All that glitters might as well be gold (Picture heavy post!)

I bought 'Grand Opening' the first night Amy opened up shop on March 19th. This is literally my first time wearing a full mani of it, before tonight I'd only tested it on a nail wheel. I haven't seen it in the shop since then, so maybe this was a LE literal Grand Opening polish she made. I hadn't realized until I put her on how incredibly lucky I was to snag a bottle. 

Front Label

Back Label

Holy WHAT! So much HOLO!

Hmm..what's that in my hand?

Above (and all shots) is one "Coat" over a base of Essie 'Ridge Filler' and 

one coat of Scherer Chameleon polish in 'Galactic', 

a sandy colored gold shimmer.

Now...if you don't happen to own a bottle of this amazing glitter, this is a solid 15ml of glitter, with just enough of a honey colored base that you're not slapping on dry glitter pieces. I could do a mani of this magnitude at least 80 times with the concentration of glitter in the bottle. 

All of the glitters are the same super shiny gold holo, they aren't super thick, but they aren't paper thin either. The shapes are medium and larger hexes, HUGE squares and stars that are about the same size at the larger hexes. The picture above was actually after I filled in a few spots and now seeing the pictures, there's a lot more patches I could fill in. I was in a total hurry to do this, but I think this is a good example of what one dip of the brush will put on your nail. Seriously, it was THAT much on the brush.

Application was as much of a pain as you would imagine it would be. I had to glob all of the glitters on each nail and QUICKLY move each one around, because of the sparsity of the base, while at the same time, because the base is tinted, having to make sure there's an even coat because the color looks wonky if you don't. There were a few I had to manually pry off and re-place because the brush wasn't stiff enough to move them once the base dried a little. The pictures above are with one seriously thick coat of SV, but I would need a coat of Gelous under, and maybe two normal coats of SV to smooth her out, especially with those stars and the corners of the squares.                                                                                                    

This was taken outside, before I shellacked my cuticles in "Mango Mend", good lord are they dry!

That picture above I wasn't going to show, because my cuticles look real horror show, but damnit, there is an ENTIRE RAINBOW on that glitter! Most of the time you get flashes of each hue, but those squares are so gigantic that you see the entire spectrum at once. These are the biggest glitters in any polish I own.

Grand Opening is amazing. It is the best chunky gold I own. It's a little difficult, but for the amazing amount of glitter and the incomparable result you get from a little finesse and patience, I wouldn't trade this bottle for anything in the world. Thank you so much Amy, you're absolutely brilliant!

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!

(Ok, sort of different)

As anyone that occasionally glances at my Facebook page knows, I do nail polish jewelry of a different sort. I don't slap polish on a cabochon and call it a day. (No offense to the ladies that do, some of those layering combos must take TONS of patience!) I make it a point to let the polish inspire me, and individual beads, chain and wire are my medium. I started on a necklace inspired by Dollish Polish's 'Expecto Patronum', but ran into a giant speed bump when I realized none of the green or blue beads I bought matched that crazy teal glitter. 

I had to hunt and hunt (And I work at craft store!) for something that matched, and finally stocked up enough, so that's coming next. I looked at my stash wall and pondered long and hard before I saw my bottle of Grand Opening. It was obvious, as I'd been dreaming of a necklace I was going to name "Midas", which was going to be matte black beads transitioning into shining gold ones. I still plan on making it, but this was a good in-between. I spent three days making this, painstakingly twisting really awful thick wire (Stupid me wasn't looking what gauge I bought) to make the components of the piece. Anyways, here it is, in all it's amazing-polish-inspiration glory.

I'm so proud of this thing, even though it doesn't have a clasp yet, haha.

I really couldn't figure out how to photograph this properly. Do you believe that shirt behind it is pitch black? I have no idea what happened there. I had a piece of black velvet stashed away for photographing my other pieces I've made, but I couldn't find it.

Up close shot of the beads used to make the necklace.

I like to think that the rainbow flashes on those cube crystal beads reflect the holo from the polish, 

without being TOO present on the necklace.

I had so much fun making this. Now I get to do something more relaxing for "Expecto Patronum". That necklace is being strung, instead of put on pins, no wire work for this one!

If anyone has a polish they'd like to see redone in this manner, feel free to let me know! 

I have plans for the following polishes:  "Pool Party" from Pretty and Polished, "Robin Laid an Egg" from Nail-Venturous, "Twisted" from Finger Paints, "Orange Pop" from KB Shimmer, Max Factor "Fantasy Fire" (Ugh, so much work is going into this one....) My Cherry Blossom custom from Lacquistry and Rainbow Honey's "Koi Pond"

I had a lot of fun making this, even with driving myself to hand cramps from curling those itty bitty wire ends for hours at a time. I might add more strands to this, or I might make a second one to throw in a giveaway for the blog.

Like me on facebook here. 

(50 likes there is a giveaway, as well as 50 followers on the blog!)

Visit Amy's blog here.

She is currently closed for restock for 4-8 weeks, but here is the Nail Venturous Etsy page.

Thanks again for reading everyone! Stay Sparklie!

Swap Haul 2 of 2 *even MORE confetti!* (KB Shimmer swatches below!)

Next up is my swap with the lovely Jamie T, who will go down in history as the greatest swap buddy ever. She started out as my late night facebook buddy and turned into an awesome all the time friend. She's getting ready to start classes to become an Esthetician and she's going to be the best one ever! She took like 2 weeks to put this box together, which I didn't mind, but WOW did it show! Onward to pictures!

A picture of the entire box (I think...there was so much!)

Contents are as follows:

(Not including Harlie feet, she wouldn't leave the pile alone!)

• Two Clinique Makeup bags, and one Clinique brush bag, not pictured because its now my mom's 'borrow' bag for taking home polish from my stash.
• The three pots hold two different GORGEOUS gold mica shimmer powders and a jar of silver 'caviar' manicure beads.
• A bottle of Maybellene 'Cool Couture'
• KB Shimmer 'Orange Pop'
• KB Shimmer 'Diva'
• Sally Hansen 'Purple Pizzazz'
• L'oreal 'Valiant'
• Gum and M&M's YAY!
• Blue and White Gold colored nail foils, and glue for application
• Eos lip balm in Honeydew (I think)
• Clinique gel eyeliner, blush, foaming cleanser.
• Lancome "Super Enhancing Mascara Base'
• Sample of Elizabeth Arden 'Pretty' perfume
• Clarisonic refreshing gel cleanser
• Not pictured is TONS of coupons for $2 Essie polish at Wegmans, and tons of other coupon goodies. What a fun swap idea!

Words cant describe the sheer awe I was in as I dismantled her box. Everything was wrapped carefully and tucked inside one of the bags, or snugly against other items. I've never owned Clinique makeup, so I'm super excited about them! The blush is the perfect shimmery peach color for my pale skin, and the eyeliner is a honey flecked brown, which goes with my eyes. Also, that bottle of Cool Couture is a big deal in itself. I got my first bottle when that hurricane rolled around last year, I actually went out during the beginning of the storm to get it after reading another bloggers post on this blue-shimmering grey. I needed a backup, but by the time I went back, the entire LE collection was sold out. Jamie had no idea of that story, and she magically found one and sent it to me. I LOVE YOU JAMIE! Now for some pictures!

Bottle shot of Cool Couture. See that blue shimmer! To DIE for!

Two thick coats on a semi-opaque nail wheel. I am so in love.

Bottle shot of KB Shimmer 'Orange Pop'

Close up of the larger hexes, silver, some silver holo and some pink. 

Also mixed in are some smaller multi-colored square glitters.

Look. How. Squishy.

 Seriously. Sorry for the naked free edges, I was in such a stupid rush 

to get this on my tips it wasn't funny. This was one of my biggest lemmings. 

Pictured is Base: Sally Hansen Nail Quencher, followed by three generous coats of crazy orange jelly goodness, one coat of Gelous and one good coat of Poshe QDTC. This is so much brighter in person, it's literally a neon orange jelly. Application was amazing, the TC was just to add shine, it was completely smooth on it's own. 

KB Shimmer 'Diva'

Bottom of the bottle. Filled with different size silver holo hexes. This is a little more blue than it actually is.

Diva is a deep purple jelly, absolutely packed with different sizes of silver holo hexes. 

Again, sorry for not wrapping the tips.

Bad angled shot, mediocre cleanup job. I'm still getting the hang of cleaning up these glitters, every time I scrub some away, there's more left behind.

All in all, this is like...the best swap ever. There was so much thought put into it, and Jamie obviously has amazing intuition because most of this she guessed I would like. I love EVERYTHING she sent. Thank you Jamie, my love. This was incredibly fun!

Speaking of swaps, I plan on getting my stash/lemming/swap list up soon, so if anyone wants to organize a swap group or birthday club or something, please let me know!

Now I've got work in the morning for the first time in a week and a half, finally time to go back after a long vacation with my niece. I'll try to keep posting regularly of some of the more fun polishes I have, haul posts and coming soon 'Pool Party' from Pretty & Polished. Can't wait for that one! 

Thanks again for reading ladies, we're at 31 followers and I plan on doing a giveaway at 50, so tell your friends!

Haul Post, 1 of 2! *more confetti!*

Today, I have for you the hauls from my recent swaps. First up, is Michelles swap. I sent her a bottle of 'Oops...', a bottle of Wet n Wild 'Black Magic' and Candeo's 'South Street'. You can read the post, with pictures HERE.

In return, she sent me a bottle of KB Shimmer's 'Summer Sun', Models Own 'Mixed Up' and....shock of shockers, a real life bottle of Max Factor 'Fantasy Fire'. Can you believe that? I couldn't. I opened her box after a VERY long day in Washington DC, I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to tear open her bubble mailer. (Embarassingly enough, seeing what was inside wasn't enough to wake me up, isn't that awful?) 

TIME FOR PICTURES!

Bottle Shots

Models Own 'Mixed Up'

Bottom of the bottle

I LOVE the sparkle of the colors in this one!

BLACK GLITTER! YAY!

I'm sorry. I am SO sorry about how messy this is. This is two coats over a bare nail, no top coat. This was a rough swatch, with a very thirsty glitter. It took a while to get off, but not worse than a chunky Lacquistry.

Overall the application of Mixed Up was what you would expect from any glitter in a clear base. It went on pretty evenly, with a little pushing around to cover any bald spots. It was VERY thirsty, and would definitely need a coat of Gelous and a coat or two of any quick dry TC to smooth her out.

KB Shimmer 'Summer Sun' 

Opaque in two average coats, this is two coats with no TC on a semi-opaque nail wheel.

'Summer Sun' is a  shimmery golden yellow base with micro and small sized pink hexes. There was a small touch of holo in the glitters, but nothing too strong, the colors were never overpowered by it. Application was extremely easy, you could get away with one coat of SV or Poshe TC and it would be completely smooth. 

Bottle shot of Fantasy Fire.

I have only swatched Fantasy Fire in my last post, as soon as I feel my nails are worthy I'll do a full mani with her. I don't want to waste any of it when I have a lot of swatching to do.

Thank you SO MUCH Michelle! I have a feeling I'll be swapping with you again soon!

Check Michelle's blog out over here, but odds are if you're reading this, 

you already know who she is.

The moment when you dupe a LEGEND...

So...I quickly got over the excitement of duping Toxic Avenger, not sure why, it just wasn't that big a deal to me. Exciting, yes. Earth shaking, no. The following, is my earth shattering revelation that I have 99.9% duped not only a rockstar in our polish world, but a LEGEND.

I was toying around with a swap from Michelle over at 'Things I Love at the Moment' (post coming later, I started yesterday, then ended up recovering from heat stroke.) who sent me a bottle of the AMAZING 'Fantasy Fire' I thought for a moment, after putting it over a black creme and Revlon 'Royal', knowing that I'd seen that color shift somewhere before. I dug around in my franken box, and pulled out something I made a little less than a year ago. Slapped it over the same colors and damn near fainted. I painted one nail with the same black creme I'd put under Fantasy Fire, then painted half with FF and half with my franken. 

THEY WERE EXACTLY THE SAME

I knew I could cut it over other colors, duping just the shimmer, but it wasn't enough. I got to work on the base as well. Ladies, I think I nailed it. Granted, they're two separate bottles because I don't have any more of the pigments I used to make the color shift franken. So I now have a bottle of Fantasy, and a bottle of Fire topcoat. Wanna see?

Two of these are FOUR coats of FF, one of these is two thick coats of my Fantasy, and two coats of my Fire topcoat.

Sorry these are crummy, there is ZERO sun here, so this is under nightmarish light and a yellowish shade. Ugh.

Same three nails, different angle. I can't seem to capture the shimmer here, but like I said, TWO nails are FF.

Single nail, best shot of the shimmer, I won't tell you which one this is, because that wouldn't be as fun.

Better picture of the shimmer, obviously, because it's over black. HOWEVER: Half of this nail is FF, the other half is my 'Fire' topcoat? can you tell the difference?

I am just so stunned right now. I will never give up my bottle of Fantasy Fire because 1) it was a gift and 2) I don't have many EXTREMELY HTF polishes, so it's a little fun. Maybe I'll wear it on my wedding day. :D

Hope you all enjoyed this as much as me! I'll be posting my swap hauls from Michelle and my fabulous nail polish BFF Jamie T. tomorrow! Before I go, one last thing!

(EDIT: Added a picture of the half-and-half over black nail)

LET'S GO DEVILS!

Tragedy has struck:

I broke a nail. I really really broke it. On my swatching hand. I tried fixing it like 4 different ways, but nothing was sticking, and by the time I tried the tea bag thing, the torn piece was bent and just wouldn't stay flush with the rest of the nail.

I'll be censoring that finger for the next few weeks, as I'm too self conscious to show off a nubbin swatch.

Is it weird that I just don't like swatching my right hand at all? I mean, I paint it but when I'm doing swatches for the blog or just to share, it is -always- my left hand.

*tear* I had like 1/6 inch of growth....

Happy Easter Everyone!

Just a short little post, as my mom hasn't come over yet to start cooking and its just me, my gorgeous niece and the cats. Just wanted to quickly thank everyone that'd left comments and read my last few posts. I really lost the motivation to do this for a while, because I felt like my little blog would just get lost in the sea of big fish. This is incorrect for two reasons: 1) I realized I don't blog for the sake of others, I blog for me because its satisfying to document a hobby. If others like to join in on my fun, then great! I don't need 3000 followers to consider my little experiment a success. and 2) Just because I'm a minnow in the great big ocean of nail polish blogs (clearly!) doesn't mean I won't get any readers!

I've had more traffic in the last 24 hours than I thought I would for months. Over 300 unique page views including some from England, Australia, Brazil and a country in the Middle East (The map on blogger is tiny, and I happen to be really awful at Geography, will make a note to ask History Major boyfriend!) And I'd like to thank you all!

Just a little update on upcoming swatch posts!

• Nail Venturous - (Removing her matte glitters are a little difficult, so I have to set aside a day for anything that includes Humble Bee or Floam.) I do have some fun glitters from her though, so they may come first!

• Dollish Polish - I FINALLY managed to get Welcome to Rapture and the Cake is a Lie. I also was one of the luckier ducks during her last opening to get all three of the new colors I wanted: Master Chief, Gym Tan Laundry and Looking for my Mr. Big. YAY! These are in transit as I write this post, with a due date of TOMORROW!!! 

• Lacquistry - I have made a proposal to Jenna about my replacement for Kitchen Sink, I hope she accepts because I think she's the only one that can do it! I also have Sno Cone, A Friggin Circus and Lake Placid on Acid to swatch for you guys, yay!

• Candeo- I have several Candeos, including swatches from South Street which I will share from the lovely Michelle over at Things I Love at the Moment (I gifted her my bottle, so hopefully she'll let me share her swatch post when she does it!)

• Rainbow Honey- Oh my gosh! I managed to snag Koi Pond! I am so in love with the colors in this glitter polish, it has ORANGE! You don't really see orange that much! And it really does look like the colors in a Japanese koi pond. I'm already pondering undies for it, I'm so excited!!!

I plan on a little giveaway at some point, I'm not sure what I'm going to base it on, followers or post number or likes on facebook, I just have no idea! What would you guys like to see in a giveaway. I have an extra bottle of something REALLY POPULAR from Nail Venturous that I think might make it into a giveaway, but I'd love your thoughts as well!

Happy Easter my lovelies, I hope you spend lots of quality time eating lots of ham with your families today; if you don't observe the holiday, then you can spend the afternoon reading nail polish blogs. I'm honestly not sure which one is a better way to spend the day.

Also: Here's the Facebook page to go with the blog: Glitter Jitters Facebook! Go ahead and like me or you know..whatever. :)

Stay Glittery Ladies!

Follow up first swatch post!

I just got taking off my Lacquistries, and wanted something simple to get me through the next couple days. I just received a Birthday Club package in the mail including one of my biggest lemmings: Zoya Harley. Now, you don't know yet, but I have a tiny little diva-esque Russian Blue named Harlie, pictured here, with her peeps :)

Harley is a light grey creme with a subtle shimmer, it matches the glow of my darlings coat perfectly, and I've been wanting it since I found out she had a polish named after her. I used a swatch from Polish Addict because I forgot to take a picture before I put the glitter on. On to the mani!

This is Candies and Sprinkles from Sweet Fairy Boutique on Etsy. I just discovered her, but MAN she has some fabulous glitters. I snagged two, this one and Block Party.

Isn't the combination AMAZING?!

This is one coat of Candies and Sprinkles over two THICK coats of Zoya Harley. Candies and Sprinkles is a thin mix of chartreuse, teal, periwinkle, purple, pink and aqua hexes and bar glitters. (Speaking of bar glitter, I just noticed that stray pink one on my thumb, doh!) The concentration isn't as much as a Dollish Polish or Lacquistry (for an indie reference) so you would need 2 good coats to achieve similar glitter density on the nail, but the glitters spread easily, so that shouldn't be an issue. 

This was just a quickie post as I'm on my way out, before I go, ONE MORE of Harlie, looking extremely guilty sitting on a guitar amp so dangerously close to the bottom of my stash wall. I have GOT to move that amp. Also pictured is the corner of my granny tapestry covered vanity stool :)

Later Gators!

First real swatch post! *confetti*

I've been holding out, to be honest, because I wanted this to be my first swatch post. Yesterday, defying all logic and reason, my Lacquistry order showed up, despite having been shipped like...two days before, from ARIZONA! Holy light speed lacquer Batman! Anyways, Today I have for you 3 manis from the amazing Jenna and her amazing brain. The three customs I have today are: Cherry Blossom, Kite Festival and Strawberry Fields Forever. Pictures and background behind the names after the jump! Just a warning, I have severely dehydrated cuticles, I had some kind of reaction to a cuticle oil a few days ago and I'm detoxing right now. Ignore them focus on the polish!