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!

Pretty, Red & Sparkly!

What's better than that? The main polish I used here was Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Red Velvet. It is of my favorites in my stash. The gorgeous red sparkle in this really does make it appear velvety. I was disappointed that there was no sun when I wanted to photograph this because only in the sun can you see the true sparkle of this beauty but I did my my best! The accent finger is Sephora By OPI in Be-Clause I Said So.

This time I will apologize for the fail on glitter shot, if I could control the sun I totally would! I really wish the sun had been shining!

See you all Monday morning with a BCA mani!

Stampin' Stars Mani

Happy Friday everyone!! I am soooooo ready for the weekend. I have had way too much work to do and am totally burnt out! I had so many ideas of what mani to do today but I just kept running out of time because the baby decided she wanted to be with me every second of the day! Of course, I had to oblige her and we spent most of the day cuddling :) So first I put down a black base. There's something so awesome about a super glossy black polish and this is my favorite right now. It's Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in Black - creative, right? It goes on so nicely and only takes one coat for perfection! I had to take photos of it with just the black because it was so pretty, do you want to see? Too bad - here you go!

Then I really struggled with what I wanted to do on the black base. What I finally settled on were some Mash plate stars stamped in Pronto Purple. I love the way it looks. It may not be exciting but it was still cool! So that's what I'll apologize for this time I guess, because it's not very exciting!

I'm going to try and give the baby another pedi today and maybe have the pics up tomorrow, we'll see if she's up for it and if I'm feeling patient enough! :) Oh, and I forgot to watermark these photos but I didn't want to delete them and do it late at night so if you steal it I will curse you. I will curse you so hard. I will also send my minions after you - so don't steal!

Illmasqua Rubber Finish Nail Varnish Swatch and Review

Hola chicas! Okay...now that we've exhausted my Spanish vocabulary, on to the mani! What can I say about Illmasqua Rubber Finish Nail Varnish? Well a lot since I like to hear myself talk! The first thing I love about these are the amazing colors and the one that caught my eye first was the beauty in this review - Prosperity! This is a beautiful, blue-based royal purple. The other thing is that this polish has an incredibly unique rubber-like finish that isn't like any polish I've ever seen. It goes on very smoothly, evens out really nicely and dries very quickly! In these photos I have just ONE coat and no top coat!

 

Oh yeah, and my apology this time is going to have to be for my yellow skin in these pics. No matter what lighting I used for this polish I could NOT get the color to photograph, it kept coming up blue so I had to do the color correcting after the fact to show the true color of the polish and my skin looks yellow as a result!



Okay, now let's move on to what drives me so nuts about this polish. What kind of top coat do you use with a rubber finish polish? None was my immediate first thought. Well, I tried that and boy does this polish chip fast! So I tried both a matte and a regular top coat and both of them changed the effect of this polish so it was kind of like, what's the point? To show you what I mean I did a side-by-side comparison of the different finishes. 

My middle finger is with no top coat, just the yummy Illmasqua polish. Then on my middle finger is the matte top coat. Notice how it dulls the rubbery shine and it looks kind of streaky? Yeah, not cool! Then on the pinky is the regular top coat which completely destroys the rubber effect. It's really pretty when it's shiny but just not the same!

So do I think this polish is worth it? Yeah, I'd have to say that I love it even though I'm not quite sure what to do with it (kind of like my kids!) I don't know that I'd buy a whole bunch of these but I really like owning at least one, it's something new for my stash!

 

 

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!!!

Julep Gayle and Some Stampin'!

Hello my little schmoopie-woopies! Can you tell I'm goofy today? If you can't it's because you're a weirdo like me - CONGRATULATIONS!!!

 

It seems like I always have to apologize for something in my manis and this one is no different. The top coat I was using is one I've only had for about 3 weeks but for some reason it has decided to really thicken up and I don't do anything halfway so when I slapped my usual thick coat on it left ugly bubbles on my otherwise lovely mani! *sniff, sniff* No worries though, I have since replaced her and moved on!

 

On to the mani... The base was 1 coat of Gayle from Julep. Oh. My. I think I moaned while putting this baby on! This polish is so gorgeous and applies like a dream! I hope all Juleps are that way because momma is in love!!! The only thing I will say is that if I would have known how pigmented she was, I would have been much more careful when I was painting because she was a real pain to get off the skin!  Here is a shot of Gayle alone and one of her mattified just for giggles!

 

Then I used Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in No Hard Feelings and stamped over Gayle with Mash plate 41. I'm loving the second set of Mash plates. I had the first set and was very disappointed because none of the full nail designs were big enough but they are so much better with the second set! Here's a couple pics of the final mani complete with air bubbles!!

 

I really want to try a water marble very soon but with the baby I don't usually get more than 20 minutes at a time to do my nails and I do NOT want to be interrupted in the middle of a water marble! Until next time - God bless!

Polish Us Pink Mani #1

CANCER SUCKS! There, I said it! I wish cancer would die!

I think most of us have had to deal with cancer in one form or the other in our live's and we all know how bad it sucks and how helpless we feel to do anything about it. There is something though that all of us can do. We can spread the word and raise awareness and that's what a bunch of us nail bloggers are doing. October is Breast Cancer Awareness month so we're all going to be rocking some pink manis on Mondays in October. This didn't hurt me too much since pink is my favorite polish color!!

So do your boobies a favor and go let the doctor squeeze on 'em! We are so lucky in the US to have so many fantastic resources available to us in the terms of treatment and education when it comes to cancer and here are just a few:

Treatment:
Cancer Treatment Centers of America - they have truly amazing and compassionate care!
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Education & Resources:
BreastCancer.org
BreastCancerAwareness.com
National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc.

Here is my fun little mani to support the Polish Us Pink crusade!! The base is two coats of China Glaze Exceptionally Gifted and then I stamped on that using China Glaze Traffic Jam and Mash plate 48. This was only my second attempt at stamping so I was pretty pleased, what do you think?

 

Swatch And Revew Butter London & Pomegranate Lacquers

TGIF!! Woo-hoo! Can you tell I'm glad it's the weekend? I'm exhausted and I don't want to work any more! I stayed up too late last night watching Avengers - I LOVE that movie, it is hilarious. The husband and I took our 5 yr old daughter to see it in theaters and she was laughing so hard that she was the loudest one in the theater! She does that when she gets excited though and we kept having to shush her!

Today I had to swatch a couple of the polishes from this weeks haul - I still have a ton to go! I will also apologize in advance for the state of my cuticles, I have been naughty about chewing on them! That isn't helped by the fact that it is extremely dry where I live and I can't keep enough cuticle balm on them!

I swatched them a little crazy so you could see several swatches on one hand because I'm lazy like that! Also try to look past the messed up middle finger, my daughter smudged it RIGHT before I was going to take the photos and, again, too lazy to redo it! And with a very needy 12 week old baby to take care of on top of a 5 yr old and a 2 yr old, I barely have time to do my nails the first time!

On mah index finger is one coat of butter LONDON Black Knight. On mah middle finger is one coat of BK over one coat of Pomegranate Princess of Persia. Mah ring finger is sporting two thin coats of Princess of Persia while my pinky has just one coat - although it was a thicker coat!

I'm having really mixed emotions about Black Knight. This is my first experience with butter LONDON and I think I need to try a few more before I make broad assumptions though. This polish was incredibly thick and gloopy and hard to work with. I don't know if I got a bad bottle or what. It would not even out or spread worth a darn! It also would NOT come off my cuticles although that may not be entirely the polishes fault. I have some jagged and dry skin! That being said it is GORGEOUS! It is also really nice after just one coat although two would just add to it's dimensionality. What is your experience with this polish? I have just heard so much good stuff about butter LONDON that I was sad when this wasn't what I expected!

Then we have the lovely Princess of Persia from Pomegranate Lacquers. This polish was divine and a joy to work with! I can't wait to try stamping with it. I was really surpised at it's opacity after just one coat which was the pinky! This polish went on like a dream and evened itself out. It was a perfect medium thickness and a total breeze to use! I HIGHLY recommend this brand and I got this awesome polish for half off!!! What do you think? Have you used Pomegranate polishes?

Lancome Rose Boudoir Swatch and Review

Hello sweetpeas! I had the best nail mail day yesterday and got all kinds of new polishes that I've never tried! It was really hard for me to choose so Aneela from Rise and Shine Beauty suggested I try the Lancome Rose Boudoir and that solved that! :)

I was instantly in love with this polish. I've always loved Lancome's cosmetics but this was my first time trying their polish - it certainly didn't disappoint! It applied like a dream and was smooth and even on the first coat. I used to coats for more opacity. You can still see a VNL in the photos but I really didn't care! This polish was a gorgeous pink/red creamy shade and it was so beautiful! I normally only spend half this amount on polish but this stuff was so worth it! :) Ignore the bubbles, those are due to my really thick top coat - I need to go shopping for a new one!

This shot was taken in the shade, the color ended up being darker than I imagined but I really love it!

 

This was indirect sunlight which brightens the color up a little and brings out the pink!

 

This polish gets a 9 from me. The only thing that would make it a 10 was if it could reach full opacity in 1 coat! What do you guys thing, would you wear this? Oh, and here are pics of my haul from yesterday and I still have more coming! :o

 

Acrylic Paint Splatter Mani

Hello my fellow polish addicts! I'm so excited to share my mani with you today because it was so much fun to do and I think it turned out pretty good! I've been loving the paint splatter technique and finally decided that I was brave enough to try it! I wanted to use acrylic paint rather than polish though because of several reasons. Acrylic paint is much cheaper, it dries flatter and it washes off with water so if you mess up a nail you can just rinse it off and start over! Then when you're done with the mani and your top coat is dry you can just wash the mess (and there WILL be a mess!) off your skin - no acetone! With as dry as it's been around here I can use all the help I can get!



I used OPI Alpine Snow for a base coat. Then I just put a small bit of paint in an old ice cube tray and add a few drops of water to thin it out. Then use a regular paint brush and hold it over your nails and tap it until you like the way it looks. Wait until the acrylic paint is dry before attempting a top coat - I learned this the hard way!! It will smear all over the place and you will have some funky looking nails! Here are my instruments of torture:




Here is the awesome mess that I made! You could tape off around your cuticles and that would make the cleanup a little easier if you want but I didn't!!



 

And here is the finished product! I'm thinking of making a video on this technique, what do you think, should I? I don't know, maybe paint splatter nails are "over," but I still like them and I never claimed to be fashionable!



 

My next attempt may have to be a water marble but that may be a while off - the idea still scares me a little bit! :)

Metallic Fall Mani and New Toys!

Hey y'all watch this! Okay, totally joking - I'm not that much of a redneck! As Honey Boo-Boo would say, "you'd better redneckenize!"

Can you tell I'm tired? I'll also apologize in advance for all the bubbles in this mani. I was doing it very late last night and trying to get it done before the baby had a fit so I was putting on thick coats and not waiting for them to dry!

I don't normally do fall colors - I'm much more apt to wear summer colors all year long! This time around though, I was inspired by all of the beautiful Fall manis I've been seeing. I actually had to buy some fall colors just for this mani because I only owned a couple and they weren't what I was looking for. Since I have a ton of polish coming in the mail I made myself stick to some cheaper polishes so I got these four from Pure Ice:

 

They are Magic, Jaguar, Electric! and Purple Reign. It's my first time using this brand and I'm not sure what to think. It went on beautifully but the brushes, especially in the Magic was really crappy. The bristles were stiff and they were all smashed up in this one. Then it took forever to dry. I don't know if that was because I was impatient or if it is really that slow! Of course I'm used to fast-dry polishes so that didn't help!

For this mani I used 3 coats of Jaguar as the base and then I used the stencil technique found here on Chalkboard Nails and it worked like magic! I don't know why I didn't think of using painters tape before - DUH! The accent finger is waaay to many coats of Traffic Stopper Copper from Sephora by OPI. I kept trying to cover this one bald spot on the nail so I have like 4 coats and that was waaay too much but it looks pretty cool!



I was so excited because I found these 5 paper punches for $.96 each at Wal-something or other. I've  got all kinds of ideas for them, muahahahaha!



What do you guys think, is this one a success? Also, I want to know, what is your favorite white polish? I'm looking for something decent that doesn't take 4 perfectly applied coats to use as a base!

Fave Manis And Random Question Of The Week

I hope you have all had a magically fantastical weekend so far! It's been a good one for me! This blog has been so much fun and I've  gotten to meet some seriously awesome people! I have also looked at, literally, hundreds of manis this week - especially due to the 31 day challenge that's going on in the nail blog world. They were all amazing but there were a few that really stuck out to me and I wanted to give them a little nod here on my blog. So here are my fave 3 of this week!

This first one is from my friend Dot over at Young Wild and Polished. Her name is actually Nicole, but it was her alter ego Dot that did this mani! How fun is this?

Now here is a truly "ooh-ahhhhhh!" mani from Jeanette over at The Swatchaholic! This is what she calls "baby steps" in water marbling! I just keep staring at this one because there's so much awesomeness going on here!

 

Next up is from Bregje over at Oooh, Shinies! I was SO in love with this beautiful color combo that I went and ordered both of the polishes! Now I just need to get that stamping plate!

 

 

And finally comes the prettiest water marble I have ever seen! It reminded me of candy and Summer and who doesn't love that! The crazy part is that Sarah from Chalkboard Nails admits to struggling with water marbles. If that's struggling, sign me up!

Wow, now thems is some purdy nailz! I'm beginning to feel just a little bit of hero worship here, lol!

 

Now onto the random question of the week. I'm a total weirdo and I don't mind showing it to the world so I'm hoping to bring out the little bit of weirdo in you too! So here is the question, I'd be much obliged if you would post your answer in the comments!

 

Q: If you could make a hat out of any food, what would it be?

(told you I was weird!)

Pink and Grey Mani!

Hey everyone! How is your Saturday going so far? I got to sleep all the way in until 7:45 :/ Oh well, I can sleep when I'm dead and I have a lot to do today! I finally did a mani that I'm really pretty stinking proud of! It took me forever because I kept smudging it but I was able to rescue it every time. When I woke up this morning it had shrunk on my nails so I had to redo the tips and top coat it again. I think it happened because I forgot a base coat - won't be doing that again! I used some nail guides, stencils and rhinestones I got in this mini-haul:

The stencil worked great but there's only one of each image and I don't think you could use it 10 times, I used mine twice and the polish was getting built up. You might be able to make it work if you were very careful but the acetone I tried to clean it with ruined the stencil!

 

Anywho - on to my mani! For this one I used 3 coats of Wet n Wild Tickled Pink - I really like this color, it's so soft and pretty! Then for the accents I used Essie Merino Cool. It's a gorgeous grey/brown color and the only Essie I own until my shipments gets here! So, without further ado, here are the pics - sorry if there are a ton, mama is proud of her baby!

 

 

Are those pictures obnoxiously large? I'm never quite sure!  Let me know what you think, good or bad I luvs me sum comments!

 

Stay tuned because I have a huge haul coming in from Amazon, Sephora and TransDesigns. There are 14 bottles of polish, dotting tools and the 2012 Mash plates on their way, YAY!

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!

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!