Catching Up - My Birthday!

I celebrated my birthday in July and my friend made me one of the coolest birthday cakes ever - it was a nail polish bottle!!

She took all of my favorite flavors and colors and integrated them into this cake.  The cap is chocolate, the bottle is funfetti and strawberry layers, and it's all topped in a layer of fondant.

The design was modeled after an OPI bottle, down to
the dots between the "HPI" (happy!) and the cute label name on the bottom. 

It's a shout out to our poodle - that's how we spell our lil Suzie's name

To show the size perspective, here I am with my birthday cake.  

Even with half of the cake served, it's still ginormous!!

Since I had a home-based birthday celebration (movies, pizza, hanging out with amigos), I spent most of the morning straightening up our place.  When I was done, I needed a really quick mani change - perfect time to use a matte.

I went with Harlow from the Zoya Matte Velvet Winter 2009 collection.  It's a red-based purple matte shimmer.  I was good to go in two coats and a few minutes.  The Zoya brush, as always, means there was no extra clean up needed.

Matte shimmers are one of my favorite finishes, especially Zoya's.  A matte finish is cool on its own, but the shimmer adds an extra pop of interesting complexity.  Harlow goes to show that a shade can still be special, even if it was a last minute mani choice.