OCC Radiate

Hey Everyone!!! It has been a pretty stressful week over here in turtle land. Luckily tomorrow is Friday and I have a chocolate bar at my desk. 

Today I have a pretty simple stamping mani I did not long ago. I bought Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Radiate on a whim from I think a Store Envy store. It might have been a blog sale but I don't recall exactly where. I pretty much just added it in because I wanted to make the shipping more justified and it was pretty cheap. I can not rave about this polish enough. I LOVE it!

It is ORANGE and it is juicy and it is bright and fun. Radiate pretty much made me want to try all of the OCC polishes I could get my hands on because the application was fantastic. Smooth as silk and no problems at all. Plus that color is awesome. 

For the stamping I chose a simple small image from the Pueen 25F Sumptuous Gallery set. I chose the little flower from PUEEN 18. 

I didn't want it to be too boring so I used some of my ArtsyFartsyCrafts glitter to fill in the flower and leaves and give it a little bit of sparkle.

I really liked this mani but didn't get good pictures of it. Sorry about that. I forgot to take the pictures during day light hours.

I figured I would make up for the not so great pictures with a cute picture of Bruce modeling his new shirt for you all. He is such a handsome boy.

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 :)

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 :)

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 :)

Zoya Solange and Liberty

Hey Everyone!!! I have a quick post tonight. I am finally over my cold only for C to come home feeling like he is getting another cold. I am hoping I don't get sick. I still have a little congestion but I am pretty much better. I finally got Friday's mani from Zoya week edited and ready to go. I had a nice Broncos mani for Sunday but I took it off before the game ended. I only have one picture and I posted it on Instagram so I probably won't post that here. I am not a Broncos fan but I am a huge Peyton Manning fan so the game was disappointing not only because he lost but because the game was just not good. The commercials weren't anything awesome and I wasn't impressed with the halftime show either. The only good thing about the game was the cake we had at halftime. Hopefully next year is a better football year.

A quick picture of Bruce because he is such a cutie.

I love that cat!

I used Zoya Liberty and Solange from the Summer Pixie Dust collection for this mani.

I did a gradient type mani because for some reason I really liked these colors together. 

I absolutely love this mani. I kept looking at it. 

Both colors are so vivid and bright. It was quite a cheery mani. 

Where they blended the two colors turned a little green which I was hoping would happen. It was a little more obvious in person but was still pretty subtle.

I bet this would have looked awesome with top coat as well. I can't believe I didn't think of that before taking it off.

I have a minor catastrophe with my ring and pinky nails on my left hand. Right now they are hanging on by a silk wrap and gel polish but they are about to break really low. I think they are each split about half way across. I am trying to save them for as long as possible but I am betting I will be going to nubbins sooner than later. 

I kept thinking that this mani reminded me of something but I couldn't think of what the entire time I had it on. I think I just realized that it reminds me of minions. I am going to have to do some minion nail art with these colors.

I am loving the Pixie Dust polishes. I think they are my favorite of all the textured polishes I have tried.

That's all for now :)