Design: Morning Coffee!

Lately I have really been wanting to try out Newspaper print nails again, but I really wanted to add something to them to give them my own unique spin.  I decided that it would be really cool to see if I could make it look like there was coffee mug rings on the newspaper.  For this design I used NYC French White Tip and China Glaze Ingrid.

How to:

For the Newspaper Nails:
1.  Paint your nails with your base color. For me I used 3 coats of NYC French White Tip.
2.  Wait for the polish to dry completely.
3.  Take strips of news paper and dip them in rubbing alcohol and apply to the nail.  Hold a cotton ball dipped in rubbing alcohol over the paper strip on the nail.
4.  Hold for 30-45 seconds on the nail.
5.  Gently remove the paper strip and the cotton ball.
6.  View your cool design!
7.  Repeat on each nail.

For the Coffee Stains:
1.  Dip the large end of a dotting tool in brown polish.  I used China Glaze Ingrid.
2.  Create a large dot on the nail.
3.  Use the smaller dotting tool to scrape some of the brown polish out of the center of the dot so that it looks more like a ring.
4.  Add little dribble dots with the smaller dotting tool to look like drops of spilt coffee around the ring.
5.  Cover with top coat.

I am really excited with how this came out!  It looks exactly like I had imagined it in my head!  I think that this is a cute little spin on an already awesome design.

Have you tried newspaper nails?  What do you think of them?  Leave a comment here, on Facebook, or tweet me @Polish_Paradise!

Sally Beauty Haul and Swatches!

So today I went to Sally Beauty with some of my friends and I ended up buying 6 polishes.  We had a pretty awesome coupon and all of the polishes at Sally's were buy 2 get 1 free, so it didn't do to much damage to my bank account! Two of the polishes that I bought are going to be for my 500 Facebook fan giveaway, and I want them to be a surprise so I did not include them in the haul pictures.

The four polishes that I bought for my self are China Glaze Peachy Keen, China Glaze Sea Spray, China Glaze Fast Track, and China Glaze Celtic Sun.  Below are swatches of them all:

China Glaze Peachy Keen is an orange peach color creme polish.  It has a great formula just like the rest of the China Glaze polishes and was very opaque after two coats.  One thing I noticed different was that it looked  more pink-orange on my nails, in this picture it looks sort of yellow-orange.  Regardless it is a beautiful color and I can't wait to use it in some nail art.

China Glaze Sea Spray is a light gray blue color that I at first glance thought was a creme, but when I looked at it closely it has a slight satin finish, which is really nice.  It was completely opaque after two coats and the formula was nice and smooth.  The color reminds me of a misty beach sky.  I have so many ideas of nail art designs to do with this. I cannot wait to try them out!

Next up is China Glaze Fast Track from the Hunger Games Collection.  It is a light brown almost coffee with milk color with medium sized gold shimmers in it.  It was another two coater! This polish is subtle but it catches the light nicely.  It has a really nice shine to it and I was so happy that I was finally able to get my hands on it.

And last but not least China Glaze Celtic Sun which is a neon yellow color.  It is pretty much the same color as a yellow highlighter.  Neon's are always really hard to get good opacity on so what I usually do put a coat of white polish below them to help them look as bright as they should.  In the pictures above the coat number on the pictures are for the nails that do not have white on them.  The white pinkie nail has two coats over the white in the final picture and as you can see it looks much brighter than the nails that have three coats of polish on them.  This is such an awesome neon color and I am currently using in a water marble!

What do you guys think of these colors?  Do you have any guesses as to what my 500 fan giveaway polishes are?  Leave a comment here, on Facebook, or tweet me @Polish_Paradise.

Manicure of the Day: Foie Gras with Luxe and Lush!

Lots of exciting stuff going on in the past couple of days!  I finally reached 100 fans on Facebook and started my giveaway (you can find it here if you want to enter!).  I was also nominated for two blogger awards, which is really awesome!  Also I am on spring break from college, which is nice cause I get a chance to relax!

For my manicure today I decided to use the last of the China Glaze Capitol Colors that I had yet to try because I am finally going to see the movie tonight!  For this manicure I used China Glaze Foie Gras and China Glaze Luxe and Lush.

Foie Gras  is a beautiful brown color.  It kind of reminds me of milk chocolate or hot chocolate.  It has great opacity.  It looked pretty great after one coat, but I still put two on just to cover up some of the thin spots.

After two coats it is completely opaque.  I then decided it needed some accent nails to jazz it up.  I put one coat of Luxe and Lush on my thumb and ring fingers.

I think that the accent nails gave my nails the flash that they needed.  I am really excited to see The Hunger Games and I am even more excited that my nails will match the movie!

Did any of you guys see or read The Hunger Games? Leave a comment here or on the Polished Paradise Facebook Page!

First Haul Post! End February Goodies!

Since February, which happens to be my favorite month of the year, is drawing to a close I wanted to post my last haul of polish that was bought this month. I bought all the polish in this haul from Sally Beauty and Walmart.

Sally had a sale on China Glaze polish where they were each a dollar off and I definitely could not pass up that offer! I picked up China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy which is a neon orange pink color... I am a sucker for neon colors! China Glaze For Audrey is a color I had been hearing a lot about.  It is the Tiffany blue box color, which I love.  I almost did not buy it because I have another color that is very similar, but I am glad that I did because it is such a great color.  (Keep posted for a comparison swatch blog!!) China Glaze Reagge To Riches is a beautiful purple pink duo chrome.  China Glaze Ingrid is a light brown with a bronze gold shimmer. And last but not least China Glaze Latticed Lilac is a metallic light purple crackle that I picked up in the clearance bin! Score!

The last color I picked up at Sally was Orly Blue Collar, which is a robin's egg blue cream.  The rest of this haul is from Walmart.  I was finally able to find Revlon Scandalous after months of searching for it!  It's so pretty! I can understand why it has been out of stock for months in all the stores that I shop at! While I was at Walmart I found a bunch of NYC polishes that had 50 cent off coupons on them so I snatched them up, cause it isn't very often that you can get polish for under a dollar a bottle! NYC Starry Silver Glitter is a clear gel base with blue and purple large chunky glitter and small silver glitter.  NYC Broadway Burgundy Frost is a red glitter.  It kind of reminds me of ruby red slippers.  Plaza Plumberry is a dark purple eggplant color.  French White Tip is your typical white cream polish.

The last five polishes are from NYC's Dry in a NY Minute collection.  NYC Tribeca Silver is a metallic silver.  NYC Park Ave is a beautiful mauve color.  NYC Pier 17 is a metallic royal blue.  NYC East Village is a metallic aqua color. NYC Matte Me Crazy is a quick drying matte top coat.  I was really excited to find a cheap matte top coat.  They can be hard to come by sometimes.

I will have swatches of many of these polishes for you all very soon!