Greyhound Mani

Hey Everyone!! I am so happy it is Friday. I did not sleep well last night and I am tired!! I am super excited because after a year of going back and forth on wanting a makeup case and trying to figure out what I wanted I finally got one. Sort of. I found a great deal for one of those professional rolling cases on Craigslist and was actually able to get this one! It was a little difficult since she actually lives in one state but had the ad in a different state but she was going there for a visit and it was close enough to where my brother lives that we made it happen. She was really sweet and it was storming so she was running late and my brother was going out of town so he could only do it yesterday and it wasn't the easiest ordeal but she brought it pretty close to him which was awesome. I am so super excited however I don't know when I will get a chance to get it home. That is my excitement for the moment. 

Today I have another mani I did using Couture Gel Polish as a base.

I used Dance Til Dawn as a light base for some homemade decals I prepared. I wore this mani when the adoption kennel was closing and they were having a big open house to get dogs adopted. I made decals of the dogs that were actually available for adoption which was fun.

It was so cute because I actually know these guys. 

I loved them and so many people got a big kick out of seeing the dog pictures on my nails. Several people took pictures of them. I thought it would be a fun way to show off the dogs.

That's all for now :)

Racing into Our Hearts

Hey Everyone!!! Well, this was supposed to be posted yesterday however I didn't get it up in time. I wanted to get it up for the last day of National Greyhound Adoption Month, otherwise known as April. Since these dogs are amazing and gorgeous and they need to be adopted year around I don't feel the least bit bad about not making this post in April. As I blab about quite often I volunteer most weekends at the adoption kennel C works at for retired greyhounds. I also have one and will adopt more when the time comes that I can actually adopt more animals. I love them and was super excited when I saw a facebook post about this polish.

I have never tried Spellbound Nails polish before though I do believe I have heard of the brand. I am always worried about trying Indie brands that I don't know a lot about but this one is not only a greyhound polish but also a charity polish. A donation for every bottle of Racing into Our Hearts is donated to a greyhound adoption group called Allies for Greyhounds. That pretty much sealed the deal and made me purchase the polish. I know firsthand how adoption groups struggle and how meaningful donations are and lets face it, I will pretty much buy anything animal related. 

Racing into Our Hearts is a gorgeous butterscotch holo polish with dark flakies. It is holo and a greyhound polish which sold me instantly! I absolutely love the little heart sticker on the handle. Super cute added touch that made me smile. 

I had forgotten t o take a picture of the bottle so I had to take them really quickly this morning. This is in my dining room under the light next to the glass sliding door. You can see some holo in there even though the lighting wasn't strong.

I am not sure if all the labels are hand written but this one is. 

Now before I show you the mani I have to show you a brindle greyhound! This polish was inspired by the brindle coloring of a greyhound. I was a little skeptical of how close the coloring was when I received the package because I was in my car and not around a brindle greyhound. Our Charlie who is not a greyhound is brindle but he is more of a red brindle so when I put it next to him I didn't see the resemblance.

This is Paul. He is a very sweet boy who allowed me to use him as a model for this post. I love how he is sticking his tongue out in this picture.

He is such a patient boy. I was trying to get a picture with his face but he kept turning away. He was pretty much over the paparazzi since it was taking away from hug time.

I got a great picture with his coat and let me tell you it matched perfectly!! I was quite impressed when I got my polish right up next to a brindle grey. Quite impressed. I wouldn't mind a little bit more flakies but other than that the polish is awesome.

I added a waterslide decal I made with a random greyhound picture to my ring fingers for accents. The print is a little light for such a strong base but it was subtle and I loved that the greyhound looks brindle now. 

I used three coats for this mani. The first time I used the polish it was a little on the thick side so I used some thinner. It was the perfect consistency when I did this manner. I like polish on the thinner side personally. The application was great.

Sorry about the black on my pinkie. I was working on my swatch book for my stamping plates and didn't even notice the black until I went to take the pictures.

I love how pretty this shade is. Sometimes it leaned a little more gold but I believe that was due to lighting.

I would definitely buy more polishes from Spellbound Nails. This one was quite lovely and I do love that she does a charity polish and donates to a good cause.

I was only able to get one picture in the sun and it doesn't show off the holo nearly enough. The sun did not want to play yesterday afternoon so I was stuck with overcast sky lighting.

That's all for now :)

My Greyhound Adoption mani

Hey Everyone! It has been a crazy two days at work. The guy that works in the warehouse has been out sick so I have been covering for him. It is quite hot out there! I think it was 87 yesterday and the heat and humidity zapped all my energy. It didn't help that I spent the morning at the doctor's office and didn't eat anything until 1pm. Gotta love that blood work that requires fasting when your appointment isn't until 11:30am to begin with and then they don't bring you back into an exam room until well after noon. I am trying to get this in before heading home for the day so it should be brief. 

As you may know C works for a Greyhound Adoption. I volunteer over there a lot and have been taking pictures like the one above for National Adopt a Greyhound Month. I got the idea to do some nail art for the weekends based on the shirts that the group wears.

Since I don't have a greyhound stamping plate I made some water slide decals. I used some different images including one of Mr. Bruce! I am happy to report that they worked wonderfully and though I haven't tried the Bruce decals I will very soon.

Above is a picture of one of the shirts and my mani. I have a shirt that is in purple but it is pretty old and ragged so I took a picture of the pink one because it is newer. The purple one is what inspired the mani. I added the paw print on my pinkie because I couldn't leave it naked.

I did this mani with a base of Gelaze Secret Periwinkle. I stamped a pattern on the background with Konad m64 and Sinful Colors Slick. I stamped the paw print, peace sign and heart with black polish. I didn't realize I should have done my right hand with the pictures in the opposite order so of course they are backwards. duh for me.

I loved this mani but I meant to do some white stamping in the background to make it look more like the tie dyed t-shirts. Next time I will do something like that. I loved the mani but of course no one really noticed it much less connected it to the shirts I was wearing that weekend. Ah well, at least I can blog about it and enjoy it myself.

Sadly this mani didn't last through the weekend. Did I mention the kennel is terrible on my nails? 

That's all for now :)

Jawbreaker

Hey Everyone!! I am a little late posting this one. I actually did this mani for the Day of the Dead or Dia de Muertos. It is celebrated Nov 1-2 so as you can see I am a bit behind. 

I started with three coats of Funky Fingers Jawbreaker. My wonderful friend sent this to me for my birthday and it is one of the first ones I used. It is quite fun with all of the different color glitter in a white base.

I don't always enjoy multi colored glitters but this one I love. I think I prefer matte glitter in the multi glitter scheme of things. 

I really loved the yellow glitter and the white base. I love this polish and was super psyched to get it because we don't have any Five Below stores here. 

I then topped my accent nail with OPI Ski Slope Sweetie from the 2013 Mariah Carey Holiday Collection. This one was also in my birthday package and I love it. I love how cool it made my accent nail look.

I used sugar skull decals that I had bought long ago from LuckyStarStyle. I just realized in looking for their link that not only do they now have a reglar website here in addition to their ebay shop but they also now offer Free Shipping. This could be very bad for my wallet as I used to use the shipping cost to deter me from ordering too much.

I have a feeling I know where I will be going after I write up this post.

I really like how Ski Slope Sweetie looked through the decal.

Today seems to be dragging on quite a bit. I am ready to go home. 

That's all for now :)

Harvest Moon Skeletons

Hey Everyone!!! I edited a bunch of pictures last night so I have no excuse for a bit. Today I have a really late Halloween mani. This is what I actually wore on Halloween. It wasn't over the top but it had skeletons and glow in the dark. I am about to head out of work so I am not going to babble too much.

I used China Glaze Harvest Moon for all my fingers except the ring finger. I used China Glaze Ghoulish Glow for the base and then Sinful Colors Spiked Ice on the tips.

I used three coats for each polish except Spiked Ice. Spiked Ice is an awesome black bar glitter polish for the coming holiday collection.

The little skeletons are water slide decals from my favorite decal place LuckyStarStyle. I love how cute they are but they are hard to see unless you look pretty close. They are very detailed though.

My poor cuticles are ragged. I really think they don't like oil but yet I still use it trying to make them better.

I love Harvest Moon, it is so shiny.

I'm very confused as to why the guy that works in my warehouse just walked out with his stuff and yet we have 20 minutes left. I should probably go see what is going on.

That's all for now :)

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 :)