My First Blog Award!

I'd like to start right off by thanking Lackaffen for nominating me for this award. It took me a while to get this post up because her blog is in German, and even with the awesome abilities of google translate, I couldn't really figure out what to do. This award is for new and upcoming blogs with less than 200 followers. I'm honored that she liked my blog enough to nominate me for this!!

The rules for the award are to answer the questions posed to you by the blog that nominated you, nominate 20 more upcoming blogs with less than 200 followers and write 11 of your own questions for them. The blog that nominated me didn't answer the questions because they came from a cooking blog, but since she didn't pose any questions for me I decided to answer all these for you all!

The Questions:

1. What do you like cooking more? Meals or sweet?

I don’t cook much, but when I do I like to make something either sweet like brownies or something really spicy!

2. What’s more important on a person? Personality or looks?

Personality is definitely more important. It’s important to have someone you can trust and rely on.

3. When did you start your blog?

I started my blog around last June I believe, but after a couple posts I realized I didn’t have the time and restarted at the beginning of this January.

4. Which person inspires you in your life to start something new?

I don’t have a single person that inspires me to do things. My friends and family inspire me to do and try new things on a regular basis.

5. Which blogs do you read?

The blogs I read are almost exclusively polish and nail art blogs.

6. Do you like cooking or do you like it more if somebody cooks for you?

I like it more when people cook for me. I know so many great chefs that I love trying their food!

7. Which book do you read now?

The only book I read right now is my school textbook: Modern Blood Banking and Transfusion Practices.

8. Which clothes do you have the longest time?

I’m honestly not sure. I have so many clothes in my closet; it would take me too long to figure out what I've had the longest.

9. What is your favorite recipe?

My mom makes a Georgian dish called Hachapuri; it’s like a cheese bread or pizza type thing. It’s Amazing!!

10. What is important in friendship?

Again, someone you can trust and rely on and have a good time with!

11. What is your favorite movie?

The Gladiator!!

Here are the blogs I'm nominating. I can't quite think of 20, but I'll nominate more as I find them! Congrats you guys!!

http://missveesnails.blogspot.com/

http://nailnoise.blogspot.com/

http://unprofessionalnails.blogspot.com/

http://zebra-nails.blogspot.com/

http://moustachemanis.blogspot.com/

http://ohmygoshpolish.blogspot.com.au/

http://www.lostinlacquer.com/

And, here are my questions for you!

• Why did you start blogging?
• What is your favorite style of nail art?
• How long have you been blogging?
• What is your favorite aspect of having a blog?
• What is something unique about you?
• Where is your favorite vacation destination?
• If you could be anyone from history, who would you be?
• What do you do for work/ where do you go to school?
• What is your favorite food?
• What is a pet peeve of yours?
• What is your favorite TV show?

Thanks for reading this long post everyone and thank you again for the nomination!!

~Love Raine

Human Rights!

Hey everyone! Sorry this post is coming up so late. I was just going to make up a post to put up tomorrow morning, but then got inspired to make this one, and wanted to get it up before the end of the day. As most of you probably know today was the first day of hearings in the Supreme Court concerning gay marriage. In support of this facebook and twitter had their Human Rights campaign, you can go to their facebook page and get more information by clicking on the link. I won't get into views and details here, but I support it and it inspired me to do this manicure and I wanted to put it up today in support. Fight for love!

Again I experimented with some different lighting.

Outside - Flash

Inside - Flash

Phone - Flash

I like the outside the best for the most part, but you can't really see the pretty light purple of the equal sign as you could inside. Haha, the colors are all weird on my phone. The red on the accent nail is Zoya Gia and then China Glaze Light as Air for the pretty light creamy pastel white/purple/grey of the equal sign. The other nails are Orly Star Spangled over Gia. Hope you all enjoyed this!

~Love Raine 

Flowers have the Power!

Hello Everyone! I was so excited for this challenge because I LOVE doing flower nails! After some long contemplating about what kind of flowers I should I just decided to wing it. Haha. I started with one of my favorite polishes and pulled out some acrylic paint and just did what came to me. Warning, this post will be a little more picture heavy than my usual ones, I was experimenting with different lighting. I want to make a light box pretty soon, but until then I'm seeing what works best. I'd love to hear your opinions on which lighting you think is the best!! Enjoy!

Outside - Shade

Inside - Flash

Outside - Sunlight

Like I said I started with one of my favorite colors here for the base China Glaze Elephant Walk, It's an awesome greenish gray with a slight shimmer to it, although you can't really see the shimmer in the photos. Then I mixed some acrylic paints together to make that dark berry magenta color and painted it on with a really small brush ^_^. The white flowers are a mix of white with a little silver and gold acrylic paint (again you can't really see that in the photos :(. As a finally touch I added some glitter shade to the flowers with Butter London Shambolic. It has a lot chunkier pieces in it, but I made sure not to grab it for this particular mani. It needed something more so I added a black gem in the middle of the main flower on each nail. All in all I really like how this manicure turned out and I'm going to be really sad when I have to take it off.

As always, Thanks for reading!!

~Love Raine

Julee Inspired!

Hey everyone, I had these pics ready to post for you last week when my friend Nika invited me to go on a last minute trip to Cali! It was a blast! We drove to San Francisco and after a couple days exploring the streets there drove down to LA and did the same. It was great to get away and enjoy Spring Break, but now I'm back and have this fun mani to share with you. My friend Julee gave me the idea for this one a few weeks back, but i never seemed to get to it. So, when the challenge said animal print I finally managed to do it for her! Luckily The idea and colors turned out just as she suggested. Sorry about the slight smudging on the accent nail, I didn't have enough time to wait before putting top coat on.

On the accent nail here I used Zoya Ziv for the base, I absolutely love the texture to this gold, the slight red shimmer in it makes it perfect! The inside of the Spots is Butter London Trout Pout with Essie Little Brown Dress surrounding. Trout Pout is also the color on the other fingers. This was a really fun mani to wear, I had it on for about half my trip. THANKS JULEE!!!

Here's me and Nika at a YUM seafood restaurant on Pier 39 in San Fran. Thanks girl for a great time!

And thanks for reading, Love you all!!

~Love Raine

Super Stripes!

I was hanging out with Masha while doing my striped challenge nails and had the cutest inspiration! I really like how they turned out. I hurt my hand recently fallen down some icy steps steps and banged up my hand, so I apologize for the the yuck that still hasn't healed on it, this is the first I've painted them since that happened. I'll post a picture at the end of my hand the day after the fall, it looked pretty gross and it took me a few days before my nails stopped being too sensitive to file down. Just warning you guys in case you don't want to see that!

Here I started by painting on OPI Can't Find My Czechbook for the base. I wanted a little more dimension under the stripes so I gradiented China Glaze Sea Spray over it. I used striping tape to tape off where I wanted the base to show through and painted China Glaze Swanky Silk. I like Swanky Silk a lot more than I thought I would. I felt like most of the China Glaze Bohemian Luster Chrome collection looked very duochrome in the bottle, but it didn't translate onto the nail. I was pleasantly surprised that in various lighting I could see a pink/peachy/lavender tint to this pretty gold!!

So now here's what my injury looked like:

Ouch!! Like I said it took me a few days before I could fix the mess it did to my nails. So glad It's getting better! Thanks for reading!

~Love Raine

Polka Dotty Flowers!!

For the next day the be challenge called for polka dots. A while back I saw a similar manicure and have been wanting to try it ever since. I would put a link to the original source, but sadly I don't remember what it was. I believe it was on Reddit, but alas my memory fails. 

I actually did this mani while at a polish party hosted by Jo from Just Add Polish. It was so much fun! We taught each other different techniques, had a raffle, food, and other awesome activities. I won a velvet nail set  from Ciate. I can't wait to try it!!!

I also took these photos outside, I think I like it better. What are your thoughts?

For the base I used Zoya Harley. It's such a pretty and smooth gray color with a light shimmer. It actually belongs to Jo, but after using it I must get it for my collection! The black is Zoya Raven, Blue is Zoya Natty, purple is Zoya Mira (also Jo's), and the odd-ball in this man is the white as its OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (being from a different brand.)

I hope you enjoyed my dotty flowers as much as I did! Cheers!

~Love Raine

Halo Hues Gradient!

I've had quite the time this past week! During the time I wasn't picking up extra shifts at work I spent moving into my very own new apartment!! I've been looking forward to this for a long time and it finally happened, YAY! There's still a lot to be done, but at least it's a first step!

I had been looking forward to doing gradient in my (However long it seems to do) collection, haha, because I couldn't wait to gradient a couple of my new Color Club from the Halo Hues collection. I must admit I completely love all of these! That's good considering I have ALL of them!! The formula is superb! It goes on smooth and without a fuss and is nearly opaque in one coat. I put two on for s little extra OOMPH! :D

I did something different and took the photos for my next couple posts outside, and not in the dead of night like I usually do. This worked out awesome for the fantastically strong holo in this line. Isn't the rainbow marvelous!? ENJOY!!

The colors used are Color Club Harp on It and Color Club Eternal Beauty. The first is from last year's Halo Hues collection and the second just came out in the new line this year. This mani was super easy to do and I absolutely love it!!

~Love Raine