I Got Sick!  28 Days Is Not Enough!

   Haha, I didn't know what to do with the highlight captions this month.  February sure went by quickly.  Between getting really sick at the beginning of the month and my little girl experiencing a 2-week fussy spell in the middle, it sort of feels like February didn't even happen.

 

February Goals

    Stocking the shop would be done except I found a few more things that need to be listed.  The shop is open however, and sales have been going well!  Zoyas and indies are especially hot sellers!  (Go see what is already available if you don't want to miss out.)  Still haven't found the right box for Goal #2... but I'm faring well without it so far.  And yes, I did host a mini giveaway!  Winner revealed in this post, as I hoped.  =)

   First off, the happy news that the winner of my last giveaway has been found!  Congratulations to Sonya - her goodies are going out in tomorrow's mail!

New Instagram Account

   Since having my daughter I realized that some people are following me for pictures of her, and some of you just want to see my beauty and review related postings.  I've started an official Instagram account for Princessly Polished, so be sure to start following it if you weren't before!

Blog Sale Update 

   I've also added more polishes to my blog sale - go check it out!

   Now you might be wondering... when will regular posting resume?  November.  I took October off from blogging to let myself recover from childbirth and adjust to being a mommy.   I'm really missing my nail postings and reviews, though!

Review

   I won a giveaway!  =D  Caboodles held a giveaway on their Twitter account for a nifty acrylic organizer, and last week it arrived at my house!  I put it to use straight away and have really been enjoying it, so here is my review, as well as some before and after pictures...


   This is called the Social Butterfly Acrylic Organizer.  I found it listed on Target.com for about $15, and considering there are no Target stores near me I'm pretty happy to have gotten one after all!  It is bigger than expected.  I was originally planning to use it at my make-up dresser, but when I opened it I realized it was very similar in size to something that desperately needed better organizing...  Enter my manicure "caddy".


   A handy hexagon-shaped box crammed full of what I need to keep on hand for doing my nails.  It's a good size to grab-and-go, but as you can see it ends up very messy... and what I need ends up on the bottom, of course!


   So, let's take a look at the things I had to sort out...


   Nail polish remover, a small bottle of straight acetone for clean-up, a glass jar filled with files, brushes, tweezers...  My tube of cotton pads, dotting tools, a nail buffer, assorted base and top coats, polish remover pads, my glass nail files, and my tin of cotton buds. Some things I realized weren't needed for constant use, so I took them out altogether!  I also threw out some of the old disposable nail files that I don't use anymore.


   And so my new case went from empty... to nice and full!  The only thing I couldn't fit in the organizer was my bottle of nail polish remover, which is too bad.  But, everything else has it's spot.


   All the tall stuff gets sorted into the upper compartments, and my most used nail treatments, bases, and toppers are in easy view.  I think I'll finally stop misplacing them!  Little things are stashed in the lower drawers.  I was apprehensive about having doors swinging out on something that I do pick up and move frequently, but that hasn't been an issue at all.  I've been using this organizer for about a week now and I'm really happy with it.  I love the clear acrylic, which somehow stays smudge-free and of course keeps everything perfectly visible!  This is definitely a step up from a single small box.

   Huge thanks to Caboodles for the awesome prize!  For those curious, this was my winning tweet:

   Hello everyone!  I'm happy to announce the winners of the International giveaway sponsored by Mont Bleu today.  Send your congratulations all around the globe to...

   Our 1st prize winner, Daniela!  Be sure to check out her blog, Why Only For Parties? for some pretty nails.  I wonder what she will pick from the Mont Bleu shop?

   Our 2nd prize winner, Michelle!  I'm sure she will enjoy the glass nail files!

   And our 3rd prize winner, Pearl!  She is also a beauty blogger, writing Precious Pearl Makeup. 
She has some great nail art shared there.  She chose the pink tweezers that I love so much!

   Thanks again to Design Glassware by Mont Bleu for providing the prizes in this giveaway!  If you're in the market for something sparkly be sure to check out their shop.  My blog's two-year anniversary falls at this time of year, so be on the lookout for more fun giveaways next month!

   Good afternoon, fellow princesses!  How have you been?  I've been busy.  Where did June go?  My last giveaway ended on June 30th, and today I'm announcing the winner.  Say congratulations to...

   ...my Bloglovin' follower Nicole!  Yay!  I hope she enjoys her colorful new polishes.  =)

   I do have to apologize, though.  I got my wires crossed about the close of Google Reader also meaning the end of GFC (Google Friend Connect).  I don't feel too stupid, though, because a lot of bloggers got this impression.  And it did close, partly.  Now it only works with Blogger blogs.  Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Google eventually forces everyone to switch to Google+ and gets rid of GFC entirely, or perhaps replaces GFC with something else.  Who knows.  So, I still suggest giving my post about other methods to follow my blog a look.  And I'd love to know if you're using something I haven't covered!

   Now, more exciting stuff!  Two years ago right around this time I began blogging.  A lot has changed within this time and really it has all been for the better.  To celebrate these fun two years I have some awesome giveaways coming up this month.  Stay tuned for more!

   Congratulations to the two winners of my Nail Polish Necklace Giveaway!  Lupita, who chose the lovely Flower necklace, and has a newer blog (with some really good nail art!) here.  And Erica, who chose the Heart necklace.  She recently changed her blog's name, and can now be found at The Polished Chic.  I hope they enjoy their necklaces!

   To everyone else, be on the lookout for some fun summer-themed giveaways that I have planned!  And have a great weekend.  =)

   Congratulations to Lindsey of the blog Bibliogloss for winning the Zoya Dream Box Giveaway!  She is a beauty and travel blogger, and this is her first time winning a blog giveaway.  How cool is that?  I remember the first few times I ever won giveaways; besides being excited there was also a sense of "wow, people like me really do win these things!"

   Stay tuned!  You may have noticed some tweaks to my blog and that is because I'm getting ready for some grand... things, on the blog!  I do have plans for more giveaways starting next month, including ones open Internationally so everyone can join in.  Yippee!  Thanks all for stopping by!  =)

   Congratulation to Erica from Bound2Beauty for winning the Pure Ice Matte-allic Giveaway.  Her polishes are on the way!

   I have another giveaway going right now, and there are 9 days left to enter.  If you haven't entered yet you should!  Or maybe you can snag a few extra entries with the daily options.  The winner will receive a Zoya Dream Box!

   I've also updated both my WishList and For Sale pages, please check those out!  I'm still offering free shipping or 20% off on my sales, and at the same time also taking offers.  Thanks!

   To anyone who cares about reading my blog, I suggest you read this post so you know what's going on.

   First off, the last giveaway I held:  Too Faced Goodie Bag Giveaway.  I picked a winner and she responded almost two weeks ago now.  Congratulations to Lisa for winning and many thanks for her being such a good sport about my uncontrollable delay in getting her prizes sent out.  I finally got a chance to update the giveaway post so the widget displays who won, if you want to check it out.

   Some of you may have guessed that something happened to keep me away from the web.  In the case of those who bought or won anything from me, I did at least send off a quick message saying that there was an emergency.  (Huge thanks to friends and family that are doing what they can to help and all of their prayers.  Without those I think we'd be much worse off.)  I have had several family members and family-to-be in and out of the hospital this month.  Last week a severe viral illness hit and I'm still dealing with how that effected my fiancé and I.  Getting on the computer was one of the last things I did, unless it was to research health care.  Through all of this, we have still had to prepare for our wedding, and try to move into our new house.  Then I broke my toe which further adds to my frustrations.

   That's right, I'm getting married next month..!  Despite my current exhaustion and the depression that comes from having to skip certain things planned for the wedding I'm just plain happy to know that I'll be getting married to the perfect guy for me, and we can hopefully put all these hardships behind us and get to focus on being a happy couple.  To that end, I'll be taking a blogging break.

   I plan to go on hiatus for the entire month of May. 

   This may end up changing to be either shorter or longer but I doubt I'll take off less than May.  We deserve it as a couple, my spiritual routine needs it, evidently my mental and physical health needs it, I'll have a new house to settle into and eventually have to get back to my secular work, as well.  Blogging just doesn't fit into the picture at all.   Not to say that I'll be completely disappearing.  Look for small updates from me through Twitter and Instagram.  I'll reply to comments when I can and keep up with my blog sales, of course.

   Thanks for your readership and understanding.

~ Rochelle / Elle-Hime

   First off, I was fortunate enough to win Sirena Sparklestar's 900 Follower Giveaway.  I've actually had my prize for awhile now but didn't get around to posting it.  I always like to share my wins on the blog here to show "look, I did get my prize!", and also leave some link love for the person who gave away the prize.  =)

   I immediately ripped it open to take poor-lighting shots of everything after I came home from work and found it in my mailbox, hehe.

   A Sugarpill palatte!  Yes, their packaging is every bit as high-quality and pretty as I've heard.

   More specifically, the Sugarpill Sweetheart palette!  The colors are brighter in reality.  Not sure if you will see any looks using this from me simply because I stink at doing eyeshadow pictures, but it is really awesome!!

   So...  Thank-you, Sirena Sparklestar!!!   To all my readers, you should check out her blog!  She swatches a lot of pretty nail polish but does reviews for other beauty items as well - kind of like my own blog (but with better pictures).  =)

And now we can move on to the rest of the post...

   This week has been kind of crazy for me...  I'm still getting over a cold, I've been working *all the tiiime*, half the town has lost electricity a couple times this week, and my laptop is not liking the new battery I bought for it as much as I hoped it would.  =/

   My selection of a giveaway winner ended up being very delayed and I feel bad about that.  Without further ado, I'm happy to say that the winner of my Great Engagement Giveaway is...

Nail Loopy!

   I was very happy to hear back from her and she will be pitching in on shipping the prize since she lives in the UK.  She has shown that she fulfilled the forth rule of the giveaway which was "Be happy and excited!!"  ;D  I'm trying to get some other polishes from her wishlist so there will be more in the package making that long journey overseas, haha.

   Thank you to everyone who entered and for all the kind comments and tweets I've been getting!  I wish I had enough nail polish to go around to all you wonderful fans.  =)  ...Well, then again, my collection does keep growing...

   Hi everyone!  What are you doing with your extra day this year?  I have been joking that it was good to get engaged this month because I have an extra day for planning wedding stuff, but in truth I think I'd need a leapweek to feel like it was making any difference!

   Anyway - my quickie giveaway for the Timeless Trend calendars has just ended today, so I went ahead and found the winners...  Rafflecopter has spoken!!

   Congratulations to Ashley and Shalon!!

   As always I have to share the winner's blogs with you!  Ashley's blog is new to me, and I'm happy to say that I'm her Follower #25!  =)  I suggest going to check out:

   From what I have seen this girl has great nails and takes useful step-by-step pictures.  She does a variety of nail art, from basic layering to stamping and hand-painting.

   I sort of smiled to myself when Rafflecopter picked Shalon, because we've known each other via our blogs for quite awhile now, and I have won giveaways held by her.  She is one of my original followers!  Definitely go check her blog out:

   Shalon does reviews and shares all kind of nail polish on her blog!  She is one of the sweetest and kindest bloggers I've met in my travels Online.

   As for everyone else who joined, thank-you so much for following me!  I checked all the entries and every single entry was valid - wow!  Generally I find a few people who put in totally blank entries... which I don't know how that will help anyone if their number is drawn... but what I'm trying to get at is that it was great that so many people really wanted to give these little calenders a home!  It has been great meeting all of my new followers.  =)

  Both of my winners responded within the hour so these calenders are officially given away and they should be out in tomorrow's mail.  This giveaway is closed.  There is still a bit over 10 days to go on my Engagement Giveaway, so if you nail polish is your thing, consider entering!    Have a great "extra" day~

    Look at what Color Club sent to me!  I actually won this nail polish from them!  I was so surprised; I rarely win contests.  It was really nice to win, and proves that yes, they really are connecting with their fans and giving things away.  How did I win it?  I follow them on Twitter.  Every Friday they post a picture of one of their colors (to their facebook, but they tweet it too), and accept E-mails of people guessing what the nail polish in the bottle is.  You get two guesses.  Very fun!  For their last contest I had just one guess: Naughty-cal Navy.  Imagine my surprise when I was contacted as a winner!  I figured I would hear back from them, I've guessed incorrectly and they personally thanked me for playing anyway (scoring big points in my book).  But this time... I won!  And they sent the polish out to me super quickly.

   I was expecting a bottle of Naughty-cal Navy, but instead I ended up with Blue-topia.  Very cool with me because I like the name better and it is a neat color.  It would fall into the family of navy blues.  Not a color that I was looking to buy for myself, yet one that I knew I could use for layering and art.  So how convenient to get it for free!  Lots more piccies after the jump~

   Hello everyone!  I'm pleased to announce the winner of my 101-Follower Giveaway.  Congratulations to Cindy!  She is a brand new blogger - just started in 2012!  It looks like her blog is promising to be a good one, so I encourage you to head over and check out Square Polish by Cindy.  Her winning entry was for leaving a blog post comment.  I had asked entrants to leave any comment they had about my blog in general.  This was hers:

      "I enjoy your haul posts - I guess sometimes I like to feel jealousy :P haha"

   Rather amusing and I think I'll put up a few more haul posts just for that!  Then I'm on shopping hiatus - too poor for more shopping at the moment.  ;D  So I'll be sharing more swatches and reviews instead.

   From other comments I gathered that people like the layout of my blog.  That means a lot to me because I don't have much time or skill to put into a fancy blog layout, but I'm trying!  My main thing is that it stays easy to navigate.  Suggestions are always welcome.  My newest addition was updating my Twitter widget - I switched to what Twitter offers on their site and I think it is much nicer!

   Also, as of this writing I am just 13 followers away from 200, wow!  Thank-you to everyone who joined in the giveaway.  Cindy from Square Polish has already responded and been sent her prize winnings, so this giveaway is now officially over!  Congratulations again, Cindy!

   Rafflecopter helped me pick and contact two winners for the Glitrix Giveaway.  I've had them both respond so the giveaway is officially over...  Here they are!

   I was super-psyched to win a giveaway done by Shally of Polished & Not Quite Put Together - one of my favorite blogs!  (It's by her recommendation that I picked up the Orly Bonder basecoat to try!)  By the way she is running another giveaway on her blog right now - click to see the BB Couture prize!  She sent me 8 mini polishes - frankens by etsy sellers.  And a really pretty nail polish necklace that she made herself.  =)

   This is my first piece of polish jewelry and I really like it!  Now I can totally understand why people make, wear, sell and buy this stuff, haha.  I make jewelry myself and it's very well made...  Every time I tried to capture the colors in a photo it turned into a sparkle blur, so I'll describe it's awesomeness.  The background is dark, and has a layer of flakies that look orange straight on but shift to yellow and then green from the side, which is amazing.  Over the flakies you see multi-chrome glitter which generally looks teal green but shines vibrant blue from the side and even flashes purple.  Once in awhile I swear I see pink in it.  I'll never get tired of looking at this.  =D  Thank-you Shalon for the beautiful gift.

   The nail polishes were from J'Adore Noir Cosmetics: Black Forest, Black Cherry, Ocean Soul, S&M;  and My Pretty Zombie: My Pretty Zombie, Scurvy, Varicose, and Epistaxis. At a later date I will post photos of the polishes swatched, and reviewed if I get a chance.  I'm already late in posting this and if I wait to get those pics it will be even longer!

   Even my kitty benefited from the giveaway - she liked the shiny ribbon that was around one of the gift boxes and held onto it until she fell asleep.  (And then I took it away as I don't think gift wrappings are a safe cat toy!)



   Now a little bit about my giveaway!  Glitrix has been hard at work and added a few NEW glitter polishes to the etsy store.  Click to check them out now!  Keep in mind she is running a special sale (only on for 10 more days) for my readers and has collaborated with me on a giveaway here - go to my giveaway post for all the details!  I'm going to buy the new color Babylicious, but then again Monster Green is cool, too...  What are you going to get?

   At the start of October I was pleasantly surprised - I won a giveaway for my choice of three piCture pOlishes!  I have to give a huge thank-you to both piCture pOlish and Johanna from Paillette.  The polishes just arrived Monday so I immediately painted my nails up with one of the colors, Twinkle.  Find out my other two colors at the end of this post!

  Hello everyone!  My first ever giveaway is OVER and I'd like to thank you all for participating!  I know you're wondering who won, and I'm pleased to announce that it is...

   I already contacted her this morning and got a response; I hope she enjoys her Nyx Girls polish in Gilded Glitter!  Check out her blog here: http://polishamor.blogspot.com/

   Everyone else, please stick around as I already have another giveaway in the works that you won't want to miss!  I had a lot of fun doing this little giveaway and I really appreciate those who went looking for a silver flakie just for me.  One entry suggested CND Sugar Sparkle and that was the best idea!  ...Sadly that polish is unattainable now, haha.  But don't you know when Polish Amor responded to me E-mail she said she might have found something like what I'm looking for in the newest Sally Hansen Diamond Strength line.  It includes what is basically a (cheaper, more available!) dupe for Sugar Sparkle.  I say awesome! and thank you so much, girls.  The hunt for a true silver flakie is not over, but I am content for now!  =)

   On October 13th I was selected as the winner of a giveaway - I was so surprised!  It was from a fellow blogger - Maria at The Girl With Rainbow Hands (cute name, right?).  One week later my prize showed up~  It is the complete wet n wild On the Prowl collection, plus a gorgeous bottle of Fantasy Makers silver holo glitter.  Now, I have a policy of only entering giveaways that I would truly like to own, and there were indeed a few of these polishes on my wishlist (Tangled in My Wehhhb... ♥), but I was even more impressed with the collection once I had it in my hands.

   From left to right: Fantasy Makers glitter, Ink Well, Ready to Pounce, Buy Me A Drink, Jungle Fever, Tangled in My Web, Cougar Attack, Correction Tape, Behind Closed Doors

   The bottle of glitter has a linear holo effect going on in the bottle - anyone have examples of what they do with this?  I'm curious about what kind of effects I might be able to get...  I love holo glitter so obviously I love this!  =D

   I'm always happy about black polish, so Ink Well was a *want* for me.  I know I'll use this for layering and what-not.  Ready To Pounce and Buy Me A Drink are especially luxurious colors - they remind me of velvet with their rich color and shimmer.  Jungle Fever was a surprise, I really thought it would be too drab and olive and "fall" looking for me, but instead it turns out to be an awesome foil-y green!  Yes, it has silver running through it!  A nice sort of leaf green, definitely wearable year-round.  Then there's Tangled In My Web.  Black hex glitter in a clear (not murky like my photo shows it) base.  Definitely one of these unique things that I can't wait to use!  Also, despite the glitter being black it still has nice sparkle.  Courgar Attack I had written off as too warm for my skintone, but this (small, round) bronze glitter in brown jelly base is really pretty.  I'm going to try it!  Correction Tape is cool because it also has black glitter in it (square this time), but the gold in the mix just kills it for me; the only color that I'm not drawn to out of all these!  Behind Closed Doors is a dupe to numerable polishes, none of which I own.  I'm happy to have this beauty of black jelly and red glitter in my stash.

   Overall I am really impressed and happy with this collection, and very thankful that I was privileged to receive it.  Thank-you again, Maria.  =)  To all my readers, please go check out her blog!  She has really nice nail designs, so make sure you check through her older posts!

   And remember that my own giveaway is still going on here...  be sure to take advantage of the bonus entrie(s) that you can now gain using Rafflecopter!  Thank-you all!