Essie Wicked

I used Essie Wicked as the base for my Shiny Charizard nails, but I wanted to show it to you here as well on it's own and talk about it a little bit.

Wicked is a deep red, although in person I swear it looks more blue than it's showing in my pictures.

I love the color, and this is just 1 coat so you can see it is a little spotty where it's thinner or heavier in some places. So a little uneven with 1 coat but still lovely and it did the job for the manicure I had planned.

The only thing I don't like about this polish is as you can tell from the pictures, once I started doing clean up the color spread everywhere and stained horribly. I'm not going to entirely blame the polish itself because I realized my fingers are probably very dry and so the polish is sticking to my skin better. I need to remember to use my cuticle cream and lotions more often! It's just one of those things I don't think about doing.

Thanks again to Janet at U-Neek Polish for this gorgeous new polish!

Liebster and Versatile Blogger Award

Months and months and months ago Fiorella at Fiorella's Closet and Christina at Adventures in Polishland both nominated me for the Liebster Award, and Dina at Secretary's Nail Art nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award! I'm so sorry I'm FINALLY getting around to typing this up. Between computer problems, hiatus, being sick, etc. I just keep putting it off. So, needless to say, this post has kind of become a time capsule :P

        









Thank you so much, Fiorella, Dina and Christina! This really means a lot to me :) So often it feels like I'm just writing to myself, so little things like this really mean the world to me. I'm glad to know I'm appreciated, and all of my hard work for this blog is appreciated!

(Liebster)
Here are the rules to this award:

1. Each person tagged must post 11 things about themselves.
2. They must also answer the 11 questions the 'tagger' has set for them.
3. They must create 11 more questions to ask bloggers they have decided to tag.
4. They must then choose 11 bloggers with less than 200 followers and tag them in their post.
5. These lucky bloggers must then be told.
6. There's no tag backs.

11 Things About Me

1. I took German in high school for 3 years, so Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch :)
2. I don't like anything flavored artificial grape. I know, totally random. I was just viewing Facebook for ideas to write about and saw a question from the Frugal Free Gal about jelly. Explanation is in order for this, I think: when I was little, my grandpa got sick quite a bit and every time he was in the hospital he would give me his hospital food grape jelly. So to this day, I still don't like anything flavored with artificial grape.
3. At last count I had 158 polishes, not including my October polishes. 235 polishes, plus a couple more on their way!
4. The only class I ever came close to failing in school was: Psychology. I find this amusing.
5. I don't know how to drive.
6. *spoiler alert!* I love Pokemon! My favorite is Psyduck because silly enough, I can relate to it the best.
7. I've had my tonsils removed twice. Yes, twice. Did you know they can grow back?
8. I love all cats, but Siamese are my favorite breed. I used to have an Applehead or Traditional Siamese, and my mom has what we think is an albino Siamese. Love them!
9. I just won my first China Glaze polish from Cool Polish, Bro! and I was literally sitting here dancing in my chair! I am so super excited!!! (edit: I typed that one originally when I was typing this up and just thought I'd keep it. Love Marry a Millionare!)
   
10. I think I'm the only person I know that doesn't know their blood type.
11. At the age of 12 one of my drawings was exhibited in my local museum. At 19, one of my poems was published. 

11 Things About Me

1. I have hazel eyes, but most of the time they look orange.
2. My great grandmother was Swiss, first generation born in America. I still make our family's Christmas Swiss bread & cookies each year.
3. Peach, tans, browns are my least favorite colors.
4. I love silver, but I'm not a fan of gold.
5. I basically have no sense of smell.
6. My real name means something along the lines of Mysterious Lily Tailor or Mysterious Lily One Who Cuts.
7. Growing up, my bedroom was painted yellow for the first half of my childhood. Yellow is among my least favorite colors.
8. Black makes me happy. I always feel better when wearing black.
9. I have epilepsy and a headache disorder. 
10. I love to craft. I currently have at least 3 or 4 projects started sitting around my house, and 2 huge boxes full of supplies, and ideas for future projects.
11. My boyfriend and I have been together for 12 years as of this month last October.

My Answers (Questions by Fiorella)

1. What’s the best gift you have ever received?
That's a difficult question. For me, it's more about the memories than the gifts themselves, so I would have to say lots of great memories.. my dad instilled within me a love of Christmas which I can't explain but I think I'll always have that, and in a way I think that was the best gift he could ever give me.

2. What’s the worst/funniest gift you have ever received? Funniest: presents wrapped in Smurf tape and if you know me, you will know why exactly this was so funny.

3. What do you like the most about blogging? getting the thoughts out of my head.

4. Do you believe in zombies? I'm not really certain what I think about zombies. They're in our culture, in our stories from the past, just like other things such as trolls, giants, brownies, etc. I suppose I believe our modern day ideas of zombies were once based in truth.

5. What’s your favorite TV show or movie? Well, I don't watch TV and I haven't seen a new movie in over a year. I do try to get caught up on NCIS & Bones online. One of my favorite movies is Stigmata. (PS: Hulu, you need to release Merlin season 5 so I can watch it!)


6. What special talent do you have? hmm.. boring people to sleep? I don't know!

7. What is your favorite food? Funny, I used to say pizza. I don't think I really have a favorite any more. Steak sounds really good right now, though! I haven't hadn't had it in years.

8. Is there one thing that you keep wanting but won’t buy yourself? there's lots of things.. the first thing that comes to mind is a Wii. Hoping to win one or else my boyfriend agreed to buy me one for Christmas (again)... although we already agreed on that last Winter and it didn't happen, so we'll see! (edit: I think he's forgotten about it already so don't think it's happening :/ another edit: no, it didn't)

9. Where did you go on your last vacation? Baltimore.

10. What do you see yourself NOT DOING in 10 years?  not doing? hmm. hopefully by then we won't be living in this little apartment, and hopefully we'll have a vehicle by then but one can never tell.

11. What made you smile today? Ironically my Facebook has been a little quiet lately, so when I posted a photo of a centipede on my wall, I got a lot of feedback. I just thought it was ironic :) (haha that was so long ago...)

My Answers (Questions by Christina)
1. What’s the story behind your blog name? Good question! Excellent question! Can I steal it?
Samples by Entaeyen: I started this blog when I discovered the world of finding free samples online. While I was trying to figure out how to get free makeup/polish samples, I discovered some Facebook nail polish giveaways and it fed my obsession. Anyway, there's the samples part. Entaeyen is the Internet name I took about 12 years ago.

Melanie's Fancies: I was trying to come up with a new name & this is the first thing my boyfriend suggested.

2. Are you a morning or a night person? I am most definitely a morning person. 5 AM is my ideal time to wake up. So unfortunately, I'm a morning person stuck on night shift :(

3. What is your guilty pleasure television show? I don't watch TV :b

4. Which food could you eat every day? peanut butter - and I do eat it most days.

5. What is the one beauty products you can’t live without? umm... every single one of my polishes?

6. Who was your favorite teacher growing up? Jesus

7. If you could take a vacation anywhere, where would you go? Neptune

8. What are your top five favorite songs?
Amon Amarth - Hermod's Ride to Hel
Clutch - Guild of Mute Assassins
My Ruin - Through the Wound
Arkona - Po Syroi Zemle
Die Antwoord - Fok Julle Naaiers

not in any order.. and actually pretty much any of the songs by any of these bands.
Actually, I'm adding in a 6th one to shamelessly promote a good friend of mine, Gina Turner.
Consumption - Suicide King

9. Do you have any pets?
No :(

10. What is your favorite season, and why? Winter! I love Christmas. Cold and snow not so much, but Christmas makes it all worth while. As I said, my dad is Santa :)

11. If you won the lottery, what would you do with the money?
Put it in a sock, forget about it and continue life as normal.

My questions for my nominees (this is for Liebster only)

1. Aside from your nail polish, what's the one item you could not live without?
2. What's the most recent book you've read? OR if you don't enjoy reading, what's 1 more activity you enjoy other than polish and blogging?
3. What's your favorite holiday?
4. Story time! I want to hear a funny story from your childhood :D
5. What's your favorite color?
6. If you could have any animal, alive, fictional or extinct, as a pet what would you pick?
7. Favorite and least favorite beauty products, doesn't have to be polish!
8. If you love to cook, what is one of your favorite things to make? If not, just tell me what your favorite food is!
9. Since polish and candy seem to go hand in hand, what's your favorite candy?
10. Favorite place to buy polish?
11. If you had to sell all of your polish and never buy any ever again, which 5 would you keep? Includes base and top coats because I'm a jerk like that :P

Now the hard part: picking my nominees. this is always so hard because I follow so many great blogs and I can't give this award to everyone! I'm going by GFC for follower requirements for this award!

My Nominees
Liebster

1.  Nail Polish Creations
2.  Happiness Is A Dry Nail (which means you better get back to blogging again :P)
3.  Lena Loves Nails
4.  nuthinh' but a nail thing
5.  It's All about the polish
6.  LuckyLoveNails
7.  Parisian Blue Sky
8.  Iced Lacquer
9.  Patty and Goldie's Day Off
10.  Me and My Nail Polish
11.  Play Polish
12.  Charmeleon Stampede
13.  Pie's Eyes and Other Sparkly Stories
14.  Tara's Talons
15.  Intense Polish Therapy
16.  Sparkle and Shine Nails
17.  Partly Cloudy With a Chance of Lacquer
18.  The Fabulous Life of Mrs. P
19.  Horcrux Nails
20.  Show Me Your Topcoats
21.  Adventures of the Nail Friends
22. My Nails. My Polish 

(Versatile)
Here are the rules to this award:

1. Nominate 15 fellow bloggers who are relatively new to blogging

2. Let them know that you have nominated them.
3. Share 7 random facts about yourself.
4. Thank the bloggers who have nominated you.
5. Add the Versatile Blogger Award picture to your post

7 Random Facts About Me

1. My dad is Santa Claus.
2. I love genealogy and I've managed to trace bits of mine very far back. I'm part Irish, Swiss, German, Swedish, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Scottish, Russian, English, French, Spanish, Italian... lots more but those are the ones coming to  mind right now.
3. I think I mostly look Swiss.
4. I was a band geek in high school, at least for freshman year. I played percussion.
5. I don't talk much so people typically mistake me as being shy.
6. I met my boyfriend online, and ironically, he lived just a few miles away from me at the time.
7. I consider myself ambidextrous. I typically use my right hand, but for a lot of things I do use my left. I have specific days where my mind seems to switch gears and I'm just like "oh, this is a left handed day!" I just can't seem to do things I normally do with my right hand on those days. It's weird.

My Nominees
Versatile

1.  Polish and Puppies
2.  My Nail Polish is Poppin'
3.  The Polish Fox
4.  Mavoreen's Lacquer Obsession
5.  Manifix
6.  Glitter Infatuation
7.  Nail Gun XS
8.  Nail Therapy
9.  Neffy's Nail Corner
10.  Nerdy For Nails
11.  Never Gonna Give You Up
12.  Nicole Gets Nailed
13.  OMG Wait What Polish Is That
14.  Polished Polyglot
15.  Toad-ally Awesome Nails

I have extras to add on for Versatile because last time I won it I never got around to posting the rest of my nominees. yes, I'm a slacker :P

1.  This is the last polish I buy, I promise!
2.  The Nail Artiste
3.  Really Quite Awesome
4.  Sassy Paints
5.  Charismatically Polished
6.  PokeNailArt

Sorry for such a lengthy post!

Sinful Colors Cinderella

Since I've been doing the Pokemon challenge, I have a few extra posts to share with you this week. First, I have a couple pictures of Sinful Colors Cinderella to show you. Please pardon the mess, I didn't do clean up until after I was completely done with the nail art.

I still can't believe how unimpressed I was with this polish until I saw it in the store. It really is a gorgeous polish that should be in every polish lover's collection. I think it's a perfect Winter polish.

Nail Wheels: Reds

I somehow got side tracked from posting my pictures of my nail wheels, so today I have 2 wheels to show you because I have literally a ton of red polishes! This covers most of them but certainly not all of them.

 I'll start with the pinks, and I have some of my peach colors in with those, don't ask me why.

 Nail Wheel 2: A-E
A: generic
B: generic
C: Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Champagne Toast
D: elf Fair Pink
E: Sally Hansen Hard Core Party

Nail Wheel 2:F - L
F: elf Light Pink
G: generic
H: Sinful Colors Bali Mist
I: Sally Hansen HD LCD
J: Sally Hansen HD Byte
K: Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Ruby Diamond
L: Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter

here's another picture.. you can see the shine of the HD polishes a bit better in this picture.

 Nail Wheel 2: M - O
M: Monster Mixers & Elixirs Red Planet
N: Revlon Guava
O: Wet n Wild How I Met Your Magenta (incidentally, I have a friend named Magenta so I kinda just love the name of this polish!)

I saved the best for last.. my actual reds on this wheel, many of which are very very close and almost dupes!

Nail Wheel 2: P - T
P: Julep Mandy
Q: Deborah Lippmann Footloose
R: Tip Top Nails Get Reddy
S: Model's Own Red Alert
T: Konad Special Red

Nail Wheel 3: A - F
A: OPI Color So Hot It Berns
B: generic
C: Sally Hansen Red Hot
D: Simple Pleasures - I call this one "tart"
E: Viva la Diva 48
F: Julep Eva

Nail Wheel 3: E - I
here's E and F again, and again I have some almost dupes.
E: Viva la Diva 48
F: Julep Eva
G: Essie Plumberry
H: generic
I: L'Oreal Sangria

Nail Wheel 3: J - P
J: elf Medium Red
K: Zoya Paloma
L: generic
M: Sinful Colors Rich in Heart
N: Jane War Paint
O: Kleancolor Metallic Red
P: China Glaze Pure Joy

Nail Wheel 3: O - T
here's O and P again..
O: Kleancolor Metallic Red
P: China Glaze Pure Joy
Q: Wet N Wild Disco Inferno
R: Fantasy Makers Once Upon A Time
S: 365 Days of Color Come Little Children
T: OPI The Spy Who Loved Me

That's pretty much it for my reds and pinks.. as always, please let me know if you'd like to see me use one of these!

Pokemon Nail Art Challenge: Fire

So sorry this post is so late... normally I have my manicure posts done much earlier in the week. I'm very sensitive to the weather so basically if it changes at all, I'm feeling awful. This week our weather was pretty awful in those regards and it actually left me feeling like I had the flu for the majority of the week. I'm just now starting to feel a little bit better.

This is the second week in our Pokemon challenge, which means it's Fire time! I had no question as to which Pokemon I wanted to do, because when I think of fire, I think of one of my very first starter Pokemon: Charizard! I love dragons, so naturally when I picked up Fire Red, Charmander was my pick as a starter. Even before I played the video games though, I loved Charizard from the cartoon. There was this running gag on the show that each time Ash picked Charizard, he would flat out ignore Ash (and often turn his flames on Ash for wasting his time.) I always thought this was hilarious :D

Here's what Charizard looks like for those who may not know.

Here's a picture of a shiny Charizard because yes, I did a shiny Charizard on my nails as well!

Here's my shiny Charizard nails... and I'm holding my Charizard plushie! (thanks mom!)

For this manicure I used a ton of different polishes:
Essie Wicked
Sally Hansen Ionic Indigo (a magnetic polish but I didn't use the magnet of course)
my first franken
Zoya Freja
Zoya Arizona
Sally Hansen White Tip
Simple Pleasures no name polish, it's a pinkish color and I used it only for the tongues.
Kiss Nail Art Black
Zoya Pippa
Zoya Paz

This challenge has been so much fun and I'm really looking forward to next week's challenge because I get to do another of my favorite Pokemon, and it's my element - Water!

Thanks for reading & have a great weekend!

Nail mail... and something special!

Yesterday I got a couple of goodies in the mail and of course I have to share them with you! First of all, last week I got a $5 Target gift card through Punchtab. What's Punchtab? Well, look at the bottom left hand corner of your browser window and you should see a floating tab for Punchtab! Basically, you get points just for visiting this site. You get additional rewards for doing things like commenting on my posts, and best of all, you can exchange these points for gift cards!

After some searching on Target's site, I finally decided to buy Sally Hansen's Strobe Light and even after shipping I got it for free!

Last weekend I won a giveaway from U-Neek Polish and yesterday I received my prizes! I was honestly a little surprised she sent me so many polishes that were professional brands, but I certainly won't complain. Janet was nice enough to give me five polishes, plus a ton of other goodies. I was literally awake for not even 15 minutes before I started swatching them! Here's what all she sent me:

Ulta Mint Condition
U-Neek Polish Ocean Blues by D
Essie Wicked
Essie Princess Pink
JLB Cosmetics #06 (btw - the bottle is identical to butter London bottles!)

Ocean Blues by D is absolutely gorgeous! I love all of my new polishes, but this is honestly one of my favorites of the bunch. The color reminds me a bit of Sinful Colors Gorgeous, but it has tons of shimmer in addition to teal and I believe black glitter.

Here's my swatches. (I forgot to mention, these are all 1 coat each.)

Q is Sally Hansen Strobe Light
R is Ulta Mint Condition
S is Essie Wicked
T is Essie Princess Pink

A is Ocean Blues by D
B is JLB Cosmetics #06

Here are the rest of my prizes! In addition to all of the goodies shown here, she also sent me a bunch of beauty samples which of course I love!

So that's it for my goodies. As I mentioned in the title of this post, I also have something special to share with you all. If you pay attention to my Facebook page, you probably have already guessed that it's my first franken polish!

From the bottom working up, this is 1 coat, 2 coats, 3 coats and finally 4 coats. Here's another picture with the bottle :P

Here's a close up of my franken with 3 coats!

I still need to let this sit at least over night, but unfortunately it looks like my glitter is getting eaten a bit. Or at least the glitter are losing their colors. Its still really pretty but doesn't have quite the same sparkle. I plan on layering this over something or other tomorrow in preparation for FINALLY doing my Pokemon Fire nails.So hopefully it holds up well enough! Overall I think it turned out really well for my first franken!

Thanks for reading & I hope you all have a great weekend :)

Silent Reflection

Yesterday I won a flash giveaway on Facebook from Ylime Nails. To enter the giveaway, we had to comment with our New Years resolutions. I commented that I don't make resolutions, I just try to improve each day as I see fit. I thought I'd expand on that a little bit here...

You see, this is a strange but important time of the year for me. Roughly 13 years ago I was taken off of one of my antiseizure medications. The results were a disaster to say the least. I don't remember how long it lasted, I just remember during that awful time I was having seizure after seizure. Fortunately, it also meant we finally found the correct medicine to control my seizures. As of February it will be 13 years that my seizures have been under control.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, I'll tell you. Or rather, I'll show you.

I painted my Pokemon Pokeball nails last night and they turned out really great! Then brain injured Melanie happened. First, I wrecked both of my thumbs while going to the bathroom (OF COURSE) because they weren't quite as dry as I thought. No big deal, it was just my thumbs. I applied a coat of quick dry top coat and I was fine and went about working on my blog, Facebook, etc. At some point in time I looked down at my right hand and realized I had been leaning my fingers against my face, and my nails still were not dry. I had smudged pretty much all of them.

I was pretty much in tears at this point.

I went about my day, and it just suddenly hit me how silly I was being. I started thinking about how there are still days in which I have to consciously think about walking and I literally have to tell my legs to move. This made me realize just how incredibly lucky I am that the brain damage I had from my seizures wasn't worse, and that yes, I have healed. Thirteen years ago the medicine I was on gave me such a horrible tremor, there's no way I would have been able to do the line work I can now.

So no, I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. A lot of them at times. That's how we learn, and how we improve.

When I say I try to improve myself daily, I really mean it. Every day is a chance to improve myself and undo some of the damage so while it's important for the normal Jane to try to improve themselves, it's even more important for me because it's a step back towards being myself again and claiming back my life.

Here's my right hand - again testament on how my health has improved. I'm ambidextrous but typically right handed. Several years ago I could not even use my left hand at all due to ulnar neuropathy in my left arm.

Despite this manicure not being perfect, I ended up being really happy with it and I really love the combination of colors on my fingers. The polishes I used were: Sally Hansen White Tip, Kiss Nail Art in Black, Wet n Wild Buffy the Violet Slayer and Sinful Colors Dream On. I really love Buffy, especially with white, so I'm definitely going to have to use these two together again at some point in time. I forgot what a great white White Tip is! For some reason Buffy looks much more blue in my pictures than it does in person, so I do apologize for the color being off.

BTW - forgot to share the other story behind this manicure with you. I used a Master Pokeball because I thought it would be really funny to use a Master Pokeball over top my Oddish nails :D If you're not familiar with the Pokemon games, in each game you only get 1 Master Pokeball which can be used to capture any Pokemon without fail. My sister in law's husband has this funny story about how the first time he played Pokemon he used his Master ball to capture something stupid like an Oddish or something.. one of the really common Pokemon in other words, because he didn't know better. It happens to the best of us :D

For the sake of it, here's what an actual Master Pokeball looks like.

Pokemon Challenge: Grass Type

I'm taking part in a Pokemon Nail Challenge and this week we're starting off with Grass pokemon. This challenge is limited to the first 151 Pokemon.

Pokemon is one of my favorite things. I've been playing one of the Pokemon Ranger games for like the past month or so, and actually just beat the main story line just last night. My sister and some of her friends played the card game when they were in high school, and a few years ago she gave me her old cards. I remember very well going to the movie theater with my mom to see Mewtwo Strikes Back - and I was probably the only 19 year old to go to the movies with their mother to see a Pokemon movie. I remember how much we both loved Pikachu, and it was a good time during a dark part of my life. Between my boyfriend and I, we've played almost all of the Pokemon games and those we haven't played - some of the earlier ones such as Gold - his sister has played. She even had one of the original Pikachu pedometers. So for me, Pokemon is much more than a cute cartoon or game, it's something fun that unites me with those around me.. which is a rarity, I can tell you. When I started babysitting my niece, we watched some Pokemon together and I let her play with some of my Pokemon toys.. so that's another link that will always be there with me. It really means a lot!

This week I decided to do sort of a tribute to the first Pokemon game I played, Ruby, by doing a manicure using the most annoying character of the bunch. Oddish.

While I like the Pokemon games, the constant running into the same old Pokemon drives me crazy and I remember how annoying it got running into Oddish after Oddish after Oddish. I thought I was going to scream if I ran into another Oddish. And of course I did :P

For this manicure, I decided to do a Shiny Oddish on the accent nail. If you're not familiar with the Pokemon games, Shiny Pokemon are special Pokemon which are colored differently than their regular counterparts and you only have a very very slim chance of ever encountering these Pokemon. I've only ever encountered maybe 3 in all of the games I played (actually, I encountered several Shiny Tentacools before I knew what they were and of course I set them free!)

Anyway, this is what a normal Oddish looks like.

Here's a screen capture of a Shiny Oddish in Pokemon Sapphire.

Now on to the manicure! For this manicure I started with 2 coats of Sinful Colors Cinderella as a back drop. For the normal Oddish, I used a Simple Pleasures polish as the base, and for the Shiny Oddish I used Wet N Wild Sage in the City as the base. I used Sage in the City and Viva la Diva #112 for the leaves, Kiss Nail Art in Black for the eyes and mouth and OPI Color So Hot It Berns for the eyes.

Unfortunately when I applied my Barielle No Chip Speed Dry top coat, some of the polish bled :(

Because I'm silly, I painted these before doing my Pokeballs so I'll be doing that manicure... oh, probably tonight, so I should have another manicure coming up for you within the next few days :)

This was a lot of fun so I'm looking forward to the rest of this challenge!

Parnevu discount code!

Parnevu set up a coupon for my readers, and here is the info! If you missed my review, you can check it out here.

Receive 25% off on your purchase at www.parnevu.com of any 3 or more products.

Use coupon code Fancy25 at checkout.

Coupon valid until March 13, 2013.

My Stash: Virtual Collection 4