Rainbows and Dragonflies

Hey Everyone!! IT IS FINALLY FRIDAY!!! YAY!! Unfortunately I am still at work but at least it is Friday! I spent most of last night practicing guitar so I don't have pictures ready for you. Luckily I have a backup plan!  I rarely have a backup plan lol. 

 Color Club Harp On It from the 2012 Halo Hues Collection was used for the base of this mani. That is where the rainbows in the title come from lol It is a stretch but I coldn't come up with a good name.

I then used acrylic powder in different colors and a 3D mold I got on ebay to make little acrylic dragonflies.

I had never been able to make the dragonflies look good because the mold is so tiny. I was really playing around at first but ended up loving the little things so much I put them on all my nails.

The wings are clear acrylic so they dont show up real well in the pictures but they are there!

I loved this mani so much. It was bright and for once the dragonflies actually came out good!

In the close up picture you can see the little wings.

Oh and Harp On It is an awesome holo! I love it! Super holo even indoors.

I will do more manis with my 3D molds as soon as I can find all of them. Somehow I lost a couple designs. I have no idea where they went.

Also a quick couple of pictures of a mohawk hat I did for someone my mom knows. She is having a baby and the theme is mohawks.

It is a small little hat even though it looks huge in this picture lol

I wish I had a baby to model it.

That's all for now :)

To Buy or Not to Buy...NOT To Buy

Hey Everyone!!! I have a cat in my lap. He didn't want to sit on the couch by himself and whined until I went over and got him. He is sooo spoiled. He says hello and wants to let you know he is my helper tonight, as long as he doesn't fall off my lap lol I just spent about an hour looking at blogs and commenting. I am so very behind and have about 400 posts in my reader. I don't use reader all the time but lately I have been using it at work. I think I might have to call it a day and mark them all as read and start over. I am so behind I might never catch up.

Today I have a nice Spring polish for you on the first day of Spring. I guess that worked out well because I totally didn't plan it.

Essie To Buy or Not to Buy from the 2012 Spring Navigate Her Collection.

Essie calls this polish a lavender with a shimmer. You can see the shimmer in this bottle shot a tiny bit. You see even less of it on the nail. IF you hold it at the right angle in the right light at the right time you can see a tiny bit of shimmer on the nail but if you blink it is gone.

If I was staring at this polish in the store again wondering To Buy or Not to Buy I would definitely NOT buy it again. I was frustrated and infuriated to no end with this polish.

This took FOUR coats which I do not enjoy doing. I let each coat dry for quite a bit of time before moving on to the next step so not only did this mani take forever but I still wasn't happy with some of the spots that could have used a fifth coat.

It was pretty hard to get this to photograph accurately too. I don't know if it was this whole collection or Essie in general doesn't play nice with me but I had some awful problems with Navigate Her as well. I am going to have to do some testing with my other Essie polishes to determine if all of them hate me or just the ones from this collection.

The polish itself is a very pretty color but without the shimmer it doesn't feel very unique to me.

It is very Spring like and perfect for this time of year.

I stamped over this mani but I am going to make that a separate post because I can. lol I didn't want to overload this one with pictures so I figured I would break it up. 

I do have a picture of my latest crochet projects. 

I am participating in an Easter exchange and the person I got likes minions so I made her a minion. I saw these peeps and had to make a million of them. The little eyes and mouths are a pain to sew on but they look so cute. I have about 16 more peeps to put eyes and mouths on and at least 6 more minions to make. Everyone saw the minions and wanted me to make them one lol Apparently destructo dog got a hold of one of my peeps somehow because there is a dead one on the floor that is all dirty and destroyed. I have no idea how he got a hold of it but I wouldn't be surprised if Bruce assisted.

That's all for now :)

Don't Feed the Tiger

Hey Everyone!  Sorry I skipped yesterday. I think I have either pulled something or I have a pinched nerve in my shoulder and last night it was hurting. After using the heating pad for awhile I figured I would start a gel mani in hopes I would start feeling better. I did start feeling better since I had changed the way I was sitting BUT the gel mani took way too long and by the time I was done I was too tired to blog. The mani came out pretty nice but I definitely need a new area to do my gel manis in because the lighting was awful.

Today I have a mani to show you that I did for New Years. I don't do gold often and figure New Years was the time to do it.

I had a gel mani base of IBD Aphrodite on already and painted over it.

This was three coats of Aphrodite.

It was nice and sparkly, perfect to do gold over.

I used Essence Don't Feed the Tiger from their Circus Circus collection. It is a duo polish with gold on one side and black square glitter on the other. I had a duh moment and forgot to take a picture of  the polish.

I LOVE this combo. I love the glitter too and honestly the gold is not so gold that it is the type of gold I don't wear. This polish is a complete WIN!

I did more of a gradient with the gold. I didn't go all the way down to my cuticles so you can see Aphrodite peeking out.

I LOVE black glitter and I didn't realize until I started painting that this was square glitter. BONUS! I wanted to do a reverse gradient with the glitter and have it thicker at the base then thinning out toward the tips.

I didn't quite accomplish it completely because the square glitter was sparse and not the right type of glitter for what I envisioned but I LOVE the way it came out.

I love that my camera can take these close up shots! SO AWESOME!!

AND I introduce you to my snowman clan.

I don't remember if I showed them before but I LOVE THEM so I am showing them again. Most of them have flown to their new homes already.

That's all for now :)

Mani Fail and some recent projects

Hey Everyone! It has been a tad difficult to get on the computer lately. I tried getting this post up at work today but my internet would not cooperate. So I tried Coconut Water tonight and OMG ewwww. I am sorry, I know people purposely drink it but I can't handle it at all. I have decided to stop drinking diet soda. I  stopped drinking regular soda earlier this year and pretty much the only soda I will drink now is Diet A&W Rootbeer or Diet 7-Up. I read something yesterday about how diet soda really is not good for you so I decided to give it up all together. I wish regular plain water tasted better because I find it pretty boring.

Today is a conglomeration of stuff for you. I have a failed mani and some crochet projects I hadn't posted yet. I guess we should get going before I get distracted lol.

First I will show you the Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Swamp Thing mani I had on when my CrowsToes arrived. It was not pretty. I have a cleanup brush at work which is what I was trying to use but it is pretty much dead so it messed my mani up more than it cleaned it up. I LOVE the color but oy the pictures are not good.

I didn't intend to show this mani because it was so awful so I don't remember if it was two or three coats.

My little nubs are growing out which is good. They are pretty damaged but I am going to keep them on the shorter side until I can grow that damage out. At least that is the plan for now. Who knows I could change my mind once they start growing lol.

I love this color and I think Swamp Thing is the perfect name. I intend to use this polish again soon and will show you better pictures then.

Bruce was helping me open my nail mail and take pictures of all the bottles.

He was also trying to commandeer all the bubble wrap.

I made these silly pencil toppers for my cousin's daughters.

I thought they would be cute.

I also made these cute little pouches. I have some little gifts that I need to give to people and thought it would be cute to put them in these. That yellow yarn actually smells. It totally freaked me out when I was crocheting it. I kept smelling something lemon lime like and couldn't figure out where it was coming from. When I smelled the actual skein of yarn it didn't smell but later I realized it WAS the yarn after all. I have two questions about this #1 WHY is there a need for scented yarn and #2 WHO thought it was essential for life that there be scented yarn. 

That's all for now :)

Candeo Plumage

Hey Everyone!! IT IS WEDNESDAY!!! That means much closer to the weekend so I am excited. Still tired and wishing it was Friday but at least it is closer.

Today I have for you a polish from one of the first Indie brands I discovered. Candeo Colors has a huge selection of glitter polishes that are both tinted and clear base top coats. I bought my first two Candeo Colors polishes and was hooked. You can buy them from their website (when it is stocked) or the lovely Leah Ann over at Llarowe I absolutely LOVE Candeo Colors and can not rave enough about the gorgeous polish or the customer service. STELLAR customer service! I love their website and watching the pretty polishes change on the banner. When I went to the website this morning to link to it for this post I noticed there are four new colors that I will be NEEDING to get my paws on.

Today I have for you Plumage.

Plumage is right up my alley packed with tons of green and blue glitter in different shades.

I used my Saran wrap mani of Essie Navigate Her and China Glaze Kalahari Kiss as a base. I used just one coat of Plumage because I am hoarding it. It was jam packed with glitter.

This polish sparkles like you would not believe. I loved this mani oh so much.

I tried to catch it in the sun but we were having overcast days that were uncooperative but boy this polish is distracting!

Gorgeous polish. Alot of Indie glitter polishes are really thick and need to be thinned. I didn't have a problem with Plumage and right now I don't need to thin it. The coat I used was on the thicker side but it wasn't so thick I couldn't deal with it.

I took a ton of pictures of this one lol. I am using a bunch of them because it is that pretty. I know they all look the same but I can't help it.

See that sparkle?! I wore this mani for a couple days before touching it because I loved it that much.

I haven't shown you any of my crochet projects in a bit so I have one for you today. Since Plumage was inspired by the plumage on the pretty birds of the world I figured I would show you something bird related. This is an owl mug cozy. I made it for a lovely girl I did a swap with since I recall her mentioning she drinks tea. I hope I didn't make that up and she really does drink tea or coffee lol.

It is super cute and now I need to make myself one because I love it.

I modeled it on my coffee cup. This is actually made for a mug with a handle and has a button and wraps around the handle but you can't tell from this picture.

That's all for now :)

A Sad Goodbye and an Olympic Mani

Hey Everyone! It has been a long, hectic weekend and last half of last week. My son returned from his trip and I had the kids at work and I am just mentally worn out and physically tired. Today we had to say goodbye to our oldest dog Midget. She is the one in the back left of the picture closest to the door. My dad got her from a little girl on his route who used to feed her doritos. Her mom wouldn't let her keep the puppy any more and told her to go out to the parking lot (they lived in an apt building) and let it go. My dad used to talk to the girl when she hung out at the mailboxes waiting for the mail and told her to give him the puppy. Midget fit in his hand. She came to our house and never left.

She was a spunky little girl with a crooked tail who loved to give hugs. She had cancer and unfortunately got to the point where it was best to let her go. She has joined her friends Auggie and Dakota over the rainbow bridge today. She was loved and will be missed.

I don't have a whole lot to say today so I will just show you the pictures of another Olympics mani.

I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Thinking of Blue for the base.

I used the star image on Bundle Monster plate BM21 for the design.

I used a red striper glitter polish to put some color into the design. I left my ring finger with the stones on it alone as an accent finger. I really just didn't want to have to take the stones off.

This is the fuzzy army that was posing with my nails the other day. Two of them went to live with my cousin's twins and the rest went to wish my friend Jess a Happy Birthday. I need to make more of them as I find them incredibly entertaining.

That's all for now :)