52 Week Pick n Mix - Fishbraid + Non-Glitter Topper

You all know I am too lazy (busy???) to do more than one mani for the 52 Week Pick n Mix lately, so I combined the prompts yet again. I have been so slammed with work lately, I have had very little time to think about my blog. Hopefully I can figure out how to get that under control. Anyway, I decided I wanted to use a combination of old and new non-glitter toppers of the iridecent variety over top of solid black in my mani this week.

I accomplished this look by painting my nails with 2 coats of Wet n Wild Black Creme, and then used striping tape to mask out my fishbraid design. I painted in each section with the three colors I picked, alternating them as I went.

Here are what the three polishes look like in the bottles. It's crazy how much some of them change once painted over black. Butter London Petrol is the blue, Pro Strong Enchanted is the pink, and green is Loreal The Temptress' Power (I know, right!?). That last one is the most shocking transformation out of them all.

I hope you like my mani this week! Make sure you check out what everyone else did for this challenge. :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Things I Am Thankful For

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am posting these nails for my stamping group on facebook, and let me tell you, my stamping collection is NOT big enough heehee. Anyway, I decided to keep this one simple because I have been sick for a week with a sinus infection and just really haven't been feeling like doing much of anything until today. I used O.P.I. Black Magic Mountain for my base and did my stamping with Loreal As Gold As It Gets. I used lots of plates and won't list them all here, but if anyone wants to know what plate any of these images came from, please comment and I will let you know. :)

So this manicure features several things that I am thankful for (within the boundaries of the plates that I own). On my pinky, I am trying to represent love and family. I am so thankful for my husband. He works so hard at trying to make our life better and always knows just what to say when I need to hear something encouraging, funny, inspiring, or whatever! I am thankful for my family (mom, dad, inlaws, sister, and extended family, too) for being so awesome. I am so lucky to have so many caring people around to shower me with love!

My ring finger features a cat (which stamped all crazy, but I was feeling to crummy to redo it) and a pawprint to represent my dog since I don't have a dog stamp. :) There is nothing like unconditional love to make you thankful. And the warm, fuzzy cuddles are good too!

My middle finger is supposed to represent health. I am thankful that I am in good health (ignoring the sinus infection that WILL go away). A lot of people don't have that, so I have to remember to appreciate it and take good care of my body. I only have one after all!

My index finger represents vacation, which I am always thankful for. We go to the beach at least once a year with our family and it is always wonderful. I look forward to it all year.

My thumb represents my job. I love the company I work for and I am so thankful that I have been nurtured and allowed the best chances at succeeding there. I work with a lot of really good people, too. And of course, I am grateful that my job gives me the ability to feed us, and clothe us, and pay for our home. Money is good, but happiness is better, and I have both!

Here is what O.P.I. Black Magic Mountain looks like by itself. It is a really pretty, vampy, shimmery burgundy polish. It went on in two coats, and I topcoated it with Seche Vite.

Thank you so much for looking. I hope you all have a wonderful day with your families and have nice, full bellies later!

An InLinkz Link-up

Golden Oldie Thursday - Brown

Good morning! I always have a hard time with brown, but after giving it a go with some stamping, I am actually really pleased with these nails. I used China Glaze Call of the Wild for my base. It's a nice, rich, chocolatey-brown cream. I decided to add some stamping using MoYou London's Suki 06 plate and Loreal's Because You're Worth It, which is a lovely gold.

Here is what China Glaze Call of the Wild looks like on it's own. Like all the China Glaze polishes I own, it painted on smoothly, with no issues. This is two coats.

Thank you so much for looking. This is the end of the Golden Oldie Thursdays, but we are starting up something new and fabulous next week. Stay tuned! And make sure you check out what the other girls did, too!

An InLinkz Link-up

Golden Oldie Thursday - Dots

Good morning! I have some dots for you today featuring some more of my ancient nail polish! I started off this manicure with an AVON polish I bought at least 9-10 years ago. It was surprisingly still in great shape - no thinner required - and went on well. This is AVON Watermelon Shimmer.

After that, I added some dots with two more old polishes: Loreal Presto and Sally Hansen Heartbeat Creme. I've had both of these for at least the last 8 years. They are old, but were also still the perfect consistency. Yay! I tried a new pattern with my dots - not creative at all, I know - but it's new to me!

Here is AVON Watermelon Shimmer all by itself. It's pretty nice - the dents in the polish are my fault: I was a little impatient. :)

Thanks for checking out my nails today. Make sure you look at everyone else's dots, too!

Nails Inc Fibre Optic & Galaxy Polish Swatches!

Good morning. I have two new polishes to show off from Nails Inc. today! They are both gorgeous and glittery and therefore I automatically love them. :)

I decided to try them both out over top of a plain navy cream - Loreal After Hours. The first one I'll show is Nails Inc. Fibre Optic in Mayfair Mews. This has multiple, tiny blue iridescent and holographic bar glitters in a navy jelly base. The base is extremely thin and would probably take a while to build up, so I wore undies to save time, but it is loaded with glitter, so this is just two coats over top of After Hours.

This next one is equally awesome, and is definitely a good polish for making a galaxy. It is Nails Inc. Galaxy in Trafalgar Crescent. It has small and medium sized hex glitters in an iridescent base. I didn't go all out and do an actually galaxy here because I wanted to show it on it's own. It's pretty good. I'm sure there are lots of girls who would be satisfied with this for their galaxy nails. I liked how the iridescence created different light and dark spaces without any effort!

I'll tell you what, Sephora sucks me in every time with their 'spend $50 get free shipping' promo. You would think I would have learned by now. One of these beauties was purchased specifically to tip me up over the $50 mark. I don't remember which one it was now, but I am sure glad I caved in and bought it!

Here is Loreal After Hours by itself. Try to ignore how streaky it looks. I need a new bottle of topcoat. It's not the polishes fault!

Thanks for checking out these pretty polishes! I have my last paper to write this weekend, but I am graduating from college in 2 weeks, so get ready for some nail art! I am so excited that I will finally have time again!

Also, don't forget to enter my giveaway - it ends on 12/15!

Have a great day!

Laid-Back NEW31DC Day 20 - Texture

I saw this awesome quilted mani a while back and decided to try to recreate that. I am pretty sure it was done by The PolishAholic, and I saw it here. I decided to use a polish I picked up at Drug Mart on clearance months ago. It felt too bright for winter, so I waited to break it out for you guys until now. :)

This is Loreal Boozy Bruch. I used the same method that The PolishSholic used by adding white to the color for my base coat, then used striping tape to make a quilting pattern, and painted over that with Boozy Bruch. I painted it on nice and thick, so it actually has a quilted feel.

It is a very bright orange that my camera unfortunately washed out a bit. It's pretty - just enough pink in it so it looks good with my skintone. I like it. :)

Well, thanks for looking, check out what the others did for their texture manis - I'm sure there will be lots of those new textured polishes in it. I'm excited to see them!

Laid-Back NEW31DC Day 3 - Gold

For this manicure, I basically pulled out every gold polish I own and did a mosaic style mani with them. It was fun to see how all the different golds look together, and I really like how this one turned out. It was one of those few times when my indecisiveness was a good thing. Take a look!

For this mani, I used Loreal Because You're Worth It, Avon Gleaming Gold, Julep Sienna & Vivien, Milani Gold Glitz, China Glaze I Herd That, Sephora by OPI Blasted Gold, L.A. Colors Art Deco Nail Art Lacquer in Gold Glitter, Essie As Gold As It Gets, OPI Goldeneye, and two of my Migi Nail Art Pens which don't have names.

Thanks for looking, and be sure to check out what everyone else did!

10 Day Holiday Nail Art Challenge: Day 2 - Snow/Snowflakes

Today's nail art is a dotticure gradient meant to represent snowfall. I love snow. I think it is just beautiful and am happy that I live in a place where I get to enjoy it every year. I chose to use colors to represent the look of snow falling in the dark. When you are driving at night while it's snowing, the light from your headlights reflect back on the snow, and it looks like a thousand tiny, sparkling stars falling from the sky. I chose to try to recreate that.

This is Loreal VIP Status. The dots were done in Pure Ice Super Star!. I tried to paint over it with Wet n Wild Blue Wants To Be A Millionaire, but unfortunately, I smeared my white dots on a couple fingers when I did it. :( Oh well, as much as I want to be perfect, sometimes I just can't be. Here is what it looked like after I painted on Blue Wants To Be A Millionaire. Stupid smearing. It would have been awesome. I should have painted on some Seche Vite first.

This is Loreal VIP Status by itself.

Thanks for looking! Be sure to check out what the others have done for this challenge!

OPI Heroic Hands Contest!

I have entered a contest with OPI, and painted these X-Men nails this past weekend. I am really pleased with how these turned out. Take a look and then head over to OPI on facebook to vote. I would love it if you would consider voting for mine, if it is your favorite. Here it is!

Index: Storm    Middle: Cyclops   Ring: Wolverine    Pinky: Nightcrawler   And of course I have the symbol on my thumb!

I had so much fun doing this one. I'm starting to become a real fan of nail art contests - they force me to get creative! My husband even got in on this one and helped me figure out how to draw Cyclops and Nightcrawler. :)

Here are the polishes I used to do this one:
Red - NYC Big Apple Red Creme
Yellow - NYC Taxi Yellow Creme
Blue - Revlon First Class
Black - Pure Ice Black Rage
White - Pure Ice Super Star!
Gold - Loreal Because You're Worth It
For Cyclops' skin, I used acrylic paint

Thanks for looking!

Abstract Spring Colors

So, I actually saw this first from Little Nails, but it looks like it was originally done by Nailside. Anyway, I loved the idea and had to put my own spin on it, so I pulled out all of my brightest springy colors and went for it. I cut up my own pieces of tape, which was a bit difficult - it was very hard to get them nice and straight, so some of my lines are a bit less perfect than I would have liked, but I still love how these turned out.

This blue is actually a pearly white I mixed with a dark blue years(ok a whole decade) ago, NYC Uptown, Orly Sunset Peach, Wet n Wild Blazed, and Solar FX Wanna Play?

These polishes are all so old, I'm not sure if they still exist. The Orly was a gift back when I was in high school...a LONG time ago, and so was the Solar FX. With some of my polishes, I add ethyl acetate if they start to dry out, but I don't think I did that with any of these ones, so I am thoroughly impressed! I found some more tutorials from other sites, so I'll be trying out some more ideas soon!

Pink Meets Green

So, upon more inspiration from Chloe's Nails I decided to do another mani using tape, but this time, I had learned my lesson. I'm seriously so excited about how this turned out, and I can't wait to get even better at this. It is so much fun to sit down and get crafty on my nails. I got compliments by the ton on this one, and on Pinterest, it was repinned A LOT. So, I know I'm getting better. :) Here it is:

China Glaze Four Leaf Clover, Loreal Shock Proof French Tip White, and NYC Greenwich Village

Now I just need to improve my photo skills, and I'll be good. The color is not accurate in the photo. This shade from China Glaze is actually quite green, but I couldn't get my camera to cooperate, and eventually just gave up. I am so excited about how nice and smooth my lines look, though, that I don't care. More to come soon!

Failure - Tutorial Copy Gone Bad

I'm sharing this even though it turned out pretty bad. I figure my learning experience may help someone else. I saw the idea to use hole reinforcers to make neat heart-top shapes from The Beauty Department, and was maybe a little too confident going into this. BUT, since I learned so much, by the time I got to the left hand pinky, it was turning out pretty good. :) Without further ado, here is the pic. Try not to judge too harshly - I'm learning!



Loreal Shock Proof French Tip White, Maybelline Express Finish (something pink - the label has rubbed off), NYC Uptown

  The good news is that I learned that I need to peel the tape/enforcers off right away to get a nice line with no smudges. My next mani will be way better, I promise.

Valentine's Day Crackle Mani

I got some Sally Hansen Crackle polish for Christmas, and had been dying to try it out. Since it was the weekend before Valentine's Day, I decided to try my hand at drawing a little heart on there as well. The result was a bit busy, but I still liked it. I did something similar with my toes, but skipped the crackle. Here is a picture of how the nails turned out.



Loreal Sock Proof French Tip White, Avon Cotton Candy, and Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoat Cherry Smash

 I loved the way these nails turned out, and I promise they will get better and better as I get more practice.