MSMD takin' notes from the Chalkboard

This is my first Monkey See, Monkey Do Monday!

Here is the link to the fb page with the list of other bloggers who participate! (Aka- i forgot to do this last night when i was writing this post and am now on my tablet which makes everything a little different)all the cool kids!

I got my idea from this post from the seriously talented Sarah at Chalkboard Nails! Her title Ants at the picnic! is an accurate description of what this manicure represents.  Here you are, chillin' on your gingham blanket (why have I never seen one of those in real life?!) munchin' on some grindage, and your watermelon-y goodness is just waaay too much for these little dickheads to keep away from.  Hide your melons, hide your glasses of sweet southern iced tea!

I couldn't completely replicate the manicure, but really who wants to totally copy someone else? I had been wanting to do something with watermelons ever since I picked up my bottle of Finger Paints Louvre This Pink.  It is THE perfect shade for watermelon!  Then I came across that post and I was like oooh I gotta try it.  I'm glad I did!  You should hop on over and look at the original photos of what this mani SHOULD look like lol

 Alright, so I have a shit basket.  I did not keep the basket.  I tried, I really did! I think having more colors would have helped?  I just don't think mine were very baskety.. My basket is a base coat of OPI A-taupe the Space Needle as well as lines of French Quarter For Your Thoughts, and then some of A-taupe the Space Needle mixed with white for some..depth? Geez I dono.  At one point I said screw it trying to make little perforated lines and just vertical and horizontal.  And that's what makes a shit basket, y'all! I took that off, and had a different idea to try.

 For my take, I painted half my nail in Sally Hansen Hard as Nails French White, two coats, then stripes in Finger Paints Gogh Red! (maybe, I'm pretty sure that's what it is..)  and Pure Ice Black Rage for my ants.  For the grass I used China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise (I think this one is a neon..I got it so long ago)

For my index and pinky, I did the same as my thumb, just without the grass.  I tried to get the ants to march in line and to be following the sugary trail.  For my middle and ring fingers I did a base of Finger Paints Louvre This Pink, then painted on with Color Club Age of Aquarius right above the rind, and then my other no-name Maurices polish, some shade of dark teal.  For my seeds i used Pure Ice Black Rage.  I topped all of this off with Seche Vite, because it was time to go do laundry and upload these pics, and all that involves a trip to my parent's house. 

My seeds look a little irregular, and I do think I should have made way fewer of them.  Pretty much all of this except the base and top coats were done with my super teeny tiny nail art brush that I got at Sally's.  My right hand which I didn't take pictures of actually looks the same as my left, if not better.  I love my tiny nail art brush =]  Overall, it doesn't look perfect (uh probably because I did it) but it looks way better than what I could've done a while ago, without the right tools.  So I'm happy with it!  Perfect for summer=]

I am really enjoying posting..do you know how happy I am that 12 people wanna follow me?  Okay really ten because when I set it up I wanted to make sure it worked so I followed myself from both my accounts.  How lame am I?  TEN PEOPLE! =]

I am also now on facebook, I will soon be getting a button or something put on here to link to that www.facebook.com/ambersnailblog  Can you believe that nevernakednails, never.naked.nails, and nevernakednailsblog were supposedly "taken" fb names?  I looked em up, they don't exist! whatever..I decided if ambersnailblog didn't work I was just leaving it the way it came lol

Thanks for stopping by =]

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?

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.