Black and White Sugarspun Nails

Happy Tuesday! Where did Monday go?? I feel like I totally missed it this week but I'm not going to complain at all! I decided to try the sugarspun technique and I think it turned out fairly well. I wish I had more time to chitchat but as I'm typing this, the baby is yelling at me!

 

I used one coat of the amazing a England Camelot for the base and Wet 'n Wild Megalast Break The Ice for the "icing"! They kind of look yummy, right? Don't worry, I didn't lick my nails...much.

 

 

 

 

Frosty Plum Mani

Hello Monday! I kinda really liked this mani! I have struggled with figuring out how to use these fancy little pearls and I was surprised that it turned out as well as it did! At least I think so - you might be sitting there, scratching your head and wondering about my sanity! Don't worry...most people that know me do that all the time!

 

The white is Break The Ice from the Wet 'n Wild Megalast line. I really love this line. For under $2, it has a fantastic formula, great colors and I love the big brush! This color is a lot frostier than I managed to capture and is really quite beautiful. The purple is Jordana Glitters - Purple Glam. This polish was a wonderful surprise for me, almost a jelly sandwich in a bottle and I really love the shade of purple. I was actually able to look past the "hairy" glitters as they were very small and the polish was so pretty!

Are you guys proud of me that I managed to blog again? I'm proud...I patted myself on the back and gave myself a hug! I will see you soon!

The Lazy 15 Mani #15!!!!!! Recreate Another Blogger's Mani

So the minute I looked at this prompt over a month ago, I knew EXACTLY which mani I would recreate from another blogger. I have a not-so-secret and pretty serious girl crush on Sarah from Chalkboard Nails and especially her Wizard of Oz mani! Just look at this!

At first I was going to use tape to get the lines straight but then I decided that, in the true spirit of recreation, I would attempt my first freehand stripes! The design got a little crooked on a couple of the nails but rather than stressing about it, I just decided to embrace them! I'm actually pretty proud of the lines, they're mostly straight and the whole thing turned out ok!

 

I was wishing that I had Sarah's awesome nail beds or something longer than my nubs but I had to rock what I had! The white is OPI Alpine Snow with acrylic paint to create the blue gingham. The red is one coat of Sally Hansen Red Velvet topped with two coats of Sephora by OPI Be-Claus I Said So! 

 

 

I can't wait to see what everyone else came up with - go check them out!

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 #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!

The Lazy 15 Mani #3 - DOTS!!

 I can almost hear Nicole (aka Dot) cheering in the background on this one! I really wish I would have had a little more time to work on this one but work has been crazy so I didn't have too much time to think about it. I started with a base of OPI Alpine Snow and then did the dots in China Glaze Concrete Catwalk and an accent finger and a cute little heart in Finger Paints Pink Perspective Neon. I just had to add the little silver heart, I think he's cute, don't you?

 

Please be sure to check out all the other challenge participants, they're all pretty freakin' fabulous!

 



The Lazy 15 Challenge Mani #1 - Tape Mani

So I've seen a lot of argyle manis around and I'd had success with a tape mani once before so an argyle should be a piece of cake right? Wrong! It was much harder than I anticipated and I had to redo 4 out of 5 fingers on this hand - ugh! But it's done now and I really like it!! I used OPI Alpine Snow for the white and If You Moust You Moust for the pink. The other two were China Glaze For Audrey and Gothic Lolita (LOVE this!)

 I'm so excited for the rest of the manis on this challenge and to see what my friends have come up with!! We're only one mani in so feel free to join us!!!!

 

*****EDIT!! For the others taking part in this challenge, here is the code to put in your post to display the other blogs taking part! Just copy it and paste it at the very end of your HTML code!!

<!-- start InLinkz script -->
<script type="text/javascript">
                document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src=http://www.inlinkz.com/cs.php?id=206197&' + new Date().getTime() + '"><\/script>');</script>
<br />
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<!-- end InLinkz script --><br />

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! :)