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.

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

Happy New Year?

Ugh, 2012 had a super sucky ending for my family.  My grandfather passed away the morning of New Year's Eve, and later we spent 5 hours in the ER with my son for what luckily ended up being just an ear infection.  I completely missed last week's challenge for red nails, as I was still somewhat sick and then just distracted by the holiday.  I only really half-assed this week's challenge, since we don't really do anything for New Year's and I didn't have anyone to go to any type of parties anyway.

Sally Hansen Complete Manicure Black Platinum, N.Y.C. Matte Top Coat, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City

It ended up looking pretty cool, like chalkboard with a shiny metal frame.  Thought about doing some stamping, but just wasn't feeling it.

I now have 59 polishes, 2 base coats, 1 nail strengthener, and 1 top coat.  The one base coat is really just Elmer's Glue, but it works just like the Essie peel-off so it counts, right?

Winter nails!

I love winter.  This is one of the challenges that I was looking forward to, I had the idea already thought of months ago.  I just wish I had a micro-flakie top coat for some sparkle.

I used Elmer's Glue as my base coat (for easy removal in case I screwed it up), Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blinding Blue for the background, SinfulColors Snow Me White sponged on the tips.  I then used Snow Me White and my dotting tool to make the snowman, with Wet'N'Wild Black Creme for the coal and hat, Color Club Wham! Pow! for the nose, and a random dark shimmer red for the scarf, all with the dotting tool.  I then sponged SinfulColors Tokyo Pearl on all the nails for a snowfall look, and then N.Y.C. Matte topcoat.

I was going to attempt to do this on my right hand as well, but after multiple hand washing, doing dishes, and taking a shower, the polish popped right off.  So waiting for my nails to dry out before completing my mani.

Saran Mani Week 8 / Wordless Wednesday