Week 34: "Bling" mani

Since week 33's galaxy nails chipped off before pictures (REALLY frustrating), here is week 34's bling mani.

I used one coat of Wet n'Wild Metallica and one coat of Sally Hansen's Showgirl Chic. Love how sparkly this polish is. These pictures kinda show how pretty this polish is, but you really need to see it for yourself.

Please forgive the bit of polish on the side of my ring finger...i'm still on my acetone strike lol.

Next week is "cupcake" themed, but i really don't feel like having cupcakes on my nails, let alone trying to draw a cupcake on my nails.....we'll see what i come up with.

Until next time,
-Lynnette

Week 26: Neon

My polish budget right now is sadly non-existent, so I had to make do with what I already have in my stash. I used the brightest color I have, Professional 10 Orange You Glad I Said Yes. This is 2 coats stamped with Sally Hansen Lightning. Actually I've been wanting to use this image for a while, just never had the right idea.

I only stamped the tips on most of my nails, and did the whole nail for my pinky. Yup, back down to nubbins....guess I need to take vitamins again to try and beef my nails up again.

Done with paid sewing for a little while...maybe I can get some more of this wardrobe put together!

Until next time!
-Lynnette

Week 22: Splatter mani

I’m not sure how to feel about this one. I like the colors used; I wanted something a bit edgy, but not over the top. My splatter mani is pretty subtle compared to a lot of ones out there. I’m not sure about the technique mainly.

First I didn’t have a little straw, so I took a regular straw squished it in half and taped it that way. It worked ok. I found that to get a good color pay off I had to dip the straw in the polish, and then hold my finger over the other end (like what you do with soda sometimes). If that still didn’t work, I then had to thin the polish a bit.

The base is Sally Hansen Black Diamonds, splattered with Wet n’Wild Metallica, Stay Outta My Bismuth (from their Chrome collection) and Chameleon Dreamer. I love the Chrome collection that Wet n’Wild has out now, and Stay Outta My Bismuth is great by itself (no pics, sorry!). However it only comes in a mini bottle! Chameleon Dreamer works so well in this combo because in some lights it looks silvery white, but in others it takes on a pinky hue.

Overall the mani looks nice and I love the colors I used. But I feel that it’s a lot of work for just a little bit of color pay off. Clean up wasn’t that bad….if you tape your nails first!

Well, hopefully this can get posted before the next challenge is due! Spooty internet on the fritz messes up my mojo!

-Lynnette

Week 21: Fruit

At first I was a bit stumped as to how to use fruit as a theme. I really didn't want to use stamping plate. I really only have grapes and strawberries for stamping, but on top of that it feels like cheating to do so much stamping. So I came up with an abstract way to do cherries.

I used Sally Hansen Rapid Red, my black nail art striper and black nail art pen. Quick, easy, effective!
Up next, another sewing post!
-Lynnette

Gray by Gray days

This is in honor of all the gray days we've been having here lately. However, things are supposed to be getting warmer and sunnier!
This is 2 coats of Sally Hansen Gray by Gray, stamped with Orly Rage.

This turned out really pretty! Very proud of these nails! I happen to be holding the piece of silk that will one day be a top. I thought it went pretty well with this mani.
Until next time!
-Lynnette

Week 17: Earth day

So when I think of Earth day, I think of trees and furry critters. However these are not so fun to try and draw/paint on your nails. Since Earth is often times called the "blue and green marble" I decided to use those colors and do water marble nails! I used four colors for this marble: OPI Stranger Tides, Julep Leah, Sally Hansen Gray by Gray (which is really a grayed out blue), and Essie Dive Bar.

 Left

 Right

 Right Thumb

Left Thumb

I didn't do a set bullseye for this marble....I just kind of winged it. One thing that I learned is that the more rings your bullseye has the better. You really have to keep putting polish in the water until it stops spreading. Otherwise your polish dries too fast on the top of the water and you don't get as much color payoff. Overall I'm pretty happy with this marble since most of the fingers turned out pretty.

Until next time!
-Lynnette

Sally Hansen Plum Burst and Purple Pizzazz

Ok, so here's a proper mani to make up for that abomination I showed you before. Nothing terribly fancy, just a nice free handed side-swipe. I used Sally Hansen Plum Burst for the main color, then side-swiped with Purple Pizzazz.

These polishes were in a 2 pack at the dollar store.....can't pass up 2 polishes for a $1! I think that they are older polishes though and may not be big-3 free, but that doesn't bother me.

Still not unpacked.....packing always goes faster than unpacking. I think because with packing we give ourselves a deadline that we have to meet, then get frustrated and throw it all in boxes/bags. With unpacking there is no such deadline; we just slowly find things as we need them and put them where they go after.
Don't worry, there will be house pictures as soon as it's presentable!
-Lynnette

My Horrible Easter Nails

Phew! It's been a long week here. On Wednesday we got news that we were approved for the house we wanted to rent. So we signed the lease on Wednesday, worked and packed on Thursday night into the wee hours, then moved everything on Friday. I think I got about 3 hours of sleep on Thursday.

Wednesday I slapped on this color to help protect my nails from the damage that packing and moving does. This is what they look like after moving. The polish did protect them a bit, but I still broke one, and 2 others were very weak (my OCD makes me cut them all when one breaks, that's why they all are short).

No basecoat, no topcoat, not even an even color coat. Horrible. But I found the polish in a 2-pack for a $1! Can't beat 50 cent Sally Hansen polish! Hopefully, I'll be able to do a proper mani with this soon. Have to get un-packed first!

Also, I'll have to show you pictures of the new place to make you all rightfully jealous!
-Lynnette

Small haul and Hunger Games manis

Last Friday I stopped by my local Sallys, and picked up 3 1/2 polishes there.

Agro, Stone Cold, Kinetic Candy, Ruby Pumps

They had about 1/2 of the Capitol Colors collection, and 2 of my favorites. I haven't read the Hunger Games book, but it looks good, I'll have to pick it up now. Out of the collection I got Stone Cold and Agro. Then from the Electropop collection I picked up Kinetic Candy; I think it will make great "underwear" for Revlon Whimsical as well as being pretty on it's own. Then I found a mini bottle of Ruby Pumps in the clearance for 50 cents, can't pass that up!

Here's Stone Cold as a mani:

Lovely in matte, but chips super quick!
Now Agro as a mani:

One of the few greens I like. In the sun this flashes orange as well as gold. Also, look at those lovely long nails! I'll have to show you "righty" more often now!

Now today, I stopped at my local CVS and picked up 2 more polishes.

 Spoiled Shuffle the Deck, Sally Hansen Showgirl Chic.

This time they had the Spoiled line, and about time! I had been looking for it since I started seeing swatches on other people's blogs. It was my lucky day since CVS had the shade that I really wanted, Shuffle the deck. Then I grabbed Sally Hansen Showgirl Chic from their gem crush line. This might wind up as my first pedi of spring!

That's all I have for now. We'll see what my next mani is after Agro!
-Lynnette

Week 7: Valentines Day.....rock star style!

Hello again! Late post again this week, but I thought I would post this challenge on the day it celebrates....Valentines day. I've never been a fan of V-Day for 2 reasons: 1) if you're single, this day is made to make you feel worse. 2) if you're with someone, this day is made to make you stress about getting the perfect gift/the best romantic surprise. The hubby and I will do something fun, but nothing over the top.

Without further ado.....this weeks mani uses Sally Hansen Unbreakable Heart as the red base (I remember this being a darker red when I first wore it around Christmas time, but here it's more cherry.....whatever). Then I used Sally Hansen Flirt for some subtle little hearts (so subtle I'm not sure you can see them in my pics....but they are there!), and Julep Elizabeth to stamp the heart with wings. Add some sweet stickers to my thumbs and middle fingers, and dab heart glitter on ring and index (from Nicole by OPI Step to the Beat of my Heart), topcoat and done!

And here's proof that I do sew! I made these super wide leg knit pants to accommodate a new thigh tattoo. All the pants I own happen to have side seams that rub and hurt the fresh (as of Saturday) tattoo. The one pair of bottoms I have without a side seam happen to be skin tight leggings....... not good for a fresh wound that needs air to heal.

I used a simple P.J. pant pattern that didn't have a side seam (Simplicity 2290 I think). I lowered the waist (now that they are made, I could have lowered it more....) and cut the leg pretty much straight down from the hip. Sew according to the directions, and voila! Thigh tattoo friendly pants! Now this is a picture of the "wrong" side/inside.....the other side is black. since the skull print hides the minimal seams and the elastic is enclosed, I treat these as reversible (I'll wear the black side out in public most likely).

Since the sewing machine is un-buried and the child has decided to nap, i might go sew up another pair......this time denim?

Later!
-Lynnette

Sally Hansen Black tie

I'm getting later and later in posting my manis.....I've gone from posting while the color was/is drying to the color being almost all chipped off! oops! Sorry. In an effort to do better, I'm forcing to post this before I try out my new Julep Maven polishes for my 52 week challenge.......ugh, this will have to be quick because they are calling my name!

I did Sally Hansen's Black Tie on Wednesday night (after the newspaper came off. I didn't have to remove much....most of it chipped/peeled like normal polish). This is my first duochrome and i love it! I would describe the color as a dark graphite grey that flashes plum purple and dark hunter green. My pictures don't capture all the colors right, but you can get the feel. It's not as flashy as a lot of duos are, and I like that. I have to wear a hunter green work shirt, and I felt like this coordinated but wasn't matchy, and wasn't too out of place. Neither of my jobs have anything about nail polish in the dress codes, but I like to feel pulled together; there's nothing that makes me feel more disjointed than polish clashing with what I'm wearing.

You can see a smidge of the green in this photo.

This color wore beautifully by itself for about 2 days, then I decided to  refresh it with a crackle coat (I still happen to l.o.v.e. crackle polish lol). I wanted to see what would happen to the color of the crackle/if the duochrome would show through. Sadly, it didn't show much if at all. This is a medium coat of Oxidized Aqua by China Glaze.

Black Tie sadly just looks dark blue/purple under the crackle coat :(. I wore it this way for about another day and a half (it didn't start chipping until today). Looks like with this base/top coat combo i can go from Saturday night to Wednesday, then Wednesday night back to Saturday. This is great for me. While i enjoy painting my nails, I don't have tons of time lying around. Also this way I actually get to enjoy my manis....right up till the time that I get sick of them lol!

Well off to paint again.....next challenge: half moon manicure!
-Lynnette