50 Follower Giveaway - CLOSED

Hey y'all! Well I am exhausted and have work early in the morning, but I don't want to end the giveaway early (even just an hour!), but I want to go to bed now, so SURPRISE! I'm extending it until 3 pm central time Thursday. Yay! <3 Amy


Giveaway now closed! Thanks for entering!

Last Day to Enter!

Hey friends!

Just wanted to remind you that today (Wednesday) is the last day to enter the 50 Follower Giveaway!

Anyone can enter, just remember you must be a Google Friend Connect follower - I'm not going by Facebook follows, I'm going by Google Friend Connect! (Although we just hit 100 on facebook which is pretty awesome too!) Once we hit 100  (Edit: Uhhh I just noticed we went from like 83 to 130 overnight?! Did someone link to me? If so...THANKS! This is awesome! I'll revise the new giveaway number to 150 since we blew past 100 and aren't too far off from 150!) followers on here I'll do another giveaway, probably my favorite Color Club polish!

Once again here are the two prizes you can win one of!

CLICK HERE TO ENTER!!!!

:) Have a wonderful day!!!

Triple Threat Post!

Hey guys!! Today I am showing you not one, not two, but three polishes!

They are: Petites White, Sinful Colors Pearl Harbor, and a Bon Bon's polish which has no name and I'm calling Clear Flakie! It's not super flakie, mostly a clear glaze with iridescent glitter but it does seem to have a few iridescent flakies mixed in!

First up, here is the Bon Bon's flakie/glitter by itself. I showed this picture so you could all see that it does show up totally clear, even though it looks milky in the bottle. This was two coats, and can be found at Walmart for like 99 cents.

See? Very clear, iridescent small glittery pieces.

Here I'm showing the same Bon Bons glitter over Petites White. It's very subtle over the white, I think it would look awesome over other colors.

As you can see, you mostly get the pink and yellow tones from the iridescent glittery pieces. There are some tiny pieces and also some hexagonal pieces. I also saw some that looked like flakies but now I wonder if they weren't just hexagonal pieces that had gotten cut in half somehow. Hmmmm. At any rate I think it's quite pretty and reminds me a little bit of China Glaze's new one Snow Globe.

One with flash

Here is Petites White by itself. 3 coats to achieve total opacity/no bald spots. This is not my favorite white color, but it is the only one I own and costs a mere $1.50. So...if you want to spend more for one, go for it, it will probably be a nicer quality, but if you only want white for a layering polish like me, I'd be pretty happy with this. I love the Petites line, personally. At $1.50 they are a terrific bargain, and generally have pretty good opacity after one coats, total opacity after two coats. I have a flamingo pink, a red, a black, and this white, among others, that I love from this brand!

Next up we have the beautiful Sinful Colors polish Pearl Harbor! I saw this at Bed Bath & Beyond and thought "MUST BUY!!" It is the most gorgeous iridescent glitter in a clear base. In the bottle in real life it looks mostly blue and green, but in other lights you also get the pinkish and yellowish flash!

Here is Pearl Harbor over Petites White. Here with the flash you can see the yellow and pink tones. In the bottle obviously you can see the blue and green tones.

Another nice subtle glitter!

For some reason, I could only get my camera to pick up the yellow/pink on the nail, yet the bottle would only show me the blue/green! So weird.

Anyways. Hope you all enjoyed these three similar polishes! And don't forget, with my giveaway, Pearl Harbor is in one of the prize packs, and the Bon Bons flakie is in both packs! :) Welcome to my newest followers!!! I am so happy to have you here :) Make sure you are a Google Friend Connect follower (it's on the righthand side of the blog, click 'Follow') and you can enter the giveaway HERE!!

Essence Prism@tic White

Hi friends! Happy Thanksgiving! I know it's not really *technically* Thanksgiving today, but I've had a long celebration - on Thursday I worked (time and a half woop woop!) and had a casual Mexican food dinner with my in-laws/cousins, Friday we had dinner with my husband's family and cousins, and Saturday we are having dinner with MY family, save the best for last and whatnot ;) So anyways I've been really enjoying all the family time and am thankful for it, I'm also thankful for my good health, my husband, and OBVIOUSLY my nail polish and all my nail friends! (That's you! Yay!) So again...Happy Thanksgiving! And now, let the Christmas season begin!!! :D (Or Hannukah, Kwanzaa, whatever you celebrate - I'm just thrilled to have my Christmas tree up and Christmas lights and holiday flavors and scents and Christmas music!!!)

 Today I have for you a polish I recently won from the Trace Face Philes! She sent three of the Essence Meet Me @ Holografics.com collection, and here is one of them!

Prism@tic White is a icy, pearly white with some blue shimmer. I think this was 3 coats but it may have been 4, to achieve total opacity and avoid visible nail line. As you can see I still have a little bit of VNL but I don't mind it too much as it looks a bit like a french manicure without actually having to do any of the work to get the white line, lol!

As you can see, despite having several coats, if you catch it at the right angle this still looks very translucent and almost like you're not even wearing any color! I think this polish would look better if you have short nails, so you don't run into the VNL situation.

Overall I thought it was quite pretty to look at, very girly, and I liked it more than I thought I would! Also I feel like it makes my fingers look really tan, haha :)

What do you guys think? Anyone else own any of the polishes from this collection?

While you're here, don't forget to enter my GIVEAWAY!!!! Free nail polish yeah!!!! Click HERE!

Versatile Blogger Award!

Hey guys! Here's a fun little post - Holly from Holly and Polish tagged me with the Versatile Blogger Award! Woop woop! I'm not really sure what that means, but I'll interpret it as I blog about lots of things - which makes me versatile ;)

The two rules are:

1) List 7 things about yourself

2) Pass this along to 15 other bloggers!

So here I go!

1) I am a Shift Supervisor at Starbucks Coffee, and have been an employee with the company since September of 2006! I enjoy working there because I like socializing with people, it's pretty easy (after working there for so long!), and I have wonderful benefits with a job that is considered part time! I average about 35 hours a week, I have a 401k, health/dental/eye insurance, and stock options, plus tips every week (average $1.60/hour, not bad for a little extra spending money every week!)

2) I have been married for 6 months today! (Tuesday) :D

3) My husband's name is Daniel, and he writes an excellent soccer blog called Big D Soccer, it's about soccer in the Dallas area! He is a great writer and very very knowledgeable about soccer. Well, this isn't really a thing about me, but since he's my husband I feel like he's a part of me! We've known each other since I was 17 and he was 18, we're now 24 and 25 respectfully!

4) I always liked nail polish, but I really developed my love for it in February, after I had knee surgery and got stuck on the couch for weeks! I had six weeks off from work so I had a lot of free time to paint my nails! We aren't allowed to have nail polish on our hands at work (health hazard I guess?) so anytime I have more than a day off, I paint paint paint! It started with Zoya's giveaway for 3 free polishes, and spiraled from there ^.^

5) I graduated from the University of Oklahoma in May 2010! I love the football team (ahem, Sam Bradford! I once came about three inches from walking straight into him, we both turned a corner from opposite directions and nearly walked right into each other! When I saw who it was I was like OMGOMGOMG hahah) and I also love the gymnastics team!

6)I really love gymnastics, it is one of my passions in life. I started gymnastics when I was about six at a small gym near my house and did it for fun until I was 13, then quit to focus on figure skating, which I had also been doing since the age of five. I wound up quitting competitively skating at 18 when I graduated high school (burned out) and dabbled in recreational co-ed soccer for a couple years. While I was at OU I rediscovered my love for the sport through watching old gymnastics meets on YouTube, and new ones on TV! I began working part time with a gymnastics website called Gymnastike, filming gymnastics workouts, interviews, and meets for the website. I also wrote briefly for The Couch Gymnast, called Amy's Gym Diary, that pretty much ended when I hurt my knee. I was participating in a weekly adult gymnastics class at Texas Dreams gymnastics up until I hurt my knee, and hope to go back at the beginning of December! I also used to coach gymnastics for about a year at the same gym I began at all those years ago. I really loved coaching and teaching the kids new things but was easily frustrated by the kids' short attention spans and not being strong enough to help some of the kids learn new skills. (Some of today's youth are not at a healthy weight, we'll just say that, haha). OK well that was like seventeen facts in one so you guys got lucky :)

7) Giraffes are my favorite animal :) I would really love to pet a giraffe someday! There is a myth that giraffes are mute....but they are not. FYI! 

and one extra for good measure:

8) Peppermint Oreos are AWESOME!!!!! I just got some at Target the other day, they're limited edition for the holidays and are so super delicious and if you like Oreos and you like peppermint you NEED to try them! :)

I tag:

......anyone who wants to do this. If you do it, I'd love to see! :) (sorry to be lame and not tag people but I am tired haha) 

Everyone have a wonderful Wednesday! I'll be enjoying my day off :) I have a new mani to put up in a few days - sadly I had to cut two nails down yesterday which frustrates me!! One had a terrible peel so I chopped it down to below the peel so it can grow out again, and the other had a small peel that I fidgeted with and made worse so I had to cut it too :( So I now have three nails that I love the length of, and three more that I'm ok with the length of, and the rest are short and I want them to grow again. I think my job is too rough on my nails because I keep getting random breaks and peels which make me have to cut them. Argh! Thanks Starbucks, haha.

Glam Holiday Mani!!

Hey guys!! I really love this mani I did last night and was so sad to take it off - I did it as a pedicure and thought I'd recreate it as a one-hand mani to show you guys since I liked it so much!

It is OPI From A to Zurich with OPI Gettin' Miss Piggy With It! on top! I've shown A to Zurich on here before so I'm just showing the finished product here, but it's a gorgeous cranberry red, I think perfect for fall!

Gettin' Miss Piggy With It adds the perfect amount of ketchup-red sparkle on top of A to Zurich!

I did two coats of A to Zurich, and two coats of Gettin Miss Piggy With It, which did involve some dabbing, to try and get some of the silver hexagonal pieces onto the nail. I even shook the bottle for a long time and rubbed it in between my hands before applying with the hopes that it would help loosen up the hexagonal glitter pieces. I think this looks like gorgeous sparkling rubies when it hits the light!

Here it is with flash. You can really see all of the individual pieces of glitter - small red, larger hexagonal red, and some hexagonal silver pieces.

And as usual I finished it off with a healthy coat of Seche Vite topcoat. This is a little bit of a hassle to remove, being that it has the larger glitter pieces, but I took a cotton ball and added one extra pump of Zoya Remove+ than I normally do, and it really helped. I held it on the nail for about five-ten seconds then did my usual back and forth motion combined with some rubbing down towards the tip of the nail so I wouldn't stain my cuticles red! It seemed to work better than normal, maybe I was a little more patient haha :)

So I think this would be a GREAT holiday manicure!!! I can't decide what I'll wear this holiday season...I know I have work on Thanksgiving, but not Black Friday, so I'll probably do a mani Thursday as soon as I get off work. And I should be off on Christmas Day thankfully, but I'll have work Christmas Eve during the day. I've worked for Starbucks since September of 2006 and I have worked four of the Christmases since then, at least the last four straight, I think I must have not worked the first Christmas since I was still pretty new to the company. Anyways...I think I've earned a Christmas Day off work :) Thanks boss for giving me the day off!!! Well, maybe I'll do this as my Christmas mani! I could add some Zoya Ivanka to spice it up even more with Christmas colors! I wish I could have captured the wonderful sparkle this mani had in the pictures, unfortunately it's one of those "has to be seen" sparkles!

Have a wonderful day guys!!! Hope you like this gorgeous sparkly mani! :)

Polish Galore Guest Post!

Hey y'all! Today I have a special treat for us, it's a guest post by Krystal from PolishGalore! A while back she and I did a little polish trade in which she sent me one of the OPI Serena Williams sets (with Spark de Triomphe and White Shatter) and so I decided to make her a franken as a thank you! She told me she loves purple, and sparkle, so I went to work! Without further ado....
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Thank you Amy, for letting me be a guest writer on your blog!  Today I have your own custom creation, named for me by you – Krystal.  Krystal is a squishy purple almost jelly with multicolored and multisized glitter – kind of like a deborah lippmann Happy Birthday or Forget You but in a purple base!  Amy made this knowing my love of purple and glitter.  I used a base coat of Zoya Get Even and 3 coats of Krystal.  I did not use a top coat (didn’t need one for the shine!).

As you can see in the sun, the glitter is suspended within the layers of purple, so while it’s not totally in your face, it’s also not hidden by any means.  The glitter refused to focus for the camera, but you can at least see it nicely in the bottle!

In the shade, the base color appears a bit darker, but it’s just the absence of sun.  This purple is not as blue as China Glaze Grape Pop, but I feel it’s in the same family. (FYI Note from Amy: The purple I used it Ulta - Celebutante!)

This is probably my favorite shot of this polish – you can see how some of the glitter is sandwiched into the base color and how others is bright on top.  The formula on this was super smooth and removal was not an issue, even with the glitter.

Finally indoors with the flash – again you can see how nice the polish wears.  If you’d want more glitter, you’d just need to make sure your brush was loaded a bit more.  I may need to add a few ballz to the polish to help shake it up, but otherwise I’m in love with the custom franken!

Thanks again for having me!  For more PolishGalore, you can follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook,or just visit the blog!

Trace Face Philes 2200 Follower Giveaway!

I feel like I just wrote about the 1800 Follower giveaway on the Trace Face Philes - but it's time for the 2200 Follower Giveaway too! Girl just keeps getting followers faster than she can do giveaways, so she always has like 4 going on at the same time haha! That's good for us :)

The prize on this giveaway is a Julep Nail Parlor maven box! If you don't know what Julep is, it's like a monthly box they send out with nail polish and other goodies like hand creams! I don't subscribe, personally, because I can't afford that (the Julep box PLUS me buying nail polish anyways haha! One or the other...I believe the box is $20 a month and you get 2-3 polishes each time, I think) but it seems like an awesome service, so here's a great way for someone to try out the Julep service with no strings attached!

Just head HERE to enter the giveaway! Good luck! :)

And don't forget to enter MY giveaway going on right now! There is a box on the right side of the page with a link to the page where you can enter! Or you can scroll down til you find the post. =)

Zoya Renee & Astra!

Hiiii guys! Here is one of my Zoya polishes which I feel so mixed about - Renee. I decided to give it another shot to see how I feel about it, since I haven't worn it since about April. Zoya describes Renee as "Ultra-bright red-toned medium neon pink creme. Bright and eye-catching, perfect for showing off a deep summer tan." I guess I didn't bother to read the description well before I ordered it, because I really thought it would be more along the lines of a nice not-too-bright pink. Well, I also ordered Ali, another neon-y pink color, so I was a little frustrated when I got them (at the same time) and realized how similar they look, both in the bottle and on the nail. They seriously are almost identical in the bottle. Renee is slightly less neon than Ali. 

I will say, though, Ali is very blinding on the nail (in a good way, haha!) and Renee is a little more toned down, which is nice. Renee seems to photograph a little more muted than it really is, so I've made a note by the one which I feel is most accurate to the color in real life!

Seems to photograph kind of muted, but in real life it's very bright and very pink! It shows up a little coral here, which it's definitely not.

This is a fairly color accurate picture, probably the most similar to how it actually appears. Nice and bright. It's definitely grown on me since the last time I wore it. I still don't think you need both Ali and Renee, though. Pick one.

Again, very color accurate. A nice juicy pink! Again I do want to stress it is pretty neon, though. Don't get fooled like I did, lol!

Typical gorgeous Zoya formula, I did three coats here because I felt like I needed that third one, but I think it was just because it dries a little matte thanks to the neon. It was a little thick on the brush and hard to control, so I just made sure to wipe the brush off well before applying on the nail which helped a lot.

Then I decided to spiffy it up a little bit with some tape and Zoya Astra, a beautiful ultra sparkly pink glitter! I've never done a tape mani before so I was a little apprehensive, but mostly this mani is just for a day or so, so I figured it was ok if it didn't work! (But it did, great success!) I cut some random tape strips and did mostly one diagonal line but a couple of the strips were very skinny so I doubled up on a couple of the nails just for fun! My middle finger makes me think of a candy cane!!

One more view of my first tape mani! It looks a lot better in real life, not such a stark contrast between the colors like it seems in the pic. Renee is much brighter in person so imagine it that way :)

And because I saw it in my bag and thought it matched, here's my new Starbucks cup sleeve!!! It's a red glittery fabric and I love it! It was $2.99 with my discount and I normally would have saved my money but we only had two of them and it just called to me! And it matches my Astra :) Here you can see my thumb glitter, which I think is my favorite!

What do you guys think of Renee, Astra, and my first tape mani?! Have a great day!! :)

Amy's Nails 50 Follower Giveaway! - CLOSED

EDIT: We've blown past 50 and into the 60s, thanks to Jeanette from The Swatchaholic for the tweet and Trace from the Trace Face Philes for the Facebook love, which means THE GIVEAWAY IS WAS OPEN! If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you'll see saw the form to enter! THANKS for the love everyone I can't wait to see who our two winners are! *puts on patience pants to last until November 30th!*

Here is a photo of our two prizes -

As you can see in the photo, there are two prizes - listed below:

Prize 1 - Sinful Colors Prize!

• Pearl Harbor
• Daddy's Girl
• Bon Bon's Clear Flakie

Prize 2 - Franken Prize!

• Pink franken similar to Deborah Lippmann's Candy Shop (but a bit darker pink)
• Black franken similar to Deborah Lippmann's Forget You
• Bon Bon's Clear Flakie

THE CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. THANK YOU TO ALL WHO ENTERED! WINNERS SHOULD BE POSTED AND CONTACTED BY FRIDAY EVENING AT THE LATEST!

50 Follower Giveaway - Prize Pics!

EDIT: We've blown past 50 and into the 60s, thanks to Jeanette from The Swatchaholic for the tweet and Trace from the Trace Face Philes for the Facebook love!
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Hey y'all!! I am so excited because we're finally in the 40s for Followers - when we hit 50, the giveaway will go live! I can't wait to do the giveaway, I've had the prizes for over a month getting antsy waiting to hit 50 Followers! We are almost there! :)

So here is a photo of our two prizes -

As you can see in the photo, there are two prizes - listed below:

Prize 1 - Sinful Colors Prize

• Pearl Harbor
• Daddy's Girl
• Bon Bon's Clear Flakie

Prize 2 - Franken Prize!

• Pink franken similar to Deborah Lippmann's Candy Shop (but a bit darker pink)
• Black franken similar to Deborah Lippmann's Forget You
• Bon Bon's Clear Flakie

Get excited!!! It's time!!!  GO HERE TO SEE THE FORM TO ENTER!

The Lacquer Factor 300 Follower Giveaway

Hey everyone! I wanted to make a quick post to share a giveaway with you - it's The Lacquer Factor's 300 Follower Giveaway!

She has two prize packs up for grabs, one is blue and one is red! Each features at least one nail polish, as well as other beauty products like lotion and perfume plus other goodies!

You can view the giveaway HERE! Good luck!

Butter London - No More Waity Katie!

Hey y'all! I have a lovely Butter London polish to show you today, it's one they came out inspired by everyone's favorite glamorous princess Kate Middleton - it's called No More Waity Katie!

Also, hello to my new followers! We are making some more progress towards our 50 Follower goal! I can't wait to start the giveaway! I'll post some pictures of the prizes at some point this week - 12 more people to go! Tell your friends! :D

Let's start with a nice pretty bottle shot :)

As you can see this is a nice squishy perwinkle-grey color packed with glitter.

The glitter is fairly subdued, although there is a lot of it. It's not super sparkly, which I don't love. However, it went on nicely and I think it would be a nice office appropriate color despite it's sparkle.

I really love this color, it kind of reminds me of a rainy, cloudy day. I love a good stormy sky so I particularly like this :)

What do you guys think of this nice grayish-purple color? Happy Monday!

Color Club Revvvolution!

Hi y'all!! Today I have an awesome holo that I recently picked up at Bed Bath & Beyond! I almost didn't even get it, because you couldn't tell there was any holo at all under the artificial store lighting, but then I read online somewhere that it was holo so I had to go back for a second look! And I'm so glad I picked this up!

Inside, nothing so special. Charcoal gray with a little shimmer.

Shade, getting a little better, but still no visible holo. Same charcoal gray shimmer.

And sunlight...here comes the holo!! I like it because it's not blindingly holographic, I would feel very comfortable wearing this under just about any circumstances! (I think it's definitely work appropriate, although it is a holo)

Somehow tricked my iPhone into blurring my nails to show the holo!

Sparkle sparkle sparkle

And just for fun here is my kitty Emma who followed me outside into the backyard while I was taking pics. She is an inside cat primarily but loves to venture into the backyard, and roll around on the stone (right under my hand) and she also hangs out in the shrubs! She is too funny, sometimes we have to drag her back inside. Once a few years ago she slipped outside when our dog let herself back in (pushed the door open) and we didn't know, and then we found her the next morning meowing by the door freezing her buns off! 

Here she is rolling around on the ground outside, silly Emma :)

OK well I hope you enjoyed the lovely pictures of this stealthy holo!!! It was like $3.29 at Bed Bath & Beyond, and they also had a decent sized Color Club display (although it seemed to be all old polishes or maybe just their core collection, no newer ones really) so check it out, maybe a store near you will have some too! Happy Saturday!!!

Lacquered Lover's 1000 Follower Giveaway!

Hey y'all! I just wanted to give you a heads up about a giveaway going on over at Lacquered Lover!

She just hit 1000 followers, so to celebrate she's giving away two sets, each is identical and features:

• OPI Excuse Moi and Warm and Fozzy
• Orly Androgynie
• Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Winter Funderland
• China Glaze Seasonal Sparkles trio (Poinsettia, Twinkle Lights, Holly Day) and Snow Globe

The giveaway can be viewed HERE and ends November 28th, 2011. Good luck!

China Glaze First Mate + Shatter!

Hey y'all, I bet you thought I forgot about you! Welp...I didn't! I'm back from my trip and had to work all week, then Friday one of my coworkers walked out on the job so...needless to say next week just got kind of hectic too! I'm now working on one of my days off and on the other day off I have to go do our tips. So I kind of have one day off next week...but not really if you get technical! We normally do our store tips on Fridays, but the bank is closed this Friday thanks to Veterans Day so I'll have to go do them Thursday! Enough about real life, let's get down to nail polish business!

Here is a fairly old swatch that I never uploaded - it's China Glaze First Mate! I bought this when I went searching for my swap goodies for PolishSis, it just called out to me! First Mate is a gorgeous navy blue creme, wonderful formula and didn't stain my nails!

Two coater! You could probably even do one if you're good, but I like to do two anyways.

Such a lovely shade!

One more pic for good measure :)

And now on to the best part! My new OPI White Shatter which the lovely Krystal from Polish Galore sent me (along with OPI Spark de Triomphe! *love*)

My other hand. Not as good of a picture because I am not good at being left handed! But FINALLY a shatter polish actually worked well on me! I was thrilled, needless to say. I was starting to think I was just terrible at applying them or something, they never crack fully! But this one was nice and smooth and did it's crackly thing just wonderfully!

And a sunlight picture for good measure!

Hope you guys love this manicure as much as I did! I thought the blue and white was so nautical and wished I was on a cruise!! Enjoy your Sunday!! :)