January 2013

I'm not announcing my comeback, I'm just going to say...I have some pretty polishes to share with you.

With everything I have on my plate, I just can't blog like I used to.  I still do my nails (all the time) and I usually take pictures of them, but I rarely get the time to sit down and edit the pictures.  My plan, right now, is to compile my manis over the month and share them with you, in bulk, at the end of the month.  Sound good?  Here we go.  And, like always, all pics are clickable to make bigable!

This was my New Years mani.  It's kinda Christmas-y and it's all Winter.  I started with a base of Milani Juno.  Then, using BM14, I stamped snow flakes using ChG Designer Satin and a random white.  To finish it all off, I applied a layer of ChG Snow Globe for a little extra sparkle.

I picked up this gorgeous polish at Ulta while on a "we gotta get out of the house NOW" trip with the bestie.  I don't usually even look at the Layla polishes because they're pretty pricey, but this happened to be on sale (and I had a coupon).  Layla Ceramic Effects Green Galaxy (CE 54) is a gorgeous, gorgeous deep green jelly with green micro glitter, small round green glitter and big green hexies.  This polish wore like iron - definitely worth the money!

I was feeling in a nail funk when I did this and it snapped me out of it right away!  I started with a base of Revlon Royal (probably one of my top 10 fave polishes ever).  After that, I stamped the pretty flowers using Orly Snowcone and BM224.  I added pretty purple rhinestones in the center of one flower on each nail.

I did this one originially for a "glitter" challenge for a FB group I'm in, but I couldn't get a good picture of it.  You can't go wrong with a classic red nail!  This is Zoya Alix with Milani Glitter FX in Red.  The Milani claims to be "one coat" but for this much coverage, I started with a coat of Alix and then layered 3 layers of the glitter.  That's not what I'd call one coat!  I wore this for 4 days and love it.

This is what I ended up using for the glitter challenge.  Let me tell you...this is a mess polish!  I started with 3 coats of Orly Fowl Play then added a coat of Finger Paints Twisted (I loves me some flakies!).  And because that wasn't enough, I ended up using a coat of Milani Jewel FX in Twilight.  I am NOT looking forward to removing this (can you say "foil method"?).

So...there's January.  Maybe...if you're lucky...I'll post a review of a couple manis from last year later!

Why You No Green!?!

Good day, Kitschies!!  It's FRIDAY!!!  It's supposed to beautiful weather this weekend, so we're planning on taking the boys sledding on Sunday.  I can't wait!  I think it'll be more for me than the boys, but it'll be fun either way.  Saturday will be spent getting things done around the house so we can play on Sunday.  What do YOU have planned for the weekend?

I have a fun mani to share with you today.  I've done a few like this before, but of the 3 I've done so far, this is, by far, my favorite.

I started with a base of a pale, pale pink Color Club (I cannot remember the name of it right now).  I wanted something light but not as stark as a plain white.  This super pale pink worked perfect!

Then I splattered ChG Four Leaf Clover (yes, that really *is* green, almost a neon green, but it would NOT capture correctly at. all.) and Orly Charged Up (purple) alternately on each nail.

For a more color-accurate pic, check out this swatch by ALU.  No matter how I tweaked the settings on my camera and no matter what I did in Photoshop, I could NOT get that green to look green.  Strange.  Usually I have trouble with purple.

I loved this mani!  Some of the polish dragged when I put on top coat and usually that would bug me but this time it gave it an almost watercolor effect, a la David Mack.

And just as a little side note, I've noticed I've picked up a few new followers here and there and I want to say WELCOME and thank you!  It's amazing to me that people are interested enough in what I do on my blog to follow me.  Keep an eye open for a giveaway to be happening very soon!  Happy weekend!

Funky Ahoy!

Good morning, Kitschies!  It's Friday.  Finally.  How is it the short weeks feel longer than the regular weeks?  It's been quite tumultuous at the clinic the last few days - makes me wonder what's in store for us over the next year.  Or maybe I'd rather just be surprised.

I have a mani to share with you today that's been sitting in my "waiting to post" folder for a while.  How long?  I have no idea.  No clue.  Either way, it's a good one.  I was in a Funky French phase for a while and this was a product of that phase.

This is ChG Ahoy! from their Summer 2011 collection.  I only picked up 3 from this collection (Ahoy!, Starboard and White Cap) and this is the one that stood out the most to me.  Above pic taken with flash.

I love, love, LOVE this color!  It's a raspberry jelly with raspberry shimmer.  I think Ahoy! and Strawberry Fields are my ultimate favorite ChG colors.  I liked Ahoy! on the tips alone but I can't ever leave well enough alone, so I used my black striping polish to line between the polish and my nail beds.

In the direct sunlight, you can really see more of the shimmer in Ahoy! and here you can see that my nail beds aren't completely nekkid.  LOL  I used a base coat (Nail Life Gripper) and top coat (ChG Fast Forward).

And one more picture for good measure.  This was taken in indirect sunlight.  I love Ahoy! no matter what light it's in. :)

I'm off to get some work done.  I have a feeling it's going to be a busy day.  I wish you all a great weekend and I'll ya'll next week!

I Loves Me a Glitter Sammich

Happy Wednesday, Kitschies!  I was catching up on my blogs this evening and I came across a pink Wednesday post and it made me realize that it was, in fact, Wednesday.  I've been MIA the last few days because we had our first official Winter storm blow through New Mexico between Sunday and Monday.  As a result, the schools were closed (which is good because the roads were not in good shape) and I stayed home with the boys.  Then we heard that the schools were going to be closed on Tuesday.  OK...the roads are still a little icy, so I guess I can agree with that.  So, I stayed home with Nate and the hubs took Mason to daycare.  I ventured out of the house and the snow and the roads weren't that bad - especially once I got down in to the valley.  And *then* I got a text from a co-worker telling me that the schools were going to be closed again on Wednesday because of "hazardous road conditions on secondary roads".  Seriously?!  WTH?!  Luckily, my MIL agreed to take Nate so I could go to work (for the first time in 4 days, which I'm not *really* complaining about).  The roads were fine this morning - a 2-hour delay would've been fine.  ANYway...Nate had fun with his grandma and he got to go to Explora with his cousins and I got back to work.  It has been a long and short week all at the same time.

Speaking of pink Wednesday posts, it was THIS post by Ice Queen's Nail Parlour that made me realize it was Wednesday.  And it reminded me that I have a similar mani to share! 

I'm not gonna lie.  I have *no* idea when I did this mani.  I can tell you it was in the Summer, but beyond that...no clue.  What I *can* tell you is this is OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y, a really pretty raspberry jelly.  And sammiched in there is Milani Gems.

This was my first glitter sammich mani and I'm impressed that it turned out the exact way I'd hoped.  That doesn't happen very often.

I can't remember *when* I did this one, but I *do* remember getting compliments on this mani.  I remember "this is your prettiest one yet" being thrown around a time or two.

If you've followed my blog for a while, you probably already know I'm not the biggest fan of chunky glitter, but when it's in a glitter sammich or mattified (like I did HERE), I like it a little more.  In fact, I liked this so much, I ran out and grabbed Revlon Royal.  I had been looking for an excuse to pick that one up for some time and I finally found the excuse I needed! 

Now a question for you, my lovely readers.  What is your favorite jelly polish?

Have a great day!  See you again on the other side.

A 4-pack of FAIL

Happy Friday, Kitschies!  It's been one long ass week and I'm glad it's coming to a close. 

I usually play along with Mamarazzi's Friday Confessional, but I don't much feel like confessing, so I'm going to share some nail fail with you.  I guess that, in itself, is a sort of confession.  LOL

These are all manis I wore but wasn't happy with. 

This is a pretty color, but it's not as great as I wanted it to be.  It's OPI My Address is Hollywood from their Fall collection.  It's a work-safe color with just a hint of shimmer.  Maybe I wanted the shimmer to be stronger?  Whatever it is, it just didn't do it for me.  I added the little hearts to try to change my mind about it, but it didn't work.

I liked the idea of this in my head but like so many nail art ideas, it didn't transfer very well from my brain to my fingers.  The color is a neon pink Nina Ultra Pro and then I added lots of black and white dots.  I think the dots ended up looking like bird poop.  This mani didn't even make it out of the house.

I wanted these colors to be closer and create less of a stark transition between orange and red.  These are Zoya Kimmy (red) and Tanzy (orange) from the Sunshine collection (Summer 2011).  I should've used Tanzy and Rica instead.  Anyway...I did some white nail art on these after wearing it for a day, but obviously it didn't impress me enough to take a picture of it before I took it off. 

And one more...

I was on a French mani kick for a while back in August (?).  The hubs has always said he didn't like the typical French look but I tried to do one anyway.  I started with SH White On on the tips and ChG Whitecap to add a bit of shimmer on the nail bed.  I liked it that way, even though the white was so, so stark.  I wanted to soften it up a bit so I added green star bursts with green star rhinestones.  That's where it went wrong.  I didn't like this one at all.  I don't think this one made it out of the house, either.

So, while these aren't fails per se, they're definitely not my greatest works.  Tell me, fellow nail bloggers, do you post your fails or do you keep them hidden from view?

Summer Closeout

Good day!  I had yesterday off because of home schedule issues, but I'm back in the swing of things today.  Sorta.  Nate is home with a fever and the hubs is home with him and my doc is out this afternoon, so it looks like I'll have some free time to myself today.  I'm crossing my fingers that I'll be able to squeeze in some skating, but it's supposed to rain, so I don't know if that's gonna happen.  I went to the track yesterday morning, but it was covered in puddles and since skate bearings and water don't mix very well, I had to call it off.  Cross your fingers I'm not met with this scene again today...

 

Anyway...a while back, I decided to try some nail art that I'd seen all over the place.  This time, though, I was inspired by Nail Nerd's Watermelon Nails.  If you've never heard of Nail Nerd, I highly recommend you check her out.  The girl's got serious skillz and she does a LOT of nail art.  I mean a LOT!  And now, since it's almost the end of Summer (September 23rd), I figured I'd better share this with you before it's too late!

Cute, right?  I used Confetti Cherries Jubilee as the base color then free-handed the tips with ChG Watermelon Rind (coincidence?) and did the little seeds with Zoya Raven using a small dotting tool.

I liked this one though I think I should've picked a base pink that was a little lighter and less bold. 

As for ChG Watermelon Rind, it's a gorgeous green glass fleck polish that would look great on it's own, but it was perfect for this mani. 

Thanks to Nail Nerd for the inspiration!  Check her out HERE if you didn't earlier in the post. 

Cross your fingers for no rain today...I really am itching to get out to skate a bit today.  Have a great rest of the day!

Pink Wednesday: Zoya Rica

Good morning, Kitschies!  We're almost half-way through another week.  How can the time possibly go so fast?!  *sigh*  It's a little cooler here today, which is nice, but all that does is make me more unhappy when it warms up again.

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for Summer to be finished.  But, that doesn't mean I'm ready to change my nail color yet (even though I'm wearing a decidedly un-summer color today).  I'm linking up with On Wednesdays We Wear Pink today and have a super shimmery, fun summer color to share with you.

I was pretty quick to grab Zoya's Summertime collection when it came out earlier this year.  How can you resist gorgeous glass-fleck cool-toned colors?  I couldn't!  

This beauty is Zoya Rica.  It's a pretty strawberry pink base with gold glass-fleck (shimmer).  The Zoya site rates this as 4 (out of 5) for opaqueness, but I don't think it's quite that opaque.  At 3 coats, there is some obvious VNL with flash in this picture. 

I would *almost* call this a duochrome, but not in the classic sense.  The amount of gold shimmer you get depends on the amount of light.  With flash, there is definitely more pink that gold, but when you get in more indirect light, this is what you see...

I like the pink, but I love Rica even more when she's more gold than pink.  It's glittery but not in-your-face like chunky glitter can be.  Rica is definitely one of my favorite pinks (up among the ranks with ChG Strawberry Fields)!

What do you think of Rica?  Do you have any of the Summertime collection?  Which one is your favorite?

Big Days

Good morning, Kitschies!  Good evening, Kitschies!  I started this post this morning and got as far as the opening.  *sigh*  It was a long day...and we didn't even have patients!  We spent the day in training for diagnostic ultrasound.  While interesting, I can only see "normal" joints for so long before I lose interest. 

It was a big day yesterday!  Nate had his first day of Kindergarten.  *sob* 

He had so much fun (even though he rolled his eyes at going outside a lot) and he didn't want to leave when I went to pick him up.  And he was even excited to go again today!  I know *that* won't last forever, but I'm glad he had a good first two days.  When it was time to line up for his class on Monday, he told me: "It's OK, Mom.  You can go now."  OK...does that mean I can go to my car and cry for a little while?  I was good - I didn't cry...much.  My mom sent me a text about being and good parent and that made me tear up.  I had it coming from both side on Monday!  LOL

Then, Monday night, I went to my first roller derby practice.  And...OMG...it was SO much fun!  Seriously.  I was a lot steadier on my skates than I expected I would be - I only fell 3 times (I think *everybody* falls at least once a practice).  For being my first time in anything like this, I held my own.  And all the girls were so nice and encouraging.  I was afraid that they would be extra hard on the noob, but they really weren't.  The only places I'm *really* lacking in skills are balancing on one foot (picking up my right skate and touching across to my left hand <and visa versa> is *not* happening yet) and hitting/blocking.  I am so excited to do this!  I've wanted to do something more active for a while but wanted to do something different.  Ya think roller derby is different enough?  Yeah.  Me, too.

OK.  Enough of that.  Now for the *real* reason you come to my blog.  The pretties!  I've got a good water marble for you today.  Remember my last marble (it wasn't all that great)?  This one made up for that one.

I'm not saying this marble is *awesome*, but it's definitely better than the previous one!  I wore this in the beginning of June for my vacay to Cali.  I started with a white base (OPI Alpine Snow) and then marbled three ChGs from the Tronica collection: Hologram (silver holo), Hyper Haute (magenta holo) and Techno Teal (teal, duh).  My index and pinkie on my left hand (pictured above) were my favorite out of the group.

I don't know why, but I only got 2 decent pics from this mani.  And, wow!  I'm amazed at how much my nails have grown since early June!  It's hard to really capture the holoness of these polishes, but if you enlarge this pic, you can kinda see the holo effect on my thumb.

I want to do more water marbles, but I always have a hard time coming up with good color combos.  I know I have a really nice one still waiting to be prepped.  Suggestions for colors?  Lemme have it!

Well, I'm going to relax tonight and do my nails with a new OPI color I picked up at Ulta yesterday.  Have a great evening!

On Wednesdays We Wear Pink: Shrimply Divine

Good morning, Kitschies!  It's Wednesday.  Again.  Nothing too exciting going on in the land of Suburbia.  I'm typing this out on Tuesday night because Wednesday morning we have some lame training at work, so I thought I better get a jump on this before I miss the bus completely.  And I'm pretty tired tonight, so it's probably going to be a short post.

It's Wednesday, so it's time to link up with On Wednesdays We Wear Pink!

Quite a while ago, ok, a LONG time ago, I asked the bestie what color combo I should do for a funky french mani.  She said pink and black.  This is what I came up with.

I started with a base of SH Complete Salon Manicure: Shrimply Divine (thanks Emily!) then creating a chevron tip, I used Finger Paints: Easel Come, Easel Go and SH Black Out.  Then where the three colors meet, I added a pink rhinestone. 

I don't remember exactly, because it's been so long, but it looks like I must've used Seche Vite as my top coat because I have quite a bit of tip shrinkage. 

I like this mani, it's cute, but it's not one of my favorites.  I need to do more chevron french tips - they're different and there are so many great color combos!

Short and sweet.  My kind of post!  LOL  Check out On Wednesdays We Wear Pink for other great participating pink blogs!

And don't forget to enter my GIVEAWAY!

I Want To Love Her

Good day, Kitschies!  It's Thursday.  Finally.  Why does the week following a 3-day weekend always feel like it lasts longer than a usual week?  It's been busy here at the clinic but luckily, I've had enough time to keep up on all my blog reading.  I've been cheating and getting most of my posts done the night before.  When do you read your blogs?  When do you prepare them?

I have a cute mani for you today.  I did this way back when ChG released their first run of crackle polishes. 

I started with a base of Zoya Savita, a gorgeous royal purple matte.  But I have a problem with this...it's matte.  I *want* to love matte polishes, I really do, but I just...don't.  I love this color with a top coat, it's a beautiful shimmery purple.  But I know that's not the way it's supposed to be.  So, to help this mani, I decided to draw a design on the matte finish with a shiny top coat.  While I liked how this looked, I just couldn't get with the whole matte finish.  I think I wore this for a day then I picked up some ChG crackle polishes and fixed this ho-hum mani.

This is ChG Broken Hearted over Zoya Savita.  I liked the way the pink contrasted with the dark purple underneath. 

And I like how the patterns of the cracks depends on how thick (or light) you apply the polish.

For some reason, the thumb on my right hand got a diagonal crack - cool because it was so different from all the other fingers.  I remember wearing this for quite a few days and I got lots of compliments on it, too.

Thanks to the bestie for letting me "borrow" this, though I don't know that she even knows that I used it before I gave it to her.  Shhhh!

On Wednesday We Wear Pink: ChG Ahoy!

Happy Wednesday!  The good thing about 3-day weekends?  The week is short and Wednesday comes before you even realize it.  The bad?  It seems that 5 days of work are still squeezed in to those 4 days.  Tuesday wasn't a bad day back to work because the docs weren't in.  Wednesday is shaping up to be pretty busy.  I have a feeling the rest of the week will follow suit.  But there's light at the end of the tunnel because I only have to get through two more days and then it's the weekend again!!

I've haven't participated much in On Wednesdays We Wear Pink, but I decided to link up today and I have a really pretty pink to share with you.

This beauty is ChG Ahoy! from the Anchors Away collection released earlier this year.  This was one of two that I picked up from the collection (the other was White Cap).  Ahoy! is a gorgeous jelly-ish base of raspberry with lighter pink sparkle (that refused to be picked up with my camera).  Taken indoors with flash. 

If you click on the pic, you can see a bit of the sparkle on my ring finger.  Anyway...this is 3 coats with the picture taken in indirect sunlight.

The formula and wear on this was standard of ChG.  This color reminds me a lot of ChG Strawberry Fields, only with pink shimmer rather than gold.

After looking at my other OWWWP posts, I realize that I have a preference for this shade of pink.  I promise my next pink post will be a little bit different pink.  Promise!

Enjoy your Wednesday and be sure to check On Wednesdays We Wear Pink for other participating pink bloggers!

Butterfly Kisses

Good morning, Kitschies!  I'm baaaaack.  I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to visit the fam in Cali.  We made the trip in almost record time on Saturday.  It was a very uneventful trip (which is a good thing) and we even took a little break in Flagstaff, AZ for a quick sandwich break!  We got home safe and sound and we spent Father's Day getting caught up on laundry and various chores around the house.  The hubs didn't have much of a Father's Day since we spent the week away.  He was lucky (and appreciative) to get a 6-pack of beer and a good flashlight.  It's the little things.  LOL

You'll get a post full of highlights from the trip, but I haven't had time to sort through all the pics, so today I'm sharing one of my favorite manis from the last couple months.  I don't remember exactly when I wore this, but I can tell you it was probably in May.

I saw this nail art on Lacquerized once upon a time, but when I went back to use it for reference, I couldn't find the image to save my life.  Oh, and BTW, I hate that Lacquerized is no longer posting.  She was the best, in my opinion.  Does anybody know where she went?  Or why she went?  Anyway...I started off with 3 coats of OPI The Show Must Go On, a gorgeous magenta glass-flecked sorta duochrome.  Then I grabbed my black striping polish and drew on the butterfly wing.  I finished it off with various dots using OPI Alpine Snow and a medium dotting tool.

Oops!  This one is a little blurry, but you can see the purple-ish shimmer that shows up in TSMGO.  So sparkly.  So pretty.

Outdoors, indirect light.  You can really see the golden shimmer in this pic.  I love this polish because it changes depending on the light.  It's not quite as awesome as her sister MAC polish, but I'm not about to drop that much money when I can spend less than $10 on a polish that's close enough to me to be a dupe. 

One more pic for good measure.  This is one of my favorite OPI polishes.  You give me raspberry/magenta and add some shimmer and you've pretty much got me hooked!!

Well, it's back to the grind for me.  It's been pretty busy today at the clinic, but not insane busy like it can be.  The boys were pretty happy to get back to daycare today - they're probably going to be exhausted when I pick them up tonight!  I hope you survive the rest of your Monday.