Update

I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving! I'm finally starting to feel better and ready to get back to blogging, I have missed it and all of my readers! I have a few posts in mind for next week, including my November empties and favorites. I will also be working on my Christmas nail designs some in the next week, I only have nubs to work with so I've had to scrap some of the ideas I had. Guess I'll be keeping my nubs for a while too, I've went back to playing my guitar and can't do that with long nails, so hope you guys don't mind my little nubbins :)

I'll leave you with a couple of photos:

These are some Christmas ornaments I made using nail polish. Love the way they turned out!

Our little Christmas tree. I would love to have a big one, but I have a hard enough time keeping one of my cats out of this one. One cat wants to chew on it and the other one doesn't want anything to do with it.

TIOT: China Glaze It's A Trap-eze

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Before I get to the TIOT, I wanted to let y'all know I will be MIA for the rest of the week. I'm a little under the weather dealing with a sinus infection. Hopefully by next week I will feel better and can get started on Christmas nail designs.

Now today's TIOT is another China Glaze polish! I went a little wild on Amazon LOL It's a Trap-eze is from the Cirque du Soleil World Away Collection. On one hand I like this polish, because it's a really different looking polish, but on the other hand I don't like it because it is a pain in rear to remove! Glitter Everywhere!

Swatches are 2 coats, but I should have used 3, which is a pattern I see forming for China Glaze polishes. It's A Trap-eze is a glitter bomb in a milky white base. The glitters range in size and color.

This polish was easy to work with, there was no need to spend a lot of time manipulating the glitters in to place. There are a few glitter bald places on a couple of my nails, but I think a third coat would have eliminated that issue. For removal I highly recommend the foil removing process, on my left hand I just soaked some pieces of a cotton ball and placed them on my nails and had to scrub to get all the glitter off. On my right hand I soaked pieces of a cotton ball, placed them on nails, then wrapped foil around my nails, made it 100 times easier to get all the glitter off my nails with out having to scrub them. I do like this polish, but it will not be one that I wear often, just because of the removal process.

Haul: Sinful Colors

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I love Sinful Colors nail polish and for me the best place to find them is at Rite Aid, and the closest Rite Aid to me is like 30 minutes away in the opposite direction I usually run my errands in, so I don't get there as often as I like. Lucky for me I had an errand the other day that took me that way, so of course I stopped in to see if I could find any of the Crystal Crushes textured polishes. I found that display plus another one called Glitz & Glittered, I got two polishes from each collection. From the Crystal Crushes I got Treasure Chest, a beautiful Turquoise color with some gold shimmer and Ruby Mine, which is a pretty cranberry pinkish color also with gold shimmer. From the Glitz & Glittered Collection I got Charmed, a super pretty silver glitter polish that has a small amount of pink and blue glitter mixed in. I also got Gilded which is a mix of gold and reddish/pinkish glitters in what appears to be a very very light grey almost translucent base.

L-R: Ruby Mine, Treasure Chest, Gilded, Charmed

L-R: Charmed, Gilded, Ruby Mine, Treasure Chest

I think the glitter polishes are going to be great for Christmas manicures and I just love the texture and color on the Crystal Crushes, can't wait to try them out!

Do you have any of the Crystal Crush polishes?

Mish Mash Challenge Week 17: Grey

Happy Wednesday! This weeks Mish Mash Challenge theme was Grey. I was feeling a bit uninspired this week so I headed over to Pinterest, I had remembered pinning a nail look from fellow Mish Masher Simona over at Light Your Nails that I have been dying to try out!

For this look I used Seduce Me Strawberry from Avon as my base, because I needed a little color and topped it off with Status Update from Color Club, for this weeks Grey color :)

Please excuse my 2 nubs, as they had an unfortunate accident.

TIOT: China Glaze Creative Fantasy & Sinful Colors I Love You

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For today's TIOT I have two polishes; China Glaze Creative Fantasy from the Cirque du Soleil Worlds Away Collection and I Love You from Sinful Colors.

Sunlight, no Flash

Sunlight, with flash

Creative Fantasy is a beautiful purple jelly and I Love You is a purple glitter in a translucent purple base. These just went together so perfectly, almost as if it was just one polish! The only thing I did not like about Creative Fantasy is that even with 3 coats, when I took my photos you could still see my nail line, this was only noticeable in photos. I still really like Creative Fantasy, make me want more Jellies in my collection!

I will admit I used Creative Fantasy in this Gradient Manicure, but I still felt like I should classify it as an untried, because that manicure was just a little sampling :)

What are some of your favorite Jelly polishes?

NOTD: Square Studs

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Here lately I have been getting more and more into nail art and have been loving the looks of nail studs. The ones I am using today come from KKCenterHK and are called N.NAIL Studs Square Laser Purple 3mm. I have tried round nail studs before and liked them, but I really like the looks of the square ones, I feel you can do more with them. The only problem I have with these is I tend to fidget with the studs until they fall off.

I really love the purple holographic look that these have!

I decided to use Fing'rs Heart 2 Art Stop Metalling in My Business for my base color and made a simple look using the studs.

I'm considering trying these with either a black cream polish or a purple cream polish.

Take 10% off your order with coupon code SBB2013

Review: KKCenterHK Rubber Stamping Plate

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I have seen these rubber stamping plates while browsing on the web and I had always wondered about them, so I decided to give one a try. I got the N.NAIL Heart Rainbow Kiss Star Flower Footprint Soft Stamping from KKCenterHK. The tops of the plates are made of plastic and then the bottom side of the plates are made of soft rubber. 

These plates work a little different from the metal ones, you still apply polish directly to the plate, but instead of using a scraper you just wipe the whole plate across a paper towel to get rid of the excess polish. I had to wipe the plate a couple of times to ensure that all the excess was gone, but I still ended up with what looks like smudge marks on my nails from a little bit that was left on the plate that I could not get off. After you have wiped the plate off you take the plate and use it as your stamper to stamp the design on your nail.

I feel like I need a little more practice with these types of plates before I can get my stamping to look good. Just like when I started stamping using the metal plates, I needed practice for that too :) I will say I like these rubber plates because I feel like there is less clean up, you don't have to bothering with scrapping it with the scrapper then cleaning that off each time, then having to clean the plate and the stamper. Much easier to have it all in one. I would also recommend that before using the plate you take a Q-tip with some polish remover on it and give it a good swipe to get any lint off that may be clinging to it.

Here is the look I got with my very first time using this plate. I'm sure you will be seeing me use this plate in more nail art posts.

Base color is Duri Grey Area and for my stamping I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Have you used stamping plates like this before?

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Review: Perlier Imperial Honey Body Butter

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Received from iFabbo

Perlier Imperial Honey Body Butter is a thick white cream, formulated with the rare honey of Black Bees and Royal Jelly. Claims it nourishes skin with moisture, leaves skin pleasantly scented with the sensual notes of honey and oriental woods, and is good for year round use.

I say it does 2 out of the 3 things the makers claim it will. For me this did moisturize my skin really well and I do feel that it would be great for year round use because it absorbs in to the skin fairly quickly and does not leave you feeling greasy. Left my skin feeling super smooth and moisturized. The one thing that it did not do for me was leave my skin pleasantly scented wit the sensual notes of honey and oriental woods. For me this body butter has a really strong scent to it that is sickly sweet, my husband and I both agree that it smells like something we have smelled before, but we can't put our finger on it.

This would be a great moisturizer if you can get past the scent. I will probably continue to use this, but only on my legs when I wear pants and I will wash my hands right after I apply it, so I won't have to smell it. I also think for the price of this product the packaging was a little on the flimsy side.

This is not a product that I would recommend, only because of the scent of it, but if you like scents that are really sweet smelling you might like it. You can purchase Perlier Imperial Honey Body Butter on HSN, $40 for 6.7 fl oz of product. Use the following coupon code to get $5 of your Perlier Purchase on HSN.com: iFabbo5

Have you tried this body butter? What were your thoughts on it? What is your all time favorite body butter?

Mish Mash Challenge Week 16: Faux Stone

Happy Wednesday and welcome to another installment of the Mish Mash Challenge! This week our theme was Faux Stone, so I headed over to Google to search out some stones. I decided to try and do Turquoise one because I seen a really cool tutorial on it and two because it is one of my favorite stones!

I started out with 2 coats of Wet n Wild's I need a Refresh-Mint, then I used a black cream to do a Water Spotting to get the veins of the turquoise and lastly I took Milani's Signature Gold on some plastic wrap and 'sponged' some gold on each of my nails.

My index and middle fingers are my favorite from this mani and my little finger is my least favorite because I got too much black on it. Overall though I really like this mani, it's different from any thing I've done before.

TIOT: China Glaze Foxy

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For today's Try it on Tuesday I have China Glaze Foxy from the Vintage Vixen Collection. I really love this color, I think it's perfect for fall! If you follow me on Facebook, you probably seen my post about my knocking a brand new nail polish off my desk to it's death, Foxy was the one. I had not even had the chance to try it out before I knocked it off, so back to Amazon I went to get another one LOL. If you don't follow me on Facebook, you should, I post things on there that may not get posted on the blog :)

Foxy is a beautiful reddish brown, with a little bit of a gold shimmer. I think it would make a great base color for some fall nail art, or to add a flaky polish over it. This is one of my new favorite fall polishes!

Swatch is 3 coats plus top coat.

Do you have Foxy in your collection?

Review: Rimmel BB Cream

A few weeks ago I received a box from Influenster full of Rimmel products as a reward for unlocking a badge. In my box was three tubes of Rimmel's BB Cream and if you have been reading my blog for a while, you  may have noticed that I like to try out drug store BB Creams, so I was excited to see I had received a tube in each of the 3 shades that Rimmel offers; Light, Light Medium and Medium Dark, since my tan from summer has faded I opted to start trying out the Light shade.

Rimmel claims it's BB Cream is a 'skin perfecting super makeup' that primes, moisturizes, minimizes pores, conceals, covers, smooths, mattifies, brightens and helps protect. Claims it will last all day, is light weight and has a 100% natural finish.

Overall I do like Rimmel's BB Cream, but some days I have a like/hate relationship with it and I've come to the conclusion it's either just my skin or maybe I applied to much because with this BB cream a little seems to go a long way. Some days when I wear it, it looks great other days it makes my face look really dry. I want to also note that I always use my moisturizer with this and all other BB creams that I have tried. I do like the amount of coverage I get from this BB cream and I feel like it really evens out my skin tone.

When I first apply the BB cream it leaves me with a dewy finish, although it claims that it mattifies. It's also a little bit greasy feeling after I apply it, but nothing horribly bad and that slightly goes away a little while after applying and that seems to be when it does kind of make my face look more matte. I honestly do not feel that it lasts all day, I feel touch ups would be necessary. During my testing period that and the occasionally dry looking application is really the only things I dislike about it.

Rimmel BB Cream Swatch

Rimmel BB Cream Blended In

Rimmel BB Cream Indoor Lighting

BB Cream Outdoor Lighting

Final thoughts: It's not a total fail for me and I will continue to use this BB cream and just set it with my ELF mist and set spray to reduce any dryness that may appear. I really love the price point on this BB Cream, Walmart has it for $5.47-$6.47 You get 1 fl. oz. of product.

Have you tried Rimmel's BB Cream? Any other drugstore BB Creams? Which ones have been your favorites?

Mish Mash Challenge Week 15: Holographic

Woo Hoo is Mish Mash Challenge day! This weeks theme was Holographic, I don't have too many holographic nail polishes. I have one Linear and 4 scattered. I went with one of the scattered, it's from Avon's Cosmic Collection and is called Celestial. It is a very pretty light blue with a very scattered holographic effect.

This is 3 coats with no top coat.

Trying to capture a holographic nail polish with a camera is tricky business LOL

Let's take a look at what the Ladies did for Holographic week!

Try it on Tuesday

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Today I have another Katy Perry polish from OPI, The One That Got Away. It's another one of those colors that my camera loves to hate, a gorgeous fuchsia type color that is so bright and sparkly, right up my alley! Application was great, there was no balding of the polish and it did not pool up around my nails. In the swatch I have used 2 coats and tried my best to get my camera to get an accurate color :)

Review: Born Pretty Water Decals

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Today I have a nail look and review. Born Pretty sent me a couple packs of of their Feather water decals for review. I have used the Fing'rs nail tattoos and they are quite similar to these water decals.

The instructions say to paint your nails, let them dry. Remove film from decals cut out the one you want to use and plunge it into water for 10-20 seconds. Moisten the fingernail and stick the pattern in position, sop up water with a paper towel and blow dry, then top with a top coat.

When I read the instructions I thought why do I have to blow dry them, I didn't the others, so I did not blow dry them, I just put on my top coat. My top coat ate away at the decal!

So a few days later I thought let me try them again and see what happens. I still did not blow dry them, I just waited about 20 minutes after I had finished applying the decals to apply my top coat and that seemed to work just fine.

I like these water decals, I think they are a great inexpensive way to spice up a manicure. The decals only cost $.99, come in a variety of styles and you get free shipping! Plus you can save an extra 10% by using the coupon code: SMBW10

Have you used water decals before? What did you think about them?