Mannequin Hands, Take 1

Yay, it's Friday! ! I'm still having issues with working a full week. In the fall I took off every Friday of a home game so I could pack and prepare for tailgating, and then December had my birthday and all of those holidays in there. I'm hoping to get back into my regular routine by March, lol.

I've recently been interested in more natural and nude colors of polish.  One of the things I learned from the nail community is that you need to find your mannequin nails shade. This one might be pretty darn close.

This is OPI's Samoan Sand. I used 3 coats, and then added black studs and accents because I may want to find my mannequin hands shade, but just those would have driven me bonkers. Still need to work on my stamping... but I'm slowly getting better I think.

Thoughts? I also picked up two of the Naturel line from Zoya when they had their awesome 3 free promo. I got Rue and Taylor. I think that Taylor is exactly my mannequin hands shade just from swatching it out, but I need to get it on to make sure. Rue is darker than it looked in pictures,  so I'm a little disappointed. Oh well,  it might be very pretty on.


Happy Friday!
April

Deco the New Year!

Hi guys! I hope you all have awesome New year's eve plans. I have to wotk, so for the past 10 years I've been ringing in the new year with my co-workers. But every year we have VIP parties with a different theme, and this year is 20's Prohibition style. Give me a theme that I can dress up for, I'm all over it.

Our color scheme is black and gold, so this is what I did. First off, can I say how proud of me I am for planning ahead so that I could successfully tape my accent nail?

I originally had the black nails all taped off to, to show gold underneath but it was banana balls busy. So I went with the glitter instead and I love it!!!

Bonus: I can wear this tomorrow to watch my Hawkeyes beat LSU!   =)

I hope you all have a very happy and safe new year. I am so blessed that in these shorty 3 months I have almost 1500 page views, and I am so tickled that other people care about my little hobby.

See you all in 2014!
April

Finally, Day 31-Re-create a Mani You Love

Sorry for the lack of posts this last week... life got out of control and I ended up wearing that Louboutin mani for a long time because I was so scared to take it off. (Which it wasn't that bad... I soaked my nail and then used a Q-tip to grab out all the underside)

But today is the final prompt for the 31 Day Nail Polish Challenge,  re-create a mani you love. This took me FOREVER to find one that I wanted to do. And I'm still not completely sold, so look for a do-over sometime soon.

So after searching for hours on Pinterest,  reading a multitude of nail blogs, I went back to one on my own Nailed It Pinterest board that I pinned like a year ago.

And of course, in true Pinterest fashion, I'm not sure if the link that I have on the pin is correct.  So for the copyright Nazi's that might be reading this, I hope that whatever language the link is in says that it's her own nail art.  ;)

Source (I hope) Linvant

I altered this slightly for my version.  Since we are expecting snow today, (SNOW!!! Ugh!) I thought that the pink and lilac was just too springy. I instead used OPI's My Vampire is Buff as the base. Then because I did this last night at like 9 pm, I free handed the purple shapes- which is OPI'S Do You Lilac It? . And again, since it was slowly creeping on my bedtime,  I free handed the black shapes too, which is Essie's Licorice.

I'm strangely liking the overall look, but as what happens with me all the time, is that I don't have the patience or the plan-aheadiness to have a completely dry base before attempting to tape. Oh well, like I said,  I will most likely do another version sometime down the road.

Well, that takes me to the end of the 31 day challenge.  How long did that actually take me, lol? I hope to still post regularly.  I just got a new nail polish station upstairs, so my DH will be very happy that my crap is not clogging up the dining room table anymore.  He's already got to refinish the table because varnish and acetone don't mix well.  (Whoops).

Have a wonderful day, and for the rest of you in the Midwest today, be safe for the first bit of bad weather today. People tend to get all wackadoodle when this happens.
April

Day 30, a Tutorial

One day left. I can't believe I have made it!!!

When I re-discovered nail polish,  I found several different ideas and blogs. One of my favorites was the Louboutin Nails.


If you have been living under a rock, and don't know what a Louboutin is, its a delightful fabulous shoe that the soles are red. Awesome story,  the first pair that were red bottomed were painted with nail polish!


The tutorial that I found had you first paint the underside of the nail with red. I used an Essie polish (A-List) because the brush is narrow,  and it dries quickly.  Then it said to paint the first coat in white so that the red pops and shows easily with the dark top. After that dries, paint on the black. I used two coats of Essie Licorice.

I wore this one day earlier,  and I would walk up to people and show them my black mani. I was like, isn't this pretty?  I would get the blank stare so then I would turn them over. Wait for the wow.

Its one of those fun surprises that you get to show people.

I totally plan on doing this again, but experiment with other colors.  And actually,  today I added a matte finish top coat, and I am really digging it. There's something about black polish that I think looks so classy. Which is weird, because its black!


So, thoughts? Are you as nervous as I am to attempt to remove this one? Ha!
April