Fairy Dust Feng Shui

I've been a very bad blogger lately, not because I don't love you all haha it's just been a little crazy lately. I've steadily been taking pictures, swatching, and polishing so I have plenty of stuff to share with you :) Thanks for bearing with me during the unintended absence!

So what I have for you today is a layering combination that I la-la-love. Perfect for fingers or toes! This is 2 coats of OPI - Suzi Says Feng Shui and 1 coat of China Glaze - Fairy Dust. It's glittery but not overwhelmingly so; colorful but not in your face because of the dusty quality of Suzi Says Feng Shui. It also makes me very happy that the glitter in Fairy Dust lays flat, I hate bumpy glitter.



outside, sunlight


more sunlight outside (the pictures were too pretty to just pick one)


outside, shade

inside

There's just something about the dusty blue color and the light hitting the holographic glitter that makes me very happy. I need to wear this combo again ASAP! Do you have any colors or combinations that have that an effect like that for you?

Fun WIth Layering Wednesday: Gray by Gray and Star

Happy Wednesday? I've got one more final left to take tomorrow and some end of semester work to finish this week and then I can breathe for like one minute haha. Next week I start more classes and the 2 baseball radio and webshows I co-host start up. Phew! But I do have a cool thing planned for this weekend - it looks like Mimi from Makeup Withdrawal and I may be meeting up for a nail polish playdate!


I've got another Fun With Layering Wednesday post for you today, using Sally Hansen - Gray by Gray from the Complete Salon Manicure line. In case you want to check it out on it's own and missed my post about it the other day, here is the link.



sunlight


shade


inside


I used two coats of Revlon - Star overtop of Gray by Gray. I think the glitter in Star really works well with Gray by Gray, the colors work really nicely together. I'm not super into the random hex glitter in the polish, I need to figure out a way to make it a little more symmetrical or something next time I use it. The polish Star has special meaning for me though, a few months ago when one of my cats Starlight passed away, a really really sweet MUA-er sent me this polish to cheer me up. She included a poem and a little note with it too which was so wonderful. Do you have any polishes with special meanings to you like I do with Revlon - Star?

When Nail Polish And Jewelry Come Together...

I've been a little MIA this week, sorry about that. I've had a ridiculous amount of work to do and my back is not playing well with the rest of my body. But I'm back! Get excited because I have some incredible necklaces from GingerKitty Designs to share with you! I seriously can not get enough of her jewelry, it's phenomenal. My biggest problem is trying to narrow down what I want from a wishlist of, well everything haha. At the end of November I finally got my act together and ordered a necklace from Tracey and then a few days later, I won a second through the Overall Beauty Scavenger Hunt!

I'm going to show you the one I originally ordered first. It's even more stunning in person than in pictures, but I tried to capture it as best I could in the late afternoon sun


look at it sparkle in the sun!

more sun

a deliberately blurry indoors picture to show the holo and glitter sparkle

Holy moly, how insanely pretty is that?! It's made with China Glaze - Octa Gone Wild, China Glaze - Emerald Sparkle, OPI - Ink, and OPI - Purple With A Purpose.

Okay, the second necklace I won through the Overall Beauty scavenger hunt at the beginning of December and it's so perfect for the holidays and Valentine's Day!

quasi-sun haha

inside, so you can see the design

inside, blurred some to show the sparkle!

This one is red and silver, made with Color Club - Art Of Seduction and Zoya - Trixie

Ever since I got these pretties in the mail, I've worn them a couple of times a week, I can't get enough of them! They add a pop of color and sparkle (without being over the top) to everything from jeans and a t-shirt to dresses. I seriously cannot say enough about how much I love these and they are even more stunning in person.

You have to go check out the GingerKitty Designs Etsy Store and you can read her blog too. (You definitely want to do that, she has great giveaways!) Tracey has a huge list of polishes that you can have her make pretty much any kind of custom piece for you, or you can pick from some of the gorgeous ones she's come up with. Lately a lot of pieces with crackle polish has been ordered I believe.

What polish (or polishes) would be in your dream piece of jewerly from GingerKitty Designs? I want more holo ones!

Mistletoe Kisses for New Year's Eve

Hello lovelies! Just a quick post for you tonight before 2011 is upon us. I've got China Glaze - Mistletoe Kisses for you today. I won this a little while ago from Mary at Body & Soul and it's so pretty! Maybe my favorite from the Holiday collection this year.

sun (you can see how the silver glitter is more apparent sometimes depending on the light)

shade

inside

Pretty right? Sorry there are a few stray glitter pieces on my ring finger in the pictures. I'm actually wearing this on my toes right now. It's easy to work with, sometimes glitters can be a little gloopy but the formula here is good. Mistletoe Kisses is one of three I have from this collection, I'll show you the other two soon. Do you have any from this collection? What's your favorite?

I hope you all have a great New Year's Eve! I won't be kissing anyone at midnight since I'm sick, but hopefully you will be :)

Diamond Cosmetics Winter Collection, Part Two

I've got the second half of Diamond Cosmetics' Winter Collection for you. If you missed part one you can find it here. I've got pictures of Starshine and Hypnotic to show you today! Have I mentioned how much I like the names of the polishes from this collection? Because I definitely do. If you've been reading JeweledTips for a while, I'm sure you've noticed that polish names that don't make sense drive me crazy haha. Yay for logical names!

First up, Starshine!

sun

(click to enlarge all of these to see the glitter better)

shade

inside

Diamond Cosmetics describes it as, "Dark blue like the cosmic abyss, flecks of glitter in this polish twinkle like stars." I'd say that's pretty accurate! The bits of glitter aren't quite as obvious on the nail, it's more subtle but you can definitely tell they are there. These are all without topcoat, which I think would make it even prettier. The application was good, I used three coats but could've gotten away with two. I have polishes in my stash that are like a cousin to Starshine but no dupes. I'm a sucker for any polish with Star in the name too haha. As soon as I put this on, I thought it would make a really cool base color for something similar to the Space Nails that Asami did a while back.

Now let's check out Hypnotic!

sun

shade

inside

Oh myyyy goodness is this gorgeous or what? Diamond Cosmetics describes it like this: "Get lost in your fantasy with this shimmery blue green hue." Cute! Shimmery definitely fits this, although I'd say it's more a green that leans blue than a true blue-green, if that makes sense? There is a little more blue to it than my camera captured, but still predominately green I think. Application was great, very easy to work with and full coverage in two coats. I don't have any dupes to this for sure, it's crazy pretty though haha I can't wait to wear this as a full mani!

I don't think I can pick just one favorite from the collection, they all fit different holes in my collection (if you can have holes in a collection closing in on 300, you know what I mean though) I do know for sure I'm going to wear Moonsand on New Year's Eve! Do you have a favorite out of the four? Will you be picking one or all of them up from Diamond Cosmetics? If you're celebrating this weekend - I hope it's wonderful! And if not, I hope your weekend is amazing too :)

(these were sent to me for an honest review)

Happy Halloween!

Just a quick post today with some Halloween nail art! I hope you're having a fun Halloween or October 31st, whichever you observe :) Today I've got some more great nail art compliments of Alexandra for you. There is a ton of really cool Halloween manis around the blogs and MUA that I've seen and been inspired by, but this is one I haven't seen around. Check it out!

Alexandra used Pure Ice - Kiss Me Here as the base color and if you click to enlarge the picture you can see the round little black rhinestones on the tips. T he skulls are clay fimo slices and there's a stripe of black and silver glitter to finish off the look.

I really like this mani! I'm very into how colored french tips look lately and this feels a little more managable for me to try than a lot of nail art. Slowly working my way up in the nail art world haha, luckily we have Alexandra to put together fun nail art like this. What are you doing for your nails today? Are you dressing up?

Giveaway!

Wow, I can't believe that I have over 50 followers already! I seriously cannot thank you all enough for taking time to read my blog :) So I have a (small) giveaway for you! I'll be having another giveaway when we get to 100 followers, I've already started to collect things for that too.

Here are the goodies!



Rimmel - Deliciously Dark
Cover Girl Boundless Color - Crystal Mist
Essie - Geranium
Rimmel - Climax

I tried to have a mix of colors and finishes so there would be something that hopefully appealed to everyone... a vamp, glitter for layering, a bright, and a shimmer.

The rules are going to be easy for this! Everyone gets one entry, if you would like to mention it on your blog/twitter/etc I certainly won't complain, but it's not a requirement for winning.

All you need to do is 1)Be a follower! and 2) leave a comment telling me how you follow (I will be checking) and with your email address (so I can notify you!) if you'd prefer to email me with your address instead of posting it, that's cool just mention that you did so in your comment, and make sure you tell me your follower name in the email, of course. You can send that to me at JeweledTips (at) yahoo (dot) com

That's all you need to do! Easy right? :) I'll have the contest open for two weeks. So you have to enter by midnight on August 25th. Unfortunately, this contest is only open to the US and Canada, but the 100 follower giveaway will be open worldwide! (So I hope that makes up for this a little bit for my international followers)

These are all brand new polishes and I will post a swatch of Rimmel - Climax soon, that's the only one of these I own myself but there are swatches of the others floating around if you want to check them out. Again, thank you all SO much for following!

Fun With Layering Wednesday comes on Thursday this week.

Shiny! Glittery! Possibly close to a hard to find OPI color?! Purple! Today's (day late) Fun With Layering Wednesday combo has everything I could possibly want. And I actually don't know for sure if it's close to the OPI..but we'll get to that in a minute. I'm pretty jazzed about this mani, so there's a lot of pictures. Prepare yourself accordingly.

What wonders lay ahead? China Glaze - Light As Air with Sinful Colors - Purple Diamonds on top. Looking at all these pictures makes me want to wear this again ASAP.




ohhhh the sun makes it looks so nice!


outside in the shade


inside

Now, let's chat. I found a slightly used bottle of OPI - Vio-Let's Surf in a local nail salon a month or two ago. I haven't swatched it yet. (It's going to be a part of Hard To Find Week that I'll be doing in the future) But once I put these two colors on, it made me think about Vio-Let's Surf. So I grabbed my bottle and took it outside to hold next to my nails to see if it looks close in the bottle or not.





So it could be close. It intrigued me enough that I may need to swatch Vio-Let's Surf sooner than I had planned and compare these. Wouldn't that be cool if they were close? Those pictures make my hands look huge too, which is strange because I have really small hands in real life haha. But I digress. Would you guys want to see a comparison of this layering combo and Vio-Let's Surf soon? I could make that happen :)

More Layering fun, and exciting things coming!

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday! I'm back with another new layering combo for you :) And after I show you that, I've got cool news- new stuff debuting here tomorrow! The excitment is radiating off this blog post, I know you can tell, haha.

So today I've got a green and some glitter for you. I was rummaging through my nail polish boxes last week trying to figure out what layering things would be interesting for you. I'm trying to mix it up, I don't want to show you the same colors or finishes each week. Plus I want to mix it up between easy to find, hard to find, inexpensive, etc so that there's something for every taste. (Well, unless your taste is yellow - I look awful in yellow.) Last week I gave you flakies, so this week - glitter!

I give you, Sinful Colors - Rise and Shine



Sorry it's a little messy, wish I had noticed before I took the pictures :) haha, oh well! That's two coats, with top coat because it dried a little matte. I like shiny.

Now, Rise and Shine, with Color Club - Hot Couture over it!


Inside


Outside


Ah! Extreme close-up!

I really really like this combination. I was worried this might turn out looking awful, but I had a feeling it might be cool. Lucky for me it ended up really pretty! Hot Couture is from the Pardon My French collection and is still pretty easy to find in case you want to try this for yourself.

Do you want to know a secret? Until about two months ago I almost never wore glitter nail polish. I read too many horror stories online about what a pain it was to remove, so I figured there were plenty of other glitter-free nail polishes in the world that were easier to deal with. Luckily I wised up! I still don't really go full-on glitter yet, but I'll get there. (Yes, I know about the foil method for removing..but it just seems like a lot of work haha) I'm really into glittery top coats right now though.

The one good thing that came out of me not wearing glitter was that I got really into holos! I'm going to be doing a holo week pretty soon to show you my favorites, which include an incredible frankened holo from a really amazing Make-Up Alley (also known as MUA) friend, Alexandra. Which bring me to my really really exciting news! Alexandra and I got to talking, and she is going to be doing guest posts here for the amazing nail art she does! Tomorrow I have the first post from her, which gives us cute nail art, a tutorial for it, AND Paradoxal swatches!! I'm not great with nail art, all I do is Konad, but Alexandra has such pretty and creative nail art - I'm so honored that she wants to be a part of Jeweled Tips! So be sure to check back tomorrow afternoon for it.

Fun With Layering Wednesday!

Hey there :)

First of all - THANK YOU to you sweet ladies who commented and started following my blog; I can't tell you how much that means to me! You rule!

Now, onto today's post... I figure that for most people Wednesday is generally a not so fun day at work because Friday seems so far off. So I thought having some different layered polish combinations would give you something fun to try come Friday, or you know, today if you don't have a strict dress code haha. I work from home so I'm lucky in that respect.

The idea of layering wasn't something I was ever into until recently. I'm not very good at imagining how colors would work together. But the wonderful ladies of tPF and MUA post all these great pictures of combinations that have helped inspire me to get creative and try some out! And I would LOVE to hear any suggestions you have for layering ideas. Onto the pictures? Yes, please!





This is 1 coat of Diamond Cosmetics - Don't Teal My Heart Away with 2 coats of Sinful Colors - Nail Junkie on top. Don't Teal My Heart Away is exactly what it sounds like, a teal creme. It's very opaque so you can get away with one coat. Nail Junkie has a sheer green base color with green, gold, and silver glitter densely packed in it. Very pretty but for me I'll probably only ever use it as a layering tool, less glitter to remove that way haha. I'm excited to try this over some other colors too, although I don't know if it will ever look as good as this did!

Oh how I loved this manicure. So very very much. It lasted a week without chipping and wasn't gritty feeling at all after using my Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat. And at the end of the week I didn't want to take it off at all haha. My nails were so sparkly and fun looking! This is a manicure I will be wearing again soon for sure! One of the best parts about this manicure? The two colors cost $4.24 total. Pretty good deal right? Diamond Cosmetics are $2.25 and Sinful Colors are $1.99. Both are inexpensive and were great quality; you can't go wrong with that.

Do you have any go-to layering combos? Share them with me in your comments - I'm on the lookout for new ones!