Stampin' Stars Mani

Happy Friday everyone!! I am soooooo ready for the weekend. I have had way too much work to do and am totally burnt out! I had so many ideas of what mani to do today but I just kept running out of time because the baby decided she wanted to be with me every second of the day! Of course, I had to oblige her and we spent most of the day cuddling :) So first I put down a black base. There's something so awesome about a super glossy black polish and this is my favorite right now. It's Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in Black - creative, right? It goes on so nicely and only takes one coat for perfection! I had to take photos of it with just the black because it was so pretty, do you want to see? Too bad - here you go!

Then I really struggled with what I wanted to do on the black base. What I finally settled on were some Mash plate stars stamped in Pronto Purple. I love the way it looks. It may not be exciting but it was still cool! So that's what I'll apologize for this time I guess, because it's not very exciting!

I'm going to try and give the baby another pedi today and maybe have the pics up tomorrow, we'll see if she's up for it and if I'm feeling patient enough! :) Oh, and I forgot to watermark these photos but I didn't want to delete them and do it late at night so if you steal it I will curse you. I will curse you so hard. I will also send my minions after you - so don't steal!

Julep Gayle and Some Stampin'!

Hello my little schmoopie-woopies! Can you tell I'm goofy today? If you can't it's because you're a weirdo like me - CONGRATULATIONS!!!

 

It seems like I always have to apologize for something in my manis and this one is no different. The top coat I was using is one I've only had for about 3 weeks but for some reason it has decided to really thicken up and I don't do anything halfway so when I slapped my usual thick coat on it left ugly bubbles on my otherwise lovely mani! *sniff, sniff* No worries though, I have since replaced her and moved on!

 

On to the mani... The base was 1 coat of Gayle from Julep. Oh. My. I think I moaned while putting this baby on! This polish is so gorgeous and applies like a dream! I hope all Juleps are that way because momma is in love!!! The only thing I will say is that if I would have known how pigmented she was, I would have been much more careful when I was painting because she was a real pain to get off the skin!  Here is a shot of Gayle alone and one of her mattified just for giggles!

 

Then I used Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in No Hard Feelings and stamped over Gayle with Mash plate 41. I'm loving the second set of Mash plates. I had the first set and was very disappointed because none of the full nail designs were big enough but they are so much better with the second set! Here's a couple pics of the final mani complete with air bubbles!!

 

I really want to try a water marble very soon but with the baby I don't usually get more than 20 minutes at a time to do my nails and I do NOT want to be interrupted in the middle of a water marble! Until next time - God bless!

Acrylic Paint Splatter Mani

Hello my fellow polish addicts! I'm so excited to share my mani with you today because it was so much fun to do and I think it turned out pretty good! I've been loving the paint splatter technique and finally decided that I was brave enough to try it! I wanted to use acrylic paint rather than polish though because of several reasons. Acrylic paint is much cheaper, it dries flatter and it washes off with water so if you mess up a nail you can just rinse it off and start over! Then when you're done with the mani and your top coat is dry you can just wash the mess (and there WILL be a mess!) off your skin - no acetone! With as dry as it's been around here I can use all the help I can get!



I used OPI Alpine Snow for a base coat. Then I just put a small bit of paint in an old ice cube tray and add a few drops of water to thin it out. Then use a regular paint brush and hold it over your nails and tap it until you like the way it looks. Wait until the acrylic paint is dry before attempting a top coat - I learned this the hard way!! It will smear all over the place and you will have some funky looking nails! Here are my instruments of torture:




Here is the awesome mess that I made! You could tape off around your cuticles and that would make the cleanup a little easier if you want but I didn't!!



 

And here is the finished product! I'm thinking of making a video on this technique, what do you think, should I? I don't know, maybe paint splatter nails are "over," but I still like them and I never claimed to be fashionable!



 

My next attempt may have to be a water marble but that may be a while off - the idea still scares me a little bit! :)

Metallic Fall Mani and New Toys!

Hey y'all watch this! Okay, totally joking - I'm not that much of a redneck! As Honey Boo-Boo would say, "you'd better redneckenize!"

Can you tell I'm tired? I'll also apologize in advance for all the bubbles in this mani. I was doing it very late last night and trying to get it done before the baby had a fit so I was putting on thick coats and not waiting for them to dry!

I don't normally do fall colors - I'm much more apt to wear summer colors all year long! This time around though, I was inspired by all of the beautiful Fall manis I've been seeing. I actually had to buy some fall colors just for this mani because I only owned a couple and they weren't what I was looking for. Since I have a ton of polish coming in the mail I made myself stick to some cheaper polishes so I got these four from Pure Ice:

 

They are Magic, Jaguar, Electric! and Purple Reign. It's my first time using this brand and I'm not sure what to think. It went on beautifully but the brushes, especially in the Magic was really crappy. The bristles were stiff and they were all smashed up in this one. Then it took forever to dry. I don't know if that was because I was impatient or if it is really that slow! Of course I'm used to fast-dry polishes so that didn't help!

For this mani I used 3 coats of Jaguar as the base and then I used the stencil technique found here on Chalkboard Nails and it worked like magic! I don't know why I didn't think of using painters tape before - DUH! The accent finger is waaay to many coats of Traffic Stopper Copper from Sephora by OPI. I kept trying to cover this one bald spot on the nail so I have like 4 coats and that was waaay too much but it looks pretty cool!



I was so excited because I found these 5 paper punches for $.96 each at Wal-something or other. I've  got all kinds of ideas for them, muahahahaha!



What do you guys think, is this one a success? Also, I want to know, what is your favorite white polish? I'm looking for something decent that doesn't take 4 perfectly applied coats to use as a base!

Fave Manis And Random Question Of The Week

I hope you have all had a magically fantastical weekend so far! It's been a good one for me! This blog has been so much fun and I've  gotten to meet some seriously awesome people! I have also looked at, literally, hundreds of manis this week - especially due to the 31 day challenge that's going on in the nail blog world. They were all amazing but there were a few that really stuck out to me and I wanted to give them a little nod here on my blog. So here are my fave 3 of this week!

This first one is from my friend Dot over at Young Wild and Polished. Her name is actually Nicole, but it was her alter ego Dot that did this mani! How fun is this?

Now here is a truly "ooh-ahhhhhh!" mani from Jeanette over at The Swatchaholic! This is what she calls "baby steps" in water marbling! I just keep staring at this one because there's so much awesomeness going on here!

 

Next up is from Bregje over at Oooh, Shinies! I was SO in love with this beautiful color combo that I went and ordered both of the polishes! Now I just need to get that stamping plate!

 

 

And finally comes the prettiest water marble I have ever seen! It reminded me of candy and Summer and who doesn't love that! The crazy part is that Sarah from Chalkboard Nails admits to struggling with water marbles. If that's struggling, sign me up!

Wow, now thems is some purdy nailz! I'm beginning to feel just a little bit of hero worship here, lol!

 

Now onto the random question of the week. I'm a total weirdo and I don't mind showing it to the world so I'm hoping to bring out the little bit of weirdo in you too! So here is the question, I'd be much obliged if you would post your answer in the comments!

 

Q: If you could make a hat out of any food, what would it be?

(told you I was weird!)

Pink and Grey Mani!

Hey everyone! How is your Saturday going so far? I got to sleep all the way in until 7:45 :/ Oh well, I can sleep when I'm dead and I have a lot to do today! I finally did a mani that I'm really pretty stinking proud of! It took me forever because I kept smudging it but I was able to rescue it every time. When I woke up this morning it had shrunk on my nails so I had to redo the tips and top coat it again. I think it happened because I forgot a base coat - won't be doing that again! I used some nail guides, stencils and rhinestones I got in this mini-haul:

The stencil worked great but there's only one of each image and I don't think you could use it 10 times, I used mine twice and the polish was getting built up. You might be able to make it work if you were very careful but the acetone I tried to clean it with ruined the stencil!

 

Anywho - on to my mani! For this one I used 3 coats of Wet n Wild Tickled Pink - I really like this color, it's so soft and pretty! Then for the accents I used Essie Merino Cool. It's a gorgeous grey/brown color and the only Essie I own until my shipments gets here! So, without further ado, here are the pics - sorry if there are a ton, mama is proud of her baby!

 

 

Are those pictures obnoxiously large? I'm never quite sure!  Let me know what you think, good or bad I luvs me sum comments!

 

Stay tuned because I have a huge haul coming in from Amazon, Sephora and TransDesigns. There are 14 bottles of polish, dotting tools and the 2012 Mash plates on their way, YAY!