Twinsie Tuesday - Something New

This mani features three relatively new-to-me polishes: OPI My Very First Knockwurst, Pop Beauty Punk'd, and Sally Hansen Quick Jeanius.

New Years Nail Art Collab

I've hosted three large nail art collaborations on Instagram now: two rainbow collabs and a Thanksgiving collab. Now I'm at four. Heather and I teamed up again to co-host a New Years collab!

This was my contribution to the collab.

I actually ended up doing two manis because I needed to fill one more spot in the collage last-minute.

For my first mani, I was inspired by Maren and Nails. She did a French tip and covered the whole nail in a clear-based glitter. I loved it so much and did the same with a silver French of Nina Ultra Pro Shooting Star, and covered everything in China Glaze Your Present Required.

Color Club Volt of Light + Lush Lacquer (now Polish Me Silly) Lite Brite

This is a mani I wore forever ago (well it was this past summer, which seems like a century ago. I miss the warmth!!) but never got around to posting. But I figure now is a fairly good time to share it, to brighten up the nasty winter! 

This is Color Club Volt of Light topped with Lush Lacquer (they've recently changed their name to Polish Me Silly) Lite Bright.

Fish Scale Nails

I did fish scale nails in March (see that post here) using loose glitters to fill in some of the scales. This time, I just filled in one scale on each nail with silver glitter. 

Christmas Day Mani - Green Glitterbomb + 3D Bows

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it! I'll be celebrating the holiday with family today and wanted to wear something festive but not overly, in-your-face Christmasy on my nails.

Twinsie Tuesday - Something Old

For today's Something Old, I have two of the oldest polishes in my collection to show: Pure ICE French Kiss and Pure ICE Strapless (the glitter). I used two coats for my middle two nails, and one of each for the others.

KKCenterHk Review - Mirror Black Nail Foil

It is no secret that I love nail foils! So I was pretty excited to get to try this black mirror foil (E52) from KKCenterHk!

Squishy Face Polish - Annalisa

If you haven't yet heard, I am hosting a nail polish raffle on Instagram to help raise money for a family member.

A fellow nail community girl, Alice, donated some polishes for me to raffle off and sent a few for me to keep from her indie line Squishy Face Polish (thank you Alice!!).

The first one I immediately knew I had to try out was the gorgeous Annalisa!

Shown is one coat over Nails Inc. The Thames with a coat of Seche Vite on top.

Watermarble Tree - IG Nail Art Collab

Not too long ago, my fellow Twinsies and I participated in a Twinsie Tuesday where each Twinsie gave mani orders to another. When Heather gave Elizabeth the assignment of creating a water marble tree, I remembered that I had a Triplet Nail collab coming up with a Christmas tree theme, and that I'd been wanting to do the water marble tree for ages and had forgotten about it. So for my contribution to the collab, I was inspired to do a water marble tree! With a few plain and a few water marbled presents underneath.  

KKCenterHk Review - Brush Holder

I got a brush holder (JR1167) from KKCenterHk to share with you today! 

Dotted Trees, Garland with Bulbs, and Ho Ho Ho Print

I haven't done a ton of holiday-themed manicures this year, but I did get a wild hair yesterday to create some dotted trees.

Twinsie Tuesday - Something Blue

My "something blue" for today is five thin coats of Sally Hansen Royal Icing.

Fuglies Need Love Too! - Swatch Series Pt. 5/5

For the final installment of this series, I have one last polish: Essie Power Clutch.

Fuglies Need Love Too! - Swatch Series Pt. 4/5

We're almost through the uglies in my stash! The first of today's poo polishes is Zoya Dree.

Fuglies Need Love Too! - Swatch Series Pt. 3/5

The "fugly" polish I have to show you today is from Love & Beauty by Forever 21. It is more of a yucky, dirty yellowy color. So aptly named Yellow. -.-

Fuglies Need Love Too! - Swatch Series Pt. 2/5

Welcome to Day 2 of my swatch series where you'll get to see some pretty ugly polishes. I have an obsession with the "so ugly that they're pretty" polishes. Specifically, poo-looking polishes. So I decided they needed some attention too! ^.^

First up is China Glaze Budding Romance.

Twinsie Tuesday - Something Borrowed + Fuglies Need Love Too! - Swatch Series Pt. 1/5

I took today's Twinsie Tuesday theme literal, I have a polish borrowed from Heather! This is two easy coats of China Glaze There's Snow One Like You.

KBShimmer - Candy Cane Crush

See. Told ya I love me some KBShimmer! I've got another one to show you!

Today I have Candy Cane Crush, the scented version. And oh does it smell wonderful! I love scented polishes anyway. This one has a really yummy, almost sweet peppermint scent. Mmmmmm!

KBShimmer - The Dancing Green

KBShimmer is probably my favorite indie polish. When I put on The Dancing Green, I immediately knew what kind of nail art I wanted to do on top!

I've done palm tree silhouettes many times, but never a human. So I decided I wanted to try my hand at the silhouette of a dancing girl to go with the polish.

Twinsie Tuesday - Holiday Gift

This week, our Twinsie Tuesday theme is "Holiday Gift". We were each assigned to a different Twinsie who gave us a mani that would stretch our nail art talents as a gift. It's like Marching Orders, but less anything-goes, and more challenging. 

My "gift" came from Rachel of Top Coat It.

Born Pretty Store Review: Snowflake Decals

I've tried a lot of Born Pretty Store's water decals, and I've always been very pleased with them. The ones I have to show you today are no different!

Twinsie Tuesday Giveaway

My fellow Twinsie Tuesday girls and I are hosting a giveaway for all of our wonderful followers!

The prize is a $60.00 E-gift card to a retailer of your choice.

The giveaway will run 11/28/13-12/31/13.

Click "read more" and fill out the Rafflecopter after the break to enter!

Orly Snowcone + Avon Blue Ice

I've been in love with Orly Snowcone since the first time I saw it, but was never able to find it in the store! So one of my awesome IG nail friends, Mai, sent it to me!

I was so excited because I knew I loved this polish. Once I actually tried it, I loved it even more!

Twinsie Tuesday - First polish you ever swatched on your blog

My very first posts here were horrendous attempts at nail art, and the first polish I ever actually swatched wasn't until November 11th, 2011. NailsLikeLace was nearly a year old! Granted, I only posted a few times a month in the first year, and actually skipped Feb-June altogether!

I think I had something against swatches for quite awhile. I rarely did swatch posts in the beginning, and almost always tried to include nail art pictures in the same post.

I guess I thought they were boring and pointless, so I stuck with (a poor excuse for) art.

My swatch from two years ago:

*gag*

Born Pretty Store Review: Triangle Studs

I'm kind of loving the studs I have to show you today from Born Pretty Store! These are 3mm triangle studs. For $4.99 USD, you get a ton of these things! The site says about 200, but I didn't count. I do know that when I transferred them from the bag they came in, to a nail deco wheel, they took up three and a half spots. So you get plenty to last quite a while!

Born Pretty Store Holo Polish #9

Today I have another Born Pretty Store holo polish. No review or anything. You saw a review of their holo polish yesterday. I purchased this one myself. It is #9.

Born Pretty Store Review: Holo Polish #4

I can't let summer die without pulling the holos back out for one last romp in the sun! Today I have a holo from Born Pretty Store to share with you! I paired this one with a no-name Bellatrix nude polish, and I love these together!

Rainbow Gradient and Water Marble

There are three types of nail art I haven't done for a while: gradient, water marble, and rainbow nails. So of course I had to remedy that all in one mani!

I was going for a candy swirl look with the water marble. Whether I was successful or not is left to interpretation.

China Glaze Mimosa's Before Mani's + Formula X for Sephora Bombshell

Yesterday I showed you China Glaze Mimosa's Before Mani's for my Twinsie Tuesday post. I had to gussy it up and added a coat of Formula X for Sephora's Bombshell. Since the colored glitter is similar to the ChG, I thought they'd look good together!

Twinsie Tuesday - West Coast vs. East Coast

This week's Twinsie Tuesday is a swatch-off between West Coast and East Coast girls. East Coasters will be swatching their favorite glitter polish today and West Coasters their favorite shimmer. 

For my shimmer polish, I picked China Glaze Mimosas's Before Mani's. It was a birthday present from my fellow Twinsie Amanda, so I figured it was pretty appropriate! ^.^

Comparison: Zoya Nyx vs. Julep Tracy + Textured Gradient

When I got Zoya Nyx for my birthday, I hadn't noticed before, but it looked really similar to Julep Tracy. So of course I had to compare them! It ended up that they actually looked a lot more similar in the bottle than on the nail. Index and ring fingers are Zoya, middle and pinky are Julep.

Ulta - Jaded

 I have a quick swatch to share with you today that I did a few months back and never posted.

This is my one and only Ulta polish that I received from someone else: Jaded.

Twinsie Tuesday - Marching Orders

This week for Twinsie Tuesday, we did Marching Orders again. This is only the second I've been around for, (click here to see the water marble I created for my first), but it is the third for the group. 

Four Days of Finger Paints - Day 4: Glitterpalooza Part 3

For the last round of this mini series, I have Easel-y Entertained and Hue Left a Message? Both needed four coats for opacity on their own, and just like all these glitters I have shown you, are sheer at first, but build-able, with a very forgiving and easy formulas.

Easel-y Entertained

This is four coats of Easel-y Entertained, with no topcoat:

Four Days of Finger Paints - Day 3: Glitterpalooza Part 2

Today I have Purple Palette and Romanticism Ruby to show you.

Purple Palette

This one I had to recolor a little in Photoshop to make it more real-life accurate. It took four coats for opacity on it's own.

Four Days of Finger Paints - Day 2: Glitterpalooza Part 1

For the second day of my mini Finger Paints swatchfest, I have two glitters to show you. First up is Art You Wondering?, a really pretty teal green fine glitter in a clear base that requires four coats for opacity on its own. My swatch shows it with topcoat. It is sheer at first, just like all these glitters I'll be showing you, but build-able and easy to work with.

Art You Wondering?

Four Days of Finger Paints - Day 1: Greenfest

I have a lot of unswatched Finger Paints polishes, so I figured I would do a mini FP swatch series, two at a time, over the course of four days.

To kick off Day 1, I have two green polishes to show you. This first one is Comet's Collar.

Comet's Collar

KKCenterHk Review - Plastic Scraper and Stamper + Pond Mani Technique

The mani I showed you yesterday used a stamping plate from KKCenterHk. I also used a stamper and plastic scraper from them in that mani, and in this one.

This design is known as the "pond mani". You basically layer an image with a jelly polish. So I put down my base color, stamped the heart once, then applied a coat of a jelly, stamped the image again in another spot, more jelly, and so on. This way the first image (they can also be done freehand) is under more layers of jelly polish and going up from the bottom layer, they range from dark to light. Make sense? 

For this mani, I used NOPI Khloe Had a Little Lam-Lam as my initial base, then Zoya Frida for my jelly layers.

KKCenterHk Review - Winnie the Pooh Stamping Plate

Have you seen the Winnie the Pooh stamping plate? No? Well, they're pretty cute! I got one from KKCenterHk to show you today!

Twinsie Tuesday - Cloud Mani

It is Tuesday again and you know what that means! Twinsie Tuesday time!

This week, I actually did two manis. I started out with one, different colors on each nail, but ended up loving one combo and just doing them all that way instead. 

When I think "cloud mani", I think of the type of look I did for today, rather than actual puffy white clouds painted on your nails.