2013 Roundup

Good morning 2014! Nice to meet you, I hope we have fun together!

I figured right around now would be a good time to look back and see if there was anything interesting over the last year or so.

So, let's start with my 10 favorite new polishes in 2013 (in no particular order):

WOW 427- This dries to a satin-y kind of finish, but it looks even more stunning fully matte. I love how unique it is, it's like a blue jeans color. It is also impossible to photograph. I had to play with dozens of combinations of settings and lighting to get it to look right. For some reason my camera kept reading it as a much brighter blue.

Ga-De Gold Sugar- And really, texture polishes in general this year. I'm not a gold person usually, but this one really blew me away.

???- 104- I'll be honest, I don't know what this brand is called. The bottle just says "Mirror effect" on it, and the other finishes from this brand all just have the name of the finish too. But I have a few of them, and they all look pretty awesome.

Autodidact- Not to toot my own horn here (well, technically yes), but I've been playing around with frankens, and I'm really quite happy with how some of them turned out! I would love to try out mixing polish from scrap, maybe this year I'll pull together the funds to actually buy supplies!

GlitterBunny- You Can Do It, Brucey!- Speaking of Indie polish, GlitterBunny! I have never bought indies before, and now I have a bunch from  GB and Indigo Bananas. I use this one constantly, it's an awesome glitter topper.

Born Pretty Store Holos- 12- This year also marks the year I could finally start ordering stuff online. And look at this sucker! Both the color and the holo quality are amazing.

Ciate- Beach Hut- This one scrapes in just under the wire, I bought it on December 29. I know Ciate has shown a really crappy attitude towards bloggers (with the "caviar nails" fiasco and all that), but I couldn't resist this glowy glittery orange.

Orly- Star Spangled- My picture doesn't even come close to doing justice to this incredible polish. It's a beautiful red jelly packed with microglitter, and it has incredible depth and finish. Basically, it's amazingness in a bottle. 

Inglot- 202 and 203- This one is a tie, because I couldn't choose between these two incredible duochrome flakie toppers. I mean, just look at them! (this time I do think the picture did them justice. I'm usually terrible at catching color shift but this one was nice and cooperative)

L'oreal Paris- Mysterious Icon- Last but not least, a brown-gold-taupe-indefinable-SOMETHING that seems to not quite fit into any category. It even has purple undertones, to make things more confusing. I love that I can't quite quantify this.

Since most people get bored once the photos end, the rest goes under a cut!
My most viewed post this year was my the Leibster Award, clocking in at a whopping 191 views, and my most viewed post with actual polish in it was my Delicate Print day from 31DC2013 (161). I'm not even really sure why, it doesn't even have any comments on it!

I learned a lot of new stuff this year, like how to take decent photos in artificial light and how to use Bloglovin'. I made my first online order. I kept my nails long and well-shaped for a large portion of the year. I almost completed the entirety of 31DC2013. I made a spreadsheet with ALL of my polish sorted by brand, finish, color, name, etc. Basically, this was a great year for me in terms of nail art!

I have a few goals for myself this upcoming year (NOT RESOLUTIONS. I hate the concept, I think it's setting one's self up for failure. No, I just hope to accomplish some of these for next year's roundup.

• Put more jewelry on my blog
• Put up a couple of harp videos
• Continue to improve my photography, both with nail art and jewelry
• Play around with some new poses for my fingers.
• Learn how to do contouring makeup
• Nail art techniques: One-stoke flowers, spun sugar (which I've done but badly), splatter (same), at least one more water marble 2.0, and better freehand of course.
• Buy proper franken/indie polish supplies and have a blast with that
• Take a selfie and post it- I am really unphotogenic, so I'm hoping to learn how to be more confident in front of the camera.
• Get wall-mounted polish racks
• Get more facebook/twitter/bloglovin' followers
• Do a rafflecopter giveaway
• Do guest posts on other people's blogs (I already have one lined up, shhhh!) and have guest bloggers on here.

None of these are insurmountable goals, so I hope I can get to a good chunk of them by this time next year.

Hope everyone had a safe New Year's Eve, isn't too hungover today (or if you're a shut-in like me and didn't go out, at least had some fun!). And I hope we're all in for a fantastic 2014!