Something Blue: My 1st Wedding Anniversary and Your Day Giftable Nail Polish

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend, I know I did. I have a very special (and long) post for you lovely readers. Today, April 30th, marks my one year wedding anniversary! The first year really flew by and time doesn't show any signs of slowing down. My hubby and I celebrated our anniversary this weekend by going out to a nice dinner on Saturday. The restaurant we went to also holds special events and the cocktail hour for a wedding that day was in the bar section of the restaurant. It was nice to be at dinner, but also be reminded of our wedding around the same time a year ago. I hope the bride and groom of that wedding were having as much fun as we did last year.

I'll be honest that planning the wedding wasn't my favorite thing ever. I had a few meltdowns along the way and at times just hated the planning process, but it was well worth it in the end. My husband and I ended up having a great, memorable wedding. Aside from forgetting my veil at home when I went to the salon, pretty much everything that day went smoothly. The weather was gorgeous (a bright, warm spring day), everyone got there on time (including me), and we had so much fun! Everyone ate, drank and was merry, and there was a lot of dancing.

Photo credit: Meaghan Slottje Design and Photography

For today's post, I have a very special polish. About a month ago, I was notified that I had won a custom bottle of polish from Your Day - Giftable Polishes by Frances Tatulli on Facebook. Your Day makes custom nail polish for special occasions and the date of the special occasion is essentially the name of the polish. Here is the bio about Your Day:

"Your Day – Giftable Polishes by Frances Tatulli
Fran has been doing Nails, Hair & Make Up for as long as she can remember. With 4 daughters she always had plenty of girls to practice her talents.  After beginning her career as a Nail expert & designer she quickly expanded her horizons to include Hair & Make Up with over 10 years of Avon Cosmetics Industry experience. Through extensive training and education, she met and worked for celebrity manicurists which opened many doors for her. You can find Fran at New York Fashion Week, not only working but mingling with Designers. You will also find her at many charity events in NY.


Fran’s passion for color was indulged by starting Your Day, "giftable" nail polish company. Instead of naming the unique color in a bottle, her brilliant and marketable idea for all ages is to date “your day” that is sentimental to you. Bottles can be customized, as well as colors. View more on Fran’s website www.bellafiore.vpweb.com."

I like the concept of Your Day nail polish, it's a different spin on custom blended nail polish. You get to pick the color and the date, so you know that your polish is one of a kind. I had been a fan of Your Day on Facebook for a while and had been selected as the winner of the giveaway.  I was excited, of course, and had to decide what color and date I would want. Since my anniversary was coming up, I asked Fran to make me a blue polish with flecks in it and used my wedding shoes as inspiration. The date, of course, would be April 30th. For my wedding I went with a traditional french manicure and acrylic tips and Essie's Ballet Slippers for my pedicure, but blue is more my style.

The Inspiriation

Me on my wedding day!

Within a few days I received my polish and I can say that Fran did a great job! My wedding colors were blue and silver. My custom Your Day polish captured this perfectly. It's a bright blue polish with silver flecks throughout the polish. The polish is opaque in one coat and has a foil-like finish, but I always like to do two coats of polish anyway.

I used Cult Nails Get it On base coat and Wicked Fast top coat as well. I didn't really need a quick dry top coat for this polish since it dries very quickly on its own, but using a top coat helped smooth out the finish. The color actually reminds me a little bit of Wet n Wild's Stay Outta My Bismuth, but the flecks in that polish are gold rather than silver. It's fair to say I like my Your Day polish better than the Wet n Wild polish, since this holds a more personal meaning. Who doesn't love a custom color?

I have to say that having my own Your Day nail polish was a great way to commemorate my one year wedding anniversary. I love this color and the formula on it was great. I even got a compliment when I was picking up some coffee from Dunkin, which always makes me happy. (The compliment and the coffee.) 

You can contact Fran of Your Day Giftable Nail Polish through her Facebook page or through her website. The Facebook page also has pictures of other custom polish and the bottle designs. The packaging is really creative and makes a great favor for special occasions. Fran is based in the Hudson Valley region of New York and also does wedding hair and makeup. 

One of my favorite pictures of our wedding day

Share your wedding memories and stories in the comments section! I'd love to hear them. Do you like the idea of a nail polish customized for a special date or occasion? What color nail polish did you wear on your wedding day? 

Royal (Nail) Mail!

First of all, Happy Anniversary Will & Kate! Mostly I'm only aware of this fact because last year the Royal Wedding was the day before my very own wedding. But that's a post for another day.

Two weeks ago I received probably my favorite piece of nail mail, my a england order from the Tristam sale. With no tracking number, I could only wonder (and ask fellow nail polish lovers) when my order would arrive. Finally it showed up, but not without my hubby taunting me first joking that he was going to send it back.

I was so excited I even took a picture of the stamp

I'm just a little obsessed with London and England in general. I went on a Study Abroad short-term program to London during the summer between my junior and senior years of college. It was only two weeks that we actually spent in London, but I fell in love with the city. I felt so comfortable there and I just loved everything about it. My love of London was what first attracted me to a england nail polish.

But oh my goodness, the polish! Adina is a nail polish genius! I've seen gorgeous swatches on various blogs and I know everyone raves about them, but it's something entirely different to hold these beauties in your hands.  Even the hubby was impressed and put some polish on his thumbnail to test one out. Plus, I love that Adina has a story and inspiration behind each collection. She has such a strong vision and that's something I admire.

Since Saint George and Dragon were sold out, along with some others I wanted, I picked up Ascalon, Order of the Garter and Avalon. They are gorgeous in the bottle and I'm very happy with my purchase. Plus,  I love blue and purple, so all of these colors are right up my alley.

I can't wait until I've tried all three of these out. Now that I've made my first purchase from a england, I can't wait to be able to purchase more of Adina's creations. Saint George and Dragon are definitely next up from a england, as long as they stay in stock. 

Did you participate in the Tristam sale? Which colors did you purchase? Let me know in the comments section!

KelBel Cosmetics Sale!

Hey everyone, just a quick post tonight. I've decided to have a sale over at my Etsy shop, KelBel Cosmetics, on Monday 4/30.

The sale will be to celebrate my one year wedding anniversary! All nail polish will be 15% off for the day. Please check the Etsy shop store front on Monday for the 15% off code.

Avon: It's not a trick, it's an Illusion.

I just looked at my recent posts and realized they have been all about Cult Nails! It's time to switch it up and give you all a breather between Cult posts. (Not that we all don't love the brand, but I'll save some for next week.)

Today I have a polish for you that surprised me with how great it is. I'm not sure how I ended up stumbling across a swatch for Avon Illusion, part of the Enchanted Spring Shades Limited Edition collection, but that's how I ended up buying it. I found a swatch online and then asked my coworker who is an Avon Rep for the new catalog. Avon was having a sale for any 3 nail polish colors for $7.99. A great deal!

My Avon order (L to R): Blue Escape, Illusion, Aqua Fantasy

Illusion is the perfect name for this nail polish. I don't really know how to put my finger on what the color actually is. I would describe it as a greige creme with pink iridescent effect and a very subtle hint of green. The color is absolutely gorgeous and I'm very surprised that Avon came out with something so different. Usually I associate Avon with pinks and reds that mostly your grandmother would wear.

I was also impressed by the formula. It wasn't too thick or too thin, and for a light color, it evened out nicely in just two coats. Plus as you can see, it only needed two coats for it to be opaque. I used Cult Nails Get it On base coat and Wicked Fast top coat.

Illusion is not in your face at all, it's a very subtle color but I think it's going to be great for summer. I also appreciate the fact that Illusion is very work appropriate for those of us who work in an office. The downside is that Illusion is very camera shy.

Illusion is available through Avon, either by representative or their website. The Enchanted Spring Shades collection normally sells for $5.00 per bottle, but right now it's on sale for $3.49 online. Also contact your local rep to see if the 3 for $7.99 is still going on.

What do you think of this polish? Do you own any polish from Avon? Are you an Avon fan or have to stayed away from the brand? Let me know in the comments section!

Moar Cult Nails Nail Mail!

Happy Monday all! I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. Now that it's back to the work week, here's some nail mail to brighten your day.

I have gotten a lot of nail mail in the past few weeks, which is always exciting. In the past, most of my nail polish has come from stopping at my local drug store(s) and picking up polish that catches my eye. Now that I've become part of the nail blogging community, there are so many more options for buying polish! This may be bad for my wallet, but it has introduced me to so many great brands that are not available in store.

Anyway, in addition to ordering the Divas and Drama collection, I also took part in the Cult Nails $5 sale. The sale was to celebrate Cult Nails (and Maria) reaching 5,000 likes on Facebook. It's quite a milestone and Marie was nice enough to treat us Culties to this great sale. It's essentially a 50% off sale, since her polish is normally $10 a bottle. She did limit it to 3 bottles at $5 in order to make sure it was fair for everyone and for her as well.

I definitely took advantage of the sale and even stayed up till midnight to order. I usually never go online at the exact time things go on sale, but this one was worth it.

Because of the timing of the new collection and the sale, these ended up arriving a few days after the Divas and Drama collection. It was an epic nail mail week for me. As  you can see, I picked up Let Me Fly, Enigmatic and Captivated. 

From L to R: Enigmatic, Let Me Fly, Captivated

They are all gorgeous colors and I can't wait until I've worn all three! Here's some bottle spam in the meantime.

Did you take part in the $5 Cult Nails sale? If you did, what did you end up getting? Did you stay up until midnight Eastern time like I did? 

Cult Nails Manipulative with Seduction Accent Nail

Happy Sunday readers! I had a nice, quiet weekend that involved wine, shopping and a haircut. How was everyone else's weekend? Today has been rainy and cold for most of the day, so I've been finishing up Mad Men on Netflix and relaxing. For a Sunday, the pace has been nice and slow. I never want Sundays to end, so I'm enjoying it while I can.

Now onto the polish! I have yet another Cult Nails related post. Once I got my Divas and Drama collection, I had to put it on ASAP and this was the first mani I did with the collection. I started with two coats of Manipulative, which is a blue creme polish with a very subtle shimmer. Manipulative leans a little green as well. The color was a bit darker than I thought it would be after seeing Maria's swatches and pictures, but it's gorgeous anyway.

I also love Maria's swatches of Seduction over Enticing, so I recreated the layering combination as an accent nail on my ring finger. I used two coats of Enticing, which is a sheer baby pink creme polish. It's a gorgeous polish on its own and two coats provided great coverage. One of these days I'll have to wear Enticing without covering it up. 

After everything was dry, using Wicked Fast top coat of course, I added the accent nail of 2 coats of Seduction. I also used Cult Nails Get it On for the base coat. 

So there you have it, yet another gorgeous Cult Nails combination. I think what I love most about the Divas and Drama collection is that all of the colors go so well together. They're just made to be used together, whether it's layering, accent nails or nail art. It's a collection that I'm doubt I'll ever get tired of. 

The Divas and Drama collection from Cult Nails is available here for $40 or you can buy the individual polish colors for $10 each. 

Have you tried this combo yet? What have been your favorite manicures using the Cult Nails Divas and Drama collection? Let me know in the comments section!

Deadly Seduction: Layering with Cult Nails and KelBel Cosmetics

Cult Nails Seduction is quickly becoming my favorite nail polish. I just can't get enough of this beauty! I absolutely love flakies and Seduction is no exception. The Cult Nails website describes Seduction as "a sheer purple/red jelly top coat polish loaded with red and blue multichromatic flakes." With a polish like this, there are endless layering possibilities.

Playing off of the purple base of Seduction, I decided to layer it over one of my own colors from KelBel Cosmetics. The base color I used is Nightlock, which was inspired by The Hunger Games of course. For those of you who haven't read the books or watched the movie yet (and have been living under a rock), nightlock is the name of the deadly berries in the books/film that are supposed to have a dark purple color to them.

KelBel Cosmetics Nightlock is a dark yet vibrant purple polish, that is not a creme but not quite a shimmer, it falls somewhere in between. I used two coats of Nightlock with Seche Vite top coat. After that dried, I layered 2 coats of Cult Nails Seduction over my pointer and ring finger nails as accents.

This combination was made for each other! Nightlock is my perfect kind of purple and matched the jelly base of Seduction well. Plus it helps that jellies can morph depending on what they're layered over..

I will definitely be wearing these two together again in the future. I even got a compliment from a cashier when I was buying lunch, which made my day!

What do you think of this combination? Which colors have you layered Seduction over? Let me know in the comments section!

Nail Mail: Cult Nails Divas and Drama Collection

Last week I finally received my Cult Nails Divas and Drama Collection pre-order! I have been really excited about this collection and after waiting, it was great to finally have them in my hands!

I love the Cult Nails polish burritos! It's such a cute idea and environmentally friendly too. 

Seduction from the Divas and Drama collection has become my new favorite polish. It is absolutely gorgeous and I just want to wear it all the time. I keep thinking of new layering combos that would work great with the purple jelly base. I just love it! Plus, it's a "cousin" of Cult Nails Unicorn Puke / Clairvoyant, which I probably will sadly never own. This is the definitely the next best thing. 

Ahh, look at those flakies!

The whole order. I also added the Cult Nails Get it On Base Coat and Wicked Fast Speed Dry Top Coat to my order. They work perfectly with the rest of the Cult Nails colors.

The Divas and Drama collection from left to right: Scandalous, Enticing, Seduction and Manipulative. The entire collection is available now on the Cult Nails website for $40 for the collection or $10 each if you just want one or two. However, if you want Seduction (which I know you do) be sure to order it sooner rather than later because it's a Limited Edition (LE) color. So once it sells out, it's gone. I already missed out on Toxic Seaweed. 

I'll be posting my swatches soon hopefully. Lately this collection seems to be all I've been wearing, I love it so much!

I Love Your Blog Award!

On April 4th, DJ of Makeup Chic, Literary Geek and Beauty Pop Shop received the I Love Your Blog award and then chose me as one of her 7 nominees! I meant to do this post a lot sooner, but time has just been flying by.

But my motto is better late than never, so thank you so so much DJ! It's an honor to be named for this blog award, especially since she is one of the bloggers I look up to. I am also happy that her Beauty Pop Shop is growing! I like to see good people succeed. Over the past few months I've gotten to "know" some great people because of blogging and I love our little nail community.

I figured I would share the love, the rules of which are:

1. Add the logo of the award to your blog (I couldn't find it, so I skipped this part.)
2. Add a link to the person that awarded it to you. (Done!)
3. Nominate 7 other blogs.
4. Tell your nominees.

Without further ado, here are my 7 (not including Makeup Chic, Literary Geek since she nominated me.) They are in no particular order because I love them all!

1. Piano Finger(nail)s 
2. Dream a Little Dream of Polish
3. Sincerely Stephanie
4. Samarium's Swatches 
5. Polished Claws Up!
6. Polish and Pigments
7. Nail Polish Wars

All of the above blogs are great. Go check them out!

My Ott Light Odyssey

I have a story for you lovely readers. A little over a week ago I purchased an Ott light. I needed a second light source for my light box and had heard good things about Ott. I had stopped at Michael's to pick up a Melmer and as I was walking around found the Ott lights at 40% off! It was fate, meant to be, so I picked up the tulip style lamp. I was so excited and couldn't wait to get home and use my new great polish-related purchases.

*Disclaimer: This is a very long post. Continue if you're brave enough, or just feel like reading a lot.*

That night I got everything home and there were no problems at all. I started putting together the Melmer and set up the Ott light. (By the way, not the best idea to watch Mad Men, drink wine and put together a Melmer all at once. Your husband may have to step in 2 hours later and finish it for you in under 10 minutes.) All was happy in Kelly's nail polish world.

The happy days continued. I took pictures of swatches and bottles with my nice, bright, color-accurate Ott light for the blog and Etsy. There was the oops of getting some Bath & Body Works Wallflower plug-in oil on the empty box that my light was on top of, but no biggie, I'll just throw the box away.

Then disaster struck. (And by disaster I'm being dramatic, but that's how it felt.) I came home with my new Wet n Wild Chrome beauties and was all ready to swatch them and take photos. I went to take the bottle shots first and tried to move the Ott light. Much to my dismay it felt stuck to the table. Another gentle yet firm pull and it was off the end table, but a ring in the wood was left behind. That was bad enough, but then I tried to move the Ott light again and the whole bottom came clean off...:gasp:

The light itself still worked, but the top shell was completely detached from the bottom base that weighs it down. Then it popped into my head, since everything reeked of scented oil, that the Wallflower oil had eaten away at the plastic, damaging not only our end table, but the lamp itself. I was so upset and mad at myself for being careless with my brand new lamp. I picked up the crumbling plastic and lost all motivation to swatch. I went outside, slowly and shoulders slumped, like a child that had broken her favorite new toy, to tell my husband what happened. I was sad and needed someone to commiserate with me.

But here's where the husband comes to the rescue. I told him that I broke my lamp. (Afterward he would tell me that when I came outside, I looked as though someone had died. Yep, I exaggerate.) He inspected it and came to the conclusion that it was not my fault. The lamp had broken, not been melted away by the oil. He figured the lamp came broken, we just didn't notice it at all. He said if I could find the receipt, we would take it back and exchange it no problem. And then he took me to Dairy Queen for dinner to make up for a sad evening. (P.S. food is the way to my heart.)

I worried about the situation for a good two days before we were able to return it. I even had excuses and everything ready. With Wallflower oil on the box and a broken lamp, I was sure Michael's would not take it back and basically tell me it was too bad, but not their problem. Much to my surprise, they took the lamp back and put the money back on my card, no questions asked.

Nail polish looks better with an Ott light

Excited and relieved, I went to go find my new Ott light. I found one and the deal was even better than the first time. I bought a brand new Ott light (same one, but with a blue base), a replacement bulb and a paint brush, the total of which ended up costing me LESS  than what I had originally paid for the first broken Ott light. Success!

So there you have it, my roller coaster journey of my first week of owning (2) Ott lights. Now everything in my little corner of the world is back to normal and I can go back to taking pictures at any time of day, sunlight or not! I'm a very happy blogger now that this situation has been fixed.


Do you have an Ott light? (Isn't it amazing!) Have you had any similar situations that you thought would be disasters, but turned out fine in the end? 

An Easter Manicure: Skittles and Jelly Beans

Happy Easter everyone! I'm posting this a day early since I won't be around tomorrow, as I'm sure is the case for many people. The past few holidays I've just been going with theme colors, but never any nail art. This Easter I was on a mission to do some nail art, which included me buying a yellow specifically for this mani.

I went with a skittles mani with alternating designs. The polka dots are supposed to be decorated eggs and I used the Zoya Fleck Effect collection for the other nails as the plastic grass that's in Easter baskets. 

Above is my left hand and below is my right hand. My right came out better, since I'm a lefty, so I wanted to show both. Not bad for my first attempt at using a dotting tool, right? 

Above are some of the nail polish colors I used. From left to right: Zoya Chloe, Wet n Wild Blazed (mixed with white), Brucci Sheri's Pistachio Creme, Zoya Opal, Zoya Maisie, Essie Barefoot in Blue, Revlon Buttercup. Not shown, but also used were Brucci Snow White and I mixed LA Girl Indigo with Kiss Bikini Pink and Snow White to make the purple on my pinkies. (How do I not own any light purple cremes? )

What do you think of my Easter nail art? Did you do anything special with your manicure for Easter? If you did, share the link in the comments section! I'd love to see your Easter nail art!

Wet n Wild: Chrome Limited Edition Collection

Today is an exciting post! I was checking out Rite Aid, as I am wont to do, and saw a full display of a collection I had never seen or heard of before! It was a new Wet n Wild display, right next to the Be Jeweled collection. This collection is another Limited Edition called Chrome. I was so excited, I stood in front of the display for a good few minutes while I tried to decide which to take home with me. 

I decided on the above two colors, Precious Petals and Stay Outta My Bismuth. The display also had a silver, gold, purple, turquoise, and an light orange-ish color. It took me forever to decide, but I figured I couldn't go wrong with pink and blue. I also think the bottles themselves are adorable and a nice change for Wet n Wild. 

Precious Petals is a bright pink foil with a silver shimmer throughout. While foils are not my favorite finish, I do love that they dry really quickly! I would say the dry time on these is about 2 minutes. I used a top coat anyway to make the polish shine a bit more. The application was a little difficult, mostly due to the foil finish. The brush on my bottle of Precious Petals was also a little wonky. However, the polish does cover very well in two coats. 

Precious Petals is a lot more vibrant in real life. It's a perfect spring and summer color!

The second polish from the Chrome collection is Stay Outta My Bismuth. It's a bright blue foil with a golden shimmer. The application on this was better overall because the brush was better. However, be sure to wait for each coat to dry before adding another so you avoid dragging and clumping. Stay Outta My Bismuth is a fun color as well. I actually swatched these two colors at the same time, one on each hand and I really like the combination. 

I found the Wet n Wild Chrome collection at Rite Aid and the bottles retail for $3.99 each. I also received 50 cents off when I used my Rite Aid Wellness+ card. They're a bit expensive for the 8.5 ml size bottles, especially since they're higher priced than most Wet n Wild collections, but I think they're worth it if you really love foils or just want some fun new colors for the warmer weather. 

What do you think of these two from the Chrome collection? Have you seen these in stores yet? 

Spring Fling Giveaway Winner!

Hey lovely readers! I couldn't wait any longer to announce the giveaway winner, so without further ado...



a Rafflecopter giveaway


Congratulations Leslie!

Also I wanted to thank everyone for reading and following my blog. I'm up to over 1,000 views, which may not seem like much, but for me it's an accomplishment! I really do appreciate all of the views and comments. Thanks!

Spring Fling Giveaway Update

Hey everyone, just a quick update. I didn't forget about the Spring Fling Giveaway. The entry time is over and I have picked a winner using the Rafflecopter widget. I am just waiting for that winner to respond to my e-mail with their address and then I will announce it! So check your inboxes, you have 48 hours to get back to me if you're the lucky winner!

Autism Speaks: Lighting it Up with Barefoot in Blue

Today, April 2nd, is World Autism Awareness Day. Jasmine from Colour Coated brought up the idea of participating in bringing awareness to autism as nail bloggers by painting our nails blue throughout April. The organization Autsim Speaks is encouraging people to "Light It Up Blue" today as well to help raise awareness.You can learn more about Autsim Speaks and their Light It Up Blue initiative here.

I do own a lot of nail polish and since it's to bring awareness to a good cause, I decided to participate. For today's blue mani I decided to swatch Barefoot in Blue from Essie.

Barefoot in Blue was recently added to my collection thanks to TOMS and Essie pairing up for a giveaway. I was very surprised when this polish showed up in my mailbox Friday morning and couldn't wait to wear it. The pairing of the two brands is to raise awareness for April 10th, One Day Without Shoes. I'm linking pretty much everything here, because I think the respective organizations can explain their great causes a lot better than I can.

Needless to say, I felt Barefoot in Blue was an appropriate polish for World Autism Awareness Day.

Essie Barefoot in Blue is a gorgeous blue creme polish. It's in the family of a cornflower blue. It applied beautifully in 2 coats and I topped it off with Seche Vite. Barefoot in Blue is a limited edition that was made for the partnership with TOMS. I'm not sure if it will be available in stores in the future, so keep an eye out for giveaways of this polish. 

Will you be wearing blue nail polish today and throughout April? What do you think of Essie Barefoot in Blue? Let me know in the comments section!