It's Pronounced Fronkensteen

Happy Halloween, Kitschies!!  I have a compilation post for you today of all the Halloween inspired manis I've worn over the last week or so.

But...before I begin...a clip from one of my all-time favorite movies - Halloween or otherwise.





There is no more magical connection that Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder and Cloris Leachman!

Anyway...on with the polish!  All pictures are click-able to make big-able. :)

These were my first two in my Halloween sets.  I started with a base of WnW Black Creme then I used two coats of ChG Ick-a-Bod-y from the Awakening collection (Fall 2010).  This gave me the effect I was looking for but I was a little disappointed because the orange glitter is a little chunky and made the finish a little rough.  That's just me being a little over critical.  The orange glitter is a perfect color.

Next up is Franken Fingers.  LOL  I started with 3 coats of Kermit with a Twist, a great franken creation from DragonRhi Creations.  It's a pretty apple green base with darker green and gold glitter.  I got this one is a box of franks from Chris and I don't know why I waited so long to use it.  It's so pretty and wears like iron.  Using my black striping polish, I created little Frankenstein stitches on each of my fingers.  This is the mani I wore to the derby championships last weekend.

Speaking of derby championships, you saw the whole look in THIS post, but here's a better full-face pic of me that night.

I went with a green eye theme to match my nails.

Next up are my mummy accent nails.  I used Ulta Underground on 3 of the nails and ChG White Out on the accent nails.  Then using my black striping polish, I created "bandages" and I used yellow acrylic paint for the eyes.  I ended up doing this just on the left hand because I was too heavy-handed to do good looking bandages on the right hand.  And ignore the smearing of the black stripes - stoopid striping polish smears no matter how long I wait to put on top coat.

This is what I wore for the end of the week last week and through most of the weekend.  This is Zoya Tanzy (from the Sunshine collection, Summer 2011).  What I like about Tanzy is that it has a bright orange color but there's lots of gold glass fleck in there, too.  I painted little flowers toward the tips of my nails using black acrylic paint and Tanzy as the center of the flowers.  Somehow, this ended up kinda looking like leopard print, but I knew they were flowers and that was good enough for me.  LOL

Last but not least, this is what I'm wearing for Halloween.  I used two coats of WnW Black Creme and then I sponged on a few coats of ChG Zombie Zest (also from the Awakening collection, Fall 2011) using a makeup sponge, just on the tips. 

I really liked this one because the slime-green glitter on the tips makes the black base almost look like a super deep green (think Nars Zulu).  I don't know what made me think of doing this look...it just kinda popped in to my head on Sunday afternoon.  I think it's a good end to two weeks' of Halloween manis!

Whatever you do for Halloween, be safe!  Keep an eye on the little ones - they're super crazy tonight.  I'll have pix of my little guys in a few days.  Happy Halloween!!!

I *heart* Green Apples!

Good Monday morning, Kitchies!  A new week is upon us...did you get your "to-do" list accomplished this weekend?  I know I didn't.  Saturday was nothing exciting.  Sunday I took Nate to the local aquatics center and he had a blast - even though he had to be rescued by a lifeguard.  Talk about a heart attack!  He decided to just jump in the 4' end of the pool like he'd been doing it his whole life.  I think it scared him a little, but not near as much as it scared me!  Other than that, he had a lot of fun and we'll have to take the whole family sometime.  I just wish it didn't cost us about $15 for all 4 of us to go.

Anyway...a couple weeks ago, I was contacted by Miss Chris from the now defunct Lacquer Wear From Tips and Toes.  As you may know, she's stopped blogging, but she still has the frankening bug...lucky for me!  She gave me a couple options of what color I'd like to try out and I jumped at the chance to try out one of her awesome franken creations.  I think I got more compliments on this polish than any other I've worn before.

This gorgeous Kelly green is Dragon Rhia's Green Apple Jellie Holo.  OMG this polish is all kinds of awesome!  I don't have a single green in my collection that even comes close to the color.

The base is a bright Kelly green with a really pretty subtle green sparkle.  Then she went and threw in some gorgeous bling of holo glitter.  I was afraid this was going to be a monster to work with, but it wasn't at all.  And it wore like iron!  No chips.  No tip wear.  I wore this for 4 full days with very minimal wear.  All 3 of the above pics were taken indoors with flash.

This is what Green Apple looks like in the shade.  It still has the awesome green color but instead of being a holo sparkle, it looks like it's a mix of green and silver sparkle.  So, so pretty.

And here she is in the sun.  Funny story...my hubs saw me prepping these pics and he said: "Where were *you* with all that grass?"  Yep.  We live in New Mexico - people don't have grass.  I went to the park for lunch one day to enjoy the coolness of the grass under the shade of some big trees.  Oh.  We also don't have big trees.  LOL

And the obligatory blurry pic to show the sparkle.  Let me tell you...these pics do not do this polish justice!  She warned me that her holos are a little tricky to capture accurately - and she was right.  I feel very lucky that Chris shared one of her awesome frankens with me.  She is the Queen of Frankens!

Here is the recipe for those of you who might be interested in duplicating this beautiful green polish.

1/3 bottle Elf nail polish: clear

1/2 bottle Sinful Colors: Last Chance

1/2 tsp holo glitter

My *only* complaint...and it's not even really a complaint...this polish eats top coat.  I applied two *thick* coats of SV and it got sucked in.  LOL  Oh, and the removal was kinda PIA, but I expected that with all the glittery/holo-y awesomeness.

Thank you SOOOO much for letting me showcase this, Chris.  This is definitely in my top 10 favorite polishes!

Born Pretty Store - A Review

Good morning, Kitschies!  It's a little less chaotic here in the clinic today - thank buddah.  I was about ready to pull my hair out by the end of the day yesterday.  What a difference a day makes, right?

Today I have my first official review for you.  A couple weeks ago I was contacted by Kevin at Born Pretty asking me if I'd be interested in reviewing some items from their store.  I roamed around their site and came across a few things I had already had my eye on (score!) and placed my order.  About 10 days later I got my package in the mail, which is pretty quick considering how far it has to travel!  Let's see what I got, shall we?

I picked the 5-piece 2-way dotting tool set.  I love that these come with different colored acrylic barrels with a fun swirl insert.  The sizes of the tips range from pretty big to itty bitty and there are more options than previous sets I've tried before.  The quality of these tools is better than others I've tried before - they have a good weight in my hand and the tips are well-anchored so you won't end up with a wobbly tip a few months down the road.  Of course I had to take these for a spin.  Wanna see?

I know...it's a pedi...so sue me.  Anyway...I started with a base of Sparkly Smurf (a Franken color I'll post on later) and then using red, orange, yellow and green acrylic paint, I dotted a rainbow on each big toe.

I've been kinda meh about my pedies lately, but I really like this, and it's mostly because of the little rainbow.  Using the dotting tools was super easy and they cleaned up nicely.  Sometimes it's hard to get all the paint off the tips of the tools, but I didn't have that issue with these. 

So...go now to Born Pretty and check out their dotting tools.  A set of 5 (seen at top) run $4.74.  Not bad, right?  Especially good since Born Pretty offers free shipping (a similar set on Amazon will run about $6 +shipping). 

The items reviewed in this post were provided to me by Born Pretty Store.  The information provided is my honest opinion and has not been influenced by the products in any way.

Cherry Shop

Totally terrific Tuesday, Kitschies.  When I got to work this morning, I could've sworn it was Monday because none of computers would come up.  Apparently the Northeast Heights had a pretty good thunderstorm and it knocked our modem offline.  Once we got that fixed, we were good to go.  But then I was cursing our regular 8:00 patient because he wasn't there and it was already 8:15.  Oh.  Wait.  It's only Tuesday.  So, yeah.  That's how the day started.  Not to mention I didn't get as much sleep as I'd hoped because or smoke alarms went off 3 different times throughout the night.  For no particular reason.  I know they don't need batteries because we just changed them out in June.  *sigh*  Is a good, solid night of sleep too much to ask for? 

Tonight I bring you a mani I wore a week or so ago.  It feels a lot longer ago that just early last week, but that's about how my days go right now.  Anyway, I was inspired by ANOTHER Bottle of Polish's Live and Black Velvet post, so I decided to give it a go for myself.  I didn't want to completely replicate her nail art, so I went digging through my drawers and found a couple good colors.

This is Confetti Cherries Jubilee (a bold red-pink creme) and a color that I mixed from some loose eyeshadow I got from Suds n Sass called Tattoo Shop.  While it's a pretty color, I knew it wasn't going to be something I ever wore because it's a deep black base with purple and blue shimmer.  Click on the above picture to fully appreciate the blurple shimmery goodness. 

So, after being inspired again by a fellow blogger, Lacquer Wear for Tips and Toes, I decide to get a little creative and do a little frankening.  I don't really consider this a true franken because all I did was add a little of the Tattoo Shop eyeshadow in with a clear nail polish I don't use anymore.  Either way, the end result was so great!  Look at all that awesome shimmer!  I'd call this a black jelly with purple and blue shimmer.  Sorry the pic is so blurry, but it makes the shimmer really stand out.  It's kinda subtle once applied, but I really dig those "hidden" nail colors.  It's a little on the sheer side (probably could've added some more shadow), so I used this over one coat of SH Black Out (my go-to black creme).  And to borrow the name of the eyeshadow I used to "create" this, I'm calling it Tattoo Shop.  And a little more inspiration.  This time from Libby's Pink Vanity and her I Couldn't Leave Well Enough Alone post.

With my dotting tool, I placed dots with the Cherries Jubilee on Tattoo Shop and black acrylic paint (Tattoo Shop was too sheer for the dots to show up) on Cherries Jubilee.  I had this conversation with a patient: Pt: So...I have a question for you. Me: OK?  Pt: Why are two of your nails a different color (said in a very skeptical voice)?  Me: Ummm...because I can?  LOL  I don't know, just because.  Pt: OK.  I was just wondering.  I thought that was a funny thing to say.  It's not like I had a different color on each nail.  I find it so funny when people look at my nails and make silly comments - they must think I've lost my marbles.

One more picture just for the heck of it.  Thank you to all my lovely fellow bloggers for all their inspiration.  It's so neat to be able to surf through a blog and find things that you want to try for yourself...and then find out that you actually can do cool stuff like that!

Alrighty then.  I'm off to watch some Grey's Anatomy.  Not the new season.  No.  I'm not cool enough for *that*.  LOL  I'm a season behind because we didn't have a DVR this time last year.  So, I'm recording the new season and I'll get all caught up after I finish all of season 6.  Season 6?!  How is that even possible?!  I remember starting to watch Grey's when Nate was born (thanks to DVD box sets/Netflix).  Can somebody slow time down...*just* a little?  Really.

Listening to: Someday by The Strokes
Mood: kickin