Pacific Beach Butterflies

Hey Everyone! I am hoping I can actually get this written up before the stupid page freezes on me. I have attempted it twice already but my computer is lame and uncooperative. I just finished reading a book. I started yesterday and since it was slow today I was able to read and finish it. Luckily there are 4 more in the series and I actually have them all ready to go lol I am also hungry.

American Apparel Pacific Beach is the first American Apparel polish I have used. I bought three of the sheer polishes awhile back when they were on sale. I don't and probably will never shop at American Apparel and their website is quite out there for my tastes but I needed these jelly polishes. I will say that they do have nice polish but that is about the only thing I would buy from them.

I wanted to create a jelly stamping sandwich. I used Konad plate M66 for the stamping. I used some of the flowers and the butterfly.

This mani was not exactly what I wanted it to be but it was still decent. I started with a base of Pacific Beach and then stamped flowers and repeated. The butterfly was an after thought when my flowers didn't achieve the floating look I wanted.

I used Sinful Colors striping polishes in white and black (I don't remember the names for those) for the stamping.

The desired effect would be the flowers looking like they were at different depths but the actual effect is lacking that depth. This mani also chipped REALLY fast. This was one of those manis that I started, stopped and removed and reattempted about 3 times. I put a nice dent in my bottle of Pacific Beach trying to get the look I wanted.

I do like the color.

I am going to bet that a normal jelly sandwich with glitter would be great with this polish. Heck, someone that knows what they are doing could pull off the look I was attempting. I am going to have to give it another try, maybe. For now I will just look at the pretty color lol

That's all for now :)

Lemon Nails

Hey Everyone!! Happy Monday to you! I can't believe we are already midway through June. Where does the time go? I had a pretty low key weekend. Pretty much the most I accomplished was a pendant for one of df's volunteers at the kennel and I started two pair of earrings. I will of course post pictures when I have them finished. I am trying to get a good amount of stuff ready to be glued so I can do all the glue work at one time. I had planned on doing a mani yesterday but got lazy and watched movies instead. I really hate when I am forced to watch a movie that has already begun. My brother had Trouble with the Curve on the tv and as much as I tried to ignore it I got sucked in. I missed the beginning which is quite annoying. Good movie but I have a hard time associating Justin Timberlake with a baseball player. We also watched Contagion last night and I told df I never want to leave the house or breathe air in public again now. Those movies always make me paranoid.

Today I have my first jump into the textured polishes. I have a few but haven't tried them yet. I woke up wanting to do lemon nails so I reached for this one.

Milani Yellow Mark from the Texture Creme Collection.

I attempted to stamp a citrus pattern on my nails with both white and a lime green color and it failed. You can see my middle finger is stamped in some of the pictures. It was very much less obvious in person. I decided to break out my ebay fimo wheel of fruit. I used a lemon on my ring finger and a grapefruit on my index finger.

I love the grapefruit and lemon slices. They were cut pretty thin so they didn't catch on everything like I expected them too. I didn't use a top coat and they managed to stay put the entire time I had the mani on so I was impressed. I was also able to take them off and save them for future use. I actually ripped one of the lemons in half by accident but it is still usable as a lemon wedge lol

Yellow Mark is a great bright yellow. I love how vibrant it is and I love the shade.

I can't remember if I did two or three coats for this mani. I think I did two coats.

It is a little strange to apply this polish because it is textured. It gets more textured as it dries but it is still not a smooth polish when you apply it. The application isn't difficult it is just different.

The texture wasn't overly annoying but I was bothered by the edges when I wrapped my tips. I ended up going back and wrapping my tips with clear so that they were smooth. I couldn't stand the ragged edge being scratchy and catching things.

You can see a little bit of the stamping in the picture above. I was hoping the stamping would be more visible in person. I didn't think to try using a bright pink to go with the grapefruit, I might have to try that another time.

I had gotten an email from Menchies Frozen Yogurt place about their new character Mookie the cow the other day. Their spoons all have characters on them and I have one in each one so when I saw the email I HAD to go get the new spoon. I love cows and honestly it was a great excuse to go have some frozen yogurt which I am not supposed to be eating lol I had to take a picture of the spoon lol Yes, I act like I am 5 sometimes.

I really love those fimo slices. It is a simple mani but I love how cute it looked.

I took far too many pictures of this mani.

Ever since a friend of mine showed me a mani with yellow glitter I have been wanting lemon nails. This texture polish is not only an awesome lemony yellow but the texture is reminiscent of the feel of a lemon so I have finally managed to have my lemon nails.

That's all for now :)

KBShimmer Radioactive

Hey Everyone!! It is FRIDAY!!! So exciting! Ok, only mildly exciting since I don't have much planned for the weekend but Fridays are always good. I ordered some nail art supplies yesterday which I am anxiously awaiting and the plates I ordered last month arrived yesterday! I love new toys. I can't wait to show them to you and play with those! I think I will be spending some time making some polish jewelry this weekend.

Today I have an awesome polish to show you from KBShimmer. I love neon polishes! I didn't realize that this one glows in the dark too! I don't know how I missed that part because I love Glow in the Dark stuff but it took me googling the polish to realize it.

I am crocheting a Barbaloot for a nail board friend and thought this would make a funny picture. It did lol KBShimmer Radioactive.

I can't wait to show you the finished Barbaloot! I love this polish and actually have it on my toes too. I love when my toes glow in the dark, so fun!

Radioactive is an awesome neon crelly polish with black glitter in various shapes and sizes.

I wanted to add some fun nail art to this one but couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. I used Sinful Colors Sunny Day striper to make stripes. I didn't realize until now that the Sinful Colors Stripers are actually named. Duh for me.

I started with a white base and actually taped off the mani with striping tape before applying Radioactive.

I used three coats of Radioactive. I use the white base to make the color brighter. There is a picture later of Radioactive without the white base.

This polish is not a jam packed glitter so not every coat got a lot of glitter. I did fish a couple of pieces out on some of the nails because I wasn't getting as much glitter as I wanted. I had to mess around with placement too but that was not due to the polish but rather the nail art. The glitter kept ending up on my striping tape which was going to be taken off when I removed it so I had to push them around a little so they would be on the nail when I removed the tape.

After removing the striping tape I was left with white lines which were perfect for applying Sunny Day. I used the brush in the polish but should have used a smaller nail art brush since the one in the polish was a little too big. Most of the lines still came out pretty decent.

As you can see I got a nice sized chip in my polish. I wanted to wear this for more than one day because I was having so much fun with the glow in the dark. I hate chips! I hate chips even more when the polish has been on my nails less than 24 hours.

I have been giving a treatment a try and it is beginning to anger me as all my manis are chipping super fast. Today's mani chipped when I washed the pan I made my eggs in this morning. I have had this mani less than 12 hours, most of which I was sleeping, and it is already badly chipped. I am about ready to throw the treatment out the window.

I am in a major neon phase right now. Everything I want to do has neon colors in it. I am trying to keep away from doing all neon all the time. I think I will definitely keep my toes neon though!

This polish is one of the few that I would consider getting a backup for. I am loving the shade and the black glitter. The fact that is glows in the dark totally makes it an instant favorite.

The application on this one was great and it has totally perked my interest in the other awesome colors KBShimmer has to offer. I had been looking at this one for a LONG time and finally was able to get it recently. Very glad that I did!

I decided I wasn't taking my mani off for one nail so I just painted the chipped nail with three coats of Radioactive. You can see here I didn't use a white base so it is not AS neon as the others. It is still definitely bright and lives up to the name Radioactive it just isn't AS bright as it would be with the white. I have it on my toes without the white base and it is still quite neon and eye catching!

That's all for now :)

A Scandalous Apple Berry Smoothie

Hey Everyone! What a day. I have the kids at work with me today. That is always fun. I think I may be allergic to work. lol Not the actual work but my place of work. When we got here this morning my son had a huge sneezing fit and runny nose crazy episode. Over the past few days my cough/congestion garbage has been acting up really bad too. I was already thinking that I seem to have less problems on the weekends when I am home but the fact that my son started sneezing and such within minutes of being here is making me think. I might have to try and do a DEEP cleaning of my office and hope that it doesn't kill me in the process lol

Have you ever not been overly impressed with a polish but then put it on and smack yourself with a shoe for not realizing how awesome it was in the first place? THAT is what happened to me with this polish. OMG. I love Cult Nails and have been a fan since the brand launched. Around the time I started getting into the nail scene on the internet and found out about the nail boards and such is about the same time Maria launched Cult Nails. I didn't know her from the boards or anything but found her blog and followed her through the launching of the brand and I have been a fan ever since. I haven't been able to get all of the polishes they have put out (darn you lack of money lol) but I do have a nice collection and I am always looking to get the ones I am missing. Recently I found a couple on a blog sale and jumped on the opportunity to bring them home.

Cult Nails Scandalous is from the 2012 Divas and Drama collection. This was one of the collections I missed out on but because Maria puts out so many awesome polishes it kinda got pushed down the list by newer polishes that I covet. THANK GOODNESS I jumped on it when I saw it listed on the blog sale because it is GORGEOUS!!!

I had a picture of just Scandalous but I had taken it inside before doing the nail art and the lighting was awful. I will definitely do another mani with this color soon because it is so awesome. Scandalous is a coral dream of a polish that has that squishy jelly look that I am in love with. It pulls more orange on me and totally reminds me of a juicy candy.

I used Rimmel Apple Berry Smoothie from the Cocktail Colour Collection that has been popping up in stores. The Cocktail polishes are gorgeous foily, glass fleck, shimmery polishes. There are five polishes in the collection but the bottles are on the small side. I believe they are 6 or 7ml and my Walgreens has them for $2.49 a bottle. Due to size and price this one was the only one I actually purchased and only because I had a coupon.

I started with a base of Scandalous which is sooo yummy. I didn't want to do nail art on all the nails because I didn't want to cover Scandalous up.

I used striping tape that I bought on ebay to tape off the designs. I was actually going to make my index finger match my middle finger but then decided one nail had to be plain.

I was attempting this mani and rushed so I ended up messing up a bit. I tried to hide it on this hand by making the pinky a little different. It didn't work but still looks pretty cool.

I love both of these polishes and actually really liked them together. I need to do manis with each of them alone though because they are both such pretty polishes.

That's all for now :)

Tidal Wave of Stars

Hey Everyone! I am soo tired. We drove upstate yesterday to pick up df's daughter for the Summer and sitting in the car for around 10+ hours has left me sore and tired. I meant to pre schedule a post for yesterday but somehow forgot. I am running on fumes today so I am not very chatty lol Shocking isn't it?

One of my favorite blogs, one of the ones my stupid work computer won't let me comment on too, is Fingers Polish Mania. When I did this mani I wasn't totally stoked with the way the stamping came out and I thought of her awesome funky french manis and it inspired me to do a french tip over this stamping. When I think of funky french manis I think of Fingers Polish Mania so I had to send you all her way if you don't already follow her!

I started with a base of Sinful Colors Tidal Wave. This is a new polish from Sinful Colors and can be found in the Pool Side Polish display. I have actually yet to see that display but my Walgreens just threw these in with the pretty much empty regular display. My Walgreens is really special so it isn't too surprising.

I stamped with Maybelline Color Show Metallics Navy Narcissist. I got this baby on clearance at CVS because I figured it would be a great stamping polish. It definitely is and I love it!

I used the stars in circles design on Cheeky plate CH52 from the 2012 Summer plate collection. It reminds me of Converse shoes.

Tidal Wave is a pretty light blue that looked brighter and darker after I stamped it. Application was pretty good. I love most Sinful Colors polishes because they are cheap and good lol

It is thundering out. I love rain and thunderstorms I only wish I could be at home enjoying it on the couch. It is making me more tired. I also wish I had a window to watch it rain though that might put me to sleep.

So Navy Narcissist stamps really well though I messed up the designs a little. I can't remember which stamper I used but I was having some issues and some of the designs came out a little weird.

I don't usually do the french tip, especially when my nails are this short, but I kinda LOVE IT!

This design makes me think of my dad. He used to wear Converse high tops when I was little. Once we were shopping and saw a purple pair of high top Converse in his size and wanted to get them for him. I think they were really cheap which made us want to get them for him even more.

I think my coffee is finally starting to kick in. I discovered a few other brands of stamping plates that I am not itching to try out. I can't wait to show you the mani I have on today. I am loving stamping and making stamping decals lately.

That's all for now :)