My Thrift Store Nail Polish Rack

A few weeks ago I came across this awesome... spice rack?  Not sure.  Some kind of awesome shelving unit with sweet little jungle critters hand painted on it.  So I grabbed it up with no second thoughts, came home, gave it a clean sweep and wham.  Nail polish rack for me!  Someday I will hang it up, but not now... we are moving in a few months.  For now it's stocked with my most used polishes (top coats, metallics for stamping, etc) and other supplies.

Swatch: Essie Cocktail Bling

Essie's Cocktail Bling is part of their Winter 2011 collection.  It's a very pretty grey with blue-ish tones, and I think it's great for all year round, not just winter!  And, best of all for me, it's work appropriate.  I'm loving everything that Essie is putting out lately.  All winners!

Winter Design- Red Flowers!

Inspired by the poinsettias I've been seeing around, I thought I'd try some pretty red flowers on top of the greenish-teal base of School of Hard Rocks.  I think it came out lovely!

Products Used:
Essie School of Hard Rocks
Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in In The Red Creme
Sally Hansen Chrome in Tourmaline Chrome
Love & Beauty Clear/Silver

Swatch: Essie School of Hard Rocks

Essie's School of Hard Rocks is part of the Winter 2011 collection.  It's a really lovely greeny-teal and it's perfect for the season.  I'm a big fan of Essie's recent dusty-ish tones they've been coming out with recently, and this one is no exception.

Pretty, right?  I love it.  

Winter Design- Sweater Inspired!

I'm super into sweaters, and I'm obsessed with my newest one.  It's warmer than any other sweater I've owned, and it is soft and not as itchy as I thought it would be.  So when I tried out Essie's Brooch the Subject, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.  I matched it to my new sweater!

Products Used:

Essie Brooch the Subject

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed
Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in Black

Swatch: Essie Brooch The Subject

I won an Apothica giftcard in a giveaway a while ago, and was saving it for a rainy day.  When I saw that they had three of the Essie winter 2011 collection, I knew that day had come.  Here's the first of those three: Brooch the Subject!

Sorry about these dreary photos, my usual camera was MIA

As you can see, this is one of the nudiest nudes that ever... nuded.  Or something.  This is two coats, no base coat, no top coat.  You can definitely see my ridges here, so next time I'd be sure to use a ridge filler and maybe one more coat just to be safe.  Overall, I like this color.  It's very work appropriate, and I need more of these khaki cremes in my collection

I've never had a manicure that was more "me"- ELF Royal Purple swatch, and Ulta Pinata-Yada-Yada (pic heavy)

Maybe if I were to paint some flamingos or something, we'd get pretty close, but till probably not as close as this!  I needed something quick, so I just chose a polish that was sitting on my desk- an ELF polish that was part of this TJ Maxx haul way back in August.  I set the polishes I have yet to swatch near my desk, and this one had been sitting there for AGES.  So I popped it on because I was in a purple kind of a mood (when am I not, though, really?)  And I was so pleased!  I couldn't really capture the color in some of these pictures.  It's November in Oregon, which means rain rain rain, and not adequate amount of sunlight to really get the good photos.

This is all the sunlight I could manage

This is a bit more accurate

Anyway, It's this really lovely shimmery sort of royal/jewel purple.  I think it would be GREAT for a peacock theme, which is now on my mind.  So I wore Royal Purple by itself for one day, and then decided I would try out another polish from another haul (from like September when I got those Butter Londons)- Ulta's Pinata-Yada-Yada.  Here's the final look:

This is a way more accurate picture of what ELF's Royal Purple looks like

Purple polish, multi-colored glitter- this manicure screams my name!  Hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

Products Used:
ELF Royal Purple
Ulta Pinata-Yada-Yada
Seche Vite