Sephora Color Hit - Blackjack

I was at JC Penney a while back and wandered over by Sephora where I spotted these teeny little bottles of polish.  I'm generally not a Sephora shopper...nothing against 'em, it's just not my style for the most part plus in general it's a little spendy and out of my usual budget...but those cute little Color Hit bottles drew me in for a closer look.  Several colors interested me, but I only ended up purchasing this one, called Blackjack:

I might just maybe kinda sorta have a weakness for grey polish, specifically anything in the "gunmetal" family.  I just think it's such a chic color, not as harsh as black (especially on my pale skin), and if that grey has a shimmer?  Must. Buy. Now.  :)

More after jump....

Random manis, aka Spam Sunday

Turns out we have some big changes coming up in the personal life side of things, the news of which has thrown me off track with this blog.  I've still been doing manis and taking photos but the rest of my time has been caught up in researching school districts and starting a house search...yep, we're moving!  And in about three months, so I'm trying hard not to freak out.  Not always successful, but ya do what ya can, right?

I'm going to get some of my OLD manis up here on the blog, so old that for most of them I can't remember what polishes I used.  Ooops.  I really ought to figure out a good way to document my mani details....

My first "cloud" mani...I know that the silver is Essie No Place Like Chrome and the blue might be OPI I Have A Herring Problem, but no clue about the dark purple.

More after the jump:

Nicole by OPI That's What I Mint + SH Scarab

Green polish and I don't always get along, but in the case of today's polishes....I don't care.  I nabbed Nicole by OPI's "That's What I Mint" (part of their Gumdrops textured line) from CVS recently and waited for a green mood to strike.  Considering the size of my untrieds pile, I thought it best to try to find something to go along with it, and grabbed Sally Hansen Lustre Shine in Scarab.  Holy awesome Batman, what a great pairing!  Lookie, lookie:

I loved this so much that I immediately texted a photo of it to a friend and insisted she buy it, arm-twisting at its technological best.

I don't see a whole lot of mint, and this pulled way more "green" on my skin tone than "teal", but otherwise I'm now obsessed with this polish and will be wearing it a LOT this fall/winter. 

More pics/details after the jump:

NY Giants!

We're a football family...my dad played and coached and scouted for years, my uncle played and coached for years, my cousins played in college (and one is coaching now), and while we all like other sports well enough, the number one sport we loooooove is football. 

Then I went and married a NY Giants FANATIC, and I do mean that in every sense of the word.  Our house would be decorated entirely in Giants colors and decor if I allowed it.  We have to make sure the windows are closed during games so our neighbors don't get a lesson in creative (and loud) swearing.  It's taken my husband the better part of five years to learn how to tone himself down during games in order not to scare or worry or wake up our young son.  I enter each game on our family calendar so we can make weekend plans around each game time. Stumped for a gift idea to the hubby?  Get him anything that has the NY symbol on it, and he's thrilled. (our grill AND its propane tank have Giants covers on them...I kid you not)  The man is a FANAAAATIC.

I love the Giants as well, and fully support his temporary insanity on Sundays.  Which is why I did a NY Giants manicure last week for the season opening game:

More pics and info on the colors I used after the jump....

A England Tristam and OPI Russian Navy

Today's mani features one of my two a england polishes (trust me, I'd have waaayyyy more of them if my budget allowed it!) that I bought in June....Tristam.  I'm in LOVE with this gorgeous navy scattered holo, so much that I didn't even mind when it chipped the day after I put it on.  Ah well, such is the nature of holos, plus I'm just so dang hard on my hands that it's a miracle if I can make it to day two without any chips with ANY polish.

Anyway, check out this gorgeous pretty lovely awesomeness:

 

Essie Millionails base coat -- two coats of Tristam -- Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat

You may notice that there is a different color on my ring finger?  That is OPI Russian Navy, a color I picked up recently to add to the ever-growing collection of blues in my stash.  Seriously...blues and purples....apparently I must have them alllllllll!  :)

More pics (a lot, actually) after the jump, including photos of how I embellished this mani on the 2nd day:

Finger Paints A Grape Catch

Like many of us in the nail polish obsessed community, I follow the blog All Lacquered Up, and was excited to check out the Finger Paints collection that she created in collaboration with Sally Beauty.  While running errands the other day, I dragged my husband and son into a Sally's (they were thrilled....not) and was delighted to see that they had the display out already even though it wasn't quite September.  I grabbed two of the colors, A Grape Catch and You Yacht To Know Better.  Today's post is about the former....

Pretty, right?  Well, it's even better in real life.  I could not for the life of me get a color-accurate photo taken of this dark, steely, shimmery purple, so these pics are ever-so-slightly tweaked via Photoshop.  And even then they aren't perfect, but you'll get the gist.

More pics and observations after the jump...