Dreaming of Beach Weather with Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer and Ellagee!

Happy hump day, dear readers! I'm sure it seems wrong to complain about the cool weather, especially since all things considered, it really isn't that bad in the Bay Area, but I am ready for warmer days. To really get in the mood for sunny days, what could be better than a beach-themed duo! Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer has been collaborating with different indie brands to create the Destination Polish Duo Collection. The very first collaboration in this series was with Ellagee, and it is all about the beach! Laura from Ellagee snapped a photo of a beach in Destin, Florida, and each of these makers created their own polish inspired by the photo. Let's check out the Sand & Surf duo!

Do you feel like you're at the beach yet? Of course this manicure is mostly the sand, but I'm ok with that! I tend to spend more time on the sandy beach than in the water anyway. Haha! My camera isn't a fan of pale shades and either makes me look more tan than I already am or blows out whites so you can't see anything. I figure you'd appreciate the shimmers more, even if I do end up looking like I've spent far too much time in the sun!

Shimmering Sandcastles

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer

Three coats plus top coat

Ivory/light nude creme with green microflakies and shimmers in aqua, silver, blue, and gold.

I am pretty darn proud of this closeup photo! It took a lot of playing around with camera settings and moving lights around to be able to catch any of the gorgeous shimmers and microflakes, but it was well worth the effort! This polish is exquisite; I can get lost just looking at all those sparkling shimmers! This was a little thinner than the other Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer shades I've used, and it applied quite nicely. The first two coats were the littlest bit patchy, something I expect from this kind of colour, but it leveled out flawlessly with the third coat. I might have even been able to get away with just two coats if I didn't overwork the polish with the second coat a little too much. Shimmering Sandcastles is beautiful, and I'll certainly be grabbing this beauty again soon!

Rhythm of the Surf

Ellagee

Three coats plus top coat

A deep turquoise blue jelly packed with shades of white, blue, turquoise, and shifting iridescent glitters.

Please pardon the bubbles in this photo; my top coat bubbled up on me and the camera made it more obvious than it did to the naked eye. This polish definitely captured the look of the ocean with the white foaming crest of the waves! I love the ocean, so I am quite fond of this shade as well! It applied very easily for me- the glitters spread nicely over my nails and there was no digging needed. This is a jelly polish so you can see my nail line with three coats, although the bright lights I use for taking photos does make it look more obvious than it truly is with normal lighting.

This duo also comes with a 10 piece set of shell water decals- 2 each of 5 different designs. Unfortunately I don't have a photo to share because I did not put the organza bag that contained them up for the night and my hellkitten decided to play with and destroy it along with the decals overnight. Boo hiss! I'm pretty sad about that because they were adorable, and you can check them out on the website here.

It seems wrong to be sporting beachy nails in light of the blizzard that recently hit the east coast and the blizzard that is hitting other parts of the US now. I wanted to do something to show my support for those of you suffering with the cold. I present to you: Snowmen dreaming of the beach!

I love the look of snowmen at night after the snow has stopped falling, and I added Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Believin' Won't Fly to create this look. This dark navy blue polish has a gorgeous icy blue flash, and it was very opaque with just one quick coat. I wish I could say I was talented enough to do my snowmen on my own, but I cheated. Haha! I used the Tribal Curlz vinyls by Lou It Yourself to create my abstract snowmen and swished on China Glaze Liquid Leather for the hats. I promise, there are actually hats on my snowmen!

I had a lot of fun creating this manicure, and I think I'm going to have to recreate it later this year for the holiday season.

The Sand & Surf duo and Believin' Won't Fly are still available for purchase here. I'm loving all of these shades, and they are gorgeous! Now to start planning a trip to the beach....

Until next time, dear readers, have a wonderful day!

XO!

The Jedi Wife Celebrates 4 Years with Girly Bits

Good morning, dear readers! I hope you are having a wonderful day so far! I am thrilled to introduce you to another one of my blogiversary polishes! A year ago, I shared Let's Do This!, my 3rd blogiversary collaboration polish with Girly Bits Cosmetics. It was available for purchase on the Girly Bits website for a little while, but it has since been retired. I know orange isn't the most popular shade, but I hope you give it a try if you can get your hands on a bottle! 

Let's Do This

I am happy to report that Pam and I have collaborated once again to celebrate my 4th blogiversary! If you've been following my blog this past year, you may have read posts where I mentioned my family vacation to the Big Island of Hawaii this past spring. While there, I visited the botanical gardens and took a photo of a flower that I found fascinating. I regrettably never took note of the name nor have I been able to track it down in spite of hunting online, but I wanted it to be the inspiration for my 4th blogiversary polish.  **Ninja edit: Pam's detective skills are much better than mine as she was able to track down the name. This is a Crimson Medinilla. Thank you for finding this, Pam! <3

Not exactly red, but not exactly pink, I loved the bright cheeriness of the colour; I also loved the little pops of purple in the mix. Thankfully Pam was up to the challenge of capturing this flower in polish! I am so pleased with the outcome, and I hope you are as well! I present to you my 4th blogiverary polish by Girly Bits Cosmetics, Lei-zy Beach Day!

Three coats plus top coat

This is a coral-red jelly with violet and gold shimmer, gold holo micro-glitter, and iridescent violet flakes, giving it a juicy red-raspberry appearance overall.

I don't know about you, but I find this to be summer in a bottle, and I am loving this shade! I am a huge fan of jelly polishes, and this is one sexy lacquer! I realize I may be *slightly* biased, but I think this is fabulous! Unfortunately, it is just too awesome for my camera to fully capture the beauty of this polish, but hopefully you can see some of the shimmer, micro-glitter and flakes.

You can see some of the details with this photo better. This arrived in the mail while my husband was out of town, and I snapped this quick photo with my cell phone to send to him. It washes out my skin tone horribly, but this polish is still a beauty here!

The formula was fantastic and easy to use; Lei-zy Beach Day practically applied itself to my nails! I'm sure this comes as no surprise to anyone that has used Girly Bits Cosmetics polishes; Pam certainly knows how to make fantastic polish!

I hope you are loving this shade as much as I am because..... it's launching on the Girly Bits Cosmetics website tomorrow! *Throws confetti* I may be a polish hoarder, but I love sharing my collaborations with you! Lei-zy Beach Day is far too pretty to keep to myself, and I hope it helps to warm up those of you that are dealing with the cold wintery weather right now. The listing can be found here.

I hope you've enjoyed today's post and this polish! Until next time, dear readers, have a wonderful day! XO!

Ellagee: Calla Lily and the Valentine's Glitz Duo

Good morning, dear readers, and happy Monday! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! My husband was out of town all last week so the weekend was filled with family time; my boys certainly missed their daddy! It was sunny and the weather wasn't too cold, and we spent a lot of time outside at various parks. This week looks like it is going to be nice as well, and I am happy about that! Both the toddler and I were going crazy with all the rain we've had so we're going to take advantage of the dry days while we can!

For today's blog post, I wanted to share with you Cally Lily, an older shade by Ellagee. Check it out!

Described as a soft sheer ivory with subtle silver and pink shimmer, this polish is gorgeous for when you want a delicate and feminine look. I had the hardest time capturing the shimmer, but you can see it in the closeup. It's fairly dense on the nail and gorgeous! The formula of Calla Lily was really nice. It went on a little patchy with the first two coats, as expected from this sort of colour, but it leveled out perfectly with a third coat.

In a previous post, I reviewed the new ellagee Valentine's Glitz duo. I wore it alone with a few carefully placed coats for blinged-out nails, but I wanted to share what Je T'aime and Galentine's Day look like layered over a base shade. Calla Lily was the perfect base colour so I had to wear the duo again. They all play so beautifully together!

I love the look of the glitters in the duo together as well! I used about a coat of Je T'aime and Galentine's Day on my index finger and pinky respectively. I also dabbed each shade on my middle and rings fingers with a littlest bit of overlap of the shades. I then added topcoat to smooth my nails.

All three of these shades are available for purchase now at the ellagee website here. First time shoppers can save 5% off a minimum $35 for their first order as well! I recommend all three of these shades, especially with Valentine's Day here in two weeks!

Until next time, dear readers, have a wonderful day!

XO!