Baby Feet Friday: Zoya Mimi!

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!  I want to start something new and cute... hopefully I'll be able to do it every week!

I've been painting Zoey's toes since she was 5 weeks old... Who can resist sweet painted baby toes? Her very first pedicure was Zoya Jolene. Sweet baby pink toes! I get so many compliments on her sweet little feet that I figured I should blog them... So, here you go! Zoey's very first blog post!

This week, I did Z's piggies with Zoya Mimi!

Check back next Friday to see these precious toes again! :)

Rainbow Glitter Gradient

Hey guys! I hope you've all got your shopping done! I have one more present to pick up, and then we will be done. I want to pick up a few more things for Zo, but I think we're going to wait until after Christmas. We got her a My Pal Violet (super adorable! It says her name and you can pick the songs it sings... So cute!), a few kids books in French (my husband is teaching her French, so hopefully we can raise her to be bilingual), and a few other things. I can't wait to celebrate her first Christmas!

I have a super fun and cute manicure to show you today. I used TEN polishes to create this adorable manicure, which I will tell you about in a minute. First, PICTURES!

To do this pretty manicure, I started with 2 coats each of (starting at the thumb): Zoya Barbie, Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet, China Glaze Kinetic Candy, and Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac. Then, using a sponge, I applied (from the thumb): Zoya Gilda, Zoya Tanzy, Zoya Apple, Zoya Crystal, and Zoya Mimi. I love the way it turned out! My favorite combinations are the blue nail and the purple nail... I love the how the gold flecks in Crystal stand out!

I have lots of family stuff to do, starting tomorrow night, so this will probably be my last post before Christmas! Much love to all of you, and I hope you all have a safe and wonderful MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Water Marble

Hey guys! It'd been awhile since I had done a water marble, so I felt adventurous! I started it when I put Zoey down for the night, and of course, as soon as I did the fourth nail, she woke up. Typical life with a baby! But, I did finally get it done. :)

For this marble, I used colors from Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear collection. They have always worked great for marbling for me, and since they aren't too pricey, I don't feel bad about wasting so much when I marble!

I started out with 2 coats of White On, taped my fingers off, and marbled with Cherry Red, White On, and Going Green. After the marbling was dry, I topped it off with a coat of Essie Pure Pearlfection from last year's Lux Effects collection.

Here's my favorite nail out of all of them... My right thumb nail. The other thumb turned out kinda funky, so I didn't bother with a picture.

I love how Pure Pearlfection just gives a subtle, shimmery glow! I hadn't used it yet, and I was pleased with the effect it gave. Of course, the pictures do it no justice at all... The best representation of it is in the picture of my thumb nail.

I can't believe Christmas is LESS THAN A WEEK AWAY! Zoey's first Christmas is going to be so much fun... We can't wait! She has a ton of Christmas outfits.... Including this one!

See you again soon! <3

Nicole by OPI Wear Something Spar-Kylie + BM04

Hi! I hope your weekend was lovely! Ours was lazy... I didn't get much done at all! Just sat around and cuddled with my little Zoey bug. :)

Today, I have a pretty, girly manicure to show you! I've swatched this once before, but this is the first time I've done a full manicure with it. I completely forgot that I already took swatch pictures, so I took more! YAY! Here's Nicole by OPI Wear Something Spar-Kylie.

Beautiful sparkly pink! I love this because it only took 2 coats for dense, full coverage. To make it even more pretty, I added stamping with the cute filigree image from my  Bundle Monster plate BM04.

Love it! Now, I got to thinking... This sure does seem familiar! After a bit of searching.... I found this... I did this same manicure with different colors in March 2011! Oops! Well, at least I know what I like!

See you again soon! <3

Zoya Dove + Holographic Glitter Tips

Hello again! I have a pretty cool manicure to show you today... and surprisingly it was really easy! A few years ago, I picked up some micro glitter by a brand called Super Nail. I got it at Sally's, and it's called Silver Rush. It's a very fine holographic glitter. I haven't done anything with it, until today!

For this manicure, I started off with 2 coats of Zoya Dove, a beautiful light grey. Then, while the polish was still wet, I dipped the tips of my nails into the little pot of Silver Rush. I patted it down with my clean-up brush, and applied 2 coats of Poshe Topcoat. I normally only use 1, but the glitter was a little bumpy. Not problematic and probably wouldn't bother most, but it would have driven me crazy! The end result was really pretty!

Sunlight

Sunlight

Sunlight

Indoors with flash

Indoors with flash

Indoors - no flash

Neat, huh? I will definitely try this again, maybe over black! I think these might possibly be my New Years nails! I also am definitely going to stop by Sally's and see what other colors I can pick up.

What do you think of this technique? What color combos would you like to see?

Zoya Aurora

See? I told you I'd be back! :)

It'd been awhile since I bought any nail polish (I quit my job, remember?), but when this collection came out, I just HAD to splurge! Zoya really knocked it out of the park with the Ornate Collection for Winter 2012! I purchased 3 beauties from this collection: Storm, Blaze, and Aurora. Today, I want to show you Aurora!

Aurora is a simply stunning plum jelly with fine holographic glitter scattered throughout. If sugar plum fairies painted their nails, this would be their go-to shade! It is absolutely gorgeous, and really comes to life in the sunshine! The following photos show 2 coats of Aurora.

The first 2 pictures were taken outside in natural light, on a rainy day. Tennessee weather is nice and funky today, so we don't have any sunshine to really show off the gorgeous-ness of this polish... So the second two pictures are shown inside with flash.

Amazing, yeah? This is one of my favorite polishes that Zoya has released in awhile! I'm secretly hoping that they'll release a pink and a teal one like these... Maybe one will be named Zoey? Come on, Zoya... You know you wanna! 

"Pleaaaaase, Zoya? I want a Zoey polish on my baby toes!"

Thanks for reading... See you again soon!

Where have you been??

"Beds empty! No note! Car gone! You could have died! You could have been seen!"

Well, it's been quite awhile, hasn't it? To any of you that might read this, hello! I've had quite an absence, but I'm back! Or at least, I will try to be.

Of course, I should explain why I've been gone for so long, though I think many (or most) of you might probably know. On August 6th, my life changed drastically.

I'd like to introduce you to my beautiful baby girl, Zoey Ava. She was born at 6am on August 6th, weighing 8 pounds 13 ounces. She is now 4 months old and almost 13 pounds. She smiles and squeals and giggles, kicks her feet, rolls over, and grabs for her toys. She even had oatmeal for the first time this week, and she loved it! I am amazed by her every day... She is the light of our lives! I love seeing my husband interact with her... Seeing him as her Papa makes me love him even more than I thought possible!

So, as you could imagine, I've been a bit busy. I stay home now to take care of her, and my husband works full time. Painting your nails while tending to a beautiful-and-sometimes-fussy baby girl? Yeah, that wasn't happening. To be honest, I seriously considered just giving up on the blogging thing. The thought of it made me sad. I thought about it, and my mind went back to the reason I started painting my nails and blogging in the first place: It was fun. It made me feel pretty. It was a wonderful hobby and outlet for me. It introduced me to some wonderful friends. And I miss that part of it.

So, I am really going to give a good effort to get back into it. I figure, Z takes at least ONE good nap a week, so I should be able to make it happen. I even have a special plan for one post a week, featuring the little princess herself! I may not post every day, but for now, my goal is at least twice a week. I can handle that... Right? :)

For now, I'll leave you with a nice big baby photo bomb! I'll see you again soon... As soon as this is posted, I'm taking pictures of the manicure I just did (remember that nap thing we talked about? See... it really happens sometimes!) to post tomorrow!