New Year's Eve Nails and Goals for 2014!

Purchased By Me

2013 has been a long year and probably not one that I'd really want to relive, what with my dad passing away in September, our pug passing away tragically the same month, the financial ups and downs, just wondering how we were going to make it, how we were going to make Christmas happen for our kids, struggling on and off with depression.. it's just been one of those years. But with the end of the year and the beginning of the year comes reflection and another chance to make things better, to start setting goals for yourself, personally, financially, and, of course, for LE BLOG.

If you've been with me since at least the beginning of the year, I set a few goals, totally forgot about them until Best Of... End of Year.. posts starting popping up. I revisited those goals last weekend and it was good to see what I've accomplished this year, all the while not even remembering those goals! :P

I had a hard time coming up with something to do for New Year's Eve nails, so I went with something easy, black with a glitter gradient! A lot of people decided on the same thing, so I'm glad I wasn't alone! I used 2 coats of my go-to black, Milani Black Swift and used a makeup sponge and China Glaze Prism for the glitter gradient.

Funny how you don't notice things at 2 in the morning and then see the flaws after you take photos and upload them! :P

Aaaaaaand.. goals for 2014!!

• Continue working on my photography skills. After investing in a light tent and working on placement of lighting, I'm getting there! I think the biggest thing is hand positions when not holding a bottle.. My pinky finger does not like to cooperate and sometimes it hurts to force it into position :\
• Invest in a new camera. The camera I'm currently using we've had for about 8 years. It has a great macro setting, but I'd like to advance to something more professional.
• Do reviews in a more timely manner. Realistically, I'm not sure how feasible that is, working full time and having two kids, but I definitely need to work on it.
• Participate in more challenges. I'm currently looking at doing 3 challenges in January. Probably a lot to take on, but you never know unless you try!
• Blog MOAR!!! I feel sad that I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like. Between work and being mom and doing housework, there are only so many hours in the day and I love my sleep!
• Finish jumping on the IG bandwagon! I do have an account set up, but my ancient Nokia Lumia 900 does not have an IG app and there aren't any good third-party apps :( Hopefully around April, I'll be able to upgrade my phone! Definitely looking at getting an iPhone, but I will not like going down to a small screen. My phone's screen is huuuuge! Maybe I'll get another Lumia, like the 1020.
• Nail art!! I love nail art.. watermarbling, stamping, freehand.. I want to work on all of those.
• Makeup reviews.. I loveloveLOVE makeup. I want to start doing makeup reviews, EOTD, FOTD.

I think that about sums it all up! Some pretty huge goals, but I think I can do it!

I hope everyone has a great New Year and I look forward to continuing on this journey with all of you!

Perlier Imperial Honey Body Butter Review

Provided For Review

With it being that time of the year for dry winter skin, it's important to keep your skin moisturized. I'm the first to admit, I don't always slather on moisturizer after I shower. Most of the time, I don't have time, or lately, it's because I haven't found anything that helps hydrate my dry skin. iFabbo recently sent me the Perlier Imperial Honey Body Butter and I've been using it a lot this past month. It's made from the rare honey of Black Bees and is combined with Royal Jelly.

Pros:

• Extremely moisturizing and hydrating, without leaving a greasy residue on your skin.
• Plenty of product that would last a while

Cons:

• Fragrance is STRONG. The informational card says it's a honey and Oriental woods scent, but the honey overpowers anything else in the body butter. I apply this in the morning while I'm getting ready for work.. the scent lasts all day into the next morning, that's how heavily scented this is. If you are sensitive to smells or fragrances, I would not recommend this, especially if you get scent-induced migraines.

Personally, I wouldn't buy this until Perlier reformulates the scent so that it isn't so overpowering. You can buy this at HSN, but it's currently out of stock. If you are interested in purchasing this, you can add it to your Favorites on HSN to be notified of when it is available and is currently $40 plus S&H. Use the code iFabbo5 to get $5.00 of your Perlier purchase!

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2013 Goals - How Much Did I Accomplish?

With it being close to the end of 2013, I thought I'd go back to my first post of this year and see if I accomplished any of the things I had set for myself and my blog!

Blog more frequently - I don't think this really happened! In fact, I think I posted a lot less than I did last year :( I just looked and I posted a lot last year compared to 2012, but I only started my blog in July 2012.

Reach 100 likes on Facebook or 100 followers on GFC - Yes!! On January 27, 2013, I reached 100 likes on Facebook! Now, almost a year later, I'm close to 1,000 likes on Facebook, and close to 500 followers on GFC. With GFC close to being on it's way out, people have been looking towards other social media platforms to promote their blog/website, Instagram being the most popular. Sadly, my phone is seriously outdated by today's standards and there isn't an official or good third party Instagram app available.

Start making my own nail polish - Nope!! I've been toying with the idea, but honestly, I just don't have the time right now to devote to starting my own polish line. Maybe when my son is older and in school I'll revisit that idea.

Get a domain - www.polishedandglittered.com <-------- I think I've had it for almost a year! I know I will definitely need to find out when my renewal date is! But it's really exciting when you can say you're at a dot com!

Participate in more challenges - I did Erica's Nails and More February Nail Art Challenge and started to do the ABC Challenge, but there just wasn't enough time to do anything, or energy :(

Work on my photography skills - After going through 2 homemade light boxes, having to repair the second one TWICE because my son fell on it, then the cat jumped on it, I finally broke down and bought a light tent last week. And I moved one of my lamps to the front to see if that improved anything. After figuring out the settings on my camera, I think I've finally figured out how to take better photos!

January 1, 2013 - light box

January 19, 2013 - light tent

 

• Work on stamping and nail art - I've been doing a lot more stamping and nail art lately, and I think I'm starting to get better at it, especially stamping, although I still need to figure how to not get missing spots closer to my cuticles. I still need to find a silver that doesn't streak after top coating when it's been dry for a while.

One of my very first attempts at stamping, pre-cleanup, pre-light tent, pre-macro setting. Aaaaah!!

Stamping December 20, 2013 - Huge improvement!!

There has definitely been a lot of change over the past year.. change, growing, improving, trying different nail shapes (and deciding that I love square!), nail care, learning!! I'm really excited about what 2014 has in store! And to think, I started out with about 80 bottles of polish! :P

Next up! 2012 2014 goals!! (2012?? Really??)

Snowflake Stamping!

Purchased By Me

If you saw my post from Thursday, I mentioned I was looking for the perfect base for snowflake nails! Well, here's what I did! I used Pure Ice Silver Mercedes (now under the name Silver Star), BM-323 and alternated with VL006, also adding some silver glitter to the center of some of the snowflakes. For whatever reason, I can not for the life of me top coat without smearing silver polish :( And even though my camera is almost 10 years old, the macro is amazing and captured every single streak and flaw! Anywho, I absolutely love this!

Have a great weekend!!

Daily Lovelies Birthday Giveaway!

One of my favorite persons is having an awesome birthday giveaway!! Ends 01/01/2014!! Be sure to enter!! :D

Photo Courtesy of Daily Lovelies

Royal Allons-y!!

Purchased By Me

Happy-Thursday-Tomorrow-Is-Friday!! Which means it's pay day and I can finish Christmas shopping! Is it bad that my husband leaves all of that up to me? We discuss (generally) what to get the kids, but I take care of all the buying and making sure everything gets here on time.. Hmmm..

So I've been pondering for the past couple of weeks on what to do for Christmas nails and I couldn't find the RIGHT blue polish for a base color for snowflakes. I tried about 5 different ones before I gave up and went to bed, LOL. Then a couple of nights ago, I did some Google searching for snowflake nail art because I have it in my head that I NEED to do snowflakes before Christmas and it hit me. Revlon Royal is perfect for EVERYTHING!! But it needed to sparkle! So I dug through many bottles of glittery nail polish and finally landed on Nail Pattern Boldness Allons-Y. I love anything Doctor Who and what's better than wearing a Doctor Who themed polish during Christmas??

I'm telling you now.. I fell in love as soon as I top coated this beautiful, magical combination <3 Enough of my rambling and on to the photos, right?! This is 2 coats of Revlon Royal, 1 coat of NPB Allons-Y, and 1 coat of Glossy Glam.

<3 <3

Aaaahhhh.. just gorgeous!! I'll be back tomorrow after I snowflake this up! :P Are you rocking holiday nails? Feel free to post them on my wall or tweet me!

Don't forget to enter the Hobby Polish Bloggers Winter Giveaway! Still plenty of time to enter!!

PS Do the photos look better taken in my light tent?

Vivid Lacquer Band Candy and Bored Now Plus An Experiment

Provided For Review

I received some stamping plates and a couple of polishes from Anni of Vivid Lacquer and today I have the polishes to show you! (If you don't know who VL is, you need to hurry over to her store!! Her stamping plates are THE best!!) I received Band Candy and Bored Now from the Once More With Feeling collection, inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was a huuuge fan of Buffy back when it was on, and sadly, I don't think I ever finished the series :( And who could resist Angel?! Both swatches are 3 coats sans top coat and applied perfectly for a holo. These do dry to a satin finish, so top coat is needed if you want added shine :) Dry time was amazing! <3

Bored Now is a raisiny purple scattered holo. Just look at that rainbow of colors! Just gorgeous!! <3

Band Candy stole my heart! I loooove brown holos and this milk chocolately goodness was no exception. I love how the holo flashes copper to pink <3

Be sure to check out Vivid Lacquer at the links below! Polish is 3 Free and $9 for a 15ml bottle. And there's worldwide shipping! I'll have the stamping plates up soon! :)

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And for my experiment.. I mentioned a couple of days ago on Facebook that I ordered a light tent that *should* be here on Tuesday. While I was taking the photos for these swatches, I moved a lamp to the front of my light box instead of having them both on either side of the box with the light shining from above. Let me tell you the HUGE difference it made! Or better yet, how about a photo?

The top photo is with both lights shining from above and the bottom is with one light in front of the box at an angle. Amazing what a little change can do! I can't wait to get my light tent and finally get something awesome set up :D

Hobby Polish Bloggers Multi-Blogger Winter Giveaway

Helloooo there!! Hey, look!! It's a blog post!! :D First, I want to apologize for the huge gap in posting on here! :( I've mentioned before that I work in a pharmacy, which is a compounding pharmacy and keeps me quite busy during the day :) I process most of the prescriptions, I do a lot of the prior approvals for Medicaid and send prior authorizations to doctors so they can fill those out and send them to the insurance companies, and in the past few months, I have added to my long list of job duties doing all most of the ordering, maintaining inventory, sending back medication we don't use, plus I answer the phone, fill prescriptions, ring up customers if necessary. It'a A LOT of work, but I absolutely loooove my job. I've been a pharmacy technician for about 5 years total and I'm great at my job :D Also, I'm a wife and a mom to 3 2 kids, so my work is never finished! Anyway!! On to the good stuff!!

A group that I'm in with a lot of amazing ladies is having our second multi-blogger giveaway!! :D I'm really excited to be a part of this again! All of the details are below! Good luck everyone!! :D Thank you to the followers that have stuck with me through this journey, and welcome to all of the new followers! I hope you enjoy it here, and I PROMISE!! Moaaaar blog posts! 

The Hobby Polish Bloggers are having their second multi-blogger giveaway! To enter, please allow the Rafflecopter widget to load below. All Terms and Conditions may also be found in the widget. Please visit the following Hobby Polish Bloggers members who are bringing this to you! You may enter using Rafflecopter from any of the below blogs but your entry will only count one time. You may, however, tweet about the giveaway (the last option) once a day for the duration of the giveaway.

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Hobby Polish Bloggers
A far from perfect mom
Be Happy and Buy Polish
FashionFooting
I Feel Polished
Imperfectly Painted
Jen Likes Polish (and some other things)
KellieGonzo.com
Love. Varnish, chocolate and more...
Lucy's Stash
Lustrous Lacquer
MandysSecrets
manicure addict
Pamper with Polish
Polarbelle
polish insomniac
Polish Obsession
Polished and Glittered
PolishGalore
PolishNV
pretty tough nails
Refined & Polished
The Dalai Lama's Nails
The Mercurial Magpie
The Sparkling Hoard
TrailerHood Chic

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a Rafflecopter giveaway

Press Release: Zoya Naturel Collection

Press Release

First press release for 2014!! Even though Christmas has yet to arrive, Zoya is once again on the ball!

Zoya Nail Polish Naturel Collection
Sometimes less can be so much more...

The natural nail only better... The Zoya Nail Polish Naturel collection masters delicate tone on tone color with six new, full-coverage (opaque) neutral nudes with a pink undertone, that can be worn beautifully alone or stunningly together to create modern tonal accents.

The Look: It’s not about matching - it’s about coordinating colors with slight tonal differences to create interest.

Zoya Naturel Collection

• ZP704 - Chantal: French Vanilla Cream, Full Coverage Formula.

• ZP705 - Taylor: Light Toffee Cream, Full Coverage Formula.

• ZP706 - Rue: Boudoir Blush Cream, Full Coverage Formula.

• ZP707 - Brigitte: Bombshell Mauve Cream, Full Coverage Formula.

• ZP708 - Odette: Sultry Maroon Cream, Full Coverage Formula.

• ZP709 - Normani: Sable Mauve Cream, Full Coverage Formula.

Zoya’s Crusade against Artificial Nail Products:

Since 1993, Zoya Nail Polish and Treatments has provided quality, long-wearing formulations that are free of potentially toxic ingredients. Here’s how the battle against artificial and toxic products was won… 

As owner of the country’s first Natural Nail and Skin Spa and armed with relevant information on potential health hazards, Zoya Reyzis was resolute to create a new line of quality professional products that would meet her exacting specifications. Pregnant at the time, she enlisted the aid of her Chemist Husband, Michael Reyzis, to develop toluene, formaldehyde and dibutyl phthalate free formulations that would provide extended wear on natural nails making Zoya the first to develop a “Big 3 Free” formula of nail polish. In the years since the birth of the brand, the commitment to providing safe and effective products has soldiered on with Zoya once again leading the way with the removal of formaldehyde resins and camphor to create the first “Big 5 Free” nail polish brand.

Find the Zoya Naturel Nail Polish Collection and over 300 stunning BIG5FREE* Zoya colors on www.zoya.com. Each and every color has a name as unique as the women who inspired it.

*Formula is completely free of formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, dibutyl phthalate, toluene and camphor.

COMING SOON…
The Zoya Naturel Nail Polish Collection available online at Zoya.com January 01, 2014.

ZOYA IS THE NATUREL COLOR OF FASHION!
$9.00 ea. (US)
Available Zoya.com

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I don't know about you, but I love all of these colors and Zoya makes the best cremes, really buttery and smooth, no streaking, some are even one-coaters! I can't wait to get these lovelies in my hands, and I'm really interested in seeing what they look like on people with yellow tones since these all have a pink undertone. Will you be picking any of these up next month? :D