Wet Cement and Bacon

March 27:

The giveaway is going great so far thanks to everyone who is entering :D You still have lots of time to enter here, good luck!

Last weekend I went to a Rockford Icehogs hockey game and the mascot for the team is a hog (duh) so I decided I would try to do something for the team. Usually if I am going to a Blackhawks game I will paint on jerseys or team feathers but I didn't really feel like doing that for the Icehogs. Instead I decided to go with the hog theme and stamped some bacon on my nails. Weird, yes, but oh so fun!

This manicure was three coats of Sally Hansen's "Wet Cement" which I wore as my Jane Eyre manicure. I thought gray was a very fitting color for watching the movie. Then I used OPI's "2o Candles on My Cake" which is one of my favorite reds for nail art. Unfortunately I think this color may be discontinued now so when I run out of this bottle I am not sure what I'll do :( Hopefully it is not and I am just imagining things.

Yesterday while at the radio station my co-host/fellow nail polish addict (the one who got me hooked on nail polish) surprised with a ton of gorgeous nail polish (I have one of the shades on now) and killed a HUGE lemming of mine with a tube of Sephora's Blue Waters lip gloss. I repeat, I am now the owner of blue lip gloss! I never thought I'd see the day and I was so surprised! Thanks so much Rita, I don't know if I can say it enough!

I'll have pictures from some of these polishes soon! Also, I am thinking of adding some other makeup bits on this blog, thoughts?

Until next time,

Happy painting!

The Nailventuress

{CLOSED} I can't wait...here it is, the giveaway!!!!

March 23:

I am too excited for this giveaway so here it is :D

The winner will receive:

1 bottle of Sinful Colors "Nail Junkie"

1 bottle of Wet'n Wild "Kaleidoscope"

Sinful Colors 5 piece mini set

Rules:

-Must be a follower through GFC (+1 entry)

-Leave follower name

-Leave email for me to contact you if you win

Extra entries:

-like The Nailventuress on Facebook; leave your profile name in the comment(+1 entry)

-tell me what you would like to see more of on my blog (+1 entry)

-blog about my giveaway; post the link in the comment (+1 entry)

This will run until Saturday April 9 Midnight CST. The giveaway is open to international followers as well. Good luck!!!

Happy painting!

The Nailventuress

Orly "Lunar Eclipse"

March 20:

There are some polishes that I pick up and put down constantly and eventually end up buying. There are polishes I think would look horrible on me but buy because they look nice and end up loving them. There are polishes I buy for names, collections, colors, etc. I could list reasons why I buy polish forever. Yet there are sometimes I don't buy polish. It may not be my color, or too expensive. In the case of "Lunar Eclipse" I really had no excuse. I saw it sitting on clearance at Sally's and yet I didn't buy it. Oh how I kicked myself for months. Well at the end of my last week of school, right before finals, I gave in and bought LE online.

It showed up and immediately went on my nails, making me realize even more how silly I was for leaving LE on the shelf at Sally's. Well it is mine now and I am so glad it is!

This is a stuning royal blue with a purple duochrome and that really fun foil fx effect that Orly used for their Fall 2010 line. In person this color is even more gorgeous, the duochrome is really hard to capture and the polish just seems to glow. It was perfect in three coats and lasted without chipping for three days. I cannot believe how beautiful this polish is. Definitely one of my top favorites. I think it is the foily fx version of China Glaze's "Frostbite" another one of my all time favorites.

I am so close to getting my first giveaway going, just two followers away! As so as I reach the 50 follower mark I'll post the giveaway. Thank you everyone who is following me already :D

Until next time,

Happy painting!

The Nailventuress

Fiercely Fiona

March 16:

Finals are over with, spring break is upon me, life is good! Just a reminder, once I hit 50 followers I will get my giveaway going :D

This manicure is from a few weeks ago. I wore it to a German club outing and it was fun and quite an odd color. I am, of course, speaking of OPI's "Fiercely Fiona." FF is a dirty yellow...greeny-yellow creme. It is kind of hard to describe but it was definitely fun to wear!

This was three coats and for a 'yellow' it had good coverage. The whole Shrek collection was amazing in my opinion. Each color was so bright and cheery, it is my pick me up collection (when holos or neons won't do).

I have just finished reading "Jane Eyre" and tomorrow will be a day filled with the BBC version of "Jane Eyre" and manicures with a great friend of mine. Even though I would love to do St. Patrick's day nails, I am craving pastels.

Until next time,

Happy painting!

The Nailventuress

Giveaway Preview!!!

March 14:

This is my 50th post yay!

To distract myself in between finals I went shopping for the upcoming 50 Followers Giveaway I'll be giving when I hit 50 followers.

Originally I was going to pick up a few larger sinful color but I found a mini set that was so cute so I got that instead. It has five colors: red; orange; yellow; green; purple. I am not sure of the names, there are none on the packaging but there may be some on the bottom side. On the left is one of my favorite glitters Wet'n Wild's "Kaleidoscope." I am sure this glitter would be great for frankening. The other glitter is Sinful Color's "Nail Junkie" because I am a self professed nail junkie!

More details to come soon!

Happy painting!

The Nailventuress

Funky French

March 13:

Happy Birthday to my sister :) She is currently sporting Orly's "Close Your Eyes" on her nails and they look great!

This manicure is a fun funky french, which I don't do very often but I find quite fun to do. I wore Nfu-Oh 65 a few weeks back and it was beautiful, however, it was so cold and cloudy that I couldn't actually see the full on holo. Luckily with this manicure the sun was out and even inside the holo was a lot brighter and I fell in love with this manicure.

The base color was three coats of Ulta's "Mint Condition". This was something that I got free with my Ulta points and I picked it up hoping it would be a close dupe for Essie's "Turquoise and Caicos." On the dupe front it is pretty close, MC is a bit darker that TaC but MC is a two-three coater versus TaC which is a four-five coater.

I free handed the tips with the Nfu after applying top coat to the MC. Since this was such a bright and fun manicure I ended up keeping it on for a whole week! That is the first time since...I can't even remember when. Halfway through the week I got antsy for a new manicure but with not much time I threw on some OPI Black Shatter.

This past week has been a good nail polish haul week so I may have some of that up here soon! And my spring break starts this week so I am hoping to get some more posts up and play around with the site.

Since I am getting close to 50 followers I am going to start planning my first giveaway! I am so excited about this, expect to hear more about this soon :)

Until next time,

Happy painting!

The Nailventuress

Mardi Gras Manicure

March 6:

Mardi Gras is this Tuesday so I decided to get festive with a themed manicure. I don't really do much to celebrate Mardi Gras, though I might hunker down with some cajun food and "The Princess and the Frog", but I love the colors and the celebration itself.

For this manicure I used:

Pinkie: Zoya "Yasmeen"

Ring: OPI "Sparkle-icious"

Middle: Sinful Colors "This Is It"

Pointer: Zoya "Veruschuka"

Thumb: OPI "Sparkle-icious"

"Sparkle-icious" is from the Burlesque collection and looks like Mardi Gras in a bottle! I was saving it for this manicure in particular. In fact, I have never used any of these polishes before today so this was a fun way for me to knock out a few untried polishes. The only thing about doing a Mardi Gras manicure two days before Mardi Gras is the glitter polish may chip like crazy. To combat that I am taking "Sparkle-icious" with me to school to patch up any chips that may occur. Other than that I am loving this manicure!

With a winter that seems so long, a fun, sparkly, colorful manicure makes me feel more inspired! And I just picked up four Tronica polishes so perhaps I shall have some holo fun!

Until next time,

Happy painting!

The Nailventuress

Gradient Manicure

March 3:

Spring is slowly approaching and I really want winter to stick around for another two months or so but this manicure that I have today screams fall to me. Awhile back I bought 6 bottles of polish from the OPI Burlesque collection and I was satisfied with that. Then, while at a trip to Ulta, I saw they had some of the Burlesque polishes on clearance...score!!! At first I picked up "Let Me Entertain You" but I ended up going back for "Take The Stage" and "Rising Star".

TTS and RS are meant for each other!!! They are so beautiful on their own and together they melt into each other. So naturally I had to do a gradient manicure with them. First I did three coats of Rising Star, then I sponged on two coats of Take The Stage on the top half of my nail. To add some sparkle I sponged on SOPI's "Only Gold For Me" and finished it off with a coat of Seche Vite.

This was my first gradient manicure and I would consider it a success. It reminds me of fall leave and butterfly wings...anyone else?

Until next time,

Happy painting!

The Nailventuress