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! 

Whimsical Undies!!

I know what you're thinking and get your mind out of the gutter! A couple of weeks ago I finally decided to try out my bottle of Revlon Whimsical. So I slapped a coat on my naked nails...and then another...and another! By the third coat it still wasn't opaque and I wasn't a happy camper! I had seen some really pretty swatches of this polish and I wanted mine to look like that too! So I asked my Instagram ladies what was going on - did I get a bad batch? I was quickly informed that I needed to put something under this polish. I know that some of you are thinking, "duh Lindsey!" Well, I really don't ever use undies unless I'm doing nail art like a watermarble or something. Usually when I use a glitter polish, I prefer to use enough coats to make it mostly opaque.

So once I had accepted the fact that I needed some undies, I asked for suggestions and there were quite a few readily given! So I decided to try them all and share them with you! Each of these swatches is shown on it's own and then with 2 coats of Revlon Whimsical on top.

The first five polishes I tried are as follows from thumb to pinky: a England - Camelot, Wet 'n Wild -Megalast On A Trip, China Glaze - Lemon Fizz, Essie - Butler Please, OPI - If You Moust You Moust.

Next up in thumb to pinkie order is Catrice - Am I Blue Or Green?, MUA - Frozen Yoghurt, Essie - Go Overboard, China Glaze - For Audrey and GOSH - Silver.

And the third set is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - White On, Sinful Colors - Cinderella, Wet 'n Wild - Tickled Pink, Wet 'n Wild - Lexington Yellow and China Glaze - First Mate.

What do you think? Any you love, hate? I kinda like them all!

Neon Stripe Nails

Hello Tuesday peeps! Sorry I didn't get around to blogging yesterday, Mondays always seem to be here and gone before I can even think about it. It was a great day though and I even managed to squeeze in a nap!

 

I really love today's nail art and I'm pretty proud of how it turned out! Not only that, but it was easy and that's always a plus in my book. I think I'm finally getting the hang of this whole striping tape thing. Although I do have one role that has a crinkle in it and as I unroll it, it splits and really cheeses me off! The colors I used for undies, starting with the thumb are two coats of each of the following, Illmasqua - Prosperity, China Glaze - I'm With The Lifeguard, Catrice - Twist of Lemon, China Glaze - Papaya Punch and OPI - Kiss Me On My Tulips. The black was, of course, a England Camelot. I can see I'm gonna need a backup of that beautiful baby!

 

That's right...I have pink bubble wrap - who's jelly now? XD

 

Sorry for the tip wear, I decided to wait until the next morning to take pics and that was not the right decision!

 

I miss you guys, what's been going on with all of you - you've been so quiet! Hopefully you're just busy being fabulous!

Random Hearts Mani

It's Friday, it's Friday, oh yeah, oh yeah it's Friday! Can you tell that I'm excited about it being Friday? It's been a pretty good week though, I can't complain! How have all of you been doing?

I am so proud of these nails today, they turned out so much better than I thought they would! I never have time to do freehand art so this was really a treat! I've been seeing so many cute heart manicures going around and I was getting a little jealous! Of course, all those little pictorals that show you how "easy" it is to make a perfect heart are full of bunk! I made the two little dots and then used a brush to try to drag the polish down to a point to make the perfect heart and what I ended up with was not very heart-like! So I figured out my own best method. When I first did the hearts I wasn't too impressed with them but once I added the white highlights they really came to life! I also like the randomness of them. I really have an issue with randomness. I see all those awesome dotticures where the dots are randomly placed and they are so cute but every time I try to recreate it, it turns out a hot mess! I'm pretty sure that "random" is a skill all it's own and certainly one that I haven't mastered.

The polishes used here are a base of 2 coats of China Glaze Hang Ten Toes. This is such an awesome pink, I'm really loving it! Then the hearts are made using Catrice - Twist of Lemon, Barry M - Indigo, China Glaze - I'm With The Lifegaurd and the highlights are done with NYC Long Wear - French Tip White.

Giraffe?

ALRIGHT!!! Who took my week? 'Cause it's Wednesday and I don't remember Monday or Tuesday! Ugh, actually, work is crazy and I have two kids with eye and ear infections - yuck!!!

I was totally debating on whether or not I should post this mani because I'm not a huge fan of it but I decided that after taking the time to do it, I was going to show you my hard work! The base is two coats of Catrice - Twist of Lemon which I made matte with Lancome Magique topcoat. Then I stamped it with a England Camelot and Bundle Monster plate 313. I really love that Bundle Monster is making the positive and negative images for some of their designs, it makes it so much easier to do a complete mani without having to thing too hard and I like that!

These came out looking a little like a giraffe print which I didn't intend when I started but, then again, my nails don't usually end up the way I intended!

Waterspotted Nails

Happy Humpday - thank goodness! I'm late so I'll just list the polishes and leave you to it! This is the waterspotted design created by Cute Polish and I had to give it a try. My experience was that it was best to use room temp, filtered water and I actually used plain rubbing alcohol in a little spray bottle! Also, I first tried this with Wet 'n Wild Black Creme and it would not spread out in the water so I switched to aEngland Camelot (which almost made me cry!) and it was easy peasy from there!

 

Polishes Used:

Finger Paints (unlabeled hot pink)

China Glaze Papaya Punch

Barry M Indigo ( this polish is amaaaaazing!)

Catrice Twist Of Lemon

aEngland Camelot (the ULTIMATE black polish!)

 

Grey Gradient

Told you I'd be back soon! You didn't believe me, did you? Shame on you for not believing in me when I've been so reliable in the past!! XD

 

I got a bunch of gorgeous greys in some nail mail from my amazing friend Roisin over at

Cuti-CLUE-les so I had to do something with them and I started off with a grey ombre on my nails but it wasn't quite enough so I decided to make it a gradient! I'll list the polishes as I had them in the ombre so the color I list will be the one you see closest to the cuticle. Starting with the thumb is NYC - Bowery Black, China Glaze - Concrete Catwalk, Catrice - ASHley and Sing: Hey, Dirty-Lilah! and finally Gosh Silver which is a beautiful smooth silver polish!

 

Then I just had to add a bit of silver tape to the tips and I like it! Sorry about the tips, my Seche Vite desperately needed to be restored and it shrunk on me - Boooooo!

 

I hope to soon start making some video tutorials on some of this stuff because I love making tutorials for some reason! Much love and see you soon!

Oh yeah, one more thing! Does anyone else go back and forth on how to spell gray/grey? I usually spell it gray, but I noticed that most people use the grey spelling and I hate when people thing I spelled something wrong! I wish that whoever makes these kinds of decisions would just decide that one of them is right and one of them is wrong because it drives me nuts that there are two acceptable spellings for it! How do you spell it?