Essie Limelight

Hey Everyone! I am back. It is a bit late but my son was working on his project then df hopped on the computer and I was left in the corner painting my nails. 

Tonight I have a Gelish glitter fade that I painted over. 

This was Gelish Medieval Madness with a silver glitter faded in. 

I loved it! Super blingy and yet subtle.

I went from subtle to completely bright by adding 3 coats of Essie Limelight.

I love neons! 

It was kinda cool because you could see some of the silver glitter through the neon.

My son swore it was neon green but to me it looked like highlighter yellow so I took pictures with the highlighters I had at work.

Obviously with the name Limelight you would think I would have picked up on the green leaning of this color but I didn't until I saw it next to the yellow highlighters.

I still loved the crazy bright neon green leaning yellow color though.

I need all the neons! I loved them when I was a kid and I love them now.

That's all for now :)

Just an Update and Ramble

Hey Everyone!!! I don't have a mani post ready for you yet because I uploaded the wrong pictures. DUH for me! What I did want to tell you about is my plan for posting and my big experiment that I have been doing lately with my nails.

As you may notice by following my blog my nails are not quite what I would like them to be. They are pretty weak and can be peely and break a ton. I decided that I was going to give gel nail polish a try to see if I could get them protected and possibly help them grow out strong. I have been playing around and trying to get the application and process of DIY Gelicures down before I started to add that to my blog. I started with the Nailene Sensationail kit that you can find at CVS and Walmart. I didn't love the color or the top/base coat but it was a great price for the light when I used my CVS magic coupons and extrabucks. I then picked up the Gelish starter kit and have been loving Gelish since. I do have a Red Carpet Manicure polish and a Le Chat polish so I am also experimenting with other brands. There is a pretty big learning curve and I still don't have everything down to a science but I am researching and getting better with each manicure.

My nails are crazy long and the gel polish is giving them some strength. Unfortunately not even the gel polish could save my pinky nail the other day when I bent it completely backward. It tore on both sides and was hanging on for dear life with just a little bit in the middle. It hurt and was beyond saving with a silk wrap so now it is reduced to super mutant nubbin. I am really happy with my nails now though and one of the great side effects is that they are no longer crypt keeper yellow!!!

The gel manicure should last 14 days for someone who has healthy nails. Since mine are weak, bendy and peely mine manicures last anywhere from 7-10 right now. They will get better as my nail issues grow out but right now I totally find the process worth the time. My point for this whole ramble is that my manis are going to be applied over whatever gel manicure I have going on at the time. It won't change much in regards to the polish I am showing you however it does create a problem with the crazy glitter bombs because I can't remove those with non acetone polish remover. I have devised a plan though. I have so many awesome Indie polishes I am dying to show you all as well as nail art with the tons of stamping plates I recently acquired.

My whole plan is to do the gel mani then do some stamping and nail art and various regular polish manis. Toward the end of my wear time for the Gelish mani I will show you the Indie polishes and various other glitter polishes that are going to be tough to remove. I think this will allow me to show a bit of everything and make me stamp more. There are so many awesome Indie brands out there now and I want to make sure I show off the ones I have been lucky enough to get. I am going to put a poll up on my sidebar so you can vote on which Indie I am going to use next. Any suggestions or undie ideas are awesome and I would love for you to leave me a comment if you have ideas. I am going to make a rotation through the Indie brands I have so that they get spread out and I can share the love. I have my first two Indies ready to go so the Dollish poll that is up now will determine what polish is used after these two.

Since I babbled endlessly and went on and on I figure a picture of Bruce Kittlee Master Ninja Warrior is in order. I got that box that he is sitting in from Walmart.com. They sent ONE Essie polish in that box. You can see the polish in the box with Bruce. They could have fit a whole Bruce AND one Essie in that box. INSANITY WALMART TOTAL INSANITY!

Oh yeah, I will totally have a polish post up for you later this evening too :)

That's all for now :)

Olympics Wrap Up

Hey Everyone! I had a much needed and enjoyed lazy weekend where I didn't turn on the computer and didn't really do much of anything. I was totally not productive but it was wonderful. I thought about posting this mani yesterday so at least it was on the last day of the Olympics but I was lazy. I did enjoy the Spice Girls performance at the closing ceremonies. I made the mistake of telling my df and brother that my friends and I went to see the Spice Girls movie at the $1.00 theater when it was out. Lol they will forever make fun of me for that I am sure. Hey, we were broke, bored college students what can I say.

My last Olympic mani should have probably been my first lol. 

I obviously free handed the rings. Some of them look ok and others look like soggy cheerios.

Back in 96 when I was really into doing nail art I did a killer version of the rings for the Summer Olympics. I had a stamp that I used to indent my almost dry polish so I had the perfect ring and only had to paint it in. Yeah, I wish I had that stamp now.

I think it came out pretty good overall though. 

I used the same flag tips and just removed the medals. I didn't get all of the purple from the ribbon so you can still see the hint of that in some spots. I was afraid I would wipe off the flag if I messed with them much more.

Ok seeing as I have itchy trigger fingers and just published this before I was ready I better wrap it up. I can't wait for the Winter Olympics in 2014 (the nice man on tv started my countdown 18 months to go). I will have some different nail art ideas by then I hope.

That's all for now :)

Gold and Silver and Bronze

Hey Everyone!! I am super excited right now. When you are from the US or China medals in the Olympics seem to just keep adding up and though it is exciting it is easy to forget that not all countries have the medal count that we do. One of the Irish girls on one of the forums I am on just posted about Irish Lightweight Boxer Katie Taylor who won gold for Ireland. GO KATIE TAYLOR AND IRELAND!!! She was so excited and proud of Ireland's first gold medal of this Olympics. I remember when watching men's gymnastics last week they showed one lone Irish guy competing on the floor exercise. I think it was his only event and he didn't do well enough to advance and I was so upset because I was really hoping he would make it through. I really have no point other than it is so amazing for these athletes to make it to the Olympics and they represent their countries and people so proudly. When we watched the parade of countries at the opening ceremony there were so many countries with small delegations and I always hope that they medal in something. Now that I have rambled on and on I should just show you the nails.

I used the same flag tips and painted gold, silver and bronze medals on them.

I was so excited that Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings won gold in Beach Volleyball last night. I have been watching those two for a long time.

I only have four pictures for you today. Sorry, they are kind of repetitive too. I used the new Essie Mirror Metallic Collection for the medals. They were perfect for the medals. I used a dotting tool too. My circles were not quite perfect but they didn't come out too bad.

The colors I used were Good as gold, No place like chrome and Penny Talk. I used a random Wet n Wild for the purple ribbon.

I am so loving the Olympics though not so much my attempts at the manis. I have one more Olympic mani for you tomorrow and then I am done with them for the next two years. I am going to have to try and do something different for the next Olympics that is more themed toward the events. I should probably start thinking now lol.

That's all for now :)

Flag Nails

Hey Everyone! I am exhausted, again. I didn't sleep well last night at all. I think I have been mostly awake since around 3-4am with a snooze here or there. I finally FELL asleep probably around 7am but then my alarm went off. Captain Neil was of course up three times between 3am and 8:45 when I finally rolled out of bed WAY LATE! I would really like to be sleeping right now. I am not feeling well and I am tired. Unfortunately though I have to work so here I am.

I love the Olympics but I am so tired that I am finding it hard to want to do extravagant nail art for them. Thus far I have stuck to the American Flag type manis and red, white and blue type stuff. I should have probably done more event themed manis and had planned one for the Gold Medal Beach Volleyball match today but then I got really tired and didn't execute it. It was really nice in my mind. I love beach volleyball and I love Misty and Kerri and hope they win their 3rd Gold this year. This mani is from the other day.

I don't know why I didn't do the cleanup before taking the pictures but for some reason I didn't. Smack me with a shoe.

I smudged my pinkie finger a bit. I did this freehand which explains a lot.

I am pretty much ready to move on to other colors at this point. I am on my second day of what I believe will be my last Olympic mani. I need to wear a different color stat!

I kept these tips for my next two manis so you will be seeing them with some added designs in the next couple of posts.

I really liked how they looked with the nude nail. I very much like that look.

I have a plan for showing some nail art, colors and indie polishes coming up. I think I worked out a way to make it all work and flow so I will be experimenting with that idea soon. If it goes according to plan I will be able to show you stamping and more nail art.

That's all for now :)

USA Dots

Hey Everyone! I am tired. Is it Friday yet? I need a nap, a vacation and some relaxation. I probably won't get any of those this week but hopefully soon. I am beyond excited that school will be starting soon and I can get back into the normal routine. 

Today I have more fun American Spirit nails for you. They are red, white and blue anyway.

Over my already existing glitter mani I used two shades that I thought were jelly like. Unfortunately they were not jelly enough to show the glitter the way I saw it in my mind. This was sort of a fail in that regards.

I used two coats of Maybelline Sunburst and two coats on China Glaze Man Hunt. I thought I was using Ride the Waves but apparently not. Hmmm. Interesting. Anyway, as you can see Sunburst shows the glitter much more than Man Hunt.

I left my accent nail because I still didn't want to remove the gems.

I used a dotting tool to do the corresponding color dots. I am not all that great with dots but they didn't come out too bad. Some of them anyway.

It isn't the most Olympic like mani but it was pretty decent. Now I just need to figure out how to get the top coat to not smear my stamping/dotting.

Both of my thumbs have been having issues with peeling and tears. They both have silk wraps on them and my glitter polish had to be removed to silk wrap them. They chipped really quickly but I wanted to show what the base colors look like without the glitter under there. This is two coats of Sunburst.

This is two coats of Man Hunt which is from the Safari collection. 

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 :)