Gold Is A Leprechaun's Best Friend

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Who's doing something fun to celebrate? We don't celebrate the holiday in our home, so just a regular ol' boring day for us. But that doesn't mean my nails have to be boring!

31DC2014 Day 15: Delicate Gold Lattice

I'm still a day behind on the challenge but I'm hoping to catch up soon! I knew this baby pink polish would be hard for me to photograph, but the pink and gold look soo purdy together. 

31DC2014 Day 08: Metallic Gold Leaf

When I was brainstorming ideas for the Metallic prompt my thoughts turned to gold leaf. Then I thought, hmm...gold leaf. Wah wah. It amused me, so I went with it. And looked how it worked out. I absolutely love it!

Royally Pink and Gold

Happy Friday everyone! Some exciting news for me- Nail Polish Society is finally on Instagram! I'm still working on uploading photos and such. Feel free to start following me now because tomorrow I have a special surprise! Okay, I'll spoil the surprise... I'm having another giveaway! To celebrate finally getting on the IG bandwagon I've got one super duper prize. You won't want to miss it. Seriously.

Luck O' The Irish Water Marble

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! This isn't a big holiday for me. Growing up we never did anything to celebrate except to wear something green to school. Even that was done without enthusiasm, I just wanted to make sure I didn't get pinched. Green is my least favorite color. Also, if I have Irish in me, it's marginal. I don't drink, and corn beef and cabbage has never sounded appealing enough to try to make. So there are my reasons for not doing anything special to celebrate. All the same, that doesn't exclude me from trying out some nail art for the occasion!

This mani is a little crazier than my recent St. Patrick's Day nails. In this mani I wanted to include some Leprechauns' gold too. I love how it sparkles! Don't you feel lucky just by looking at it?

I have yet to do a water marble with a consistent design. I basically can never get the polish to do what I want. So I just try to find a part that looks cool and go with it. My water marbling skills haven't changed since my first try, but I still have fun with it. I kind of like to be surprised by how each nail turns out.

What I used:

China Glaze Lighthouse- yellow gold glass fleck
Wet n Wild Fergie Glowstick- day-glo green
Sephora by OPI I Come in Peas- deep green
Seche Vite top coat

What do you think of the design? What do you do to celebrate St. Patrick's day? I love to hear your comments!

Sochi Olympics Fever

USA! USA! I look forward to the Olympics months before they start. I love the anticipation for all the drama and excitement. The Sochi Olympics has not disappointed so far. I've been eating it up every night since it started. The figure skating and ice dancing has been amazing. The snowboard cross is so much fun to watch because at least half the athletes wipe out every run. My new favorite is the debut of slope style, it is seriously insane. If someday I magically changed and enjoyed being out in the snow, I think I would try my hand at it.

Of course it's always more fun to watch the athletes when you know their back story. You get so much more invested when you know what they've been through. Or when there is an athlete competing from a country who has never won a single medal. You kind of want them to be that country's national hero. It's emotional stuff, achieving lifelong dreams, and I cry with them every time.

I used to always think that if I ever competed in the Olympics that I would prefer to win a silver or bronze medal over a gold one. Out of the three I felt the gold was the least attractive. Or having one of each might be more cool than three gold ones. Is that weird?

What I used:
Sephora by OPI White Hot- thumb and ring finger
OPI Liquid Sand Honey Ryder- textured gold on my index
Clinique Strappy Sandals- silver on my middle finger and thumb
China Glaze Goldie But Goodie- bronze on my pinky and thumb
Jenna Hipp Awards Season-gold stripes on my thumb
American Apparel Downtown LA- red
OPI..Eurso Euro- blue
Sephora by OPI The Golden Age- gold and silver glitter on thumb
DRK_A Large Stamping Plate, purchased from Ninja Polish


What are your favorite winter Olympic events? Have there been any memorable moments for you so far? I'm a little partial to Ashley Wagner of team USA figure skating to a Pink Floyd song. It was pretty rock n' roll. :)

butter LONDON Wallis + Blogger "Auto Enhance" Photo Issues

Today's post is featuring a newly acquired polish, butter LONDON Wallis. This shade is from their Fall 2011 collection I believe. I don't own many butter LONDON polishes because they are expensive (purchased at Nordstrom for $15), and it is easier for me to justify buying more when it's doesn't cost so much. The other ones I have I bought on clearance for about $10 or $12. I decided to "splurge" because I had a Nordstrom gift card specifically purposed for nail polish. I stood at the nail bar for some time trying to narrow down my choices. I finally went with Wallis because I knew I didn't have anything like it. It was a necessary addition my my collection.

Shown here is two coats plus top coat. The formula is really smooth and was easy to apply. butter LONDON describes Wallis as a "tarnished, olive gold". The description is so spot on, but it's hard to see in my photos! I tried to boost the color level as much as I could to get the color more accurate, but this was the closest I could figure out. Here, it looks more solidly green, with a gold tint. In person though, the tarnished gold is so much stronger.

(The following is for Blogger users)
It was already frustrating not being able to get the photos as color accurate as I wanted. You can imagine how much more frustrated I was when Blogger was auto-enhancing my photos once I uploaded them! You can compare the difference here with the photo above being the original, and the photo below is the one that was auto-enhanced. Pretty big difference, right?

I wasn't even aware that that was an option until I saw someone write a post about it a few months ago. It's mostly hard to know this is part of your settings because it can only be changed through Google+. So when I read the post, I promptly found my photo settings and turned the option OFF. I guess because I took two months off from blogging, Google+ decided that I wanted it back on and changed it back for me. Arg. I'm glad I at least figured it out. I honestly thought that I was losing my mind and/or I needed glasses. 

If you have a Blogger account that is connected to your Google+ account and want to turn the auto-enhance option off:

1. Go to your Google+ page

2. Go to Settings

3. Scroll down to Auto Enhance, and select "Off". It will automatically save your change. Although in my case, it changed it back a few months later. It might be something you'll want to check periodically.

About the polish again: I don't know how much this color compliments my skin tone, but I don't really care because it's so beautiful on its own and I can't stop staring at it!

Gilded Bumble Bee

This is an old post from back in August. I was trying to edit a typo and accidentally put the post back in draft form. I couldn't figure out how to put it back to where it was originally publish. Arrrggh!! So instead of having it just disappear, I'm republishing it. If anyone knows how to restore it, please let me know!

I have been blogging for over three weeks now. Why am I not perfect yet??!! What is this learning curve, and why is it harassing me? Seriously, I am an impatient person. I get frustrated when things don't turn out the way I want them to, even if I have almost no experience under my belt. This is why it took me years and years to finally learn how to cook. Every couple of years I would try something ambitious like lasagna,  and then throw my hands up in despair when it didn't turn out right. It might sound silly, but it's sadly true.

I've been clinging to my mantra now, "Don't give up! Don't give up!", because I so badly want to stick with this and improve. So I had a cool (says me) idea and it didn't turn out. Well good. Now I've learned even more than if it had gone perfectly smoothly.

I used blue painters tape to mask of the gold base and painted black over it. I can't cut it straight lines well, so it was hard to get the pieces even. I guess I didn't have the tape very secure against the nail because once I pulled them off, the lines looked all wonky. Some of the gold also came off with the tape, which was pretty frustrating.

What I used:

Ulta 14 Carat- gold base

Sephora by OPI Looks Like Rain, Dear- gold glitter

Sephora by OPI What's a Tire Jack?- black

I am pleased with the title though. Gilded Bumble Bee sounds either like the name for a trendy "chic boutique", or some Renaissance restaurant/inn.

Also, I felt like a gangsta with all the bling on my nails.