ManiCam!

WORK IT!!!!!!!!

Today's catwalk strutter is Barry M's Greenberry. 

I can't get enough of this aquamarine color!  

Sorry about the band-aid....I can't be trusted with sharp objects. 

This is three light coats 

And I picked up this little beauty over the weekend. I see others rave over this all the time and have always wanted to try it. Stumbled into a Lush store on Lincoln Road on Miami Beach. Who knew!  This was a little birthday gift to myself.  It smells delicious!!!

Julep Poolside Party

My Julep Mave box for July finally came in the mail today. Shipping has been a bit unpredictable in the past few months- typically it would come in the mail like clockwork in 3 days. Lately? Not so much...but they were kind enough to acknowledge it and credited me 100 Jules this month as it didn't ship for awhile. 

This month I decided to splurge and go with the My Maven customizable box. I really liked that pink color in Classic With A Twist, but nothing else. Sooo....Oh hell, let's go full custom!!!

This month's theme was The Poolside Collection with beautiful bright colors and lovely lady, or trendy man, would love to wear to the pool. 

I love the side of the pedi crème box. 

The pink is Vickie and she is a lovely flamingo crème. 

The yellowey color is Dawn. I believe they said it was a citron green. I think I would go with a citron yellow. It's pretty no matter which way you call it!

I think I'm going to love these colors. I even like them together. 

Random happenings.

Here are some other random happenings as of late:

1.

Zoya.  How much do I love thee?  A LOT.  This whole mani is with Zoya polishes.  The pink is Harper from the summer Tickled and Bubbly line.  Great sparkly pink.  The black is Raven with the Monet top coat on top...let's talk about this top coat for a second.  This may be becoming a new obsession for me and I think it will get its own post soon.  This polish came out in the spring and it is unique to me.  The glitter has a different look pending on what base polish you are using.  It has this blue halo look to it over back.  While when playing around with it on other polishes, the glitter would look yellow or green or blue predominantly.  There are multi-color glitters in this polish, I just like that it seems to change its look.  The remaining nails are pixie dust in Dhalia and Tomoko.  The other fun fact in this mani is that I used the new OPI Glitter Off base coat...I need to play with this more in-depth as well.  It didn't just peel off with a tool for me, but with polish remover I barely needed to use any muscle to get these glitters off.  That is a bonus!

2. 

Neon Skittles with a little gradient.  I love love love neon nail polishes.  They may be my all time favorite as I am just drawn to the bright colors and the pop they have.  This one uses all China Glaze polishes.... Pool Party, Flip Flop Fantasy, I'm With the Lifeguard, and Celtic Sun.  All on a white base coat.  Same colors are used for the thumb gradient

3. 

Speaking of neon.....A little bit of China Glaze Pink Voltage....

4.

My June Julep Box.  I opted for both the Oxygen top and base coats.  I wasn't a huge fan of the Oxygen Nail Treatment before as I don't usually like light pink on my nails and they really don't recommend you use it under polishes.  So I ended up giving it to my mom so someone will use it.  In this box, I went with my usual It Girl profile.  

Polishes included were:

- Gold Shimmer/Metallic color- Savoy--tried it real quick and it takes a lot of patience to have it come out even.  Much like the Essie metallics but not the same consistency.

- Blue- Glitter in their Stardust Finish- Jennine-  I needed to layer it a lot in order to achieve opacity.

- Purple- Halo-like color-  Phia

I love my Cath Kidston IPad Case

I love my iPad case.  I don't really know how else to say it, so I will leave it there.  Cath Kidston always has such fun prints and my case is no exception.  It is from her Garden Birds pattern.

Here it is up close and personal from the Cath website.

Whimsical....Cute...colorful......I LOVE IT!!!

So of course I needed to do nails....

I did do these free hand.

I think they came out cutesy.  The base is OPI's My Vampire Is Buff,  The remaining colors are a mix of acrylic paints and some polish colors.

I also tried my hand at some Cath inspired vintage roses....they came out okay.  I think I will try this again a bit more precisely.  Originally, I saw a video somewhere...sorry, I forget where at the moment...when the artist completed her roses with two colors at once using a dotting tool.  I tried this technique, and this was the result.  It didn't quite work, so I went in and added a bit more depth to make them look right.  Next time I will attack using a detail brush and color individually.

July is National WHAT month??

July is....my birthday month....the Nation's Birthday month...National Hot Dog Month...and best of all, National Ice Cream Month!!!!!!!!  How many of us have memories of that hot summer day, maybe it was after spending the day at the beach with the family or hanging out with your friends all day long, and you make that stop for ice cream.  Or you hear that ding ding....ding ding...ding ding...and you panic because you need to find your dollar for the ice cream truck.  The best part was racing this sweet treat to eat it before it melts.  Nom Nom Nom....Ultimately leading to sticky fingers and a sense of accomplishment that you totally KILLED THAT CONE!

Of course I needed to try an ice cream manicure.  :)

This was the base for my tasty nails.  I used a striping brush for the cone contrasting lines.

Left Hand

Right Hand

I couldn't really decide if I wanted to keep going with the ice cream cones, or the little ice cream cones on my thumb, or sprinkles...So I did them all!

Colors Used:

White- Zoya Snow White

Pink- Ciate- Candy Floss

Browns- Zoya Flynn and Dea

Purple- China Glaze Lotus Begin

Green- Julep Felicia

Blue Green- Barry M Greenberry

Yellow- Julep Lexie

Glitter on the ice cream and pink nail- Zoya Monet

The hit parade.

I wanted to update everyone further on what I have been up to nail wise during my quiet time away from the blog...so here are some highlights....

  

Playing around with the one stoke technique...they almost look like flowers....

And a simple purple gradient....

One of my FAVORITES...

Simple pink glitter gradient....

There was this craptastic Valentine's Day caviar and glitter mani.

Another TOP FAVORITE based on a pair of earrings that I purchased.

Summer neon with glitter....all China Glaze and fun.

A mod matter color block... 

Flip Flop Fantasy with stripes and dots....

Now I look to the future to see what I can learn, perfect, and just admire because it is pretty!!

Welome back...welcome back...

With the title of this post I now have the Welcome Back Kotter theme song in my head....

With that little diddy now running through your head...it is time for me to say WELCOME BACK!  Both to me and to you.  I have been a bit Polish Palette in recess unofficially as of late.  You must forgive me as I got married!  [I still squeal a bit in my head when I say it.]  I will admit, as much as I thought I had all my planning together, the weeks leading up to the Big Day put the rest of my life in a bit of chaos.  

It was a great time.....

And I DID complete my brooch bouquet. :)

 It was a wonderful weekend and a good time was had by all.....

But, Bethany, what about your nails?!?!?!  
Well, I have been keeping up but closer to once a week and then I broke them all down to nubs while we were on our honeymoon.

Well....There was......

My wedding nails....and I have decided that every girl needs a copper table for nail pics!

Finally picked up Flip Flop Fantasy

Julep Box

Stay tuned for more flash backs from this year thus far!!!!