Happy New Year's Giveaway!

This post is 10 days overdue.  I seriously need a life coach or a PA to help me get things done on time.  I'm NEVER late for stuff, so this is inexcusable!  I mean, hell, take a look at the issues I've had with shipping out the Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer preorders!  It's shameful, and I will have humility and blame it all on myself.  Ugh.  Oh yeah, if you click on that link regarding the preorders, there's a question there about the free mini I'm giving to all preorders for their patience.  I'd love to hear your thoughts!  Next, I plan to post my progress pics for Naked November this week.  Specifically, I'm hoping to have it up tomorrow. 

Ok, now that the housekeeping is done, let's get to the main attraction, the Happy New Year's Giveaway!  I've teamed with some stellar makers and bloggers to put together this fantastic New Year's Celebration Giveaway!  There's still some time to get in on it, so let me know asap if you'd like to join in the fun!  Let's take a look at the prizes, shall we?  And because I'm vain, I'll start with my prizes, hah!

Wishes of a Blue-Eyed Girl | Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquers

The entire core collection of Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquers since it's opening in the spring of 2013.  This will include LEs that are a part of core/publicly released collections but NOT one-off or LE collections.  The polishes in this prize include: Easy to Love, It's Smaller on the Outside, Operation Hennesy, Eleanor, Weary Traveler, Death by Restock, Sell Souls for ISOs (OBO), Cart Jacked by Witches, Discontinued Limited Edition (not pictured), MIL Induced Mimosas, Turkey Coma, Untrodden Snow, Electric Icicle, Tacky Winter Sweater, Snowfall at Dusk, glass heart with glitters, Warm and Toasty, Frozen Ivy, Plum Tired of the Cold, Hypothermia, Skating in the Snow, First Frost, Morning Light, All I'll Ever Need, Deepest Inquisitions, Watch the Walls, Jiggery Pokery, Self Satisfied, Monster's Tea at Tiffany's, Birthday Wishes, Floppy Hoppy Bunnies, Tea is Soothing, Tact is Just Saying Not True Stuff, Dorkhead, Love Makes You do the Wacky, We Saved the World, I Don't Bite, Out for a Walk, I'm Going Through Some Changes, the Scoobies, Resolutions (not pictured), and 2014 (not pictured).

Wishes of a Blue-Eyed Girl | Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquers

The entire Holiday LE collection: Ma'oz Tzur by Candlelight, St. Nick's Sweet Treats, Guided by Starlight, Newborn Solstice Sun, Matunda Ya Kwanza, Resolutions, and 2014.

Wishes of a Blue-Eyed Girl

This prize will consist of all of my nail and hand care holy grails as well as the New Year's Duo.  Included in this prize will be Sally Hansen Instant Cuticle Remover, KBShimmer's Clearly on Top, 365 Days of Color Sunny's Hand Cream, Lush Lemony Flutter, a glass file from KBShimmer, Julep Pomegranate Body Scrub (not pictured), and BEGLs Resolution and 2014.

Alter Ego Nail Enamel

Two polishes of winner's choice.

Foxy Paws | WellNails

One polish of winner's choice from each brand's store.

Northern Star Polish

A bottle of a one of a kind polish called Pink Splendor.

Nailant

Three gorgeous handmade polishes.

Indigo Bananas

Four polishes of winner's choice.

Girly Bits Cosmetics

A bottle of A Stripper Has Been Sleeping in My Bed, Peel Here, and Frazzle Fixer Cuticle Oil.

Accio Lacquer

Orly Red Flame mini, Polish Addict Nail Color Punk Rock Chic, and China Glaze Agro.

Color Me So Crazy

$10 gift certificate of winner's choice to either Llarowe, Ninja Polish, or Femme Fatale.

And here's where to enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The giveaway will end at midnight on 1/1/2014.  All entries will be subject to verification, so it's EXTREMELY important that you 1) fill out all of the information requested, and 2) make sure that all items are public (i.e. that you follow on Bloglovin publicly, that you post your shares publicly, etc).  Any entry that I can't verify will be disqualified.  I will announce the winners within a week of the giveaway ending, so I greatly appreciate your patience!  If you are interested in donating a prize to this giveaway, please contact me at wishesofablueeyedgirl@gmail.com so I can add your information to the post and Rafflecopter widget!  I will add new prizes until Christmas day 12/25/2013, so let me know as soon as you can!

So, are you excited for the new year?  I can't wait to read everyone's traditions!

Comparison Thursday: Purple Creme Glitters

Tonight's Comparison Thursday post is all about purple cremes with gorgeous multi-colored glitters.  So, the polishes I've chosen for your viewing pleasure tonight are Pretty and Polished Tart and Girly Bits Mother May I.  Let's take a look, shall we?

*I was not financially compensated for this post.  All items in this review were purchased by me for my own use.  The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.  For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy in the tab above.*

Both polishes are a similar shade of light purple, which happens to be one of my favorite colors.  However, their glitter mixes are quite different.

Tart

The base of Tart has blue and pink shimmers on top of the creme.  The glitters used are small hexes in blue, pink, yellow, white, red, and blue micro glitters, and gynormous white and hot pink hexes.  Application was smooth and easy.  The larger hexes are difficult to get out, as you can see, so I definitely recommend turning it upside down just before using it.  The base is definitely more creme than jelly giving it a smooth finish without any visible nail line.  Try to ignore the wrinkling in my macro...  It does take a little longer to dry.  I'd probably put it in the medium dry time category.  You can purchase Pretty and Polished at her store here.  Follow Chels and the team on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for news and updates on new collections and releases.  Tart is an older shade, and it's currently sold out.

Mother May I

Mother May I has more of a jelly base than creme.  There's also a slight shimmer to the base that you can see a little in the macro shot.  The glitters in this mix include iridescent, teal, blue, red, and fuchsia hexes and squares.  The squares are a bit more difficult to dig out, but not impossible.  Application was smooth.  Even though it's a jelly, you don't need to be heavy handed to get full opacity.  Dry time was a little better and closer to the quick side of my dryness scale.  You can purchase Girly Bits polishes at Pam's new site, Llarowe, Mei Mei's Signatures, Overall Beauty, and Harlow & Co.  Follow Pam and the team on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for news and updates.

So, there you have it!  They have a similar base color, but that's pretty much where the similarities end.  I definitely think you could have both in your collection without any problem!

Which is your favorite?

ECOPOLO Summer Mani Challenge

Better late than never, I say!  Tonight's special post is for a challenge I have accepted through one of my polish groups.  Here is the list of the weekly challenges:

I'm really no good at nail art, but I thought I'd think outside of the box for this one.  I could've done something that was well within my comfort level, like a yellow mani with polka dots, but I had this ridiculous idea immediately pop into my mind.  And because I don't usually want to do nail art, I thought I had to give it a shot, at least!  So, tonight's attempt at nail art is a beach scene at sunset with an abandoned yellow polka dot bikini.  I've also included a palm tree and an umbrella.  Sorry if it's hard to tell what I attempted, but I thought I'd post it anyway despite it not being the best job.  Also, note that I'm showing you my right hand.  For some reason, it came out better than my left hand, which is weird because I'm a righty.

I used a ridiculous amount of polishes to create this look: OPI WWTC, Czechbook, Jinx, The Spy Who Loved Me, You Don't Know Jacques, Opening Night Gold; Girly Bits Arctic Sunrise, Glo Worm, Banana Hammock, and Jelly Shoes; Revlon Powder Puff; Barry M Indigo, Max Factor Fantasy Fire; Zoya Yana; and Color Club Almost Famous.

First, I striped on Czechbook, Opening Night Gold, and Arctic Sunrise.  I let it dry for a minute, then, I sponged on Banana Hammock, Jinx, The Spy Who Loved Me, Jelly Shoes, Indigo, and Fantasy Fire to create a sunset look.  Next, I painted on the sun, bikini, trees, and umbrella.

Then, I finished up with sponging on WWTC and Powder Puff onto Czechbook and Opening Night Gold to create a wave crashing on the ocean look.  Lastly, I added KBShimmer's Clearly on Top, which smeared the details just a tad, but not horribly.  Here are macros of each finger.  You'll need to click on it to enlarge if you want to see the details a little better.

There you have it!  My take on the Yellow Polka Dot Bikini!




So, was this a nail fail, or do you like it?

*I was not financially compensated for this post.  All items in this review were purchased by me for my own use.  The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.  For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy in the tab above.*

Celiac Awareness!

The move went...  well...  I guess.  We haven't gotten everything from our last house, and it's going to take some time finish getting the rest of it.  The worst part?  We don't really have furniture, and we haven't had time to run by Ikea to get the stuff we picked out.  We're living out of boxes and trash bags and sleeping on our sleeper sofa.  Honestly, though, I don't mind at all!  I am absolutely smitten with our new place!

Tonight, we're going to talk about something near and dear to me, Celiac Disease and gluten intolerance.  I'm going to pepper this post with photos of my mani to break things up a bit, but I'll save the info on the polishes I used until a little later.  Also, since we're in a new place, I'm having to deal with new lighting for my photos.  I apologize if they aren't as vivid.  I'm hoping once we get everything unpacked and moved like we want, my photos will be back to normal.

While I don't suffer from Celiac Disease, I am gluten intolerant, which makes eating certain foods quite tricky.  In 2008, I came down with Salmonella poisoning while visiting my parents in Florida.  Needless to say, I refuse to eat turkey burgers from anyone other than my family.  After that incident, I have had problems digesting foods with gluten and lactose.  I started having serious upset stomach issues, and for a few years, I had no idea what was happening.  I read about gluten intolerance, and thought, why not cut out gluten and see what happens?  So I did.  And my world has been forever changed.  

When I cheat and eat gluten, I feel horrible for a couple of days and retain water like mad.  That's even just ONE piece of bread.  It's especially hard because I have a serious love affair with craft beer.  I still drink it, which is stupid, but I enjoy it and put up with the symptoms.  I was really good about not cheating for several months and felt so much better, which is how I discovered that I had an intolerance.  I need to be better about my eating, but I've been soooo lazy with my shopping and my weight loss and menu planning lately.

Here's a little info about Celiac Disease from the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness.

What is Celiac Disease?

Celiac disease is an autoimmune digestive disease that damages the villi of the small intestine and interferes with absorption of nutrients from food. What does this mean? Essentially the body is attacking itself every time a person with celiac consumes gluten.

Do you have celiac disease?
Take our celiac disease symptoms checklist »

Celiac disease is triggered by consumption of the protein called gluten, which is found in wheat, barley and rye. When people with celiac disease eat foods containing gluten, their immune system responds by damaging the finger-like villi of the small intestine. When the villi become damaged, the body is unable to absorb nutrients into the bloodstream, which can lead to malnourishment.

Left untreated, people with celiac disease can develop further complications such as other autoimmune diseases, osteoporosis, thyroid disease, and cancer.

Interestingly, I also suffer from Hashimotos Thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune thyroid disease.  To find out more about Celiac Disease, examples of symptoms, and what you can do if you think you may be suffering from Celiac or gluten intolerance, check out the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness.

The official colors for Celiac Awareness are green and yellow, so naturally I had to use my favorite yellow and green polishes from one of my favorite makers, Pam of Girly Bits.  The mani I've been showing off is a gradient of Girly Bits Glo Worm and Banana Hammock.  Since they are both jellies and sheer, I decided to do the gradient over two layers of OPI Alpine Snow, a nice white creme.  Although, I think I should've let it dry a bit longer as I messed up the white layers a little bit.  I used a makeup sponge to create my gradient by following this tutorial from Lissa's Polish Addiction.

Next, I topped it with a creation I made for myself last night with Celiac Awareness in mind, Self Satisfied.  I went heavy on the yellow and green neon, which, as I mentioned above, are the official colors of Celiac Awareness.  

Self Satisfied is a glitter topper with green and iridescent shimmers, matte neon glitters in yellow, blue, pink, purple, and green, satin hot pink hearts, matte neon green stars, large fuchsia dots, teal holo moons, and silver holo butterflies.

I felt that this would be a good pairing with the green and yellow gradient.  I'm not going to lie, I felt like I was wearing a parrot on my fingers all day today.

You can purchase Girly Bits at her store, Llarowe, Overall Beauty, and Mei Mei's Signatures.  Follow the lovely Pam on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for news and updates on additions to her line of gorgeous polishes.







Do you suffer from Celiac or gluten intolerance?

Oldie but Goodie: In the beginning...

Tonight's post is going to be a little bit different as I'm not going to do a review.  Instead, I thought I'd show you guys my transformation as a swatcher, photographer, polisher, and blogger.  These photos are technically part of the Oldie but Goodie series I used to do, but I'm running low on pictures to dedicate a whole post to each polish.  Therefore, I've decided I would just put them all in one post!  Get ready for some heavy picture spam!

Here's a little bit of history to go with these old pictures.  I was always a polish fiend, but I strayed away when I went to law school.  I didn't have time to do them myself, and I certainly didn't have the money to spend on getting manicures.  When I was little, I would go over to my Grannie's house all the time, and every time, we would do our nails.  She had this amazing selection of all different colors mostly from Wet 'n Wild, but including Nina, Sinful, Revlon Street Wear, and some Sally Hansen.  We would always have festive manis (and pedis for me) during each holiday.  Those are times I sincerely cherish since my grandmother has since passed away.  She's who got me started on my road to polish ridiculousness when I was just a young girl.  Even through school, I always had a pretty decently sized stash for a teenager - especially for a teenager during the non-polish mania years.  My nails were horrible, though, and still are to a certain degree, because of all of all of my health issues (Hashimotos thyroid disease, hypoglycemia, and intolerance to several different foods that I didn't know about until recently).  I peeled them.  Not bit them, but peeled them off.  They flaked, they wouldn't grow, and I had ridges.  But I'll be damned if I didn't have paint on them all the time!  Now, I try to have polish on my nails every day.  I typically do a mani every or every other night unless I'm doing a wear test, simply because I went crazy buying last year and am still trying to catch up on wearing them all.  Still nowhere close, though.  Hah!

These photos are from around this time last year when I first started getting back into polish.  Some are before I started the blog and was posting photos on Facebook and another polish forum.  Some are from after I started the blog last summer but before I was very good about moisturizing or using my camera.  At the end, I'll add a photo from a few weeks ago so you can see how I've transformed through this process!  Let's get started!! 

Zoya Minka - hated this polish!  It went on horribly and just wouldn't dry.

Gelish French marble with Tiki Tiki Laranga, Shake it til You Samba,  Stand Out, and Light Elegant.  This photo is taken with the vivid color mode on my camera, but it's pretty close to accurate for the color on my tips.

Playing with my new stamps using regular polishes including NOPI, OPI, and WnW.

More stamping practice pre-cleanup.  I actually attempted a two-tone stamp that came out pretty decently!

Gelish Jet Set.  One of my all time favorite Gelish colors.  Also, one of the few polishes my hubby bought for me.

More stamping.  I'm unsure what the base is (maybe CC Puccilicious?) topped with NOPI Pink Flower Power.  I really like this combo.

Nails by Laura (now Joyful Noise Cosmetics) Bedazzleberry White.  The glitters in this one sank, but they were fine in the regular Beddazleberry.

OPI If you Moust you Moust topped with Dandy Nails Wonderwall.  Not a fantastic combo, but I wanted to give it a shot.  Wonderwall is a bit hard to apply, as you can tell, and the glitters didn't spread very well.  I'll bet it would look awesome over a pale blue like Elevation Alphubel.

Dollish Gym Tan Laundry.  I wasn't sure if I'd like this one when I bought it, but I really really love it.  Good impulse buy!

Rainbow Honey Celestia topped with Sonnetarium Snowfall.  I <3 Sonnetarium.  'Nuff said.

My first water marble.  Not exactly a rousing success, lol.

My second water marble attemp; OPI DS Sapphire topped with Dollish It's a me Mario, and Girly Bits Star Spangled.  There are so many things wrong with this picture...

Rainbow Hone Celestia.  I'm looking forward to trying this again once I've thinned it...

Dollish Sweet Dreams are Made of Glitter.  Mint greens aren't my fave.

Rainbow Honey Pinkie Promise.  Pretty color.  Wore this at Disney World.

Candeo Glacier.  Such a pretty color and the glitters haven't sunk or turned to sludge.  Yay!

Nails by Laura (now Joyful Noise Cosmetics) Alice Who?  Pretty close dupe to Absolutely Alice.

Pretty and Polished Cancer Moon.  Discontinued, but not really my kind of polish.

Wet 'n Wild Diamond in the Rough.  Very gritty, even with two coats of topcoat.

Pretty & Polished Peace Camp.  Applied easily without clumping or pooling.

OPI Thanks a Windmillion topped with China Glaze Fairy Dust and stamped with Nfu Oh 61.  One of my all time favorite manis despite the ridiculous SV shrinkage.

Now, let's take a look at a more recent shot: Zoya Pixie Dust Nyx.  I'll have a wear test of this beauty sometime in the near future!

So there you have it!  I think I've come a long way, and if I can do it, so can you!  Just keep moisturizing, figure out the best way for you to handle your cuticles (I love my SH Cuticle Remover Gel), and keep your nails at a manageable length, and you'll be good to go!

How did you get into nail polish?  What's your story?