Pastel Hearts

Hi everyone, Happy Valentine's Day!

I just have a quick post today since I have a bunch of midterms coming up and I really need to get around to studying for them instead of procrastinating! :P

If you follow me on Instagram (my username is livelylacquer), you'd know I'm kind of cheating out on a v-day manicure. I actually did this mani a few weeks ago. I actually had a great idea for a heart manicure in my brain, but when I tried to actually do it... well, it didn't turn out so well. I might try it again in the future, when I feel more patient.

Anyway, on to the manicure! For this look I used all of the colours found in the China Glaze Avant Garden Pastel Petals set (see my swatches here) and a quick pastel yellow mix using a drop of Cult Nails' Feel me up and OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls.

Base: China Glaze Dandy Lyin' Around
Hearts: CG Fade into Hue, Keep Calm Paint On, Life is Rosy, Tart-y for the Party, Pink-ie Promise and a pastel yellow.

I freehanded the hearts in random places on the nail with a nail art brush and then sealed it all up with a coat of Cult Nails' Wicked Fast topcoat.

I'm fairly happy with how it turned out! I kind of wish that the hearts were a bit more even, but then again it is my art skills that we're talking about haha. What do you think? Do y'all have any cool plans for Valentine's Day? I have a hot date with my lecture notes LOL.

Thank you all for reading! Hope y'all enjoy the rest of your week! <3

Marisa

China Glaze Avant Garden Collection Part II - Pastel Petals Swatches

Hi everyone!

Yesterday I showed you the Blooming Brights, but today I'm happy to bring you the Pastel Petals set from the China Glaze Avant Garden collection for Spring 2013!

I'm actually a really big sucker for pastel shades, even though I don't wear them as often as I should. The only thing I don't like about pastels is that most of the time the formula will kind of suck or be streaky and annoying... I probably don't use them that often because when I don't have time to do my nails but need a polish change, I tend to just pull out my easy to apply favourites. There's nothing I hate more than trying to quickly do my nails with a polish that's crazy amounts of thick and goopy (and requires more than 3 coats!).

Anyway, I digress. Onto the polish, shall we? This collection is made up to 3 shimmers and 3 cremes. :D

Vacation Parcels!

Hi everyone!

First of all.. TGIF! Today marks the end of my first full week (last week was a 4 days week since labour day was a holiday) at my new job. I'm writing this in advance since I won't be able to type up posts the day of on weekdays since I get home pretty late. It kind of sucks how there isn't enough light (and I feel too pooped) to swatch for the blog after work, so all of my swatching has to be done on weekends. I'm sure a lot of polish bloggers have to do the same, but it's just a bit unusual for me since I'm used to being in school and getting back relatively early.

ANYWAY, onto the meat of today's post! I'm not going to do much talking for the rest of this post since I'll most likely be revisiting all of these products in their own posts sooner or later. These items all arrived while I was away on the East Coast, so I had the pleasure of opening all of these up when I got back home!


I got two sample sets (each set includes 6 soaps of your choice, so I have 12 in total) of soaps from KBShimmer. I normally don't like handmade soap, but I thought these were too cute to pass up on, and so I'm "testing" them for gift quality *cough cough* and also taking the opportunity to figure out what smell I'd like for a tub of KBShimmer body scrub. I'm a sucker for body scrubs.

Top to bottom, left to right: Pink Sugar, Raspberry Vanilla, Rosemary Mint, Oatmeal Milk and Honey, Bamboo Sugarcane, Paradise, Kaleidosoap, Gardeners, Lilac, Chai Tea, Blue Hawaii and Southern Belle.

My Cult Nails Birthday Sale Order (only the new polishes!) I also got 2 bottles of Wicked Fast and a back up of Feelin' Froggy. I really wish I got a bottle of Deal with it, but I guess I'm just going to have to wait till the next sale!

 
 Innisfree nail polish. This is a Korean brand that I saw late one night while I was browsing nail polish blogs. Obviously I shouldn't read polish blogs late at night because I ordered these babies a few minutes after I saw them. No regrets though, since these are gorgeous.

I also received my Llarowe order of 2 Girly Bits polishes... I didn't manage to take pictures of them though, before I used them up for frankening. You'll be hearing about this in a later post! 

Before I go, I wanted to mention that I really appreciate all of the FANTABULOUS comments left on my scheduled posts while I was away! Thank you so, so much! <3

That's all for today! Thank you for reading!

Marisa

Cult Nails: Happy Ending over Princess

Hi everyone.

I'm feeling a bit down/frustrated/stressed out/angry right now. I'm going to start ranting in the next paragraph, so if you don't want to read it, you can just skip it over!

I'm supposed to start a work semester at a company in September (until the end of December) and I had training for the past two days that really pooped me out. I was talking with some of my other fellow new work semester students, and they've all been contacted by a government agency to say that they've been awarded the funding they applied for... and I haven't. Apparently they've also had to sign a formal document about employment (which I haven't had to yet), so I have this sinking feeling that they're waiting to hear if I get the funding before committing to hire me... and if I don't get it, they'll decide to drop me. Not sure if it can work this way, but I'm still really stressed out.

Okay, rant off. If any of you read that, thank you so much for bearing with me! <3

Anyhow, since I fee a little bit better now (but still stressed) I'm going to post a mani featuring polishes from one of my favourite brands ever - Cult Nails.

I think I'm going to spare you from any more epic rambling of mine, so here are the photos! Enjoy!

Princess with one coat of Happy Ending

Princess with one coat of Happy Ending

Princess on its own

Thank you for reading even though I can be a bit crazy sometimes, you guys really mean the world to me!

Marisa

PS: I'm leaving for the east coast (I'm staying in the Bethesda area) on vacation for the next two weeks, so hopefully I'm planning tomorrow to get my mojo together to shedule up some posts for the time I'm away. That being said, this will probably be my last live post before I take off on Monday night. See y'all in a little bit! I'll be on twitter until I leave and for intermittent periods during my trip!

Spring Orly Spam!

Hi everyone!

How are we all today? I'm relaxing a bit but still kinda stressed since I have training for my new job coming up next week. I reallllly need to go find my notes so I can review some of the more important protocol bits (I'll be working in a lab). I made a TON of orders in the past few days. Cult Nails is having a sale where all of their polishes are $7 ($3 off each) and Maria has announced that some of the polishes (including my beloved Feelin' Froggy) are going to be discontinued. I know I said I'd be really sad if she dc'ed Feelin' Froggy, but I think I feel better since it was on sale and I was able to grab a back up bottle! I also finally caved in and bought a bunch of soaps from KBShimmer. I'm planning on purchasing a sugar scrub from them too, but I figure I'll wait until I get all of my mini soaps and smell them all instead of purchasing such a big tub blind. :P I'm also super excited that Nail Polish Canada is going to get the Zoya Fall collection in tomorrow. Right now they're having a free shipping for Canadian Orders over $25, so you bet I'm going to grab some. I'm most excited for Evvie (since I love the name), but I'm going to pick up a bunch of other colours too. I love Nail Polish Canada as they're based really close to me, so I get my orders within a day or 2 of shipping. :D

Oops, that was a lot of ramble. Sorry guys. Lol!

Annyhow, today I have some Orly polishes from the Spring for you! These have been sitting in my swatch folder for a while, but I have no idea why I haven't posted them yet since they're great Spring colours! Let the spam commence!

 Faint of Heart: Grey-Taupe creme.

Jealous Much?: Pretty mint creme. I used this in my Mint Oreo chip NOTD a while ago. If I remember correctly, I thought the dry time on this polish was fairly long.

Prelude to a Kiss: Pretty soft peach for Spring. I love this colour.

You're Blushing: Pretty mauve-y grey-y polish.


That's all for today! Thanks for reading!

Marisa