China Glaze LOL & A Giveaway Roundup

I know everyone has seen this one before, but I just wore it again the other day and I sure do love it! This is a great polish if you need to get out the door in a hurry, but still need to have fabulous nails. I can get away with one coat if I'm careful and it's totally dry in a minute or two. Has anyone compared China Glaze LOL to the Color Club Wild At Heart purple holo? These are old pictures back when it was warm and sunny.

Here's an indoor shot. Even though the holo isn't as noticeable inside, it's still a lovely shade purple.

This was my second or third Konad attempt. I might redo this for New year's Eve.

My first video!


Giveaway Roundup!

I love Giveaways! One of my readers won the Clear Creek Lavender giveaway on facebook and I just won an incredible bracelet from Spexton and Chic Galleria!

• Win a Liquid Solution Stainless Steel Gift Pack from Sweeps4Bloggers. Ends 12/30.
• Win an adorable mouse from the House of Mouse. I love them!!! Ends 12/30.
• Win a $200 gift card to Wall Slicks from The Dirty Tshirt. Ends 12/31.
• Win the apron of your choice from Flirty Aprons and Mint Green With Envy. Ends 1/1.
• Win Orglamix from The Forgotten Brush, what a lovely blog! Ends 1/11.
• Win any size of the new Sealy Posturepedic Innerspring Signature 11 Series from Sealy & MommyMandy!

Thanks for reading!
April

Comments are fixed! Sorry!

We were wondering why no one was commenting! We recently changed themes and it took me a bit to figure out that the post comment feature had been disabled. It's all better now so you can tell us what you think of the American Apparel Nail Polish now!

American Apparel Launches Nail Polish Line!

We received an email today announcing the launch of a brand new nail polish line from the uber-hip American Apparel. 18 creme shades, big 3 free (they list the ingredients right up front!), 0.5oz bottles for $6, that can be purchased here. Look at those colors ladies!! The initial 18 shades are exactly what we would expect from American Apparel: edgy, modern, & intriguing! How refreshing to see a company launch with such a wide range of colors instead of just a million reds and pinks! Here is a link to a company spokesperson talking about the launch.

We have an extensive collection of American Apparel T-shirts by way of Threadless and we love every one of them. What about you? Do you have any experience with the American Apparel brand?

Let's talk about the colors; from what I can tell they are all cremes. This line looks like it was made for Ashley who loves cremes! They have great names and we're having a hard time deciding which we would choose. Two new greens, three blues and a gray! We are also curious about Cotton, Manila and Palm Springs.

How do you feel about this new line? Which are you looking forward to trying? Let us know!
Thanks for reading!
April & Ashley

Maybelline Blue Aluminum & A Giveaway Roundup

This is another of my Dollar Tree finds and I love it! The finish is a cross between a metallic and suede. Maybelline Blue Aluminum looks like a super shiny chrome in bright light or from a distance, but up close and in low light, the finish is very similar to O.P.I.'s Suede collection. A beautiful and extremely unique icy blue! This is 2 coats. It was a little gloopy but still pretty easy to apply. This polish dries super fast! I went to sleep within 20 minutes with no topcoat didn't mess it up at all. It dries to the touch in a minute or two. Wish I'd been able to find a back up of this beauty! The first picture shows the suede finish. The second is me trying to get a shot of the polish looking metallic. Please feel free to make fun of my "I'm concentrating really hard on not moving my hands" face.


Giveaway Roundup!

• Win a Popcorn Snowman Snack Assortment from The Dirty T Shirt. Ends 12/15.
• Win a set of 10 Truffle Bars from Seattle Chocolates and Sweeps4Bloggers. Ends 12/15.
• Win a Price Pfister faucet from TicTacDough! Ends 12/15.
• Win a Serene Bath & Body Store Holiday Gift Basket from Sweeps4Bloggers. Ends 12/15.
• Win an unbelievably cute necklace from Enchanted Leaves and Down and Out Chic. Ends 12/15. (Check out Down & Out Chic's Blog even if you don't enter the giveaway! One of my new favorites.)
• Win a 10" Xtrema Ceramcor Skillet from Sweeps4Bloggers. Ends 12/18.
• Win a $75 gift certificate to Red Envelope from Sweeps4Bloggers!!! Ends 12/19.
• Win an Oogave Natural Soda prize package (including Watermelon Cream flavor!) from Sweeps4Bloggers. Ends 12/20.
• Win the apron of your choice from Boojiboo and CoolCanucks. Ends 12/29.
• Win a Tassimo Beverage Maker from Southern Hospitality. Ends 12/31.

Thanks for reading!
April

Clear Creek Lavender Review & Giveaway

Clear Creek Lavender is a small, certified organic lavender farm near my hometown, Tulsa Oklahoma. Chris and Denise are the owners, planters, harvesters, and product makers; they do it all themselves! They make a small range of lovely products including shea butter, lip balm and a variety of soaps which can be purchased here.

Many of my Tulsa friends and I swear by the Lavender Lip Balm ($3).
I recently won a bar of their handmade Lavender Buds Soap ($5) and it is simply spectacular!
My favorite of their products that I have tried so far is their Lavender Shea Butter ($10). I have been using it for about a year now, a little goes a long way. The smell is incredible and it works great for dry cuticles!
Here is a picture of my soap and my shea butter.

For any of you ladies who love to cook they also sell culinary lavender. From their website: "We grow Munstead lavender for culinary use. If you've had lavender in something and didn't like it, perhaps it was something other than a Munstead variety. Anything else is usually too strong, and you feel like you've bitten into a bar of lavender soap. We combine our lavender with sugar, coarse salt, or cracked black pepper."

I love to support folks who have the guts to go for their dreams! Clear Creek Lavender's products are very well priced and they have a nice selection of gift packages as well. These make great stocking stuffers and hostess gifts.

Did I mention that Chris and Denise are also warm and funny? U.S. readers be sure and enter their current Facebook giveaway. Become and fan and then guess what number they are thinking of (it's between 57 and 183). The prize is a set of their Lavender Shea Butter and Lip Balm! Hurry though, you only have until high noon Sunday (Okie time CST).

Thanks for reading and good luck!

InStyle 20 Days of Nail Polish Giveaway

Aaagghhh! I just heard about this giveaway today and already missed some awesome prizes! But there are still plenty to win. Zoya goodie bag tomorrow, Lippmann Marquee Moon and Happy Birthday, and tons of other stuff! Only problem for me is that this is a Twitter based giveaway series and I am a total Twitter newbie. Good luck ladies and let me know if any of you win!

Orgasm Slipery Slope (Most Embarrasing Nail Polish Name Ever)

Seriously, DO NOT do a Google image search for this one ladies! Especially at work!
This very pretty yellow gold. Not a color i like with my skintone though. You do have to be careful of brushstrokes, but the nice brush and formula make that pretty easy to do. I ended up with an almost smooth super metallic finish. This is 3 coats.

NBD Mellow & A Giveaway Roundup

This is another from the Elfster exchange. I have never heard of this brand, but boy do I love this color! Pastel wasabi with faint rose shimmer in some lights, but really this one usually passes for a creme. This is 3 coats, could use a fourth because it went on kind of streaky. It had a very narrow stiff brush that I didn't like very much, but for a color this awesome who cares? Very unique, I love it!

Will is funny in the morning.



Giveaway Roundup

• LAST CHANCE! Win a Baker's Edge Lasagna Pan form The Dirty Shirt. Ends tonight!
• Win 2 pairs of socks of your choice from Ozone Socks & Sweeps4Bloggers. These are no ordinary socks ladies! If you have never had a pair of over the knee socks for winter, then go check this one out. Ends 11/28.
• Win 3 bars of Kallari Chocolate from Sweeps4Bloggers. Ends 11/29.
• Win a Slanket (hahahaha!) from Sweeps4Bloggers. Ends 11/29.
• Win a set of OPI Ulta Tiny Tinsels polish from Manicure Mommas. Ends 11/30.
  

Thanks for reading!
April

Swatches of 5 China Glaze Up & Away Collection on Facebook!

These are the first swatches I have seen of this collection. I love green nail polish. Here is the link.

Maybelline Khaki Fringe

This color is so exciting! I love all things army green! This is one of the polishes I picked up at my Dollar Tree last week. I bought both of the 2 bottles they had because the color looked so gorgeous. I would describe this as a classic army green loaded with micro shimmer in red, green and gold! I think it's super sexy and goes great with my wardrobe and skin tone. This has leaped into my top five favorites. No problems with the application, formula or brush. I might have to go check the Dollar Trees in town for another back up; I will go through this quickly.
VampyVarnish just did a post on a China Glaze lemming called Out On Safari. I think this may be very similar if not a dupe. The Maybelline may be just a little darker.



Bonus Wally picture!!!! I love his face!


So what do you think ladies? Do we have a winner?

Thanks for reading.
April

L.A. Girl Flare Dark Purple

Drop dead gorgeous purple. All purple lovers should own this one! Dark purple that never looks black with lots of shimmer that changes color from hot pink to blue. I just couldn't figure this polish out! Is there such a thing as shimmer duochrome? It changed all of the time, lots of staring at my nails with this beauty. One of those lit from within polishes. Very hard to capture in pictures. Formula was nice but I thought the brush was too stiff. 2 coats in the pictures. Thanks again to Kris from Polish or Perish for this one.

A couple of photos showing mostly purple.



Here are a couple of shots of the shimmer looking hot pink.



I could only get the blue to show up in blurry shots for some reason.


This shot seems to show a little of everything blue, purple and hot pink.


Thanks for reading.
April

Misa Sisterhood & a Giveaway Roundup

This is the first polish I tried from my Elfster package from Polish or Perish. My very first Misa! Very nice shimmery orange. I love the Misa bottle shape.


Giveaway Roundup!

• Win the apron of your choice from Flirty Aprons and the Penny-Pinching Mama. Ends 11/19.
• Win a $75 Maybelline Gift Pack from Lipgloss Break. Ends 11/20.
• Win a set of Migi Nail Art Pens from the lovely Painted Lady Fingers. Ends 11/20.
• Win a $250 Southwest Airline gift card & a $250 American Express gift card from Twirlit. Ends 11/25.
• Win a Dremel Multimax (I love my regular old Dremel!) from Sweeps4Bloggers. Ends 11/26.

Thanks for reading.
April

Dollar Tree Maybelline!

Run to your nearest Dollar Tree if you have them in your town ladies! I suppose this is my first haul. I bought 13 different old, discontinued Maybellines! Lots of mattes and foils! Super exciting. I don't have any pictures yet, but I thought you all should know before they disappear.

China Glaze Cherish

I love metallics! Ashley loves to use this one on her toes. Lovely sea foam green metallic. 2 coats, dries quickly.


How many of you have gotten your holiday gift exchange presents? Thank you so much to Kris of Polish or Perish for my SEVEN polishes!!! I am wearing Color Club Feel the Beat right now and it is the first red I have that I truly love!!!!

Thanks for reading!
April

Zoya Hot Lips 3 Free Promotion Extended!

This is just like when they gave us all free nail polish! Here are the details.

I don't have any to show you, but I know Scrangie has some swatches.

Anybody have any of these?

L.A. Colors Intense Collection Part 3

I had a really difficult time getting a proper color of this gorgeous polish! I would call it purple with hot pink frost. Is there such a thing? Anyway it is really beautiful. I took pictures in all sorts of light to try and capture the hot pink frost. The first picture is is what it looks like most of the time.The last polish in this collection is a light green shimmer that is very sheer. You'll have to bug Ashley for the swatch of this one since I still have some staining on my tips.





I need your advice on how to ship polish to Australia! I finally figured out that the person I am supposed to be sending polishes to for the holiday swap lives down under and I am at a loss as to how to do this without breaking my budget. Any advice will be much appreciated!!! I never got the email about who my person was because I mistyped my email when signing into the swap. I find this a little troubling because this means that people can just enter in a fake email address and get free stuff right? It seems like they would want to verify the email address before allowing someone to participate.

Thanks for reading.
April

L.A. Colors Intense Collection Part 2 & A Giveaway Roundup

This is the second polish from my LA Colors Intense package. You can see the first color here. This is a very pretty color, but I have learned that for some reason I can't explain, turquoise shimmers, just aren't my thing. I think they look gorgeous on others, just not for me.



Very important question!!!! How do I find out who I am supposed to be sending polishes to in the holiday swap that was set up a few months ago??? I got my package in the mail and couldn't figure out what it was or why I was receiving it (or how someone got my address!) The next day I remembered signing up for the swap on elfster. I tried logging in to find the information I need to send out my package, but no luck! HELP!!!!

Giveaway Roundup

• Win a set of 4 lip balms from For Strange Women and the Kansas City Etsy Street Team! These look super delicious ladies. Hurry on this one. Ends tonight 11/8!
• Win an e.l.f. cosmetics 27 piece mini makeup collection from Sweeps4Bloggers. Ends 11/12.
• Win products from NailTek & Barielle from Sparkling Pink Gorilla. Ends 11/12.
• Win a 1/3 lb. sampler box of Cowgirl Chocolates from Sweeps4Bloggers. I have been wanting to try this company's chocolates for a couple of years now. Ends 11/13.
• Win 3 polishes from Painted Tips. Ends 11/15.
• Win polish and nail care products from Helen and Sheenie. Ends 11/16.
• Win a Pure Soda Maker Starter Kit from The Dirty T-shirt. Ends 11/16.

• Win a Tiny Circle Necklace from Lucid New York and Mommy PR. Ends 11/19.
• Win a $50 gift certificate for vinyl wall decals from The Penny Pinching Mama. Ends 11/19.

Thanks for reading!
April

L.A. Colors Intense Collection Part I

This is the scariest color I have ever worn! I know some of you are going to love this one but I was actually embarrassed to go out in public with this on my nails. All of my friends and family agree that this is NOT a color for me. I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it but my nails needed to be painted in a hurry so I could join my sister for dinner and this color needed to be swatched. AAAAGGGHHHHH! It was the first thing everyone noticed. Even one of Will's friends came over and immediately commented on it before even saying hello. I didn't get to take it off before I saw him the next day and this very sweet guy said, "April, you're still wearing it." with a vague look of horror.
This came in a set I picked up from Gordman's for $4. Four different colors with no names. I'll show you the rest soon. I'm not sure what to call this color, maybe SUPER BRIGHT neon coral with some shimmer.




Have any of you ladies ever tried a color that was just so not you it was scary?
Thanks for reading!
April

Halloween!!!!!

I love Halloween! I want to know what you ladies are going to do this year.

Are you dressing up yourself? Your pets? Your children? I want pictures of any costumes that you thought turned out great.
Carving pumpkins?
Decorating your house for trick or treaters?

If you want to dress up, but are stuck for ideas, Beauty Newbie has tons of MAC Halloween facecharts. I did a simplified version of the very last one a couple of years ago and I really loved the effect. Plus it only took about 10 minutes and was easy to maintain throughout the day.


I also had the third annual pumpkin carving party at my house over the weekend. The results were awesome. I wasn't feeling inspired, but Ashley told me she would dump the rotten pumpkin guts on me if I didn't carve one. (One of Ashley's pumpkins was really gross and smelly for some reason.) So I just did the fastest thing I could think of. I still think he is cute though.

My awesome boyfriend Will is a pumpkin carving master! These are all his.

He used power tools to help create last years Parasite Pumpkin!


And this year he went all out and made a pumpkin that shoots blood out of it's head! (it has a fountain pump)

Thanks for reading ladies and please send me photos of your pumpkins and costumes! They make me happy!
April

Woohoo, I won! & A Giveaway Roundup

I won a giveaway for this mini purse from the lovely Joanna of Simple Blueprint. She partnered with Kristin of Spirited Style to make this giveaway possible. Both ladies are super sweet and it was a pleasure to talk to them! Thanks again ladies! And an extra thanks to Joanna for posting a link to my concrete!




Now onto the Giveaway Roundup!

• Last chance to win all of the wonderful goodies from Nihrida's Blog, one of my favorites!
• Last chance to win a lovely pair of fingerless gloves from AnnyMay.
• Last chance to win your choice of aprons from Boojiboo and Etsyfix.
• Enter to win a South of France Bath and Body Gift Basket from Sweeps4Bloggers. Ends 10/26.
• Enter to win a set of Wool Dryer Balls from Krazy8Cat and Happy Green Babies. Ends 11/2.
  

7 Choices Tag

We were tagged by Naive Nails & Amarena's Blog and the color was blue both times!

April couldn't find 7 blue things she wanted to put up, so I'm doing this one by myself.

1. Weights - I bought these a couple of years ago from Target and never use them. I think I get pretty good excercise lifting and shelving books all day though.

2. Clock - It goes in my kitchen.

3.Tote bag - Another Target purchase

4. Pepsi - I always have pepsi!

5. Glass Hand - This is one of my favorite items. It's from a store called Pryde's in Kansas City. They sell Kitchen and Home Goods. We think it's a holder for your rings when you're doing the dishes.

6. Globe - This came from an awesome antique store in Kansas City. There were at least 4 floors. It took us a long time to get through it and I know there was still a lot of stuff to see.

7. Jacket - One of my favorite jackets. And it also came from Target!

-Ashley

Universal Classic Monsters Halloween Nails

We wanted to do something a little different for our entries into Sasse's Halloween Contest. We took our inspiration from Universal Studios Classic Monster movies. These monsters are so famous they even have their own USPS stamp set!

Here are the three we chose. Wolf Man, Frankenstein, & Dracula.

First up we have Ashley's Frankenstein nails. Monster green (acrylic) with stitches and neck bolts.

Next we have my Dracula nails. I used my new favorite Zoya Gaia for a pearly white fang background. Then added dripping blood, fang bites and a little tuxedo just like Bela Lugosi's.

Last and definitely the scariest, we have Will's Wolf Man pedicure. You may remember Will from his previous adventures with nail polish. Believe me this is even scarier! One foot has a simple starry night with a full moon. The other foot he decorated with a self stick MUSTACHE!

I hope you aren't too traumatized!

There is an awesome girl here in Tulsa who makes sweet paintings. Since they went so well with our theme, I thought I would show you a couple. You can purchase these and tons of music themed prints in Point Blank Design's Etsy shop.

Thanks for reading!
April