I am Back! Lots of Pictures Included!

Hey Everyone!!! I AM BACK!!! It was a nice break but I am finally back. Things have settled down for the most part so I am confident I can devote my attention to the blog again. My nails, however, have decided to be complete jerks and not cooperate. I decided to go forward and blog anyway. All of that will be explained in the next post. I figure I will start out with 2-3 posts a week instead of trying to do daily posts. I even got a little calendar to keep track of my manis so I can stay organized. When I was going through pictures on my camera I had forgotten what mani of the polishes I had used were. I decided I must write down everything from now on to keep myself from staring at the computer for 20 minutes trying to remember what I used. The great thing about my memory is that I eventually did remember all but one of the polishes I used in the pictures below. I wish I could say the same for the stamping images though. 

Today I have some of the manis I have done over the past few months. My nails will be various lengths because some of the pictures are older than others. Shall we take a look?

Back at the beginning of football season I did this mani combining C's NY Giants and my Buffalo Bills. It didn't quite come out as well as I had wanted it to.

I wasn't thrilled with the gold stamping. It looked much nicer in my imagination. 

Back when I was taking ds to the doctor all the time I saw this NYC Fashion Queen collection at one of my CVS stops. Since I was stressed and they were cheap I did a little retail therapy and bought the glitter polishes called Crystal Couture. I, of course, did not buy them all at once which tells you how many doctor trips we actually made. 

The Blue one is called Blue Majesty and the purple is named My Princess.

I don't usually do gold but I actually really liked this one a lot. It is called Fashion Queen.

I decided that it reminded me of gold coins and pirates plus I just really wanted to use a skull image so I stamped one on as an accent. 

I used Sugar Bubbles stamping plate 008 for this cute skull.

Queen's Jewels is the green color for this collection and I love it! 

I decided to do an accent nail with another recently acquired polish Sinful Colors Cauldron Couture.

This was the only bottle shot I took for some reason. I have no idea why I do the things I do.

The red from the Fashion Queen Collection also caught my attention despite it not being my favorite color.

The red one is pretty pink but I still loved the vibrant juicy color. It is called Ruby Queen.

I had done a few gel manis as well to help my nails grow a bit. I figured the protection of the gel mani would help keep them going.

For this gel mani I used Gelish Race you to the Bottom.

My nails were pretty damaged so the gel manis didn't wear quite as good as I would have liked. I hate when one or two nails ruin it for the whole mani!

This mani was the one that I could not remember at all. I finally remembered that the base color was one of the Fall Limited Edition Wet N Wild Megalast Matte polishes but I still am not positive what the glitter accent is.

The Wet N Wild is called Distressed to Impress. I love the color of this one oh so much! I believe the glitter is a Sinful Colors glitter but I am not 100% positive on that one. 

That's all for now :) 

Gelaze Celtic Sun Stamped

Hey Everyone! I am typing from a very clean keyboard right now. I accidentally spilled water all over my keyboard this morning. I had to take off each key individually and clean under them to ensure I got all the water. Other than my T which is sticking a little bit the keyboard is tying so much nicer now. I don't even want to think about how much dirt and crumbs and stuff was under those keys. 

Today I have some stamping over one of my Gelish manis. For some reason I am missing a lot of pictures of various manis including a picture of just the Gelish polish. Things should be more organized now.

I started with a base of Gelish Celtic Sun. I used this one without using a white base which was somewhat of a mistake. I had to use four coats to get it dark enough for my liking. It is quite neon and very fun even though it doesn't pop as much as it would with a white base. It also looked very much yellow and non neon under certain lights which was weird.

I wanted to mix up a few different designs for this mani. I looked through my stamping swatch book for designs that reminded me of the 80's-90's when I was in my major neon phase. I think I picked some pretty decent designs and patterns that I am sure I probably wore at some point.  

I used Pueen plate Pueen 05 from the 2013 25F stamping set for my index fingers. I strategically placed the happy faces from Mash-31 on my middle fingers. I figured if I was showing anyone my bird it would be a nice happy face they got to look at. I used the swirly design from Bundle Monster BM-418 for my ring finger and BM-416 for the splatter design on my pinky.

I loved this mani. It was bright and fun and totally reminded me of my childhood. I would have kept it on longer but it started chipping. I am not completely thrilled with the wear time I get on Gelaze polishes. I think this mani lasted a total of 4 days one of which I spent most of the night in the car doing absolutely nothing that would affect wear time.

That's all for now :)

Violet Crystal Medieval Madness

Hey Everyone!!! It's hump day woooo, woooo. It has been a little bit busy these past few days. The old saying when it rains, it pours has definitely held true for us this past week. Lots of stuff going on, most of which is the adult issues that I don't want to deal with ever. I would prefer being an irresponsible kid but of course we all know that isn't how it works. Since I have been doing a lot of work at the kennel, mostly on the weekend now, I have been using gel polish a lot. Today's mani is another gel mani. Fear not, I will have regular polish posts coming soon. 

I felt like I wanted a nice, light, spring mani however my gel polish collection is not as extensive as my regular polish collection. The good news is I have a ton of different glitters from ArtsyFartsyCrafts to help add some life and change up the colors I do have.

I wanted a nude or off white color and the only thing I have in my collection that fits that bill is Gelish Medieval Madness. I love the color but it wasn't exactly what I wanted. I think I was thinking more of an ivory or off white in my head. It still looked nice with this glitter so I was happy with it.

I used ArtsyFartsyCrafts glitter in Violet Crystal to give it a pop of color. This glitter is very fine .025" 1/40" glitter. It is probably the largest glitter I will work with on a mani unless I am going to strategically place the pieces of glitter. I tried doing a gradient however it just wasn't working out for me that day. It instead wants to be a gradient but didn't quite make it. 

This glitter is a really pretty iridescent violet color. It is much lighter on the nail then it looks online or even in the jar. When the glitter spreads out it shows it's true color. I was surprised the first time I used this particular glitter because it was so much lighter on the nail than I expected and it didn't show up the way I wanted on the base polish I picked. Against Medieval Madness it really shows how pretty it is. 

I love the versatility of Medieval Madness. It can be a great palette cleanser and you can do so much using it as a base. It is definitely one of my favorite gel polish colors.   

I did this mani around Easter because I thought it would be a great base for some Easter stamping. Unfortunately my stamping was all disastrous and then I ran out of time and had to go with this mani non stamped. 

The good news about having a gel polish base is that even though I had to remove 5 different stamping attempts I still had a great mani ready to go. I would have probably given up after two attempts if I had to keep redoing the base every time I messed up the stamping.

That's all for now :)

Bows and Greyhound polish

Hey Everyone! I have a love/hate relationship with the mailmen that deliver to my job. Today I hate them. I could go on a long rant but I won't bore you with the details. One day I am going to end up throwing mail at one of these jerks though. One day it will happen! 

Since today's mani is somewhat of a fail so I added some fun pictures to brighten up the post. I recently came across an awesome store over on storenvy called S&M Bows and Stuff while I was looking for nail plates. I am a kid of the 80s/90s and I love the cartoons from that era. I also love Disney stuff. When I saw the bows and earrings and necklaces in shop I basically freaked out. Literally freaked out because there was some awesome stuff and the prices are so reasonable. Since I am not 5 nor am I a cheerleader I didn't think I could pull off wearing these super cute bows in my hair. I was slightly disappointed until I realized HELLO, I KNOW KIDS!! So I ordered a bunch and I didn't break the bank doing so. I can not rave enough about the awesome customer service and great product. I asked for a couple of bows that weren't listed in the shop and I was given several different options to choose from. You know I had to buy several! 

When the bows arrived I freaked out even more. They are so cute and so awesome. I couldn't stand the excitement so I had Neil try one on. Since C whined that I couldn't put a hair bow on a boy cat I put it on him like a bow tie. I am going to actually order some for myself. Screw it, I don't care if I am not 5 years old, these bows are cute and I am going to wear one! I have an idea for a couple that I would love to have for when I am at the kennel so I will have to look into if we can make those happen. 

This was the entirety of my order. How awesome is that Rainbow Brite bow? She was my favorite as a kid. I need to mail these out so I can see if the girls like them. If they don't I am definitely telling their mother to send them back to me and I will wear them myself! Super cute stuff. You can check out S&M Bows and Stuff on Facebook too. 

I guess we should get to the mani now huh. Since April is National Greyhound Adoption Month and I love all things greyhound when I heard about a special greyhound polish I had to check into it. I saw a random post on Facebook about this Charity Polish that Spellbound Nails put out for April called Racing into Our Hearts. I have heard of Spellbound Nails but hadn't tried any of their polish yet. After talking to C and telling him how a donation from every bottle sold is being given to Allies for Greyhounds he encouraged me to go buy it. I did. 

I didn't want to have to use too many coats to cover such a dark base so the first time I used Racing into Our Hearts I did so as an accent. I used three coats on my ring finger and then stamped with it on the other nails. The stamping is supposed to be paw prints but you can hardly see them.

The paw prints showed up a lot better before I put topcoat on the mani. The stamping is the semi fail aspect of this mani. I didn't necessarily expect the polish to stamp well but it didn't do too bad. If I hadn't put top coat on the mani you would have been able to see the paw prints really well.

Racing into Our Hearts is a very pretty Butterscotch color. It looks much more gold in these pictures than it looks on my hands. I was trying to show the holo before the sun disappeared on me.

I didn't love this mani but I do like Racing into Our Hearts a lot. I love that it is a greyhound polish!

Not only is this baby holo but it has dark flakies in there to represent the brindle color of a greyhound. It is a pretty awesome interpretation of a brindle. I am going to have a full mani of Racing into Our Hearts for you tomorrow. 

That's all for now :)

Black Holo Foil Gel Mani

Hey Everyone!! Monday has got to be my most disliked day of all time. I dread Mondays. I think it is mainly because I spend most of my weekend at the kennel and haven't had much of a break. Friday I had a migraine but had to go to work anyway. It was quite unpleasant. Saturday I tried to relax so I stayed home all day and laid around then ran a couple of errands when C got home from work. Apparently I need more downtime than that because I am once again exhausted on this fine Monday and I would like nothing more than a nap. We also started Weight Watchers again so I would really like some food in addition to that nap. I didn't play very well and don't have much for an afternoon snack. Is it Tuesday yet?

Today I have a mani experiment to show you. I was hoping I could get nail foils to work with my gel mani. Unfortunately it wasn't a complete success but at least it wasn't a complete fail either. 

I used Fantasy Starry Holo Nail Foils Glitter Transfer Stickers #76 from BornPrettyStore. These sheets of foil was .99 and a great way to give foils a try without committing to ordering too much. I actually used twice as much as I would normally use because I had so many issues working with the gel and I still barely made a dent in the sheet. Design #76 is quite pretty and since the base of the foil is a black or charcoal color I figured I would use a black or dark gel polish. I was hoping a dark base would show off the pretty foil. 

I started with my left hand and used a black polish from Sally Hansen. I had the worst time trying to get the foil to stick to the sticky layer of the mani. I tried as many different tricks and techniques as I could come up with and nothing worked. In the end I had to use a clear polish and let it dry until it was tacky. The foil then stuck to that polish. I was able to do my gel topcoat to seal the foil in.

I didn't think that the foil was showing up as well as I wanted so I attempted a blue base for my right hand. Once again I couldn't get the foil to stick to the gel so I had to use clear polish and then gel topcoat.

I didn't get the effect I wanted but look at how pretty the foil is in the light. This mani actually reminded me of bowling balls for some reason. I really liked the look of the foil but that color spark was not as evident in regular lighting. It took a lot of bright light to really show the colors.

I didn't like the blue base as much but it was still quite cool looking.

I think the indoor shot above shows the look that really reminded me of a bowling ball. I really liked this mani but I did have some issues with it. 

The gel top coat had an issue on a couple of nails where it didn't cover the foil. I didn't notice it at first but then started to see a couple of spots where the nail was dull and I could scratch away at the foil. I was really careful about covering the entire nail with topcoat plus I had used a layer of Structure before the top coat. I am not really sure what happened to cause the issues.

Since I only had issues with a couple of nails I just applied a new layer of top coat on the problem nails and hoped for the best. It seemed to work and keep the foil from trying to escape.

I absolutely love nail foils now. They are fairly easy to use, though not quite as easy when using gel polish. They look really neat and add quite a cool aspect to your mani. I am definitely going to need to purchase more foils in the future.

My goal is to have a mani where the entire nail is covered in foil. I have yet to be able to get that result but I am determined to make it happen. Using a base that works with the color of the foil definitely helps. 

It was harder to tell where the foil didn't quite cover the black nails where as it was quite obvious with the blue base. I might have to look into the foil adhesive too. Using polish works quite well but I would like to see if there is any advantage to the adhesive. I am sure Elmers School Glue would work too.

You can purchase this and many other nail foils at BornPrettyStore. You can use coupon code JLG10 for 10% off. 

That's all for now :)