Versatile Blogger award AND Kreativ Blogger award!

Hey there, everyone - just a quick post to share with you these two awesome awards I got nominated for recently! It really makes my day when I get one of these so thank you Megan and Dulcie for the nominations!

I decided I was just going to combine these into one post, because I have a bunch of swatches and nail art posts to put up here soon :]

7 Random Facts:

1. My favorite two numbers are 17 and 13, and I consider them both "lucky" for me.
2. I work at a domestic violence shelter, answering hotline and crisis calls and making sure the residents have everything they need. I love my job.
3. I have to steal this one from Dulcie - I am absolutely obsessed with Halloween, and during this time of year, I basically can't leave my house without buying something Halloween-themed.
4. My favorite food is mashed potatoes - mixed with corn - mixed with ranch dressing. Weird, I know.
5. I typically watch scary movies through the crack between my fingers - but I do watch - and I do love them. It just feels safer, haha.
6. I desperately want to make it to Ireland in my lifetime. That's my one bucket list item that NEEDS to be checked off. 
7. Giraffes are my favorite animal, and red pandas are a close second. It's also on my bucket list to pet one of each one day!

Bloggers I Nominate:

1. The Daily Lacquerista
2. Klutzy Hands Nails
3. Cats-n-Nails
4. Shelby's Swatches
5. Lightwell Nails
6. Steamy Nails

Alright, that's it for now! Check back soon for some awesome swatches and nail art I've got planned ;] Oh, and I hope you all have a great holiday weekend! <3

Kelly

Starry Earth Swatches and Review

Hey everyone! Today I am super excited to share this post with you, because I have been able to get my hands on some gorgeous polishes that I think everyone should know about! Recently, I stumbled upon a great shop on Etsy called Starry Earth, which has handmade polishes created by Elizabeth. A lot of the polishes are inspired by princesses (Princess Collection) and Harry Potter houses (Wizard Collection) - what more could you want? ;] Anyway, today I have two Starry Earth polishes to share with you: 70 % Chance of Rain, and Lion of Valor.

From the Starry Earth description:
"70% Chance of Rain is a stormy grey blue shimmer polish. It has tiny (and I mean tiny) silver holo glitters. It shimmers without being overpowering. It's a great polish if you like glitter but don't want it to be in your face glitter!"

This polish is awesome! I'm not a huge fan of light blues, but this polish really caught my eye online and I'm so glad it did! This is not your typical pale greyish blue, the shimmers really make it unique.

In brighter light. Once this polish gets in sunlight, it really shines!

Outside, in direct sunlight. This picture was slightly out of focus, but I liked it that way because it really allowed you to see all the tiny holographic glitters on each nail. It looks stunning outside!

70 % Chance of Rain applied perfectly, no streaking, no visible brush strokes, not too thick, not too thin. The first coat was very, very sheer, but very buildable. In the above photos, I'm wearing three coats of 70% Chance of Rain with one coat of SV. I completely agree with Elizabeth's description, this polish is glittery and shimmery without that chunky feel of larger, coarse glitters, and without being over the top. I love it!

Next is Lion of Valor. This is the one that really caught my eye when I looked online. From the Starry Earth site:
"Are you a Gryffindor? Then you'll love this polish. It's a semi-sheer red berry base with square, hex and microfine hex gold glitter. It's the final polish in my wizard collection!"

This polish is AMAZING. It is inspired by Gryffindor House in Harry Potter (I consider myself a Ravenclaw, but that's besides the point) and it is one of four polishes in Starry Earth's Wizard Collection. All of them are awesome, but this one really stands out. I mean - just look at that macro!

Ah, I just can't stop staring at my nails! The combination of this berry red with the gold of the glitter is so unique and eye-catching. I can honestly say I have not seen any other polish like this. Lots of indie polishes have dupes, or similar color combinations, but this one stands alone in my opinion.

A closer shot to really show the different sizes and shapes of glitter.

Outside, in direct sunlight. I basically drooled over this mani when I got it outside. This might be my new favorite polish - I need to stock up asap.

The formula of Lion of Valor was again perfect. With all these different glitters, you might expect curling, clumping, or bald spots. I can honestly say that I experienced NONE of these issues. I didn't have to fish for anything, and the glitter applied evenly without me putting in any effort to ensure this. In other words, I didn't even have to try to get this gorgeous mani with perfectly distributed sparkles! I'm going to wear this one for a while :]


I highly recommend you check out Starry Earth if you haven't yet. Elizabeth's polishes are 3-Free, and they retail for $8.00 each for a 15 mL bottle.


Kelly



A  sample of these products was provided for review. I am not being compensated in any way for this post. This review is a statement of my honest opinion of these products, based on experience. For further information, please see my Disclosure Statement.

Quick update about storage!!!

Hey guys - really sorry I've been slacking on posts lately. It's been torturous but I have literally had the SAME COLOR on my nails for five days now - it's all part of a little experiment I'm doing, which I will let you guys in on soon ;] Anyway, I just had to update today because I have been miserable lately and it's all because of storage. I had a gorgeous nail polish rack that my boyfriend built for me, but unfortunately, my polish addiction was too much and it collapsed in on itself. Having polish all over the place has been driving me nuts (sometimes my OCD kicks in). Anyways, bottom line is that this:

and this:

...were just not working for me. So, I did the unthinkable. I broke down, drove 45 minutes to the nearest Ikea, and this happened:

They were out of the white ones I wanted, but we had driven all that way, and I'll be damned if I was not walking out of there with a solution to all my polish organization problems!!!! So I bought two. Haha.

I'm already feeling better, and - this is how much of a dork I am - I have been daydreaming all day (I'm at work) about going home and organizing it! Midnight, you can't get here fast enough.

Haha, so that's all I have to report. I think tomorrow I might just be done with my little experiment, because I have got so many awesome new polishes to swatch and designs to try that I can't wait to share with you guys! Oh, and little by little, I'm creeping closer to 50 followers and I have an EPIC giveaway in mind...stay tuned ;]!

Kelly

Geek Challenge - Games & Gaming (Pokemon)

Okay, this is the last one, I swear! Haha, I had so many games I wanted to do for Gaming week that I didn't even have the chance to do half of them. But, I did manage to squeeze in one more for this week: Pokemon! This is one of the things that make me truly a geek - yes, I'm 24 years old and I still play Pokemon when the mood strikes me! Go ahead, laugh, I've reached the point where I've accepted my geekdom and I embrace it! So, here's what I came up with - fairly standard, I took inspiration from lots of manis on Google, but I thought it turned out all right.

My thumb is Bulbasaur (I didn't realize at the time I painted him upside down), index is a sloppy Jigglypuff, the middle finger is a Pokeball, ring finger is Pikachu, pinky is Squirtle! I tried doing this mani a while back but I just didn't have most of the right colors I needed. 

Here's a close-up of the thumb. I smudged the one side of his face so I tried to patch it up. I kinda like him! Well, that's all I have for now!

Kelly

Geek Challenge - Games & Gaming (Sims)

Wow, I really have been slacking on these Geek Challenge nails! I had so many ideas for this week but I have been seriously lazy this week. Here's another game-inspired mani I did the other day. This one is inspired by one of my favorite games since it first came out - THE SIMS!

Not my best work (the small details were harder than I thought!) but not the worst either! I did the main diamond icon on my thumb and the rest are just icons for different things in the game. On my index finger is the fire icon when your Sim sets the food they are cooking on fire - this happens a lot. My middle finger is the icon that shows up when your Sim is hungry. I tried recreating the pacifier that pops up when your Sim family has a baby - I did one for a boy and one for a girl. And then last, just one that I thought was cool looking, is the icon that represents the "Evil" trait in a Sim's personality.

Here's a close up of the diamond icon:

And here's a closer picture of the other four icons:

And that's all I have for today! Sorry this is rushed, but I've got to run to work - don't forget to check out the other ladies doing this challenge :]

Kelly

Dollish Polish The Koopa King and 1-Up: Swatches and Review

Hello everyone! Tonight I have some polishes that I got last week - my first ever purchases from Dollish Polish, and let me say: I was not disappointed! I managed to pick up two of the ones I wanted from the Mario Bros collection during a Llarowe restock. (That was the first time I'd ever done a launch/restock/etc whatever you want to call it - I felt like a little kid on Christmas just staring at the page, refreshing like crazy!! Anyway, onto the polishes - I got The Koopa King and 1-Up.

First some bottle shots:

1-Up is packed full of small green and white squares, green hexes, larger white hexes, and white bars. The Koopa King to me was the perfect color combination to represent the bad guy in Mario! It looks just like him. This awesome polish is full of micro yellow, medium green and white hexes, larger red, yellow and green hexes, holographic diamonds, and black bars (phew!). That's as best as I can tell anyway.

A closer shot to really show all the different sizes, shapes, and colors of glitters.
And now for the swatches:

This is 1-Up outside, in direct sunlight. I really loved how the polish looked over black, and I decided I wanted a bright accent color that would really pop. This is two generous coats of 1-Up over 2 coats of Rimmel Black Satin and NYC Pink Promenade Creme for the accent. I topped it off with 2 coats of SV.

Inside, in the shade. I loved this mani and I wore it for about three days - that is a record for me anymore! Also I wanted to point out that my nails are getting longer and healthier now, as well as my cuticles - I really noticed it when doing these swatches! It's all thanks to great tips from fellow bloggers!

Here is The Koopa King outside in direct sunlight. I opted to paint it by itself for the accent nail because I thought it was bold enough to stand on it's own. I really like it even without undies! This is two coats of The Koopa King over Rimmel Black Satin, topped with 2 coats of SV.

Outside, in the shade. I love this color over black too!

Oh, before I did these manis I tested both polishes over several different colors, just to see which combinations I liked best. Here is my swatch wheel:

I did 1-2 coats on each nail. The undies I used were: Rimmel Black Satin, NYC French White Tip, NYC Pink Promenade Creme, Sally Hansen HD in Blu, and Essie Bazooka.

Overall, I LOVED these polishes. They applied perfectly, dried super fast, and looked great over basically anything. I couldn't wait to try my next Dollish Polishes - good thing, I didn't have to wait long before she restocked, I've got some great ones that should be coming in the mail soon, and swatches will not be far behind for you guys ;]

So what do you guys think? Do you like Dollish Polishes? :] Til next time!

Kelly

This product was purchased by me, and the review posted above displays my honest opinions.

Geek Challenge - Games & Gaming (Skyrim)

Hey there fellow geeks! Today I have for you my first gaming mani for this week's theme of the Geek Challenge! I have a couple other ideas in mind so I will be sharing those later in the week - what can I say, I love video games. This was the week I was most excited about! So, for my first one, I did probably what is my favorite game at the moment - Skyrim!

For those of you who don't play (and probably even those of you who do) this mani might require a little explanation. To me, one of the coolest things about this game is how you can make your character your own, and give them strengths and weaknesses in any skills you'd like. When I started playing, I took to Alchemy right away. I thought it was so fun learning the different combinations of potions and once I leveled it to 100, it is a great way to make money in the game. Anyways, my mani is inspired by Alchemy and some of the ingredients you can combine to make potions and poisons. So here is each nail one by one with their inspirations!

On my thumb is an attempt at the constellation that represents Alchemy; this is the skill tree where you can get perks related to Alchemy. I tried to do a makeshift galaxy nail for the background and dotted on the stars for each skill perk using a bobby pin.

My index finger is inspired by a Briar Heart (the rest of these are sort of macro views of different ingredients). This was the hardest to do, but it looks so cool in the game, I just had to try (multiple times)! I'm still not super happy with it but I will keep trying!

My middle finger is a Taproot, I think these ingredients look so cool and I just had to try to recreate it.

The ring finger is a Chaurus Egg; getting these ingredients is not fun because I hate Chaurus. But their eggs look so cool!

And last but not least Wisp Wrappings, you can find these on a dead Wispmother and they look like iridescent, holey bandages. I did some sponging and Saran Wrap with a few different colors, and I think I got kinda close! (It's shown better in the full mani, I couldn't get it focused!)

So what do you think?? And don't forget to check out the other ladies doing this challenge!

Kelly

Nails for the Sake of Sanity on Facebook!!

Hello everyone and Happy Tuesday!
Just had some news to share with you all - I finally created a Facebook page for the blog last night. With all the giveaway postings and indie polish likes, etc etc, I realized I was probably annoying my FB friends (not to mention those people I added in college that I don't actually know very well). SO, with the assistance of my wonderful boyfriend, since I had never made a page for anything like this before, the NSS Facebook page is up! It is still very much a work in progress, but it's going to be intended for sharing all the things I post on here, plus much more because to me, FB is more easily navigated and posting is not as much trouble, in my opinion. Please check it out, like if you so desire, and share with your friends! It would be much appreciated.

Thanks everyone, and here's the link:

https://www.facebook.com/NailsForTheSakeOfSanity


Kelly

Vacation nails and toes

I was so busy when I got back with the Geek Challenge and working on swatches and reviews that I realized I never did get around to posting the nails I wore on vacation! I was so excited about going to the beach that I did beachy, summery themed nails - it stormed and rained the entire time we were down there, but I didn't care!

I decided to try a sunset gradient on my nails, and I thought it turned out pretty well for my first try at a sunset! I actually haven't done a gradient in a while so I was glad I didn't get rusty. :]

They lasted about halfway through vacation, and then I decided to do something simple for the rest of the week because it was vacation and I didn't want to do anything super complicated. So, I just did a solid coat (gasp!) of Catrice Sold Out Forever. I never do solid one-color manis anymore, but this color was worth it. It's a gorgeous, so slightly mint green/off white. I didn't get any photos of it myself though, so swatches will have to wait til my boyfriend offloads his vacation pictures.

Then, for my toes, I was SO excited to try making mermaid nails after I got the large Martha Stewart glitter I've seen on The Nailasaurus. At first I tried placing them individually and that did not work at all! So I just took a brush with top coat on it, dabbed it into the glitters and mushed them onto wet polish. The base coat is Essie - Trophy Wife with an accent nail of Catrice Sold Out Forever, though you can't really see it much anymore!

These actually lasted way longer than I expected. I put a ton of Seche Vite on overtop (I think 3-4 coats) to try and make them last throughout vacation, but sand combined with me picking at them caused them to chip a bit about halfway through the week.
SO, I used the few colors I had brought along and my trusty new dotting tool to make another beachy or ocean-inspired look to get me through the rest of the trip. I thought it turned out pretty well for something I did on the fly!

And that does it for my vacation nails! What do you like to wear at the beach??


Kelly

Naild'It Review: Jellystone

Hey everyone! Today I have another gorgeous indie polish to share with you all! This is the second polish I purchased by Naild'It, and it did not disappoint. The polish is called Jellystone, and it's a fabulous glitter that looks great over multiple colors or even on its own. It's a clear base, but it's packed with micro and hexagonal pink, purple and blue glitters. This polish is GORGEOUS on its own or over other colors. Here's a bottle shot!

Another shot of the bottle from the back to really show off its prettiness!

And, onto the nails!

On the index finger, for undies I used a base coat of NYC French White Tip, the middle finger is Rimmel Black Satin, the ring finger is Sally Hansen Limestone, and the pinky is Essie She's Picture Perfect. All are two coats of Jellystone over the colors I listed, except for the thumb, which (believe it or not!) is just 3 coats of Jellystone. That's why I mentioned that it's gorgeous to wear on its own, too - the micro glitters are packed in there enough that you get full coverage in only three coats without undies. :]

Another shot from a different angle. I love this glitter! I got lots of compliments when I work this to work that day :] And I had no issues with the formula - no clumping, no curling glitter sticking up, etc. Formula was great and applied smoothly and evenly.

So what do you think?? Check out Naild'It on Etsy - she's on vacation right now (Wah) but she's got loads of other pretties if you love glitters like this as much as I do! Have a great weekend everyone :]

Kelly

This product was purchased by me, and the review posted above displays my honest opinions.

Geek Nail Challenge - TV #3 (The Walking Dead)

I present to you my third TV-inspired mani which is a representation of one of my FAVORITE TV shows - The Walking Dead! I have loved this show since it premiered on Halloween two years (I think) ago! It's one of the few shows that I must catch every week, on time, when it's on. Well, here's my zombie inspired mani!

Obviously, I got a little theatrical with that positioning. I also didn't clean up and left the mani sloppy because it was more zombie-esque that way ;] Here's a closer shot, with flash to really show all the colors.

I really ended up liking how this turned out! For a base, I did two coats of a Daring Imaginations Vampire Red that came with a Halloween costume once, haha, to represent blood. Then I painted one thick coat of Orly Decades of Dysfunction and sponged some of that off so the blood showed underneath. I repeated that one more time. Then, I lightly sponged on a bit of Zoya - Yara to add that greenish tint. Finally - and this was my mistake - I put on a matte topcoat and it smoothed everything over too much, the cool decay-like texture was gone. I tried to recreate it the next morning just sponging a bit of NYC Matte topcoat over it randomly:

Not bad, but I did miss my Seche Vite! As you can see, it chipped before I could even get a picture of it. Oh well. What do you think? And don't forget to check out the other bloggers!

Kelly

Geek Nail Challenge - TV #2 (Dexter)

Hello there! Today I'm back with another post for TV Week of the Geek Challenge! This one is inspired by one of the shows I am most addicted to, Dexter. I can't wait for the new season to start!! I was a late bloomer on this one and only got into it last year after multiple friends told me they knew I'd love it (What does that say about me??? I'm hoping they suggested it because of the psychology aspect....) Anyway, without further ado, here are the TWO manis inspired by Dexter! First, I recreated Ice Truck Killer nails by doing a different bright color on each finger like in the show. I had a hard time finding the exact colors on the doll and the bodies without rewatching that season but I finally found a picture online and I think the colors are right now! Here's a shot of the hand in the ice from Dexter:

And here's my version!

I had to do a post holding my hand upright like in the actual show, please ignore my head in the background haha!

And, I also decided to try my hand (hand, get it, ha ha) at the splatter mani that I've seen done by other bloggers before. This was my first attempt, and while I don't hate it, I think it will take some practice to get the splatter right.

I played around with holding the straw at different distances from the nail (Middle finger - closer, ring finger - further away) and well, the difference is obvious. Holding the straw further away creates a better look. Also creates more of a mess!

Anyway, that's it for today, but here's a little preview of what I have in store for tomorrow ;]

Kelly

OH - and PS, I'm up to 21 followers currently (I know, small achievement but it's exciting to me!!) and I'm planning on holding a giveaway when I hit 50! I've got some great ideas in mind, so stay tuned everyone ;]