Zoya Earth Day Promo + Stuff!

Hey guys!! I have been uninspired lately and haven't been wearing much nail polish, thanks to lots of work and some peely nails. Thanks to my Essie Grow Stronger, though, they are just peeling a little bit, not peeling and then breaking my nail. So yay Essie!

ANYWAYS, I just placed my order for Zoya's Earth Day Promo! I got 6 colors (the minimum) plus shipping for $30.95! That's such a great deal! Did you guys order anything?! I still have my package from last year's promotion to send them polish....lmao.

I got Wednesday, Zuza, and Kimber from the new summer collections, Kissy from the holiday collection, and Maisie and Chloe from the fleck effects trio! I can't wait to get them!! There are a lot of layering options just between these six, so I am excited to try them out!

We just got a new store manager at my Starbucks and everything is a bit chaotic right now. Work is not my favorite place to be at the moment, hopefully everything will settle down soon so I will be happier! In the meantime I will continue to look forward to my trip to London on July 26th....less than 100 days! :)

And lastly, here are the videos from my last gymnastics meet! I am way happier with it than with my first meet! I added a harder skill to my floor routine which increased my start value and thus my final score, and I was much less wobbly on beam and only fell once! Bars was about the same, which is ok! I'll improve it next season :)

Beam is here!
Floor is here!
Bars is here!

And hopefully next year I can put a vault video! I didn't compete it this year!

Have a terrific week!!! :)

Wet n Wild - Back Alley Deals!

Hi guys!! Hope you've all been doing great! I have been super super busy between work and gymnastics, mainly, but am doing well! Last weekend was my first gymnastics competition (EVER!) and aside from a very wobbly beam routine, it went great! It was so cool to go out there and show your routines in a supportive environment! The competition was through the Texas Gymnastics Conference, which is all of the college club gymnastics teams in Texas! I'll put links to my routines at the bottom of the post, because I videotaped them :) I have another meet tomorrow (Saturday) and I worked really hard this week in the gym and added a new thing to my floor routine so my goal is to do better than last week! :)

I didn't wear this mani at my meet, sadly, because we aren't allowed to wear nail polish. Can you believe it?! I had to take off my amazing navy blue pedicure for the meet :( BUT this is one of the great Wet n Wild Color Icon polishes that came out last fall - Back Alley Deals. I wasn't sure how I would feel about the pinkish glitter mixed in with the purple, but it actually looks amazing in real life!

If you can get your hands on this polish, I would definitely do so!

Sorry, not a perfect photo, but you can see the pretty purple sparkliness :)

And here are links to my routines if you want to see!

Uneven Bars - http://bit.ly/H4hUb7

Floor Exercise - http://bit.ly/H3iRyb

Balance Beam - http://bit.ly/Hsy7p1

Have a wonderful weekend!!! :)

Sister In Law's Wedding Mani!

Hey y'all! My husband's sister got married at the end of last month near Austin, TX (about 3 hours from me here in Dallas) and I was really excited, not only for her wedding because I was a bridesmaid(!), but also to have several days off work and therefore....nail polish time! :)

I wanted to choose something neutral so as not to stand out (though let's be honest, we all know nobody is looking at the bridesmaids at a wedding, but still I wanted to be considerate and not wear dark nail polish or something flashy!) SO, I went with *my* wedding color, Zoya Stephanie, and I topped it with China Glaze White Cap, which added a gorgeous pearly golden sheen! I loved it and was sad to take it off when the weekend was over!

And I am so proud, I haven't bitten my nails in months, and they've been less breaky since I started using Essie Grow Stronger! They do still peel a bit, however, it used to be if there was a peel, the nail was so weak I'd have to cut it down, but now if there's a peel, I usually don't have to cut it down, so they are definitely getting stronger! They've finally grown to be the same length, yippee!

And it was a really eventful weekend, very fun to get away for a short time! On Friday we drove down and met the wedding party at a great barbecue place called Salt Lick BBQ, which was super tasty! On Saturday, we were so stuffed from dinner the night before that we skipped breakfast and waited until lunch to eat! We went to a restaurant called the Oasis, which overlooked Lake Travis, which was sadly very low due to the dry dry summer/fall we had here in Texas. It was awesome to drive through the Hill Country all weekend, such a change of pace from flat Dallas! Then we had the rehearsal, which went very smoothly, followed by the rehearsal dinner which was held on a boat! We had a lovely sunset cruise around Lake Travis with MORE bbq for dinner, haha! It was great to spend time with all my husband's cousins that we don't normally get to see! Sunday we woke up, got ready, and it was wedding time! It was in a gorgeous room overlooking the lake with floor to ceiling windows! Had a nice lunch reception, packed our stuff, and it was time to drive home. I was very excited to stop at the Czech Stop, a gas station/bakery almost halfway back to Dallas, we stopped and got kolaches, which were delicious! And about 5 minutes after that, I got to experience our first blowout - my husband's driver's side front tire blew out while we were on the highway! So that was a fun 30 minute delay, thankfully my husband was a champ and changed that tire like a pro! And after we drove 90 more miles home going about 60 mph...we finally made it home! So that was our exciting weekend :)

Update!

Hi everyone!

Well, I've been working a ton lately, with very little time to paint my nails. To give you an idea of my schedule, usually I get to do a mani on Tuesday night, enjoy it Wednesday, and remove it Wednesday evening. Thanks a lot Starbucks no nail polish rules! Last week I had to go in to work on both of my days off for various reasons so I didn't even get one day with a manicure :(

So needless to say I don't have very many manicure pictures to show you. I'm not sure when I will have more time, because working 5-6 days a week is my normal at this point. I will continue to paint my nails on my day(s) off when I can and will lovingly share my photos with you guys! I wish it could be more often because a)I love painting my nails and b)I love sharing my photos and thoughts with you guys, but at this point in time with this job, it doesn't allow me to have enough time to post more.

ON TO THE POST!!!!

I'd love to share my Valentines Day manicure with you guys! I actually got to enjoy this as a Day After Valentines Day Manicure, since I worked on Valentines Day! But I painted my nails when I got home to enjoy the next day! My sweet husband got me some pretty peach colored roses, and a thing of chocolate gelato! (I love ice cream, and chocolate!). On Wednesday (day off!), we slept in, then cooked scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast on our new electric skillet, enjoyed some television, took our recycling out (exciting!!! but seriously, it was getting really bad, like piles of water bottles and stuff, HAHA!), and then I went to my adult gymnastics class! It was a really enjoyable day off, and I love that we both have Wednesdays off from work, so we get to spend the day together!

OK seriously this time, here is my manicure! I used a lovely pink holo polish I got when I swapped with Inge at Polish Sis, Teeez 'Smooth'. I was going to do little hearts with China Glaze 108 Degrees, but the pink was too close to Smooth in shade, so I made a little heart on one finger with Zoya Astra, and one with Zoya Trixie! I really really love this shade of pink! Inge also sent me a purple holo which is also amazing, I love them both! Here it is!

This photo doesn't do the holo justice but you can see my cute hearts and the gorgeous shade of pink! AND you can see I've been doing so good getting my nails grown to the same length! I had a little peely thing on my ring finger so I had to cut the corner (I couldn't bear to cut the whole thing!) but oh well...it will grow out :)

Well, I hope you all enjoyed my Valentine mani and I hope you have a wonderful week!!! :)

Pink Wednesday Mani!

Hey y'all! Here is a Pink Wednesday manicure I did not too long ago! I recently picked up China Glaze 108 Degrees, so I thought I'd have a little sassy pink fun!

First, because I'm so excited about my camera functioning properly for once....Look! My camera managed to capture some of the shimmer from China Glaze's White Cap on my ring finger! I put it on top of my accent finger of OPI Sweet Memories to add a little extra something!

On my pointer finger, I tested out a shade that I got in my swap with Polish Sis, because I thought it looked similar, but it turned out to be fairly different! Similar finish, just a bit darker. At any rate, they are all in the same color family, so I don't mind my range of pinks! The middle finger and pinky are both 108 Degrees.

With flash! You can really see the blue-ish shimmer in 108 Degrees!

A darker picture. As you can see, Snow Cap is a gorgeous golden shimmery shade, in one coat it delivers a lovely golden shimmer, but I wouldn't try wearing it on it's own. It appears like a pearl in the bottle!

And here's so you can see White Cap in the bottle! It adds the most beautiful subtle shimmer and will look wonderful on top of everything!! I'm so happy I got it (and on sale too!)!

Well this was a fun pink mani that I enjoyed wearing! I've discovered I really love light pink colors and I think it might be my favorite manicure color! I just got Zoya Erika when they did the 2 Free promo a few weeks back (and I got Sooki too!) and I LOVE it, it's basically a gorgeous barbie pink with the same golden shimmer that White Cap delivers, but in one polish instead of two! I'll show you soon!

Have a wonderful Wednesday!! :)

Zoya Caitlin!

Hey y'all! You're so good to be so patient with me lately on the lack of posts :) I've been working 6 day weeks at Starbucks and have only gotten to paint my nails once a week as a result lately :( Hopefully my injured coworker is on the mend soon so we can go back to having 2 days off each week! As a supervisor, we are often the ones who get to work more when others cant. Oh well...I signed up for that job!

Before I get started about this lovely Zoya color, I have to share the latest excitement with you guys - my husband and I had been taking care of a cat for the last two weeks (and one day, to be exact) - her name is Chanel and she is black and white and soooo soft and adorable! Our apartment complex found her and asked if we could watch her, since they knew that I had found a cat a few months ago and reunited it with the owner. I was really getting attached to her, and had tried calling the owner many times, because she had a collar on with a phone number and nametag - that's how we knew she was called Chanel. Unfortunately I only ever got voicemail, so after two weeks I had kind of given up. But no...today there was TONS of signs up in my apartment complex with a picture of her and her name and I was like noooooo!!! I had started to think maybe she was ours to keep! So sad...we called them and gave her back. The owner was happy to have her back, though I would have appreciated some tears of happiness since I cried with sadness letting her go! The $50 reward helped...and when my husband FINALLY caved and said we could pick out a cat (he's been anti-cat since before we got married in May) that really helped! I'll be sure to post a picture of our cat whenever we pick one out!

On to the Zoya goodness!

It's  Zoya Caitlin! A lovely dusty periwinkle cream!

In artificial light. 2 coats is plenty to achieve opacity with this gorgeous shade. It applies like a dream!

But of course I love sparkle, but I didn't want to do anything too flashy, so I thought I'd add a coat of Sinful Colors Pearl Harbor. Sadly it got a little lost in Caitlin, but that's ok.

You can see it a little teeny bit! It was a little more obvious in person.

Well I am currently waiting for my two free Zoya colors to arrive - I'm hoping they'll be here by Tuesday or so! I picked Sooki, the gorgeous bright red, and Erika, a nice pretty pink with golden shimmer! I got my Mom Sooki for Christmas so I already know how gorgeous it is (I totally stole it so I could use it for a mani! But don't worry...I gave it back!) but I think Erika looks beautiful based on the swatch pics I've seen so I can't wait to try it!

Have a wonderful start to your week! :)

Catrice - Pool Party at Night & Snow-Man Of My Dreams!

Hey guys!

Today I have a gorgeous gorgeous polish that I received in my swap I did with Polish Sis! It is a beautiful blue, Catrice - Pool Party At Night! This is actually from the beginning of December, haha! My nails are much longer now :)

It appears a little darker in this picture than it is in real life, but it is a lovely deep blue creme! Two coats was plenty to achieve opacity. For comparison, it is definitely lighter than China Glaze First Mate.

I don't know why my pictures are sideways today....well, it's fun to switch things up every now and then!

Here it is with flash! So pretty!

But y'all know I love my glitter, so I added a new one I just picked up - Nicole by OPI Snow-Man of my Dreams, from their 2011 Holiday collection! You may have seen my facebook rant about my camera, which was supposedly fixed, and how the macro focus function doesn't seem to work anymore. As you can see...it is blurry here, so clearly my macro function is broken. *sigh* So I am going to buy a new camera...but not for a few months, I'm going on vacation in July so I'll buy one before that trip! This camera works fine as long as I'm not trying to zoom in too close like I was in this picture.

Let's try an iPhone picture instead... 

As you can (kind of) see, Snow-Man of My Dreams is a packed glitter polish, with glitter of every color! It does lean towards blue, although there are all sorts of colors in here, so I thought it would go nicely over Pool Party At Night. It is a clear base, though, so I think you could layer it over anything :)

Well, this was my first Catrice polish and I have to say, Inge picked a great one! The formula and shade were wonderful, I hope this won't be my last Catrice! Do any of you own Catrice polishes?

Have a wonderful day!!

My First GOSH!

Hey guys! I'm back, yay! Husband moved the camera uploading cord and I couldn't find it ^.^ BUT obviously I found it (yay!) so here is a photo of a mani I wore last week! This week I'll also try and post a very belated picture of my Christmas mani! That one I only snagged a pic of on my phone, so I'll upload it soon :)

Anyways, this manicure is a GOSH polish that I got in my swap I did with Polish Sis! It is called Gasoline, and reminds me a bit of OPI Grape...Set...Match! only with more blue shimmer. I haven't seen them side by side though (I do have both) so I can't be sure just how similar they are! At any rate this is my first and only GOSH so I am happy to have it :)

Here I am standing in my kitchen. These purple polishes always seem to photograph more blue than they really are. It is truly purple and not blue! And it has the prettiest shimmery quality to it, with a hint of pink shimmer but mostly blueish shimmer!

And on my ring finger I did an a coat of China Glaze - White Cap. I just love that golden shimmery goodness! It looks so gorgeous on top of anything! I was hoping it would stand out a bit more over the purple but...oh well! I think the blue flash is really apparent in this photo.

Here is the most color accurate, I'd say, a nice plummy hue. Obviously it's with flash! You can really see the blue flash here, but sadly the White Cap on my ring finger gets a bit lost. Oh well. I find myself leaning towards lighter colors for my manicures, or if I don't do a lighter color, I don't like to wear it for as long, but this was a nice change of pace!

Thank you again Inge for picking this lovely GOSH color for me!! :)

Zoya Promo!

Hey friends! Zoya has it's first promo of 2012 already, just three days into the year! (*jumps for joy*)

You can go to their website, pick any two nail polishes and get them for free when you enter the code ZOYA2012 at checkout. You still have to pay shipping but last time I checked it was only $6.95 and considering one bottle of Zoya is $8 that's a wonderful value!

I'm definitely partaking in this offer, just have to decide what I want! I kind of want Raven or Snow White, but I also want Chloe and possibly Tru, but I think they won't be out for a couple weeks. Hm...

Will you be participating in this promo? What colors did you pick? :)

HARE Polish - Archipelago

Hey y'all! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Today I have another lovely HARE Polish to show you - Archipelago! I am so happy I was able to pick up these two polishes! Nikole makes some lovely polishes and they fly off the shelves every time she sells them on her Etsy page! (HERE)

Archipelago is a juicy deep navy blue with a couple sizes of copper glitter mixed in. The glitter easily shows through, thanks to the jelly consistency. The glitters look kind of gold here, but they are more of a copper shade!

I normally shy away from dark colors, but this is still obviously blue in all lights, which is great!

See the larger and smaller glitter pieces?

With flash it's a lovely dark denim color! See the nice jelly consistency! 

I think I did 3 coats of this polish to achieve opacity. It has a little bit of a stinky smell to it, as does A Positive, but they both look amazing so I don't mind! :) Thank you again Nikole for making these wonderful polishes!