My Stash: Embellishments

I decided I'm going to do a little series about my stash :) Mostly because I have a lot of stuff and if I did one single post it would be crazy long and I know the average reader might not find it as interesting as those of us living in our polish-tastic world ;) So I'm going to start with embellishments. I consider embellishments to be anything that you put on your nails that isn't polish. Particularly like fimo, rhinestones, microbeads and such. 
We'll start with stickers:

 I got the top ones at Dollar General for about a dollar and the other 2 sheets came together also for a dollar I believe. I know I was annoyed when I opened it and instead of 2 sheets of the pretty ones it had the others behind it. 

Glitter:

The NYX I got from Ulta and they were on sale something like 2 for $6. The left one is called Disco Ball and the other one is just called Blue. You can see the Haul post here. The other silver glitter in the bottom pic is from a craft kit from a long long time ago and I used to use it for hair lol. Now its migrated its way to my embellishment box ;)
Stones:

The very top ones I got in a temporary tattoo kit from WalMart. Don't judge me it was in the clearance section for under $10 lol. They're pretty much just blobs of colored plastic but still cute. The post I used them in is here. The next ones down I also got in the clearance section at WalMart and I think they were like a dollar. 
The other 2 sets were sent to me by my super awesome friend Sherry. She rocks and I <3 her :) 
Fimo:

The only fimo I have is from the fantastic Jen of Jen's Nail Files on Facebook. She sent me a sunscreen sample and included the fimo! I was so excited I may have actually squealed and thanked her profusely (which I later found out she doesn't like lol).
Now the other stuff. Some of it is glitter but you'll see why I'm doing it this way.

Bar Glitter

More Microbeads

Microglitter

So these I got at Dollar Tree all of them were a dollar a piece. Most of them I have 2 sets of though the shells I only have one set and the flakies as well as embellishments I have 3 sets of. I used the silver stars on this mani and some of the microbeads here. I also used the little purple flowers on my toes as you can see on this post. 
I also thought I'd show you how I store these teeny tiny bottles :) 

I got these little Tupperware containers at a Salvation Army thrift store. The bf and I like to go and look to see if we can find cool stuff lol. I think they were something like 69 cents and I got 7 or 8 of them together. I also got some matching ones for the same price and they are bigger square shaped ones that are the perfect size for holding stamping plates lol. 
Well that's it for this one, hope you enjoyed seeing my stuff ;) What kind of embellishments do you have? 
As always, thanks for stopping by :) 

Hauls & Nail Mail

I thought I would share with all of you who aren't on the Facebook page yet what I got recently :) If you haven't checked out Copious yet I would highly recommend it since most of what you are about to see I got from there. 


The first thing I got was this super cute super sweet card and stones from my friend Sherry :) 

I also got these Kleancolor minis (which I thought would be full size) from Copious along with Julep Melissa. The Kleancolors are Metallic Sapphire and Metallic Fuschia. And a pearl ring from Sneakpeeq.

And a couple nights ago I got Wet N Wild Sunny Side Up from Walgreens. 

Last night I got these three Pure Ice from Walmart: No Means No, Mint dream and New Lilac.

Today in the mail I got from Copious:

Pure Ice Rio, Kleancolor Chunky Holo Teal and Sally Hansen Gem Crush Be-Jeweled

From Ulta today: 

 The first dupe I've accidentally bought: Sally Hansen Xtreme's Virtual Violet and Marine Scene (which I didn't have)

 Ulta's Purple Haze and Alter Ego

NYX Glitters: GP09 Disco Ball and GP01 Blue

And from Dollar Tree:

 Flakies!

 Bar Glitter

And Microbeads

So there you have it all :) I've been a busy little bee lol and I still have a couple more things coming from Copious. Really if you haven't signed up yet you really should. You get $10 free credit just for signing up and they sometimes send you email offers for more credits. They gave out one Monday for an extra $10 and $10 for Marilyn Monroe's birthday. 


That's it for this post if you haven't entered my giveaway from Julep yet you can find that here. Also make sure you sign up to be a Julep Maven and get your first box for only a penny using the code MAVENINTRO when you check out. You can do that from here. 


As always, thanks for stopping by :)

My Mani Routine

If you read the Exfoliator review you may know that I regularly use one as part of my routine. But here is the whole thing from start to finish :) 

As you can see I added a flower by stamping with China Glaze Carribean Temptaion and  Red Angel plate RA-109
The gold is Art Deco

Step 1: Take off old polish. (I use pure acetone though it's not great for you)


Step 2: Exfoliate with any kind of exfoliater that you like. If you'd like to see what I use click here. 


Step 3: Let dry completely, then file.


Step 4: Moisturize. I use a thick creamy lotion like Dermasil (its only $1.00 at Dollar Tree and works great!)


Step 5: Clean nails. I use rubbing alcohol or Zoya Remove +. You could just go wash your hands but I'd rather just clean the nail and leave the lotion on :)


Step 6: Paint! Basecoat, polish, any art, top coat.


And that's it! I don't use cuticle oil as I decided I hate it and after using it decided I didn't see any difference. I also do absolutely nothing with my cuticles since they seem just fine to me lol. Of course everyone has different opinions on things, some say not to use acetone while others praise it. Some swear by cuticle oil, while I  think its completely unnecessary. Once every couple weeks or so (or if my nails are really stained) I will buff out the ridges I get on the top of my nails as well.


So what do you do?


As always, thanks for stopping by :) 

Sally's Haul

So Sally's had an awesome sale this weekend, 50% off all red-tagged clearance. Which I figured was great since I had my birthday coupon $10 or any $20 purchase and a 15% off any $20 purchase. Too bad I found out I couldn't use any coupons with the clearance sale :( But that's ok since there wasn't anything on clearance that I absolutely HAD to have lol. But I did end up using my coupons for some goodies (of course since I can't go in there and NOT get something). So onto my newest pretties :)
First from Dollar Tree:

Glistening Purple, a purple glitter

Then Sally's:

Caribbean Temptation, Lubu Heels and Dorothy Who?

And from the new Dark Shadows Collection:

Mysterious Curse

With Flash

Sorry for the multiple pics of Mysterious Curse but I was trying really hard to capture the prettiness of it. It's like a purple-blue duochrome and is absolutely gorgeous. I also got some necessities:

Cuticle Oil

Well maybe not necessities lol. I usually use the 100% Acetone from Dollar General since its only $1.25 for 10 oz. and usually lasts me a little while but I thought for some reason that the Beauty Secrets was like double so worth the $2.79 price. Alas that was not the case :( But that's ok live and learn and all that lol. 
So a confession here: I've never in my life used cuticle oil. I mean I moisturize and lotion and all that but before I really got into all the nail stuff I hadn't even heard of it lol. Sally's was mostly for hair stuff maybe once in a while a nail polish or 2 lol. Ohhh how I've been converted lol. 
If you haven't liked the Facebook page yet I'm almost always around and you can reach me there, by leaving a comment on here or by email at lenalovesnails@gmail.com. As always, thanks for stopping by :)

Quick Post-Toes

I tend to feel the urge to blog much more frequently than I generally do but luckily for me I have stuff I don't have posted on here lol. SO from the archives these are my toes from last week. I do them much less than my fingers since as most nail painters know polish tends to stay on toes longer. If you don't like to look at feet I understand and I'm sorry but this is me and my blog so I will write what I like :)

Anyhow this is 2 coats of Wet N Wild white with the blue and purple stripes being the Stripe Rite striper polishes from Sally's. I stamped white flowers on using more WnW white though I'd have to check to see which plate I used lol. The little purple flowers are cute little embellishments that I got in an 8 pack from Dollar Tree and I love them sooooo much. 

I've been doing my own nails since I was about 13 or so though I didnt get into any real nail art kind of things until about a year and a half ago. And then I was really only doing it on my toes since I'm not very steady with my hands lol. In fact the mani I have on now is the first time Ive ever done tips without a guide. Its all a learning process and I love that there are so many talented ladies who share what they do so everyone can learn :) Quick post? Maybe not so much lol. Anywho do you do nail art on your toes? I'd love to see! As always thanks for stopping by :)

Nails Of The Week

Well I was going to do my nails using one of my new plate sets but that didn't work out that well for me. The original idea I had was to do a darker blue with stars so that's what i reverted to lol. A couple weeks ago I found a bunch of nail art things at Dollar Tree and after seeing the little silver stars it made me really want to do a night theme. So here are my new nails :) 

I used an LA Colors color craze that doesn't have a name but does say BCC 566 4791 along with the silver holo stars I got in an 8 pack from Dollar Tree and silver microbeads that I got in another 8 pack from there. So this is actually a $3 manicure lol, gotta love dollar tree! I usually don't do 3D manicures so I'm finding the beads a little weird. I think I will be off practicing stamping with the plate I really wanted to use this time. Thanks for stopping by :)