Year in Review: Favorite Manicures

Today in part two of my year in review I will be sharing my top 10 favorite manicures from 2013! I was a part of two nail art challenges last year, one of which is still going on, that really challenged me with great prompts for some awesome nail art results, so 8 of the 10 come from the challenges. Let's take a look at my favorite 10:

1. My first ever fan brush manicure. I have tried recreating this look with different colors, but can't not get it to look like this one to save my life.

2. Even though it's messy and tedious, I love doing water marbles. One of my favorites from last year was my black and orange one from Halloween.

3. I call this my Minnie Mouse manicure, it is the mani I did for the letter I in the ABC Nail Challenge.

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter Z

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We have reached the final day of the ABC Nail Challenge! This has been such a challenging and fun challenge to take part in. The ladies will be starting up another challenge soon so keep an eye out for that. I'm not sure if I will be participating in the upcoming challenge or not :/ I was hoping to get to do a new nail product trial, but that fell through so I will be taking part in the new challenge! :)

Anywho on with the Z manicure. I have one Zoya polish that at the beginning of this challenge I said, I'll save this for my Z. Ummm yeah so that did not go as planned, I used it for my L because it's called Lotus. So I had to figure out something else to do for Z, and the best I came up with was Zebra nails! I used Konad stamping plate m57, White on the Spot from Milani and Blackout by Pure Ice.

Please excuse my fingers and cuticles. I totally forgot to apply some lotion before I took these photos :/
Also, I'm looking for a good, but inexpensive cuticle oil, something you could get from Walmart or the drug store. Anyone have any good suggestions?

As always, be sure to stop by and see what all the ladies came up with for letter Z

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter Y

Oh my goodness, we only have one letter left in our ABC Nail Challenge! This weeks letter is, you guessed it, Y. When I was in high school I had a slight obsession with yin yangs and recently while on a trip to my moms house she had pulled out some of my boxes that I had stored at her house and in one was a big yin yang key chain and I thought, well that's what I'm doing for Y nails!

My vision did not quite translate on to my nails as I seen it in my head, but I still really like them. I paired two colors that I absolutely love together, hot pink and black! The pink is Beach Baby by Jesse's Girl and the black is Blackout by Pure Ice.

Please excuse my messy cuticles, Beach Baby is a pain to clean up :)

Stop by and see what the ladies did for letter Y

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter X

Today's letter for the ABC Nail Challenge has had me racking my brain since we started this challenge and last week it came to me in a flash 'X' Marks the Spot! Now the vision I had in my head looked like one of those old treasure maps that you would see in moves with the little dashed black line leading to an X. I tried my best to transfer my vision to my nails. Not the best but I kinda like it. For my base I used NYC Mulberry Street, black cream for the dashes and Hot Hot Heat from Sinful Colors for my X. The little rhinestone I got in a set from Avon.

I love to take pictures so I thought I would share a picture of a cute little visitor that keeps coming around my house. A cute little groundhog :)

Be sure to stop by and see what all the ladies did for the letter X!

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter W

Today's ABC Nail Challenge post features a manicure that is probably my favorite from this challenge and the one that I spent the most time on. For the letter W I decided to try out a new technique that is similar to water marbling called water spotting. Like with the water marbling technique, water spotting gives each nail a unique look. To do water spotting you drip drops of nail polish in water like you would if you were going to water marble, except you use only one color and instead of swirling the colors to make a design, you spray it with alcohol to make the polish sorta break up and create holes or gaps between the color, so you base color will show through. Hope that makes  sense :)

I think that there is a lot of trial and error when it comes to this type of mani, you have to find colors that will spread well in the water and colors that work well together. I love the way my middle and ring finger came out. The other two the polish is not separated enough for my taste. I think it would have came out a little better if the bottle I was using to spray the alcohol with did not spray such a fine mist.

I wanted something bright so I used Beach Baby by Jesse's Girl as my base color and White on the Spot by Milani for the spotting. On my ring fingers I used a black cream polish for spotting.

Also be sure to check out my current giveaway :)

Don't forget to check out what the other ladies did for the letter W

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter V

I can not believe we only have four letters left in our ABC Nail Challenge! Today is letter V, and this is another letter that I struggled with. I had a couple of polishes that their names started with 'V' and one of them I've already showed on the blog, so I went with Violetta from Avon's matte collection. Once I got it on my fingers I thought it looked to plain so I used my Color Club Cherubic holographic polish to stamp with. I used stamping plate M57 from Konad.

I like matte polishes, but to me they are very unforgiving of any flaws you may have on your nails, such as peeling. I feel like a matte polish really accentuates the flaws. None the less, I think it's a very pretty purple polish. And of course since I decided to use a holo to stamp with, the sun wanted to be shy and not come out, I managed to only get two photos while the was out.

Stop by and see what everyone else did with the letter 'V'

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter U

Welcome to another ABC Nail Challenge post! Letter U was an annoying letter for me LOL I only have 3 polishes that start with letter U, Unicorn by Sinful Colors, Under Your Spell by Wet n Wild, and Urban Grey by Avon. I tired a mani with Unicorn, but I did not like the looks of it at all, so I went with Urban Grey and did a little dotticure too.

Urban Grey is a very pale and sheer milky white polish with a hint of grey. Looking at the bottle it appears to have some shimmer, but once it's on the nail, there is no shimmer to be found. I used my Avon Cosmic polishes for my dotting.

I also thought I would share a few pictures from the motorcycle event I went to on Saturday, that I mentioned in last weeks ABC Nail Challenge post. The event was called Ride for a Vet, there was around 150 motorcycles there! Hubby rides but I don't so I just go to support the cause and check out all the bikes. They also have entertainment throughout the day as well as recognizing local veterans.

Hubby and I ♥

Hubby and I walking around. Someone got a pic of us :)

Hubby's Bike

Some of the bikers coming back from the ride.

Old Highway Patrol Car

Here is a video of all the bikers taking off for the ride!


Also be sure to check out what the other ladies did for the letter U!

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter T

Today I am back with an ABC Nail Challenge Post! We are up to the letter T.
With Memorial Day coming up I wanted to have something to go with that, since I will be attending a Motorcycle event for Veterans. I went with Twist and Shout by Pure Ice, it is a red and blue glitter mix in a clear base. I put a white cream polish on as my base color.

Check out what all the other ladies of the challenge did

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter S

I can not believe that we are already on Letter 'S' in the ABC Nail Challenge and that we only have 7 letters left!!!

For letter 'S' I decided to use one of my new polishes that I have never worn, Savage by Sinful colors. It's a very pretty turquoise type color, which to my surprise when I swatched it dries to a matte finish. I do like matte finishes from time to time, but I always know that I can top it with a shiny topcoat if I'm not feeling in a matte mood.

When I began to paint my nails with Savage I was impressed that I only needed on coat! Who does not like a polish like that! Of course with it being a matte polish I dried very quickly. However, it did leave my nails with a bit of a blue tint when I took it off :/

I wanted to add just a bit of bling to my nails, so I used My Wonderland by Pure Ice on my ring finger for an accent nail. I liked this mani, just hate that it left my nails a little blue.

My nail product trial ends tomorrow, so I will finally get to paint my nails again! 14 days is a long time to go without painting them lol!

Check out what the other ladies did for the letter S

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter R

It's time for another ABC Nail Challenge post! Today is Letter R and I decided to use Ruffled Sheets by Pure Ice, a limited edition polish from the Runway Collection. Ruffled Sheets is a silver metallic looking polish that dries to a matte finish, or Velour finish is how Pure Ice describes it. I really like this polish, the finish is nice if you are a fan of matte polishes, if not you can top it with a shiny top coat. The first coat you put on dries really fast, but when you add another coat it seems to take a lot longer to dry than the first coat. I opted to do some stamping, I used Cherry Red from Sally Hansen and Mash stamping plate #45 and I topped it off with NYC's fast drying topcoat.

Stop by and see what the other ladies did for the letter R!

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter Q

It's time for the ABC Nail Challenge!

I do not have a single nail polish color or brand that starts with the letter Q, nor could I think of a type of nail art that started with the letter Q. So I found a polish in my stash that had the letter Q in it somewhere LOL, which is Sea-Quin by Pure Ice. This was one of their limited edition polishes from the Runway Collection. I added Sea-Quin on top of  Happy Ending by Sinful Colors.

I kinda feel like I cheated because neither of them start with Q, but I worked with what I had. I have also been selected as participant in a nail product testing group, that starts today, and I will not be able to paint my nails for 2 weeks!!! (I can't go in to any details about it now, but when the trial is over I will tell all about it). I went ahead and did my S and R manis, so I won't have to skip any of the challenge days :)

Okay, on to the Letter Q photos:

Be sure to check out what the other fabulous ladies did for the letter Q! 

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter P

Time for Letter P from the ABC Nail Challenge! I can not believe we only have 10 letters left! Today I am super excited about the polish I chose. Last summer NYC came out with a limited edition collection called Summer in the City, and there was this amazing polish that was part of that collection and I could never find it. Trust me I spend all summer trying to hunt it down. Well this past weekend, my husband and I went to visit my Mom and we stopped by a Dollar Tree on the way down there and I found the oh so hard to find limited edition polish!!! YAY! The polish is called Peach Sparkle and I just LOVE it and feel like I totally scored by finding it for $1.00!

The polish goes on very nicely I do think it is a bit sheer, so I used 3 coats. I'm thinking about trying it over black and white and see how it turns out. It dries super quick too, usually I dread trying to use 3 coats of polish, but this dried so fast it was no big deal.

This is a peach colored polish with major gold shimmer to it. So glad that my camera picked up a very accurate shot of this beautiful polish.

Be sure to see what the other ladies did with the letter P!

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter O

Oh my goodness I can't believe we are a little over halfway done with this challenge! We are up to letter O. I decided to use Nicole by OPI in the shade One Big Happy Fame-ily from the Kardashian collection.

I really love this polish it is a beautiful lavender color. It has a hint of silver shimmer to it. My Father-in-Law even commented on it!

Application was great, went on very easily. It is a bit sheer, so I did three coats.

Can't wait to see what everyone else did for the letter O!

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter N

Happy Wednesday! It's time for the ABC Nail Challenge, today's letter is 'N' and today 'N' stands for NEON! Although my camera totally washed out the polish even without the flash LOL.

I went with something simple this week, the weather where I live has finally started warming up and Hubs and I have been running around all week :) I used Sinful Colors 24/7 and stamped with MASH Nail Art Stamp Stamping Image Plate No 48.

Be sure to check out what the other ladies did for the letter N.

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter M

I don't know how I manged to forget that today is Wednesday (for a few more hours) and I totally forgot to post my ABC Nail Challenge this morning LOL

So I'll make this short :)

I used Milani White on the Spot as my base color and topped it off with Blue Flash, also from Milani. I have wore this nail look before, but I just love it so much I wanted to use it for my letter M :)

Be sure to stop by and see what the other ladies did for the Letter M

I will be stopping by either late Thursday or sometime on Friday :)

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter L

I'm back with Letter L from the ABC Nail Challenge! I thought I was going to have only one or two choice when it came to the letter L, but I actually had quite a few more to choose from. I decided to go with Lotus by Zoya. I love this shade of purple, I think it's a good transition color for winter into spring. I also love that it has this hot pink/fuchsia shimmery iridescence to it.

Thanks for stopping by and please be sure to go check out what the other amazing ladies did for the letter L

ABC Nail Challenge: Letter K

I'm back today with the ABC Nail Challenge, we are up to letter K. I do not own any polish brands or color names that begin with the letter K, so today K stands for Konad Stamping.

I used NYC Peaches 'N Cream for my base and used a black cream for my stamping color. I used Konad plate m60. I messed up my pinky nail, but other than that, I was happy with my results.

Be sure to stop by and see what the other ladies did for the Letter K!