Anti Valentine

Hey Everyone!! Happy Valentine's Day to those that chose to fall into the over commercialized trap of it all. I kid, I kid. Seriously Happy Valentine's Day to those of you who celebrate it. I have mentioned that we don't really do anything. I did actually find cute and very corny printable Valentine's Day cards that the NY Giants have on their website and printed those out for C. They are lame and silly and I will probably get the whole "Valentine's Day doesn't exist to us remember" line but how could I not print out a card with something as corny as "Will you be my co-captain?" on it. I will stop and get T some candy and we will call it a regular Friday night. For those of you who don't celebrate Valentine's Day this mani is more geared toward you :)

I figured I would actually do a red mani this year but then I decided I had to go anti Valentine with it just to counteract the red.

I started with a base of the CND 2011 Red Hot Duo. Just Red is the creme color in the duo. It is a really nice polish that is somewhere in between a jelly and a creme. I actually love the formula on that polish even if it is red. I then applied one coat of Red Sparkle which is the glitter portion of the duo. Red Sparkle is a very fine red glitter in a clear base. I love that glitter, it reminds me of the fine sugar they sprinkle on sugar cookies at Christmas time.

Since that was just not enough sparkle I added a coat of Girly Bits Canuck the Dots which was made for Canada Day. They are back online and you can find the shop here. Canuck the Dots is in the On the Way Out section so if you are interested in it you should jump on it soon before it is retired. I love this combination of matte red and white glitter in various shapes and sizes. It is perfect for not only Canada Day but also Valentine's Day, July 4th (adding some blue of course) and Christmas. Yeah, I really didn't need all those reasons to buy it but they worked well as my excuses :)

For the stamping I went with skulls and broken and splattered hearts. Festive isn't it?

The skulls came from Mash plate Mash 26. I used whatever black polish I had sitting on the table for stamping. I think it was Wet N Wild.

I used Gals plate GA12 from the 2013 Princess set for the broken heart and Fab Ur Nails plate FUN12 for the splattered heart design.

I don't have a picture of Bruce today but I do have a new plate that I just got in the mail. I love Nail Mail! It is MJ jr 5 from the new jr plate collection. So cute! 

That's all for now :)

My Snoopy Valentine

plate RuiZ02  girly bits auld langs wyne muted burgundy wine linear holo  BM-H17

Hey Everyone!!  I am getting a headache so I am going to make this brief. I do have a ton of pictures for you though :) I think this might be my favorite of the Valentine's Day manis that I have done this year. I love Snoopy though so it has a slight edge.

I started with a base of Girly Bits Auld Langs Wyne. I would link you to the shop but she it is currently in maintenance mode. You can buy Girly Bits from Llarowe though. 

I used three coats of Auld Langs Wyne. It is a gorgeous muted burgundy wine color and it is holo! Omg the holo. Oh so holo. As you can see it is holo even in low light.

I made stamping decals with RuiZ02 for the Snoopy design. I had some issues with my top coat smearing which made me sad. I would have redone those nails but it was so late already and I was tired. 

Some sun really brings out the holo. I used BM-H17 to make decals for the hearts. I would have stamped them straight on my nails but I didn't think I could line them up right. 

I didn't top coat the mani until both of the stamping decals were placed on my nail so they would be on the same layer.

The light over my oven also makes the holo come out and play really nicely.

I love hearts and I love Snoopy and I really love holo so this mani made me quite happy!

My poor index finger nail broke and I had to nubbinize it. I am hoping it grows back soon. I think that in my mission to make a stamping book trying to get the plates out of the holder actually cut the nail.

Auld Langs Wyne is from the 2013 Holiday Collection. I picked this beauty up on a blog sale and oh my gosh it has made me want ALL of the holos. 

It was probably better when I was attempting to ignore all the awesome new polishes coming out because I seriously can't stop looking for holos now. 

That's all for now :)

Blue Valentine

Hey Everyone! I am having a very cranky day today. I am also getting a headache. Sadly I have no pictures of Bruce or any of the furbabies today. I wish I did because they are so cute. I do have another Valentine's Day mani for you today.

I decided to go a different route with the hearts and give them a nice blue background for this mani.

wnw teal slowly and see listening to blue reed PUEEN35

It is hard to tell but the blue is actually a gradient using Wet N Wild Teal Slowly and See and Listening to Blue Reed. I used a makeup sponge for this gradient and actually started with Teal Slowly and See as the base. I then sponged both colors on top. It didn't quite work out the way I intended but in person you can actually see the gradient a little more.

I then used black polish and PUEEN35 from the Pueen Love Elements collection to do the stamping.

I made stamping decals as my first attempt but I stamped with a blue Kleancolor polish and then filled in the hearts. They were really disastrous and I hated the way they came out so I decided to just save time and stamp in black. I think I needed to use a darker stamping color to make the decals work but I wasn't about to make them all again at that point.

I used CoverGirl Anti Freeze on top to give the mani some pretty sparkle. 

Anti Freeze did smear the stamping a little but only in some spots. It has a really odd consistency that is thick but runny at the same time. It is really pretty though.

This was a nice bright cheery mani and I almost left it on longer but decided I needed to do another Valentine's Day mani for tomorrow's post. 

I am not sure but I think we had to run out this evening and do some things so I am hoping I get home in time to both edit tomorrow's pictures and do another mani. I have a feeling I am going to have to miss one post this week though. 

That's all for now :)

Chromatic Creation Hearts

Hey Everyone!! Well what do ya know two posts in one day! We don't actually do Valentine's Day but since I love hearts I always do Valentine's Day manis. I know, it is weird. I figured I would do some Valentine's Day manis for this week even though I am sure some of them won't actually be your typical red and pink themed manis. 

Before we get into the mani however I have a couple pictures of my little love Mr. Bruce. He cracked me up when I saw him in the window but it was really hard to get a good picture.

The funniest thing about this is that he is on top of something so he is at the top of the window. I couldn't post the picture showing the full window because the glare made it hard to see him. Just imagine him at the very top of a big window with just his head poking out of the blinds.

He was watching some birds. So funny and cute.

For my first Valentine's Day mani I used Finger Paints Chromatic Creation as the base.

I stamped with Cult Nails Quench which looked bright pink or magenta stamped over Chromatic Creation. I It was a happy accident since I was expecting something more red. The hearts I stamped with Wet n Wild black polish.

I stamped the hearts with Pueen plate PUEEN43 from the 2013 24E-Love Elements Collection.  I used Quench and Winstonia plate W113 from their first generation set for the hearts.

I wanted to add something more so I used heart shaped rhinestones from a wheel I bought on ebay. I alternated pink and red hearts. I don't like to topcoat rhinestones but I did it for this mani since the last couple of times I tried to go without top coating them I lost a few.

I put two coats of top coat on this mani and didn't see much sun after that so I didn't see the holo from Chromatic Creation much after stamping over it. I know it was there a little bit because I did get a peek at it once but it wasn't very visible. I was wondering how top coat would affect the holo but totally forgot to try it when the sun was out.

That's all for now :)

Chromatic Creation

Hey Everyone!!! Mondays are very much not my friend. I think I might have woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I didn't have much interest in getting up and I was having a really weird dream. I was also in a pretty deep sleep when that stupid alarm went off. 

I have a few pictures of Bruce in his fort to make Monday a little better. I WILL get back to Monday Blues soon I just need to get a little more organized. I actually have a blue mani on today and it is Monday but it isn't ready for the blog yet. Anyway back to Bruce.

We had the dog food cases sitting next to the couch and he decided he was going to get behind them and hide so he would be ready for attack.

Now of course when I grabbed the camera instead of being in the stealthy observation position with his head now and his little eyes peering just over the top of the cans he decided he had to act like he was just hanging out and not stalking.

The little bug knows when I grab that camera and every single time he moves from the position I was trying to take a picture of. This is the closest to his stalking stance but he was much lower. I actually didn't notice him behind there at first. Sadly we had to take his fort down but I am sure he will find a new post soon.

So this month at Sally Beauty Supply Finger Paints are on sale Buy one Get one Free. I of course had to take that offer up and also see if they had their new holo polish out. I wasn't sure what to expect from this polish because holo and mainstream brands don't often go together. 

Finger Paints Chromatic Creation is one of the new colors in the newly designed Finger Paints line. Would you believe that stupid index finger nail broke even more and is now shorter than in that picture. I have no idea why these nails taunt me so. I used three coats of Chromatic Creation for this mani.

In the bottle Chromatic Creation looks like a silver polish. I saw no hint of holo at all in the store, my house or even outside on the way to the car. I don't remember if it was a cloudy day that day but when I wore this I only had a little bit of sun to work with. Inside my office the holo came out to play a bit. 

I saw some pictures about the internet of this one and in my opinion the pictures I had seen look a lot more holo than it looked on my nails. 

The application was really nice on this one though. I didn't have the dragging and balding that you have with some holo polishes. I didn't even wait very long in between coats and still no problem. This one doesn't apply as nicely as the Color Club Holos which are amazing but it is a lot better than the China Glaze Hologlam collection.

I managed to get some sun shots on day 2 of this mani. I will say I had applied this over my gel mani but did not use a top coat. I had no issues with the tips wearing off or chipping at all. I can't say for sure if having the gel mani base helped in that area but I was impressed that the polish still looked good.

In the sun you can see the holo better. In the shade it looks like a silver polish.

I took a ton of pictures of this one. 

I'm glad to see that Finger Paints decided to put a holo in their line up. Now if we could get companies to stop calling things holo that clearly aren't holo things would be good.

I finally had to give in and cut down my ring and pinky nails a bit. So far it has helped keep them from breaking which is good. I think this is the first time in a long time I have had all the nails on one hand be longish at the same time.

I didn't even realize until I just typed that about shortening my nails that I did it while wearing this mani. Duh. I guess you can tell which pictures were taken the first day and which were taken the second day now.

That's all for now :)

Purple for World Cancer Day

Hey Everyone!! Today is World Cancer Day and I did a purple mani to support that cause. 

I used a base of Zoya Mira from the 2011 Summertime Collection. I used three coats. Mira is a gorgeous purple. These pictures aren't very color accurate, purple is not the easiest color to photograph and Mira wasn't very cooperative.

This picture is more color accurate but I think Mira is a little darker in person. Zoya calls it a "blue toned medium purple with dusty lavender tones". I call it a very pretty purple creme.

I just noticed when I was editing these pictures I apparently had animal cracker crumbs on my fingers still. Oops. Sorry about that.

I used Bettina Polish in VIP for the stamping. I should have tested the polish before starting the stamping because VIP stamps very lightly. It is a nice subtle look which I liked but at some angles you couldn't even tell it was stamped.

I used Bundle Monster plate BM-H18 from the Holiday set for the heart design. I love the holiday set of plates! I really love the designs and they work really well. I think they are the best working plate set Bundle Monster has come up with so far.

That's all for now :)