even after two layers of Elle's Spell.

And the best part is definitely this gorgeous gold glitter flakie polish!

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Pretty and Polished Sparkle Tattoo Collection!

This will be available the first of January on my etsy page in full size and mini bottles!

I hope you all like what you see! If you don't know already, I was a respected member

of the body art community for years and have collected a lot of art in the form of tattoos.

So this collection is in honor of that part of my life. I left my career as a body modification

artist behind to start a family. I miss it but I am so thankful for what I have now and

the experiences and memories that will always be with me.

Sparkle Tattoo!

From left to right: Sparrow (blue), Inked (purple), New Breed (red), Cherry Bomb (pink), and Old Skool (silver).

Sparrow is a chunky blue glitter polish in a very lightly tinted blue base. It has large blue hexagon glitter as well as light blue and dark blue bar glitter.

Inked is a chunky purple glitter in a lightly tinted purple based polish. It has large purple hexagon glitter as well as purple, pink, and blue bar glitter.

New Breed is a chunky red glitter in a lightly tinted red based polish. It has large red hexagon glitter as well as red and charcoal colored bar glitter.

Cherry Bomb is a chunky pink glitter in a lightly tinted pink based polish. It has large light and bright pink hexagon glitter as well as light pink, bright pink, and red bar glitter.

Old Skool is a chunky silver glitter polish. It has large silver hexagon glitter that reflects holographic colors. It also has silver bar glitter with the same effect. It is all thrown together in a clear polish with holographic micro glitter.

This is all the polishes kind of just plopped onto a white surface so you can see the tint.

Two layers of each polish.

And a picture after kind of filling in any areas I didn't feel had enough glitter lol

So what do you think?

I'd love to get your feedback!

In case you didn't know I do have a facebook page for my shop/frankens. Feel free to join me there and leave me feedback or request whatever you like. Thanks!

Seche Vite vs Gelous + Holiday mani

Because I could not capture the differences in appearance with these top coats I am going to have to explain it to you. I'll start off by saying I usually always use Seche Vite as my top coat. I am always in a hurry so having something that dries as fast as Seche Vite is an absolute must. I bought Gelous originally because some ladies I know in the polish community stated that it is great for a base coat when using glitter because the glitter won't stick to your nails as much. This is true. So now I use it as a base coat a lot. Last night I decided to use it as a top coat which is what it is intended for. I did one hand with Gelous and one with Seche Vite. The nails with Gelous on it became more dull after application. I then remembered what happened when I used it with GOSH Holographic. It completely dulled the Holographic effect and took some shine away from it. Seche Vite went on and brightened everything up. There was a very noticeable difference to me. I put Gelous on about 5 minutes before I put Seche Vite on and when Seche Vite dried Gelous was still tacky. I think I will stick to using Gelous as a glitter barrier. Seche Vite FTW!

Now onto a quick Holiday mani. I decided I would do some holiday colors up until Christmas. Keep it simple. This mani was done with two mini NOPI polishes that I got recently in a three pack from Marshalls. I used Stuck in The Chimney as a base and Spark My Mistletoe for the glitter. Stuck in the Chimney is a gorgeous shade of red. It made me think of Garnets. Spark My Mistletoe is a lovely glitter polish. It has a slight red tint to it and is full of small red glitter and holo glitter. I used one coat of Stuck in the Chimney and two coats of Spark my Mistletoe.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Shop News!

After the New Year, Pretty & Polished will be adding new polishes to our line up of awesome one of a kind polishes and we will be selling them in BIGGER bottles! The small bottles will still be around though if you like to use those. In honor of this huge change and to get prepared all prices have been dropped and you can now freely use the code Pretty10 for 10% off all orders! Enjoy!

Pretty and Polished on Etsy!!!

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Awesome Essence Polishes!

I recently did a swap/sale with a lovely International woman and she not only sent me three polishes I was yearning for but she also sent me a couple of extras that I wanted! I could not help it, I immediately took my recent mani off and started playing with them! This is all the nail mail and a couple of things I was given by a woman at a nail salon.

The nail art wheel is something got from Nomorerack.com for free except the price of postage! And I love the little bits of charming art!

Next to that is a bottle of tuberose cuticle oil that a very sunshiny lady at a salon gave me because I purchased so many bottles from her.

Then you see Essence nail twins in Bella and Edward! Oh gosh aren't they lovely?! I feel so full of joy because I have these!

Next is Essence BLUE ADDICTED! Yes, the DL Dupe! It is soooo gorgeous!

She surprised me with a Essence Vampire polish in Undead? It is soo pretty and such a wonderful surprise. I was also given Essence Pool Party from this lovely young lady but I see that it is missing from the picture. I have a feeling my "In love with blue like you" daughter might have made off with it!

Last polish pictured is OPI Yodel Me On My Cell, it isn't anything special but I like it and my other bottle has gone missing. The lady at the salon gave this and the cuticle oil to me for free for buying up so many polishes. She even gave me a little magnet calendar for my fridge lol

Ok and now onto some amazingly fun and pretty nails! I was so excited that I did my left hand in all Blue Addicted except my ring finger which I used Bella and Edward on and the opposite on my right hand. I also used a little piece of new nail art. It is so CUTE!

This is a shot of Bella without Edward. OMG she is beautiful! Me and my teals lol

Bella with Edward

The finished product. I could have used one more layer of Blue Addicted but it was getting a little chunky. I am in love with this mani though. I don't know when I will take it off. I might add something to it. It's just so pretty and now that I have killed some huge lemmings of mine I feel really full and satisfied for now lol.

Isn't that little heart so cute?! You guys know how horrible i am with nail art so please make yourselves comfortable with the idea of me using these new things all the time! It will make me feel better about my inabilities!

Friday, December 16, 2011

Oh Christmas Tree!

Everyone is doing holiday manis and they are all exceptionally beautiful! I wish I was as talented as some of these other bloggers! Today's mani is modeled after MY Christmas tree. I love the look of white, silver and blue so that is how I did my tree this year. Unfortunately my 2 yr old seems to think my tree is something for him to pull and play on so my tree is quite bare at the moment. But here is a picture so you have an idea why my nails look the way they do.

I started off with Nubar Reclaim because believe it or not this is actually the darkest green I have. I feel like I might be missing at least one dark green polish though. Reclaim is a very beautiful medium/dark holographic green polish. I then used my Color Club Holiday Splendor over Reclaim because it reminds me of the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. Then with China Glaze Techno Teal and Sexagon I added my blue and silver ornaments. Not the best mani of our time but I like it because it reminds me of my beautiful tree.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

NOTD- Something Different

I wanted to do a Christmas mani but I am just horrible at nail art and honestly I felt like I needed to see something bright and exciting on my nails. So with China Glaze Lemon Fizz and Marry a Millionaire I made it happen! It isn't anything special but It made me feel cheerful all day!

2 coats of China Glaze Lemon Fizz

China Glaze Marry and Millionaire over Lemon Fizz

Finished it with 2 layers of Marry a Millionaire.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

NOTD - BCA

BCA aka Breast Cancer Awareness was a franken I made in October for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. At the time the franken had a slight blue tint. I've re-formulated it to have a purple tint. It still is packed with pink glitter though. I support awareness for all types of cancer but Breast Cancer has a very special place in my heart. It has taken too many people from me and will soon be taking another. I don't mean to be a downer but I feel like she deserves a mention on my blog. She fought Breast Cancer for years and finally became cancer free. Recently she went to the Dr and was told the cancer had come back and had spread to almost every part of her body including her bones. She was given 3 weeks to live. I've been going back and forth between being heart broken and mad. We thought we beat it, but it came back to beat us. It angers me so much. I wish I could just choke the life out of cancer with my bare hands. Even as I type this I am plagued with tears and emotions for all the people out there fighting literally, for their lives. I even have several followers who are fighting for their health. To you, I wish you all the happiness and health in the world.

The reason I chose this polish for my NOTD today was to announce that I will now be selling it on my etsy page and 100% of the profits will be donated to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation. I wish I could do more. I will be making more frankens for this cause in the up coming months and I hope you all will support me and this cause. I really appreciate it

One layer

Two Layers

If you are interested in purchasing this product please see the listing here.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Today's Haul

(First Picture) I stopped at ONE salon today and found ALL these gems!

(Second Picture + more) I got these little beauties for $4.99 at Marshalls!

Here you see L8R G8R, Tickle My Triangle, Don't Be A Square, Kaleidoscope Him Out, Spin Me Round and It's My Turn.

In this photo you see Spark My Mistletoe, Stuck in the Chimney, and Kiss Me at Midnight.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Some new frankens!

I recently got a ton of new materials to franken with and my bottles FINALLY came in so I spent half the day playing with all of it and here are a few frankens I came up with. I'd love to hear what you think!

This is Party Girl.

This is a sheer pink polish with multi-colored sprinkle glitter in several shades of pink as well as purple and blue. Shown here by itself on my index and ring finger and over purple on my middle finger and black on my pinky. Two layers on each nail.

This is Monster Mash.

This is a sheer jelly polish with a green tint. It has lots of small hexagon shaped black glitter and from small to large pieces of green hexagon glitter. Seen here by itself on my index and pinky fingers and over blue and purple on my middle and ring fingers. Two layers on each nail of Monster Mash.

And this is Blue Lagoon.

A blue jelly based polish with two different shades of blue flakes as well as one shade of white flakes. Seen here alone on my index and ring fingers and then over blue on my middle finger and over black on my pinky finger. Two layers on each nail.

So what are your thoughts? Good/ Should I go back to the drawing board so to speak on any of them? Thanks everyone!

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