... Halloween Nails ...

Really quick post today as I'm exhausted! Firstly just under 22 hours left to guess the cost of my pumpkin!! Click on the link on the right! I'd love to have a few more guesses entered :) I have carved my pumpkin but I'll wait to show it when the winner is announced!

So here are my Halloween Nails. As always I forgot to take photos when I did them so here is the end of the day tatty version [and blurry half asleep version]. As I've mentioned before Halloween is not big here - I had no trick or treaters visit and I only really did my nails today as I have been seeing so many great Halloween nails on blogger and I wanted to join the fun!

Anyway it's 2 coats of Ulta3 - Crazy with 1 coat of piCture pOlish - Popsicle over the top ... stamping was using Bundle Monster plates BM213 and BM224 and I used Konad Black for the polish.

... Cate Ruby - Tate plus OPI - Gone Gonzo ...

And now for something completely different *queue Monty Python music*

This is yesterdays mani of Cate Ruby - Tate with OPI - Gone Gonzo glitter over the top. I think it's quite striking and I'm pleased with how it turned out. The pink seems to work really well with the blue and I've had to put a thick layer of top coat on to smooth it all out or I sit and pick at the hex pieces!

From what I've been reading you are either a huge fan of the Muppet Glitters or you aren't. I quite like them and they look great layered. I can understand being disappointed if you wanted it to be a polish you can wear by itself though.

This is 2 coats of Gone Gonzo. I probably could have gone for 3 but I quite like how scattered the glitter pieces are so I left it. Do any of you guys have Gone Gonzo? What colours do you think it lookgs good layered over?

... Cate Ruby - Tate ...

Cate Ruby -Tate

Purchased from Cate Ruby Online - $14.95 AUD

 Miss me?? I've been feeling a bit bleh the last few days and not up to doing my nails. Originally I thought I must have drunk a lot more than I thought I had - more than likely I had some sort of flu bug instead. Ugh. Incidentally those wedding nails last 5 days before tip wear got the better of it ... nice one!

So to get myself out of the funk here is a beautiful vibrant pink. This is "Tate" by Cate Ruby and as always - I LOVE the bottle! I'm showing 2 coats of awesomeness on this swatch. It applies beautifully with no streaks or lumps and has such a beautiful glossy finish to it. Plus it's pink ... how can pink not make you smile?

** Final Verdict **
Easy to apply, great to look at, fantastic colour and hopefully going to help me smile for the rest of the day instead of lying on my sickbed. Hoorah!

... Wedding Nails ...

I apologise in advance for the strange week of posts. I don't often swatch in advance so when things get busy I'm often stuck without posts.

Anyhoo ... my brother got married on the weekend so here are my wedding nails. If I had thought ahead I would have photographed this the day before instead of going "oh i haven't done that yet" a day later.

I basically wanted something that wasn't in your face and that would match my dress! I was originally going for DS Classic but as the weather has been tempermental I wasn't too sure I wanted to go holo as my rule of thumb is "if you want it to rain it's guaranteed as soon as you put a holo polish on"

I ended up deciding on this ... it's not my best work but I was too tired after putting my hair in curlers to set overnight to redo it.

Zoya Dove with stamping in NYC Color - Magneta [tips] and Face of Australia Molten Metallic [base] - Amethyst using Konad plate m65

Oh and here's me in my flowery dress ... not the best pic but the only one I could find wear I wasn't wearing a jacket over the top.

Oh and a photo of the bridal party [taken from the gavin male webpage]

Oh yeah - if you haven't already gone to enter my Pumpking Guessing Contest then head that way now!!! DO IT!!

... Guess the cost of my Pumpkin! ... CLOSED!!!!!

So ... I'm over 30 and never celebrated Halloween. There - you have it. Being Australian it is a real non-event. While in the past few years the supermarket chains have tried to push more and more Halloween stuff out the doors but it's not happening.

Originally I was going to say "Guess how many Trick or Treaters I get this year for a prize" but really if you said a big fat zero you'd be on the money. In the past 5 years I might have had 2 Trick or Treaters ... in total.

Last week I saw my first Halloween pumpkin of the season appear in the shop. Now ... we have pumpkins here but they just aren't big fat round and orange. Queensland Blue pumpkins are the most common round ones and ... well like the name says - they are blue on the outside [well a light blue/grey].

I was excited to see the first few orange pumpkins for October filter through last week - we don't often get them ... and instead of writing something snarky on FB about it I thought I'd make you guys do the guessing first on the cost!

So this giveaway is really simple ...all you need to do is ... Guess how much this Pumpkin costs!

The closest guess wins! Easy! Any follower on Blogger or FB can enter ... there are no extra entries for following me on Facebook or Twitter or posting about this giveaway [but feel free too anyway! I'll love you for it!]

If it helps you the answer will be in Australian Dollars and Cents 

Currently $1 US = 96c Australian [not much in it!]

Even if smart Aussies figure out the shop I was in - you still don't know the weight - ha ha ha

The Prize will be 3 of my favourite polishes - wrapped up and delivered to your door with love! I can't offer you anything Halloweeny but I can offer you a chocolate Caramello Koala! Nom nom nom! [Picture of the prize will be shown on the post where I announce the winner]

Facebook Followers who don't have a GFC are encouraged to enter aswell!

*Fine Print fun*

This giveaway is open to all readers of Shatter me Claire

[new followers welcome!]

This giveaway is OPEN INTERNATIONALLY!

ENTRIES CLOSED!!!!

[I'll accept entries until everywhere in the world is past this day!]

Winner/s will be whoever picks the correct price or closest too the correct price.

I shouldn't have to say this but just incase - all products are brand new and untried.

Also all items were purchased by me with my own $$


Multiple entries or multiple accounts will be excluded - please play fair!


Any questions?? Please leave a comment on this post or hit the email button and I'll get back to you

* International participants please read!! *

Please be aware that sometimes parcels get sent back [especially when sending to the USA] and I'm only prepared to send this out once and if it comes back to me then I won't be able to resend but I'm more than happy to eat your chocolate!! Nom nom nom!!

* * * * * *

... Kleancolor - Holo Chrome ..

Kleancolor - Holo Chrome

Gifted from Jamie

This beauty is Kleancolor Holo Chrome that I received recently. The colour of the polish is actually more of a purple than blue but is in that selection of blurple polishes that refuses to photograph correctly. Anyway as soon as you pick the bottle up all you can see is gorgeous flashes of red, blue and green. Holo Love!!

This is 3 coats but I probably could have gotten away with 2 and it's beautiful blue color regardless of the holo. No bumps, lumps or uneven marks. Just pure awesomeness. It also dried super smooth.

I'm disappointed with how these photos turned out - when I get my camera back I'll reswatch.

Indoors

Outdoors

** Final Verdict **
A beautiful blue holo that is super easy to apply and sparkles in the sunlight for you. I can definitely see this one again and again appearing on my nails over summer.

... Chi Chi - Man Eater with Stamping ...

I thought that I should really start working on nail art with my polish swatches after doing a bit of a flick through of my work. In real life it's always the stamping or nail art that gets the most comments. The ones where I put more effort than just painting nails so from here on I'm going to try and give that a go on most manis.

So ... here is yesterdays mani of Chi Chi - Man Eater with some stamping. I originally was just going to get rid of that visible nail line by stamping over the tip ... lets just say I went a bit wonky with the first one but then I was really pleased with how it turned out. Something really different - well I thought so anyway - half a zebra mani!

Stamp plate is BM 219 and the stamp polish is Konad Special polish in Black.

... Chi Chi - Man Eater ...

Chi Chi - Man Eater

Purchased from Target - picked up out the clearance bin

Oh Chi Chi ... I still totally LOVE your polish names as they always make me have a little giggle.

So this is "Man Eater" The real question is which version of "Man Eater" have you starting singing???  ...
A - ♫ She's a man eater - make you work hard, make you spend hard, make you want all of her love ♫
B - ♫ Woah-oh ... here she comes. Watch out boy she'll chew you up. Woah-oh ... here she comes. She's a man eater. ♫

Now back to business. This is a beautiful pink that is actually slightly darker than my photos portray it to be and for some strange reason the photos keep showing a Visible Nail Line but I swear it's not there in real life ... maybe I'm going batty?

As with all Chi Chi polishes this is 3 coats with no bubbles, streaks or nasty bits. Fast drying and long lasting.

** Final Verdict **
I love Chi Chi polishes - the names are clever and witty and the polishes themselves never fail to be foolproof. I don't have many of the square Chi Chi bottles in my collection simply because of the price especially against their range of "mini" bottles. I've seen more and more Chi Chi's in the clearance bins at Target lately so I'm hoping a new range will be coming in *fingers crossed*

... Essence Colour & Go - Choose Me! with stripe mani ...

It's been awhile since I rocked some stripes so here goes. Obviously this is over yesterdays mani of Essence Colour & Go in Choose Me! The silver is piCture pOlish Heavy Metal which goes on easily over everything but as you can see from the photo can be a bit difficult to clean up afterwards.

I had to put a few layers of top coat on this just because Heavy Metal is rather gritty and I like the smooth feel but I was quite pleased with how this looked - especially with the blue and gold glitter pieces in Choose Me! Fantastic.

Tape maincures are really really easy to do - all you need is a base polish, a contrasting top polish, some sharp scissors and some regular every day sticky tape.

Simply paint a base polish and wait for it to completely dry.
Cut some strips of sticky in whatever thickness you desire and place on your nail.
Make sure it's all stuck down completely
Paint over your entire nail with the top polish
Wait a minute
Pull the sticky tape off
Wait for the top polish to dry
Voila!

... Essence Colour & Go - Choose Me! ...

Essence Colour & Go - Choose Me!

Purchased by Jan in Ireland - Thanks mate!

I've been impatiently waiting for the sun to appear to swatch these beautiful Essence polishes that Jan sent over from Eire.  I sat looking at the collection of Essences for ages before deciding what to wear today and then the name hit me - Choose Me! How could I refuse!!

Choose Me is a beautiful green blue turquoise with blue and golden glitter throughout. The colour is extremely hard to describe as it seems to change from green to blue depending on the light and it is super beautiful indoors aswell as outdoors [but be warned that a visible nail line will appear outside unless you put a nude underneath which I was too lazy to do]

It is super fast drying, no lumps, no bumps, no unsightly bits - just a gorgeous colour. It also dries super smooth so even though there are clearly glitter particles throughout it isn't gritty or bumpy.

This seriously is up there with my favourite polishes. The brush is awesome and unlike those brushes that claim to be an easy one stroke - this actually is! I was a bit scared to start with once it fanned out and could cover my whole nail. Odd as it doesn't look like a mega mother of a brush.

[Indoors - Look at all those dots of golden sparkle!]

[Outside - note the colour change!]

** Final Verdict **

Beautifully stunning. Great from start to finish. Love love love!! Google seems to think this is a dupe for OPI Catch me in your net ... so fantastic!

==
Also from today I should be appearing more regularly on my Twitter and Facebook feeds. I was getting a bit slack there so I'm hoping that I can turn over a new leaf *fingers crossed* - feel free to add me!

... Nubar - Reclaim with Stamping ...

Short post today that I meant to put up yesterday but my computer didn't wish to play nice.

This is some stamping I did over Nubar Reclaim that I wore out to a birthday party. The plate is Konad m65 and the stamped polish is Face of Australia Molten Metallics in White Gold [LOVE these polishes to stamp! So easy to use]

In hindsight I probably should have gone for a white or black for it to stand out but oh well - the bonus was that in the sun the holo still shone through the stamping. Fantastic!

My kids are finally back at school today after the October holidays so hopefully I'll be regularly blogging again. I've planned to do nothing today but swatch, read blogs and hang on Facebook - ah bliss!

... Nubar - Reclaim ...

Nubar - Reclaim

Gifted by Jamie - Thanks so much!!

I'm back baby!! My arm is now nearly 100% better [I'm only having pains if I lean heavily on it] and I'm back. Honestly I probably could have been back swatching a few days ago but I really wanted to do nothing but rest.

The sun was out today so I thought I should try and take advantage of it with a holo. My past experiences usually mean if I put on a holo polish then the sun disappears for a week but today was pretty good. Hurrah!

This is Nubar Reclaim - straight off my Wishlist to you. I've been extremely lucky lately and had many fantastic swaps in the last few months that have pretty much wiped out my wishlist. I need to really start adding more to it instead of saying on blogs [and then I forget what it was].

This is 3 coats of excitement. Zero application dramas. No streaks. Fast drying. Fantastic!!

Really it is a gorgeous green and after looking through my drawer most of my green holos are either really dark or extremely light while this is just a beautiful forest green colour. It really does have a beautiful linear holographic goodness going on in the sun.

[Indoors]

[Outdoors - sparkle sparkle]

* Final Verdict *
Gorgeous green, gorgeous holo, extremely easy to use with fast drying. I'm glad I had this one on my wishlist! It's also fantastic polishes that come in swaps like this that help my no buy go quicker - I've been really good with half the month gone. I've purchased only 3 polishes for other people and I had to break it for the piCture pOlish / Womans Day deal as $8 for 2 piCture pOlishes is too good to pass up. Hopefully the rest of the month will go as quickly *fingers crossed*

... Random Post - Inglot 204 ...

Seems this week you are just going to have random shots from my phone or camera to keep you amused. My arm feels a lot better today but I'm not up to swatching yet.

I wore this polish a few months ago for a catchup with some old school mates and I'm sure to review it properly at some point as I LOVE Inglot Flakes so much. They are my failproof polish if I'm going out but not sure on what I really want to wear.

If you aren't in the know there are 6 polishes in this Inglot range  and 202 to 205 are the ones to grab if you see them. 201 and 206 are the other 2 in this series but they are seriously just silver holo particles and gold holo particles respectively. They are seriously nothing special so save your cash for these ones!

... Monday Blues no more ...

Hi guys!

I'm still out of action regarding my arm :( So you'll have to deal with random posts and items until I'm back properly. At the moment I'm not even really able to get polish 100% off my left hand - hopefully it'll heal soon.

Today I received the most beautiful parcel from Alexandra RC. She is such a sweetie. I was feeling so down about my arm and not being able to do much *sobs* and I found this waiting for me.

Holy wowsers Batman! I nearly cried when I opened the box and found these. Thank you SO SO SO SO much for these. I now own a Butter London and some Essence magnetics! *does the happy dance with 1 arm* I don't often post up my mail and I probably should as it's a real highlight of my day.

I shall get swatching once my arm is better! Guaranteed! I'm itching to wear!

I've temporary removed my iSwap logo while I'm on no buy but I'm sure I'll be back wanting parcels again soon.

[edited] ... Dang piCture pOlish are releasing new Ozotic shades 531, 532, 533 and 534 and they look good -  I'm considering breaking my no buy for *itches*

... Franken Week - Beautiful on the Inside ...

Unfortunately I am leaving Franken Week with a failed franken - I was really hoping to have time today to create something fantastic and new but unfortunately I fell on my arm last night and owie :( I'm pretty sure it's not broken but man it hurts - currently it's all puffy [and oddly not bruised], very sore and achy and my fingers keep having pins and needles which totally sucks. What even more sucks is that I did my dominant right hand and I'm now struggling with having to do things with 1 hand [and very much struggling writing this as it's so slow and my fingers just want to touchtype again!!]

This blurry mess is another shatter I created which I've named "Beautiful on the Inside". It's a pretty pale pink and the bottle is actually full of spectraflair ... because I forgot that shatters dry matte. So it's beautiful on the inside of the bottle as it's full of holo goodness but on the nail - meh.  Also the spectraflair made the polish rather thick to apply ... so yeah - don't do it!!!

[For everyones records this is Ozotic White Mosaic mixed with spectraflair and True Coral pigment]

And as I've had a few emailed questions about frankening shatters here are my top tips and I hope they help someone out in the future.

* Start small! It doesn't work like regular frankening - you can't just dump everything into a bottle with this one. It's a lot easier to get the formula right and then slowly add more on top.
* Don't use clear - it doesn't mix together with shatter/crackle polish nicely and you just have a bottle with a layer of clear on the top and the shatter underneath
* If you decide to try to mix with polish - again try in super small form first. You'll know if it's not going to work [I couldn't get any polish to work but hey - maybe someone will have better luck]
* If you use pigments - add them into your bottle first and then slowly add your shatter polish on top. SLOWLY! Mix regularly and test often to see if it actually crackles on your nails - if not you need more shatter added.

Oh and before I go and rest again check out a fun guestpost I did for Manicured Monkey :) CLICK CLICK CLICK

... Franken Week - Don't try this at home ...

Todays franken I've simply named "Don't try this at home".

If you are like me ... you wonder what would happen if you tamper with those holy grail of polishes. You know the ones I mean! The ones that people would walk barefoot over hot coals for in it's original form and then frame it when they get home.

And it got me thinking ... what if! Now I don't own Channel Peridot but I am curious to whether you can make that beautiful duochrome a multichrome - you see where I'm going?? I did warn you not to try this at home.

So I've pulled out the extremely close dupe of Chemistry 507 to tamper with - I'm sure I'm heading to some circle of hell now for this. Enjoy!

For comparison purposes my middle finger is the original 507 while the others are the franken!

Starting off looking similar

The red starts to shine through while the middle finger remains golden

A bit blurry but you get the idea. The original is green while the others shine on through red

** Recipe **
1 bottle of Chemistry 507
Scoops of Red-Green colour changing pigment [I have no idea how many I used ... enough to make it turn red]

... Franken Week - Aussie Shatter ...

Making a duochrome shatter/crackle/mosaic etc seems a reasonable idea in theory but OMG this was seriously the hardest thing I've ever made ... and after 4 failed attempts wasting my day yesterday here it is.  I'm still not 100% happy with it but I'm sure it's the best I'm going to get with a black base. I figured I should at least share what mess I've created.

The main issue is the shatter itself - add too much of something and that formula disappears out the window and you just get a lump of colour that doesn't crack at all. Ugh.

I've named this "Aussie Shatter" simply 'cos it's Green and Gold and I suck at creative names! The green is really dominant though but it's slightly darker than what's shown here [think Glitter Gal Lizard Belly - it's that dark green] and oddly the gold seems to like to stay to the edges of the green and not a constant colour change. It's really intriguing and I'm sure there is some chemical thing going on h

So here you go ... this is shown over Royal Red Jelly which has a green to red colour shift pigment added.

I'm sure I'll never be able to make this the same again as it was so hard. If you are game enough to give making a crackle a go then I'll give you this tip. Don't use clear polish at all as it doesn't bond with the crackle formula at all! You just end up with gloopy mess.


** Recipe **
Start off with 3 scoops of green to gold colour shift pigment into a 5ml bottle [buy it from Cathy HERE] and then add in some black shatter polish in 1ml drops - shake and test and then add more black as needed. It's totally green to start with and doesn't shatter but as you drop more black in then it starts to be more consistant. Slowly is the key - I ruined 2 going too fast and then having nothing but black with a few shiny particles visible *sad*. For the record I've used Ozotic Black Mosaic as my black polish.

... Franken Week - Royal Red Jelly

** Post #2 for today - Enjoy **

Something I've always wanted to know is ... can you make a Jelly duochrome? While I'm still not sure of the answer on that - still I'm definitely happy with this jelly that I've created. So pretty.

Now on it's own BYS Garnet is a deep red jelly but added with the colour changing pigment turned it into a fantastic deep red jelly with a red shimmer throughout! I've really struggled to actually show this in photos so bare with me. I also struggled with a name since most of the things I associate with red shimmery polish have already been used by corporations so I don't want to be sued or anything.

[Edit] Some sun appeared this afternoon for like 5 minutes so I quickly grabbed my phone for some more shimmer ... all those spotty shimmer bits are the green trying to escape but they honestly look more gold than green. Pretty regardless though. Oh and the top picture is closer in colour than the bottom.

** Recipe **
1 bottle BYS Garnet
4 spoonfuls of Green-Red pigment [available from Cathy HERE]

... Franken Week - Golden Sunrise ...

** Damn you Blogger ... when I schedule a post I expect it to appear *end rant* Grrrrrrr  - This was supposed to appear yesterday. Sorry about that - you'll have 2 lovelies today to make up for it **

A gold holo? Why not :) I had this gorgeous pigment from TKB Trading for awhile and I was hoping I could get away with it mixed with clear but it was going way too bronze for what I had envisioned in my head. So this is 2 coats of golden goodness.

** Inside**

** Outside - this is more like the actual colour**

** Recipe **
2 tiny straw spoonfuls of Aztec Gold pigment from TKB Trading
4 tiny straw spoonfuls of Spectraflair [available from Cathy HERE]
3/4 bottle of clear polish
1/4 piCture pOlish Goldfinger

... Franken Week - Not so Frappé ....

Welcome to Franken Week here on Shatter me Claire!! I've been wanting to do this for awhile but haven't had the time to sit down and experiment but this week is the one!

So kicking off is "Not so Frappé" which I've made from NYC Crappé Frappé ... which I reviewed a few weeks ago HERE.

The problem with Crappé Frappé was that it was sheer, streaky and full of polish just waiting to smudge which is a shame as it was such a pretty colour!

So ... the challenge is on. To make Frappé less Crappé! Here's my attempt! Firstly I'm really happy with how the colour turned out. It's pretty similar to the original.

This is 3 coats and the silver polish I added seems to have helped the sheer problem and even using the tiny mini brush I definitely didn't have the streaking problem. Unfortunately it's still prone to being a smudgey mess :(

** Recipe **
2/3 bottle NYC Color Frappé
1/3 bottle Face of Australia Molten MetallicsTitanium

... October No Buy ...

Hello October and hello again no buy :(  I have spent WAYYYYYY too much during September so this has to happen - I'm hoping I won't have to extend it into November but we'll see how we go.  Now by writing this all down here that makes it official! *sad*

... Exceptions ...

* Mailing of swaps I haven't done yet [I consider that a polish cost]

* Clear polish [for frankening purposes]

* Polish remover

* Nail Files

* Hand Cream

* Paying for polishes that others have brought for me and I haven't paid for yet

* Things to go in the box for Reece!

Now with that official announcement out the way ... moving on ...