S – Steel My Heart & Soul

The ABC Challenge continues here, welcome all old and new followers, casual readers and everyone in particular! I hope you're all having as happy summer as I am!

 My S polishes come from Catrice - they're from the new Brushed Metal Effect polish range. I got them all, but they were only three, so it's ok :)

In this manicure I used Catrice Steel My Soul (the lighter one) and Steel My Heart (the darker one).

 I decided to add some stamping with an Essence stamping plate using SMH and Konad white.
I had so much fun creating the owl desing on my middle finger.

The owl  beak is Revlon Sandstorm, definitely one of my oldest polishes, by the way. It's one I bought in a second had shop when I was just a teen, and was still looking for my own style among used clother with my friend L. I think of those times fondly, and at the same time I'm happy I've moved forward :)  The cris-cross tape and sponging on my ring finger was just a whim, but I liked it.

I felt weird having the accent nail on my middle finger. Perhaps, because I'm used to getting only negative attention with it. Hee hee.

 Or whoo-hoo, as we owls say...

100 FOLLOWERS GIVEAWAY!!

I reached a hundred followers this week, and you know what it means:
¡¡¡A 100 followers giveaway!!!

First up, a HUGE thank you to all of my readers!! You're the real reason and soul behind this blog - and all the happy moments I've spent painting my nails and blogging! Thank you for keeping up with me through all these times! Thank you for letting me share with you this side of my life! Thank you! Thank you!!

To all my old and new readers I want to give away
**one set of the ENTIRE Essence Nail Art Special Effect Topper series (numbers 1-16)**

The prize includes:

 The prettiest aqua, green and teal hexes in no. 13: Mr and Mrs Glitter

 Holo glitter - with squares! in no.11: Disco Disco

 Your all around multi glitter in 02: Circus Confetti

 Pretty flakies in no. 08: Night in Vegas

And much more (like gold dust, multicolor stick glitter, glow in the dark top coat, matte topper and whatnot)!

I've got a soft spot for complete collections, as you may already know. As far as I've seen, this line has never been for sale in a single store at a certain timepoint in its entirety. So if you've missed these great topper polishes, it's not even possible to simply visit a store and buy the whole collection - you'll just have to participate in this giveaway!

The prize was completely bought by me, with money earned by me in hard work. When I started to collect these polishes for myself, I always bought and extra bottle to include in a giveaway. And now the time has come! I'm so happy to forward one of you the joy lining up these pretty little bottles can give :)

Rules:
- The giveaway is open to my GFC followers internationally.
- The giveaway closes on 15th of July 2013, at 22:00 GMT.
- I'll pick the winner using a random number generator (random.org)
- The winner has 48 hours to respond to winning notification before a new winner is selected.
- All participants must be over 18 years of age, or have parental permission to enter.
- You can earn extra entries by sharing this giveaway in your blog (+5 entries!!) or twitter (+1 entry). Please use the first photo of this post when blogging.
- I also give an extra entry to all participants who were followers via bloglovin' or GFC before this giveaway was published. Only fair play here, please! Of course, I am glad for any new readers, too! Please don't be discouraged by this rule!
- There's also a question regarding polish shopping in your country/area. Don't take it too seriously.. Just fill in anything, and that's an entry :)

To enter please use the Rafflecopter widget below (and let it load fully).
Good luck everyone!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

R - Rock-it

My R polish is a long time lemming of mine: Orly Rock-it.

Actually, I find polish shopping - as well as many other things and events - much more fun and rewarding, when you don't get it the instant you want it. One thing is, you really have the time to get to be sure you want it. Other thing is the fulfillment, the "wow, I finally got there" feeling. And the third thing is all the enjoyment you get beforehand, the daydreams and plans you make. (Yes I do daydream of polish, among other things. don't you?)

 Anyways, I started today's mani with two coats of Orly Rock-it on both hands. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed when the beautiful, rusty duochrome didn't show up on the nail. Hm.

Then I went for a tape manicure: the left hand was coated with OPI Swimsuit...nailed it! and the tapes removed.

On the right hand, I decided to leave the tapes, after noticing they were actually pretty. I just cut them to go along with the shape of my nail and the polish line near the cuticle.

I topped everything off with japanese pa -nail polish A44, a baby blue sheer polish, with holo microglitter and silver stars. I intended to fish out only the stars, but then tried out applying the polish on a whole nail and fell in love.

 So it ended well, and all was well.