HPB Presents: My First Indie Brand

This month's prompt for the Hobby Polish Bloggers group on Facebook is a very fun one - the theme is "my first indie brand."  This theme actually happened at an ironic time - I'll be coming on 2 years of having this blog, and my first indie polish is what prompted me to start blogging in the first place :D

My first ever indie brand was Colors by Llarowe.  I won a giveaway the creator was having of one of her discontinued polishes, and once it came in, I was hooked!  I'd never seen polishes like that before in stores, and when I went online to look at more colors by that brand, I was in awe of the holo!  It was all addiction from there ;)

The polish I won was "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes."  It is a lovely pale brown jelly with a pigment reminiscent of that "unicorn pee" stuff everyone talks about.  I decided to pair it with another Colors by Llarowe "K-9" and created this mani:

CbL still remains one of my favorite indies, especially for the way the super holographic polishes tend to watermarble!!  

Do you remember your first ever indie polish?  Tell me about it in the comments!  And be sure to check out the other fantastic posts below :D

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An InLinkz Link-up

Happy Blogiversary!

Today marks  my 1 year Blogiversary!!  That crept up on my so fast - April completely flew by!  I decided that, to celebrate, I would re-do a mani featuring the first indie polish I ever got that started this whole indie nail polish journey of mine - "Smoke Gets In Her Eyes" by Colors by Llarowe!

"Smoke Gets In Her Eyes" is a light brown jelly with a dark pink/green shifting shimmer throughout.  Opaque in 2-3 coats, depending on how thick you layer - I did 3 thin coats and topped with HKGirl Glisten & Glow.

I won this beauty in a giveaway CbL had last year, and it is the first indie I ever owned!  I remember receiving it and thinking, "HOLY CRAP!  This is amazing!!"  It was unlike any polish I'd ever owned before, or seen in stores, and I knew I'd want more :)  Hundreds of bottles later, here I am :P

So funny looking back on the last year and all the things I accomplished - improving my clean-up and swatching process, improving my pictures, realizing I can do nail art and feeding that talent, establishing relationships with some pretty darn fantastic indies!  I've done a lot in a year with my little blog!  What started out as something I thought nobody would read, something that was just a fun thing for me to do outside of being a mom and a wife, has grown into a passion and a gateway to meeting some wonderful people in this industry, makers AND bloggers alike!  It's been so much fun, and I look forward to the next Blogiversary!

To celebrate my 1 year, I'll be doing a giveaway, most likely starting Monday, so keep your eyes peeled!

Challenge Your Nail Art: Presents

Running super duper late today in this post, so I'l get straight to it!

Today's theme was pretty fun to do!  I liked adding a few little details to them to give them character.  Here's my design:

I hope you like it as much as I do!  Check out the other gorgeous designs below!!  See you soon <3

An InLinkz Link-up

Challenge Your Nail Art: Fall Colors

Hard to believe Thanksgiving is tomorrow already!!  I'll be spending the morning making grilled bacon guacamole and sweet potato bacon and chive biscuits.  Yummo!!

Today is the third theme for Challenge Your Nail Art - Fall Colors!

I have to admit, this one had me stumped a little.  You'd think such a vague subject would be easy, but I operate better on specific themes rather than leaving it to my imagination - go figure :P  So I decided to go with something a bit simple, and a little new technique for me :)  Here's my design:

I found every polish I had of my favorite fall colors (the reds, oranges, golds, and browns of the changing leaves).  I lined them up so they would look like they were turning from red to brown/black and sponged them on that way in a long gradient design.  From left to right, I used "Friday the 13th," "Donna," and "Akiko" polishes from Above the Curve, "Gobble Me Up" from Ice Polish, "Latte," "Mocha," and "Dark Roast," from Model City Polish, and "Blackest Night" from Colors by Llarowe.  The beautiful glitter gradient is "Pilgrimatic" from Different Dimension.  

I'm surprised at how lovely this turned out!  I'll be a little sad to take this off, but happy to know that this type of design worked for me ^_^  Sooooo many options out there now!  The world is mine!  Bwahahahaha!!

Make sure you check out the other lovely designs by some more amazing blogger gals!!  See you tomorrow morning for the last design <3

NOTE: Links I've provided are NOT affiliate (i.e. I get no kickback when you click on them through my post).  I simply provide them for your convenience :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Polish Post: Colors by Llarowe "Black Gold, Texas Tea" Swatches, Review, and Nail Art

Good Monday Morning, lovely people!  I've got a polish post for you along with the design from last Friday's You-Pick-My-Art.  While I'm waiting for my caffeine to kick in, let's dive right into it :)

The polish I used for the base of my nail art is "Black Gold, Texas Tea" by the brand Colors by Llarowe.  Here are some pics:

Outdoors

Indoors

Black Gold, Texas Tea is a gorgeous ultra linear holographic black polish.  Opaque after two coats, it dried almost instantly and application was super smooth.  I added a topcoat to make it shine and bring out the holographic effect even more.  My nails are POPPING!  I just love this color!  Clean-up was pretty neat, too - no staining around the cuticles, though Llarowe recommends a good base coat to prevent the nails from being stained due to the  high pigmentation of the polish.

I chose this polish as the base because it made the perfect "space" backdrop for my Captain Amelia nails from Treasure Planet.  For those unfamiliar with the movie, Treasure Planet is a take on the classic Treasure Island, and takes place in the 17-1800's but with a steampunk twist.  Aliens everywhere, ships fly, it's just amazing.  Definitely one of my favorite Disney movies, and my son absolutely loves it too ^_^

In the movie, the captain of the ship taken to find Treasure Planet is Captain Amelia, the winning choice from the You-Pick-My-Art last Friday.  Here is the design I came up with for her:

Her ship is on my pointer finger, Treasure Planet is on the middle, Captain Amelia is on the ring, and Morph is on my thumb (he's just such an adorable character, I couldn't leave him out!).  I had a lot of fun with these, and am pretty happy with how they turned out :D  I hope you are, too!

Got some nice polish posts set up for this week I think you will all enjoy :)  I hope you survive your Monday!!  See you soon <3

*NOTE: Links I provide are NOT affiliate (i.e. I do not get any sort of kickback when you click on them through my post). I simply provide them for your convenience :)

Nail Art: Animal Drum!!!

Halfway to the weekend!!  W00T!

I have a super short post for you today .  It is payday and I've got tons of errands to run with the munchkins.  So, I'll just be showing nail art this time :)

This week's prompt in a freehand nail art group I belong to is the theme "Animals."  Here's what I came up with:

Look!!  It's a bunch of Animals!!!  :D  Handpainted using acrylic paints over "Purple is My Crack" by the brand Colors by Llarowe.  He is my favorite Muppet ^_^

Hopefully the gals in my nail art group will have the same sense of humor as me :P  Have a great Wednesday everyone! <3

Polish Post: Colors by Llarowe "Julia Roberts 1967" Swatches, Review, and Nail Art

We had a really terrible storm last night here in Phoenix - so much so that several areas have been blocked off and closed due to flooding and people getting stuck.  There was even a fatal accident a few miles down the road from my house :(  I know, I know - "But Shawna, you live in the desert.  It doesn't rain or flood there."

False, my good friends.  Phoenix is a "Living Desert" and we do indeed get rain - LOTS of rain.  Imagine the clouds are people, and they really have to pee.  But the clouds are holding it, because they don't wanna pee yet.  Once they get to Phoenix, they just can't hold it anymore, and they let it all out.  That's what it's like when it rains out here, and it all runs down the mountains and floods the streets.  It is unbelievable.

We are still getting rain this morning, and it is very grey and overcast.  No swatching for me today :(  So I'll dig into my inventory and share with you a short post about a newly-released polish from Colors by Llarowe called "Julia Roberts 1967."

Sunlight

Indoors

Julia Roberts 1967 is not as brilliant as most of the polishes from Colors by Llarowe, but I really liked that in this case.  This polish is part of their "Emily's Imagination" collection, and it is a very beautiful sea green with silver glitter flecks and an ever-so-subtle scattered holo.  Application was smooth, and took 2 coats for opacity.  Dried to a semi-matte finish, shown in the pics above (I used no topcoat).  I had this polish on for about 2 days with no wear or chipping, and I imagine it would continue to wear longer, as all their polishes have for me in the past.  This polish is very lovely, and I really like that it's a humbly spectacular color :)

This polish is still available on the Llarowe Website.  Here are some links for you:

Facebook: Here

Website: Here

I participated in a "weekly theme" for one of the nail art groups I belong to on Facebook.  The theme was "foxes," and I decided to take a more humorous route with the design.  Here's what I came up with:

The Fox and the Hound is one of my favorite kid movies, and shortly after the song "What Does The Fox Say?" by Ylvis came out, I saw a humorous meme with Tod posing that question to Copper, who responded, "Gettin' real sick of your sh*t, Tod."  Made me laugh, so I used Tod as the fox in this case :)

Hope you enjoyed the post, and have a great hump day!  The weekend is just around the corner!!!

*Note: Links I provide are not affiliate (i.e. I do not get a kickback if you click on the link through my post). I simply provide them for your convenience :)

Polish Post: Colors by Llarowe "Show Me Da' Money!" Swatches

Hump day!!!  W00T!  Halfway to the weekend!

How about some swatches of a new polish from Colors by Llarowe?  They recently released two collections called "Show Me" and "Emily's Imagination."  The polish I'm showing you today is called Show Me Da' Money! from the "Show Me" collection.  Take a look:

Outdoors

Indoors

Show Me Da' Money! has so many different shades to it at different angles that it was impossible for me to capture them all!  This polish is metallic, opaque after 1 coat, though I suggest putting on 2 because it can be streaky, and 2 coats seems to even it out nicely.  Along with the glorious metallic shine is a subtle holo shimmer that really makes the polish sparkle in the sunlight.  I love that the holo doesn't really stand out when you are indoors, because the metallic tones are so beautiful that I feel the holo would almost take away from that and would become too busy, if that makes sense.  Overall it's a fantastic color!

There are 4 polishes in this collection, and I'm probably going to buy the other 3 based on how well this one worked out :)  Metallics can be tricky, and also have the tendency (in my experience) to chip easily, so I only ordered this one to make sure the formula was solid.

That's it for today!  Keeping it short and sweet because it is laundry day here in the Harrold Household, and the pile is so high it has its own climate.  See you tomorrow! <3

*NOTE: links I provide are not affiliate (a.k.a. there is no kickback for me).  I simply add them to my posts to make it easier for you to go directly to the site/polish to browse and/or purchase items I review independently :)

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