Purple Birthday Mani!

Happy Friday!! Sorry, once again for being MIA! I have had sick kids all week and my poor little baby has the flu so I've spent 4 days holding and snuggling her! I'm holding her as I'm typing this so it's going to be short and sweet!

 

This was my bday mani and I wore it for 4 days with barely any tip wear! I've never had a mani last over 24 hours before so I'm amazed!

 

All of these polishes were gifts I received recently and they all worked so beautifully together! The base is MUA Frozen Yoghurt then a England (sooooooo excited about this one!) Avalon and finally Color Club Harp On It which is my first holo ever!!



 

 

I'm really loving how this turned out and all of the polishes were so gorgeous! :) I hope to be back to blogging more as soon as my kiddos feel better!

Tape 'N Dots Fall Mani

Happy Hump Day!!! For those of you that work a M-F this is music to your ears!! We're almost there dolls, just hold on a little longer! After yesterday's mani I decided to keep this one clean and simple. I saw these two polishes next to each other in the display and they go together perfectly!! The green is called The Temptress' Touch and the orange is The Muse's Inspiration, both from L'Oreal. Neither one of these are colors that I would normally wear and I can't say that I'm in love with them but they certainly fit the bill for a Fall mani.

 

I used two coats of The Temptress' Touch then used scotch tape to form the angle and added one thick coat of The Muse's Inspiration. Then I busted out my dotting tools and did dots in alternating colors all the way around the nail. I'm kind of digging how it turned out but I didn't leave it on for long because it's just not my bag, baby!

 

So do you tend to follow the color seasons or do you gravitate towards one or the other? I'm partial to either the super-bright Summer shades or the jewel tones that come with Winter! See you all next time, mwah!

Hidden Rainbow Mani

Can you believe it? I'm posting again, yayyyy! I had so much fun with this mani. I finally got my striping tape and had to try it out. I also used a cool rainbow effect I found that gives you 6 of the 7 colors of the rainbow (poor, poor indigo!) by only using 3 polishes! WHAT? That's right, if you want to know the secret, check out Simple Little Pleasure's YouTube video. I could seriously lose hours watching this girl do nail art! One of the reasons I love her so much is that she actually talks during her video. I can't stand videos with no talking and awful muzak playing *shudders*!

The polishes I used are Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Frutti Petutie, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightening, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Freeze! and Wet 'n Wild Black Creme. after sponging on the rainbow with a tiny piece of makeup sponge (I used a tiny corner for each color), I put down a top coat and let everything dry COMPLETELY! Then I put on some striping tape and put down one thick coat of Black Creme and once I removed the tape I had a gorgeous rainbow! A couple of must-know tips for working with striping tape are to remove the tape immediately after you're done polishing that finger!! Also, it really helped me to have all of my little strips of tape cut and hanging off of the edge of the table ready to go.

I was so ticked off that I fudged up my index finger by bumping it on the table and then my topcoat issues ruined the whole dang thing. I tried to use my gloopy one first and it left big dents and wouldn't spread so I tried my el cheapo Wet 'n Wild topcoat that I got for free to smooth it out, big mistake. That topcoat sucks. It never dries and it isn't very shiny so I was left with a bubbly dull mess, *SIGH*. Oh well, you live and you learn, now I only use that topcoat for applying rhinestones and fimo cane!

Dots and Waves Mani

Hey pretties! This mani was a lot of fun to do! I used craft scissors and tape for the waves and my trusty dotting tools for the dots - imagine that! I'm not feeling very witty so let's get right to it!

The gorgeous purple is a new color from the Wet 'n Wild Megalast line. This one is called Disturbia. I couldn't quite capture the shimmer in the photos but this is a gorgeous polish! The green is Avon Speed Dry+ in Don't Be Jaded. I love this green, it's minty-colored and awesome!

Here are some pics of just the purple:

 

Here's the whole mani, what do you think?

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!