Belated Birthday Haul and Winnings

Hey everyone!  I know I've been kinda MIA lately, but all with a good cause.  I spent a week without computer or wifi access, but made some great friends and reunited with some old ones.  (These same friends I spent about four hours konad-ing their nails.)  It's great to be home, but now I've got a lot of reading (and posting) to catch up on.


My birthday was just over a week ago.  Here are my nail related gifts from family:

China Glaze: Towel Boy Toy, Flip Flop Fantasy, Kiwi Cool-ada, Flying Dragon (Neon), Ruby Pumps, Watermelon Rind, For Audrey

Finger Paints:  Blissfully Blue

Orly:  Green with Envy, Lola

OPI Nail Envy, Seche Vite, and glass nail file

But there's more!  I was notified a few days before my birthday that I had won Midge's giveaway!  This was the first time I've ever won anything, and I was in shock.  The package arrived while I was away.  Here are my goodies:

Mini Mango:  Cuticle Remover, Mango Magic Oil, and Mango Mend

Borghese Stellare Notte, Milani 3D Holographic

China Glaze Flying Dragon and Flip Flop Fantasy

Claire's Cotton Candy and Revlon Ocean Breeze

To sum it up, I now have a pile of untried polishes begging for my attention!

xoxo Emma

Claire's Peaceful/Confident + Polka Dots

Here's the last mani I showed you plus konad stamping.  I used 2 coats of Claire's Mood Polish, stamped using m45 and white special polish, and added a line of silver with LA Colors Art Deco in silver.

I took this using my own ancient digital camera...and from now on I'll stick to borrowing my mom's, because it has a micro setting.  Sorry for this quick post...graduation preparations await!

Do you like it?

xoxo Emma

Claire's Peaceful/Confident

I've actually worn it, at last!  If you haven't seen or heard about Claire's Mood polishes, I kindly invite you to crawl out from under your rock.  Onto the pictures! 

I'm soo proud of how long I've gotten my nails.  This is the longest they've been in my life :)

I have many fond childhood memories wit this spirea bush, and I thought it deserved some photogenic recognition.

The color change is quite subtle.  Here it is right after running my fingers under hot water.  Normally, I have cold hands, except when I'm working out, so often I'm too focused on what I'm doing to notice the change...but my favorite "change" is when my tips are dark while the rest of my nails are light.

Thanks for looking!

xoxo Emma

Claire's Calm/Wild

I was unable to get any decent pictures, but here it is with two coats prior to the top coat and clean up.  It looks kinda matte.

Most of the time my nails were cold (purple), but when I was using my hands a lot, like in art, or was flustered, like in FST, they looked like the picture, pink with purple tips.  They were really fun to watch during track practice, where they turned super pink!  They're the first reason I've ever found to enjoy speed workouts :)

I've heard complaints that this polish chips horribly, but I wore it for four days with a base coat and top coat with no problems.  Nihrida has a good post that has even better pictures.

xoxo Emma

Haul Time!

I attended a leadership convention last weekend, which was held in a downtown area.  I brought my stamping stuff, but neglected to bring any real polishes to do my friends' nails with.  So we hit up a baby Walgreens and I stocked up on Sinful Colors.  (Since it was a small Walgreens, they didn't carry any Milanis, which made me very sad...I shall continue my hunt for holos.)  We had lots of fun stamping...our advisor commented that the hallway outside our hotel room stank like remover, which was funny :)


Anyways, here is my Walgreens haul, and I ended up stopping at Claire's for two of their color changing nail polishes.  Glad I did!  Posts on those to come.

See You Soon, Daddy's Girl, Nail Junkie (how fitting!), Mint Apple, Boogie Nights, Cream Pink

Peaceful/Confident, Calm/Wild, Grape Going

I would have never picked out Cream Pink for myself.  I don't care for pinks at all.  But after doing my friend's mani...I couldn't resist.  I had to go back the next time we walked by, and now its on my toes.  Very neon, very awesome.  As for Grape Going, I was lured in by the duochrome flash.  Stupid girl!  I have a mini version of something similar to this from a gift set (which is gorgeous over black)...so I didn't really need this one after all!

here we are with our manis! (i'm the one on the left, still sporting my franken one)

and a few silly ones just for good measure!

sorry for the erased parts, but those are for their anonymity...

Now I'm going to experiment with layering Nail Junky, as I know I will never be able to wait for 5-6 coats to dry!

xoxo, Emma