Birthday Nail Polish Rack!!!

Hello, hello!! First of all, I apologize for simply leaving in the middle of the 31DC2014 - I really didn't want too, but personal stuff came up and sometimes, as much as I love doing my nails, there are other priorities. I've decided that I'm going to keep on doing the challenge regardless because it's a great incentive plus it really gets my creative gears going. 

Buuuut, before I get on that, I want to share with you guys the best birthday present a nail gal could get: My very own, personal, handmade NAIL POLISH RACK!! I've been wanting a way to organize my polishes for a while now, I contemplated Helmer's but I really like looking at all the pretty colours so I kept going back to a nail polish rack. My wonderful boyfriend agreed to make me one for my birthday and I'm absolutely in love with it!! 

A shot of both racks, one on top of the other.

Below are the step-by-step pictures of the making-of process, warning - it's picture heavy!

Swatching Sticks: Can You Paint With all the Colours of Nail Polish??

Remember how I had mentioned that I got some swatching sticks online and finally got around to going through my whole polish collection?? Well, behold all the colours of the polish!! This is my entire nail polish collection through colours. There's 125 of them. And boy was that 100 more than I even thought I would have, haha. But they're all so pretty!!

For those who don't already have this, I REALLY recommend buying swatching sticks (I got mine from E-bay, 50 for $2.50, I had to buy 3) or even making your own like Very Emily did. I tried this first but I like the little metal rod you can keep them in.

They're great to see how the polish looks like on the nail, to compare dupes, not to mention, if really helps when you're trying to decide which colours work together. Plus it's a nice and nifty way to keep track of all your polishes. Yes, it does take a while to swatch all of them. I went through a few Community Seasons while I was doing mine, waiting for them to dry and then writing the brand and name with a projector pen. So worth it in the end though!!

The camera didn't manage to capture the colours 100% correct, but you can get a glimpse of the range between them, so I figured it worked pretty well this way too. Alright, let's take a look, shall we??

Whites: Clearly not my strongest colour base, but then again, how many whites does one need?