F4 Mint Chocolate Chip

I'm still here! A week behind, but I swear I'm still here. I've been a busy little bee. Work (aka insanity lately), family, and my new budding relationship. Yep, dating. :) I've had a lot on my mind blog wise, which I'll cover at the end.

Today I have F4 Mint Chocolate Chip to share with you. I'm a sucker for anything mint chocolate. Its my favorite flavor ice cream. So when I saw this polish, I had to have it! It looks as good as mint chocolate chip ice cream tastes. That's really saying something! Mint Chocolate Chip is a mint green creme filled with brown micro glitter. The creme is just sheer enough to see the glitter of the coat beneath, giving it amazing depth. The application was great.

F4 polishes are sold in their Etsy store and retail for $8 (15ml).

Edit: What blogger forgot the stuff she was going to cover at the end? This one. I've had so many ideas circling around in my head. Should I do weekly stuff? Like Nail Art Wednesday or something like that. A couple of weekly installments. Also, should I attempt vlogging? The thought of being on camera scares me. But it could be fun. Maybe I'll post a test video and see how it goes.

I really want to do things other than nail polish too. But right now, I'm leaving my blog nail related. I'm going to post all other stuff on my Instagram. Makeup, jewelry, and such. Hopefully I can get better at makeup shots. So far, mine suck. So please tell me what you want to see! Tell me here, or on one of my many social sites. Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus there's Youtube and Pinterest (but I suppose those aren't great places to tell me something, just wanted to throw them in.) And as always, there's email.

Bright Skittles

I hope you are enjoying your Thursday! Most of the pictures you will see over the next week or so are old-ish. This particular manicure is from February. Poor thing is happy to see the light of day. Or at least the light of the blogosphere.

These bright skittles were fun and easy to do. From thumb to pinky: Cosmetic Arts Limelight, Zoya Pippa, Color Club Poptastic, Ulta Blue Streak, and Julep Anne. Each is two coats. The little design on my ring finger is an Essence French Glam Nail Stickers. Each sheet has several designs.

Colorful Leopard Print

I'm back! If you want to know why I was gone, see this post. Its too much to summarize again. Oh my goodness, I missed you guys so much! To all of those who stuck with me during my absence, thank you! To those who left, I hope you come back soon. And to those who are new, welcome!

So many of the upcoming posts are old-ish manicures. However, this one is brand new. I hit the blogs for inspiration and ended up wanting to recreate this gorgeous leopard print by Chalkboard Nails. For mine, I used Zoya Pippa, Essence Let's Get Lost, and Sally Hansen Black Out. Leopard print is an easy design, even for the nail art challenged. I love it!

I'm trying out a new watermark technique. Let me know what you think.

Barielle Nail It Sweepstakes

I have another Barielle giveaway to share with you. Yes, another!

A total of eleven winners! Ten winners will receive a set of Barielle products worth nearly $100. They are amazing items! Two Summer packs of Barielle shades (Summer Brights and Brilliant Colors), Nail Rebuilding Protein Base, Nail Strengthening Cream, and No Chip Speed Dry Topcoat. One grand prize winner will receive the set, plus a DKNY blue leather handbag. How amazing is that?!

The sweepstakes starts runs from June 10, 2013 through June 30, 2013. You must reside in the United States and be over thirteen years of age to enter. Remember to "like" their Facebook page and click here (computer) or here (mobile phone) to enter.

Barielle Brilliant Colors Collection

I have an awesome Summer collection to share with you today! Normally, I swatch each color separately; however, when I saw this one, I knew I had to do them all together. They just screamed skittles.

The Barielle Brilliant Colors Collections consists of five creme shades perfect for all the Summer days to come.

Barielle Smarty Pants Pink is a bubblegum pink creme. Literally the perfect bubblegum pink. Not too bright, not too pastel. The formula is perfection and opaque in two coats.

Barielle Straight A Coral is a red toned coral creme. I love corals for Spring and Summer! The formula on this one was just as great as the last.

Barielle High Marks Purple is a grape purple creme. Describing the formula will get redundant. I can tell you right now, they were all amazing. High Marks Purple looks a little uneven on my nail, but that is my fault.

Barielle Magna Cum Laude Turquoise is a bright aqua creme. Puts me in the mood for a fun day of playing in the water.

Last, but definitely not least, we have Barielle Head of the Class Green, a seafoam green creme. I cannot say enough how much I love this collection. I wore it for days on my fingers. So many people randomly questioned what polish I had on my nails. It was a big hit!

This collection retails for $8 individually, $25 for the whole set at Barielle.

Disclosure: The products in this post were provided to me for consideration. All opinions are mine and honest.

Catching You Up

First I want to apologize for my lack of posting this year. It has been an insane year. I promise not to bore you will all the details. But I do want to kind of sum things up and explain why I've been MIA as of late.

This year started off with my grandma's death and funeral. Obviously that was a rather depressing time for me, and my nails and blog were not at the forefront of my mind. I am still dealing with that and trying to put myself in a happier state of mind. She would not have wanted me to be sad. But instead to enjoy life and be happy. Around that time, I also dealt with a large dose of friendship drama. That ordeal was very hard for me. I will not go into detail, but it really did some emotional damage.

Around the time I started to find myself in a happier state of mind, one of our dogs passed away. She was nine years old. It was a difficult time. Her health had been deteriorating for awhile. Then she suddenly stopped eating and would barely drink water. We took her to the vet, and discovered her kidneys and liver had shut down. The best thing for her was to let her go.

All of that sadness just temporarily overcame my love of doing my nails and sharing with you. Its been really hard to overcome. Things have been getting better. I got promoted at work. One of my older brother's just got married Friday. My new sister-in-law is so sweet and fun. I also gained a niece as well. She has a baby from a previous relationship, who will turn one in a few days.

Its been a rollercoaster ride. Other things have happened along the way, but those are the biggest points to touch on.

Tonight I am going to type up posts for what little nail photos I have right now. While I have been painting my nails occasionally, I have not taken shots of all of them. I'm also going to work on a polish haul post. I asked on Facebook and Twitter if y'all wanted me to bring back haul posts. The answer was unanimous. I've done a good bit of shopping lately, so I plan to have one big post up this week so show all of my recent buys (within the last two weeks or so).

While I was MIA, I also started using my Instagram account. I have almost all of my old manicures on there. You can also see some random photos on there as well. I am @ashleyftypr (http://instagram.com/ashleyftypr). Also, if you check out the sidebar here, you can see I updated my social sites. There are now icons for each one.

So, yea... I think that about sums up everything. Except one last thing. I started my blog to share my nails and express myself. But I do want all of you to be happy too. So what would you like to see? Comment here, hit me up on one of my social sites, or email me.

Thank you for sticking around and I hope you enjoy everything to come!