peacock marble

If you've been keeping up with either my blog or Cuti-Clue-Les' (whom btw has totally redone her background recently and it looks awesooome) then you will know that I have just discovered a new love: water marbles.  Oh my god.  I think I could do water marbles forever and ever, and never get tired of them!

For color inspiration, because I always feel like I'll throw together something awful, I look to fashion magazines.  Yeah.  I read 'em.  So what?  Anyway, the writers/staff at these mags might not know exactly how I feel on every subject, especially my stance on being submissive to men, (sometimes Cosmo, I really do love ya, other times I feel like you're trying to subliminally message me into becoming an oral machine..) and the fashion stuff is always craaaaazy expensive and normally just impractical for my life.  I don't work on a runway!  But they're normally pretty good at puttin' colors together=]  I swear, since my nails became my obsession, magazines have just become these idea books for me, they're also really great for patterns and designs.

Anyway, so I got this month's Marie Claire, and found a page with a girl wearing this weird peacock dress.  It had all of the peacock-ish colors and a couple feather designs I think, but mostly the colors were just there all together, swirled and going in different directions..  I thought that would be cool to recreate!  Everyone is loving the peacock design right now, put your own spin on it if you're interested but kind of unsure!

Some of these are still blurry, sorry!  I promise I got my camera issues fixed, but these were taken the other day..
Anyway, I started with a base of Maybelline Color Show Porcelain party, then did my marble with Pure Ice French Kiss, Maybelline Color Show Tenacious Teal and Kleancolor Neon Yellow, as well as Finger Paints Art You Wondering, which didn't show up so much in pictures.

I really just love marbles now, they're so fun and easy!  Once you have your colors, you're good to go!  I use the tape method, so clean up is a breeze, and I get better with each one I do!  If you have been put off by a marble mani, or are unsure of whether or not to try one because of maybe things you might have read about them or whatever...don't be!  Practice is the only way to get better.  Basically what it comes down to is, if I can do it, then there's gotta be a way that you can do it too.  If you have any questions at all, let me know!

And I did not forget about yesterday's summer challenge that I missed, but I do however feel that I can make up for it tomorrow.  Have a fantastic day=]

Summer Challenge: Day 1!

In case you haven't been reading or following any of the blogs that I follow (what's wrong with you?!) then you probably don't know anything about the summer challenge.  Started by Debbie from The Crumpet, it's a reallllllly long, and hopefully reallllllly awesome challenge, and it's my first!

click here to get all the deets on the Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge fb page!

Today's theme: The Olympic torch starts its journey.

I must say, I haven't kept up with the Olympics for a while, the last one came about the year I graduated high school.  I can't tell you what I was doing (such a hazy memory of that time..) but I can imagine I was celebrating like I had just won the Olympics.  I used to love watching the gymnastics and a few other various parts on TV when I was a little kid though.  Then I got pissed when I found out this awesome show only runs every four years! whaaaat..

So my mani is pretty basic, I'm really only using the colors for the rings for this one. Red, green, blue, black, and yellow which I have substituted gold for.  Aren't I just cool? ha..

This is Sally Hansen Double Duty base coat, two coats of Maybelline Color Show Tenacious Teal on my index, middle and pinky fingers. For my thumb and ring fingers I have painted diagonally with Pure Ice Black Rage, and for the other half Color Club Disco Nap.  On top of these I have sponged Sally Girl no name gold glitter, it's really a simple clear base with small and medium sized gold glitter pieces.  I focused on sponging the entire nail on the thumb and ring fingers, while only about halfway on the rest.  Then, I have taken a dotting tool and made dots in Pure Ice French Kiss, Siren, and Black Rage on my teal fingers.  Topped off with Seche Vite.

So, I hope that I do get to watch this year's Olympics, and incorporate something better than just colors into my manis.  Oh yeah, there are a few more Olympic themes left, as well as a lot of other cool creative ideas to get your lacquered-crazed brains a-goin =]

Here are the ladies who participated in the challenge today:

My favorite bag from high school!

This mani was done on a whim, after I took a stroll down Kroger's cosmetics section and decided (on a whim) I NEEDED three Sally Hansen polishes.  Some no-buy, huh?  Here's one of them, Twisted Pink. stamped with Pure Ice Black Rage on thumbs and indexes in an awesome houndstooth print from my Cheeky plates, then mattified with Hard Candy's matte top coat.

The only thing about Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear polishes from my experience is that they can be on the thick side, and this one wasn't good at leveling itself out..I don't hate 'em though, I can make it work =]

What inspired me to do this was I once had a purse that I had bought at Wal Mart that was basically this shade pink with black houndstooth all over.  I loved that bag=]  Now, I have no idea where it is..  

Thank you, I'll Have Another

..But I was really rooting for Hansen (for obvious reasons)

In case you didn't know, or care (I pretty much didn't) yesterday was cinco de mayo!

..and that's not what I'm about to talk about.  Yesterday was the 138th Kentucky Derby. woo.  So it's sort of something that you can't go anywhere or do anything on said day without knowing that IT'S THE KENTUCKY DERBY!  But I never watch, any time I put money on the horse whose name I like the best, I lose, so I pretty much just don't care about that day.  And I had to work tonight, so it's not like I could celebrate Cinco De Mayo (I never have, that I can recall...but it sounds like margaritas are in order for the occasion)

But do I need much of a reason to do my nails?  No, ma'am.  I'm sorry, you probably don't like to be called ma'am, I know that I don't..

So when my thumbs were chipping like lead paint from the 60's yesterday morning, I knew as soon as I got home I would need to set my Pandora to MGMT and keep in mind the day's celebrator-iness.  Something that involved flowers, drinks, the color blue, and some sweet stampage.

This is two coats of Gelous, my lovely Gelous which has less than half of the bottle left and starting to get thick :(  Anyway, then two coats of China Glaze Tree hugger, and a coat of Seche Vite to speed things up. I was tired!

Then I used a few different floral designs mixed together and stamped my thumb, index, middle and pinky with Pure Ice Flirt Alert, and another design that signified drinks and celebration in Pure Ice French Kiss.  I topped it all off with NYC's matte top coat.  Lovely!

Did you guys do anything yesterday?

Aqua Zebra!

I will never regret the day I bought my stamper =]

So, my Cheeky plates had a few different animal print designs, and I feel like a lot of people do those, so while it might be a little overdone, the still young and fun girl inside of me (way down in there, stifled by work and sleep and soon school! I feel old..) just could not wait to get some zebra tips.

I started out with Gelous as my base coat, then for my thumb and ring fingers I layered two coats of a super pretty no-name aqua color that I bought at Maurices a few months ago.  Application is really good for this one, opaque in two coats, and it dries semi-matte.  I have another polish that I bought at the same time from Maurices and they are my only colors that dry semi-matte..I'm iffy about that type of finish.  Are you trying to be matte because you know how cool it looks?  Why are you still satin-y and almost shiny?  PICK ONE!! Eh..

For my index, middle and pinky I used Kleancolor Neon Aqua.  I do love this blue!  Again, the application is really great with these polishes I have found, and I'm almost 100% positive this is opaque in two coats.  I keep feeling like these neons from Kleancolor are going to show my nail line, but this one did not.  Anyway, perfect color combo in my eyes =]

Sorry about the mess! I was excited because it actually went really well, unlike my first attempt at stamping which I am sure I will eventually post lol  I used Pure Ice Black Rage and one of the zebra print designs from my Cheeky plates.

So You can't tell from the picture of my left hand before I cleaned up, and I didn't post of my right beforehand, but I did miss a couple of spots.  On my left hand it wasn't a big deal, I remembered that with my bottle of Seche Vite came a little strip with some tiny rhinestones that look like diamonds along with about 25 little pink breast cancer awareness ribbons.  I think some of the money went toward that cause, and that's why I bought it.  I mean I was going to get the bottle anyway but I only had to pay maybe a dollar more for this one.  Anyway, so I fixed my left hand, and then finished my thumb with Seche Vite (I didn't have nail glue, so this was the only way I could think of to get the rhinestone to stay) and the rest of my fingers I finished off with Hard Candy's matte polish (I think it's called Matte-ly in love?)

For my right hand, there were a couple of extra problems that I fixed the same way.  As you can see, my thumb has a missing part of the zebra design on the right side.  I knew that my stamper hadn't picked up all of the design (my fault, not Konad's lol) and I thought I could make that work for me.  BAM! Two rhinestones.  Then on my ring finger the same thing happened in the left corner, so I fixed it the same way.  Sorry for my middle finger being in the way lol I finished my thumb and ring finger in Seche Vite, and the others in Hard Candy's matte.

Also, my pinky was just beyond repair and I did not feel like taking it all off and putting it all back on again.  I felt accomplished, nothing was gonna bring me down!

You can probably tell that I did not wait for my stamping to dry before putting my top coats on.  If you're a beginner like I am, please please please please wait for your stamping to dry for a bit lol  You won't regret it!  You might however if you have to look down at your nails and see veiny streaks all over.  I do a little teeny bit, but I know that I'm just going to get better at this, and I think I did pretty well for my first zebra stamping attempt.  I still only know of my Pure Ice Black Rage as being my go-to polish for stamping, but I don't see why Pure Ice's other cremes wouldn't work as well.  I will find out though=]



my messy colorblock

So for this mani i tried to color block! Didn't turn out how i hoped it would but oh well..

i started with Pure Ice Flirt Alert for my thumbs which is very opaque which i looove about their cremes. Opaque in two coats and of course i used my LA Colors bade coat for all these. Next, I alternated between Pure Ice Wild Thing, (another great creme for such a low price!) and Color Club Age of Aquarius a really great creme neon aqua/teal color. Both opaque in two coats. The only thing about Pure Ice cremes, the colors are great and the cremes are thick in a nice way, but you have to be careful or you'll have bald spots.  I almost left my nails like this, because I liked the combination of these colors. Next, I placed tape diagonally slanting to left on my thumb and to the right on the rest of my fingers. The opposite was done on my other hand. Then, I tried to alternate the colors for the slant. After that i used a small dotting tool to create dots adjacent to the slanting in the third color on each nail. That should have been enough! But i wanted more definition....lol So i used the smallest brush i have which is from the cheapo set of artist brushes from wal mart dipped in Pure Ice Black Rage to create some sloppy lines lol that wasn't how it was supposed to happen! But I didn't have my actual nail art brush at the time. Topped off with Poshe of course! I originally wanted to do this mani for Teal Tuesdays, but after it was all said and done I didn't really feel very proud of it lol  But I'm uploading it here and now because what is the point of this blog except to document what I've done?  I'll learn from my mistakes =] Anyway better luck next time.

Sweet Stampage has commenced!

I am so excited for this. My Konad double ended stamper came in the mail yesterday! I already received my Cheeky plates, the ones they came out with for this summer. The part of my mind that brainstorms has been lost in some sort of dreamy haze. I'm going to be able to create so many cool things now!

Okay, so this is the mani from my previous post which I knew would be the perfect background for SOMETHING.. The plates that I used were Ch6, 9, 10, 16, 17, &20 For my pinky I used Pure Ice Black Rage for the lollipop, but the first four fingers I was just trying to experiment with what polishes might work with the stamping plates.  I have read that you don't have to buy the special Konad ones for them to still work properly, but that they don't always have the full effect with most polishes.  Anyway, the first four I used China Glaze Smoke and Ashes from the Hunger Games collection and it worked oookaaayyy, I like that I can tell there's a shimmery part to it, but only if it's up close so that kind of  made it pointless.  Plus the little flecks get caught up in the plates and they're hard to remove..so I decided to use the only true black creme that I have, and I knew it would be thick enough, and it is!  I really love the cupcake on my index finger!  But I think I should've placed them all more to the left side like with my ring finger, to really pop against the Neon Yellow and Orange.  Overall I'm in love with this handy dandy tool, and I am pumped for some more Sweet Stampage =]

Does anyone have any suggestions on any polishes that work well with the stamping plates, something that I could maybe pick up at Wal Mart instead of going over the internet?

Also, I think I'd like to begin reviewing products that I love, and I will definitely be reviewing my Birchboxes that I get from now on.  I have been a subscriber for exactly a year now, and I haven't regretted it one bit.  I love the products they send me, and the points system they have.  I love buying products totally in points that have accumulated =]  And after I've opened the boxes I use them to store my nail polish.  I don't have anything fancy like a super Helmers or a shelf that my boyfriend has promised he would make for me..but my collection is still relatively small.  I have about 70-75 bottles of polish, and that includes minis(about 15? idk..)  That's not including base coats, top coats, other bottled nail products that aren't actually nail polish..

What an amateur, right?  Anyway, I'm not up there with the big polish bloggers yet, but I'd like to think I still have something to offer the blogosphere! And while I keep posting my collection shall keep growing =]

On a funner note (god, what a long blog lol..) I will be participating in the crumpet's summer challenge!!! If you check out all the challenges, you might think it will be a doozy.  And it probably will be!  But I really think it's going to be fun, I'm already having fun brainstorming and getting started =] It starts May 19 and ends Sept. 8.  Check out her facebook page for the challenge group, and request an invite if you wanna get it on it!  It's long, but there's no pressure or strings attached or anything...I actually think it will be less stressful than a 31 day challenge but what do I know.. Is anyone else gonna do it too? =]

Pictures, and a little about me as well:

First off, I'm still new to this game.  My nail polish collection has doubled (probably a little more than doubled..) in the last couple of months.  I'm 21, and I've loved doing my nails since I was a little girl.  The thing is, Once I turned 16 I had to get a j-o-b and damnit if I had to go and get one at a fast food chain that doesn't allow fun in my uniform.  Oh, I got by with the little things.  Getting my nose pierced, dying my bangs ultraviolet.. but for some reason you just could not have your nails done in any sort of polish!