L is for...

L is for Lizard!!!! Okay so today is one of my very good, very amazing friends birthday. I happen to call him lizard, which is a short story I just don't feel like explaining it, so being his birthday and all I had to create a special mani just for him. My Mr. Mischievous Lizard turned 26 today, old man ain't he? No he really isn't but me being the "cheeky owl" that I supposedly am I can't really let him off easy now can I? Honestly I had a lot of fun creating this although I wish it would have turned out better but when you have the limited resources that I did you kind of have to make due with what you have.

As you can tell the main character of this mani is a partying lizard with a cute little owl on his tail holding his birthday balloons. Other than how crappily these nails turned out I think that this represents us rather well.

So Mr. Mischievous Lizard should you somehow ever come across this Happy Birthday and to many more my dear.

Polish Party On!

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K is for...

You guys should know by now that I may say I'm going to be good about updating my blog, and I was there for a while, but in the end I get lazy and don't have the motivation to put any effort into updating my blog, I do think about it though. So anyways K is for Kiss! No this is not a play off of Kay jewelers' "Every Kiss Begins with Kay" song this is just all I could think of that started with K and I felt like I could possibly do. All of the polishes I used in the are from Zoya minus the topcoat that decided that it didn't want to cooperate so it dragged my mani, jerk. Without further ado I give you my K mani.

I thought that this was sweet and girly. It gets me in the mood to do some more Valentines Day Manis because I love V-day even if I am always single, here's to hoping I have a date this year. Fingers Crossed.

Stay Sweet!

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xo SmellsLikeNailPolish

J is for...

J is for Jellyfish Jelly Sandwich. This was suggested by a friend of mine and @pimpmynubss on Instagram respectively, I also used a tutorial from Polish Pals over her Jellyfish Nails that she did for this challenge as well. When @pimpmynubss suggested I do jelly sandwich I though I really should as I've never done one before, looking through my stash (that has grown significantly since the last time I counted) I realized I own only two jelly polishes one of which I received for Christmas. Now the picture didn't turn out as well as I would have liked but I was taking it in my truck while I sat on campus waiting for my next class to start. I will start messing with the lighting when I'm on campus to find out where I need to take my pictures because when I leave in the morning it is too dark to take a good picture and same thing when I finally get home, especially once soccer season starts. So on class days the pictures will be iffy for a while as I figure out what will work best for me, although because of my course load once I get farther into the semester I will most likely only be painting my nails every other day so hopefully that will make it better.

Also excuse my dry and icky cuticles the winter weather, no matter how little we have gotten here, has not been kind on my hands. I'm going to be using my cuticle remover tonight (if not tomorrow) so that should clean up that problem.

Keep polished and shining!

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I is for...

I is for Ikat. Also in my situation "I need some practice," this was my first time to ever doing them and while I loved the colour combination I was not impressed with how they turned out. I will be trying them again because the only way you can get better at anything is to practice it. If I do these again, more specifically several times, I will post a before and after shot.

I have nothing else to say really other than I had fun doing these.

Stay polished!

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H is for...

H is for Hearts. So yesterday was the first day back to semester because of that I decided that I wanted to go with something simpler that what I would normally do. I did have one design in my head but it refused to cooperate with me so that left me with just this. It was plain, simple and go the job done.

The base of this is Quit Metal-ing by Ulta and the heart glitters are from Love Your Life by Nicole by OPI. I'm just saying you should insert a big exasperated sigh here because I am about to tell you about the hell that is Love Your Life. So I know how glitters are tricky and everything to get them to apply to your nails however this one I am willing to say is worse than that. Glitters it is usually a problem of having to fish for the glitters and then them not wanting to come off of the brush. You can fish for the glitters and get some pretty easily though. This you have to fish and fish and fish and then you still might not get any. All of the glitter are sunk to the bottom so you can not get them in order to get the glitters I did get I had to close my bottle all the way and shake it to get just a few hearts on my brush. That was for all 10 nails! I'm sorry if I am wanting to put glitter on my nails I want it to be something easier to apply than this. To see if I had maybe just got a bad batch I went online and read some reviews. Every single one said the exact same thing! I did come across one review from Apply Polish Here giving Love Your Life a second chance she said that she "let the bottle sit upside down for a little bit and the hearts came out with out too much hassle." So if I was to give this another chance I will probably try that because honestly I love the aspect of heart glitters.

Stay beautiful!

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xo SmellsLikeNailPolish

Direct quote used from Apply Polish Here's entry using this polish.

G is for...

G is for Geographic Nails. So these nails I will admit are a fail. I gave up halfway through as I felt that poorly about them. If I would have been able to execute what I had planned these nails would have been amazing, well I think so. I did places that mean something to me Arizona is where my second family has lived for the last 8 years although they are thinking of coming home. Texas is where I have lived all of my life so it is where I call home. England is where I plan on moving once I finish with my English Degree and is where I am hoping to go to Culinary School in. And lastly is Idaho we went to Idaho this summer as my sister-in-laws granddad was sick and she needed someone to go with her to see him and as we drove through Idaho we found out that there is a Kimberly, Idaho otherwise known as my name. Since that point I have not been able to live it down that "I da ho" have to love family right?

The background is "Naughty Nautical" from Essie's Collection this summer. I believe you can still get it at stores. As I said I wasn't really too impressed with these nails but they work I suppose.

Stay Beautiful!

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xo SmellsLikeNailPolish

F is for...

F is for Finding Nemo! Okay so I thought of doing this idea on the second day for "B" but I kind of liked giving credit to the story that it comes from so I did this for today obviously. Honestly I love it! I'm going to post the pictures and at the end I will have the rest of my commentary over it because I don't want to ruin the surprise as to what it actually is. There is a lot of pictures on here because I had trouble finding the perfect lighting for it and I just couldn't decide over all of these of what ones I wanted to post.

So I adore this scene from the movie because he is so happy touching the butt. How can you not be happy touching the butt? I want to touch the butt and should all things work out I might get to touch the butt this summer and I am extremely excited over that! Alright so I did Nemo touching the "butt" and exclaiming over his butt touching time and then I added the starfish from the Dentist Office because s/he is so freaking cute! I am happy with how this entire manicure turned out. As you can tell on my thumb mostly though the blue I used stains my hands and that's because I was careful with it and did clean up 5 times before I took these pictures which is why my fingers look oily in some as I used cuticle oil in those. It's "Blue me away" by Sally Hansen. I'll keep this on the not used as much side. I also added on my dominate hand and a few fingers on this hand (ring, pinky, and thumb) a little gradient to show the darker colours of the ocean as well as a light colour over top to give the ocean some shimmer.

That's all for now beauts!

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xo SmellsLikeNailPolish

E is for...

E is for Emoji. So I haven't had my nail Instagram account on my iPod since I got my phone because the camera on there is so much better. Since my phone is an Android and not an iPhone I no longer have access to the emojis I used to use on my IG. I still use my iPod for my nieces account although I am thinking of changing that to a personal account, to check all my e-mails that I set up on there, and to talk to the boy but even in all of those instances I don't use emojis all that often anymore. Which makes me sad because I love my emojis which made me decide to do my "e" mani based off them, well originally I was going to do emotions but those were difficult to figure out so I deiced that I would go with emojis instead because it is essentially the same thing but I have something to base it off of a lot easier.

These are my most used emojis on my iPod, sad I know however they are not in the order of most used. Aren't they so cute? I absolutely love how they turned out! How could I not? Mr. Flirty-Kissy face gets me every time! I just love these guys!

Stay Beautiful!

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xo SmellsLikeNailPolish

D is for...

D is for Diagonal. So I was originally going to do something different but then I did this and I kind of really liked how it turned out. To me it looks very patriotic and just how it turned out overall I am very impressed with, first win of my ABC Nail Art Challenge.

Very plain but it works and it all lines up pretty well so I am happy with the results. Can't really ask for more than that now can I? These are freehand as well. 

Polish On!

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C is for...

C is for Chevrons and Cling Wrap and Cloud and Coral Reef. As you can tell there were many "C"s that went into the making of this mani and sadly I wasn't that impressed with it although I am rather impressed with my chevrons as they were freehand. The first sentence is kind of funny as it is actually in the reverse order that I applied it.

Not perfect but I will still take them.

Stay true beauts.

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xo SmellsLikeNailPolish

B is for...

So for today I wasn't able to come up with a design. Actually let me take that back I was able to I just was not able to figure out which one I actually wanted to do because they were all so good so that left me with one option. I just swatched a polish I have that the colour starts with a b in this case B if for Breezy Blue by Sally Hansen.

This colour if a light baby blue and is very clean looking. It would serve as a beautiful base for nail art or you could just wear it on it's own. I know I have a few designs in mind with the colour now.

That's it for now beauts. Until next time.

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A is for...

So I have decided to embark on a new nail art challenge as I feel like the 31 day nail art challenge really helped me and my nail art skills. This one is a bit more free to interpretation as all you have to do is come up with something that starts with the letter of the alphabet, simple enough right? And if you don't want to do nail art you can always do just plain swatches using a brand that starts with the letter or colour that does. There is no limitations as to what you can do! I am currently on "F" and I will be posting all of my nails up until this point separately so they get equal love and then at the end of the challenge I will put them all together to show all that I did. Also I am going to try to do my nails everyday but once school starts as is typical nail art will be put on the back burner although I do have every mani planned out thus far minus "J", "V" and "Z" if you think of something please let me know!

So "A" was for abstract. I must say that is not my most favorite that I've ever done but it worked for the letter and I got to try out a technique that I've never done before (and after this probably never will again).

That's all for now loves. I am tired so when I wake up in the morning and get home from running errands that I will enevitebly have I will update my blog with all of my mani's and expect for "F" to be pretty pic heavy because I am in LOVE with it!

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Coral Reef by Sally Hansen and Vibrant Violet by Sally Hansen

Before I get into anything else I am just going to say that I love Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear nail polishes and seeing as I own 28 I better love them, they are so affordable and the product is definitely better than what you would expect for the price seeing as it is only $3-$5, I will admit I just Googled that because I'm unsure of the price at this moment. Because of the problems I will list in a minute with each polish they both get pushed into my hardly use pile. Without further ado I will lead into my reviews.
Coral Reef
So this colour is going to be the base for some nail art I'm doing tonight, which is a good thing given the fact that the brush totally sucks making it to where it looks like I have absolutely no clue as how to apply nail polish. It took three coats to make this polish look decent which had it been applied with a good brush it would have only taken two coats.

Just a few swatches to show the colour of this polish after I got everything applied.

Another Swatch to try and show the true colour, unfortunately I didn't put this colour on until after the sun had set so a day time photo of this was out of the question. 

The bottle of Sally Hansen's Coral Reef. I've worn this polish all of two times because of how difficult the brush is to work with and you can see how much has been used in it.

The brush, sadly I was not able to get a picture that shows just how deformed this brush is but if you click on the photo it will pop up bigger and you will be able to see a bit better how horrendous this brush is. I will try for a better shot but this was the best out of 10+.

Vibrant Violet by Sally Hansen
Now this colour I've worn probably a maximum of once! Why so few you ask? Well that would be because this polish separates like no other! I was just walking about my room and saw that it was separated again! I have to shake this polish up every few days if I want it to stay together and even then it's of hardly any use because this polish is going to separate regardless of what I do. Don't get me wrong I adore the colour that is is but with all that separation how am I supposed to use it? Now stupidly as I was writing this, you know how I said that I was walking around my room and saw how separated it was? Well I shook it up because that's what you do when the pigment separates from the suspension base. So I will post pictures of this polish in the bottle to show you how badly it separates and I will not shake it up at any point during the time I'm documenting it. I will post my first picture tonight of how it looks post shaking with pigment clumps floating around in it and then I will post another picture a month from now to show the separation.

As you can see it's still not the best in terms of being together but it is a LOT better than when I had initially picked it up.

If you look at the end of my stick really closely you can see where the pigment is clumped up some.

Conclusion
Not transitioning from the previous topic felt awkward so I had to add that header. As I said I am a loyal Sally Hansen Nail Polish Owner owning 28 polishes from the Xtreme Wear line and a total of 50 from any of their nail polish lines, I honestly think that is a quarter of my collection! I will probably be contacting Sally Hansen's PR so that they can know about the products they have on the market and check the batches to ensure that they are properly dealt with.

Much love beauts!
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Holiday Season Nail Art

So I am horrible about updating but I have good reason, I only did my nails 3 times this December. Shocking I know! But I am planning on doing a nail art challenge this month so I will make it up to every one!

New Years Mani, not to much detail but I kind of really like how they turned out!

My Christmas Mani, wasn't impressed with the penguin but it worked.