Green-Teal Gradient Spotted!

I know I haven't been around much but I'm still kicking. I am currently suffering from a really bad sunburn I got this weekend while up north with my guy. So here is what was on my nails for the weekend!

I started out with 2 coats of Essie "Blanc" which has been my current go to white base polish.

 I then did 2 coats of one of my favorite neon greens China Glaze "I'm With The Life Guard" I just love everything about this polish. I have several bottles of it :) The application is awesome, it's a lovely bright neon green.

 It dries a little matte, but with top coat it just glows.

  

 For the gradient I used another China Glaze polish. This one is "Custom Kicks"

 I really think these two go together great. It's a very beautiful and smooth gradient. Gradients are by far my favorite thing to do.

 How awesome does that look? I still couldn't leave it alone lol... so I added an accent nail...

 Maybelline Color Show "Clearly Spotted" is from their current Polka Dots collection that includes 4 other polishes. I love this polish and I think I have several versions of the matte black and white glitters from several different brands.

 The other 4 in this collection are the same glitters in a colored base, green, blue, orange, and pink. I bought them all :) This mani still felt like it needed something.

 My good old Northern Lights topcoat was there to same the day :)

 It finally felt completed!

I love this mani and I have been wearing it for almost a week. Tonight it is coming off though for something new. Do you like this mani? What are your thoughts on gradients? Would you like to see more? Less?

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to check out my new Facebook page and don't forget to enter my current giveaway!

Christmas Decorations!

First I want to give my congratulations to Tami M. who won my 400 follower giveaway!

I also want to give you a heads up that I will be having another giveaway shortly!

 Today's theme is X-Mas decorations. I wasn't totally sure what to do so I just decided to look through my stamping plates and picked out a couple that got to stamping. Oh and I had just gotten some rhinestones in the mail so I decided to play with them too.

I must warn you I am kinda tried so this isn't going to be a chatty post, sorry :(

 For my base colors I used Nicole by O.P.I. "I Love You Cherry Much"

and Maybelline Color Show "Avante Green"

 I used Sally Hansen "Silver Sweep" for the stamping. I really need to find other polished for my stamping lol.

 These are the plates I used... Like I really need to say that lol. I'm sure you all figured that one out on your own :)

 I'm really happy with how this turned out and I really liked how the rhinestones really gave it a little something more. I NEED to start using them more!!!

Well I hope you enjoyed this mani because I did! Thank you so much for reading and don't forget to check out the other ladies below:

400 Follower Giveaway!!!

For this giveaway I wanted to include a couple of my favorite things :) I can't believe that I am now over 400 followers. This giveaway is open internationally so everyone is free to enter. You can enter until 12/15/12. This way the winner should receive the items really close to x-mas (depending on where you live)

Let's get right to the prizes!

 Now for a loser look

 Everyone needs lotion. It keeps your hands, and cuticle, nice and soft. Vanilla is a pretty universal scent so I figured it would have the best chance of being like by whoever wins.

 OMG! I love this stuff! It works great and it smells yummy. I can't quite figure out the smell but I think it's good :)

 Just another of my favorite. It's a great lip gloss and it isn't sticky like a lot of them out there. Plus it is a peppermint scent and flavor. and it works well with the holidays!

 Can't have a giveaway on a polish blog without some polish. Both of these are from the current Essie Leading Lady collection "Beyond Cozy" and "Leading Lady" I actually just used "Beyond Cozy for my last mani that I just posted.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sunset Mani...

Last Saturday I was out driving around and I just happed to look at the sky as the sun was going down. It was so pretty. The nice blue sky with fluffy litte clouds that were tinted red from the sun. As I looked at the sky I said to myself: "Raeven... You need to make your nail look like the sky." I thought I had a pretty good idea, so when I got home I pulled out a nail wheel to play with some colors to see if I could find a combination of colors to give me the effect I was looking for....

This is what I ended up with...

I think it turned out pretty good. I used 2 coats of Sinful Colors "Rise and Shine" the blue was a little brighter then I wanted but when I added 2 coats of Maybelline Colorama "Ruby Rays" it muted the blue out a little and made it the perfect shade for me. After that I felt that it still needed a little something so I added a coat of OTD Northern Lights... PERFECT!!!! I loved how it turned out so much that I kept it on for 3 days.. normally I change every other day if not every day... It turned out better then I though it would and IMO it looked even better in person. Flakies are so hard to capture on camera :/

I recieved "Ruby Rays" from a swap I did with Nail Xchange it was a surprise she threw in and I was so excited about it since I don't really have a lot of flakies :)

What do you think? Have you used either of these polishes before.

Thanks for reading and as always please leave any comments or questions below!!!

My First Swap!!!

I was so excited to have my very first swap recently. I was looking for China Glaze "Zombie Zest" one day and I came across a blog... the link I originally found wasn't the correct address, but I found my way lol. I found Nailxchange!!!! Sylwia is from Canada and she had a bottle of "Zombie Zest" up for a swap. After I did a little happy dance in my chair at work..... yes I look at blogs at work lol. It's a small office, so I get away with a lot:).... I sent her an email.

Sylwia is awesome. She is so nice and we talked and made arrangements to swap polishes. I just received mine yesterday and wanted to show you what I got... but first you should go check out her blog because she is having a blog sale before she moves to Greece... How awesome is that??? So go take a look at what she has, you might find something you like: NailXchange Blog Sale

OK so now on to what I received.... (sorry the pictures aren't the greatest. My lens broke so I had to use an old one off a manual camera lol)

From L to R: Joe Fresh "Peacock", "Twilight", China Glaze "Zombie Zest", and Maybelline "Ruby Rays" and "Pink Pinata"

 Flakies :)

"Zombie Zest" hehe so happy... oh and the polish I'm wearing is a franken I made and I'll be posting about it soon, so watch for that coming soon ;)

 These were actually a surprise to get but I was really excited because I don't really have any flakies other than Nubar 2010.

So those are my newest pretties and I will be showing you "Twilight" on my next post. Until then don't forget to go check out Sylwia's blog sale !!! If you have any questions or comments please leave them below and thanks for reading:)

Purple Color Explosion

I haven't posted the last two days due to a migraine, but I'll make up for it today :)

First I am going to show you the Purple Maybelline Eyestudio Color Explosion "Amethyst Ablaze" I love it as much as I like the green one. It goes on just as nice too.

I don't have much to say that I didn't say about the green, so I'll just show the pictures :)

This is before I put on the luminizer top coat......

This is after I put on the luminizer top coat......

The only bad thing I have to say about these eyeshadows are they are now where close to the colors they show on the commercials :( maybe if I tried applying them wet... I'll try it next time I use them.

Have you tried them wet? Did you have better results? Please leave a comment.

Thanks for reading!

Maybelline Eye Studio

Yesterday during lunch I went to Wal-Mart and I finally bought two of the new Maybelline EyeStudio Color Explosion eye shadows. (The pictures on their website don't do anything to the actual product) I bought the green and the purple. I love glitter and sparkle so these were no brainers for me. They looked so pretty and I couldn't wait to try them out. So I'm going to review the green first and in the next couple of days I will show the purple one called "Amethyst Ablaze."

The green one is called "Green Fury" Green is my favorite color so I couldn't wait to try it.

My camera doesn't do it justice. The colors are so pretty and very sparkly :)  The colors went on wonderfully and were true to the palette. When I took the first pictures I forgot to to use the liner, but I still like it...

This was before I put on the luminizer top coat... sadly the camera didn't pick it up as much but you can tell there is a difference.

 I just love, love, love this eyeshadow. At least with these I don't have to add my own glitter lol :) I was going to take pictures with the liner, but I had to get to work so I took a picture after work, but this also lets you see how it stood up after a day of work, and yes I used my good ol' UDPP :) So here are pictures with the liner...

This one shows that there is a lot of sparkle in it.

So all in all this product is a win in my opinion. I love eye shadows and I love sparkle, and this is 2/2. If you like the same as me then I highly recommend this product.

Thanks for reading :)