Frustration is an on going theme

Today's mani was supposed to be a baseball theme mani because it's Opening Day. WELL, let me just say, that failed miserably! I don't have too many white polishes but I do have an old black label bottle of OPI Alpine Snow that is maybe 1/3 to 1/2 full and is thick as can be. I was going to use this as the base and then draw stitching on so my nails were little baseballs. UM, yeah. That failed. Miserably.

Attempt 1: The white was a streaky mess but evened out a little bit but when I was done with the stitching I thought it looked horrible and I took it all off. I wasn't happy with it at all.

Attempt 2: The white played nicer after a little thinner but not nice enough. The stitching looked horrible again then I totally messed up my pinky and got mad. The white is so thick that it dented and got all sorts of crazy even with Seche Vite on top.  My baseballs failed :(  I was not happy.

That brought me to Zoya Phoebe. I told the bf to just pick one from my latest order. He randomly chose Phoebe which was exciting because I wanted to try it. Um, I think I should have just gone to bed. I did a quick two coats of base because I need the treatments and then two quick coats of Phoebe. It was pretty dry but I am a spaz and thought I would have problems since the base coats might not be and I topped it with Seche Vite. I love the color, it is really pretty. The formula was good and dried quick, thank you matte. This morning I decided I wanted to be able to show her as a matte and with top coat so I sponged over the tips and left the other half topped with top coat. It looks pretty in person but here is where the other frustration comes in, she WILL NOT photograph worth a dime.

So these pictures are pretty inaccurate. I am quite unhappy with that. The bottle shot is lighter than the actual bottle. Think deeper and darker.

I didn't want to include these pictures because they are no where near the color. They are way too light. These were taken in the car. I only included them because you can see the matte tips more in these pictures.

I tried sponging for the first time and it worked pretty well. Obviously you can't really see much. I should have just done one hand matte and one shiny but thought this would be cooler. I thought wrong.

These next two pictures are closer to what the color looks like. They are really close actually. I just held my hand up to the screen. Still a little off but closer.

Unfortunately it doesn't really show the difference in the polish with and without top coat.

I am really disappointed in these pictures. I very much love sharing my nails but if the photos aren't accurate and good I feel like I am failing. The bf keeps telling me I need to buy a new camera but I am stalling because I am trying to save the money not spend it. These pictures have helped push me toward just buying one. I have the North Carolina trip to get through first but it looks like I will be breaking down and buying one. Anyone have any suggestions?

That's all for now :)



Isn't it Iconic...Don't ya think...

Wow, I am now going to have that song stuck in my head all day. I saw something (I have no idea who it was or when or where) on that song once where the guy was going on and on and said The irony of that song is none of those things are ironic just plain bad luck and it cracked me up. I laugh every time I hear that song now.

Today random.org picked Cult Nails Iconic out for me. I was going to do the whole stamping or nail art thing but I have a really bad hang nail on one finger. Mind you, I never knew what a hang nail actually looked like until I googled it. I always thought part of your nail hung off or something. Yes, I am a dork. Well, yesterday I had a nice little hang nail that I made the mistake of messing with and angering greatly. It looks horrible right now and hurts and one day I will learn not to pick at things because not everything should be peeled off. I decided no nail art so I wouldn't have to mess with my nails too much, gotta keep it simple for awhile. You also don't get to see my right hand for awhile because it is just gross to look at.

Moving on to happy things...Iconic. This was another of my Valentine's Day gift. I am not a red/pink girl at all but this polish really is very pretty. It is a berry color with tons of gold shimmer and awesome little flakies all over the place. I love flakies so. I think they add amazing depth.

I took two bottle pictures today. The top one is inside in office lighting where the color is a tad darker and more purple. The bottom picture is standing in the door way with the sun on the bottle. It isn't direct sunlight because the sunlight was too blinding for my poor camera but you can see the color change a bit. You can see the shimmer and flakies in both pictures. Those babies never hide.

The application for this polish was great. Nice and smooth and flowed evenly with no problems. I used two coats but probably could have gotten away with a perfect mani in one coat had I used a thicker first coat.

These first two pictures were in the morning sunlight. The polish is super shiny and I love how the gold shimmer and flakies play in the sun.

This next picture is in the shade and you can see how the polish is a little darker.

I also took a picture in my office light just because I always do. I really like this color its a pretty berry. It kinda makes me want a raspberry flavored hard candy though. I think I am getting hungry.

This morning I stopped by Sally to see what was going on there. I shouldn't have wasted my time because that store is usually lacking anything good. They did not have the Orly Precious collection out at all and had a Tronica display half filled with random polishes and Tronica polishes in the regular rack. The Finger Paints display was also half filled with randoms except one Carnation Creation that had a yellow ring taped to it. So sad. I figured I would run into the grocery store that was right next door, even though I hate that store, because I needed bananas. It turned out to be the saving aspect of the trip because I found a CoverGirl Boundless Color in Pink Twinkle. Score! I love flakies!  

That's all for now :)

Button, Button, Who's got the button?

I love buttons. I used to have a whole tin full of them. Today it seems people are pushing my buttons. Ever have one of those days you just don't want anyone to bother you? Today is that day! I don't know why it is but every time I hear my name I scream inside my head. I would love nothing more than to crawl into bed and take a nap. I think I am just WAY overtired. Luckily this mani is super bright and cheerful.

Random.org picked this mani for me! I used Orly Spark which it picked Sunday night but I used P2 Rich & Royal instead. Then I used random.org to pick another color, NYC West Village for my Konad design. I figured it was time for some nail art. Then random.org picked the image plate I used. It actually picked 23 and since I don't have a plate numbered 23 I just counted to the 23 plate in my album. It was B49 which is one of the plates that came with the SHANY set I ordered way back when.

Orly Spark was one of my Christmas presents and I picked up West Village when I had a coupon for NYC polishes. The picture shows both darker than they are in real life. Spark is more of a pastel type yellow and West Village I honestly thought was purple until I stamped it. It was even living among the purples in the purple box. oops.

Since the top picture doesn't show much color I took another picture of West Village. You can see some blue in the top of the bottle.

Let me just say Spark is a pain in the rear to apply. I don't like saying I do not like polish but this one ticked me off. I actually did a full mani with three coats and was so annoyed by the streaks and unevenness I took it off and started over. I heard yellows were difficult but this little punk is a pain! On my second attempt I actually did the first coat horizontally across my nail hoping that would help with the streaks. It didn't help do much but make a mess. This is three coats because I refused to deal with it any longer. It is still streaky and uneven in certain areas but too bad.

AND THEN THERE WAS THE STAMPING. I LOVE the Shany plates BUT they are not as good as Konad plates. For the life of me I could not get the dang image to come up completely. You can see how much trouble it was. There is not a single image that isn't missing at least a little bit of it. I tried rolling, pressing hard, not pressing hard, stamping straight up and down, and the list goes on. No method I tried would pull the entire image off the stupid plate. As you can see I tried to double stamp twice to cover the areas that didn't pull the whole image but that failed too. I wasn't even going to show this mani because I thought it was bad.

I am wearing the dang thing anyway because I was too tired to take it off and do it again. The bf actually said it looked pretty cool. He just got new glasses, I question the job they did with them.

It was really gray and overcast this morning so the pictures in the car are not with bright sunshine light. The two below are the ones I snapped real quick when the sun came out for 2.3 seconds.

My right hand definitely came out better than my left hand.

The inside the office with the doors closed because it is hot as heck in South Florida and humid as can be of course came out darker than the actual color which annoyed me. I like the picture though so I used it anyway.

So Spark is not my friend. Image plate B49 is not my friend. I also went to put the brush back into the bottle of West Village because it had WAY too much polish and I missed getting polish all over the neck and side of the bottle which is not cute. It is cheery though. My dad even noticed them this morning when I took him to the pool. He said you have bright yellow nails with something strange on them. I told him they were buttons but he was already onto the next conversation. I wonder what tonight's random.org mani will be.

That's all for now :)



Shoeless in the Sunshine of Summertime

Yesterday I got home from work to two great packages. I was so excited because I knew one was my Zoya BOGO polishes but the other I wasn't sure what it was. It ended up being my free Essie polish from Toms!

The shoe brand Toms had a thing going awhile back where if you signed up for their facebook page they would send you a free bottle of Essie polish to promote their One Day Without Shoes event. They are trying to raise awareness of the impact of a pair of shoes for millions of children in developing countries. Toms donates shoes to these children world wide and their One Day Without Shoes event is a way to get the word out on the good they are doing. I was one of the lucky ones to receive the free polish and am currently sporting it on my toes (even though they ARE in shoes today). April 5th is the day for going without shoes and I think I will go to work without shoes wearing my One Day Without Blues polish on my toes. For more information you can go to the website One Day Without Shoes.

The Essie polish is actually Coat Azure with a custom One Day Without Blues label on the bottom. I love this polish and color!

Here is One Day without Blues on the left and Coat Azure on the right. They are twins.

And the little card that came with the polish.

I hate shoes so I will leave them off with pleasure!

Now for the Zoyas. I only bought two of the Sunshine polishes. Tanzy and Apple were the two that stood out most. Of course when I got the plate with my order I realized the others are so pretty as well and I probably could have bought a few more. The thing I love about Zoya is they won't disappear so I will have a chance to get them later. This combination will come in handy for UM football season.

I HAD to get all of the Mod Mattes Lolly, Mitzi and Phoebe. I love Matte, I love Zoya Matte and I have a thing for neons. I also like the frosted bottles.

Then the three cremes from the Summertime collection. These little brats would not photo well so the color is a little off. They are Kieko, Breezi and Mira. Mira reminds me of OPI Funky Dunky which is a lemming I have yet to get my paws on.

I put these babies on my spreadsheet so here's to hoping random.org calls their number soon.

That's all for now :)

March Monday Madness!

I don't like watching basketball much because all the action happens in the last two minutes so why watch the WHOLE game? I watch more now because the bf likes it (I am a football/baseball girl) and I had to reference the madness that this Monday has brought. It is super cool that two littler schools have made it to the final four and the big boys that usually dominate went home. I am pulling for Butler or VCU to win it all! That is the extent of my basketball discussion. To think I just wanted to use the March Madness as a headline and I had to get into basketball talk. ANYWAY...

So I think I got the problem with the last two posts fixed and the pictures should be showing. They are crazy looking but they are there. I don't know what happened, still can't figure it out. I will fix them when I get home though. My fingers look distorted in most of them. VERY ODD!

Last night we went to the county fair which probably wasn't a smart move to make on Sunday night. We waited for evening because it was HOT yesterday. A great time was had by all and my son won me a cow. There was a nail art booth among the vendors but I didn't stop to check it out because the child was quite eager to get to those games (no interest in rides what so ever, not sure who's kid this is). By the time I got home I was exhausted and went to work taking off my already chipped (opening the impossible new CD wrapper killed my mani) Mistletoe Kisses. I used random.org which picked out Orly Spark but quite honestly I was too lazy to go through the boxes to find it so I just grabbed one from the overflow box. Sadly I have an overflow box where the polish that won't fit in the shoe boxes lives. I grabbed P2 Color Victim Rich & Royal which I got in a swap with my great friend in Holland.

P2 is a German brand and when I tried to look up a website for it all I could find was the website for the drugstore that carries the polish. Unfortunately I realized VERY quickly the little color dots they have are no where near the actual colors of the polish so I abandoned that idea quickly. The bottle says it is Expert Gel Formula - ultra quick dry - long lasting & extra shiny. I of course did not pay attention to this part before I polished and though it is extra shiny now that could be due to the Seche Vite.

I decided I had to add some sparkle so I used the new Sally Hansen Insta Dry in Snappy Sparkles as an accent nail.

Rich & Royal applied so smooth. The first coat had pretty full coverage but I did need a second coat to even it all out. The color is a gorgeous purply taupe. It pulls way more purple in real life but I could not get the photos so show the purple. It doesn't help that it was extremely cloudy outside.

It was so cloudy and overcast this morning I was waiting for pouring rain but we haven't gotten any yet.

I played with the colors on the above picture to make the color closer to what it is in real life. It is still darker and less purple than what I am seeing on my fingers.

Snappy Sprinkles reminds me of Easter basket Grass. I had to use two coats because the glitter was so sparse it looked odd. I think it gives this mani a nice little sparkle. The polish was a little thicker than I like but it wasn't horrible. You really have to try and get those little suckers to go where you want on the nail though.

I took a couple pictures in my office to show it in office lighting.

It seems like a nice office color to me.

I LOVE guitars! I know this is totally random. I am learning to play and love everything guitar so I was totally excited to see this one booth at the fair. This guy makes jewelry out of Bass strings and guitar picks and other various parts. The stuff he had was awesome! We stopped by and talked to him for a minute and told him we would be back later then continued on to the fair. The bf is a guitar player and my son is learning Bass and both of them wanted different things from the guy so at the end of the night we went back. I think he was surprised that we actually came back like we said we would lol. We ended up buying a few pieces because the jewelry is that cool. I had to show off my new bracelet but I must apologize for my arms. I am really a South Florida girl that is THAT white. I avoid the sun like the plague!

So this is my kick ass bracelet made out of a guitar (it might be a bass) string and the little beads that come on the end of the strings.

It is freakin awesome. The bf got a bracelet made out of the little beads and two rings made from guitar strings and my son got a chain and cross made out of the beads. The guy was super cool and I of course love supporting the little guy. I think I am going to buy the other bracelets for myself later. They are made by Rock N Roll Jewelry in case you are interested. Check em out, they are cool!

AND last but not least my Morning Monday haul. I had to go to the little dusty beauty supply store to get Orly Prisma Gloss Gold for the package I am sending to Holland and anytime I go in there I always walk out with more than I went in for. I love that place. I haven't been for awhile and when I went today I did a happy dance, LITERALLY, in the aisle because they now have China Glaze! SO VERY EXCITED! The big rack they had was not full and they had a very limited amount of colors. I am guessing they just don't have it all unpacked yet because they did have every slot hand labeled with numbers and there were boxes everywhere. They have them at a great price too so I couldn't help but walk away with Kiwi Cool-Ada (I am digging neons right now) and Blue Sparrow. I can't wait for them to fill that rack up! I bet my wallet heard that and hid. I also picked up this Jordana Green Glitz that I was eyeing last time I was in there.

That's all for now :)

What the FRENCH TOAST STICKS?

What is going on with my blog? Did Aliens come steal my pictures from the last two postings? GRRR. I don't know if it only happens to me or if blogger sometimes has a mind of it's own but  there are some days the thing just acts funny. I had saved my work and then had to look at something and switched pages and came back to a picture less post. I figured I did something wrong and just re attached the pictures but my last two posts remain messed up. I am sorry about that. I don't have many readers but the ones I do have shouldn't be subjected to picture less posting especially when I am talking about the pictures. ARGH! I will try and fix them now but of course the pictures are on my home computer so they may not be up until later.

Sorry about the glich! I will have a new post up shortly. I have a pretty P2 polish as well as a mini Monday morning haul and a bad ass bracelet I got at the fair to show off. For now it is time to fight with technology. I never win that fight...

Mistletoe Kisses for Spring

Today I have a polish from China Glaze 2010 Tis the Season to Be Naughty or Nice collection. Mistletoe Kisses is a glass fleck light green polish. I would say it looks like wintergreen gum, well that is what it reminds me of in any case. I think I should go out and buy some gum now.

This polish applies very pale but builds up nicely. I used three coats to help reduce the visible nail line and make the color a little darker. I am thinking this polish might look great over a dark green base.

These first few pictures are taken in direct sunlight. The polish looks a lot lighter and my hands look extremely white in this light.

This polish is super sparkly and glittery in the sunlight.

The next few pictures are taken in the shade. The polish looks much darker and my hands look less white.

You can see tons of sparkle in low light as well.

The application was great. This polish wasn't gloopy like many glitters tend to get and applied very smoothly. I love this polish for spring as well as a holiday polish. It's a pretty spring green and sparkle is always

That's all for now :)