Polish Post: Colors by Llarowe "Alternate Universe" + Nail Art

Well good morning/afternoon/evening to you!  Please forgive my absence - my computer decided it wanted to die randomly while I was in the middle of tasks, so I am now on my husband's computer until we can get me a new one.  Oy vey!!

Let's get back in the game with a polish post!  Earlier this week I posted a preview pic on my Facebook Page of a swatch of "Alternate Universe," part of the summer 2014 collection by Colors by Llarowe.  I've got some more pictures for you here, as well as a review, and something artsy :D  Check out the swatches below:

Outdoors in Direct Sunlight

Indoors Out Of Direct Sunlight

"Alternate Universe" is a gorgeous turquoise crelly with a green/gold shimmer in the sunlight.  It is a stunning color!  Because it is a crelly, it a bit thinner in shade and would take about 3-4 coats to be fully opaque, or you could put on a solid color as a base and paint Alternate Universe over that color.  I used 3 coats in the pictures above.  The application was super smooth, and surprisingly not thick at all considering it is a crelly base.  Dried very quickly and lasted a good 3 days before the tips of my nails started to wear.  Overall, it's a great polish!!  

The color reminded me of an ocean hue, so I was inspired to paint a sea turtle over it.  What I had in my head did not end up on my nails, though apparently it is a huge hit with the nail community!  It is my most popular and most liked photo yet, and has even earned itself a spotlight on an awesome Facebook page called You Nail'd It - another reason I also have to be thankful that I recently gained 50 followers (hello and welcome to you all!!!)  So without further ado, here is a better quality photo of the turtle!

I have affectionately called him my Turtalien because his face reminds me of an alien, not a sea turtle (couldn't quite get that nose definition right for the life of me!)  I spent the length of the movie Without A Paddle (about an hour and a half) painting this little guy.  This is the second time I have painted over my nails with acrylic paint, and each time I do it, I am happier with the results and am inspired with so many more designs!

So, in light of my acrylic revelations of late, I have decided to do more nail art!!  I will still do polish posts reviewing and swatching colors from various indie polish companies, but I will insert some fun nail art designs here and there, too :)  Keep watch on my Facebook page!  I will be holding a You-Pick-The-Art every Friday, where I will put up 3 different inspiration photos, and whichever gets the most "likes" is what I will use to come up with a nail design :D  First one is next week!

That is all for now!  I will have another post for you tomorrow, and a possible giveaway announcement since I am 2 likes away from 100 on my Facebook page!  Have a great Thursday <3

Toesies I Knowsies - Colors by Llarowe Summer Polishes

It's the second official Toesie Tuesday!  Today, I have a pedicure I did last week using 5 of the colors from the summer 2014 Colors by Llarowe collection.  Please excuse the crappy cell phone pic - I forgot to take a better one with my nice camera before getting my birthday pedicure with my mom :P

From left to right, we have "Independence Day," "Surf My Wave," "Soccer Mom," "Chillin' In Paradise," and "Refresh...ing!"  I had the idea to do a type of gradient on my toes when I was looking at all the colors I ordered, most of which turned out to be blues and greens :)  I love how smoothly these colors went on, and how long they lasted!!  This picture was taken a little over a week after I applied the polish.  GREAT wear time on the toes.  And the ultra holos of Surf My Wave and Chillin' In Paradise were stunning, as well as the glittery goodness of the other three.  Love these colors, and actually got a few complements from people who were unabashed to complement feet :P

Keeping this post short and sweet today - I have lots of chores to catch up on after taking the weekend to relax for my birthday.  I will tell you, though, that tomorrow's post is going to be epic.  I really mean it - freakin' EPIC.  You had best keep an eye out for it, especially if you are a Harry Potter fan ;)

Polish Post: Colors by Llarowe "Gemini Rising" Pics and Review

I was up waaaaaaaaaaaay too early.  It's looking like a 4-cups-of-coffee kind of morning.  Anyone who knows me personally knows I am not a morning person.  Pre-kids, I used to be the person that stayed up till about midnight and sleep till nine or 10.  That changed radically after my first child, and I'm still trying to adjust :P

That being said, let's jump straight to the polish!  I'm not a chatty Kathy just yet ;)

I believe today Colors by Llarowe is doing a very small re-stock on their website (www.llarowe.com) of whatever polishes are listed - that means the summer colors!  Now as I said, it is limited, but if you miss any of them, they will be doing another re-stock soon.  One of the colors in this re-stock will be Gemini Rising, an amazingly gorgeous kelly green holo.  Check it out:

Outdoors in direct sunlight

Outdoors not in direct sunshine

Lightbox

Indoors 

Ho. Lee. Crap.  Amiright?  I mean, WOWZA, this color is a stunner!!  Green has always been one of my top go-to colors - polish, clothing, jewelry, shoes, etc.  I just love it, and it complements my red hair nicely.  When I saw this color in CbL's summer lineup, I had to have it.  Had to.  And now I do!!  And I'll tell you what - I'm gonna actually buy another bottle to have when this green runs out, because I will be using this color a LOT.

The application was GREAT!  Every holographic polish I have used from CbL thus far has gone on very smoothly and is opaque in one coat, though I did two (I usually always do a minimum of two).  Going on day 3 and still no chipping or worn-out fingernail tips.  There's really nothing I could say negative about this polish.  It is amazing, and you need it in your life!!!  

By the way, the gold dotting on my pointer finger is the Gemini constellation :)  I used one of the freebies I got from CbL in the color "Silver and Gold" (I do not see it on their site, so it is probably discontinued).  Hard to see it over the power of the holo in the polish, though, but I really don't mind ;)

Here's a direct link to their polishes:

http://www.llarowe.com/shop-all/colors-by-llarowe.html

As far as what time they will be re-stocking, it will be at 11am PST, and again at 6pm PST.  

Have a great Hump Day - the week is almost done!! I'm going to go get coffee cup number 2 :)