Mint Manis For Talia Joy

This week saw the world losing a beautiful little soul in Talia Castellano. I only discovered Talia's YouTube channel a few months ago but I was hooked from my first video. Here was a young girl at an age when most girls are intensely self-conscious, showing her beautiful face to the world even though she had lost her hair to cancer treatment. Talia taught us to be grateful for our blessings and to smile in the face of adversity.

 

 I can't count the number of times when I was playing "poor me" that her beautiful, smiling face popped into my head and knocked me right out of my funk. If she could deal with so much, so young and so gracefully, I could dang well buck up and put a smile on my face when dealing with my trivial problems.

 

I personally dealt with cancer when my stepson was diagnosed with osteosarcoma (bone cancer) at the age of 11. He is now cancer free going on 3 years but the ugly disease stole his leg. Childhood cancer is a terrifying and incredibly unfair disease that I have seen affect far too many families.

I have to admit that after reading on Talia's Facebook page that she had passed, I picked up my little baby girl that just turned 1 (I have 3 girls!) and held her so tight and cried like crazy! For the last few days, every time I tell my girls how much I love them, I get a little teary-eyed. But I don't regret that, it's one of the gifts that Talia gave to us as she left this world - thankfulness. 

 

My nails were done using 4 polishes. The base is Barry M - Mint Green. Then I added touches of Avon - Don't Be Jaded, Catrice - Jade Is Not My Name and Essie - Go Overboard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Nicole from Nail Polish Wars, today bloggers and nail artists are painting their nails mint in honor of sweet, beautiful, courageous, spunky, amazing Talia Castellano!!! Please check out all of the manis in the inLinkz for more amazing manis!

 

 

Enjoy your peace little Talia - you earned it!

 

 

Avon Suede Soft Violet - Revisited and Redeemed

Happy Humpday y'all! I have a massively pic-heavy post for you today! I decided to revisit my very first mani that I ever did on this blog. As painful as it is to do so, I fee that this poor, poor polish was grossly misrepresented by my complete lack of skill, knowledge and experience! Oh how far I've come in such a short time!

 

The polish in question is a gorgeous purple beauty by Avon in their suede nail enamel line, appropriately named Soft Violet. And, like taking off a bandaid, I prefer to do this quickly and get it over with! Here is the awful pic that I originally used...

 

There are so many things wrong with this I can't even count! One of the biggest things that jumps out at me are the grooves in the base of my nails, especially on my ring and middle fingers. I had stupidly decided to trim my cuticles and misjudged the angle of the trimmer and cut a neat little furrow right into my nail beds. Some of you are probably thinking, OUCH! But I didn't feel a thing and I didn't even notice it at the moment or I wouldn't have done it to all the other nails too! If you peek back at my early posts, you will see that groove grow out verrrrrryyyyyyyy slowly! Then we have the fact that the paint job is patchy and you can even see my nail through it in places! Then comes the cleanup. While I have seen worse...I have DEF seen better! The photography itself wasn't all that bad but looking at it now, I think I would have preferred for it to be dark and blurry!

 

So I decided to correct this awful disservice that I did to this poor polish by revisiting it and giving it a new identity! Much better this time, don't you think?

 

Then I just had to slap on a coat of Seche Vite and whoa baby is this stuff GORGEOUS!!! These pictures don't even do this justice. It was so cool shiny and I really prefer it that way!

 

 

Then, because I wasn't ready to be done with her, I slapped on a coat of Catrice - Iron Mermaiden and some stars! This polish is a fabulous green to purple duochrome and looked purdy! 

 



Wow...that was a lot of pics but at least I can say that I did this polish justice finally and I no longer have to think of it as, "that ugly mani polish! 

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!

Purple Polkadot Nails

Helloski! How is everyone's Thursday so far? My week has been a bit of ups and downs but I'm still here and that's what counts, right?

 

I've got something simple for you today! I painted a base of 2 coats of Barry M - Berry Ice Cream and then slapped on some striping tape in a diagonal line across all 5 nails. This was a LOT harder than I thought it would be! You can see that in some places the strip of dots is thinner on some fingers but I think it turned out fairly well! The dots were made using the following colors, China Glaze - Gothic Lolita, a England - Avalon, Avon Nailwear Pro + - Decadence and NYC Long Wearing - French Tip White. I got this idea from a pin I saw on Pinterest but, unfortunately, the pin was not linked back to the source and there was no watermark. What do you think of this? I kinda think anything with dots is good!

 

 

 

Also, PLEASE help me make fabulous YouTube video tutorials by answering a couple of questions and giving me your opinions HERE! I appreciate you all so much!

 

Black, Purple and Yellow Gradient Nails

T.G.I.F!!!! I can't tell you how happy I am that it's finally Friday! This week has been super busy at work and I am really ready for a break, how about you? I wish I had something exciting, or even interesting to talk about but I can hear work calling me and it's not going to shut up until I take care of it! With that said, I hope, in the near future to begin posting more interesting reading for you as opposed to just listing the polishes used and poppin' in a few pictures! I also really want to do video tutorials! They take a lot of preparation though and one of those prep steps involves cleaning my room and I am totally dreading that!

 

I keep seeing these gorgeous gradients all over IG and they make me drool so I decided to do one of my own! It turned out pretty good, I like the color combo, I just hate that my white undies are showing! In hindsight, I could have used the yellow underneath but I hadn't picked out my gradient colors at that point! The white undies is OPI Alpine Snow and the gradient colors are Avon Sunshine, China Glaze Gothic Lolita and a England Camelot. Then I slapped a coat of LA Colors Sassy Sparkle on top. I really wished I had taken pics before I put the glitter on it because I liked it better without it. I really need to get CG Fairy Dust or INM Northern Lights so that I can have a TINY bit of sparkle without overwhelming the design!

 

Sorry it wasn't an enthralling read but at least you got what was important, right? Love you all - mwah!

Dots and Waves Mani

Hey pretties! This mani was a lot of fun to do! I used craft scissors and tape for the waves and my trusty dotting tools for the dots - imagine that! I'm not feeling very witty so let's get right to it!

The gorgeous purple is a new color from the Wet 'n Wild Megalast line. This one is called Disturbia. I couldn't quite capture the shimmer in the photos but this is a gorgeous polish! The green is Avon Speed Dry+ in Don't Be Jaded. I love this green, it's minty-colored and awesome!

Here are some pics of just the purple:

 

Here's the whole mani, what do you think?

The Most Pathetic Mani In Nail Blogging History

Okay...let me make fun of myself before everyone else gets to it! I realize this is a terrible mani but let me make a few excuses for myself first!

1.) This IS Nails 4 DUMMIES - what did you expect!
2.) This is seriously a learning process for me, until yesterday I didn't know that you were even supposed to leave space between your cuticle and the polish!
3.) This mani is a full day old so it's not lookin' the best AND it's only 1 coat so I was impressed by that!
4.) I'm in cuticle rehab here, I know they're ugly, we'll work on that! Okay, with that said, here's the photos, feel free to point and laugh!

So, you see the weird grooves at the base of my nails, especially the ring finger? Yeah...don't use a cuticle cutter unless you know what you're doing!!! It cut right into my nails, eek!

 

That being said, this is a pretty cool polish. It's a new suede effect from Avon. It went on really weird for me and dried really fast but still leveled out pretty good. Like I said before, this was only 1 coat and it's totally opaque except for that weird spot on the pinkie, I'm not sure what happened there!

 

Then I went over the mani with some Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love mattifying topcoat so I didn't lose the suede effect.

 

Aaaaand, after seeing these photos I'm gonna go moisturize my cuticles! HA!



My Pathetic Nail Polish Stash

Okay - I used to own about 10-12 bottles of nail polish, not one of them costing over $5 a bottle.Then I made the mistake of trying some China Glaze and then some Essie and THEN I tried Illamasqua - I am in so much trouble! I don't have a very big stash right now but I thought I would take some "before" photos so that we can see how my baby is growing. If I could afford it, I would own 300 bottles by now but we'll have to start slowly and work our way there. So here are some pics - I started out having them sorted by color but then I would find one that should have been in the last group 2 photos ago and I got lazy so you get what you get and you don't get upset!

Cover Girl Cabernet, Maybelline Red Comet (those two are so old!) Sephora by OPI Be-Claus I Said So, Sally Hansen Red Velvet, Sephora by OPI New Year's Red-Solution, Sally Hansen Shining

 N.Y.C (label came off, sorry!) Venique Lost In Bermuda, Sephora by OPI Just a Little Dangerous, Sally Hansen Royal Romance, Wet n Wild Wild Card, Wet n Wild Eggplant Frost, Wet n Wild On a Trip, Sally Hansen No Hard Feelings, Wet n Wild Buffy The Violet Slayer, Illmasqua Prosperity



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Avon Suede Soft Violet, Pure Ice (my daughter peeled this sticker off!), Nicole by OPI Gone Wishin', Nicole by OPI Rainbow In The S-Kylie, Sephora by OPI G-listen To Your Heart, Wet n Wild Fergie Hollywood Walk of Fame, Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters, NYC Big City Dazzle

Wet n Wild Sparked, Sally Hansen Strobe Light, Sephora by OPI Beam Me Up Hottie!, Sephora by OPI Traffic-Stopper Copper, NicHaole by OPI Have A Heart

Avon Decadence, Wet n Wild Through The Grapevine, Wet n Wild Hannah Pinktana, China Glaze Traffic Jam, NYC (another one my daughter got to!), Wet n Wild How I Met Your Magenta, Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter, Maybelline On Fire, Sally Hansen Pretty Petunia, China Glaze Exceptionally Gifted

Sally Hansen Blushing Bride, Maybelline Color Show Fuschia Fever, Avon Feisty, NYC MoMa, Wet n Wild Lavender Pearlescent, Venique Heel D'Orsay

Sinful Colors What's Your Name, Sally Hansen Lapis Amethyst, NYC Water Street Blue, Pure Ice French Kiss, Wet n Wild Saved By The Blue, NYC  Pier 17, Wet n Wild Caribbean Frost

China Glaze Custom Kicks, Sephora by OPI Tempted By Teal, Sephora by OPI Who Let The Dorks Out?, Wet n Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint

Sally Hansen Save the Date, Sally Hansen Lavender Pearl, Sally Hansen Turquoise Opal, Sally Hansen Celeb City, Wet n Wild Silvivor, NYC French White Tip, NYC Bowery Black, Sally Hansen Black Heart, Maybelline (no label!), Wet n Wild The Gold & the Beautiful

NYC Park Avenue, Essie Merino Cool, Sally Hansen Cafe Au Lait, NYC Canal Street, Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up, NYC Lexington Yellow, Sally Hansen Limestone

Well, there she blows! All 73 bottles! I know pathetic, right? Well, I'll be changing that soon, muahahaha! Also, while I wish that every bottle I own could be Essie or OPI and the other nice polishes, my bank account can't handle that kind of stress so I will continue to be an equal opportunity polisher. Besides, a lot of the cheap stuff is really decent for the price!

If you see anything that you would like swatched, please aske me! Sorry for the inconsistency in the pics, I was trying to get the very last of the fading light for true color photos so I chose the pics that translated the colors best. Also, I'm still being out-classed by my Canon Rebel T3i - this thing is a beast and I need to learn to use it!
 

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