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.

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(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!