Lynnderella "Connect the Dots"

Today I have on "Connect the Dots" by Lynnderella. THAT Lynnderella. Any fellow nail polish bloggers who are reading this probably understand my internal conflict of buying a Lynn. For anyone who isn't big into the indie nail polish scene, the story would probably bore you, lol. Let me start off by saying I did NOT pay full price. A few weeks ago Copious.com released some credits--one for $5, and one for $15 off a $30 purchase. So I had $20 in credits to put towards a $30 purchase, and I snagged this for $10.

Now that I've finally had a chance to use a Lynn, I have to say, I can see what the fuss is about. There are so many chunky glitter polishes where you have to fish around for the glitter, and even then the coverage isn't that great. Not so with this polish. It's PACKED with it! It's got small black and white round glitter, medium black and white hex glitter, black and white bar glitter, and a sprinkling of regular iridescent glitter (that you probably can't see in the photos). I don't have a picture of it, but on my right thumb I have a piece of large black hex glitter, so there probably is some large white hex glitter, too, I just haven't gotten to it.

I chose to layer it over NYC Color's "Sidewalkers", from their In A New York Minute Quick Dry Collection. "Sidewalkers" is a gray creme. NYC color only has a small collection of Quick Dry colors, but I've always been very pleased with them, especially for the just under $2 price tag!

Cupcake Nails, AKA "Happy Birthday to Me"

Today is my birthday! In celebration, I have on my very first attempt at "Cupcake Nails". I did cupcakes on three nails, with stripes on the other two.

I was feeling too lazy this morning to take a photo of all the polishes used, so I'll just list them instead. :) The light blue on my thumb, middle and pinky fingers is Sinful Colors "Cinderella", a shimmery light blue with iridescent pink flecks. The pink is NYC Color "Prospect Park Pink", the white is Jordana French Manicure White, the Red "cherries" are Wet n Wild fastdry "Everybody Loves Redmond", and the blue Stripes are Sinful Colors "Anxious Azure", which is a striping color with a precision brush.

I made the cupcake icing and the cherry on top with my dotting tools.

It's fabulous to be turning 21 again!! ;-)

Dotted Flowers

This weekend I made my first attempt at a manicure using dotting tools. I got a set of 5 dotting tools from ebay for super cheap. Overall I'm very happy with the result, but I don't mind telling you that my left hand looks a lot better than my right hand. Some of the flowers on my right hand look like odd-colored fried eggs instead of flowers. :)

I'll definitely be using my dotting tools more often!

New York Color "Prospect Park Pink", Sinful Colors "Grecian Sun", Spoiled by Wet n Wild "Designated Driver", and Sinful Colors "Snow Me White".

Friday night I started to use the blue "Grecian Sun" as the base color and planned to have pink and yellow flowers, but the blue came out too think for my taste, and I kept dragging the colors. Finally I gave up in a fit of pique and went to bed. I was really disappointed, because I've been on the hunt for a blue in this shade, and I was so excited to find this one. This isn't the first time Sinful Colors has let me down. I have a lot more success with the metallics, frosts, and glitter Sinful Colors than their cremes. I also find that they tend to take a long time to dry.

The yellow "Designated Driver" is a color I picked up at CVS last week. It's a "taxi-cab yellow", hence the name. CVS is the only place I've seen the Spoiled by Wet n Wild line of polish. They had a lot of great colors, but I could tell some of them were dupes for other colors made by Wet n Wild. They have a lot of chunky foil glitters in the line that are very interesting.

"Prospect Park Pink" looks kind of orange in the above bottle photo, but that's just the lighting in my kitchen. The actual color reminds me very much of the color of Pepto-Bismol, and of the color of my dorm room walls my freshman year of college. They were that way when I moved in, I swear!

Joyeux Mardi Gras!

Believe it or not, I didn't originally intend to do a Mardi Gras manicure this week. Last Wednesday I was going through my polishes, trying to decide how to do my manicure this week. Two weeks ago I bought a New York Color purple called "Purple Pizzazz Frost", and a week ago I happened to buy a gold glitter called "All About You" when Walgreens had their Sinful Colors on sale. When I saw the two bottles side-by-side I realized Mardi Gras was approaching and decided to go for it. So I went to Dollar General the next morning on my way to work and purchased Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear "Ivy League".

New York Color "Purple Pizzazz Frost, Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear "Ivy League", and Sinful Colors "All About You".

I alternated the purple and the green on every other nail, and I sponge painted the gold glitter on the nail tips. This was the first time I've sponge painted nail polish, but it was very easy and I'm sure to do it again. You just apply the polish to a makeup applicator sponge, and then dab it on your nails.

New York Color is a very inexpensive brand, and I can't remember if I got it at Kmart or WalMart, but it retails for about $1 or so. I was actually impressed with the "Purple Pizzazz Frost" for that price (my photo doesn't do it justice), but I'm NOT loving the applicator brush. It was thin, and made out of a harder plastic that didn't spread the color very well. By contrast the brush on the Sally Hansen "Ivy League" was kind of wide and flat and the polish spread very easily.

In my mind I'm already trying to decide on what I'm going to do for my next manicure. Right now the front-runners are either using Sally Hansen's HD "DVD" (a holographic purple) or Zoya's Matte Velvet "Phoebe" (a matte turquoise). Whatever I do, I'm going to try to make it something quick. My oldest son is turning 8 next Sunday, and I know I'll be busy with the finishing touches for his party next weekend.

 Sally Hansen HD "DVD" and Zoya Matte Velvet "Phoebe".

On a side note, I'm realizing that eventually I need to get a good digital camera and stop taking pictures with my cell phone. My nails look much nicer in person than they do in the first photograph.