Pokemon Nail Challenge: Water and Nail Polish Creations Birthday Nail Art Contest

This week's manicure is actually a combination manicure, as I'm still doing the Pokemon challenge but I also wanted to do something for Nail Polish Creation Birthday Nail Art Contest. Here are the basic ideas for Lisa's nail art contest:

~  Purple!

~  Hologram

~  Rhinestones

~  Sparkly

and the Pokemon this week is Water! 

 A couple of things inspired this manicure: the many releases of textured nail polish, the February birthstone Amethyst and the key word sparkly, and of course water! I've been very excited about this week's Pokemon theme, because in the world of Pokemon I would be a Psyduck. As I mentioned in my award post the other day Psyduck is probably my favorite Pokemon.

Here is what Psyduck looks like, and here's a description of Psyduck: "Psyduck are usually unable to think very clearly due to having a chronic headache. Because of the headache, a Psyduck will always hold its head. When these headaches worsen, Psyduck may use psychic powers." As I mentioned, in the Pokemon world I'm Psyduck :P

There's this running gag in the anime where Misti tries to call out her Pokemon, and her poor Psyduck always pops out. One of my favorite episodes was when Misti runs into a Golduck, and I don't remember the details now but she mistakes the Golduck as hers, thinking her Psyduck finally evolved. Golduck was a suave cocky one for sure! Here's shiny Psyduck because of course I had to paint a shiny Psyduck as well!

There's actually a lot going on with this manicure, so I'm probably going to do at least one more post to show you a little bit of the steps. I used a ton of polishes for this manicure:

Kiss Nail Art Black
Zoya Pippa
LA Colors Shock
Sally Hansen White Tip
Julep Jessica
Simple Pleasures, it's the base color for the shiny Psyduck
Sinful Colors Cinderella
Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Diamond
Zoya Opal
Fantasy Fire franken dupe
last but not least, one of the key ingredients to this manicure: Kosher salt!

The new texture polishes inspired me to create my own version, and since I don't have sand on hand I used the next best thing. I was really happy with the result and thought I had found a great new trend but no... I looked it up after wards and discovered salt nails seemed to be a trend last year which I somehow missed. I didn't see any others using Kosher salt though! I used Kosher salt because I wanted the large pieces. I wanted this manicure to look like rocks at the bottom of a small stream.



















So yes, this is blue and not purple BUT I tried this manicure about 15 times on a nail wheel before I finally came up with this combination. I had lots of winning combinations (including one for Christmas!) so this look is pretty flexible and looks great with other colors so I'm sure it would be pretty with more purple colors.

I had to break out more of my Pokemon toys, too!

I got lots of comments asking me what's inside my Pokeball. Want to see?

It's Psyduck of course!

More details coming up tomorrow with a bunch more pictures of course :)

forgot to mention, I got the idea for my Psyduck nails from this manicure.

January Haul Roundup

I'd say it's been a pretty good month. First up is my big spend of the month, the 3 Zoyas I bought for $10 shipping. Saved $24 on these three pretties!

Zoya Pippa, Paz and Freja.

Next are my OPI Skyfall minis.... Last month I won the OPI 007 Skyfall minis in the giveaway over at theVEROblog between the holidays and what not I got them this month :) 

I got a $5 gift card from Target thanks to Punchtab, which I spent on Sally Hansen Strobe Light. Same day I got it in the mail, I got my prizes from U-Neek Polish's giveaway. My prizes included: Ulta Mint Condition, U-Neek Polish Ocean Blues by D, Essie Wicked, Essie Princess Pink and JLB 06.

Of course, there's also my first franken I made this month!

this is the short list.. there are a bunch more goodies on their way so it looks like I'll have a lot to share with you in February, including at least one nail art review item!