Blogging fail

I feel like a total fail blogger, didn't finish the year long challenge, and haven't posted in forever.  Between work, Kiddo's school stuff, and family stuff, I've just completely lost track of things.

Things have been ok at work, moving to a new office space, so that's been fun trying to get things like licenses changed over to the new address.  And by fun I mean hell, cause no city/county does it the same.

Kiddo is LOVING school, even the daycare after school on the days I work.  He loves that his best friend across the street is in the same class, and that they get to ride their bikes together to and from school.

Our family just keeps getting bigger! My cousins found out at the beginning of summer that they were expecting their second child, a little boy!  Now I'm wondering when my son will start asking why he doesn't have a sister, since everyone else has a boy and a girl lol.

I've been looking online and trying to find out where I can go to school to be able to do nails professionally.  As well as collecting more and more polishes, of course!  Actually am in the middle of organizing all of them.  Picked up some blank nail spoons on Amazon the other day and have been labeling them and swatching the polishes.  I also did a set of fake nails for my friend's Halloween costume this year, and I will say this.  Painting nails that aren't attached to a finger is kind of hard!  But I figured out a way with some tape and wooden cuticle sticks, and I must say that they turned out pretty well for my first time!

I've also gotten 2 new toys, a Nexus 7 that I brought from a friend, and a Google Chromecast that the lovely people at Google Chrome sent me so that I can be of more help on the Chromebook Central forums, which I've been happy to help out on since this whole Chromebook adventure began.

Neon Rainbow Crackle with bonus stamping mani!

I feel like such a blogger failure.  Things have just gotten so busy, with kiddo starting school, work, and card night with my cousins (anyone else ever play Peanuts!, it's so much fun).

I did a neon gradient rainbow mani for the challenge, but I am still really bad at gradients so I topped it with O.P.I. Black Shatter to try and hide how bad it was.

Color Club Mambo, Wham! Pow!, and Almost Famous on top of SinfulColors Snow Me White, with O.P.I. Black Shatter

Color Club Twiggie, Pucci-Licious, and Chelsea on SinfulColors Snow Me White, topped with O.P.I. Black Shatter

This is the mani I did instead of a Water Marble, cause I just can't muster up the courage to try that yet...

SinfulColors Midnight Blue and Secret Admirer stamped with Rain Song

I <3 this mani so much, the color change that Rain Song does on Secret Admirer is so awesome, I couldn't stop staring at my hands while at work!  Unfortunately I had a crack on my right ring finger, and have been patching it while waiting for it to grow out.  It finally grew out far enough, but then I broke another nail right before I went to grab my file.  So I am now sporting nubs, again. :(  

I'm working on getting a new post up of my polish set up now that Kiddo's stuff is back in his own room and I have more storage space for the ever growing stash!  So much love for bargain stores and clearance sales!

My First Ever Influenster VoxBox...

...and it was a flop.  I received a Strawberries & Cream SlimFast shake, a martini glass, and 4 recipes to make cocktails/mocktails featuring the 4 flavors of these particular line of shakes.  

Because I live in Southern Florida, and it is super hot here right now, the shake curdled/soured in my mailbox :(

Polka dot nails for this week's challenge.

O.P.I. Black Satin as a base color, with Not Like The Movies on middle and pinkie fingers, and SinfulColors Rain Song on pointer and ring fingers.  Dots are SinfulColors Snow Me White.

Inspired by Artwork

This week I was inspired by Sephora's Cinderella collection packaging, mainly the mirror compact. 

I used China Glaze For Aubry for the base, then used saran wrap and China Glaze Gold Fusion.

Green nails, and new polishes!

Wasn't feeling creative this week, so I just did a base of China Glaze Con-Fused, and figured I'd think of something to stamp it with later.  

Went out to Venice Island to check out the shops this past weekend, and one of the shops is full of sun-activated color changing shirts and other souvenirs.  They also have a bunch of polishes that do the same!  I had one from a few years ago, and picked up 2 new ones since they were having a sale.

I don't remember the name of the half-full one, but the blue glitter is City Girl, and the clear is Lollipop.  This is out of the sunlight.

This is out in the sunlight.  The blue glitter in the clear base turns to a purple base.  The blue metalic turns green. The clear turns nice and red.  I had to try out Lollipop.

Inside.  I had just come inside, so the red wasn't faded completely, but otherwise it's clear on the nail.

In the sunlight.  It takes a few minutes for this rich of color.  

The formula was ok to work with, though it does need some thinner.  This was 4 or 5 coats, as the color change was streaky otherwise.

I can't stand having the white parts of my nails show, so I painted french tips w/ Color Club Flamingo from the Fiesta collection.  

Delicate nails

Sally Hansen XtremeWear in Blinding Blue, topped with Fuzzy Coat in Wool Knot.

I think it looks kind of like a cashmere sweater, and it probably as close to 'delicate' as i'll get lol.

Color Inspired

I grabbed a few polishes at Big Lots the other day, and fell in love with one of them.   Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect Air.  It's such a pretty pastel blue, I had to do a mani with it.

Here it is topped with Essie Luxeffects in Pure Pearlifecation.  

I then added a rainbow w/ striping tape, cause it was just the perfect background color.

Also, my son had to have his toenails painted just like mine.  He's such a crazy little 4 year old.

Color Club Mamba and Endless Summer, with SinfulColors Snow Me White.  I also topped mine with the Essie Pure Pearlifecation.

Half Moon Mani

I will say, I am not a fan of this on my short nails :(   

SinfulColors Candy Coated and Let's Talk, topped with China Glaze Fairy Dust

I felt these made my nails look even shorter than they are.  Plus I def did not give them enough time to dry in between layers, so it smudged a little :(

Matte Magnetic Mani

First, an update of my polish stash.  I will have to get pics of my rearranged set up later when kiddo isn't sleeping.  I did snap a pic of the polishes I picked up the other weekend, though.  

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Loves Me Not, Kleancolor Green Addicts set, Color Club Fiesta set, and my first bottle of Seche Vite.

I also received my MOO.com cards!  

I've wanted to get some contact cards for a while, but have put it off cause I couldn't think of a cute picture/theme for them.  Then they emailed me a great deal, and I found this design in their gallery, so of course I had to get them!

This week's challenge was a simple one, a Matte Mani.  My nails are still nubs, so I didn't have much room for artwork. I bought 3 polishes this weekend, so I chose from them to do the mani.  I chose Nails, Inc in Spitalfields, which I mainly got because of the fishnet magnet :)  I used China Glaze Matte Magic to make it matte.  I still need practice with magnet timing.

Quick Post

Just a quick post while we have some tech issues here at work. 
Tried my hand at Galaxy Nails for the challenge (which I am failing so bad about), did not work so well with the polishes I had.

Wet'N'Wild Wild Shine Black Creme, sponged with Zoya Pru, China Glaze Magnetic II Get Charged & Sparks Will Fly, Wet'N'Wild Megalast in Break The Ice, and dotted w/ Sinful Colors Snow Me White.  It turned out not so great, but super shiny!  

Bought 2 sets of polish last weekend at discount stores, a set of Color Club Fiesta collection, and a Kleancolor mini set in greens.  Also found a Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Loves Me Not, and holy cow is that my new favorite purple polish!

Had to nub my nails last night cause I had a break and no time to do a fix. Currently wearing Color Club Mamba. This is 2 coats topped with Seche, which I finally bought since my usual go-to top coat caused shrinking w/ my China Glaze polishes.

Summer Nails Wordless Wednesday Edition (Plus 2 other manis I've worn so far this summer)

No Nude Nails: A stampaholic's nail art blog: My First Giveaway!

No Nude Nails: A stampaholic's nail art blog: My First Giveaway!: Hello everyone!  I am having my very first giveaway today!  The contest starts May 1st and ends May 18th. The prize includes: Cheeky&#39...

Polish Removal w/ Wearable Soakers

I received a set of these Wearable Soakers as a surprise gift from my friend +Jamie Cannon (author of Night Falls, go check it out on Kindle and NOOK devices and apps!) after we saw them on another blog and were joking how silly/awesome they'd be for removing our favorite glitter polishes.  Shortly after receiving them, I HAD to buy her a set! They are awesome!  So easy to use, and have made removing my polish so much easier and faster!

They were meant to be used by filling the clear plastic part with acetone to soak off acrylics and gels, but I found that method wasted to much acetone for just taking off polish.  This is how I use them:

First, the polish.  Sally Hansen Black Platinum, 3 coats, w/ Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell, 2 coats

 

I take 5 cotton squares..

..and cut them each in half.

Then comes the soaker pods.

Pop it open...

..and place a folded square half that has been saturated with acetone in the clear half.

Pop the pink half back on. (Skip this step for thumb nail removal, as they aren't really wide enough)

Insert finger so that your nail is in contact with the acetone.  I usually leave these on for about 5 minutes or more, depending on the color/how many layers of polish.

This is how it looks right after taking my finger out of the pod.

Take the cotton out of the pod and wipe off the last bits of polish!  

It's as easy as that!  Another use I've seen tossed around for these are using them for oil soaks, but I haven't had a chance to try that out.

Week 32 Yellow :(

Just a quick post, as I highly disliked how it turned out, the color just didn't look good with my skin tone.

Color Club Almost Famous w/ China Glaze Gold Fusion, no top coat

This Post Brought To You By....

My new Samsung Chromebook!  Sorry I've been MIA for a bit, been in a polish funk lately, and not feeling creative.  Been trying to organize my polishes and take updated pictures for a new stash post, since I've been getting new polishes.  Here's a couple of nail looks that I've done in the past week:

First up is a rainbow skittle mani using China Glaze Magnetix II collection.  Found the set hiding at Marshall's, one of my favorite places to find polish deals.  I can usually find Color Club sets for only $9.99.  

Had some major shrinkage cause I rushed and used thick coats and didn't wrap my tips, plus my topcoat didn't help either.  Still working on getting better with my timing with the magnet, the blue didn't turn out too well as a result.  All the colors shown worked great and had gorgeous effects with the magnet, but the collection came with an orange color that's magnet effect was not as strong, and I thought didn't look good with my skin tone.

This is what's on my nails currently: 

I used Color Club Poptastic and Twiggie, SinfulColors Last Chance, Wet'N'Wild Wild Shine Black Creme, and topped it China Glaze Fairy Dust.

I'm going to be working on a tutorial for removing polish using soaker pods like these from Amazon.  My friend +Jamie Cannon and I got each other a set mainly out of curiosity, but they actually do work really well!

Blue frost for Autism, a new base, and a nostalgic love.

I failed at trying to do a flag-inspired mani last week, and I haven't gotten around to doing this week's challenge, so here's my mani that I did for Autism Awareness.

I used Color Club Chelsea, and sponged Wet'N'Wild Break The Ice for the tips.  I loved how shimmery and  frost-like it looked.

I bought the O.P.I. Original Formula Nail Envy at Marshall's for $7.99, and it came with this adorable charm bangle.

Also, I love Ring Pops.  One of my favorite candies from my childhood, along with those bug-shaped SweetTart-like candies in the jar that could be reused as a bug jar.

A Grey Day

I used SinfulColors Snow Me White and Wet'N'Wild Wild Shine Black Creme and mixed them together for the grey base. I used Color Club Poptastic for the dots.

Bonus Easter nails using my new fan brush.  SinfulColors Candy Coated and Color Club Warhol.

Cinnamon Roasted Almonds and Stripes

A while back, I found an awesome garage sale find, a Back To Basics Nut Roaster.

I had wanted to get one of these as kind of a joke for my aunt, who has a love for Cinnamon Roasted Almonds, (Whenever we'd go somewhere they were, she'd exclaim "I smell my nuts!"), but I never ended up buying one and they disappeared from the shelves.  So when I found this one brand new and never used for $3, I snatched it up!  So now I make a batch of almonds to take to family get-togethers, and sometimes just because!

I've found that they're best when I dry-roast them in the oven first.  Not only do they taste better, but the whole house smells awesome!  I just toss them onto a cookie sheet/baking dish and put them in a 350 F degree oven for about 20-25 min (I've found that the time will vary depending on ovens, so just keep an eye on them near the end and make sure they don't get to dark).

After they've roasted, I put them in the pan and add the cinnamon and sugar, and turn the burner on to medium high heat. Then I add the water and vanilla extract.  Then you just slowly stir and stir and stir until the liquid evaporates and the nuts are glazed.

This is the recipe that came with the pan, you can tweak it depending on how much sugar/cinnamon/vanilla you'd like(just don't use a ton of cinnamon, you'll end up with a goopy mess that looks like tar!).  You don't have to use a special pan, any heavy bottomed pan will work (like cast iron).  

1 C sugar

1/2 Tbsp ground cinnamon

2 C nuts

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 C water

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This week's nail challenge was stripes, and I just did a very simple design.  I used Wet'N'Wild Wild Shine Black Creme as a base color, then used N.Y.C. Matte topcoat on it.  I then painted a single stripe down the center of my nail with a shimmery dark cherry color polish, but that didn't really look nice to me.  So I got SinfulColors Let's Talk and painted over the red.  I loved the color combo, and also loved how pretty the shiny purple was against the matte black.