Happy Halloween!

Hey Everyone!! Happy Halloween!!! I kinda love Halloween even though I am not really into it this year. I would have done way more manis if I was in the spirit but I did manage to get a few done. My actual mani that is on my nails today is quite sad but I was not feeling the best last night so I didn't get around to the stamping. I am really hoping that November brings better things. Like Pumpkin bread! I am so bummed over all of the diet restrictions that my stomach is causing. I like spicy food...and chocolate!! 

First up we have Sinful Colors Black Magic which appeared in an endcap display for Halloween this year. Oddly enough all of the holiday polishes appeared in that same display. I will get to those later.

I used three coats of Black Magic which is a pretty cool charcoal glitter that has a great amount of orange glitter mixed in there. I love orange.

I then used Bundle Monster plate BM-223 and white stamping polish to make my little ghosts. I went over the ghosts with glow in the dark polish but you can't really tell. 

When I went over the white with Ghoulish Glow it apparently thinned the white out a little bit in some spots. My poor ghosts are pretty sheer in some areas. I guess since they are ghosts that is ok

This was the first Halloween mani I did and luckily the next ones were a little better.

I used Sinful Colors Cold Leather as the background on all my nails but my ring finger. I thought a blue background would look night like. I used three coats of Cold Leather. 

I used three coats of China Glaze Ghoulish Glow on my ring finger and then did my tips with Sinful Colors Spiked Ice from their upcoming holiday collection. 

I used a dotting tool and white, black and Ghoulish Glow to make the eyes. It was really cute when they would glow in the dark but I couldn't get a picture of it no matter how hard I tried. 

I used my little skeleton water slide decals that I bought from LuckyStarStyle on ebay. I love their decals and I just noticed they have minions now! 

I loved this mani and actually still have my ring finger skeletons on for today's mani. 

The last Halloween mani I have to show you was also one I really liked. I started with a base of Sally Hansen Insta Dri No S-pear Time from their Fall collection. I actually got this on clearance at Target though I can't believe the fall polishes were already on clearance.

I did the saran wrap technique with Maybelline Classic Camel over No S-pear Time. I think I was a little heavy handed with the plastic wrap but it gave it an interesting look.

I used Bundle Monster plate BM-222 and black polish to stamp the pumpkins. I filled in the eyes and mouth with a neon yellow polish and Ghoulish Glow so they would glow like a jack o lantern.

I have a thing for glow in the dark polish as you can tell. I also love the pumpkins as they are super cute and very fun. 

I had done another mani but it chipped before I was able to photograph it. Too much baking, shopping and cleaning took care of that mani. I might recreate it soon because it was cute and it glowed. 

I hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween!!!!

That's all for now :)

Breast Cancer Awareness Manis

Hey Everyone!! I AM BACK!!! Sorry for going silent there for awhile. It has been a really long and hectic month and I just couldn't find the motivation to blog. I didn't even change my polish as much as usual. It started with the passing of a family friend and just remained bad after that. Poor little Neil was so sick that every time I checked on him I was afraid I would find him gone. He has recovered and is almost back to his normal self but it was bad for awhile. It also cost a fortune to get him treated so that triggered even more stress. I have some issues with anxiety and they decided it would be a good time to show up and cause chaos. I also went to the GI doctor finally and he basically told me what I already figured. I have reflux/gerd which was not a shock. He gave me some meds which help a little but I need to avoid pretty much all the foods I love. I am still trying to work out what and how to eat to avoid my stomach trying to escape my body. Between my stomach issues and my anxiety attacks I pretty much am in no state of mind to do my nails or blog but I am going to try and force myself to get back into a routine. 

I am pretty much over the month of October which is sad because it is one of my favorite months. My birthday was Sunday and we had cake and all that jazz but I am still over October. I am hoping November brings more calm and less crazy. T was finishing up his first quarter as a high school freshman this month too. I am so very proud of that boy! He hasn't gotten his report card yet so I don't have the printed paper yet but his grades are final in the system and he got all A's and one B. I snapped a picture of the monitor and texted it to C with the question Is this real life? I am so proud of that boy and yes, it did make me cry. I don't know how, when or why he has decided to do well in school but it is awesome! He still struggles a little bit, especially with geometry but wow! I am going to frame that report card! 

Well, I changed the look of the blog a little bit just because I wanted to give it a new look. If there is any weirdness or anything wrong please let me know. I am only somewhat knowledgeable in the whole website arena and even with a pretty fool proof system I am pretty sure I could mess something up. Hopefully the chaos and crazy stays in October and from here we move into smoother waters. I am not holding my breath though seeing as C's car has a check engine light on. 

As we all know October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I wore two different manis this month for Breast Cancer Awareness. I am going to add them here together since we only have two more days in October. I actually wore these for several days each. My nice pointy nails all broke somewhere in the course of the month and are back to nubbins. My goal is to grow them back out to points but we all know how my nails cooperate. 

For this mani I used Essie Bottle Service from this year's neon collection on my index and pinkie. I used 3 coats of Barielle Buddha-ful from their 2011 Karma collection on my middle and ring finger. I also used a coat of Buddha-ful over Bottle Service on my pinkie. 

I stamped pink ribbons with Bottle Service and the ribbon design from Vivid Lacquer plate VL001. 

In the car shots Bottle Service looks crazy neon. The first pictures show it much more accurately. 

I had planned to do the first half of the month with pink ribbon manis and then the second half with Halloween manis but that was before everything went nutso. 

I really like the delicate look of Buddha-ful and how the ribbons look over it. I was a little concerned about stamping with Bottle Service since it is on the sheer side. It worked pretty well for stamping but I wouldn't attempt to use it to stamp over a darker color. 

I love that ribbon image. It is just a simple ribbon but it is the perfect size. I love all of the Vivid Lacquer plates and highly recommend them. I have three or four of them and the rest are on my wish list.

Since I already had Bottle Service out (I have a whole tub of polishes I need to put back in the helmers) I decided to do another mani with it. This mani was all sorts of fails but in the end it was good enough to wear for a few days. 

First I will tell you what the mani was supposed to be. I started with three coats of Sinful Colors Full Spectrum from their upcoming Holiday Glitz and Glittered Collection. Unfortunately it didn't give me the base I was looking for to stamp over. When I did stamp the ribbons they were not easy to see and it just didn't look nice. I thought to myself that Bottle Service was pretty sheer so I could probably just put it over top and still have the glitter show through. 

Well, that almost worked except that the glitter didn't really show through enough for my liking. I used white polish and Bundle Monster plate BM-321 to stamp ribbons on the pink. I guess I could have probably stopped there but I kept thinking jelly sandwich. 

I actually did leave my left hand like this with the white ribbons showing. 

My jelly sandwich idea would have probably looked much better had I used and actual jelly polish. I covered the right hand with another coat of Bottle Service and it pretty much hid my ribbons. You can still see them, vaguely, if you look hard enough. 

Not exactly the mani I was looking for but it wasn't horrible enough to make me take it off and start again. 

I liked the hand with the visible ribbons better than the other hand. Next time I will have to just go find the right polishes for my idea instead of being lazy and using what is out.

That's all for now :)

Born Pretty Store Sale

Hey Everyone!! I should be back tonight with a real post. If you have been wanting to snag anything from the Born Pretty Store tomorrow and Wednesday are the days to do it!! They are having a 3rd Anniversary Sale and you get 20% off everything!! 

I know I will be ordering some of those things that have been on my wish list for awhile now. 

That's all for now :)

Oopsie Daisies I'll Take Thee Away

Hey Everyone!!! Today is a good day. Mr. Neil went to the doctor and he doesn't have anything majorly wrong with him. Something upset his tummy and he is still not 100% better but the fact that he doesn't have anything major going on makes me feel more at ease. He also purred for me today which made me want to cry. He hasn't purred in days so that is very good news. 

Today I have the last of the Oopsie Daisies Sanderson Sisters Halloween Trio polishes to show you. This trio was based on the Halloween movie Hocus Pocus. The polishes are available now.

The Sanderson Sisters Trio is based on the three sisters from the movie. For Thy Sisters, I'll Take Thee Away and Witchcraft. 

I'll Take Thee Away is quite a stunner. Sometimes this one sometimes leans more purple and sometimes it leans magenta. You will see that it changes a bit in my pictures. The deep berry jelly base as it is listed comes packed with some stunning glitter in lilac, pink, purple and violet in various sizes and finishes. The purple in this polish is awesome. It also contains some very awesome pink holo dot glitter.

As with Witchcraft Cathryn adds a little baggie of extra pink holo dot glitter with this polish. The holo glitter is heavier and sinks a bit in the polish. The easiest way to get the dots to come out freely is by turning your bottle upside down for about 5 minutes before you use it. You can use the extra dots to either put more in your bottle of polish or place them on your nails where you want them to be. 

For this mani I used three coats. It was really really hard to capture the correct color of this polish. I would describe it as a purple berry color. Very pretty, very squishy and quite fun too.

The application was great on this polish but I did have a little bit of trouble with those dots. I used only what was in the bottle so that I could review the polish based on what is bottled. The first coat I didn't worry about getting any dots out. 

For the second coat I let my bottle stand upside down before using it in hopes that the dots would be easier to get out. For some reason I didn't get many dots at all on the second coat. I may not have left it upside down long enough because I know those dots were in there.

For the third coat I left the bottle upside down for quite a bit so I could get the glitter easier. It wasn't as easy as Witchcraft to get the glitter out but it wasn't terrible either. A few times I re-dipped the brush in the polish and on the second dip I got more than one dot. 

In the direct evening sunlight my pictures came out more magenta but I wanted you to see the pretty glitter.

It is quite nice and I love those holo dots.

I just realized I think this polish makes me think of Franken Berry cereal. That is probably only because I don't know Sarah Sanderson from Hocus Pocus since I have not seen the movie.  

I love how the edges of the dots show holo under the squishy jelly polish.

The dots remind me of the sun when they look like that.

Yeah, I took a ton of pictures for this one too.

I couldn't let this post go without trying a matte coat on this polish.

I love how it looks mattified. 

I almost wore it another day just to keep it matte.

Which one of the Sanderson Sisters Trio is your favorite? I can't decide. You can pick up your favorite or all three of this trio now at Oopsie Daisies. 

That's all for now :)