Starlight Radiance's Grand Opening Giveaway!

Hello everyone! I thought I would leave a post here directing you all to my giveaway at Starlight Radiance that is celebrating the opening of my jewelry shop on Facebook. Head over to Starlight Radiance to enter!

Thanks for looking!

UPDATE: BLOG MOVING

Big news, everyone! I have decided that I will be moving my blog over to Starlight Radiance on Blogspot.

BLOG MOVE 

STARLIGHT RADIANCE 

I've felt for a while that The Clumsy Kiwi just didn't quite fit the feel I was going for with my blog, and I have a few things in the works that were also a push in the direction for a different name. (Those are soon to come!) I'll have some new manicures from the 31 Day Challenge up soon over at Starlight Radiance. I've loved having you all as my readers and I hope you all will join me over at Starlight Radiance to see what's new and coming!

Day 1: Red

Hello all! Everything has been very busy recently, and I'm actually currently wearing my "Day 2" polish right now, because I hadn't gotten around to posting my red yet. So here it is! Del Sol - Heartbreaker. A very nice glittery red polish that turns a bit purple in the sun, though not as purple as that bottle would suggest.

This is three coats of Heartbreaker, a red jelly base with red glitter, that turns into a purple jelly with red glitter in the sun.

Please excuse the tipwear. I believe this was after about three days of wearing the polish, and after helping my mom pack and move a bunch of boxes into a storage unit. She's moving to Texas for a while to be with my grandmother.

Here's a good comparison of the color change in the sun. Very pretty!

And here is another sun comparison, although the ring/pinky fingers had been in the sun for a couple seconds, so they were a little darker than the normal red.

I really love my Del Sol polishes. They are so much fun to watch change color! Also a good indicator as to whether or not your windows in your car are UV-protectant. Hehe. (Mine change color a tiny bit in my car - for shame!) I hope you enjoyed this color as much as I did! As always, happy painting!

Butter London Promotion: FREE Royal Navy

Hi everyone! Before I post my Day 1 manicure for the 31 Day Challenge, I'd like to share a promotion with you guys that I saw over at Nouveau Cheap for Butter London that ends this Wednesday, August 31st. They are giving away a free bottle of Royal Navy polish with any purchase! I would definitely love to grab one up for myself and get Royal Blue to try out Butter London, but I'm a bit strapped for cash right now. Alas... I hope that some of you can use this promotion if planning on getting something from Butter London! The code is ROYALAUTUMN.

If you want to, go have fun getting your free Royal Navy from Butter London!!! Happy polishing!

31 Day Challenge

Gooood morning! This is probably the first time in a looong while that I actually got up on my own without an alarm this early (at about 7:30). Whew. I usually sleep in till about 10 or 11 each morning, and this is a nice little change. I hope it will keep up!

What I have today is something I've been seeing spread around the nailosphere that looks like fun. A 31 Day Nail Challenge! Except I'll be doing it at my own pace like I've seen that Wacky Laki and Polish this! are doing. I'm not much for changing my nails every day, but hopefully this will really help me work toward getting through just a few of the polishes in my stash. On to the challenge!

RULES:

• Reblog this post if you’re gonna accept this challenge
• One post per day
• If you miss one, pick it up the next day
• Post a picture of each mani
• It would be nice if you listed/linked to what polishes you used
• For the inspiration prompts, SHOW US YOUR INSPIRATION/SHARE LINKS
• BE CREATIVE
• TRY NEW THINGS
• HAVE FUN!!!

NOTE: Don’t want a new look every day? Go at your own pace! The big goal is to get through all 31 manicures… and notice how your skills grow!

If anyone would like to join, just let me know so I can check out your challenge nails too!

My First Blog Birthday! And My First Crackle Polish!

What about that? My blog's First Birthday was this past Saturday! I was having a blast at Carowinds that day so didn't get to post until now. I've been working on my med school application and have started a nice little serving job at a restaurant while still looking for another job applicable to my degree, so I've been pretty busy. I haven't painted my nails in what feels like FOREVER, but I still love to! For the past few days I had on a nice green foil from Petites called Utopia, and it was wonderful. At first when I got it, I thought it was a green glitter, but I don't think I have many foils so yay for me!!!

And recently I purchased my first crackle (OMG!) - Vintage Violet by Sally Hansen. I checked the brush while I was in the store and it seemed fine, but when I brought it home, it looked uber wonky, which I think contributed to making super thick coats when I put it on. With this being my first crackle, I guess I need to get a little more experience with it in getting an even, not so thick coat. I may end up returning it, but all the stores I've been to have been out of all the other colors except blue. I may just have to deal with the brush.

I'm pretty much loving this crackle, I just need to make it crackle a bit more, although I do like the gigantic cracks down the middle of my pinky and ring fingers. Yay for crackles from my perspective, even if some of you may be tired of them by now, I just got my hands on one! :D

I hope you enjoyed my first adventures into crackle polish! Happy Painting!

From the Vault: Wet n' Wild Teal of Fortune

Hello-ello! Here's a quick little manicure from the vault using Wet n' Wild Teal of Fortune that's been called a dupe of Zoya Charla/OPI Catch Me in Your Net. I meant to post this a while ago, but it somehow slipped my mind! Here it is at two coats with base and top coat of Borghese Brilliante. The first and third pics are most color accurate.

Indoors. Ooooh sparkly! Plus bling!

Indoors.

Indoors. This is with three day tipwear. Still pretty good!

That's about it for me for now, ladies! Till next time... Happy painting!

Introducing Reddit Laqueristas and Swaps

I have heard a bit about MUA makeup forums and everything, and recently I've gotten into Reddit and found the group RedditLaqueristas (a little misspelling on the group name) that seems like another great way to share manicures, nail art, and tips. It's a great little community right now that has some great manicures and nail art ideas.

Logo by ColourinCrrp!

RedditLaqueristas have Friday posts for everyone to get together and show off their nails of the week (NOTW), although I know some of you may do your nails often enough to have a manicure for every day of the week to post! They also occasionally have theme weeks, and have everyone show off their own version of the week's theme.

There is also a swap group for those interested in polish swaps.

I just thought this would be a fun thing to share. I hope you can join us over at RedditLaqueristas! Happy painting!

Stylish Blogger Award!

Good news, everyone! (Prof Farnsworth voice, I love Futurama!) I got a Stylish Blogger Award from Wacky Laki!

The Rules
Thank and link back to the person who sent you the award.
Share seven things about yourself.
Spread the love. Award recently discovered bloggers.
Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award.

Yay for awards! Thanks you so much, Wacky Laki! On to the seven things about me!

1. My favorite color is purple, if you couldn't tell already by the plethora of purple manis I do. I also (tried) to dye my hair purple once, but it pretty much just tinted it purple. Still fun though!
2. I would absolutely love to get into polymer clay crafting. It's like Play-Doh for adults! I've made a few good devils and Loch Ness monsters in my day.
3. I have a Bachelor's degree in biology, and I went to Cornell University for the summer of 2010 to do a physics research project. I am currently working on my application to medical school (that's why my posts have been lacking recently: MCAT and AMCAS).
4. I love cooking, but I'd say I love making desserts the most. Truffles are my specialty. Oreo cookie balls and red velvet cake balls. Nom!
5. I took a theater makeup and mask design class my last semester at college. I have quite a few pictures of my makeup work on my Deviant Art profile. Here's my work based on Hokusai's The Great Wave:

And one of my other favorites: disaster makeup mimicking acid burns from a chem lab explosion. Fun!

6. I've recently become addicted to Doctor Who. After my boyfriend introduced me to it, I probably devoured the first five series in a month or so. I can't wait for the second half of this series!
7. And, because I can't really think of anything else at the moment... I love Red Lobster's garlic-cheese biscuits! I'm making some right now! Om nom nom!

And now for passing the award on to some wonderful bloggers! I have only found these blogs recently, and I would like to share them with you all as well!

Kewt-ified!
Nails and Noms
Tough as Nails and Twice as Pretty
Gettin' Girlie
Lambchop Mobile
Midnight Manicures
My Own Kind of Girly

Blue Starburst Mani

I saw a post at Deez Nails a little while back, and have been wanting to do a similar mani. Here is one of Deez's examples in purple. So pretty! The colors I used in this mani are a Kiss - Pearl Blue striper polish over one coat of Essie - One Day Without Blues. 

Starburst!

The Pearl Blue is a bit darker than the pictures show. I've been loving this manicure ever since I put it on, although I did have a bit of a problem during application, as little Icarus pounced me and I dropped the striper cap, which landed on my bf's futon and made a bit of a mess. Now there's a nice blue spot on it. Ah, oh well. We're planning on getting new furniture anyways. I also did this on my toes, but the starburst only on the big toe nails.

As always, thanks for looking, and I hoped you enjoyed! Happy painting!

I've Been Busy!!!

With a few different things! I graduated from college at the end of April and have been preparing for the MCAT since. I've done a couple of manis, but haven't had a whole lot of time, especially when a little surprise fell in my lap! You'll see more about that in a minute... First, my nails! Here is two coats of Sinful Colors - Fig with a coat of Wet n' Wild - Kaliedoscope over top. I am such a glitter maniac! I should probably start waiting a day or so before I coat my manis with glitter just because I think they look boring at first. I've already started a no-buy, maybe I need a no-glitter for a while too!

Fig is a nice plum purple with a bit of shimmer in it, and Kaliedoscope is a scattered holo glitter.

Look at all that color and shine!

So sparkly!

But now, on to the little guy that's taken my heart and attention for the last week and a half! This is little Icarus, a former stray that my mom found after he fell through the roof to her basement! Poor little guy, huh? We thought that Icarus was a cute and suitable name for him, as he "fell from the sky" and loves to sit up on people's shoulders as high as he can get, and I mean anyone.

I can't tell if he likes my mani or not!

Waiting to go in the MINI!

He's so precious! He's had a bit of gunk in his eyes and has developed a little sickness since my mom got him when he was about five weeks old, so we have him some eyedrops and antibiotics from the vet, not his favorite thing, especially considering the vet had to use a thermometer on him! Yikes! But he's doing a lot better since we got him, and he's plumped up quite a bit and finally eating dry food. He's about six weeks old now, so we just have to pick out a birthday for him so we can spoil him on his first!

This video is one of him before he started on dry food, and would go straight to the fridge when he was hungry and start meowing for a syringe of the formula we'd gotten for him! So cute! And no, he was not starving when the video was taken, he just myows like that all the time. :D

As you can see, I left on my toenail polish forever, don't judge!

I hope you enjoyed the mani and seeing little Icarus! Happy painting!

NOTD: Wet n Wild Eggplant Frost with Nubar 2010

Hey guys! I'm taking a quick break from my schoolwork to show you my current mani. It's two coats of Wet n Wild - Eggplant Frost with a layer of Nubar - 2010 over top. The first coat of Eggplant Frost went on super streaky, but the second wasn't bad on streak-factor. However, a couple of my fingers ended up with mad bubbles, so that's why I topped it with 2010. I am pretty happy with how this turned out though. The flakies seem mostly pinkish, and I love pink-purple combos! But I think with and even without the Nubar coat on top, the blue shimmer in Eggplant Frost hardly showed up. Tooooooo bad. I can deal with it though. Here are my pictures!

Look at all that blue shimmer in the bottle! Too bad it didn't show up on the nail!

Flaaaaaaaakies!!!

Shade.

Sunlight!

Also, sorry for the dry cuticles and short nails. I've been having the hardest time with getting my nails to grow back out ever since I got back from the cruise. They just keep on chipping... Does anyone have a trusted fixit for peeling or chipping nails? Any help would be awesome!

As always, happy painting!

Recent Hiatus

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while. A lot has been going on over here. I went to New Orleans with William in March, and the day we got there we learned that Will's roommate, Chris, had gotten in a motorcycle accident. Chris is out of the hospital and back at home now, and still working on getting better, doing his therapy every day to help with his healing. So things have been stressful over here for a while, but getting better.

Along with Chris's goings-on, I've been having a busy semester with all my exams and assignments building up towards the end of the semester. Two big biology exams and makeup every week. Thankfully, I only have three and a half weeks left with graduation on the 30th! Woohoo! 

So, upcoming in the [somewhat] near future, I'll likely have some New Orleans photos for you and a wrap-up of my makeup class, along with, of course, more polish!

Until next time, happy painting!

Happy Saint Patty's Day!!!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, everyone! I hope you are wearing your green today! This post will be a little quick because I've got some brownies cooling that are awaiting a nice coating of green icing! My manicure for today is two coats of Sinful Colors Irish Green with a coat of Sinful Colors Green Ocean over top.

Green Ocean has become a really popular polish in the nail blogosphere. The flakies of Green Ocean are so pretty, giving a nice sort of blue topping to the green of Irish Green. I used two coats of Irish Green, but since it is a jelly, it would have needed a few more coats to be opaque, but you can't really tell with the flakies added on. :D

I hope you enjoyed this mani and enjoy your St. Patty's Day!!! Happy painting!

Bahamas Cruise Mani! Del Sol Electrick! and Milani Blue Flash

I got back from my first ever cruise this weekend and I had a blast! It was my spring break, so Will thought it would be a good idea to take me for my first cruise on the Monarch of the Seas. It was so much fun!

In the spirit of it being all bright and sunny in the Bahamas, I used color-changing Del Sol Electrick! with Milani Blue Flash for the freehanded tips. Electrick! is a nice light blue frost that turns to a light green frost in the sunlight, but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of it in the sun because I was so busy with all the cruise activities! Blue Flash is one of Milani's one coat glitters, and I'm telling you, it was packed with blue and some silver glitter!

The mani shots make Elecktrick! look more silver than it is... The bottle pics are more color accurate. 

I hope you enjoyed this mani as much as I did! I got so many compliments with it from friends. Till next time... Happy painting!

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

Sorry I couldn't get this post up yesterday; I was a bit busy having a wonderful time with my boyfriend! I did a fresh manicure yesterday for when we went out using Zoya Cheri, one of the many polishes I got from the 3 free Zoya promotion. I say many because I got some for myself, my boyfriend William got me three because I asked him to and my brother Logan got some for me because he owed me seven bucks anyways. Haha.

I am soooooo happy with this one though. It's the perfect pink for me and a wonderful pink for Valentine's Day! It's a nice cream based bright/medium pink with a wonderful gold shimmer. So pretty!

This is two coats of Zoya Cheri with Borghese Brilliante Base and Top Coat.

Direct sunlight.

Look at that golden shimmery goodness!

Indirect sunlight. Still super shimmery!

I didn't wrap my tips this time because I was in a hurry and ended up using my nails a bit so that it pushed the polish back just a little bit... But still beautiful!

I hope you liked this one, it's definitely become one of my favorites! Happy painting!

My Natural Nails

Hey everybody! I hope everyone's been having a nice February; I know I can't wait for Valentine's Day! Especially after a harrowing two weeks of BIOLOGY EXAMS! Ack! So nice to relax after exams. :D

So, as I promised in the title, here are my natural nails, while holding the Borghese Brilliante base and topcoat that I've been using recently.

That's about the length I try to keep them most of the time. I usually end up having to cut them all off when I get a break, and I can't stand them past a certain point when they get too long. They get all in the way! Bravo to all those girls that can sport long nails!

But that's it for now! Happy painting!

Borghese Festivo Fuchsia

Hi hi! Tim Messenger! ...That's a Hot Fuzz quote, if you didn't know. If you haven't seen that movie, I highly recommend it. :D Anywho, today was my "first" day back to my last semester of college because of all the super snowy/icy business. We had cancelled classes Monday and Tuesday and really shouldn't have been in today till at least twelve to help prevent all the slips and falls that happened at Lander today... At least we've learned our lesson for tomorrow!

The nails I have today are Borghese Festivo Fuchsia, which is a very sparkly red raspberry shimmer that I'm quite fond of.

Borghese Festivo Fuchsia - two coats, sun

It's a lot more sparkly in real life. So pretty! That's my Liz Claiborne faux snake skin handbag in the background, too. :D Yay for animal prints!

That's all for me today, buds! Happy painting!

Del Sol Clearance and Coupon Code

Hello again! I wanted to do an update on Del Sol, the brand of polish that changes color in the sunlight. I recently got Calypso and Electrick from my boyfriend for Christmas, and they sure are pretty! I'll update on those later, but what I wanted to share with you now was a coupon code for the Del Sol website. The code is GIVEME5, and it will give you $5 off on their site.

Del Sol also has their holiday 3-pack of polishes including Ruby Slipper, Island Fever, and Heartbreaker on sale for just $5 as well as their Halloween polish Trick-or-Treat, so you can get either for just shipping.

Here's the holiday 3-pack, which I had to pick up :D

I hope this is useful for you! Happy painting!

Happy New Year! (and Zoya 3 Free Code!)

I know I'm a little late, but Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's Eve to ring in the new year. :D I've really just been trying to enjoy myself this break after such a stressful semester. Seriously, out of the seven semesters in college I've had, that one was absolutely the toughest, but I came out of it well and this upcoming semester I get a bit of a break with some online classes and only two biology labs. Woo hoo!!! Also, another class I'm super excited about is Makeup and Mask Design! A theater elective for this biology major! This will be the only "just for fun" class I've ever taken, and I'm so glad I got to stay in it (there was a bit of a to-do about it because there weren't enough spots for all of the theater majors, but it's all straightened out now!). SO... I am EXTREMELY excited for this new semester... my last semester in college before I graduate!!!


AAAAAND... Nail polish. I got tons of polish over the break... and am probably about to head out right now and grab some more at CVS from their bi-annual cosmetics sale. Yay. :)


Also, don't forget to get your three free polishes from Zoya! Their code lasts until this Friday! (FB2011) I am sooooo excited for these and still need to narrow my list down!





I'm thinking... Evangeline, Cheri, and Crystal... Although I also have my eye on Carrie Ann, Roxy, and Mimi. I hope you get some wonderful polish! Make sure you jump on this offer by Friday! 


Happy Painting!