My ellagee custom and a giveaway teaser...

Hello!!! I know it's been a long time since I've posted but I've been so busy loving on some new polishes. This one is my favorite of all and warning, this is gonna be a loooooong post!

Custom

I contacted Laura at ellagee about doing a custom for me based on my favorite color. I'm sure you can guess what it is based on the pictures below...it's a certain blue, made famous by a certain jeweler...ahem...

This is what she came up with and I named it Angela Blue. Because it's mine. ALLLLLL MIIIIIINE! Actually there were 3 bottles made. One for myself, one for a giveaway (teaser), and one for my polish bestie, Heather at I Feel Polished. I know she loves this color too so I thought it would be a good surprise for her!

I picked Laura to do my custom because she is crazy easy to work with and I love her polishes (I now have 50. Yes 50.). She sent me pics and let me make the final decision. I absolutely love what we came up with :-) The formula is amazing, it's opaque in 2 coats, and I'm pretty sure if I run out she'll make me more. I hope! I also decided to do an accent nail because this polish is way too pretty for my manicure with it not to shine!

Accent nail

For my accent nail to go with Angela Blue, I was inspired by the lampshades made famous by *cough* Louis Comfort Tiffany. His lampshades are so beautiful and coveted by many. Especially by me. Anyway so I found a picture of one with red, orange, and purple flowers and decided to do my own take on it. For the base I used another custom (SURPRISE!) from Laura that came with my Angela Blue, Sweet Heather, inspired by the white ribbon that's on the boxes from the aforementioned jeweler :-) Then I used a very small dotting tool and Zoya Elodie, a medium orange/coral, and made an irregular dot in the middle of my nail. Using the same dotting tool, I used Pure Ice Siren (red), ellagee Haleakala Sunrise (pink shimmer), and ellagee Aloha Oe (purple shimmer) to make irregular shapes for the petals. Next I used Essie Go Overboard (dark teal) for the leaves. Then using a very small nail art brush (and a shaky hand but remember, I did this on my left hand...and I'm left handed o.O) I used Sinful Colors Black On Black to fill in the lines and actually make the petals and leaves. Then I drew some random lines coming off the flower to indicate the "lampshade" part. I thought it turned out really well, considering A) this is my 2nd attempt at free hand nail art and B) I did it right-handed!

Giveaway

I have one more bottle of Angela Blue to give away to a lucky reader. As soon as I hit 100 likes on Facebook and 100 followers on IG, be looking for a chance to win a bottle of my custom!!

Pretty in blue,

The Unprofessional Polisher

Neon dotticure!!!

I am so excited about the mani I have on the blog today! I already posted them once to my Instagram because I couldn't wait to share them with you all!

We've already established I am a neon lover, mostly because as I said before, I grew up in the 80s. So I decided to do some nail art using neon polishes.

After a couple of fails with what I had planned, I went with a simple neon french manicure. Then I thought, "You know, these are cool but they could be spiced up some. What could take these nails from bright to obnoxious?" The answer? MORE NEON! That's when I decided to add the dots :-)

For these nails, I began with one thicker coat of Sinful Colors Snow White. I let it dry for about 5 minutes. Then I used China Glaze Pink Voltage and polished my entire nail. I let that dry for about 15-20 minutes. I watched Deadwood on Amazon while I was waiting :-)...I'm trying to clear out my watchlist to make room for new shows but I keep adding things to it! After Pink Voltage was try I used striping tape to tape off the last 1/4th of my nail. Using Orly Melt Your Popsicle I polished the tips. I let that dry for about 5 minutes then I used ellagee Glass topcoat.

After the topcoat, using a small dotting tool and a very small dotting tool I dotted Snow White onto my nails in a pattern I liked. Then I went back over the Snow White using China Glaze Towel Boy Toy for the larger dots and Heart2Art You Had Me At Yellow for the smaller dots. After letting the dots dry for about 45 minutes, I went over my nails again with Glass topcoat to finish them off!

I absolutely love this mani!! It is so bright and fun and summery, plus it's a treat to look at, and tons of people have commented on it already! Hope you enjoy these as much as I do!

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Happy Hump Day!

The Unprofessional Polisher

Neon Rainbows!

Ok so I have a mani for you today that is so simple, yet I loved it so much after three days I was loath to take it off. Maybe because it was bright and almost obnoxious, maybe because it was a little holo-y, maybe because after three days it still hadn't chipped!!! Anyway, I LOVE this one, I think behind my brown and pink dotticure this one is my favorite I've posted since starting my blog.

One thing I hate about neon polishes is that they are SO HARD to photograph! Their neon goodness never seems to show through. For this mani I used two coats of Sinful Colors Snow White, then one coat of Fing'rs Heart 2 Art You Had Me At Yellow (for someone who is a Jerry Maguire fanatic and likes Kenny Chesney, I couldn't pass this polish up simply on principle) a neon, highlighter yellow cream. Then, I used one coat of ellagee Rainbow Syrup to make it a little holo-y.

I was so disappointed that the pictures didn't show the neon or the holo goodness of this mani. So I got a brilliant idea...

I stood in a dim area of the house where there was enough light the flash wouldn't go off. Then I held a small LED flashlight under my chin pointed at my hand and took a picture.

VOILA!!!! Neon rainbows!!!

The Forgotten Swatch

Have any of you ever polished your nails, took pictures, then forgot to post them to your blog?

Yeah, me neither :-)

I was shopping with my sister-in-law a couple of months ago and found this polish. When I saw the name (remember my thing with polish names?) I HAD to buy it. I had an art teacher in high school who turned me onto Van Gogh. I love his artwork. The Bedroom at Arles and Starry Night are my two favorite works by him. I even have Starry Night knee socks. Anyway, when I saw this polish's name was Starry Night, it was a forgone conclusion it was coming home with me!!

Starry Night by Sinful Colors is a black base with multicolored fine glitter and gold glitter shreds. I absolutely love the depth of this polish! It went on smooth and I had no trouble at all with the shreds. Such a gorgeous polish! I actually did this swatch about a month ago, and then forgot to post it!! Oh well, better late than never right? 

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IT'S OPENING DAY!!! IT'S OPENING DAY!!!

Warning: This post is going to be wordy but amusing (I hope)!

Holy St. Louis! (That's like Holy Toledo for Cardinals fans) I had the greatest idea for an Opening Day manicure. I was so excited! I love the Cardinals probably more than I love nail polish. If I had to choose between the two, sorry nails, the Cardinals would win!

And then Sunday happened. I broke two nails on my left hand shampooing the carpet and then scraped the skin off my middle finger knuckle on my right hand scrubbing my boys' bathroom floor. I'm looking at my hands going, "Great. Which one am I going to photograph now for the blog?!?!?!" I got tired, took a nap, and woke up late so when I sat down to do my nails, it was after 9pm. I set myself up for failure on this one. I realize it, I accept it, and I will not do that again!!

By the time I was finally done, only one nail sort of looked how I wanted it, and it looked like I had garroted and stabbed mice (or something equally small) with striping tape and precision Q-Tips. I had blood red polish all over the table, myself, the Q-Tips, a kitchen towel, some brushes....I was a ridiculous mess!! I took pictures of the Q-Tips for my amusement...

My idea was to color block my index, middle, and pinkie fingers with red and white (Cardinals colors), then use my RLR Creations Cardinals water slide nail decals on my thumbs and ring fingers. When I went to color block my first index finger (and coincidentally the only finger that even got close to being color blocked), I guess I forgot what I was supposed to be doing and instead of leaving two corners white, I painted the whole thing red after putting on the striping tape. Fail!! So what I ended up with on one finger was a sort of brick-like pattern. Which I could live with since the backstop at Busch Stadium is brick. But everything went downhill from there!!! While learning not to set myself up for failure last night I also learned patience is not only a virtue but a MUST when doing nail art!!

So this is what I ended up with--and clean up was a bear and a half with these two polishes! I used OPI Wocka Wocka from their Muppets collection for the red. It is a gorgeous, blood red shimmer. I've had this polish for about a month and have been waiting to use it just for this manicure! I originally bought it because Michael Wacha (pronounced Wocka) is a pitcher for the Cardinals, and the irony did not escape me!!! For the white I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White. 

I will be doing this again at some point over the baseball season. And I WILL do it the way I wanted it for this time!

For now, I'm just kind of dreading taking off this red. It didn't clean up very easily, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have pink cuticles for a while....

And, gratuitous shot of one of many pieces of Cardinals stuff in my house...blankets, Fat Heads, pictures, baseball cards, magnets, socks, shirts, jerseys, underwear, cups, mugs, travel mugs, salt and pepper shakers....the list goes on and on and on! I love my Cardinals!!!!!

Holy Magenta!

I was wandering around Walgreen's the other day killing some time when I stumbled upon this polish...and I had to buy it! It's called Dream On by Sinful Colors and it is the perfect magenta color! I decided to break up the monotony with an accent nail of Land Lia Blue Wizard and I think the combination is simply amazing!

Dream On is a matte finish polish, which I didn't realize until I saw it written on the bottom, after I couldn't figure out why it was drying funky haha!!! But with ellagee Glass top coat it shines so beautifully! Blue Wizard is a glitter crelly and I had a few problems with the glitter wanting to stick off the end of my nail but I got it figured out! I love this combo so much!!

Froggy St. Patrick's Day!!

I have two sets of St. Patrick's Day nails for you today! I don't know about you, but sometimes if I just like a polish, the name will send me into purchase land! And that's what happened with the polish I have featured in both my manicures today...I'm a 90's kid who didn't have cable growing up, and we watched mostly sitcoms on ABC, CBS, and NBC. One of the shows we watched was The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. When I saw this, I HAD to have it. The name just made me giggle, and immediately "Iiiiiinnnn West Philadelphia born and raised..." started through my head hehehe!

So, here is my first manicure, two coats of Zoya Angella under two coats of OPI The Fresh Frog of Bel Air from their Muppets collection! Hehehe just typing the name makes me giggle! With this one, I wanted a shimmery base for Fresh Frog because it is a sheer green glitter topper. Zoya Angella is a very ethereal shimmer that worked perfect for this!

I loved how these turned out. But in my haste to get them done I didn't allow for proper drying time and I smudged two nails clean off with a visit to the lady's room. Which is why I have two manicures today!

For my second manicure I decided not to go so green! I bought SinfulShine Mardi Gras just today and it's an awesome orange coral I really wanted to use. So, I did two coats of Mardi Gras then when it was dry I striped with metallic green striping tape on my pinky, middle, and index fingers, then used Fresh Frog on my thumb and ring fingers. I actually really love this look, so maybe the fail on the first one was meant to be!!

Which is your fave?