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!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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!

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!

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!

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!

Floating Butterfly Mani

Hello sweet little muffin tins! Sorry, that's one of the nicknames I call my daughters! Today's mani is my first attempt at freehand nail art. It's not awesome but I hope it's not terrible either! It was inspired by a similar version that you may have seen with a bumblebee but I like flutterbys much better!

 

The base of this bit of loveliness is Sinful Colors Cinderella. It's a gorgeous light blue with a pink shimmer that's even better in person! The colors on the butterfly include Wet 'n Wild Black Creme and Sunny Side Up, Pure Ice Free Spirit and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Frutti Petutie and Good to Grape.

 The butterfly was so cute and delicate in my mind's eye but came out more like a giant bug on my finger! I didn't think it was enough of a fail to warrant never trying again though so beware, you'll be seeing more freehand from me! Hopefully I'll improve a little!

 

 

As you can see, I also added some cute little rhinestones because I couldn't just leave the poor thing alone! So did I fail miserably or is it passable for a first try? 

Too Much Acetone!

Mah nails, they are a-changin'! Ugh I think I painted my nails 4 times today! I would get the base on and it would look really nice but then I would try to add some nail art of some sort and I would totally botch the whole mani even though I had a topcoat on the base, I just got frustrated and removed it all! My hands have had enough of acetone for a few hours at least! I eventually gave up and went with a base and glitter mani, lol! I actually think it turned out pretty cool, what do you think?

When I saw this Pinky Glitter by Sinful Colors in Walgreens, I had to have it - I mean, it was pink and glitter, what else can a girl ask for??

 

 So I was expecting that when I painted it over the black Sally Hansen Black Heart base that I would get a mostly pink shimmer. Imagine my surprise when this is what I got...

I apologize for the black on my cuticles - it would NOT come off!!

After I photographed the bottle and checked out the macro, it made more sense but still, where did all that pink go? Now I'm curious to try it over some other colors! Here's the macro shot if you're curious! :)

 

Oh, and hey! I finally got my Twitter account set up so come on over and follow me there or at bloglovin' too!!!! I need your validation to feel good about myself! HA!