The Mans Pick....Hmmm

Hey guys! I hope everyone had a great weekend :) I'm here today with the old mans pick of what I should do **scary music**. Since I just recently got the new Bundle Monster (set 2) plates I've been looking over them and trying to get a few ideas etc. As I said in the last post that I stamped with, I'm still not 100% with it, but I do enjoy it and I'll get better with time :)

So I had him look through the set of plates and he chose BM-316, and he wanted me to do the same thing I did with my giraffe/turtle (heh) mani, where I had every other nail the negative of the other. So then I asked what colors, he said a yellow base and a blue stamp, say what?? Yea I know right? You guys feel my pain ;) So I was like "fine" :P

I started with two coats of Finger Paints Lemon Sour, I'm not a huge yellow fan but I really love this one!! I then used Color Club Cold Metal (from the foiled collection) for the stamp. I did do the negative on one nail first, and it just didn't work, I was having a lot of trouble with it, so I just used the lines instead.

To my surprise it actually looks pretty good!! Other than the fact that I had a break on the left side of my middle finger, which isn't a surprise considering I just took acrylics off. My nails still feel weird btw :P

So I guess the old man didn't do such a bad job ;)

So what do you guys think? And btw are my pictures looking a bit better now?

Until next time! Happy painting!

I feel naked!!!! Do you like these better?

Hey guys! Today I feel completely naked for the first time in about 2 months now I guess. Last night I took off my acrylics (shock! Awe!), yep I did it myself and it took about and hour because of how long I soaked them in acetone, but I didn't want my nails as torn up as they would have been had I gone to the salon to have them removed.

They were annoying me, so I just decided the hell with it! Because my nails curl in so much when they start to actually grow, the acrylic didn't want to stick around the edges and it was driving me nuts. Better for my nails to be naked anyway!

So after getting them back to what I feel is acceptable, I used the first of many polishes I got in a recent Brazilian swap. I received about 40 or more in the swap, so I doubt I'll get to all of them right off the bat, but she sent some amazing things!

Today's polish is Ludurana Magnifica which I used two coats of. No correct me if I'm wrong but to anyone that owns this, or this brand, do they smell like polish to you? I couldn't place the smell but it's not what I'm used to at all!

I'm blabbing now, this polish is a gorgeous light blue holographic, and my pictures do not do it justice as I needed to take pics outside in the sunlight but it was night when I took them :P But yea, I can't wait to drive and be completely and utterly distracted ;)

So guys, what do you think? Do you like my short natural nails, or acrylic nails better?

Until next time! Happy painting!

Giraffe or Turtle?! You tell me!

Hey guys! Here today with what I consider a bit of a confusing post :P

I recently got the new set of Bundle Monster plates in the mail, so I've started to play with them a bit. I'm still a newb when it comes to stamping, but it really is fun. I guess it's just like everything else, practice makes perfect!

I had never done a giraffe print, because let's face it, it's not the easiest thing to do by hand, so when I saw there was a giraffe and the negative of it on BM-313 I was excited!

I started with two coats of Color Club Almost Famous, then I used Sinful Colors Mercury Rising (ugh I'm still mad at them!! and this was done before the whole stealing from our community thing) for the stamp (BM-313). So my idea was to do every other nail with negative image, that way it was the same but different all at the same time.

So why the name of the post? When I posted pics of this in one of the polish groups I'm in on FB a few of the girls said the ones with more brown look like a turtle shell! So of course once I read that I couldn't unsee it from my nails! But honestly it's true, it does! It got me thinking that I might actually do a turtle shell mani now with different colors :P

So what do you guys see?

Second picture isn't color accurate as I'm still having some issues with my camera **grr**

What do you guys think?

Until next time! Happy painting!

Tutorial Tuesday!

Hey guys, sorry once again about my lack of posts. If you're on my blog's FB page you might have seen that I was sick. The old man and I had our 4 year anniversary on the 16th, so that weekend we were busy, then I got strep right after! Boo...so after I got a bit better we were busy finding our little man a preschool, phew!

But now things are starting to get a bit back to normal :) And today I have another group challenge with some other polish ladies/bloggers I'm friends with :)

Today is tutorial Tuesday, which isn't me giving a tutorial, but following one for today's mani :) There are SO many good videos, pictures etc all over the net (including a lot of the girls blogs that I follow!) but I happened to find a picture on Facebook on Tip Top Nails South Africa's page, they posted on my FB and asked that I check them out, so I did :)

So for this fun mani I used a base of Essence Nail Art Twin Romeo, then using the long skinny nail art brush I started with Wet N Wild Ink Well and did tiger type stripes over my nail leaving plenty of space between each one, I followed with OPI Lucerine-Tainly Look Marvelous, then Finger Paints Easel Come Easel Go, and ended using Catrice Birds Flying High (which I just got in a surprise swap from Denmark, yay!).

I did use way different colors than the tutorial, and for my blue I did switch it a little bit from the tutorial as well. But I am in love with the end result. I think these colors are fabulous together, and it for me brings it all together in a sophisticated color scheme that's sexy! BUT let's see what you guys think! :)

For those of you that didn't click on the link, this is the original picture below :)

What do you guys think?

Until next time! Happy painting!

Summer Fun Challenge, Fun In The Sun!!!

Hey guys! Here today to regretfully say that it's the last day (or post) of the Neverland Nail Blog's summer nail art challenge *womp womp* BUT I'm super excited to see what everyone has done! Today's theme is fun in the sun, anything goes!

The last few times that I've been in WalMart I've seen this pair of shorts, booty shorts that I would never wear mind you (well if I was skinny yea haha) but still. The print on them is very much me. I'm not sure if you guys saw the post last time where I got my idea from a piece of clothing from WalMart but if not, you can see it here.

For this mani I used OPI The Color of Minnie, Essie Orange It's Obvious, Wet N Wild How I Met Your Magenta, and Color Club Almost Famous. I used a makeup sponge to individually sponge on the colors randomly on each nail, it took a while but I think it paid off! After the sponging was done I used Sinful Colors Black on Black and a small dotting tool to draw on all of my leopard spots, covered with a quick dry top coat and done! Clean up was a bit of a pain because I was like my 2 year old coloring outside of the lines, but it's all good ;)

I'm still experimenting with my lightbox, the light filters, backgrounds etc, so be patient! Hopefully I'll have something set in stone next week on what I like best. The dark color seems to work better than white, so I think I'll be off to a craft store for black card stock!

Here's a pic with flash to try and show you a bit more of the difference with the colors :)

And here are the shorts that inspired this fun mani!

What do you guys think?

Until next time! Happy painting!

Summer Fun Challenge, Summer Stylin!

Hey guys! Guess what? It's day 7 (or post 7) of the Neverland Nail Blog's summer fun nail art challenge! Today is all about summer style, something inspired by some sort or fashion you have seen somewhere.

Because I'm not huge on keeping up with fashion trends (let's face it, the 80s styles shouldn't have been around the first time) or what's on the runway, which recently seems to be old lady prints. I just kind of did my own thing! I have however seen quite a few different home decorative items that look similar to what I did.

So quick run down, I got my nails filled and cut down yesterday (yay!!) and me being a bit of a control freak from time to time, I took my own polish! I took with me Hits Atena, and she is currently on my toes as well as my fingers! She is too beautiful to part with so fast, so I just decided to stamp over her, since I got my set of the new Bundle Monster plates yesterday!!

I have tired to freehand a design similar to this before without much luck, so I was super excited to see this image on BM plate 314! Now be polite! This is only my 3rd or 4th time doing a full nail stamp, so I'm no expert (yet) but I think I did a pretty good job. Sorry about the not so great pics, The bottom one was with no flash and a bulb that should work as daylight, uh not so much, tips or advice there would be great!

Oh and this is two coats of Atena btw, and I used Sinful Colors black on black to stamp with :)

What do you guys think?

Until next time! Happy painting!

Summer Fun Challenge, The Big Blue!

Hey guys! Back today with day 6 (or post 6) of Lindsey from the Neverland Nail Blogs summer fun nail art challenge. This time was the big blue, ocean or wave nail art.

I wanted to do a marble, but since I just did one for pool party I decided to try something a little different. I wanted to try using my nail art fan brush, which coincidentally Lindsey also did a tutorial on here. So my plan didn't quite work how I wanted and I kinda wish I would have left it alone lol, but to no avail.

I used Orly Gumdrop and Essence Nail Art Twin Bella as my two blue/green colors, and I tried to make the lines a bit wavy to look like waves, good right? Yea it looked pretty good but then I decided to add sand *womp womp* and it's meh to me now :P The sand is Nubar Spark, and the surf board is Essie Orange It's Obvious.

The first pic is no flash and is more color accurate, and the second pic is in the exact same location in the light box with no different settings, this is my first world pain!!! The old man told me today he is going to build (as in not just a cardboard box, tissue paper and crappy light haha) me a new light box **yay!** so I'm hoping sooner than later I won't have this problem!

What do you guys think? Fail or not too bad?

Until next time! Happy painting!

One Year Blog Anniversary, and winners!

Hey guys! today is the official day that my blog turns a year old! I cannot believe how far I've come not only with my stash, but my knowledge, skills and experience. Not only that but I've met some amazing people!!

Now for those of you that entered the giveaway, thank you :) I hope you continue to read and enjoy my blog. If any of you ever have any suggestions or ideas please feel free to email me! My email address is in the about me :)

So drum roll please!!!!!!



























Our winners are, Ruth for the DL polishes, and Disincentive for the Sally Hansen nail strips and nail file! They have 24 hours to e-mail me back or I'll pick new winners.

Thank you again to everyone who entered and congrats to the winners!


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Happy Independence Day!!

Hey guys! Happy Independence Day!!! Well for my US followers anyway, I know it's different in every country :P Today is a day where I proudly show off my red, white and blue! I am a southern girl, from a military town, and the old man is an ex Marine, so yes patriotism, we haz it!

I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I wanted to do for today's mani, so I just decided to do something different on each hand :P

On my right I sponged Red (OPI The Color of Minnie) White (Sinful Colors Snow me White) and Blue (China Glaze First Mate) at a slight slant on each of my nails. On my ring finger I used red, silver and blue rhinestones to bling it out!! After the sponging was dry I stamped over them with an image off of the Lilac A01 that seemed to be perfect for the occasion. Now if only I was better at stamping!!

Side note I ordered the new Bundle Monster set today, so I should be doing more stamping soon!

My right hand I painted red with OPI The Color of Minnie (2 coats), and topped it one thick coat of Elemental Styles U.S.A.-mericium.

I think I have just about all of it in this mani, sponging, bling, stamping, glitter, phew!! I'm ready to grill and watch some fireworks!!

And bottle shots

What do you guys think?

Have a SAFE and fun filled day, please call a DD if you are drinking and watch out for the crazies on the roads!

Until next time! Happy painting!

Summer Fun Challenge, Road Trip, ARGH Mateys!!

Hey guys! Back today with post (or day) 5 of Lindsey from the Neverland Nail Blog's summer fun nail art challenge.  Day 5 is "are we there yet" so road trip or vacation mani. I had planned to do some map type thing with Route 66, but then I changed my mind, big surprise there huh?! :P

My monkey butt's (Brendan) 2nd birthday party was pirate themed, so I had actually come up with this idea back for his party but didn't have time to do it, due to the fact that I was hosting his party. So now is the perfect time!!

There is a little bit of a back story to get you in the mood ;) You and your partner go on a vacation alone to the beautiful beaches of Maui, while you are building a sand castle, you come across an old tattered piece of paper, and this is what you find!

I used Zoya Shay as a base color then I sponged on Nubar Spark and Sinful Colors Mercury Rising around the edges to get the old paper feel. I used a dotting tool and a skinny nail art brush to freehand the skull and crossbones on my thumb with black, then did the eyes, nose and mouth with Zoya Shay again to match the background. I used OPI The Color of Minnie to do the dotted line and X, and the the SC again for the trunk of the palm tree, and the green is in this little nail art pen thing my mom gave me.

What do you guys think?

Until next time! Happy painting!

Monochrome Monday! Mooooo!!

Hey guys! Here today with another group challenge brought to you by the PLOP ladies! This week was all about monochrome, in other words, black and white! A few of the ladies used gray too :) Now at first it sounds a bit boring right? Far from it!!! Once I saw what the others had done I was a bit intimidated and didn't know what to do until last minute.

Being as how I live in California's central valley, there are tons of dairies around here, so why not do cows?! Instead of just going the cow print route I went in a old school milk carton kind of way, complete with a (smeared) barcode!! All I used for this was Sinful Colors Snow me White, and Wet N Wild Ink Well, a dotting tool, long skinny nail art brush and Lilac's A01 plate.

What do you guys think? Does it moove you? ;)

Until next time! Happy painting!