KOTD: Atomic kitsch

Just a quick post today. Busted out my stamping plates for the first time in a while so I figured I might as well document the extra effort. I love this kitschy 50s atomic pattern...

click to enlarge

I wish I had better photographing conditions today. Utterly depressing low-hanging clouds pretty much snuffing out any semblance of light. In real life, this mani is much more fun and bright. I used Essie Butler Please (2 coats) and stamped over it with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Just in Lime which, despite my lying picture, isn't the slightest bit olive green but a zingy bright lime. The plate I used was CH 46--a fun outer space themed plate from Cheeky's summer 2012 collection (available here). Top coat was Seche Vite.

Working on more posts for the coming week, including swatching my new Pure Ice glitter polishes I talked about here, a "what I'm loving right now" post and a post all about my new favorite Youtube beauty vlogger. Stay tuned!

new stuff to stick on my nails: hot pink nail art studs from Born Pretty Store!

In posts past, I have professed and undying love for sticking junk to my nails. Glitter, poly clay slices, rhinestones, wee bits of metal--if it is small enough for nail art, you better believe I'll be featuring it in a mani. So, of course, when I was contacted by the folks at Born Pretty Store requesting a review for one of their products, I jumped at the chance to snatch up some brand new studs to experiment with. 

If you are not already familiar with Born Pretty Store, they are an amazing etailor of everything from jewelry to makeup to nail art supplies. They are an excellent source of all things sparkly and shiny and reasonably priced--nail art rhinestones and glitter, stamping plates, flocking powder, nail foils just to name a few items--and they are always adding new products to their inventory. Oh yea and they offer FREE worldwide shipping, too..sa-weeeeeeeeeet!

So, here's a pic of the studs I got. 

They're 2mm hot pink studs and HERE is the official link to the item's listing. The studs are completely smooth, domed and hollow on the underside. They come in the resealable plastic pouch they are pictured in above and you get TONS of them. The amount pictured in the bag  is actually AFTER I had done 2 different manis with the studs. I'll have these for a long time!

The above is a shot of a mani I created with the studs. I wanted something fun & obnoxiously girly, so I went with a dotticure using a base of China Glaze Creative Fantasy (a neon purple hot mess of a polish--don't even get me started on the abysmal formula). The white dots were made with a dotting tool and Finger Paints Papier Mache. I then used the same dotting tool dipped in a bit of clear polish to pick up the hot pink studs and place them where I wanted them while my polish was still wet. A quick coat of Seche Vite sealed the deal and I was done. Altogether, it took no more than 20 minutes start to finish for me to do both hands. 

These studs are SUPER neon bright. Because of how saturated the color was, I was a bit afraid that the studs  might bleed when I applied topcoat, but amazingly enough, they were totally colorfast! Win!!

shot to show height of the studs

One thing I need to note about these studs is they DO have a higher profile than any of the other rhinestones or studs I've used before. That being said, though, I was amazed at how well they stayed on my nail. I wore this manicure for 3 days without losing a single stud. Probably has something to do with the hollow dome shape filling up with the clear polish & getting everything all good and stuck down when I put the studs on my nail (yes this is me trying to sound scientific--scary isn't it?)...

So do I recommend these studs? Without a freakin doubt! In fact, I'm planning on getting the other neon colors Born Pretty Store offers. They are cute, bright, don't bleed, stay put and I can't wait to do more manis with them!

If you, too, feel moved to give some moneys over to crazy fun bright nail art, then be sure to use this coupon code the peeps at Born Pretty Store created especially for The Awesome People (aka, all you fine readers of my blog).

(disclosure statement: yes products in this post were provided to me for review. no that does not mean I lied about liking them)

are bad pics better than no pics?

So, I thought about it and decided--what the hell,  I'll post all my bad cell phone pics of the manis I've done over the past few months. VIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK. In addition to being shot by inferior equipment in inadequate lighting, these pics feature work that was never intended to see the light of day--that means there's all kinds of ragged, dry cuticles, sloppy application & little to no clean-up. Think you can stomach it?

Orly Pre-amp stamped with Konad special white. This was sometime in late December...

Zoya Fei Fei stamped with Wet N Wild Black Creme. Mid December, maybe??

Purple ruffle mani done with more purples than I can remember and a dotting tool. 

My New Year's nails. China Glaze Blonde Bombshell stamped with Wet n Wild black creme with some decals thrown in for good measure. 

Icicle nails! The baby blue base  is a new for 2013 New York Color polish (I can't remember the name for the life of me and I can't find the bottle--arrgh!). The icicles were done with a Kiss nail art striper and then I topped it with a subtle teal blue glitter polish by Confetti (which I also can't remember and can't find...doh!)

Wacky acid trip nails! I started by making a bullseye pattern with all the bright colors from the China Glaze Cirque de Soliel collection, then I stamped over all that crazyness with Konad Special white. Utterly headache-inducing!

More colors from China Glaze Cirque du Soliel (my husband got me the entire collection for Christmas--told ya he was awesome!!). This is a base of Hanging in the Balance, dotted with Def Defying. The smaller dots inside the bigger dots are Hanging in the Balance again, which ended up taking on a dark green hue over top of the chartreuse--unintended but I still liked it!

So that's just a little glimpse of what I've been up to nail-wise over the past few months & what I thought was unworthy of blogging about. Ugh I cry just looking at those poor dry cuticles!! ::::rubs Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle cream feverishly into fingertips:::: I promise, cuticles, as God as my witness, you shall never go thirsty again!!

My week in nails

Welp, another week has come and gone with nary a post from yours truly. Sad and triflin' I know. I want to be able to post more but, the only way I'm going to accomplish that is if I either get rich enough to afford hired help or miraculously stumble upon human cloning technology and make enough mes to go around. As always, though,  I have been taking pics of my manis (well, the ones that lasted long enough for me to get pics of, that is) and I have a few of those pics to share with you today.

The mani above is brought to you by Maybelline's Color Show Line. They have recently released a set of limited edition kryptonite glitter polishes called 'Sequins.' Of course, whilst out running errands, I happened upon a display of said polishes and 3 of them somehow found their way into my cart (go to the store for diapers, come home with diapers....and several bottles of nail polish. Story of my frickin life). This pretty is known by the name "Sapphire Masquerade." It consists of multiple sizes of blue-violet glitter (I wouldn't consider this a true blue) with some larger bright purple glitters thrown into an inky blue jelly base. Freakin LOVE. Easy to work with. GREAT coverage and it actually managed to not feel like sandpaper despite being a glitter bomb. Pictures are 2 coats of Sapphire Masquerade with 2 coats of Seche Vite on top. Moving right along......

This is the crazy ass mani I came up with to celebrate the fact that, after last week's election,  gays can get married in even more states now!! YAAAAAY!! Granted I intentionally keep politics off this blog because I want it to be simply about the awesome escapism that pretty shiny things bring into our lives BUT  I have no problem publicly stating that I am all for equality for ALL human beings, no matter what they look like, what they have between their legs,  how much money they make,  where they live, what they believe or who they take to bed with them. And where else is a nail polish fiend supposed to express her happiness over more victories for gay rights than on  the tips of her fingers??

 This mani was done with Wet N Wild black creme., then came a coat of an old and unfortunately pretty impossible to  find Fantasy Makers rainbow bar glitter polish from a few years back called Black Magic (yes the other OTHER version of that polish). After that,  I  free-handed some half moons with Essie No Place Like Chrome, glitterfied the half moons with a silver glitter Kiss nail art striper, stuck on a rainbow combo of rhinestones &  Badda-boom badda-bing, ya got some Yay for the Gays nails. 

After I used Essie No Place like Chrome for those half-moons, I decided I needed even more of that awesome shiny in my life. And, to shiny it up even more,  I reached for Color Club Platinum Record (from last year's insane Backstage Pass glitter collection). The above mani is 1 coat of No Place like Chrome with 2 coats of Platinum Record dabbed on & 1 coat of Gelous + Seche Vite to finish. Gotta love BLINDING disco ball nails. Trying to get pics of this was pretty much im-freakin-possible. Seriously, my camera was about to jump out of my hands & walk out the door it was so fed up (us nail bloggers always put our poor cams through such hell). 

So that's all I got for ya this time. Thanks to those of you who actually still bother to stop by!  I like to think I will be able to post with some semblance of consistency one fine day--like maybe 20 years from now when all my boys are all grown up... Until next time,  Peace and pretty things to all!

Still kickin

Sup, homies? I know its been a while. Life keeps eating up all my time--damn you obligations and responsibilities!! Despite the fact that I haven't blogged about my nails, I HAVE been doing them and I've still created manis for the CNT Halloween Challenge. I just seem to be having issues with being able to get said manis posted on the days they're supposed to appear....sigh...oh well--better late than never, right??

So anyway, here's the mani I did for the "Bump in the Night (monsters, etc) " prompt of the challenge:

Yep, unoriginal mummy nails that 5 million bloggers have done 5 million times before.  But, hey, how many bloggers take pics of their mummy nails while holding adorable little tuxedo skeleton wind-up toys? Yep, that's me, always gotta shake things up.

This mani consists of:

Zoya Dove (the gray)

Wet N Wild Black Creme

Wet N Wild French White Creme

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear  Cherry Red for the pupils

Next up, I have the mani I did for the "pumpkins" prompt of the challenge:

outside shade

inside under swirly eco light bulb thingy

Yea I know, they kinda suck but, like I said, I'm still a newbie with all this free-hand nail art stuff. 

This mani consists of:

Maybelline Orange Blazes

Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Moonlit Dance

Wet N Wild Black Creme

Only 3 more prompts left in this challenge. Think I'll manage to post about 'em before Thanksgiving? Stay tuned and find out!

Crumpet's Nail Tarts rock my socks

More late Halloween Challenge nails...

Yep, once again, here I am posting for Crumpet's Halloween Challenge a day late...but honestly--at this point--do you expect anything else from me?

The prompt for this mani was "Freestyle Halloween" so I took the opportunity to experiment with a nail art technique I haven't tried yet: needle marbling. In orange and black, of course...

outside sun

outside shade

even more outside shade

So basically, I took Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sunkissed, painted my nails with it and let it dry. Then, going one nail at a time, I painted half Sunkissed and half Wet N Wild Black Creme--put them both on a bit thick and then I dragged a pin-point through them randomly. I decided NOT to attempt any sort of specific design within the needle marble since it was my first time with it. My aim was simply "lets see if we can do this without it becoming a hot and hideous mess." Once again, kids. If you set your goals nice and low, you won't be dissappointed. After the pin-dragging, I applied 2 coats of Seche Vite.

I admit, I am actually really happy with how my nails came out--even if they are super simple (see readers, I'm taking your advice and trying to be less hard on myself)...I'll definitely be experimenting with needle marbling again!

Oooooh Things that Go Bump in the Night is the next prompt! Ghost nails, here I come!

Yay for Crumpet's Nail Tarts!

Depression Awareness

October is depression awareness month. Green is the ribbon color. Being that I have battled severe clinical depression pretty much my whole frickin life, I felt compelled to do a green manicure dedicated to raising awareness of this most insidious, relentless and ubiquitous disease.  

Mani consists of:

L'Oreal Project Runway The Muse's Attitude

Color Club Kiss me Under the Mistletoe

Bundle Monster image plate 

Seche Vite

For me, depression is very much a physical disease. Chemical imbalances (yes, friends, chemicals are physical things) cause it. For me, that is every bit as REAL and tangible as, say, a tumor is for a cancer patient. Depression has never been "all in my head." It's not simply a matter of "cheering up and getting over it." When those chemicals shift and I feel myself going down, there isn't a whole lot I can do. It's as if someone turns the volume up on gravity. My bones are suddenly made of lead. Getting up becomes pretty much impossible. As does concentrating. The space between my ears fills with static and even when I force myself out of bed & try to make myself engage in some kind of activity, I catch myself standing & staring into space. I hate it. It wastes me and there is nothing I wouldn't give to be rid of it. Depression has been with me since I was a small child. I can't remember ever being without it. And, no matter how many pills or hours of therapy I throw at it, it still remains with me and probably always will. I'll spare you the worst of the details; suffice it to say I am lucky to be alive right now because I know so many people do not win the battle that I stubbornly fight to keep going each day and there were too many times that I, too, came dangerously close to losing. 

If you suffer from depression, I'm sure lots of this rings true for you, too. If you don't, please take the time to educate yourself and please don't ever assume that someone who struggles with this disease does so willingly.

Lame late witch nails

So yesterday was witch day in the halloween challenge I'm doing but I didn't exactly post yesterday.
I DID do my nails yesterday, just didn't get around to actually uploading, editing and publishing anything. Damn you, life...MUST you keep getting in the way of blogging?? And you think I could at least have a decent mani to post given my lateness, but nooooooo. I come straggling in with THIS crap:

My original plan for the witches prompt was to create a fun halloween-colored background and stamp the only witch image I have in my plate collection over top of it. However, since I had never attempted to use that plate before (it's from Bundle Monster's first generation of stamping plates), I had no idea the plate was not etched properly and therefore would NOT stamp the witch properly...so I gave up and reached for some lame witchy decals instead. 

I like to think the cute dotticure background redeems this crap mani but really I just hate the whole dang thing.

For this mani, I used:

Barry M Bright Purple as base

Sinful Colors Exotic Green 

Maybelline Orange Blazes

large & small dotting tool

Nail decals by Kiss

Gelous and Seche Vite topcoats

Lets hope that, since the next prompt is "freestyle Halloween," I can actually pull of something that doesn't suck. Til then, go join the Crumpet's Nail Tarts group on Facebook and go see lots of other much more competent witch-themed manicures! 

Halloween Challenge Day 3: Zombie Nails!!

We have arrived at day 3 of the Crumpet's Nail Tarts Halloween Nail Art Challenge 2012. Day 3 belongs to the zombies!! I have quite an affinity for the undead--what with the glazed over eyes staring into space, the drooling on oneself and the tendency to communicate with grunts and growls, zombies and I have lots in common. I, too, desire brains--not so much for eating but for thinking more clearly and remembering things (I'm convinced the only thing I have between my ears is empty space)...

Anyway, enough yammering and onto the nails:

inside under lamp with swirly eco bulb thingy

outdoors under overcast sky

Zombies--heart--brains....get it? Yea I know, my brilliance is awe-inspiring.

For this mani I used:

China Glaze Immortal as a base

Wet N Wild Black Creme

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red

LA Colors pink nail art polish

Wet N Wild French White Creme

Tiny flat, angled nail art brush

Detail/lining brush

Dotting tool

Crumpet's Nail Tarts Halloween 2012 nail art challenge day 2: Black Cats!

Hello and welcome to the second post for the Halloween nail art challenge I have undertaken. Today's prompt was "black cats." My personal goal for this challenge is to baby-step my way into more free-hand nail art so, once again, I chose a simple design that I felt I could pull off with nothing but brushes and polish. Here's what my nails ended up looking like:

Yep, little peeking black kitties. I know they're not perfect, but at least they actually somewhat resemble cat heads, right? That's right people, set low goals and you'll never be disappointed. 

So, for this mani, I used China Glaze Surfin for Boys for my orange base. Then I busted out my trusty Wet N Wild black creme and a flat, angled nail art brush (picture a mini version of an ecotools eyeliner brush) to do the cats' heads. The eyes were done with a lime green LA Colors Art Deco striper polish and the pupils with a a short striper brush and WnW Black Creme again. 

 So far I am loving taking part in this challenge! As you can see below, the next prompt is ZOMBIES!! You know, I have a great affinity for the undead so I can't frickin wait!

challenge list image courtesy of Crumpet's Nail Tarts, aka the banginest nail group on Facebook

Crumpet's Nail Tarts Halloween 2012 Nail art challenge--day 1 "Trick or Treats"

So guess who decided to finally join a nail art challenge....I figured since I want to do tons of Halloween theme manis for the month of October and could use a little impetus to keep me going, why not hop on board this nifty little challenge that starts today? I learned about it in this nail-related Facebook group I'm in and the minute I saw it I was like "I'm SO on board with this!" I love the prompts and I love that everything is staggered out over the month of October because I know for a fact I could NEVER keep up with any kind of daily challenge (too many kids and too short of an attention span for that kind of nonsense)...

So anyfrickinway, onto the pics!

Crumpet's Nail Tarts Halloween 2012 Nail Art Challenge Day 1: Trick or Treats:

(please ignore the chip in my index nail...I whacked it on the screen door on my way out to snap these pics)

So the prompt for today is 'trick or treats'--basically sugary candy goodness. We all know I am a stampaholic but I am massively inexperienced when it comes to other forms of nail art--especially anything free form, so I wanted to push myself to do more free form stuff. I figured I could pull off something nice and simple like a candy corn manicure, so that's what I went with. 

I started off with a base of Finger Paints Papier Mache. Then painted Maybelline Sunshine half way up each nail. Next I painted Sally Hansen Extreme Wear in Sunkissed a quarter of the way up. I guess it's not that bad...right? It could have been worse...

So that's my installment for day 1 of this challenge. I am SO excited for all the upcoming prompts! I LOVES me some spooky things and am looking forward to painting all manner of ghoul and gore on these 10 little canvases on the tips of my fingers!

Btw, is that dancing skelly not the awesomest thing you've ever seen? Seriously, I want to tatt it on me somewhere!

Halloween nail art with scrapbooking rub-ons

One of my favorite nail bloggers is Another Bottle of Polish. I love how she frequently uses non-traditional materials in her nail art (by non-traditional I mean things that were not made specifically for nail art). For example, she creates beautiful manicures by using rub-on transfers--the kind you can find in the scrapbooking sections of craft stores. I finally got around to trying some of my own rub-on nail art. Of course, I chose a Halloween theme because from now until October 31st I'm rockin nothing but spookyness on my nails. Anyway, here's how my mani turned out:

Please try hard to ignore my terrifying cuticles. You know you just don't realize how bad your hands look until you blow them up a million times and macro-fy them... sigh...

I used my mani from yesterday (L'Oreal Project Runway 'The Temptress' Touch'), cut out some web and spider rub-ons, trimmed them to fit, placed them on my nails, gave them a good rub, did a little clean up with the ol acetone + ELF concealer brush and then sealed it all with a coat of  Out the Door topcoat. 

Here are the rub-ons I used. I found them at Christmas Tree Shops (an oddly-named bargain shop here in New England). 

So, are you feelin my rub-on mani? Thank you to ABOP for the inspiration! I see many more manis like this in my future!

Also, stay tuned for lots more Halloween nail art. I got a whole list of manis I'm planning to attempt!

I'm back--and I got spam!!

hey, remember me? yep I'm back to blow the dust off this blog and see if I remember how to post. It's funny, I somehow thought I would have more time to post once my kids went back to school. Man WHAT was I smoking?? Between shuttling them to & from places, homework, tutoring, soccer & the fact that their little brother doesn't know what to do with himself when his beloved big brothers are gone (and is therefore very cranky and VERY prone to getting into anything and everything the minute I turn my head), I have my hands more full than ever! BUT every now and then I do get a chance to paint the nails on those hands and when I do, I make sure to snap some pics, so here's some NOTD (nails of the day) spam for yas:

The above little lovely is Legal Assasin by Dandy Nails. It's part of her newly debuted Halloween collection and I picked it up when she did an impromptu pre-sale. It is basically the DREAM halloween glitter I've fantasized about making if I had ballz enough to make my own polish--black, purple and green micro glitters hanging out with bigger orange hexes. I wore it layered over OPI French Quarter for your Thoughts because I wanted the glitter to take center stage. I only needed 1 coat of LA to cover those gray undies up and only needed 1 coat of Seche Vite to make it all smooth. I loves me some dense yet flat glitters!

And next we have R.I.P. by Orly--3 coats topped with Seche Vite. Small gold and large orange hex glitters in a sheer black base (I showed its sibling polish in my previous post). Once again, Halloween in a bottle and I lurve it. I gotta mention the formula was a bit of a pain, though. Orly you need better suspension bases for your glitters!! I had to pick this bottle up and shake it several times during my mani because all the glitters just wanted to sleep at the bottom of the bottle. This tends to be a problem with lots of Orly glitters--Androgenie, and most of the Flash Glams, I'm looking at YOU! 

Here we have a fail art attempt I wore to celebrate the start of Football season. I'm not much of a sports person in general but I'm ALL about the football. I'm a Philadelphia Eagles fan (although I'm reluctant to admit it at the moment--damn, guys did you have to let the Cardinals run ALL over you like that?!) and the closest polish I have to Eagles green is Zoya Suvi. I did a silver glitter gradient with a silver glitter nail art striper polish & a bit of sponge and the silly little pigskin accent nail is OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys with a white Kiss nail art striper for the laces. 

And I saved the best for last. Behold the majesty of Nicole by OPI Just Busta Mauve:

(PLEASE enlarge these pics and scope all those gorgeous bitty flakes)

full sun

full sun

partial shade

full shade...be still my little heart!!

Just Busta Mauve is part of the Fall 2012 Target exclusive collection (yes that means you can only get it at Target--but it's also available on their website. This beauty is made up of tiny  blue, purple, copper, red, and gold metallic flecks and the amazing thing about this polish is that all the individual shades are actually discernable--it's like gorgeous cosmic multi colored tv static or something!! LOVING it! Nice job, Nicole. Now if you just ditch those ugly, awkward saggy boob-looking bottles, you'll be golden! (oh yea, and this is 2  perfect, easy coats of JBM over Nail Life ridge filler base and, as always, Seche Vite is on top!)

So I hope I made up for my absence with this spam...now I gotta run and get my kids ready for school (yep I woke up extra early just to write this post cuz I love you guys that much ;)...I'll be back soon, I promise!