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.

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.

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.

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.

Tutorial Inspired - Week 25

This weeks nails are inspired by this tutorial by one of the first nail bloggers that I started following, +Wacky Laki.  I wanted to use my purples, SinfulColors Candy Coated and Let's Talk, and Color Club Pucci-Licious.  The design was easy enough to do on my left hand, although a bit time consuming.  My right hand though, I'm sad to say did not go as easily.  I used the pointy end of my orange sticks that came with the Ms. Manicure set I have to draw on the design.

This is the most color accurate picture, by the way.

Left Hand

Right Hand

By far my favorite nail look so far!

Week 24 - Violet

Not sure if I can call this violet, but it's the closest color I have at the moment.  

SinfulColors Let's Talk stamped with a Sally Hansen polish pen in a purple chrome color. 

Let's Talk is so hard to capture on camera!  It def leans more red that the blue it shows in my picture.  I've found this as the best color match. (Image originally found here )

Springtime!

I am in LOVE with SinfulColors new spring colors, especially Candy Coated!  It might be because it matches my eReader cover that I got for Valentine's Day.

I of course couldn't leave it alone, so I stamped with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Celeb City.

I used the same Mash plate as the fish scales for the grid stamp, and one of the plates that came in my Salon Express stamping set for the dragonflies.

Color Club In True Fashion duo French Tips

Trying to get back into the habit of posting, and following the Challenge.  This week is French Tips, and my cousin Jen had suggested pairing 2 of my Color Club polishes together, so I figured I'd give it a shot.  I started with my normal nail strengthener and base coat.  I then used Wet'N'Wild Wild Shine in Black Creme as an undie for Color Club Personal Stylist.  Here's a shot I took before stamping and clean-up, to show off how gorgeous this color is!  This is 2 coats, with top coat.

I then used my MASH plate and stamped Color Club Editorial in the fish scale pattern.  I then did a french tip and added top coat.

It was insanely shiny and shimmery, and I didn't want to take it off!  I did eventually take it off, since it was starting to chip and snag.  This design reminded me of fishing lures for some reason as well.  I want to get more stamping plates!

Inspired by Nature

Things have finally started going back to normal around here, so I've resumed the 52 week challenge.  Last week's challenge was Inspired by Nature.  I decided to try to do a natural-looking nail, but with polish.  

I used Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect in Dune as the base color, and Wet'n'Wild Megalast in Break the Ice for the tips.

Inspired by a Book

Trying to get back into blogging.  It's been a tough week.  Flew out for my Grandpa's funeral this past weekend, still haven't really gotten my head wrapped around the fact that he's gone.

I ended up breaking like 3 nails during my trip, my nails did not take well to the the cold.  This is what they looked like before I left:

Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect Dune, stamping done with Salon Express plate with my SinfulColors red and green polishes.

And this is what they look like today:

SinfulColors Base Coat only.

I'd love to try to do a Cheetah print in honor of my friend +Jamie Cannon's books, but it just ends up looking like a mess. :( I need more practice and patience.  I also need the patience for waiting for Moon Rises, the sequel to Night Falls (also available on Kindle)

I promise I will be better about blogging in the future.

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.

Rainbows!

The challenge this week was one I was really looking forward to, since I don't normally do bright and colorful nails on myself.  I still couldn't commit to more than an accent nail this time (which took me longer than I thought it would).

I used Sally Hansen's Complete Manicure in Black Platinum for my other nails.  The accent nail is SinfulColors Snow Me White with Color Club's Poptastic collection as my rainbow of colors.  The green I wasn't happy with until I mixed some of my SinfulColors Last Chance with it, it was to mint ice-cream looking before.  I even remembered to do an Indigo color, which is just the blue and purple of the Poptastic collection mixed together.  All topped with my Sally Hansen top coat.  Left hand I used my striping brush (and could have done a neater clean-up on the cuticle), and I also attempted to use my dotting tool to do my right hand.  It did not turn out as nice, but still recognizable as a rainbow :)

Until next time
Jess

Saran Mani Week 8 / Wordless Wednesday

Black and … Week 7

This week is supposed to be black and white, but I could not get my idea to translate to my nails.  I wanted to do pirate skull and crossbones, but could not get it to look like anything more than an 'X' with a dot above it, even with trying to use my skull stamp.  So I ended up doing black and silver bar glitter.

Wet'N'Wild Black Creme, Kleancolor Grand Finale, and Sally Hansen Top Coat.

The bar glitter was a pain to apply.  I'll need more patience with it next time I guess.

Until next time
Jess

Halloween Nails week 5

So late with posting this.  Orange polish is not a color I like on me, so trying to do something creative was difficult.  I finally was inspired while painting pumpkins with my son.  

The nails: 

I started out with a new base, that I got as an accident.  Was meaning to get more top coat while we were at Walmart (where we rarely go anymore), and wasn't paying attention to which one I grabbed.  Oh well, was needing base coat anyway!  Black Creme from Wet'N'Wild, then dotting with SinfulColors Snow Me White. My dotting was not very clean, as Snow is pretty thick, so there are little stringy things everywhere. I then went back with Color Club Wham! Pow! for my orange dots.  Cause it was for Halloween, I also used Wet'N'Wild's Fantasy Makers Glow in the Dark polish.  Ended up smudging the dots a bit, but it wasn't to obvious off-camera. Finished off with top coat.  The glow wasn't to obvious on Halloween, but I was also carrying around a giant glowstick while taking my son and my cousins' kids Trick or Treating.  

I need to find out how much the nail salons around here will charge just for shaping my nails, I just can't get them even when trying to square them off.

I wish I had remembered to take pictures while making the mini Oreo cheesecakes, so that I could make a proper post for them.  They were a big hit with my family, even my mom liked them.  

Until next time,

Jess

Stash and Set Up Post

While I'm trying to come up with a blue nail design for this week's challenge, I figured I'd post the polishes I have now at the start of this blog adventure, and my set up for now.  I usually end up doing my nails late at night, after my son goes to bed.  I have most of my stuff set up at my desk in my room, but I have a pair of clippers, a file, and a cuticle pusher on the cabinet next to my chair in the living room for when I want to fidget with my nails while watching a movie or something.  My buffing block is out there too right now, come to think of it.

Here's my desk set up.  The black and red box is usually over on the computer tower, and my tools pouch is usually under the monitor.  Chromebook (Cr-48, the Pilot Notebook from Google), my awesome Thermos that keeps w/e I'm drinking cold for hours.  Big bottle of pure Acetone, and a bottle of regular nail polish remover.  In the box is my SinfulColors and Insta-Dry polishes, and in the lid is the rest.  My top coat, Elmer's Glue base coat, and cuticle oil are up by the monitor.  Cotton balls, make-up sponges, and q-tips on top of the tower.  Tools in pouch, and a little glass tea light holder that I use to hold acetone for when i use my nail brushes (currently has a cotton ball in it that I used to wipe off excess cuticle oil from my finger nails).

The tools in my pouch:

I got the pouch at Big Lots for $4, had a bunch of Ms Manicure items.  Left side has nail clippers, cuticle nippers, dotting tool, cuticle pusher, nail file, and 2 brushes I got at Michael's, one for nail art and the other for clean-up.  Right side has toe separators, Salon Express stamper set, old gift card for scraping, Born Pretty Store Hello Kitty plate I got for free one random night, and 2 MASH plates I got for a penny each on Copious.  Paper hole reinforcement stickers and couple of orange sticks are also in there.  

 

Now for the polishes.

Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell, Kleancolor Chunky Holo Purple, NYC Matte Top Coat, Color Changing Blue/Green chrome, O.P.I. Turquoise Shatter, O.P.I.Black Shatter

Sally Hansen:

Nail Prisms Lapis Amethyst, Xtreme Wear Invisible, Complete Manicure Black Platinum, Advanced Hard As Nails Strengthening Top Coat, Xtreme Nails Blinding Blue, InstaDri Brisk Blue, Crackle Overcoat Cherry Smash, InstaDri Rapid Red, InstaDri Blue-Away

 

Tokyo Pearl, Ruby Ruby, Snow Me White, Last Chance

Frenzy, Cinderella, Ciao Bella!

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City, SinfulColors What's Your Name, SinfulColors Queen of Beauty, Wet'n'Wild Black Creme, Wet'n'Wild Magnetic Igniting The Spark, and Wet'n'Wild Fantasy Makers Glow in the Dark Go With The Glow

I also have a SinfulColors Let's Talk, but my camera hates it and I can't get a close enough color accurate pic, so have a Google search image:

That's it for tonight, until next time

Jess