Playing In Polish/A Huge Drugstore Haul

Oh man.  I'm out of control.

All the way to the left is Essie's Shine Of The Times.  I am completely in love (OBSESSED) with flakies.  I would love to have all the Finger Paints Special Effects, but I'm pretty sure there's not a Sally's nearby (aka "I don't know where one is and I don't want to take the time to find out").  I couldn't wait to get into the Essie though.  I could go on about it all day...

I won't go on about all the different ones because I'd just end up going on endlessly about them (they're all very pretty!!).  I wanna get to the dirt here.  I wanna show you my manicures!

 So I started off like this.

Uh Oh Roll Down The Window (OPI)

Accent nail: Stranger Tides (OPI) with heart in above color.

Unfortunately, I was impatient because I had to leave for work soon so I ended up taking the tape off my ring fingers before my heart was 100% dry.  It left the edges of the hearts sort of hairy looking so I decided to disguise it with gold glitter.

Gold Rush (Cover Girl)

It was that night that I went and bought all the polishes in the first picture so again, completely excited, I layered Shine Of The Times over the rest of my nails.

Can I just say again how much I love flakies???

Obviously I wished at this point that I had not used that gold glitter...

Then today I attempted the Ruffian Manicure.  I've never seen it on short nails like mine, but I figured I'd try it out anyway.  

 The yellow is Let's Meet (Sinful Colors).

Hindsight says use a second coat of that yellow... 

And of course because I love Shine Of The Times so much...

  Shine Of The Times layered over Uh Oh Roll Down The Window.

Gratuitous bottle shot.

I'm still waiting on Disco Diva (Jessica) to get here...  I only ordered it 5 days ago, but it's driving me CRAZY wishing it would show up!!  I can't wait to try it out!! 

 

Winter Flash Project

A couple months ago, I was contacted by a female tattooer named Dana Melissa Dixon about doing a painting project to pass the winter months.  The idea is that she paints a piece or two on a sheet of flash, sends them out to other female tattooers, and they finish the sheet.  I'm not very experienced using watercolors, but I was definitely down to try.

What she sent to me.

(Line drawings on sheet are mine.  Panther/snake are hers.)

She sent me this nifty little package!  The page on top is just a basic outline of what she was trying to do and the second page is a list of fun questions for all of us to answer.  

Here are my drawings all lined out.

The day I got the package, I lined out nearly the whole rest of the page and answered nearly all the questions.  I was super excited. 

My answers to her questions ended up being 5 pages long!

I also decided to include a line drawing of one of my pieces of flash.

I've laid the black down on a few of the pieces (also some of the red).  I'll post a picture when I'm done.  :)

Selection Of Awesome Food!

 

 Super delicious lobster from Red Lobster.

 

Schnitzel with green beans and mushrooms, made by my super talented boyfriend.

Why does this even exist??

Chocolate chip cookie stuffed with an Oreo.

Blue and Pink Mani

I was having a bad day trying to water marble, so I decided screw it.  I can do something fancy without water marbling.  This is what I came up with.

Blue colors:

Two coats Ogre The Top Blue for base color

One coat Austin-tatious Turquoise layered over the top

(both by OPI)

I can't remember what I used for the pink.  Pretty sure it was Wet N' Wild-Femme Fatale.

On top of the pink for super shimmer action is a little tiny polish I got from Sephora a long time ago.  It's a super sheer shimmery slightly silvery white.

I love doing an accent nail color.  It's such a simple way to fancy up the look of your manicure.  I do this pretty regularly when I want to do something easy.

Wood Grain Water Marble

I love water marble manicures.  I know I've mentioned this before, but I really really love them.  When I did my first water marble manicure, of course I had to show it off to my co-worker Anna.  Being a super girly girl, she absolutely loved it and asked me how to do it.  While we were talking about how to do it, my boss Troy came over for a look.  He said it sort of reminded him of wood grain, which gave both Anna and me the idea to try out browns for a wood grain effect.

I made my first attempt at wood grain not long after.  It did not work well because one of the polishes I used (Revlon's Grey Suede) didn't spread out in the water the way I'd initially hoped.  I only had one nail that turned out pretty so I took a picture.

Silly me, not cleaning up around the edges.

A couple manicures later, I decided to adjust my color selection and try try tryyy again.

Get In The Expresso Lane

A-taupe The Space Needle

(both by OPI)

Awesome green down coat by L.L. Bean.

I think I'm going to try this again only using Grey Suede as the center dot in my bullseye.  As pretty as I think these two colors are together, I think I still need a really light color swirled in there.  I'll post pictures when I get it together.  :)

Anniversary Manicure!

Yesterday was me and my boyfriend's 7th anniversary, so I wanted to wear something super sparkly and awesome.  Also, I just bought several polishes the other night and was super excited to try a couple out.

I only snapped one picture of this manicure and it's not the best quality picture.

 

After my base coat, I prepped my nails with one coat of Celeb City (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear).  I like to use a base color similar to my glittery color because I don't dig seeing bald patches. 

I was super stoked to try out my Sally Hansen Gem Crush in Glitz Gal.

I really love Glitz Gal.  You can't really see in the bottle picture, but it's a dense dark silver and holographic glitter.  One day when I use this polish again, I'll either post better pictures or a polish in motion video so you can get the full effect.

Also, I'm surprised I'm still allowed in the house after all the glitter on my hands during the removal process!!  If you have a glitterphobic husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/other random person who lives with you, just...just......just don't.  If they see this glittersplosion, they will not be happy.  ;) 

Pink and Purple Water Marble

Next month, I'm going to walk in a fashion show for an awesome local boutique so I, of course, needed to plan my manicure for this event!  It's a Valentine's Day/rockabilly theme, so I wanted to use colors that remind me of the holiday.

Left to right:

Honk If You Love OPI

Too Hot Pink To Hold 'Em

Italian Love Affair

(All, obviously, by OPI.)

Fun shot before I removed the tape.

Finished product.

Another fancy, bottle holding shot.

I loved the final result of this manicure.  I may have changed my mind about what I would like as my fashion show mani, though.  Since this manicure, I bought a bottle of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Red Carpet and I think I'm probably going to use that.  It's a beautiful glittery blue based red so I think it will be a good fit for the theme of the show.  Stay tuned for my mani/pedi in Red Carpet!

Pink Lemonade Water Marble

At the beginning of the year, I decided I was going to give myself a manicure at least twice a week.  Although I really love makeup and own a whole lot of it, I don't wear it unless something special is happening.  I wanted to have something special and colorful to do for myself on a regular basis so I decided what the hell, I'll do manicures.

For my first manicure this year, I decided to try a water marble.  I learned how to do it by watching videos by one girl in particular on YouTube.   Click here for her blog.  Her explanations are simple to understand, yet very informational at the same time.  Plus, she just seems like a cool girl.

It took a while for me to pick out the colors I was going to use.  I finally decided on Wet N' Wild-Femme Fatale, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri-Lightening, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear-White On.

After taping my nails off and prepping my nails with one coat of White On, I was ready to go.

 

This is how it came out.

I was pretty happy with my final results.  Every nail is different, but my pattern drawing skills have since improved.

I love water marbling.  If you have plenty of time, patience, and Scotch tape, you should definitely give it a try.

**In case you were wondering what my fingers say:  Upper knuckles say DOLL FACE and lower knuckles say COCA COLA.

Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoat review and mani.

 I've wanted a Crackle or Shatter topcoat ever since I knew they existed.  I know some out there say this is out of style, but I've never been one to give much of a crap about what's in or out.  I bought my first one a couple weeks ago (OPI- Gold Shatter) and while I love the color, I wasn't completely satisfied with the results.  After trying a thin coat and a thick coat, I found it really didn't give the effect I expected or was looking for.  I feel like it may have something to do with the shimmer/glitter.  I may end up posting a swatch of this at a later date so you can see what I'm talking about.  But anyway...  I took to YouTube yet again to look for other people's swatches and reviews to hopefully discover the best black crackle polish available.

I do believe I found it.

Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoat in Ink Splatter

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Clearly Quick

After watching video after video and review after review, I decided upon this one.   Aside from doing a test nail on the evening of purchase, today was the first time I used this polish.  I absolutely love it.  It has a really great crackle effect with wide cracks as well as small ones.  Also, it cracks horizontally as well as vertically and this is definitely what I was looking for.

For my manicure today, I decided to do a "rainbow".  I wanted to have nice bright colors as a base to go underneath my crackle topcoat.

 Left to right:

Ogre The Top Blue-OPI

Mint Sorbet-Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear

Lightening-Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

Tropical Temptation-Revlon

Femme Fatale-Wet N' Wild

(All are cream polishes.)

Two coats of each polish over a clear base coat.

**One thing I've heard about crackle topcoats is that you have to wait until your base color is extremely dry before you apply it.  I have a few suggestions on what to do with your time while you wait for your polish to dry.

1.  Wear a hole into the linoleum on your kitchen floor from pacing in circles.
2.  Flap your arms/wiggle your hands like you're a cute little birdie.
3.  If you're a smoker like me, you could smoke a cigarette.  (Even better, get on the internet and read 17 articles on how to quit smoking because it's gross.)
4.  Do all of the above simultaneously until your boyfriend thinks you're a nutjob.

I chose to do all of the above (minus reading articles on how to quit smoking) until my base polish was no longer tacky to the touch.  I was way super duper excited to apply my crackle topcoat over these colors!!  I couldn't wait to see how awesome it was going to look.

Finished product with clear topcoat.

This is definitely the look I was going for!  I absolutely love this manicure.  It reminds me of the colored jeans from the 80's that I loved when I was a kid.

Obviously, I am very very VERY satisfied with the Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoat.  I believe it is a must buy for anyone looking for a great black crackle.

**On a side note, I think the base colors I used would make a great water marble.  If I do use these, I'll definitely post pictures.

Note:  It's only this year I've started giving myself manicures at least a couple times a week.  I'm by far no professional and my polish is still a bit rough around the edges, but I like doing it a whole lot.  I'm sure my skills will improve eventually, but as far as right now goes?  Please don't judge me, haha!