The Lacquer Ring – Splatter

I’m baaaack! Back with my prompt for The Lacquer Ring nail art for the month of January. I picked as you can tell from the title, Splatter. The girls were ready to curse me out, but I just had to! I love the way that splatter looks and versatility of the look. I decided to go a little differently this time, I wanted different textures or finishes, check out what I came up with, I love it!

For Christmas my husband kept saying he really wanted to get me a nail polish but with my stash how in the world could he possibly know what to get. I sent him my wishlist tab that I have on the blog LOL but he didn’t want to be bothered.. said it wasn’t special enough. I told him well most of what I have on my list that are ‘special’ it’s just because I cannot find them, and spouted out a few. Well Guess What he found me!!!!…. OPI’s Here Today Aragon Tomorrow SUEDE VERSION! I couldn’t believe it, super awesome, have not been able to find this in forever!!!

I did two coats of HTAT Suede and splattered Essie’s Penny talk for my different finish of metallic, and then chose a holo to splatter using Dollish Polish’s Walker Bait.The holo is sort of hard to see, I would have rathered a more vibrant holo but I’m in love with how it came out, what do you think??

 

 

Do you hate the work that goes in to splatters too? I’ll let you in on a little secret if you don’t already do this… I use OPI’s glitter off on my cuticles and the tips of my fingers where I know I am going to make a mess. You can use glue, or anything else that you would normally use say when you marble, makes clean up A LOT easier 😉

Go check out the other girls Splatter nails.

 

Independence Day water marbles!!

Happy 4th!

So I attempted water marbling again. This time it was no less messy! LOL My sister who is literally good at everything she tries even the first time is just perfection… well she found a tutorial on Pinterest and sent this to me last week. Once I told her how much of a mess and how uncoordinated I felt doing this last time, she proceeds to tell me, oh it’s easy. Ha.. well…. I tried it again last night and although the tutorial was very helpful and it did work I am still uncoordinated and very clumsy so I still made a mess!

The first step which is very important to water marbling is to make sure that your water is room temperature. When I tried this before I just used tap water ‘at room temperature’ this time per the tutorials suggestion, I used a water bottle that had been sitting out. This tip definitely made a difference.

I had all of my bottles ready to go and open, but part of my first issue and frustration is the blue and white I wanted to use, are almost empty! 😦 so this definitely made it difficult and things didn’t run as smoothly as I wanted.

I taped my fingers up once the white base had dried just as the tutorial had suggested, and started with the next steps of dripping the polish one by one until was a bullseye. Once I had the desired amount of drips and design I put my nail in. Another trick is to wiggle your pin or toothpick on the top of the water to tell once it’s dry. Once it has dried you can scrape it off the top so that once you slowly remove your nail from the water you can’t mess up the design by getting any of the residual at the top of the water on to your nail.

Once I had completed all of the steps and looked at my nails.. the red that I chose overtop my white base was too pink, it wasn’t red enough with just one coat so I was not happy. In the tutorial she had mentioned that some people do double marbles… well now I am intrigued… so I took the same three colors, and added in a shimmery red. I also put a few drops of red before moving on to the next color to brighten it a bit, once I double marbled, it came out darker and more like Red white and blue. It’s a little more abstract and there is a lot of detail going on. I had my girlfriend Gina bring in her Macro camera and lens in to work to help me take better pictures. LOL

Here is my final look

I used Nubar’s Lustful Red, Essie’s Aruba Blue, Ulta’s Snow White, and Avon’s Super Nova.

For the stamp nail I did two coats of Ulta’s Snow White, and used my MoYou stamp. I dropped the blue on one firework, overlapped it a bit with lustful red on the other firework, and on the third overlapped the two with Super Nova. Once I scraped it, I used the excess on my scraper and went over it a couple of more times to blend the colors more and voila!

Here is the link to Polish and Pearls, the tutorial that I followed. It can also be found on my Pinterest board.

All in all, it came out a lot better than I had hoped, I still have some perfecting to do but it ran more smoothly than it did the last time I tried this.. if you can believe that based on what I explained LOL

 

So what do you think, will you try water marbling for the first time, or maybe again using this tutorial? What are your plans this weekend? Hopefully not getting stormed in like us here on the East Coast!

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway, if you haven’t already, ends July 16th 11A EST.

 

NOTD 175 – Frosty the SNOWman

HAPPYYYY BIRTHDAYYYY!!!

Remember the Nail art Challenge I told you I was entering, well this is my first entry. (CLICK HERE TO VOTE) (voting ends Saturday the 30th I believe).  The first week’s theme was ‘snow’ I have a thing for snowmen, a lot of my Christmas decorations are snowmen or snow related. Frosty was always one of my favorite Christmas movies as a kid, who am I kidding, even as an adult… 🙂 so it was only fitting that I find a way to incorporate him in to my theme.

I painted all of my nails with two coats of Revlon – Blizzard Blue. For my pointer and pinky finger I used a snow flake stamp and stamped Essie – Aruba Blue, Essie – No place like chrome, ILNP – Indie Go, and Ulta – Snow White. For my Frosty nail I used Ulta Snow White, Barry M – Gray for his hat, China Glaze – Liquid Leather for the rim of his hat, and Loreal – Captivating Crimson for his nose. For Frosty’s scarf I used Wet N Wild Spoiled – Designated Driver and Ruffian – Foxhunt, for his flower I used Revlon Blizzard blue and Darling Diva’s Peonie, and for his pipe I used Sally Hansen’s Forbidden Fudge. Lastly for my snowy tree nail, I used Sally Hansen Forbidden Fudge, and Ulta – Snow White.

So what do you think? This is week one of the Nail Art Challenge that Nail Polish Canada is hosting. Please check out the other contestants and if you like mine the best, please, please vote! (Voting ends this weekend!) CLICK HERE TO VOTE

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway, **GIVEAWAY CLOSED** Thank you entrants

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NOTD 171 – I wanna see your Peacock

In my last post I said that my sister was coming in on Monday but I lied… BUT I had to! Just in case my mom saw my blog Friday…. So we (my sister and I) told my mom that my sister was coming to visit on Monday, yesterday and staying all week, when in reality we were surprising her Friday. I asked my mom to go to dinner the four of us (my mom, her husband Bill, Don, and I) So my sister came to my house first and followed us to dinner. The four of us sat down and then my sister came in a few minutes after us. Now the place we went to, we have been going to for years so the woman knows Marissa. Donna, the waitress pulls up a table and an extra chair and is like “oh is she joining you” and the three of us (cuz Bill was in on it too) were all like ohh whoo 🙂 and my mom freaked, it was too awesome!! So my sister is here now until Saturday she drives back Saturday morning and I get to spend time with her and Thomas ❤

I did my nails on Saturday night and now I can’t get Katy Perry’s Peacock song out of my head… song not suitable for young children… LOL

For this look I painted my thumb and my middle finger using Revlon – Ocean, and the other three using Avon Cosmic. I stamped Ocean overtop using my peacock stamp and hand painted in the blues (Essie – Bikini so Teeny and Essie’s – Aruba Blue) in the feather and touched up the stem of the feather using Milani glitter nail art. Here is my final look

So there you have it, I think this is one of my favorite designs so far!

What do you think of this look and how was your weekend?

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NOTD 148 – Patriotic Wednesday

Happy Hump Day!

So this week I am not going to do a ‘Featured Color Friday’ Instead, a Patriotic Wednesday because of the way the holiday falls. I will have another post by Saturday most likely. My work is closed on Friday too this year, woohoo!

I started out by painting my nails with two coats of “Ulta – Snow White” and planned on doing a splatter mani using “Essie – Aruba Blue” and “Julep – Glenn” I have only done the splatter once and unfortunately this time it did not work out in my favor. However, fortunately… that it did not as I came up with the idea to use some of my stamps for some more double stamping. I used “Essie’s – No place like chrome” to create the fireworks in the background. I then took ‘Glenn’ and ‘Aruba Blue’ and used pieces of stamps to make the different size stars and place them accordingly.

Here is the final result. (Lots of pictures because I LOVE this mani) 😀

Alright guys, that’s it for me today. What do you think of this years Independence Day mani?

What do you have planned for this Holiday weekend?

 

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NOTD 118 – Thomas is here!!! <3

Hey guys! Last night my beautiful sister Marissa had her first child, and my first niece/nephew with her husband, Jordan. In honor of this gorgeous little thing, as promised, I did some baby boy nails to celebrate! I am also the Godmother so this is extra special to share with them and to share in Thomas’ life such a special job. 🙂

Without further adieu I present, Thomas Allen Bartlett! 🙂

 

So for my nails, I painted two thin coats of “Revlon – Blizzard Blue” I first used my stamp “KD18” and used one of the teddies on my ring finger. The stamping color I used was “Essie – Aruba Blue” and then my ring finger I did a little gradient with “Shimmer – Linna” The rest of my nails I used same stamping color, but used the stamp from OB-M.

So that’s it for now, stay tuned, the hubs and I got some new tattoos so I will post that soon too! ❤

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NOTD 114 – Blue Tuesday

With the President’s Day holiday yesterday and my work being closed, I keep feeling like today is Monday still.. Thankfully it’s not, that just means I am that much closer to Friday already! Woohoo!

Today I have a simple mani, almost too simple, the contrast I don’t feel is enough for pictures. If you know these colors and have ever put them together its enough contrast in person, however in pictures it keeps blending, so we will see what you think.

Overtop two coats of OPI’s Nail Envy, I painted two coats of “China Glaze – Dorothy Who”, I then with my dotting tools did two coats of “Essie – Aruba Blue” as a frame around all nails.

This one is in normal lighting, no lightbox

normal light, no lightbox, just a upclose picture of the glitter and dots.

This is under a light. normal lighting

Under normal lighting

Sunlight. The blues are much more vibrant in this pic and farther from the actual color pigmentation, but you can really see the difference in the detail in this pic.

Well guys, that is all that I have for you today. Very quick post..

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How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Fah who for-aze! Dah who dor-aze! Welcome Christmas, Come this way!

Hey guys! Here we are at week three. For those of you that do not know, I know that I posted on Facebook and sent some emails out… I came in 2nd place for week one!!! woohoo I cannot believe it. I didn’t win anything, but it was still cool to know that I came in second in my first nail art challenge ever. The voting for the second week (“A Christmas Story” – theme gifts) ends the end of the day Wednesday December 5th so be sure to get your votes in!(link at bottom of page)

This weeks theme is, “Trim the tree, Holiday decorations” I chose How the Grinch stole Christmas. see below for inspiration pics and polishes used etc. Voting for week 3 ends Wednesday, Dec 12th, click here to vote please!! I came in 2nd on the first week and 4th on the second week.

I did the Whoville tree with them singing around the tree on my thumb and pointer finger, inspired by this picture:

Here is my nail art inspired by the picture, I drew the top of the tree with the star on my index finger into my thumb which was the bottom, some snow and some of the who’s around the tree holding hands

Next was Cindy Lou Who

Inspired by this picture:

Lastly, on my ring and pinky I drew this, on the very left of the picture you have the fireplace and the grinch shoving it up the tree, I drew his back at the top of the tree as he is bending over shoving it up fireplace. I drew his hat as he is bent over, his feets under the tree on pinky and one hand gripping it on the ring finger. I already had so much detail and its very hard, (not being a real artist) drawing so small on fingernails with nail polish!

Inspired by this pic:

This weeks challenge for sure took the longest! but I had so much fun doing it! I used a variety of very small brushes, and the following polishes:

“Milani – white”, “China Glaze – Adventure Red-y” , “Sally Hanson – Ruby Sequin”, “Revlon – Coastal Surf”, “OPI – Pompeii Purple”, “Julep – Oscar”, “Urban Decay – Mars”, “Spoiled by Wet N’ Wild – Designated Driver”, “Essie – Aruba Blue”, “Julep – Sophia”, “China Glaze – Liquid Leather”, “Ulta – Cream of the crop” , “Barry M- Bright Red”, “OPI – I think in Pink”, “Ulta – Sweet Nothing”, “OPI -Deutsche you want me baby”, “Julep – Kelly”, “Ulta – Celebutante”, “Color Club – pucci licious”.

Be sure to check out everyones and vote! (hopefully for me)

Don’t forget you still have until the end of the day Wednesday the 5th to vote for my “A Christmas Story nails” for Week 2. click here to vote.

NOTD 68 – 9/11

In honor of the tragedy that struck our Nation 11 years ago, I did a small tribute on my nails. I know the saying is “Never Forget” But could any of us ever really forget that day? I know I could never, and I’m sure most of you feel the same.

I would like to Thank the Service men and women who rose to the call that day, all those who continue to serve or protect our country now today, and everywhere in between.  I would also like to Honor all those we lost in the tragedy, and the war that has followed…

On to the nails I will make it quick 😀

“Essie – Aruba Blue” on the thumbs and pinkys with “Milani – White” and my new stamp showcased in this post.

“E.l.f. – light red” on remaining three fingers and the 9/11 Twin Tower art with “China Glaze – Liquid Leather”

Enjoy 😀

“9/11 was a reminder that the bonds of family can be severed in an instant. They are essential, crucial, valuable, fragile.” – Peter Jennings

NOTD 46 – Independence Day

This weeks mani’s theme is in honor of Wednesdays Holiday, Independence Day. I used “Julep – Glenn”for my red,  “Milani – White”, “Essie – Aruba Blue”. I did a needle dragging technique that I first saw on Nicole’s website “Polish me, Please” If you have never heard of it or want some instructions, (either way) you should check out her site because it’s pretty Awesome! She had mentioned that if you do not chose the right polishes, it tends to look a little more like marbling, which my right hand does. 😦 I still love the way it came out though, I think it makes it more fun that some look like needle dragging and others kind of like marbling.

Here is my right hand, all but the pinky came out more like the needle dragging. the pinky and my whole right hand look like a cross between needle dragging and marbling.

And here is the right:

Well there you have it, my Patriotic Mani for the 4th. What are you wearing on your nails today?

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NOTD 45 – Happy Ending Shrinkage

ahaha! Now that I have your attention, here is today’s NOTD.

I have entitled this NOTD as I used “Sinful Colors – Happy Ending” and I had some shrinkage going on from Seche Vite. This is the first time this has happened to me. 😦 Everyone always talks about it and I had never experienced it, until now 😦 (see pinky finger in picture).

The colors used in this mani were the “Sinful Colors – Happy Ending” and “Essie’s Aruba Blue” for a stamp design. I then applied a goldish little bead in the center of the flowers. My thumbs which are not shown because I was bad and have been chomping! Shriek! ( I have had a bad weekend – start of the week ) I put a few of the flowers off centered like I did my big toe in this post. along with the goldish beads in the ones that had centers.

I am getting better with the stamps, not too many issues with these, had to do some touch ups with a teeny brush, other than that I am in love with this mani and the colors. The Sinful colors polish was hard to capture, the flash kept going off and I felt that it made the colors almost look like I had a matte top coat. See the shrunken pinky picture for the best acurate depiction of the green color, love this color!

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Day 28 Flag (Memorial Day Edition) – 31Challenge

I thought it was funny how the Rainbow Day fell near St. Patty’s Day and now Flag Inspiration Day is falling near Memorial Day.

I finally used my stamps for the stars, and it’s still a bit of a trial and error, but I think they came out alright, for my first time. I will get better at it. For the stripes I painted my nails white and then doubled the Nail Art Tape to make a little thicker line and painted the red.

Polishes I used were “Nail-aid Peeling Nail Base Coat”, “Essie – Aruba Blue” “Milani – White” and “Julep – Glenn” The Red bled a little bit because even though I used the same technique as the Pattern day, the Julep formula is a little more liquidy.

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Day 27 Artwork – 31Challenge

My favorite painting is Starry Night, by Vincent van Gogh. My husband found a company online, that re-creates original paintings, and he got me this painting for my Birthday a few years ago. It came rolled up on the canvas and we went to get it framed to match the bedroom, this hangs above my vanity 😀

So naturally, I just had to use this as my Artwork Inspiration:

So again, keep in mind I am no artist, again referring back to DrawSomething… My right hand was a dud, so I am not even bothering with pictures of that, however I did not think that my left hand came out too bad, see what you think 😀 I only did accent fingers for this look.

The polishes that I chose were, “Essie – Aruba Blue”, “nail-aid peeling nail base coat”, “Essie – Vermillionaire”, “Ulta – Cream of the Crop”, “Sinful Colors – Blackest Black”, “Milani – White”, and “Seche Vite’ Top Coat”

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Day 19 Galaxies – 31Challenge

**Picture Heavy**

This Challenge made me feel like I was listening to the open credits/narration of the Twilight Zone. 🙂

I used This Tutorial as a guide for my Galaxy nails and it was very helpful! I  also did a  picture tutorial below. I absolutely loved doing this challenge, not only did it dry super quick because you are sponging, but you don’t have to be perfect on each nail. Part of the look is the blending and making each nail look like parts of the galaxy.

Polishes you will need: a Base Coat, a Top Coat, Black, Blue, Yellow, White, Purple and a glittery Top coat.

I used, L to R, “OPI- Top Coat” “Zoya – Charisma”, “Essie – Aruba Blue” , “Sinful Colors – Black on Black” , “Ulta – Cream of the Crop” , “Essie – Shrine of the Tides” and “Milani – white” and lastly I used my “Sally Hanson – White Nail Art Pen”(not shown “Nail-aid Peeling Nail” as a base)

Once my base coat was applied, per the tutorial, I painted one coat of  my “Black on Black”. Once that was dry, I ripped up a make up triangle sponge into 3-4 pieces. I put a few drops of “Milani – white” on a paper plate and dipped it in long ways, and once dabbing off the little extra made a line diagonally on each nail. This doesn’t have to be perfect, in fact you want it a little un-even and spread out so that it will show when you sponge the other colors.

The next step is to do the same thing but with yellow, put a strip of yellow in middle of the white.

Next you do same step as 1 & 2 but with purple, I chose the “Zoya – Charisma” as its brighter and kind of neon to add some vibrance. With the purple you do the same thing by using a sponge piece on the long end but this time you go down the diagonal line on either side just outside the white and kind of blend in.

The next step was blue, and again I used a shinier, blue to add more depth, my “Essie – Aruba Blue” with this one you can use a corner or a line again from the sponge but this time you just dab in all areas to add some blue to the “sky”

Next is your stars, you make different size dots, for this I added another drip of my white polish and used a toothpick, also used the Nail Art Pen for some.

Lastly you add a shimmery overlay. I used my “Essie  Shrine of the Tides” In the tutorial she used an opaque purple glitter polish. Beware, I have sponged polish all over my fingers, not pretty! 🙂

This is a picture of all cleaned up and out in the sun:

This is a picture of all cleaned up inside same lighting as used for rest of pictures:

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Day 18 – Half Moons – 31Challenge

So… queue 4AM, Saturday morning.  My husband and I are dead asleep in our quiet house (…not a creature was stirring not even a mouse… 🙂 )  When all of the sudden…     BOOM!!!

We had no idea what had happened (well my husband didn’t I was dead asleep still… I sleep through everything! 🙂 )  We (he) frantically looked around the house to try to find what had happened.

Come to find out my cherished nail polish collection had come crashing down in the closet I keep it! It slammed into the doors of the closet, dropping all of my nail polish to the floor in the process in one massive crash!

When I finally heard what had happened I admit I panicced. I rushed to the scene of the accident to survey and assess the damages….

Luckily, they make nail polish bottles like fisher price trucks! I hadn’t lost a single one!!! I was soooo relieved. Whew!

(Note to self: secure nail polish rack to wall next time…)

Anyway, On to Day 18 of the challenge:

Here is a look at the polishes that I chose for my Half-Moons look. “Sonia Kashuk – Dream of Genie” and “Essie – Aruba Blue” I also used my “Nail Aid – Peeling Nail, Intense Repair Gel” I will keep everyone posted on my progress with that, so far only the one application, so far so good.

I painted the Pink first on all nails the night before. Once fully dry, in the morning, I used those binder hole stickers and painted the rest of my nail with the blue.

Here’s the final look:

I have to say that I absolutely LOVE this blue, I love its depth and shimmer!

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