Brown Lightning for Fall

Happy Fall everyone, the weather has finally turned just a tad cooler here in California and I finally feel like I just might be able to break out a sweater or two! Or who am I kidding, probably just a light cardigan, either way, I feel like autumn has finally arrived.



This mani was partly inspired by my friend Andrea of Indigo Bananas, and though it doesn't actually use any Indigo Bananas polishes, she helped me come up with the idea.



This fall brown holo polishes have been popping up all over the place and I wanted to create a mani that put that on display. So for the base I did two coats of ILNP Shoreline and then I used lightening vinyls to put two of my favorite browns this season on display.



For this look I used Elevation Polish Saif al Jabbar (which is really more of a vampy brown-red holo) on the tips and Pahlish Hundred Eyes on the bottom. Both of these polishes were from the joint Adventures of Marco Polo collection Elevation Polish and Pahlish put out together. The whole collection is just lovely.



I really like how these all paired together. I wouldn't have exactly thought of lightening bolts with this look, but I think it pulled all the colors together perfectly! Thanks Andrea for the fun idea!



The whole look was stunning in the sunshine.

How was your weekend? Mine was pretty great, was at a friend's house just watching Netflix and movies and shows all weekend. She is recovering from wrist surgery so I was just there for company, and for an excuse to escape the chaos that is my condo bathroom project.

I don't even know what is happening with that (it's Sunday night and I'm about to re-enter that hell), but everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong. :(

Hope you all had great weekends, I'll update about my bathroom once it's no longer chaos! Wish me luck!

Happy Thanksgiving!

From my nails to yours....

I'm using this collage of my nail art to bid adieu to fall and autumn nail art! 

I'm thankful for this blog and all the ladies I've met through the nail blogging world! I just love geeking out on nails with you all. 

Don't forget to sign up for my Reader Appreciation Giveaway and have an awesome Turkey Day! 

I'm spending the morning with friends at the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot in San Jose and then having relaxing afternoon/evening off with just my parents (Mike is headed to his parents' for the weekend).

I braved Trader Joe's last night to give my parents a semi nice meal tomorrow night, well nice enough for the three of us!

Here is what I got (even though I won't eat any of this except for the cranberry sauce).

I hope you all have fun weekends with family and food aplenty, and of course nail polish!!!

Painted Polish #PSL with Nail Stripes

Today I'm showing off the lovely glitter bomb #PSL, which is short for Pumpkin Spice Latte, which every one has a love affair with this time of year (or a few weeks ago before Starbucks brought out the red cups and peppermint lattes).

Anyway, I was seeing swatches of this left and right on Instagram and I just knew I had to have it!



This glitter bomb is packed with gold, burnt orange, copper and holo glitter pieces. It is a gorgeous mix of sparkly autumn. I loved it. I used four coats to obtain this opacity, and then used a double coat to top coat to make it smooth and sparkly!!!

So shortly after getting this polish in the mail, I saw a beautiful manicure Serene at Copycat Claws did with some sparkly gold polish and I knew I had to recreate it with #PSL! I used nail vinyls to get this look!



I knew that Zoya Pepper would make the perfect paring with #PSL and I just totally loved this manicure! I was working my mom's show while wearing these nails. Apparently when you are cashiering, people really notice your nails. At least a lot more than my day job as a writer. But so many asked if they were stickers. Grrrr. I don't know why that irks me but it does!



It's also gorgeous in the sun as you can see above!



I also wanted to say thank so much guys for sticking with me as my blog posts are a bit sporadic! I'm currently starting a Holiday Nail Challenge, and I can't wait to show you all I'm going to be working on. And so I'll leave you with a shot of my cat Patty, hogging my light box while I was trying to shoot these nails!

The Ultimate Fall Leaves Gradient Nail Art

You guys, I love fall. And I love the fact that I get to work in a town with the most beautiful trees. I mean take a look at my background on my iPhone, I truly love these trees.



These trees are the Chinese Pistache, and Los Altos is full of them. They are green most of the year, and then every year in November, the leaves turn from green to yellow to the most magnificent neon orange-red. So in honor of these trees, I created a matching manicure.



I mean I love this manicure so much, not only am I currently wearing it, I was originally going to wait to show you all this until Wednesday (to stick to my normal posting schedule). But I literally could not wait to share with you the amazingness that is this manicure. I think this might be my most favorite nail art ever!!!



To start this manicure I did two coats of Sally Hansen OMGhost (which has a great formula, except for some minor bubbling, and is especially great for stamping). After that I sponged on a gradient of Zoya Shawn, Kiko Melon 356 and OPI Red Lights Ahead Where (which is I think my most favorite coral creme of all time, see my blog header).



And then, because I still am super critical of my gradient, I added a layer of China Glaze Fairy Dust, because Fairy Dust covers a multitude of mistakes. To finish it all off, I stamped my favorite fall stamp ever, Bundle Monster BM H-11. I still feel like my gradient skills need some work, but practice makes perfect and I just truly love this manicure to death!



I never want to take this off, I am so in love with it! What do you guys think? I know a lot of us are all working on holiday nails in preparation for the fun holiday season, but I just can't get over fall. I haven't quite accepted winter is coming, because really in California, does winter ever really arrive?