Nautical Nails!!

I had this whole mani planned out.  I had my polishes set up and was filing away when my sister stopped by and decided she would make my life easier and save me a lot of time by doing the nail art for me, hehe.  I wanted to go along with my summertime theme and I thought anchors would be perfect because I was heading to the beach on Fire Island for a long weekend.  So after throwing around some ideas, here is what we came up with...

I am in love with this nautical design and was so happy that it lasted the whole weekend without chipping!

Sissy made a perfect anchor, don't you think?

The navy color is OPI Dating A Royal and then we used a dotting pen for the gold, a striping brush for the white and she free-handed the anchor.  It is the perfect mani to cure my end-of-summer sadness.  More summer manis to come!  Ahoy mateys! ~V

Custom Polish Goodness :)

Making a custom polish is so amazing!! You get to have all the things you love in a polish come true!! Emily from Carpe Noctem Cosmetics did that for me and I couldn't be happier. Here is the final product in all its glory!! I present to you Wicked Orchid:

Ain't it purty?? I love the balance of the different shaped glitters and the pop of the large circles. There are purple and pink glitters in a purple jelly base. 

The application was like most heavy glitter polishes, I had to dab a bit and fish a little for those pesky big circles. All to be expected from this type of polish. What I didn't expect was to wear this polish for FIVE, that's 5, days before it chipped or had ANY tip wear. WHAT???? This is with 3 coats of polish and 2 coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly top coat. I was blown away.

I am more that happy with my custom polish. :) Emily was a joy to work with, always got back to me promptly and was super patient. These are all really important to me when working with someone. Thank you Emily!!

Emily kindly donated a second bottle of this fantabulous polish and you have a chance to win it!! Check out our 1,000 Facebook likes GIVEAWAY going on now! CLICK HERE

Find Carpe Noctem Cosmetics on Etsy  and Facebook.

XOXO Nail Addicted Sisters

~Erika

I Never Want Summer to End... Neon Chevron

The end of summer is quickly approaching ☹ I wish there was a way to slow it down because I really don't feel like I'm ready for fall, cold weather or the possibility of snow.  I am especially sad about the all-too-near obligation to stow away my summer polishes, flip flops and sun dresses.  No matter how much I protest, the cold weather will be upon us before we know it.  In these last few weeks of summer I am going to get all of the bright, summer nail art out of my system in order to prepare for darker fall colors.  

This chevron mani looks like the beach towel I often lay on and has the perfect color combo for a summer mani.

First I painted my nails white and let them dry completely.  I used striping tape to outline the chevron design and used Color Club Warhol, one of my favorite neons, and Rainbow Honey The Kraken, an awesome aqau glitter polish.  The generous girls over at Rainbow Honey sent me this polish for free with my last order, thanks girls! 

The striping tape is pretty tough in a pattern like this and I had to touch up several spots with a thin liner brush which is why the lines aren't quite as precise as I would prefer.  

I'm loving this mani and have gotten some great reactions to it.  In particular, my mom said "Whoa, that's bright."  Thanks mom! That's exactly what I was going for!  Stay tuned for more 'I never want summer to end' manis!!

Picture Polish Dotticure

The most simple form of nail art IMO is a dotticure! It looks hard to do and people are super impressed by it, which is always the goal right?? LOL 

For this dotticure I used Picture Polish Mad Magenta as my base. I then used different sized dotting tools to created the pattern using Color Club Halo Hues, Sinful Shine Most Sinful, Sally Hansen Pink a Card and more Mad Magenta. 

This is the first time I tried the layering of dots using different colors. This effect is amazing and really takes the dotticure to the next level, but is still easy!!

I'm loving the color combo here as well. The addiction of the holo polish was the icing on the cake! Mmmmmm!! Love my holos!!!

What do you think of the dotticure?? You'll definitely be seeing more of them from me because I love the way they look and they are the closest thing to nail art I can do successfully. :)  

XOXO Nail Addicted Sisters

~Erika 

Birthday Polish Haul...the Best Kind!!

Usually I would just post a pic on Facebook of my new polishes, but the polishes my sister Vicky got me for my birthday were so amazing I had to give them their own post!!!

What you see here are a lot of first timers for me, so when I tell you I cried when I opened this box of goodies is no lie. That's when you know you have a real problem. Forget hoarding...forget the pile of untried polishes....have you cried over polish?? HAHA Yeah, this girl has! 

So what you see here, starting with the less elusive: Color Club Jackie Oh!, Maybelline Color Show Clearly Spotted, Sally Hansen Pink A Card .

On to the fantabulous indies of which I have yet to own till now: Picture Polish (OH MY GAWD!!!!!) Frosting AND Mad Magenta, KBShimmer Totally Tubular, and Rainbow Honey Special World.

When I was digging around in the box and I felt this one, I knew I should save it for last. Not only is it an amazing polish, it's a Limited Edition. Dee from Rainbow Honey made this LE for her birthday and only 100 were released. I got #94!

I can't wait to share all of these pretties with you!! Thanks to my sissy for picking out some wonderful polishes. She's knows my taste so well!!! XOXO

Nail Addicted Sisters

~Erika

Nail Pattern Boldness, I Believe I Can Fly!

My wonderful sister bought me some great polishes for my birthday back in June.  The one that really caught my eye was from Nail Pattern Boldness.  This one is called I Believe I Can Fly.  This is a jelly base polish with square silver glitter and red microglitter.  You can't really see the red microglitter unless the light is just right, but I kinda like the subtly of it. 

This was my first experience with a jelly base polish and, like I have heard from other users, it is difficult to maneuver at first but I got the hang of it.   

Here's a macro of the polish, pretty right?  The red looks so obvious here but, like I said, it's more subtle when it's on the nail.

Nail Pattern Boldness polishes are colorful and unique, plus her brand name is so witty!  Check out her Etsy shop here.

Summer blues and glitter bombs

Are you craving nail art with lots of glitter and summer shades?  A design like this is easy to achieve and catches a lot of attention from fellow nail art geeks.  

This simple but chic nail art design features Essie Rock the Boat from the 2013 Summer Marine Collection and Sephora by OPI Flurry Up glitter topcoat.  My summer has been so busy with trips, family parties, beach days and of course work (booo!) that I can't take as much time as I usually do with my creative manis.  This one was so easy and I got so many compliments! I used Kiss Nail Artist silver striping paint to create the silver stripes, but striping tape would work too!  

I really love this blue, although it is a little sheer so I had to use 3 coats.  The Essie summer collection has so many fun shades, I think I really want the lime green More the Merrier shade too.  What's your favorite color from this collection?

Happy Birthday to ME mani and GIVEAWAY!!!

I wanted to try something fun for my birthday mani. You might have seen this lovely new purchase on FB:

INDIGO BANANAS Twice As Bright

Ain't it purty? This is the description from the IB Etsy page and it's a perfect one: Twice as Bright is a bright, pink jelly packed full of blue glass fleck duochrome pigment particles, and subtle holographic shimmer. This polish shifts to a blue-purple, purple pink, and then hot pink - so at extreme angles the polish appears an even brighter pink. Very bright, but not a neon, and not a matte - shiny and bright!

These first two pics are in direct sunlight. YOWZA!

This week we experienced the epicness of Picture Polish Blog Fest 2013. My favorite part of it was that all those bloggers (130+) were asked to do nail art AND make a tutorial with the polishes they were given. I love this because I suck at nail art and need tutorials for any kind of success. 

The mani I voted for was from Gnarly Gnails and I used her tutorial to create this awesome skull. It came out pretty awesome considering I have zero skills!

xoxo Nail Addicted Sisters

~Erika

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Now on to the giveaway. :) Today is my 33rd birthday, so this giveaway will run for only 3 days. 

Up for grabs are some of my untrieds. 

US residents ONLY. (Don't worry my international friends, we'll have something for you in the next one!)

a Rafflecopter giveaway