Polish Us Pink #2 Ombre Dotticure!

Good morning lovelies! We are back for another Breast Cancer Awareness manicure! I finally got to play with my dotting tools and it turned out pretty good if you ask me! After I looked at the photos of this I realized that the colors on the index and middle finger should have been switched so that's what I'll apologize for today because I have no sense of color!

Before I show you the mani, I want to say a HUGE thank you to Missy over at Gnarly Gnails for the sweet new blog layout! Not only is she an incredibly talented nail artist and sweet person but she is also a graphic designer! Did you see the little social media icons in the sidebar? They're little polish bottles! She freakin' made those :o ! So go follow her blog if you don't already because she's a bowl of awesome with a double scoop of awesome sauce on top!

The base polish is one coat of Julep Olivia. I. Love. Julep. It was beautiful and easy to apply! On the thumb is China Glaze Traffic Jam, index finger is Lancome Rose Boudoir (another amazing formula!), middle finger is China Glaze 108 Degrees, ring finger is Wet 'n Wild Lavender Pearlescent and pinky is Wet 'n Wild Tickled Pink.

 

I will certainly be breaking out my dotting tools again soon. They were easy to use and I love the polka dots!

My First Gradient Mani

I decided to be brave and try one of the more "scary" nail trends out there right now! For me, this one ranked right up there, just a titch (yes, titch!) below a water marble but I thought to myself, it's just paint, I can remove it if it's bad! So I forged on ahead!

I think I did pretty dang good for my first try! The only thing I will apologize for this time is on my middle finger I had an oopsie and I should have fixed it with the sponge but I wasn't thinking and used the brush. So you can see that finger is a little messed up!

I painted a white pase using OPI Alpine Snow. As soon as I went to clean up the mani I realized my mistake in doing this. it was hard to clean up the edges of the mani and not have a tiny bit of white peeking out so next time I will use one of the gradient colors as the base - duh! See, I told you this was Nails 4 Dummies!

Anywho, on to the good stuff! The colors I used for the gradient were China Glaze Below Deck and Joy and then that's Lancome Midnight Rose at the tips. I painted the polish directly onto a makeup sponge which I had cut down for not only manageablity but so I could get more than one mani out of it! Then I dabbed it onto my taped-off finger. After it dried I went back over it again and then topped it off with my new, non-bubble-inducing top coat, Sally Hansen Insta-Dry Top Coat which I am loving right now! In case you're wondering I used the same little bit of sponge for all 8 fingers and 2 thumbs and both coats as well! Here's the non-perfect but completely satisfactory photos!

In 'da sun!

 

 

In 'da shade

 

Trust me, if I could do this good on my first try, you can do it too, give it a try!!!

Dot Mani - My First Attempt

Today I'm bringing you another mani to laugh at! This is actually my best so far so I'm actually kind of proud of it - HA! Since some of the dots ran together I'm almost tempted to call it a "blob mani!" I think Blob is the slovenly cousin of Dot over at YoungWildAndPolished. If you check the link you will see what a pretty dot mani looks like!

I had actually tried about 3 other manis before this. I'm not sure if I'm actually happy with it or if I was just tired of trying! So here you go...your joke of the day!

Let me just make an excuse for myself - I realized after I was done doing this that the end of the paintbrush I was using as a dotting tool had a little sliver of plastic sticking out so it wasn't completely round. There, that explains it, right?

 

All three polishes were Wet n Wild Megalast and they were I Need A Refresh-Mint, On A Trip and Through The Grapevine. I absolutely love these three colors, especially together. I want to do a splatter mani with them, or maybe a water marble, but I'm not there skill-wise yet!

Why Another Nail Blog?

So why, with so many nail blogs out there would I want to create another? Good question! The main reason that I'm doing this is because I love to talk - I love the socialization and since I don't have any friends offline I have to get my fix somewhere! I think I don't have any friends because I'm one of those "lazy friends" that never calls and never asks you to go anywhere or do anything - ha!

Another reason is because I am a chronic cuticle chewer. It's awful! It's actually not technically my cuticles but the skin around my fingernails - gross right? Now you know why I don't have any friends! Look at this ~

 

~ and that's actually good compared to what it has been! I'm hoping that posting pictures of my hands on the net wil force me to stop trying to eat them!

 

Also, I have been incredibly inspired by some other beautiful nail blogs recently and I kept thinking to myself, "I want to be part of that group!!!" So you would assume that I have some artistic talent, right? You, my friend, would be wrong! In fact, last time I painted my nails I made one heck of a mess but I keep trying anyway and I love all of the pretty colors!

 

Now you might understand the name of the blog because by now you're probably thinking, "wow...this chick's an idiot!" I hope not!!! Actually I was hoping that I could take you all on this journey with me and make it an interactive thingamajig!

 

So, please, leave me some comments and let me know if there's anything you'd like to see this dummy try with her nails. I've currently started a regimine of Nail Magic to harden my nails, Burt's Bees Cuticle Balm to try and soften up my ragged cuticles and Burt's Bees Almond Milk Beeswax Hand Cream to make my skin all soft and nice!

 

Stay tuned very soon for pictures of my tiny stash! I'm taking inventory now so that I can see how bad my obsession gets! Because, unfortunately, I'm like a magpie and every time I see a new polish I'm like, Ooh, shiny! The only thing that stops me from having a massive collection is because I'm a broke mother of 4 with bills! :)