French Bows - The Last Easter Mani...I Promise!

Good morning and welcome to 3 more new readers!  Only 7 to go, folks!!!

For my mani yesterday, I wanted something soft, subtle, and sweet for Easter Sunday.  So I started with my base of SH Double Duty.  Then, I did four coats of OPI's Barre My Soul, from their new NYC Ballet collection.  It's a sheer that I wanted pretty opaque, hence the ridiculous amount of coats.  I did this on all of my nails, except my ringer finger, which I was going to use as a subtle accent.  On that one, I did four coats of OPI's Care to Danse, a sheer purple that is also from the new collection.  Then I taped off my tips and added Orly's Faint of Heart.  To finish it all off, I topped with SV, and added nail art - a sweet, little, yellow bow, to my accent fingers.  And for some inexplicable reason, my cuticles decided to look ginormous when I took the pics.  @^%#$!* REALLY?!?  Anyway, I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and here's to a (hopefully) painless week!

Feature Friday - Ski Teal We Tip

Happy Friday, folks!  So, I've been sick and up to my eyeballs in homework.  But I did manage to squeak out a mani for you today.  And I have to say, I am totally loving it!  I started with SH's Double Duty as a base.  Then I put on two coats of OPI's Ski Teal We Drop.  I have nothing but love for this color!  Then, I was really dying to try out my new Warpaint Beauty's Mattify top coat.  It works like a dream and at $1.99 from Hot Topic, it's a heck of a lot easier on the wallet than Essie's Matte About You.  Score!  And of course, I couldn't just stop there.  So I SV'd my tips.  What do you think?  I'm in lurve!

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Nails! - Nail Art Contest Entry

This mani is based on an idea I've had in my mani-spiration book for a while now.  The motivation for finally getting around to doing it is Chalkboard Nails' nail art contest found here.  This is my first time entering a contest.  While I don't expect to win (way too much talent out there!), I'm just proud of myself for getting up the courage to enter!  The rules were that you could only use the polish brush and a dotting tool (or something dotting tool-ish).  I don't have an actual dotting tool, so I used this stylus I have from when I used to do ceramics.

And on to the mani! My idea was to have it look as though rain was "filling" my nails with water.  I used SH Double Duty as a base followed by two coats of OPI's Alpine Snow.  The raindrops and last nail are PP It's All About Blue and it's all topped with SV.  My improvised dotting tool's ends are two different sizes, but both are actually quite small. For smaller raindrops, I used the dotting tool alone.  For the fatter raindrops, I ended up having to use the polish brush to drop a dot of polish and then use my tool to pull a tail.  Since I wanted the nails to look as though water was filling up and sloshing around, I just free-handed uneven tips.  What do you think?

I'm Swatchin' You - New York Color East Village and a Layering Experiment

Happy Monday! I have an electrified sheer blue to shock you into gear for the week.  This next swatch is from NYC's In a New York Color Minute line.  It's called East Village (love that!), so you know it has sass!  The color is a shimmery sheer teal that makes me think of mermaids.  It would look gorgeous over a light base.  But of course, since I'm swatching, I wanted you to see it in all of it's natural glory!  Easy application with a decent brush.

  SH Double Duty and SH Insta-Dri for base and top.

Update: I got some recommendations from some folks over at MUA for layering ideas with this color.  The suggestions were:
Jelly sandwich with a black glitter
Layer over pale yellow
Layer over navy
Layer over OPI Be a Dahlia, Won't You

I found that I did not have a black glitter, so I used the darkest glitter I had in a clear base, which was Sinful's Call You Later.  (Mental note: add a black glitter to stash!)  For the pale yellow, I used Sinful's Unicorn.  The navy I used, which was the only "straight"' navy I had, was ChG's Frostbite.  And since I did not have the OPI color, the closest color I had was Icing's Cherry Blossom.  I decided to add an idea of my own.  For some reason, I thought this color would look great with black lace.  So I painted my thumb with OPI's Alpine Snow and topped it with East Village.  Then I used some black lace I had to add a lace tip.

On a side note, I tried using Maybelline's Express Finish top coat.  I have to say it was crap-tastic.  It did absolutely nothing for drying my nail polish quickly.  I think I bought this years ago to use with my daughter's manis when I wanted a cheap QDTC.  It does apply well, so I will just keep it on hand as a regular top coat.  Enjoy the experimental pics!  Oh, and since I knew this would come off as quickly as it went on, I was not too careful with application and didn't bother with clean up.  Deal with it! :o)

L to R: NYC East Village, OPI Alpine Snow, Sinful Call You Later, Sinful Unicorn, ChG Frostbite, Icing Cherry Blossom

L to R: Jelly Sandwich with Call You Later, layered over Unicorn, layered over Frostbite, layered over Cherry Blossom

Layered over Alpine Snow with black lace tip

Feature Friday - Cherry-Tipped Marshmallows

And then there were 18!  Thank you so much for being here!!!

Since I've been taking this stroll down Colorama memory lane, I decided to show the mani I talked about using Marshmallow Glaze with Cherry Tips.  I did this one two different ways to show you guys.  Let me know which you like better!  And if I didn't tell you when I swatched Marshmallow Glaze, let me tell you now.  It goes on like a freakin' dream!  Great, even coverage and I actually like their brush.  It's a little wider than I usually go for, but it works well!

I started with a base coat of SH Double Duty.  For the first mani, I then painted on two coats of Colorama's Marshmallow Glaze and followed it up with a coat of SV.  Then I taped off my tips and painted on Colorama's Cherry Tips.  Finished this off with a coat of SV.  Painting the tips last allows the red to really pop.

Then, I did the mani again.  But this time, I painted my tips red immediately following the base coat and topped them with SV.  And then I painted two coats of Marshmallow Glaze over the whole nail, including the tips.  This results in a muted tip that almost looks like a frosted pink.  This is a little more conservative with less pop.  It kind of unifies the whole mani.  What do you think?  Which do you like better?

Have a fantabulous weekend everyone!

Feature Friday: A Mermaid's Tale

Hello again!  I was wanting to have my Friday Feature done last night so you would get the pics sooner, but that just did not happen.  Hubberoo has been sick, child's been stubborn, and it's been a long, crazy week full of meetings and homework.  Oh, well.

I don't know why, but I had visions of mermaids and Erika over at Chloe's Nails inspired me to break into my new Big Ruby nail tats!  I got these on sale and you can find them here.

I started with SH Double Duty as a base, two coats of 10's Pinky Promise, and one coat of SV.

Then I taped off my tips (except for my accent nail) and used Spoiled's Good Karma.  Finished them with a coat of SV.

Next, I used my Big Ruby nail tat from their Sea collection.  I wanted this to look like a mermaid diving into the mist, so I took the larger shark tat and cut it in half.  Now I need to think of a mani to use the shark's head...thoughts?  After I applied the tat, I used Spoiled's Shaken Snow Globe on the bottom half of my nail.

Then I layered Sinful's Call You Later on the bottom third of the accent nail.

Followed this with a layer of Sinful's Nail Junkie on just the tip of the accent nail.

To finish up, I used Shaken Snow Globe to kind of blend it all together and topped with SV.  Hope you like it!

New York Giants Superbowl Mani!

Now also known as the Champions Mani!!!  We had a small Superbowl party, so I had zero time to take pics until today.  The only upside to that was it gave me time to get all of the red stains from making jello shots off of my hands!

I started out with SH Double Duty as a base and then added two coats of CG's Frostbite followed by one coat of SV.

Next, I used OPI's I'm Not Really a Waitress to do the tips.

Then I taped off my tips leaving just a tiny strip of red visible and painted the rest of my tips with OPI's Alpine Snow.  I topped them with one coat of SV.

For my thumbs, I decided on a 50 yard line.  I also learned that I can't paint with my left hand if my life depended on it!  Anyway, this is SH's Double Duty as a base and CG's Gaga for Green, two coats.  Then I added one coat of SV.

Then I went back to OPI's Alpine Snow to paint a white line down the center using tape.  Then I (attempted) to freehand a 5 and 0.  Finished it off with one last coat of SV.  And there you have it!

Oz-olutely Fabulous

This was originally posted on my other blog here.  And now, it is the first post on my new blog.  I will be working on getting this blog up and running, so if you stumbled across me and wonder why it is so sparse, there you have it.  Check back soon for more - what else?  ADVENTURES IN MANI-LAND!

So, I have been seeing a lot of Wizard of Oz products lately (bookmarks, shoes, etc).  Since I really love the striped stockings with the ruby slippers, I thought it would be fun to try to do a mani with the same look.  Now, this was my first attempt at striping.  Manis are rare for me.  I'm so rough on my hands that they don't usually last very long so it is usually a one color slap-on mani.  But I had a lot of fun, and I WILL master and refine this in time!  Anyway, here you have it.

I started with two coats of OPI's Alpine Snow.  The stripes were done with China Glaze's (ChG) Liquid Leather.  And the tips are OPI's Speak for Your Elf.  Top coat was Seche Vite (SV).  The pics aren't great, but then, neither is my PhD camera.  And the pics do NOT do the Speak for Your Elf justice...it's gorgeous!!!