NCC Black & White-Week Four

Hey! Happy Monday (that's actually an oxymoron).
I have my final Nail Challenge Collaborative post for the month of June, tonight. Nothing like going down to the wire!!

For this cute kitty, I started with two coats of Zoya Storm on all fingers but my ring finger. That one took two coats of NYC French White Creme. I topcoated everything and waited a few minutes. Once it was dry, I took Wet N Wild Black Creme and drew my kitty friend. I started with a half-circle outline, filled it, added triangles for ears and added detail using Color Club Flamingo for the ears and nose, and French White Creme, Icing Get Lei'd, and Black Creme for the eyes. I let it all dry and topcoated once again. It was super easy and I'll definitely be doing this again for Halloween :)

I took the top two pictures in indirect sunlight, so below is Storm in full sun so you can see all the holo-y goodness.

I'm really proud of myself for doing all four manicures. I really want to impress the girls in this group-I look up to them all so much and have been reading their blogs for a long time. I can't wait to work on next month's theme!!

Be sure to check out the grand finales from the other NCC ladies, below!

xo, ali

The Nail Challenge Collaborative-Black and White #1

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a great weekend. I know I did :) Saturday was my busy day-my dude BFF from this post came to visit and we went hiking. We got lost in the woods, but we made it out without snapping or yelling at each other, even once. After he left, I went to my other best friend's birthday party for a bonfire and some snacks. I was happy to be lazy on Sunday, have a Google+ hangout with my mom and play with some legos.

I also did a manicure for June's theme of the Nail Challenge Collaborative, which I was just accepted into. That was a very exciting day for me. I am in some amazingly talented company and I definitely have my work cut out for me. I'm really hoping that this will help me to hone my nail art skills and step out of my comfort zone.

For this mani, I started with two careful coats of NYC French White Tip and topped it with my quick dry Beauty Plus Salon. Once the white dried, I took washi tape and placed it at a diagonal. Then I used Color Club Revvvolution, which is a gorgeous black, linear holo. The finishing touch was a few dots of contrasting color on each side of the diagonal. More top coat and it was a done deal.

I really hope you all liked my very first NCC mani. I have lots of ideas for the remaining three manicures and I absolutely can't wait to see what each month brings.

Let me know what you thought in the comments and be sure to check out what the other NCC ladies did for their first mani of the month!

xo, ali

Tape Mani Thursday!

Goooood evening lovelies!

I hope you are all having a great week. We're almost to the weekend and Christmas. My next post after this one will be on Christmas Eve! I'm so excited to spend time with family and open presents :)

Tonight, I have a really quick, really sparkly mani for you. I don't know if Tape Mani Thursday will become a thing but this manicure is a great starting point!

I recently joined the Julep Maven program and I love it. I did the free box offer and my style quiz showed that I was an "It Girl," which is fitting ;)

I loved it so much that did December's box, but in Boho Glam.

If you are unfamiliar with the Julep Maven program, I'll give you a little rundown.

For about $20 a month, you get up to three polishes, depending on your style profile. The boxes to choose from are It Girl, Boho Glam, Bombshell, Classic With A Twist, and Modern Beauty. If you don't like your style profile's box for the month, they give you an option to choose one of the other boxes, or you can skip the month entirely. Isn't that awesome?!

If you're interested in joining from just that description, you can join up here.

Now, onto the polishes!

 In the Boho Glam box, there were two polishes and a neutral eyeshadow palette. Plus, they threw in two twistband hair ties, which I love.

For this mani, I started with my usual Orly Nail Armor base coat and then three coats of Julep Misti

Misti is a dusty teal green. It reminds me of the Atlantic Ocean.

The formula was decent on this. Because of the shape of the Julep polish bottles, you really have to make sure that you wipe the brush off on the mouth of the bottle so you don't get too much on your brush. Other than that--three coats and you're good.

I topcoated this with Beauty Plus Salon top coat.

After that dried, I took my roll of striping tape and made X's on each finger and took a thin nail art brush with Julep Joelle to make sure that I got my points exact.

Joelle is just gorgeous. Holo microglitter and slightly larger silver glitters, suspended in a clear base. It just sparkles at any angle. It's a great glitter for the holidays!

I can't wait to see what Julep has in store for next month!

What you do think about this simple, sparkly mani?

Tell me about it!

xo, ali

Holos are a Girls Best Friend!

Happy Tuesday night, lovelies! I'm happy the day is over and I can relax with some TV. We're currently watching Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., New Girl, and the Mindy Project on Tuesday nights. New TV is one of the best things about fall!

Today, I have for you what I consider to be a staple stash polish (SSP?) and some holo-y goodness. The weather has been gorgeous here in Buffalo, with sunshine every day so I had to bust out a new Color Club holo that I just picked up this weekend.
Let's get down to business!

I started with a base of Color Club Pucci-Licious, which is from the 2010 Poptastic collection.

As you can see, Pucci-licious is a medium lavender creme. The first coat was streaky and patchy but a second coat evened out any problems. This was taken indoors, artificial lighting.

I am in love with this color and don't know what took me so long to pick it up. Everyone needs this in their stash.

I wanted to spice this up a little bit so I thought I'd add some stamping to it, in the form of Color Club Fashion Addict, from the 2009 Catwalk Queen collection. I used Konad plate M95. This is only the second time I've used a Konad plate--usually I use Shany plates--but they are amazing. The images transfer so well and come out so clear.

Indoor, fluorescent lighting

Full sunlight

This is a very distracting manicure. I keep looking at the holo in the sunlight. It's just absolutely gorgeous!

Let me know what you think in the comments. See you later!

--ali