Icy Queen's Nail Parlour is having a Blogoversary!

Ice Queen has just started her first giveaway, starting with Color Club's Wicked Sweet set of polishes. She will be adding more things in time. Sounds like this should be an awesome giveaway.  And don't forget to check out her blog while your there. :)

Ice Queen's Blogoversary Giveaway

Here is a message from Icy Queen:

Hello gentle readers.

Thank you all so much for your sweet messages and outpourings of congratulations on my first anniversary. I am so touched. <3

In appreciation of all of you, my gentle readers, I am going to hold a giveaway. The other day I was in Ross and found two Color Club Wicked Sweet polish collections. I bought one for myself and decided to buy the second one to become the foundation for my Wicked Sweet Mystery One Year Blogoversary Giveaway. I added the mystery because I have decided to leave this giveaway open for a while. Why? So that I can buy additional goodies to add to my giveaway as my budget allows. In fact, I have already added a few little things. But they shall remain a mystery.

For the present.

I will, as time goes by show you some of the goodies I add. Give hints or clues about others and will say absolutely nothing at all about a couple.

Oh... Okay. One hint. Sticky. ;)

Allrighty, then... Here we go. Time for those stupid, pesky rules that must be a part of any giveaway. this is going to be a long one. And involved. So buckle up, kiddies, it's going to be a bumpy ride. lol

First off, (I hate, hate, hate this one!!!) this giveaway is open to legal residents of the United States only. I am so, so, so sorry to have to include this rule. The fact is that it is becoming so difficult and expensive to legally ship polish overseas that I just don't see how I can manage it. *hangs head*

This giveaway is open without a closing date, at present. I want to keep it open so that I can add goodies as my budget allows. I will post when I decide to set a close date. 

Please, remember to include your e-mail address with your entry comment! I need to have a way to contact you, should you win. :D  I will contact the winner by e-mail and post here and on my Facebook fan page, to be sure that the winner has a chance to be notified. Once the e-mail goes out and the posts are made, the winner has 48 hours to contact me. If I don't hear from the winner within that time, a new winner will be drawn.

I may do an old fashioned draw or I may use a generator. I'll let you all know, before the drawing. :)

This giveaway will have multiple opportunities to enter, please, for the sake of my sanity, put all of your entries in one comment. Thank you, loves. :)

Ice Queen's Blogoversary Giveaway

Just a little touch up....

So I liked my attempt at my 4th of July mani, but since I didn't have the silver detail pen, I kept feeling like it was missing something. Then I remembered that I have Sparkling Diamond in LA Color (silver hexagon glitter), and figured that was just what my nails needed. I didn't do anything special to it, just put one coat over the entire nail, but it looks good and gave it an extra sparkle it needed for the 4th.  :)

Just thought I'd share. :P

And even though I wasn't planning on posting any pictures until I get more practice, I changed  my mind. But, please remember this is my very first paint job that used more than one polish. I never took pics of the non-glitter version, cause I wasn't planning to post. The reason I changed my mind is because I thought it would be cool to have a "my first" post and see how I progress. It's more for me than anyone else. And remember I had no experience in manis, and had no one even teach me. Everything I do know came from the web, and that was just last week. I still have to look into all the basics, like cuticles and all that. Also, I don't do artificial nail, gel tip, or anything. These are my natural nails, and three fingers on my left hand broke the day before I painted them for 4th of July (don't ask). I think the best nail turned out to be my right thumb, but of course I didn't take any pics of that. :P

So anyway, here they are:

Left hand 

                                

Right hand

I guess they're OK for a first try, although I am embarrassed to even post them , and probably will come back soon and delete them, lol.  Eh hehe, I'm not good at taking pics either.

Fourth of July

So I keep seeing some really cute manis for the Fourth of July and I really can't wait until I am able to do them.  I did come across one that seemed simple enough, so I gave it a try.  I learned how to do it on Manicured Monkey's tutorial  The tutorial is really easy to use, so I gave it a go. I don't have the glitter, so it's a little less elegant, but it still looks good with just the red, white and blue. Now, I know it probably seems easy for all you, but you have to realize, in my family we sis not use makeup, unless it was a special occasion, and then only sparingly. I used to paint my nails a lot, but I had some things happen and I kinda just didn't care anymore to keep up with that. Now, at the ripe old age of 36, I have had a revival of my polish obsession... Anyway, long story short, I never was taught how to do my own makeup, and then when I could have learned on my own, I didn't really care to. Now I am on a new campaign to reinvent myself, starting with my nails.  :)

So back to the main point of this here blog. I have been drooling over all the pretty 4th of July manis and came across Manicured Monkey's tutorial. I have been watching a lot of tutorials, and all you guys make it look so darn easy. And having my new stash of colors, I couldn't wait to try something.  I think it actually turned out well, considering I don't have the tools to make efficient manis. I had to use scotch tape, and it was a bit harder I think then nail striping tape. So Nail striping tape goes on my wishlist. I am really starting bare bones here, with only about 4 colors of polish, before my trip to the dollar store last week. And since I am on a very tight budget, it's going to be slow going at first.

By the way I besides having an obsessive/compulsive personality, I also get distracted easily, so if I jump from subject to subject and make my blog a big jumble of thoughts and stuff, then I am really sorry, and thanks for those of you who stick through it.  :)

So back to my patriotic mani... The lines are not as straight as I would like them, there was a bit of bleeding under the scotch tape, since I was afraid to press it down to hard for fear it would take some polish with it when removed. After the first couple, I got it down, so it's not too bad. Then on my pinky I had a bit of smearing, the red into the white making a bit of a streaky pink, because I tried to put the top coat on too early. (eh, heh, I also am impatient... I got all the great qualities, lol). It isn't too bad, but it made me mad. :)
All in all, it looks pretty good, better form a distance, of course, but really not bad up close.  My son absolutely loved it, and my husband seemed to, too. He's kind of a macho man, so polish isn't something he usually likes to talk about, but he tries, bless his heart. I probably bore him to death lately with my new found nail polish love, but he hasn't complained about my going on and on about how pretty nail art is, and showing him countless pictures from the web, and buying all those polishes. He has been supporting me all the way, and even tries his best to help out. Gosh, I love that man. :)

Geez, I think I have ADD. Seriously, I am so easily distracted, and my blog is a messy jumble of thoughts. SO hopefully it isn't too confusing, annoying, or boring. Bear with me. As I get used to blogging, they will get better, along with my manis. Maybe once I get a little better I will start to post pics, but for now I am way too embarrassed with my results. But you have to start somewhere right? I'm just getting a late start. :)

Well, one more thing before I go. I really love my mani, and it;s for the 4th... but that's still a whole day away.... and I want to go play with more manis  :(  I have a feeling I'm going to be one of those people that changes manis every other day , or every day. Which is really a waste, but what can I say.  I will try to wait one more day.... ugh so long... and the I will change it. I already know which one I want to try next. It's form Konad Addict's blog, and I can't wait to try it. It looks simple enough (yeah, it all looks simple with all these skilled nail artists). Wish me luck! :P

Polish Obsession...

OK, so I started looking for pretty things, which I love... doesn't matter what as long as its pretty.  And so I found pretty eye pictures... you know the kind, the fantasy makeup eye shadow, eyes, contacts whatever like this:

 

Which lead to pictures of lips like these:

Which eventually lead me to nails like these:

 

Which of course lead me to nail art blogs. And I have been hooked ever since. So since then I have been checking out nail art, and drooling over everyone's creativity and skill. I can only dream of being so skilled. But I have a new obsession, which is nail polish. I have always loved polish, and even when I didn't use makeup for anything else, I almost always had my nails polished. I've never had artificial nails, I keep my natural nails pretty long, so it looks good with polish. But anyway, on my newly revived nail polish high, I went down to the dollar store... because, really if I'm going to practice, I'm not going to use a $5.00+ bottle of polish. And I found some polish some of the bloggers talked about, which was LA Colors. And a vary large selection at that. And so, my shameful shopping spree began... 

A few days ago I went to the dollar store here in town and bought 15 different colors, and then today while I was in the city, I stopped by a different dollar store and they had an even bigger selection and Art Deco from LA Colors. So I bought 5 more polishes and 9 Art Decos.

I ended up with like 20 different colors, and 9 Art Deco polishes. I just got them yesterday, so I tried it out and did a pretty decent job on making a flower on my thumb.  But it will definitely take time. Today I am going to try out a 4th of July mani... haven't decided what yet, but it will be something simple, of course. The polish is really good for a $1.00 polish. It doesn't chip or fade. So for now I will be happy with these, although, I was making a wishlist to post, and boy , was it long. :P  I would like to get some crackle or shatter, though, even if some people are saying that trend is getting old... it's still new to me. :P 

OK, well off I go to play with my new toys! :)

 **None of the above pictures belong to me, just found them on the web. The top two mani pics are from    Doo-polishing.blogspot.com whom I now faithfully follow, along with others. The cherry blossom pic was actually responsible for my recent nail polish obsession revival. :)  She has some beautiful manis on her blog. Check it out sometime. Not sure where the other pics are from, I just found them on the web, like I said.

Re-modeling

I am going to be moving stuff around a bit, so some posts may be moved to a different page. Everything will still be here, just moved around a bit. 

Geez

Well, I'm slowly figuring out the blog layout tools. I figured out how to add pages, which I really could have used before, so that I could have a giveaway page separate from my regular blog. I thought I could just rename them, but it doesn't really help much, cause even though they are re-named, and I changed the order of them, the other page still has my main address. I suppose it doesn;t really matter, but I am a bit obsessive when I think something should be a certain way, and it isn't.  Oh, well. Roll with it.  :)Well, I'm slowly figuring out the blog layout tools. I figured out how to add pages, which I really could have used before, so that I could have a giveaway page separate from my regular blog. I thought I could just rename them, but it doesn't really help much, cause even though they are re-named, and I changed the order of them, the other page still has my main address. I suppose it doesn;t really matter, but I am a bit obsessive when I think something should be a certain way, and it isn't.  Oh, well. Roll with it.  :)

Deuce Beauties Blog Sale

The prices have been recently reduced and there are some really great deals here.
So go Here for a Huge Blog Sale! Nail polish, Makeup, Clothing, Bags, Sunglasses, and Accessories etc! MAC, China Glaze, Color Club, Estee Lauder, D&G, Coach, Harajuku, Urban Outfitters etc!

Hope you find something you can use. :)

TraceFace Philes "just because" giveaway

KK You know how much I love Nails and giveaways, so why not put them together.  :P   Here's a link to a fabulous giveaway:  TraceFace Philes "just because" Giveaway




Good Luck!

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