Bright Dot Flowers Nails

It's been a whole week since I've blogged - BAD Lindsey! But I have something here to start the week off bright. No, that's not a typo - this mani is bright and bold!

 

I decided to try out the dot flowers that I learned how to do in a video tutorial by Nicole from Young Wild and Polished! You can find that tutorial HERE!

 

I'm terrible at picking colors to go together for a man but I really like how this combo turned out! The base is two coats of Barry M - Indigo. This polish is one of my top 12 in my stash. I did a vid about my favorites on my YouTube channel and you can watch that baby here! Warning - the video is over 11 minutes long because I love to talk! The flowers were done with Sinful Colors - 24/7 and Avon Nailwear Pro+ - Sunshine.

 

What do you think - do you like them, do you??

 

 

Hopefully I will see you again on Wednesday, barring any disaster - God forbid!

Rainbow Dots Nails!

Hello Monday warriors! I hope your weekend left you well-rested and ready for the week ahead - I know mine didn't! ;)

 

Today I have something simple and cute for you - rainbow dots! The base is three coats of Essie - Lapis of Luxury. It's such a pretty blue but so sheer! Then the dots, in rainbow order are Lancôme - Miss Coquelicot, Bettina - Resort Starfish then Art Deco Yellow. The green is a Pure Ice polish that the label has fallen off of and I'm too lazy to look it up! Then for the blue we have Pure Ice - French Kiss. Up next is Barry M - Indigo (which you can hear me rave about in my top 12 polishes vid here!) And last, but not least is Illamasqua - Prosperity! This was fun and simple to do and I love the way it turned out!

 

 

I hope your Monday is as restful and relaxed as it can be!

How To Make A Lightbox For Better Photography

I finally got a tutorial up on how to make a lightbox to improve your photography! It's super simple and super cheap (practically free!) Take a look and let me know what you think. I haven't actually watched the video myself because I don't like to listen to myself and I don't edit my videos so you'll have to let me know if it totally sucks! :)

MASH Nail Art Pens Mani

Hey everyone! I'm still alive - just seem to constantly run out of hours in a day!

 

I was so excited when MASH Nails contacted me and asked if I would like to review some of their products. I didn't have any clue what was going to come in this package so when I opened it and found, among other goodies, these nail art pens, I was pretty excited! I have always wanted to try out nail art pens but just haven't gotten around to trying any out. I've heard that they could be hard to work with and clog easily but I really liked these!! To get them started, you press the tip on a firm surface but I will warn you to be very careful. The black pen took a couple of presses but the first time I pressed the pink one, I ended up with a whole puddle of polish!

 

They have a nice, firm tip that's very fine pointed and as long as I took my time, I never had to go back over any of the areas to make it opaque, they worked like a dream! I certainly can't see myself replacing any polish with nail art pens but it could certainly be handy to have some basic colors around, especially for text! When I wrote "Love", it was like writing with a felt-tip marker!

 

 

I was also sent some of MASH's matte top coat and I really love the finish! It was more of a satin finish and was really, really smooth!

 

 

I also tested these pens out a week later and they are still working like a champ - yay! What do you think? At $5.99, they are mid-priced and I can see myself paying that for black, silver, gold and white! They would make adding little touches easy-peasy!

Work Appropriate Tape Mani

Happy wonderful Friday!! I'm not even sure I'm ready for Friday because I'm not sure how it got here... I remember Monday and then BOOM! Oh well, as long as it's here, I won't question it - don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right?

 

The mani I have today is so not "me" but I really ended up loving it anyway. That gorgeous bronzy, shimmery color is L'Oreal's Brit Invasion. This was one of the first polishes on my wishlist and I've had it for quite some time but I've just now gotten around to using it. It's really beautiful and I couldn't quite capture it in these photos. The gorgeous gray-blue color is L'Oreal's Rainy Piccadilly. It had a great crelly-type formula and is such a lovely color! I'm sure I'll clash with most bloggers out there as most people are posting lovely, bright, colorful nails and here I am with a Fall-type mani - oh well! I always had to be different growing up so why change now? I couldn't decide on whether or not to add the striping tape so I consulted my fashion expert...my 6 yr old daughter and she said it was a must! Once I had it on, I actually wished I didn't but it was a little late for that and it gives it a little "bling" that it was lacking otherwise!

 

 

 

I'm so excited - my hubby and I will get to go on an actual date tonight! My mom is taking my two older daughters for the night and my mother-in-law is watching the baby while we're out on the town!! Woo-hoo! I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

 

Oh yeah, if you are interested in participating in a short-term nailart challenge, let me know! I'm thinking of a challenge where we post twice a week for 3-5 weeks (don't have that figured out yet), so a total of anywhere from 6 to 10 manis. It's sure to be a good time so let me know! :)

My First Leopard Print Nails

I sure hope you are all having nice weather because it's snowing like crazy here! We're on day 2 of no school for the kiddos, we've had almost a foot of the white stuff! I'm not really going to complain though, we desperately need the moisture!

I'm so often inspired by the nails of other artists and today was no different. I was looking at some awesome leopard print nails by Lauren over at Bad Luck Barbie and it inspired me to try it out for myself! She even has a tutorial right here! I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out for my first time and I will definitely be doing them again!

The colors I used were Zoya - Tru for the base. This is my first and only Zoya and I love it! The spots were made using Sinful Colors - Sugar N Spice and Essie - Little Brown Dress. The color combos for this print are endless and I'm excited to try it out! I did the design with a dotting tool and it was super  easy! If you love nail art but aren't confident about your skills - give this a try!

 

I just had to share something that I'm super bummed about. I went to edit the pictures for 5 manis I had saved up and all the photos look like crap! I never have a chance to look at the photos before the mani comes off or is ruined by wear and tear so what I get is what I get. I'm not sure if the light was in the wrong spot or what but all of the nails are seriously glared! All you can see is shine and I wanted to cry when I saw that! I'm sure there's a lesson there somewhere but I'm too mad at myself to figure out what that is. I just wanted to share - feel free to console me!

Holographic Paint Splatter Nails

It's Friiiiiiiiiiiiiday!!! I didn't know if it would ever come! I'm so excited because my husband has the next 9 days off of work! Ask me how I feel at the end of the 9 days... lol!

 

So, a couple of nights ago, I was searching for nailspiration and asked on twitter if anyone had any ideas. My friend Wes from Polish Me Manly said, "holos." That wasn't enough detail for me so he suggested holo splatter nails. Holo? Splatter? Why yes Wes, that's a fabulous idea!! I was a little nervous as I had never done splatter nails with polish before and usually use acrylic paints. But I dove right in and went for it! I didn't have a straw to splatter with so I put a few drops of polish thinner in each puddle of polish and used a paint brush to splatter on the polish and I think it turned out pretty sweet!

 

This polishes I used are a base of THE black, a England - Camelot. Then I splattered on with Color Club in Wild At Heart, Cloud Nine and Harp On It.

 

This first pic was taken in my light box. I took somewhere around 30 pics in my lightbox but was unable to capture the holo goodness as you can see...

 

So then I dragged my camera outside and yeaaaaah buddy, isn't she gorgeous??

 

As good as it turned out, I have some even better ideas for next time! I hope you all have a fabulous weekend! Mwah!

 

Revlon Royal Jelly Sandwich

Hey everyone, remember me? Yeeeeaaaahhh, sick kids again...or still? I'm sick and tired of them being sick and me being tired! I have lots of beautiful nails to show you guys but it takes so long to edit photos and post that they've never made it to the blog :(

 

I've had Revlon Royal in my stash for a long time and had never used it (cue collective gasp) so I decided to bust it out. I get it now. Oh. My. Goodness! Such beautiful jelly goodness! I paired it up with Wet 'N Wild Fergie Collection - Kaleidoscope Eyes and it sure is purdy! I must have taken 50 pics of this and it was hard to narrow it down!

 

So without further ado...go ahead and drool!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really hope to post at least once more before the weekend but we'll see what life decides to throw my way!