My Collection Part 1 (Lots of pics!)

Hey everyone! I know this is late, and I'm sorry. I'm not going to give excuses, I'm just jumping right into it. This is the first part of my five part series on my collection! Each part will be a drawer in my helmer. This excludes my top drawer which is accessories and such. It is extremely unorganized at the moment. Maybe by the end of the series it will be organized and ready for it's blog debut. My collection contains 277 nail polishes! Which is about 100 more than I thought I had! This is not including stripe art polishes. This collection has only been growing for about a year now and I am amazed at how many I have! Wow!

We will start with drawer 2 which contains OPI, Sephora by OPI, Nicole by OPI and Essie. Let's start with a drawer picture:

Oops, my Nic Stick rolled out of the shot! 

OPI definitely hogs the drawer with 36 full sized bottles and 7 minis! Let's check out swatches for each one! I have two nail wheels completely filled up. All swatches are 3 coats unless stated otherwise. Here's a full look at OPI Wheel 1:

ooooh ahhh

And now close ups:

1. Hoodoo Voodoo?!

2. Mod About You

3. Banana Bandana

4. You Don't Know Jacques! (Matte, top coat on top half)

5. Russian Navy (Matte, top coat on top half)

6. Suzi Says Feng Shui

7. Jade is the New Black

8. Damone Roberts 1968

9. Parlez-vous OPI?

10. Done Out In Deco

11. Bronzed to Perfection

12. Clubbing 'til Sunrise

13. Yoga-ta Get This Blue!

14. Eiffel for This Color

15. Smok'n in Havana

16. Kinky in Helsinki

17. Cheyenne Pepper

18. Cuckoo for this Color

Full view of OPI Wheel 2

So pretty!!

19. DS Illuminate

20. DS Extravagance

21. DS Mystery

22. My Private Jet (scattered holo)

23. My Private Jet (teal flash)

24. Glitzerland

25. Black Shatter (over Nicole by OPI Shell me the Truth)

26. Sahara Sapphire

27. The Color to Watch (4 coats)

28. DS Classic

29. Extra-va-ganza

30. Mad As A Hatter

31. Absolutely Alice

32. Glow Up Already

33. Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous

34. Last Friday Night (4 coats?)

35. Teenage Dream

36. Bring on the Bling

OPI Minis:

1. Holiday Glow

2. Shim-merry Chic

3. Comet Loves Cupid

4. Rumple's Wiggin'

5. What's With the Cattitude?

6. Ogre the Top

7. Fiercely Fiona

That is my OPI collection. Small but absolutely wonderful! :) 

Next up: Nicole by OPI

1. No Limits (Matte/top coat on top half)

2. Respect the World (Matte/top coat on top half)

3. Wink of Twink (holo top coat, 4 coats)

4. Shell Me the Truth

5. Form One Line (Nic's Stick)

Next up: $OPI

1. Under My Trench Coat

2. Call Your Mother

3. 212-Sephora

4. Dating the Drummer

Finally, Essie:

1.Imported Champagne

2. Demure Vixen 

3. Mint Candy Apple

4. Lapis of Luxury

5. Playa Del Platinum

6. Splash of Grenadine

7. Turquoise & Caicos

Well, that's drawer 2! Do I have any of your favorites in this drawer? It's home to quite a few of mine! 

Stay tuned for Drawer 3!!!

Wanna win some nail polish? Giveaway Closed!

Giveaway is now closed! Thanks for entering!

Hey, I'm back for real this time! And I'm starting off with a giveaway! I thought it would be the best way to apologize for being away for so long and I'm feeling generous.

There is only one prize this time around and it includes polishes from the China Glaze Vintage Vixen collection and the OPI Swiss collection! Here's some pictures to drool over:

OPI L-R: William Tell Me About OPI, Ski Teal We Drop, Diva of Geneva, and Yodel Me on My Cell

China Glaze L-R: Swing Baby, Jitterbug, Emerald Fitzgerald, Goin' My Way?, First Class Ticket, and Riveter Rouge

Here's how you enter the giveaway:

1. Be a follower and leave a comment on this post. Your email should be included for contact if you win!

2. Extra entries can be earned. 

• One extra entry can be earned by blogging, tweeting, or by some other way of spreading the word. You may earn an extra entry for each of those if you chose to do more than one. You must give me a link or retweet me (@glamgeekchic).  
• You can earn 5 extra entries by emailing me a picture of a manicure inspired by the Vintage Vixen or Swiss collection. You can even combine them and do a Vintage Swiss Vixen or something! :) Must be a new mani and only one entry can be submitted. I will post all the entries for fun! Email: glamgeekchic@gmail.com.

3. Giveaway ends September 5th, 2010. That's about three weeks to get in your entries! On that date I will draw a name using some random generator site and announce the winner on the 6th!

Good luck! I'm so excited to give these gorgeous polishes away! So pretty! *drool*

Finding the Time...

Hey everyone! Sorry that it's been over a week since my last post! I meant to post earlier but my life has been hectic! I haven't had the time to even polish my nails in the last four days!!

I recently got a sort of promotion at work, so I'm working full time and only have Wednesdays off and every other weekend off. Before this I worked mostly nights, but now I'm working mornings. I'm still adjusting to this so I've been extremely tired lately and it's hard to work up the energy to post or paint my nails! As I'm adjusting, the posts will happen more and more!

My Grandma had surgery on Thursday and is still in the hospital through tomorrow morning. I've been spending my weekend off up in her room keeping her company.  I would have loved to paint my nails but I figured it would be frowned upon in a hospital! When she gets released I'm going to stay at her house with her until she gets a little more mobile. It may be difficult for me to post for the next couple of weeks but I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out. She has internet but her computer is so outdated that I can't stand to use it. I may have to bring over mine...

Anyways, last post you told me you wanted some nail art and who am I to deny you some nail art?

Since jaljen asked for simple nail art, I did as simple as I could.   And I'm going to tell you how to achieve it!

Here's the finished look:

And here's what you need:

A basecoat, one light color, one dark color, a bold accent color, top coat and blue painter's tape.

First, paint your nails with the light color. I used Damone Roberts 1968. My favorite mint green! I used two coats.

Clean up if you want, I did, and apply your topcoat. Let it dry. I added the top coat to make sure the tape didn't take off the polish.

Next, take a piece of tape and tape off the bottom half of your nails at a diagonal.  Paint the exposed top half of your nail with your dark color. I used Rimmel Black Satin. A dark brown would also look nice with mint green.

Remove the tape after the polish dries. I only used one coat of the dark polish, but depending on what color you chose you may need more.

Again, cleanup and apply top coat.  

Here's where it may get tricky for you.  You want to take two pieces of tape and tape off your nail so that only a small triangular piece of nail is showing. Make sure it's on the dark color, coming from the lower side. It should be wider towards the bottom and thinner at the top. Also, the section should only go about half way across. 

Paint that part with your bold accent color, I used Essence Nail Art Twins in Romeo, a great silver shimmer.  Once it dries, peel the tape off, clean it up, do any touchups (I had to straighten my lines with a dotting tool), and apply top coat for the last time. 

Voila! You've completed your nail art! 

I hope you enjoyed this look! If you do any variations, I'd love to see them! Email me pics! :)

Have a great night!
Kayla

P.S. I received Romeo in a swap with Tina from Fleur's Nails & Stuff! She was super sweet and got me amazing polishes! Go check out her blog! 

Where did you all come from?!? and more swatches!

Hello new followers! I am amazed. I've gained almost 15 followers in the last 5 hrs. Every time I finish a post I have a couple more! Thanks for following! I love you already! :) P.s. Check out my contest! I need more entries! And I have a feeling you all have some talent! So....DO IT! haha


Yesterday I posted that I got six OPIs at Regis for only $10. Do you want some swatches? Do ya? OK!

Look at the new pretties:

L-R: Parlez-vous OPI?, Clubbing til Sunrise, Yoga-ta Get This Blue!, Bronzed to Perfection, and Eiffel For This Color. (Not pictured is You Don't Know Jacques, it now belongs to my mom!)

Parlez-Vous OPI?:

Direct Sunlight (aka sticking my arm out my window!)

Parlez-Vous OPI? is a dusty purple. As you may or may not know, I love me some dusty purple polish! Flawless application, opaque in two coats! It's a new favorite! :) :) :)

Clubbing til Sunrise:

Indirect Sunlight

Clubbing is a sunny, shimmery orange. Perfect for summer! Two coats to be opaque, easy application! My favorite orange I've ever tried! Can't wait to sport this one in the summer! Stunning!

Yoga-ta Get This Blue!:

Indirect Sunlight

Yoga-ta is a gorgeous navy blue shimmer. In the bottle it looks like it has a teal flash but on the nails it does not. I think I did two coats. It was almost completely opaque in one coat. Very stunning. I love it. It would be great in the winter. 

Bronzed to Perfection:

Direct Sunlight

Bronzed to Perfection is a burnt orange with tiny orange flakies in it. The flakies are stunning in the bottle. On the nail? Not so much. I'm not a fan of the color. No application problems besides not getting the flakie loving that I needed. Extremely disappointed. Far from perfect.

Eiffel For This Color:

Direct Sunlight (Yeah I was half way out the window/on the roof) haha 

Eiffel is a deep burgundy/dark purple with shimmer. Indoors the shimmer is not existence but BAM! in the sun it's so gorgeous! Two coats. No application problems. Love it. It is another winter color, but hey I'll sport it whenever!

What do you think? Did I strike gold with any of these colors?

'Witty Title'

Yeah, that's right. Best. Title. Ever.

Ok, I know. I'm lazy. The title sucks, but do you know what doesn't?

NOTD!!!!!! And packages in the mail!!!!!!!!!!!

Hurray!

Uh oh guys, this is gonna be a tough one. My camera's on the other side of my room....too lazy....must stay here.....ah *&$% it...

Phew. That was tough. But it was all in the name of love (for you, dear follower or reader, I guess you may be just as lazy and  haven't hit that follow button[hint: it's that way---->]). And that's it for the cheesy stuff; on to NOTD!

I finally tried some sponging! Yeah, I randomly discovered that my Mary Kay foundation samples come with decent sponges, and they work pretty well for sponging nail polish. I started with 3 coats of Maybelline's Minty (which isn't as minty as I would like) and then sponged on some OPI Done Out in Deco (PURPLE!!!).  It was okay, but it needed more. I decided to try adding China Glaze Spontaneous over that. Better, still not there though. Finally, I sponged a mix of Done Out in Deco and Spontaneous over that and was finally happy with the outcome. Take a look:

I tried my darnedest to bring you great pics but, its cold and rainy here. No sun. And we're probably gonna flood soon, like this:

That's me walking down the street to my grandma's house. I am on the road. I got water in my cute pink boots with whales on them.  :(  Now I have chest waders. I am so prepared:

Haha, wow. That's me pretending the overflowing culvert was a waterslide. That's what my cousin and I did, for four weeks. We walked around taking random pictures. Oh, we also took a boat over the road behind me (straight back, over the highway it's the one with water flowing over it). Didn't work so well. We did confuse my mom though. She didn't expect us to come through the backyard, considering we were supposed to be boating on the other side of the road. Did I mention we were rowing the boat? That resulted in many circles. And we got stuck on some trees.  That's how my mom discovered us. We were screaming and laughing so loud she heard us in the house, about 20-30 yards away. She couldn't see us in the trees though. The look on her face. Priceless.

Tomorrow starts Spring Break. I had a four week break last year because of the flood. Is it bad that I'm wishing for it again? The river is only 2.7ft away from flood stage. It could happen before the week is over. They say they won't call off school for so long again. We'll see!

When it floods, you can count on some great photos being posted. Oh, and if you want to see more from last year, tell me in the comments!

Wow, that veered off course quickly. I received my prize from the contest I won, today! I was very excited, if you read my post about winning, you'll know why.  I won two polishes, two sets of press on nails, a couple of nail files, and some q-tips for clean up! I'm gonna test out the polishes tomorrow, so expect pictures tomorrow night!

Lazy = long post? How does that work?

Dupes? Uh, no. & tomorrow's NOTD

Lazy day today. I've sat around watching Alice (SyFy Original Miniseries) on DVD. It's a great modern day twist on the classic Alice in Wonderland. I love the ending...I'm a sucker for a good romantic happy ending. Check it out! They also did The Wizard of Oz a few years back, Tin Man. Another great one to check out! Anywho.......


This gave me time to do my purple comparison. I didn't find any dupes. But they sure are pretty, so here's the results.

Once I lined up the five polishes--two pairs to test for dupes and one thrown in for fun--I knew they weren't dupes. Could have sworn they were twins when they weren't side by side. ;)

1st pair: Sephora by OPI Call Your Mother and Sally Hansen Plum's the Word

Middle: China Glaze Spontaneous randomly thrown in (cause it's pretty)

2nd pair: OPI Done Out in Deco and China Glaze Light as Air
Edit: Ugh terrible lighting. Sorry!

Do I even need to show you the results? Yup.

 

Same order as previous pic from thumb to pinky.

Two coats on every one but the pinky (which is three) because I needed to get rid of the Matte Magic. All lovely. All unique.

And here they are matte:

 

Simply divine. A matte purple makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. 

This look I just finished about an hour ago and it was a complete accident. I was trying to make a diagonal line across my nail and my tape moved (grr) so I took my art brush and swished it across my nail with anger. Anger quickly turned to, "Oh hey, that looks pretty cool". Et voila: 

 

This is Wet n' Wild Nocturnal over Orly Rage. Topped off with Matte Magic.

I was extremely frustrated with my camera. I wanted a super close up shot of this. This was as close as I could get it without it being blurry.  That brings me to the question of the day: What camera do you use to capture your nail art in full detail? 

Another thing that hinders great picture taking?

 

Yes, I have a hot pink wall in my room. And depending on the time of day, the whole room is tinted pink. 

Doesn't help that my curtains are also pink. That may need to change. 

I need a light box. 

Maybe I'll DIY it. Oh, who am I kidding?

New simple layout. Yay or nay? I'm experimenting with Photoshop again. Layout may change again. Or just the header.

Completely unrelated note:

Remember my Chuck post?  And how I said I would run away with John Casey? Well, next week's preview has him looking like a bad guy. If this turns out true, my heart is broken. Why, Casey? Why????

Kayla

Absolutely Mad for Alice in Wonderland

Who's excited for Alice in Wonderland? Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter haven't failed me yet!

 

Ooooh it looks so good!

In honor of its opening day, I rounded up my OPI Alice in Wonderland glitter polishes and now my nails sparkle with the glory of Absolutely Alice and Mad as a Hatter.

Indirect Sunlight

That's Absolutely Alice over Suzi Says Feng Shui on all but my ring finger. And as you can tell my ring finger has gone Mad as a Hatter over Rimmel's Black Satin.

 

Oh the shine. (Indoors. Not sunlight. :P)

 

I just had to take a picture of my mani with my Alice in Wonderland/Into the Looking Glass book!

Hope you enjoyed!

Kayla

It's a secret!

Hey!
Just a quick post to tell everyone that Trade Secret has OPI on sale: Buy one, get one half off! And if the Trade Secret near you has as big of a selection as mine did...you'll be there for ages deciding what to get.

I dove head first into the new Hong Kong collection and got Jade is the New Black and Suzi Says Feng Shui.

I also discovered that they sell Essie! The only place in town that I've found so far! Since Essie wasn't on sale I didn't grab any. Next time? Perhaps.

So here are my recent purchases:

 Orly: Rage and Gumdrop.

 OPI: Suzi Says Feng Shui and Jade is the New Black

 China Glaze: Light as Air

And here's Rage on my nails:

 

Matte Magic on the thumb to see how it looked. Meh.

Kayla

Parents Just Don't Understand

I told you yesterday that I received two packages in the mail. Knowing that one of my parents had to have brought them inside I quickly brought them to my room to be opened. No need for them to get a peek at what was inside, right?


After squealing with delight over my newly acquired goodies, I ventured back downstairs. My mom didn't miss a beat. "What did you get in the mail today?!?!?" she asked me, with a seemingly excited expression. Oh but I knew better. I hesitated to answer. "Makeup?" she prodded.

Here we go...

I quickly replied that I got various things like eyeliner, mascara, and eyeshadow...

"Eyeshadow?!!?!!!" she practically yelled at me, "Don't you have enough eyeshadow?"

How do I reply? Is there anyway out of this trap? Let's try the sale approach:

"Mom, everything was only a dollar. They practically gave it to me."

"But how is it that there are any more eyeshadows for you to own. Don't you think you're wasting money?"

Crap. That didn't work. Quick, think of something else. Uh. ummm. Eh. Oh!

"Mom, it makes me happy." (Note: this is said in a completely pathetic, "please get off my back" sort of way.)

Laughter. Yes! I think its working! Please, let it be working....

"Oh alright! You're crazy, but if it makes you happy!"

Crazy? Where did that come from? Meh, who cares! Argument over!

We won't call that a victory, more like a narrow escape. But I am going to put this in writing: I will not buy anything online for the next two months.

What will I do without my online shopping? Save money! Yay!? Its bittersweet. But must be done. Wish me luck.

And now, I proudly present my last online haul until May. (That seems like so long...)
Let's Start with the Victoria Nail Supply haul:

 

L-R: ChG Ruby Pumps, OPI Absolutely Alice, ChG Lubu Heels, OPI Mad As A Hatter, and ChG Atlantis.

With that order I went glitter crazy. For years I have been anti-glitter. Its a pain. Clean up is time consuming and you can't ever seem to get it off your nails without putting in a ton of effort. Unfortunately, looking at everyone else and their blog pictures I couldn't help but fall in love. I especially love when Matte Magic is layered over the glitters! To die for! Just seeing them in the bottle: Love at first sight. I immediately put Absolutely Alice on my nails. Gorgeous! The only one I'm iffy about is Ruby Pumps, I know its pretty but I'm not really a red nails kind of girl. I am, however, a HUGE Wizard of Oz fan and will undoubtedly end up with the whole collection eventually. 

I didn't swatch them because:

1) What polish blogger hasn't?

2) They will eventually be featured in a NOTD.

Ok, now on to my picture heavy haul from NYX:

P.s. These came out fabulously true to color!

The whole shebang! Tons of eyeshadow(Sorry Mom!), eyeliner and mascara.

 

First up is White Pearl eyeshadow. This is going to be fabulous for highlighting in the corner of my eye and on my brow bone. 

This is Wild Flower, and it is the perfect peachy-pink I've been looking for. When I swatched this baby I just about died from happiness! 

 

Sweet Lagoon. This isn't as green as I thought it would be when I ordered it. I'm torn on whether I can make it work or not. I'll try it tonight and let you know. 

 

Extreme Apricot. Extreme is right. Extremely not apricot. 

Very much more red then I thought from the NYX swatch. I may not use this very often.  It scares me slightly.

 

 Las Vegas. I'm not sure what possessed me to get loose glitter. Its lovely though.

Beanie. Chrome eyeshadow. I didn't realize it was a loose powder shadow. 

Although, going back to the site, its painfully obvious. Not like they hide the fact.  

Way to read the site, Kayla! Go me! 

The site makes it look much more charcoal, so its a disappointment that its very much a brown.

More glitter. In the form of Jade glitter eyeliner. Super gorgeous!

Definitely a night on the town liner!

Sky Teal mascara. I don't know why I purchased a colored mascara. 

I think it was to try it out. But I can't see myself falling in love with it. 

Pretty color, though.

And now an arm full of swatches:

That's my haul! Hope you enjoyed! Let me know if you want to see anything in a LOTD or something!

Kayla

*EDIT*
I realize that I forgot to mention Hot Red. Its a liner. I couldn't get a good picture of the pencil on its own so I just swatched it and called it good. That's why there's one more swatch than products. And sorry the picture is so small...still testing out PhotoShop. :)