Cranberry splash and red roses...

Hey everyone!  I hope everyone is doing good!  Can you believe three posts in a row??  I am on a roll I guess!  Just a quick post today.  I wanted to do another Valentine's mani.  I really love Valentine's day!  I know I said it last post but I can't help it!  Anyway...I have been eyeing all these fabulous bloggers using China Glaze Cranberry Splash and I couldn't resist using it.  It is so pretty!!  I bought it in an after Christmas sale and haven't touched it since I put it up.  So check out what I came up with...

I used China Glaze Cranberry Splash on my index, middle and pinkie fingers.  On my thumb and ring finger I used Orly Dayglow.  Dayglow is a very pretty white polish with blue undertones.  I am really happy with this polish even though this is my first time using it.  On my index, middle and pinkie finger I used Konad image plate m65 and stamped with Sally Hansen Silver Sweep (I am getting low and need to pick up some more).  On my thumb and ring finger I used the same image plate but with Mash Black and then used GCOCL B02 plate for the rose and stamped with Kleancolor Metallic Red.  I was finishing up my nails late last night and did not want to chance and see if Cranberry Splash stamped so I went with something I knew would stamp.  The hubby loved these...but he loves anything red!  I am wondering if he really cares or just humors me??  LOL!

Anyway what do you guys think of this mani??  I love a good red, white and black mani!  So classy and elegant to me.  Have you tried the Cranberry Splash??  If so does it stamp well (Its almost a one coater)??  Have a nice day!

A not so typical Valentine's Mani...

Hello all!!  I hope everyone is going to have an awesome week!  I am getting excited because one of my favorite holiday's is coming up!  Valentine's day!!!  I love pink and black and hearts!  I will probably do quite a few Valentine mani's!  I am all about the different colored and not typical Valentine day mani's.  Which is why  I am posting this beautiful mani...

To achieve this look I used my regular nail base coat and then two coats of Sally Hansen complete salon manicure in Evening Fog.  This color is beautiful!   I love a good grey and a good nude and this is a combination of both.  Very opaque and the perfect creme polish.  I then wanted to stamp with pink.  So I chose Kleancolor Metallic Pink to stamp using Pueen 01 for my pinkie, middle and index finger.  Then I used the same Metallic Pink to stamp using Cheeky CH27 for my ring finger and thumb.  I used french tip guides (I cannot free style tips or anything else) and used the Metallic Pink to add a little extra drama to the mani.  I topped the whole mani off with my new favorite NYC Grand Central Station quick dry top coat.  It is so pretty!!

What are your favorite colors to mix for Valentine's day??  Or do you like the typical colors??  Have a good day!

Kitty pretty in pink...

Hello everyone!!  I have missed painting my nails!  I have went most of the week with naked nails!  I purchased some polish from a nail blogger and I somehow broke one...  So all over my Lady Like and Smokin' mani after only one day of wearing it and all over my hands was my beautiful polish broken!! Uggg...the rest of the week was a blur as I was so tired all week.  I feel like I am having a hard time getting it together since I had baby brother.  Things can only get better right??  I live by schedules and since this new baby I cannot seem to come up with a good schedule as I always seem out of wack.  I am too OCD not to get it together.   There is a channel on YouTube that I love to watch.  I do not know her first name but here is a link to her channel.  She loves Hello Kitty!  On Wednesday's she stamps.  This week she used a Hello Kitty plate and I noticed I had the same plate however mine is a Shany plate.  She asked me if the plate stamped good.  Let's see together...

I really like Hello Kitty but my problem is all my plates that have a Hello Kitty image is entirely too large for my super small nail beds. :(  So I was really happy to see the smaller Hello Kitty images on my newest set of Shany plates when I got them.  On my pinkie, index finger and thumb I used three thin coats of Milani HD.  Not as holo as my Color Club but a very pretty polish.  On my ring and middle finger I used two coats of OPI Pink Friday.  I love this pink!!  Its so soft and beautiful!  I then stamped over the Milani HD with Mash black and Pueen image plate Pueen 08.  On the ring and middle finger I used Shany image plate SH 201 and Mash black.  I then took Wet n Wild Wild Shine Sparked to fill in the bow on Kitty and Milani Silver Dazzle to fill in the nose on Kitty as well as make some dots around Kitty.  I topped it all off with NYC quick dry top coat(once again no smearing...loving this stuff!!).  What do you think??

Also the Crumpet is having a slowed down nail art challenge and it is more my speed.  I cannot commit to an everyday post.  I actually like wear the mani's I create and wear them for at least one day.  I do not have face book so I will only be able to share here with my followers and anyone else who will be watching.  I would love to see any mani's that you want to create or show as well!  Here are the laid back dates...

This is all I have for you today!  I hope you all had a great week!

Lady Like and Smokin'

Hey everyone!  I am trying to get back into the flow of things after my crazy week last week!  The family and I went to pick up some groceries this weekend because we were getting close to being desperately low.  We always wait until we are pretty low so that we do not have to rotate out can goods and meat from the bottom of the deep freezer to the top.  You know how much "fun" that is.  While we were winding down our shopping at Walmart of course I had to stop by the polish section.  I found some NYC In a New York Color Minute Grand Central Station Quick Dry Polish.  I have seen over the blogs that people use this clear polish for a topcoat.  I thought at $1.72 a bottle why not??  If it is horrible I can always use it to apply rhinestones, studs or glequins.  I used it as a top coat in this mani so lets see how it turned out...

Did it smear my design??   Did it dry quickly??  Hmmm...let's see!

I started with my dehydrator and base coat.  I used two polishes I used Lady Like by Essie as a base color on my pinkie, middle finger and index finger.  I used Smokin by Sinful Colors on my ring finger and thumb.  Although I try to venture out I still truly love using my ring finger and thumb as my accent nails.  So after applying my base colors on each of my nails I decided to put my new top coat to the test.  I wanted to do a half moon mani and use the reinforcement label holes.  I usually apply some Seche Vite and it dries super fast.  So I decided to use the new top coat for this....it worked just as fast as Seche Vite!!  So we have a plus there!  It is so shiny as well!  There is another plus!  Next I applied the reinforcement labels and painted each finger with the other color (Essie on Sinful Colors and vice versa).  I then stamped all the nails with Sally Hansen Insta Dri Silver Sweep and Shany plate SH211.  I only stamped the bottom portion of the nail.  I am terrible at any type of free hand anything so I cleaned up my half moon line with Silver Glitter by Art Deco using a dotting tool.  Then I topped off the whole mani with the NYC Quick Dry Grand Central Station.  I purposely went over the stamping many times with the brush and did a super thick coat of the silver glitter.  It did not smudge at all!  I could not believe it!  It dries so quick and gives the glass like shine just like Seche Vite!  I plan to purchase this after I have finished all my many bottles of Seche Vite (Little and the huge refill bottles.  I hate running out of things...)!  It worked like a charm!

What is your favorite top coat??  Do you have a hard time finding top coats that do not smudge your nail art??  Thanks for stopping by!

Disco balls, nets and stars...

Hello everyone!!  I have missed my blog!!  Baby brother progressively got sicker and sicker after the ear infections (I think the antibiotics were too strong) and is just now getting better.  We have been running him to the doctor and emergency room.  Poor baby finally got some color back yesterday.  He is playing and somewhat back to normal.  Last week I did two things I have not done in at least two years!!  I went without nail polish for two days (not even a clear coat) and then went with just a plain nude for 4 days.  No designs, no stamps, no glitter...I couldn't believe it.  I did however watch a lot of YouTube videos and read a lot of nail blogs while holding our sick child (I love my kindle fire!!).  So I have a new beautiful mani for you with some new polishes I picked up this weekend! Also...I finally broke down and purchased both sets of the Gals plates!  I think I am done purchasing plates!  Unless something really catches my eye...

I started out with my nail dehydrator and my base coat.  On my ring finger, index finger and thumb I have OPI On Her Majesty's Secret Service (A new polish).  This is two coats and this color is absolutely beautiful!  It is a light black or dark grey polish with purple, pink and teal micro glitter shimmers. It is gorgeous!!  I could stare at this color all day long!  On my pinkie I have OPI Fly.  On my middle finger I have China Glaze Nasty ( A new polish).  I love any and every color of pink!  So on my ring finger I just used some glequins(from bornprettystore.com) to "disco ball" my nail (I am getting better at lining them up).  On my middle finger and pinkie I used Konad stamping plate m57 and Mash black to stamp the net.  Then I layered with Sally Hansen Insta Dri Silver Sweep and Shany plate SH 203.  I topped the whole mani off with Seche Vite.  This is what I came up with...

I know the pink and the teal polish may seem kind of random, however, if you see the shimmer in the On Her Majesty's Secret Service it would make sense.  I tried to show the shimmer in the pictures.  I am still trying to get used to the skittlette and skittles mani's.  I absolutely love the way these types of mani's look and am trying to improve on them and create my own technique.  I want to do a different spin than what everyone else does.  Which is why I used the same design on two nails but changed up the colors (pinkie and middle finger).

What do you think of this mani??  Is there any technique that you want to improve on or master??  Thanks so much for stopping by!  Until then...

Spatter mani...

Hey all!!  I got a bit more sleep last night!  Baby brother has a double ear infection. :(  He is doing quite a bit better though.  He slept really good.  It may have been the medicine.  He is still tugging at his ears and hair though.  I am just glad he is not in too much pain. 

I know I have been slacking off on the challenge.  Some of those mani's are confusing to me.  I don't know how to "create" them.  So I am going to get in where I can fit in!  LOL!  Today I chose to try the splatter mani.  I am not into the mani's that require heavy clean up.  Truthfully most of the time I hardly have the time to do the mani let alone clean up afterwards.  I will probably never attempt the true splatter mani.  So I found a way to stamp it!!  Woot woot!!  I began with my base coat and used American Apparel Factory Grey for my base color.  This grey is amazing!  Every American Apparel color I have is a one coater!  I topped off my base color with China Glaze Golden Enchantment.  Golden Enchantment is basically the golden version of Fairy Dust.  Like Fairy Dust Golden Enchantment smells horribly and takes forever to dry!!  I found Fairy Dust and Golden Enchantment before I found Northern Lights hologram top coat.  Trust me I would have never purchased the China Glaze had I known better.  This is what I had before I started stamping...

 

 I love a good grey nail polish!!  Sometimes I have trouble with them being streaky.  This one applies so good!  I used Konad plate m21 for stamping.  I used 5 different metallic Kleancolor's for the stamping.  I used Metallic Sapphire for the pinkie (This color did not play well with my stamper.  It stained my stamper horribly!), Metallic Fuchsia for the ring finger, Metallic Green for the middle finger, Metallic Purple for the index finger and Metallic Mango for the thumb.  That Metallic Sapphire was a mess when I applied my top coat as well.  It somewhat smeared.  I probably will never wear it as a base because I do not want blue fingers!  Here are some pictures of the completed mani...

 

 

I think it turned out good!  I wish my nail beds were a bit bigger so I could add more than one splatter on each nail.  What do you think??  Did I cheat on this one??  Well I have to get dinner cooked for my boys.  Of course we are having baked chicken...Daddy and Big Brother's favorite.  I am still holding on after a week with my healthy eating!!  I can't believe it!  Have a good night readers!

Peachy Keen Roses

Hey everyone!  I hope every has had a great week!  Mine has been something else!  I think I am just completely exhausted!!  I have been working out, eating better and staying up late with baby brother.  Baby brother has a doctors appointment today I think he has an ear infection!  Uggg...no fun! 

Anyway in the midst of the craziness this week I got my Pueen nail stamping plates.  The images on the plates are kind of small but I have small nail beds and usually keep my nails pretty short any way so I think they will be okay.  Not as small as the first bundle monster set but not as big as the newest bundle monster set.  You can purchase these plates here.  The image I used stamped amazingly.  I absolutely love the designs on these stamping plates!

I follow about 12 different blogs and absolutely love everything each one shows and creates on their page.  I was looking at Lacquer or Leave hers blog and she used China Glaze Peachy Keen in this tutorial.  I was itching to use my Peachy Keen because I have only used it once since I have owned it.  I am soo sad when it comes to nail polish sometimes.  I want and want these colors and then don't use them.  In this design I used a base color of China Glaze Peachy Keen on all nails (I also had to trim my nails.  They were getting too long for me.)  I used OPI Save Me on my ring finger and thumb.  I am still trying to decide if I like Save Me.  It is pretty but I am not sure how I feel about the bar glitter pieces in the polish.  I stamped with Mash black stamping polish and used Pueen Stamping plate Pueen 22.  It is a beautiful image.  This is what I came up with...

 

I love that image!!  It kind of looks like I layered some stamps but I did not.  What do you think of the images??  Do you have polishes that you wait and wait for and then barely use them??  Have a good evening!  I am off to take baby brother to the doctor!

Crumpet Amateur Contest Entry...

Hey everyone!!  I officially began my road to good health yesterday.  I ate under my calorie goal and even went a step further and the hubby and I did some Zumba!  I never in a million years thought I would say this but that Zumba was the funnest workout I have ever done!  I am embarrassed to say that we have had these Zumba dvd's for well over two years and have never taken them out of the box.  Sad sad sad...  We had a good time but will have more when we learn the steps!  I am determined to keep it up!! 

Any who...I am entering the Crumpet's amateur nail art contest.  I hope to be able to make it into the finals.  Since I am a super newbie I am asking that all of you vote for my design if you like it!  No pressure!  I still want to share it with you though.  I chose to do a "skittle" manicure.  I have a problem with being matchy matchy sometimes so this takes me way out of my comfort zone!! 

I used a base of two colors only.   The blue is OPI Ogre the Top Blue (One of the most beautiful blues I own!!) and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  I used one coat of Ogre the Top Blue and then applied Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe.  For some reason I think a good skittle or skittlette mani has to have one glitter nail.  On the pinkie I stamped with Mash image plate 45 using Sally Hansen Insta Dri Brisk Blue and filled in the center of the flowers with Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe.  On my ring finger I used Mash white stamping polish to stamp a flower from Konad m82 and filled the center with a clear stone.  On my middle finger I stamped with a fauxnad (Konad dupe plate same plate but not Konad but just as good) m73 with Sally Hansen Insta Dri Brisk Blue.  Finally I used Cheeky plate CH 50 (This image was horrible to stamp) and stamped with Sally Hansen Inst Dri Whirlwind White and filled in the center of the flower with Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe.  Wow there was a lot going on.

I think this is my best mani I have shared on here yet!!  I hope I win!  Thanks for stopping by and sorry for all the words!  Have a good day!

Three in one mani...

Hello everyone!  I was noticing that I was really behind on trying to keep up with the nail art challenge.  I am missing the gold, pink and purple nails.  So I decided to add all three colors in one mani!  This will somewhat a short post...  Lets see what I came up with.

For the base I used Essie China Doll.   I did two coats of it and it was so pretty I almost could not go any further with the mani.  Pink is one of my all time favorite colors!  Next I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Purple Pulse to do the saran wrap method (there are so many tutorials on YouTube on how to do this)  I have added a link to my favorite tutorial here.  I must say I love the look this method gives the polish!  Since I am such a failure with water marble and despise the clean up this will work for me.  Here are some pictures of just the China Doll and then with the Purple Pulse added...

Next time I will use more contrasting colors.  Both polishes were sheer so I think I will used bolder colors next time I try this method.  So to add the gold I used China Glaze 2030 to stamp and used Cheeky image plate CH 15.  This is my completed three in one style...

As you can see my Seche Vite top coat did not play nice with my polish.  I have some major shrinkage going on.  Normally I would have stamped this image with black.  I really think this design looks a bit "washed out".  You live and you learn though.  But I am just trying to get a little caught up.  I am glad I am only "testing" this challenge because I would not want to disappoint anyone who is interested because I can't devote my time as much as I would need to.  I am however getting ideas of how to actually succeed so this "test" is working out for me.  Until next time...

Riveting and silver...

Hello all!!  I hope everyone had a great weekend!!  Mine was a bit busy.  Big brother (my 8 year old) had his first basketball game of the year.  He is such a good basketball player!  I love to watch him!  He just makes me so proud!

Today I am attempting the silver day of the challenge.  Before I get to the manicure I have to let you know about this wonderful find!!  I have a friend and we both LOVE nail art!!   She told me of this place called Basket Market.  She told me that the Basket Market gets all of Hobby Lobby's (craft store) mark down and clearance items so everything is super cheap!  She told me to go there to get like acrylic paint, nail art brushes, and loose glitters and such.  So I go to the place and am completely blown away how cheap everything was.  The main thing that simply excited me beyond belief was I found a 12 pack of loose holographic glitters!!!  4 in white, 4 in gold and 4 in silver.  The whole pack was...wait for it...wait for it... $1.50!!!  OMG!!  It is unfortunate I have had it over a year because I really didn't know how to properly apply it.  So today I told myself lets do it!!  I used the silver glitter for this design...wait till you see this beautiful stuff!!

For the base colors I started out with a silver Bonita polish (no name on the bottle) on my thumb, index finger and my pinkie.  I then put one more coat and then added the glitter while the polish was still wet.  I used China Glaze Riveting on my middle and ring finger.  I like to change up those accent nails!  This is what it looked like before the stamping.

I decided I loved the glitter nails so I did not stamp on them.  I did stamp the other two nails with Shany image plate SH 25.  I used Sally Hansen Silver Sweep to stamp.  What do you think??

I am wishing everyone a healthy and stress free week!  Also I was checking out Amazon and searched stamping plates 2013.  I found a new brand Pueen stamping plates.  They have some amazing designs!!  I hope they stamp well because of course I ordered them!!  I can't wait to try them.  You can find them here.  Let me know if any of you have tried or heard of this company before.  Thanks for stopping by!

Black, white and red mani...

Hello everyone!  I hope everyone had an excellent New Year's day!  My boys and I celebrated the old fashioned way.  We ate and slept and ate some more.  Lol!  I have really been getting into the nail blog scene and I see there is a new 31 day challenge going on.  I am to late to get into the challenge and don't think I can dedicate this month to a 31 day challenge so I am going to just do a hit and miss on the mani's I like.  Next time when a challenge comes around I want to enter it.  I think it will be fun.  January is going to be somewhat busy for me. I apply for the master's program on the 15th and I need to find time to take the GRE test.  I have been studying but I am wondering if I have studied enough.  Well I have faith in my self for the written part not so much for the comprehensive part.  But we will see. 

Anyway... here is my little creation for the black and white mani...

The base colors I used is one coat of Sally Hansen Whirlwind White and 3 coats of Pure Ice Iced Merlot.  I know its not all black and white but I can't do black and white without adding some sort of pop of color.

For stamping I used Mash black and Cheeky plate 33.  I only stamped on the white nails because the Iced Merlot was so pretty I just wanted to leave it alone.  That and the stamp I used is pretty busy and I didn't want to do anything else to it.  As you can see my pinkie is also now painted with Iced Merlot.  That stamp was not working for me on either pinkie so I decided to scrap it.  It was user error but it was driving me crazy.  Not too much black and white but it is still there.  I am not very happy with this I wish I would have used another design.  But I am no where near perfect so...I will be wearing this mani to work tomorrow.  So what do you think??