Waterfalls In The Nude

Hey, hey, hey!! I told you I'd be back! I've had a cold and have lost my voice so typing this is kind of nice since I feel like I can finally communicate for once! Of course at work, clients RARELY every call me but as soon as I lost my voice, the phone was ringing off the hook! Then the clients wouldn't leave a message so I didn't know who it was that called and I couldn't email them to let them know. One of them decided to contact my boss to say I wasn't getting back to her - UGH, really? I didn't get in trouble or anything but I had some annoyed clients.

Today I was finally able to talk on the phone but I sound like someone who has been smoking for 632 years! 

Anywho - on to much better things! This mani that I have for you is one of my favorites. I just had to try the waterfall mani so I started with a base of Essie Sand Tropez. This is seriously my favorite nude. It's tough to choose between this and Zoya Flynn but I think the Sand Tropez is more of a true nude and matches my skintone a little better. 

The waterfall was done using China Glaze - Peachy Keen, Sweet Hook and Dance Baby. I also used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mint Sorbet and then I added a touch of China Glaze - Fairy Dust. I seriously love Fairy Dust, it is the PERFECT touch of glitter to go on top of a nail art design. It's not too overpowering that it obscures the design which is really important!

 

Looking at these photos, I'm really missing my fingernails being this long but it's honestly just too dry right now. If I grow them much past my tips, they just curl really bad at the corners and then want to peel and break so better short than sorry!!!

Seriously guys, if you haven't tried this technique, give it a go! It's super easy and the color combinations are truly endless! The best part - it's quick and precision is not required!

Nails4Dummies GIVEAWAY!!!!

I am sooooo excited to share today's post with you because it's a GIVEAWAY!!!!

 

I really debated whether or not to do one of these. I initially thought that I didn't feel right asking people to follow me just to be entered in a giveaway but when it comes down to it, if you don't like what you see, you can always unfollow but I love the idea of getting more people to see my work. I started a blog so that I could share, so I should share with as many people as I can, right?? And who doesn't love free stuff? Crazy people - that's who!

 

So who wants to see the prizes?? I know I do!

 

Prize pack #1 includes the Zoya Fall 2013 Cashmere collection, 2 Jordanna Glitters - LA City Nights and Gemstones. Revlon - Heavenly, Whimsical and Girly and OPI You Only Live Twice. A 16 pack of diamond-shaped glequins, some hole reinforcements (I know, weird!) for helping with French tips and ruffians! Some Nutra Nail Speed Dry Top Coat, some adorable animal fimo cane slices, 3 pots of shaped glitter thingies (don't quite know what you'd call them!), an adorable set of mini stamps, and and owl notebook and some pointy orange sticks that are great for watermarbling! Then I also put in some of my handmade goodies which includes a Coptic stitch notebook (that pink & black swirly thing!), 8 paper-pieced gift tags (the pics don't do the detail on these justice!), a set of 4 SUPER strong magnets that you will wonder how you lived without! Finally, you will also receive 3 pairs of handmade earrings - phew! That's quite a lot of stuff...can I enter my own giveaway! ;)

Then for lovely prize pack #2, you will receive a Color Club - Poptastic Collection (yes, those are full size!), Sally Hansen Diamond Strength - Moonlit Dance and Honeymoon Red, Sinful Colors Sinful Shine - Pragmatic and All The Rage, Sinful Colors - Irish Green and Green Ocean, Pure Ice - Come Closer and Freedom and Wet 'n Wild Megalast - Telescope Vision (sorry there's a glare on that one, it's a mega-glittery polish with a bluish jelly base!). You will also receive some pointy orange sticks which are great for watermarbling, a cute little clipboard notepad, some colorful shape-thingies and some hole-reinforcements perfect for French tips and ruffians! Then you will also receive some handmade (by ME!) goodies that include a Coptic stitch notebook (that cute thing with deer and owls on it!), a set of SUPER strong magnets (seriously - they are AWESOME!) and two pairs of bead earrings!



 

 

Wow - pretty prizealicious isn't it? I thought so! I will be making this open INTERNATIONALLY!!! I'm only leaving it open for 2 weeks though because I'm really impatient! The winner will be drawn randomly from the entries. If you are not 18, I will require a parent's permission to receive a prize but other than that - go! Enter at your own risk, muahahahahahahaha!

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Candy Swirls Mani

Hello to the awesome-est readers in the universe!!! Today I have something very fun and colorful for you. I've been finding a lot of inspiration on HannahRoxNails on YouTube. I just love the way she explains nail art and makes it sound like something I could actually attempt! Too many of the designs I see are so intimidating but she really makes them do-able for anyone - even ME!

 

This design is based off of her Lollipop and Sprinkles Nail Art video.  I started with a base of Sally Hansen X-Treme Wear - White On and the rest was done with acrylic paint. This was really a lot of fun too do and honestly wasn't too difficult! I'm very happy with the way it turned out and it makes me want to be even more adventurous!

 

 

I highly suggest you go check out her channel and try one of the designs, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is!

Stained Glass Nails

Let me just say I have been having the worst luck with my nails and hands! I had finally gotten my nails all grown out and pretty and then I broke one turning on the faucet!!! Who does that? Then I woke up one morning to find that I had chewed the heck out of my cuticles while I was sleeping! So my hands may be a little ugly ( I had to retouch the really icky parts of my cuticles - trust me, you would thank me if you saw the before shots!)

 

The base here is aEngland Camelot. Then I used striping tape and applied a coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On. Then I used neon acrylic paints to make it purdy! I followed the awesome YouTube tutorial by HannahRoxNails that you can find HERE! I still need more practice and they aren't perfect but I liked them a lot!

 

 

Whaddya think?

My First Cloud Mani

Happy FRIIIIIIDAYYYYYYYYY! Am I excited? Just a little!

 

I finally decided to try a cloud mani. While I'm not 100% satisfied with the outcome, I think it was fairly good for my first try and I'll definitely want to give it another go! Next time I will give the bottom two colors more room to show and not do such a large section of the third! I did this using the polish brushes but I've also seen it done with a dotting tool as well.

 

The polishes here are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Bubblegum, aEngland - Avalon and China Glaze - For Audrey. This is actually the first time for me to use For Audrey. I hear people rave about it and it's being used in nail art everywhere but I'm just not a blue person I guess! I also have issues matching/contrasting colors so I'm not even sure if these look good together, lol! Don't tell me if it's complete crap, I don't want to know! XD

 

 

My nails were also so short here that I was pretty limited with what I could do. I hate it when my nails aren't at least to the tips of my fingers, but at least they grow quickly!

Excuses, Excuses! And A Jelly Blob Mani!

Uhhhh... the dog ate my polish? I got hit by a bus? Aliens abducted me? Are any of those excuses working? No? Okay then... I just got lazy! The trip I took to Oklahoma took a lot out of me from getting ready for the trip to actually going and then recovery time. I have also been really hard on my nails and have been chewing on my cuticles again!!! So my hands are in hiding for a little bit until I can get them looking good enough for a public appearance! Thank goodness I have a few manis saved up for you to look at while I heal! Because trust me, these babies are UGLY! I haven't had anything on my nails for over a month and during that time I've been cleaning, moving furniture and all sorts of harsh stuff and it shows!

This mani was originally going to be a paint splatter style nailart but it really just came out looking like what I'm calling, "jelly blobs!" I really don't mind though because it's bright and fun and I like the way it turned out! :)

 

 

So whaddya think? The white is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - White On. The pretty blobs were made using neon acrylic pain and a dotting tool and were super easy and fun! I sure hope some of you missed me because I missed you all very much! Am I allowed back in the cult community? Pretty please with sugar on top?

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!

Pink Fishtail Mani

Hey everyone, I hope your week is going well so far! It's gonna be quick again today because I waited until the last minute to post and I really need to get to work!

 

This design was inspired by Chalkboard Nails YouTube tutorial which you can find here! The polishes I used were a base of two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Bubblegum Pink and White On. Then at the tips is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Sonic Boom which is and awesome pinkish red color that I absolutely love! I accidentally smeared my dots on the index finger so close your eyes when you get to that one!

 

And GUESS WHAT??? I've finally gotten around to doing some YouTube videos!! I would be honored if you would give them a peek HERE! Also, be sure to leave me comments letting me know what tutorials you would like to see!

Candy Land Watermarble

Hellooooo everyone! How was your weekend? Mine was pretty quiet but I don't mind that at all! It's been seriously cold around here - with the wind chill it's been below zero all weekend, BRRRRR!

 

I finally got my greedy little paws on some Jindie Nails Candy Land!!! It is such a beautiful polish and was actually easier to work with than I was expecting! I know a lot of people layer this over white but I really wanted the jelly sandwich effect with the max amount of those neon hexes so I used 3 coats of Candy Land by itself, isn't it gorgeous??

 

 

Then I wanted to do some nail art that would highlight this polish rather than cover it up. So I decided on a water marble using the colors that were already in the polish! I'm not 100% happy with the results, most of the colors ended up with too much coverage and you can't see the Candy Land underneath and the pinky is so sheer that it just looks weird to me! My thumb is more of the effect that I wanted to achieve. It's sheer enough to show the Candy Land but bright enough that you can tell it's a watermarble! From thumb to pinky, these are the polishes I used: Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in Limeade, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Fuchsia Bling Bling, Bettina in Art Deco Yellow, China Glaze Gothic Lolita and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Freeze!

 

 

I hope you were all at least mildly entertained by this and willing to come back for more! :)

 

 

Holo Watermarble!

 Hey lovely people!! Ugh, I'm sorry I've been such a lame blogger! With work being crazy and the baby still sick, life has been super insane around here! With that said, I have a super-delicious mani to share with you today! When I put on Color Club Harp On It, the holo goodness was so awesome, I knew that I wanted to do something amazing with it. So what's a girl to do? WATERMARBLE!!! From thumb to pinkie, the colors used are: Bettina Glamour Flame, Bettina Art Deco Yellow, NYC In A Minute High Line Green, Barry M Indigo and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Acceler-Grape!

It took me forever to get the polishes to play nicely with the clear coat (which was INM Out The Door) and spread properly but I'm pretty happy with the finished product. What do you guys think? I hope to see you soon!

 

 

 

 

Barry M Ombre Watermarble

 Hello and Happy Monday! :) I got some freakin' awesome nail mail from Rachel at Phoenix Nails!! She is so stinkin' sweet and has been putting out some really cute Christmas nail art so go check her out! :)

 

Part of her amazing mail was three gorgeous Barry Ms that were on my wish list and once I had them all together, they just screamed, "MARBLE ME!" So who was I to ignore that? The three polishes were Mint Green, Berry Ice Cream and Indigo.

 

If you look closely you may notice that, starting with my thumb, each finger gets progressively lighter. What is this sorcery?? Well, I usually use white undies under my marbles so I wanted to know what would happen if I used some other polishes and this is it! For my thumb I used Sally Hansen Hard As Nails - Black Heart. The index finger is the  Barry M - Indigo, the middle finger is Berry Ice Cream, the ring finger is the Mint Green and my pinky is OPI Alpine Snow! I thought it was pretty cool how it turned out, what do you think?  

 

 

I thought these Barry Ms were great for marbling and I had no issues with spreading. I'm still trying to perfect drawing the designs in the polish but that's just practice! sorry for the tip wear, I didn't get my tips wrapped all that well! :)

The Lazy 15 Mani #14 - Where I'm From!

Happy Monday everyone! Sorry I've been a little MIA this last week! Work has been crazy busy in addition to doing craft fairs and taking care of three small children! Something just had to give and since the kids insist on being fed and clothed, I decided it was my nails! I actually did this mani on Thursday night because I thought it was supposed to be the Friday prompt and shortly after I started I realized my mistake. I could have taken off the base coats but I was already excited about my USA mani and inspiration is hard to come by these days so I went with it!

 

I also want to apologize to all the other participants of The Lazy 15 challenge. I started this whole thing but I think I've missed 3 of the challenges at this point. The reason is simple. I don't like to be told what to do! It just isn't my style to plan and I totally prefer to fly by the seat of my pants! I don't think it would have been so bad if I would have gotten ahead of the challenges but I was doing them late the night before! It will probably be a long time before I do another challenge, if ever!

 I'm really loving this mani, it was a lot of fun and so random! I think my thumb is my favorite!

 

Here is what I used, finger by finger:
Pinkie: Finger Paints - Laugh My Art Off, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength - Red Velvet (one of my faves!) and some tape!
Ring finger: China Glaze - Adventure Red-y, Pure Ice - French Kiss and some silver glequins.
Middle finger: China Glaze - Glistening Snow ( I can NOT get this polish to stay on my fingers! It always peels completely off in one whole piece!), Pure Ice - French Kiss and a paper punch and some painter's tape.
Index finger: OPI - Alpine Snow, Pure Ice - French Kiss, China Glaze - Adventure Red-y, Gosh - Silver and a dotting tool!
Thumb: Pure Ice - French Kiss and striping tape. The tape that looks pinkish was actually a bright red but for some reason, when I added the top coat it changed color a little but I still love it!

I missed you all and I hope to not fall off the grid again any time soon! :)

The Lazy 15 Mani #11 - Fireworks/Bonfire Night

Helllloooooo Monday! I've got a good feeling about this week, how about you? My husbands birthday was yesterday and for a few weeks he is 9 years older than me - tee-hee! Then my oldest daughter's bday is on Wednesday and she is going to be 6! Then my bday is Dec 11th and then Christmas, whew! It's a crazy time for us with all of that and Thanksgiving as well. Neither my husband nor I get birthday or Christmas presents this year as we got ourselves iPhones and that was not cheap! :)

 

This was kind of a crazy mani and I used a ton of different polishes as well as my new nail art brushes I ordered from ebay - yay! It took a month to receive them from China but they finally got here safe and sound as well as some glequins, yay! Okay, without further ado, here is the mani! I'll list the polishes after the pics because there's so many! :)

Here's the list!! Lancome Noir, Revlon Royal, OPI Alpine Snow, Bettina Art Deco Yellow and Glamour Flame. LA Colors Sassy Sparkle and a teal glitter (no label). Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Pronto Purple, Pure Ice French Kiss, Sinful Colors Dream On, Nicole by OPI A Million Sparkles, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City. 8 of those were in my untrieds so yay for that! :)  See you all on Wednesday!

The Lazy 15 Mani #6 - Favorite Color

Oy - I really have to stop leaving these challenge manis for the night before they need to be posted! I really wish I would have had more time to play with this one because I love the colors but I'm not 100% jazzed about how the patterns all turned out - oh well, life and challenges go on!

 

Today's challenge was favorite color. My two favorite colors are really kind of at odds with each other. Most people either prefer pinks and purples or browns and greens. I like pink and brown! Not only are they fabulous together but I happen to really love them separately. I have far more pink polish than any other but I truly love a good brown - I'm just a lot pickier about them!

 

The base coat for this water marble is OPI Alpine Snow. I'm really torn about using white as a base. For a lot of marbles it's a must but I think I could and should have use a pink as the base on this one. The reason I have issue with white is because whenever it comes time to clean up, there is always the tiniest line of white around the edges that is nearly impossible to get rid of and it drives me nuts!

 

I used three polishes to marble with and they are China Glaze Strawberry Fields, Sally Hansen Fuschia Bling Bling and Julep Olivia. I know some of you are thinking, "she water marbled with Julep? What a waste!!!" Not to worry! Someone shared with me the awesome tip of using a shot glass to marble in and it was a fantastic idea! Each finger only took two drops of each polish as opposed to the usual 3 or even 4! Some people dip multiple fingers at once but I really like to try for a different design on each finger.

I really love the way the thumb and pinkie (pinky? I never know how to spell that!) turned out. I think the middle finger would have been my fave if I had more time to play with the swirl design.

 

Make sure to check out everyone else's favorite color mani! :)

The Lazy 15 Mani #5 - Galaxy Nails

Okay, so I have to admit that this challenge had me worried! I have never done a galaxy mani before and it looks so complicated! But with a good video tutorial and some patience, I don't mind how it turned out at all! I will admit, however that this was my second try. The first time I tried to be too "perfect" with my design and you just can't do that with this one. You have to let go and trust that it will turn out right in the end because as I was doing this I didn't think it looked very good. I pushed through anyway and when I was done and stepped back from the process, I was actually surprised that it really looked like a galaxy!

 

Have you tried out this mani yet? You really should, it's fun and you'll be surprised at the cool results you'll end up with!

 

The polishes used were as follows:

 

Maybelline Color Show - Blue Freeze

NYC Long Wearing - French White Tip ( I actually preferred this to my OPI Alpine Snow for this mani because it wasn't as opaque and you don't want big, obvious globs of white on this mani!)

Sally Hansen Hard As Nails - Hard Lemonade

Sally Hansen Diamond Strength - Fuschia Bling Bling

Wet 'n Wild Wild Shine - Tickled Pink (I mixed this and Fuschia Bling Bling together to get the perfect pink!)

NYC In A New York Minute - Water Street Blue

L.A. Colors - Sassy Sparkle

 

Now go forth, check out the other challenge entries and try out this mani for yourself!