Nubar Duochromes: Purple Beach

Hi everyone!

So, I've finally started to get used to the multiple nighttime awakenings. I even managed to get a nap in on a couple of days here and there! I don't know how long it's going to last but one thing I've figured out is to get anything done, carrying him around in a wrap really works. Five minutes after putting him in one of those, he is fast asleep.

So, on to nail polish. Today's post is part two of the Nubar Duochrome swatches. This is Purple Beach. In the bottle it looks sort of greyish with a purple shimmer. The purple shimmer in this is stronger than in Indigo Illusion. The links below can take you to the other swatches:
             Indigo Illusion
             Iris Dust
             Moon Eclipse
             Wildlife

It also has a green shift when viewed at an angle.

Here are a couple of pictures in sunlight.

Here is a collage of what the color shift looks like in my lightbox.

This is a sunlight collage.

And, of course, here's the video!

Nubar duochromes: Indigo Ilusion

Hi polish lovers!

So, things are finally starting to settle just a little bit at home with the little one. There are some learning curves involved, like how not to snap at everyone around me when he goes through a fussy day or two and nothing seems to console him except walking around with him in the middle of night. But, I have managed to find a few stolen minutes here and there to paint my nails, catch up on work, write blog posts... etc.

Today's post and the next three after this are actually going to feature swatches that I did the weekend before my entire life changed, heh. I have been coveting the Nubar duochromes and my third trimester pregnancy addled brain finally convinced me that I deserved them for as miserable I was feeling. I got five, swatched four. The missing one is Nubar Wildlife, which I hope to get swatched soon. The ones I have swatched are:
                Indigo Illusion
                Purple Beach
                Iris Dust
                Moon Eclipse
Nubar did have other duochrome polishes as well but I'm not sure where to find them now. I got these on Amazon.
Edit: I did manage to swatch Wildlife as well.

Today's post is Nubar Indigo Illusion. I'll show the others in the next few posts. I want to feature each one individually in separate posts because I'm not sure I can smush all that awesomeness into one post.

Nubar Indigo Illusion has a greyish blue color that reminds me of the stormy seas color. There is a purple shimmer. With a change in the position of light, a strong green shift can be seen. In the sunlight the purple shimmer is even more obvious.

The picture below shows this polish in the sunlight.

Here's a collage...

And, finally, I think these polishes are really best understood with a video so here's the video!

My Delivery Mani: Sinful Colors Rise and Shine Gradient with Sally Hansen Fuzz-Sea

Hi all! So I'm actually pretty surprised I managed to cobble together a few minutes here and there over the last couple of days to come up with this post for you. The baby is sleeping and therefore I should be too but, go figure, I can't. So I might as well get this post up!

So, this is the mani I ended up having on my nails during the delivery. Not blue like I thought I would end up wearing but that's what happens when the delivery is a surprise! It actually held up really well afterwards as well since I didn't take it off for over a week. Except for growth at the cuticles, it hardly chipped or got tipwear.

The polishes used for this mani are:
Sinful Colors Rise and Shine (darker green)
Sinful Colors Pistache (Lighter green)
Sinful Colors Snow me White (far left)
Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat Fuzz-Sea

The fun thing with this mani as well was that I used Elmer's glue around the nail to help with clean up after creating the gradient. It is sooo easy!! The picture below shows the Elmer's Glue liftoff in action.

The picture below shows what it looks like after all the Elmer's Glue has been removed from the ring finger. The middle finger still needs the Elmer's Glue removed. What's left over is really minimal!

He's here!!!

Hi everyone!! If any of you have been wondering where I've been for the last two weeks or so, here he is. My little one couldn't wait any longer so he decided to show up three and a half weeks early. You can see the mani I wore at the time of delivery and the entire week afterwards. This is going to be a short post, as you can imagine. I'll show you guys this mani up close later when I have some time.... For now, enjoy this sweet little face :-)

Too special to wear: Color Club Miss Bliss and Sunday Stamping

Hi guys! Look at me, I'm on a roll here. Another post and it's only been a couple of days??

So, before I launch into the polish itself, let me tell you a little bit about me. I think there are two kinds of people in the world. When given a bunch of different items, there are those that will dive into the most interesting, the best loved items first and then move on to the less interesting ones later, if at all. Then there are those that will convince themselves that by plodding through the less interesting, less tasty stuff first, they can truly enjoy the best ones at the end. I'm part of the second group. I've always saved the best for last and when it comes to my nail polish collection, that means that I save all the "special" polish for a special time. As time has gone by, I've realized that I have a lot of shades that I haven't even tried because they are "too special to use just now". I've decided that I want to stop that. I have too many cool shades just sitting in my collection waiting for me to decide that now is the right time. So, now I'm going to bring them out and put them in a series of stuff I thought was too special to wear. I think you guys will be surprised by some of the polishes I put off for this reason.

The first one is Color Club Miss Bliss. I have a pretty decent collection of holographic polishes now but you guys haven't seen any of them because I kept thinking I didn't have a good enough reason to wear them yet. I had to have a cool design planned, a special occasion, it just wasn't sunny enough. Well, Miss Bliss is going to be the first representative of my holographic collection. This shade is from the Holographic Hues spring 2013 collection. I didn't have any plans for any designs when I first wore it, and that was kind of liberating!

The picture above is in sunlight. The picture below is in shade. I did end up putting a little something on the ring finger with striping tape and Color Club Eternal Bliss which you can see much better when it isn't in full sun.

And then....it just so happened that I had just enough time to use this mani as the base for the Sunday Stamping Challenge over at Adventures in Stamping Facebook group. The challenge was simple: use a plate that ends with the number 8. So, I did this...

This is a gradient stamping using three colors. Petites CQ Raspberry Ice, Petites CQ Black Diamond, SH Insta-Dri Pronto Purple. The plate is a Cheeky plate CH48.

This is the first time I've tried gradient stamping. I really liked it and it wasn't too hard! You may be able to see the gradient better here.

What do you guys think?