Casey Lane Loves Hogsmeade's Honeydukes

Good morning everyone! Today I have one of the most perfect polishes ever for you! And a little lesson in polish terminology.

The beautiful Elena over at Ecklipsed By Color is one of the very sweet friends that I've made since falling into this nail community. She has a great sense of style (that I seriously envy), a great attitude, and as I've recently learned a gift for frankening polishes.

So here is the lesson part: What is the difference between and Indie and a Franken? An Indie is a polish that is hand made using suspension base, pigments, glitters, and all kinds of other magic that I can't come close to understanding. There is no magic formula or recipe out there for it, the people that make these polishes experiment and build recipes until they find the formula they like. Frankening on the other hand is mixing polishes together. You take polishes that you already have, maybe add in some glitter (like Elena did) and keep blending until you get what you want. See the difference?

Personally I've never done either, both seem daunting to me. I stick with polish as it comes and just go with with that. But the lovely Elena made me my very own special Franken, just for me. It's truly one of a kind and I love it. She told me that it is Casey in polish form, and she is totally right. How about some pictures?

Elena named my polish Casey Lane Loves Hogsmeade's Honeydukes. She knows of my deep and intense love of all things Harry Potter, so the name is perfect. 

Elena mixed colors, glitters, and love in this bottle and it turned out a lovely polish. 

And seriously, check out how adorable these labels are!

Elena successfully made the first bar glitter polish that I actually like, so another win!!!

Isn't this great? I love having this special polish that was made just for me. Its so pretty and it wore really well! 

You should all head over to Elenas blog (here) and her Instagram (here). Did I mention how awesome she is? Because she really is. I've made so many great friends through this community, it's amazing.

I hope everyone is having a good week!

Talk to you soon!

~casey

Guest Post from Ecklipsed By Color

Good morning everyone! I hope you're having a great week! Today's guest post is from my sweet friend Elena from Ecklipsed by Color. Elena and I met through this wonderful nail community and have become great friends. She is super sweet, funny, supportive, and always encouraging. And she sent me nail mail for my birthday! Doesn't get much better than that.

Now, on to her post. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Border manis, pinstripes, and weekend living

Hello lovelies, it's been a while...
This is Elena from ecklipsed by color and I have been graciously asked by Miss Case herself to watch the blog while she is off causing chaos.

I wanted to take a bit of a departure from my vast world of indies. I am currently participating along side many of you in the 31 Day Nail Challenge.
I have vowed to use indies, artisan, or small batch lacquers in every mani. This is a great way to test your untrieds, brush up on your nail art, and expose people to independent brands.

Today's mani is a inspired by one of my other loves- fashion. Color, texture, pattern, and contrast draw us to develop our own style independent but yet inclusive of what's on trend. Classic cuts and silhouettes are appearing not only in many designers pret-a-porter (ready to wear) lines but also their couture and runway lines. I am a lover of color and splash, but crisp graphic contrast will always have a hold on me. I have said it on my blog, but it bares repeating- there's nothing like a pinstripe. It's an arresting pattern on the nails. It can convey a lovely statement on an accent nail or a bold takeover as a full manicure.

As a tribute to not only the pinstripe, but also a nod to Chanel, whatever it was that JT was wearing at the MTV music awards, my new Tahari black and white silk shift, and the deity of your choice I present this look...
Using Essie's Licorice and Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in White Out (a 2012 New York Fashion Week Limited Edition shade), I constructed a border mani with a twist. This look was all the rage last year when Chanel debuted this look on their models. I find this look a sexy alternative to the standard French. It is easy to accomplish with the specially curved brush on the Complete Salon Manicures. Though I am featuring black and white, this is a look that can kill as we enter Fall and the holidays. Pair metallics, cremes, textures, and crellies- the possibilities are endless. I promise to grab a picture while sipping on a Black Russian or a glass of Pinot Noir tonight, it makes me feel so fancy...

Thank you to Casey for her support of my blog, Instagram feed, and most of all me.
It has been a pleasure to assist while she is away, now to get back to my poor neglected blog.

Remember lovelies, share the love...


xoxo, Elena

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elena this mani is beautiful! And you have a serious gift with words. ;) 

Everyone you need to go check out Elena's blog and Instagram. Just check her out. She's fantastic!

Elena thank you for your help!

~casey

Arabella & Tomoko, Show Us Your Heart

Good morning polished friends! I hope everyone is having a great week! :)

I'll warn you now, this is a picture heavy post. But I can't help myself sometimes. And macros of PixieDust polishes make me so so happy. Hopefully they make you happy too.

Today's manicure is something that I posted on Instagram a couple of days ago. The lovely Mrs Lochness and Ethereal Lacquer paired up to do a contest called #showusyourheart. The only rules were that you had to incorporate a heart into your design, and you had to say something nice about someone in your comments. Well, I had to enter. I don't really care about winning (although it would be awesome) but I am a big fan of positivity and being encouraging to others, especially in my little nail art community. No, not everyone does great manis every time... but even manis that don't look spectacular take a lot of time and effort. Plus it takes guts to post this stuff on the Internet. So we should be building each other up, always. 

For my something nice about someone I chose the lovely Elena from Ecklipsed by Color. You should go check her out, she's on Instagram and has a great blog. Elena is always so positive and encouraging no matter what is going on in her life, I admire that a lot in a person. I just had to call her out for it! Go check her out, you won't be sorry! (plus she's got an drool worthy indie collection... it makes me swoon...)

I wasn't feeling like doing anything too complex, so I kept it simple with some Zoya PixieDusts. The base for this mani is 2 coats of Zoya Arabella. Arabella is a rich fuchsia pink (straight from Zoya.com) and I agree. It's a rich, deep, beautiful pink. And sparkles... oh my. You know how I feel about these PixieDust polishes and how I rave about Zoya's ability to somehow capture texture, matte, sparkle, and shine, all in one bottle. It's baffling. Once Arabella dried I took a nail art brush and painted hearts on my ring fingers and thumbs in Tomoko. Tomoko is a beautiful silvery gold. I'm not sure I'll ever wear this by itself, but I love using in it manicures for nail art. I'm just not a huge fan of gold on my own nails by itself.

Full Sun

Full Sun

Full Sun Macro

Full Sun Macro

Natural Light, Shade

Natural Light, Shade

Light Box

Light Box

Light Box, close up of my thumb. She felt left out. :) 

What do you think? I really love this one. I wore it for a few days, I just couldn't take it off. PixieDust polishes are so great for nail art. It's crazy but they level out into each other, so you don't even miss having a topcoat to smooth things out. 

Zoya nail polish can be purchased on their website here, in some salon retailers, and in some Ulta stores. 

You should also check out Mrs Lochness on Instagram. Her swatches and nail art are AMAZING. 

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed these as much as I did! 

~casey

**The polishes in the post were purchased by me for my own personal use.**