Hola Chicas,
Don't know about you but I'm glad the week is almost done!
I'm not really good when it comes to swatching, I hate to paint my nails one color, swatch, picture, swipe, repeat. It leaves my nails & cuticles absolutely f****, but we know how important is to swatch and have a clear idea of what the color actually looks like outside the bottle and when dry.
I used to get nail wheels but as my collection grows, my attempts to keep everything nice, tidy & organized and using the less space possible led me to this idea.
Basically I built this "Swatch Catalog" to keep record of every single shade, by brand & color. Not messing around with finishes (yet) but if you decide to take on this idea, there are so many possibilities and definitely some room for improvement to better suit your needs and personal taste.
What I used:
Binder. Got it at the local dollar store.
Plastic sheet covers. I got them from my office, but sold at any office depot or the like.
Nail shapes printed sheets. I just found an image on google, fiddled with it in Paint and Power Point, copy here, paste there y listo! The sheets are used as a guide for the swatch; you can chose not to use them, but I like the white contrast on the back to make the colors pop.
Nail Polish. The most important thing!
Now, I just placed the guide sheets inside the covers and started swatching, 2 coats for all and no top coat. First I thought of writing down the names on top of the swatch strip but I miscalculated the space and some names wouldn't fit resulting in some overlapping. As I laid in bed trying to sleep I kept thinking on how to improve that and decided to space out more the swatch strips and add a " text box" in PP and type the name of the color on top.
The sheets are organized by brand, separated by a sheet with the brand's logo.
I'm not done swatching, but once I tackle down the basics I will move on to "the combos" which will contain mixes of base colors with glitter toppers and any other combination I can think of.
What I loved the most of this binder is that it makes super easy to go thru each color for quick reference and I can take the sheets off the rings and compare them side to side to get an idea of what the colors are going to look in nail art and to spot dupes as well.
The lessons learned from this project was that even when I have a considerable amount of polishes I didn't find and exact dupe YAY!!! and even when I'm a blue or purple girl I don't own as many as I though I did but in the other side I do have loads of pinks (and I'm not too keen on pinks). I enjoyed doing this a lot and I'm super happy with the way it came out, now I can keep everything together in one small space and confined to a binder ( a couple in the near future) and it will make easier to pack and take with me when we move out in 8 weeks.
Hope you like it, I would love to hear back if you decide to make a "Swatch Catalog" in this fashion and any ideas you would like to share to pimp it.
On to next thing...
I been stalking the postal service like crazy this week because I'm waiting for my Pueen Encore Set & nail mail from Mundo de Uñas. Pueen's arrived already to my office address in Texas but it takes another couple days to get to my current location south of the border. Poor traffic guy, I've been going over his desk everyday nagging "Mario, is my package sent yet" over and over again.
MDU shipped last Saturday and despite being in Mexico as well is taking longer than expected, I really hope they get delivered no later than Friday.
Soooo, to help with the anxiety I've been making mini hauling trips to Sally's (why oh why do I keep going back if they are rubbish!!!) and I couldn't help grabbing some as well when doing my weekly shopping at Walmart. Here they are, the new additions:
