Finger Paints glitter and flakie - which one is your drug?

Heya people! This is going to be rather short, I'm afraid, I'm losing daylight and I really want to go for a walk before I start to study. It's a beautiful warm-but-not-hot day and I want to savour it before it's study time. This has to be my favourite time of the year, when it comes to weather. I'm not hot or sweating just by standing and breathing, the autumn colours of trees are gorgeous, the woods smell divine ... and yes, tea! I went to La Palais Des Thés today for the first time and that shop is seriously amazing. I fell in love with tea they had for try and I had to buy it, it's called Thé du Hammam and the name itself brings so many lovely memories, I simply had to have it. I just drunk a cup of it and it's fantastic. Although Le Palais des Thés is a bit pricey comparing to Cha (my regular source of teas), I love what I saw and the aromas of teas I smelled ... so yummy! Although I am a giant coffee drinker, because I love the taste and everything, I drink almost the same amount of tea when the Summer ends and Autumn comes, and naturally during Winter.  With my regular 2 l of water per day I can only say I drink a lot of fluids on daily basis. o.O

Nail polish, what say you? I have two beauties today that don't get enough attention from me, they are gorgeous. Plus when I saw them together in FP folder I got curious: which one is your greatest drug in nail polish world? Glitters? Flakies? Holos? Something else? I must say, glitter and flakies are pretty darn close for me. Close second, mind you, first two are still glassflecks and duochromes. Some might argue glassflecks are actually glitter polish, so perhaps glitter is a tad bit closer? But I adore flakies, so go figure. If I  might add, I absolutely love cremes to. So basically, Ulmiel, shut the frak up and give us pictures, right?

 To show you the sparkles, this one is really insanely sparkly!

 This is called All You Need Is Color, it came out in Finger Paints Peace and Love Collection for Summer 2011. The collection didn't get a lot of love, but I actually like most of the colours in the collection. All You Need Is Colour has to be my favourite, it's such a gorgeous, gorgeous teal glitter, made from tiny green, teal, blue specks of glitter, I love it. It needed four coats on my nails and two coats of TC for the rough finish. But I'm one of those that believe the final result is well worth the extra layers. I wore this mani for a long time. Oh, the lovely flowers are Depend stickers, I think I've shown them before. I like them, I like flower patterns. :)

Ah, yes, flakies. Man, it's a really close call for me, I LOVE flakies!! Finger Paints Asylum has to be one of my favourite flakie polishes ever, the colours are insane in this one, I loved this mani. I think I actually wore it for a special occasion, I just am not sure which one. Perhaps my birthday? Dunno. Anyway. My nails were beautiful here. *dreamy sigh* Two coats of Catrice Back To Black and two coats of Asylum over it. Asylum was a part of Finger Paints Special Effects Flake Glitter Topcoat collection that came out in the beginning of 2012, was quickly sold out and so I need to once more thank the best swap buddy in the universe for getting it for me. Oooh, flakies are a vein of glitter then? Glitter all around then, ladies! 

Well, not such a short post after all. 

Thank you for reading!

My Awesome Beauty Competition mani

Hei everyone! How are you doing on this very hot day? I'm doing my nails ATM and I remembered I wanted to mention Sophie's competition early enough for you to participate too (in case you haven't yet). Well, you still have today and tomorrow until 10 am. And that is enough time, btw! Here's the deal. In case any of you don't know Sophie: she owns My Awesome Beauty blog.  A beautiful blog with a beautiful author, her blog is versatile, fun and holds incredible photographs. I do recommend you visit it! Nail wise she does awesome designs with great colour combinations. I always wanted to recreate them, but you know how I am with time and my nail art ... until the competition started. You have to recreate one of the two patterns, but with your own ideas. I got hooked immediately and searched for inspiration. That's how I finally discovered that the designs are actually very user-friendly and that they don't take much time, so they're in my nail art book now! 

In short: my inspiration was the Eye of Sauron, that's why it is in the background of the pictures. Beyu 209 with Essie flakies on top represent the lava of Mount Doom, the gold is for the One Ring and the orange Finger Paint seemed a better combination than the predictable red or yellow for the eye. So I mixed them in an orange colour. ;)  I played with the pictures a bit before I sent them, here you'll see them separated.

Really wonky position of my fingers, Finger Paints bottles are not nice for holding. 

I liked the result, I didn't get tired of this mani until it looked to tired so I basically had to remove it. It's a bit blingy, but I wanted that. And yes, it's another geek inspiration for me, but frankly when you walk into my room, Tolkien is pretty much the first thing you notice. That and nail polish. So they're bound to come together every once in a while. And btw, yes, that's an actual poster of the Eye, my BF thought I photoshoped it, I didn't. :P 

Enter the competition! You have enough time and the prizes are wonderful! Good luck to all of you and Sophie, thanks for the chance!

Thank you for reading!

Nail polish blogger Challenge day 7

Hello! It's Sunday, but it's not the end of the weekend for me, woohoo! Two extra free days! And it feels goood! :P It's the last day of the challenge ... I hope you had fun with it, or at least found it a little bit interesting. :) As for my part ... I loved how it pushed me to do more art work. I did serious stamping for the first time, i did dot manicure for the first time and I had tons of fun making up new manis and combinations. So it's a good thing! The only thing I had problem with was the time. I just don't have so much time as I used to for blogging, it sucks. But I love a good reason for thinking up new ideas, so the challenge has been awesome. And challenging with a colour I don't normally wear. At all, let alone for so many combinations. Pink is out of the box for me. Or going inside the box when I'm mostly out of it? Haha xD Anyway ... this was a pink that actually grew on me, but I need a serious break from pink now. :D But i discovered some awesome combos. My favourite mani of the week was the one with Deborah Milano layering, I'll do that one again for sure. And the flakies, of course, but what else is new.

I loved my flakie mani (day 6) so much, I decided I'll built from that. I mattefied it with Essence Matt Top Coat and then I decided I'll do some serious scotch taping. And I went to my favourite accent finger style, diagonal stripes. Of course I failed miserabily at attempt to make them all at the same angle, but I like it anyway. :) The top colour is Catrice Plum Play With Me. I don't recommend it for this kind of work, it needs two coats to be opaque enough and the coats need to be really thick, which can result, as you can see on my ring finger, in bubbling. Still, hell, I like it!

Mattefied flakies. I don't normally like it, but I wanted them to really pop out on this rather bright base colour, and matte TC makes them more yellow. :)

What do you think about this combination? Which of the manicures of this challenge did you like the most?

Thank you for reading & don't forget to check the others too. Ladies, it's been fun! :)

• Beauteous Blog
• Gejba and Maestra of Parokeets
• Good Lack, Nail!
• Lucky Lacquers
• Nail Polish Art Addiction
• PolishSis
• Rebecca likes nails

Nail polish blogger Challenge day 6

Hey darlings! Welcome new people! :) How is life? Mine ... hectic but fun. Due to the hectic part I'll need to make this extra short again, which kinda bothers me, for some odd reason I prefer to make my posts more personal than this. But here we go ... I knew I'll do a mani with Nfu Oh flakies since the beginning of the challenge, I just think they're the perfect option for making the mani more interesting. I left it until the final days, since I suspected I'll want to build it for another mani and I did. But I didn't want to ruin the combination because I really loved it. Mind you, it looks TONS better IRL. Seriously. Especially since Give Pink A Chance darkens a bit in yellow artificial light and flakies really pop out. Love it. The pictures, sadly don't do this combo justice.

Finger Paints Give Pink A Chance (three coats) with two coats of Nfu Oh 49.

The flakies are much more visible IRL. Sorry I can't show you this, but the weather is just unbearable here, if I didn't have my lightbox I wouldn't be able to make a decent picture for a week now. 

What do you think of this combo? I got pretty far for an ex not-a-flakie-fan, eh? ;)

Thank you for reading, check the other participants of the challenge too!

• Beauteous Blog
• Gejba and Maestra of Parokeets
• Good Lack, Nail!
• Lucky Lacquers
• Nail Polish Art Addiction
• PolishSis
• Rebecca likes nails

Nail polish blogger Challenge day 4

Hey guys! Today I'll be quick, I don't have much time, I'm working on another project, I'm really excited about it, I'm planing to show it to you too. :) So now our fourth day of pink challenge. I'm glad you liked my yesterday's mani, I liked it too! But this one just might be my favourite, I loved how it turned out.

I layered Deborah Milano Pret a Porter Purple Batik over my base colour Give Pink A Chance (Finger Paints) and I used simple scotch tape design on my ring finger. I think it turned out pretty sweet. :) I love the glass flecked almost duo chrome look Purple Batik gives to the whole mani. 

Like I said, I like it! How about you?

Thank you for reading and don't forget to check other creations in this challenge:

• Beauteous Blog
• Gejba and Maestra of Parokeets
• Good Lack, Nail!
• Lucky Lacquers
• Nail Polish Art Addiction
• PolishSis
• Rebecca likes nails

Nail polish blogger Challenge day 3

Heya darlings! Another day, another combination for the challenge! This one is kinda special. Because it's my first real attempt at stamping. I got the chance thanks to Born Pretty Store who kindly sent me a Bundle monster plate for a review that i have yet to post, but I will, I promise! I actually love how this turned out. 

I'll try to do an accent mani in these posts too, so my ring finger will tend to be a bit different from the rest. Here is the same. I used Color Club Hot Like Lava for stamping on most of my finger and Color Club Cold Metal on my accent finger. Then I mattefied the whole thing with Essence Matt Top Coat and I love how it looks. Pictures!

 See how the pattern still shines due to the foil finish of Color Clubs? Love it!

And how it looked before getting mattefied ...

As you can see, I have miles to go before I get the stamping thing. My lines were not perfect at all and it bothered me quite a bit, but then it sort of grew on me with the imperfections and all. Sure, some just might call it sloppy work. We live and learn.

What do you think about this one? 

Thank you for reading & check the art of other lovely participants:

• Beauteous Blog
• Emerald Sparkled
• Gejba and Maestra of Parokeets
• Good Lack, Nail!
• Lucky Lacquers
• Nail Polish Art Addiction
• PolishSis
• Rebecca likes nails

Nail polish blogger Challenge day 2

Hello people! So the only pink week on Did Someone Say Nail Polish? has begun successfully. :) I hope you like my base colour! Today we continue with day 2. This idea isn't my best. I rather disliked it and it actually looked better IRL than on pictures. The inspiration I got from a certain Fashion Polish post, when she layered white crackle and blue polish and so created the image of clouds on the nails. It was totally gorgeous and fantastic and I said it should be the same with pink, no? Well, the problem was, I think, that Give Pink A Chance is a bit too well pigmented. Yes, it needs three coats, but not because it's sheer, it's because it won't even up on the nail. So the whiteness of the Crackle Glaze Lightning Bolt was completely covered, it only brightened the pink a bit. And added a funky texture, that was more prominent IRL on the nail. But let's see the pictures anway.

And the first, or rather the second step - one coat of Crackle Glaze over two coats of Give Pink A Chance.

It's an interesting mani, but I think it would look even better if the pink was a bit more sheer. With polish more sheer this is an awesome thing to do!

Thank you for reading and don't forget to check other ladies too! 

• Beauteous Blog
• Emerald Sparkled
• Gejba and Maestra of Parokeets
• Good Lack, Nail!
• Lucky Lacquers
• Nail Polish Art Addiction
• PolishSis
• Rebecca likes nails

Nail polish blogger Challenge day 1

Heya darlings! How are you doing today? It's finally the Monday! When we start our Nail polish blogger Challenge! Let's start in the beginning, when I got an email from Caroline, asking me whether I want to join a nail polish challenge. And of course I was all up for it. I love challenges and a way to interact with more nail polish bloggers and fans.

The awesome logo.

This week the colour of the challenge is pink. As you probably know by now I'm not a pink fan, in fact, I had hard time picking a pink from my stash. So this will indeed be a challenge! The point is to make six different manis with one base colour, the only rule is that the base colour needs to be seen on the mani, so not completely covered. The first day we show you only the base colour we chose. I chose Finger Paints - Give Pink a Chance, the name that is quilte suited for me and my attitude towards pink polish too, don't you think? ;)

Let's meet the other ladies also participating in the challenge!

• Deniz (Emerald Sparkled) is doing magic with Flor Mar #29,
• Caroline (Good Lack, Nail!) is doing magic with O.P.I. Do You Think I'm Tex-y?,
• Leslie (Nail Polish Art Addiction) is doing magic with China Glaze Laced Up,
• Inge (PolishSis) is doing magic with Hema #84,
• Rebecca (Rebecca Likes Nails) is doing magic with Color Club Pepperming Twist,
• Gejba (Parokeets) is doing magic with Essence Love This City,
• Sidrah (Beauteous Blog) is doing magic with Sally Hansen Pink Blink
• Sarah (Lucky Lacquers) is doing magic with W7 Shocking Pink
• Maestra (Parokeets) is also participating but her magic wand was lost in the data, so it's going to be a surprise!

So ten nail polish fans in this challenge, awesome! I hope you'll check their posts too, I'm sure the girls will do an awesome work. Some already posted for the first day, and I must say I'm looking forward to their creations!! 

My "wand" for this challenge is, as I mentioned before Finger Paints, Give Pink A Chance. It's from Finger Paints Peace, Love & Color Summer Collection and I actually like it. Sure, pink lovers will argue this is not really a true pink, it has a lot of orange or red in it. Oh well. My kind of pink then! 

On the first day we're only introducing the base colour, I added a cute Joby Nail Art Sticker that wonderful Kim from Overall Beauty added to my giveaway prize (that I still have to show you!), just to spice it up a little bit.

It needs three coats to be even so I'm not sure how much I'll love it after this week ... but at least I'll have one really empty bottle in my stash. ;)

Stay tuned for a week of manis, and don't forget to check out other blogs!

Thank you for reading! 

Orange Finger Paints

Hey guys! How are you doing? Lately I'm loving the blogging, can you tell? The list of everything I want to show you was getting insanely long (just combine my nervous habit of changing mani really often during studying to calm my nerves and basically no posting because of the studying), I miss blogging like hell and have absolutely no motivation for studying, although I should be, I have my final exam in the beginning of October and frankly, I'm completely worn out to the point I don't even care about the exam much. It's not really necessary for me to pass it, but it wouldn't hurt to either! 

But tell me, how are you doing? It's been long since we chatted! I actually have an idea of a weekly question or theme instead of my long chatting posts I used to do, simply because I don't have time for them anymore. I noticed the idea on some blogs already, so I pondered if I should make it at all, or did I miss the train with it - I don't wish to come out as a copycat even though it's been weeks since I thought of it. But I love the idea, so maybe I'll start it.  :)

Today I have for you orange Finger Paints. Two, to be exact. First one Outta Sight Orange, second Cordur-Orange. 

You can probably recognize at this point which polish isn't photographed at home, if not, this is the reason why I didn't take any lightbox photos of this one, I normally do when there is so much reflection on my nails. 

This is Outta Sight Orange, from Finger Paints Peace, Love & Color Summer 2011 Collection. The collection has gotten somewhat mixed reactions, even more on the bad side. So far I'm liking it. Outta Sight Orange just might be my favourite. It's bright orange, with a duochrome flash, that I couldn't capture with my camera, but is on the nail, if you know how to look for it. It needs three coats for me, with a slight VNL, but I can live with that. My nails were fairly long at this point, so I suspect short nails would need only two. It dries fast too and has a nice formula!

Now to his Fall brother.

The last one is taken off direct sunlight, too show the other side of it, slight dustiness I'd call it. 

Cordur-Orange is from Finger Paints awesome 2011 Fall collection Fashionista. This is one of my favourite collection for this Fall, and Cordur-Orange the one I wanted the most. Kris was so awesome she found me a bottle and so I got it in one of our last swap packages. Although I adore the colour I dislike the extreme thickness of the formula. I prefer my polishes to be a bit on the runny side, but I don't mind thick formula to some point. Cordur-Orange gets over that point. I had troubles with the application, probably also because of the lenght of my nails. I'll probably thin it the next time I use it. I can assume this is a one coater for short nails, being so pigmented and thick, I used two. It dries extremely glossy, and the colour is gorgeous. I love the colour, really, but the hard application lessened the excitement of an awesome colour for me. Which doesn't happend often. So I defintively need to thin it! 

I love them both, really, I'm big on orange polish this year. Although the hype is slowly handling over the obsession to a teal phase. I suspect it's going to be a strong one.

Any thoughts on oranges? Love them or do you think it's too bright? 

Thank you for reading!

Finger paints - Groovy Green mattefied + my first (half-decent) stamping

Heya people. You can see I'm back to studying and that's why I'm not posting as much. I have planned one more post for this week, then I'm MIA at least until 14th August. Just to let you know. I'm preparing a mini giveaway for some time now and hopefully I'll launch it when I get back to full blogging again.

Today I have one of Finger paints from their Summer 2011 collection called Peace, Love & Color. I love that collection, but I effing worship their Fall one, Fall Fashionista (My Lucid Bubble review with added looks with the colours, love the review!)! It's SO awesome, so gorgeous, man, they beat the hell out of China Glaze and O.P.I. IMHO! The only one they couldn't beat is Smoke and Mirrors from Zoya for me. But they are a close second, I want like half of their collection, Cordur-Orange could make me cry, it's so awesome.

But today I have Groovy Green for you. The problem child of the collection, Kris warned me the formula was problematic and it sure is. Still, when I saw the mattefied version of it at Fashion Polish, I just new it will be love, no matter how the formula is.

Sam was right, this looks like green sister of Zoya Phoebe thanks to the silver shimmer, it's fantasitc!

This was three coats and a lot of cursing. The formula is a nightmare, effing tooth paste. I remember my right hand looking like a five-year-old would painted my nails. Still, the awful forumla aside ... isn't this green SO gorgeous? So fresh and crisp and ... springy? I loved it on my nails. Especially after putting the matte TC on, then it was just a plain perfection. Matte TC also reduces the visible brushstrokes, so yay for that. Still, you've been warned (several times now) - the formula sucks on this baby. Still, I love the colour so much, it goes to my Diva department. :)

Holly also sent me a Bundle Monster plate in the GA package and back then I was itching to try it out, having a bit of spare time on my hands. Btw, for stamping rookies such as myself, check Maestra's tutorial. It's fantastic, by far the best I've read and watched online. 

I tried two images, one on my left and one on my right hand. This is the first time I actually serously attempted to make a stamping pattern on my nails, so I know it looks awful, but give me some credit for trying. ;)

 I hate how I couldn't pick up the finer lines of this pattern, I like it so so much.

The best one  I did that day. Of course on my thumb, that is rarely seen. Only two fine lines missing, yay!

This was awfully off center, I know, I admire you girls greatly for placing the pattern where it should be. That was by far my biggest problem when doing this, I have no idea how you pull it off. I used Catrice Back to Black, of course, I thought it will be pigmented enough. I'd like to invest in some very well pigmented polish for stamping, any suggestions? I know, Konad does them best, but they are pricey. 

Oh well, hope this wasn't to awful for you to see. I actually had fun with it, but I couldn't do it every day, it takes a lot of time. 

Did you get any Finger Paints from Summer collection? What do you think about Fall collections for this year, which one is your favourite?

Thank you for reading!