The Ultimate Want

Today, I am sad.  I fear I will never own my own bottle of Clarins 230.  It's a fact that I deal with, day to day.  I get by.  How could a polish so perfect be so freaking discontinued, and goes for over a hundred bucks on ebay.  Oh, the things I could do with the amazing Unicorn Pee.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, seriously do yourself a favor and google it.  You're not actually doing yourself a favor, because now you want it just as much as I do, and unless you're completely insane you're not gonna shell out the cash.  On the small chance that you ARE that completely insane, could you see if they'll throw in another bottle?

Anyway, so if you can't tell, today I was craving some color-shifting goodness, oh yes.  I'll have to make do with what I have, since I don't have the most precious of all.

note: These pictures were taken weeks ago when my camera was all wonky, and apparently I decided they weren't even good enough to watermark lol

Wow, these pictures are bad.

This is OPI Not Like The Movies from the Katy Perry collection, three coats. It's a weird gray/steel color from afar, but even in the bottle (not pictured) you can tell the color shift from purple to green in different light.  I had commented on another blog's post about this polish, having no idea that it had come out in a different color.  Apparently this version was only made for a short while when it came out, and then they switched to something different, something less duochrome.  So I'm lucky I guess!

I thought China Glaze Liquid Crystal from the Prismatic collection would go perfectly on top! I accented my thumb and ring fingers with it.  It's great because the colors shift from blue to purple, so my fingers are shifting to different colors on different fingers =] On the rest I added China Glaze Fairy Dust, for giggles =] I love the holographic shimmery goodness it adds.

If I can't have Clarins 230, then I'll just make do with what I do have=]

I do apologize for the horrible mess that are these pictures, this post was meant for a few weeks back and it slipped through the cracks of my brain..It really is a very awesome polish in real life.

Summer Challenge: Day Four!

Oh, hey there!  I've been absent..
Not to get into a lot, but my grandmother has just had surgery, so I've just spent my last two days off over at her house helping her out and stuff...and putting off getting together summer challenge stuff!  Family is important though, and that's why i was not only watching over my grandmother, but my two young cousins (8 and 9) and let me assure you, I was not on a manicure rest!  I have been painting, removing, pressing tiny girly looking adhesive nails on, peeling them off, putting different ones on, peeling those off, painting again...and none of it on myself!  Well, okay I did find the time to do my own nails last night, and I think this manicure can double up on my summer challenges!  Not too sure, I may actually want to do a different one for the future challenge day.  I did miss Wednesday's challenge, the theme was summer dots.  I already did a dotting mani earlier that I feel is the perfect summer dot manicure so can I just cheat and lead you to that one..?

Okay, so today's challenge is orange freestyle themed.  And I feel like it could double over onto June 29: Underneath the stars.  If you don't agree, then I hereby surrender myself to the crumpet, and shall take my punishment accordingly.

Picture spam alert! I not only got my camera issues fixed, but I am quite proud of how this turned out!

inside:

outside:

blurry inside:

blurry outside:

emphasis on the thumb inside:

thumb outside:

blurry outside again, just 'cause =]

Galaxy nails! I have been wanting to do these for quite some time, but haven't been able to sponge correctly or use the colors I felt were right for it.  Some of these are obviously blurry to show the awesomeness of the holographic glitter=]
Specs:
Base coat: Sally Hansen Double Duty.
One coat of China Glaze Smoke and Ashes from the Hunger Games collection (the PERFECT galaxy base, in my opinion)
Index, middle, ring & pinky:
sponged on Revlon Dreamer in the middle in oddly shaped circles and stuff
sponged on one side China Glaze Tree Hugger
on another OPI My Address is Hollywood
on another Revlon Not so Blueberry (which is scented, and I'm not sure but I might be okay with that.  Maybe.)
sponged in the center Maybelline Color Show Porcelain Party
sponged the tips with CG Smoke and Ashes, and a bit around the sides til I was happy
To pull it all together, China Glaze Fairy Dust.  I really mean it.  This mani would not be the same without it.  Ever since I first saw it I knew it would be the perfect topper to a galaxy mani.  I've been lookin' around a lot, okay?  I see people all the time free-handing their own stars or dots in white on their galaxies, and I just think it totally takes away from it all, for me that is.  It just looks more realistic with the shimmering holographic bits in there, I think.

For my thumbs:
First, I sponged on Maybelline Color Show Porcelain Party, so the other colors would show up better.  This is an explosion of some kind.  I sponged on Revlon Fearless, and then alternated between that and Kleancolor Neon Yellow and Neon Orange, slowly making my way toward the tip of the nail, finishing with Revlon Fearless.  Then I topped that off with CG Fairy Dust.

Okay, so it isn't all about orange, but I have really been wanting to try this one out for a while, and it turned out even better than I expected!  So I needed an excuse to post it and tie it into the summer challenge lol

What's your favorite galaxy mani?  Am I offending you with my dislike of free handed stars instead of glitter?  Am I breaking the rules of the summer challenge too hard (um because there aren't any, get your facts right!) Wanna whine about it in a comment?  You can whine about anything down there, you know.
I'll read it, and respond in a timely manner with my thoughtfully thought thoughts =]

tri-colored stamping, and another small haul!

For today's post, I tried stamping with different colors!  I saw a picture on fuckyeahnailart and thought about what I could do..


So maybe I should've used neons lol I like the way it turned out, even if it was slightly hard to tell exactly what was going on from far off:

Sorry, it's so hard to tell what this mani actually looked like from these photos!

I used Gelous as my base coat, Sally Hansen French White-2 coats, then using a floral all-over Cheeky plate, I alternated the combo of China Glaze For Audrey, Secret Periwinkle, and Sweet Hook.  I mattified it with Hard Candy's matte top coat, and called it a freakin' day =]


I must say my stamping skills are coming along! For this one I did not scrape off enough Secret Periwinkle before I stamped my thumb, and did not have enough polish on the stamper for my ring finger at the tip.  I like this design =]


And now, because I absolutely can't be on any sort of no-buy..
Another Sally's and wal mart haul!  Oh payday..

First up:Sally's.  I actually almost got two Hunger Games polishes because they're $1 off right now, but my mission was for more glitter.  Mission: accomplished.  For now..


I picked up China Glaze Fairy Dust, I'd been eyeing this baby for a bit, and heard many great things, like that it turns any mani into magic. We'll see =]


Also, CG Liquid Crystal from the Prismatic collection.  This is the only one that I have from it, and I really like it.  The color shifts from a light blue to a light purple with lots of different colored glitter and shimmers.  Very pretty =]

I got two Sally Girls, a gold and a pink glitter.  I like these, and I think that someday my Sally Girls will come in handy should I choose to start franken-ing =]


I also bought a huge thing of acetone, which was like three bucks I think with my Sally's card, and another nail file!


Wal-mart:

Sally Hansen Double Duty base and top coat.  My nails are getting longer, I need some more protection!  Revlon Blue Lagoon, Maybelline Color Show Tenacious Teal and Porcelain Pretty.


All together now:

All of these are two coats.


Whew. Okay I gotta stop now!  Next month, I plan on beginning the indie section of my stash!


What's your favorite indie polish brand?

Busy post alert!

This is a very busy post!  An award, A looong review, and my newest creation!  Prepare yourself!

For the first thing, I have been given a blog award from the lovely Linzi Louisa from When It Rains It Pours

This makes me so happy!  I've only been doing this a short period of time, and already I've been communicating with some awesome people, and there are people in the world who appreciate the stuff I post.  I love doing this, and I'm beyond glad there are people out there who share this hobby/obsession with me =]

I know that I should share this love with other people, and I'm definitely going to do that soon, but right now I've got stuff planned to show you all!  If you've been keeping up, I posted about my May Birchbox
and I promised to review the items that came to me in said box.  Here we go!

First up, I don't have a picture of it aside from what came in the box, is my Twistband Headband!  The one that I got is a navy blue, which is actually sort of cool, because it matches my work uniform shirt, and since I spend 40ish hours there a week, I'm more likely to wear headbands there...
I love Twistband.  I received two of their smaller bands in one of my first Birchboxes last year, they were both black.  Basically they are just colored elastics for your hair, but they are a really comfortable elastic.  They have soooo much give in them, but they still hold your hair up without denting it.  I gave one of those to my best friend, and kept the other, but I've since lost it =[ which sucks, because they're so great to just wear on your wrist, they won't cut off circulation and they just look cooler than a regular elastic.  The headband is made of the same material, and it is thinner.  I am so glad they sent me this, because I have been on the fence about spending the 10-12 bucks it costs to get a pack of these types of headbands from Birchbox (Birchbox has another brand of headband/hair elastic similar to Twistband in their shop) because headband elastics have always been hell for me.  I don't know who's to blame for this, but I always ended up feeling my head must be huge and oddly shaped, because I see girls all the time wearing their hair up, and the elastic holding back bangs and loose hair, and they make it seem so easy.  Like the band doesn't slip off their head in five minutes.  No matter what I try, i can't keep these things on!  Twistband has saved me.  The headband is so versatile, it looks awesome even with your hair down, doesn't slip off my head.  I love this product, and if you have troubles like I do, I definitely recommend the Twistband headband. Here is a link to all of the Twistband products on Birchbox, apparently my headband comes from a pack of 6 skinny headbands, which is $20.  For me, that's a bit steep, but here is the direct website, find something that works for you!

Next up is Dr. Jart+ Water Fuse Beauty Balm SPF 25+

This is an awful photo!  I was trying to take photos of things I have received in my boxes, and the others turned out fine.  So I'm really sorry, and you're just better off viewing it in my original Birchbox post lol or here on the birchbox website. (Note: it is the squeeze bottle to the left of the Nuxe dry oil bottle that kind of looks like nail polish but is not)  I was excited to try this, I haven't tried beauty balms yet, and I wanted to know how different it could be than just a tinted moisturizer with some SPF.  Turns out, I won't get to find out unless I buy some.  I was getting ready for work the other night and opted to use this instead of my Neutrogena Healthy Skin Enhancer.  Now before I tell you what happened, let me just say that I KNOW that these products are just samples. I know that there is not much of them, although some of the things I am sent do last me a long time.  But it's been my experience with Birchbox that when a product comes in a squeeze bottle instead of say a disposable packet that you cut open and use once maybe twice, that the bottle is at the very least halfway full.  Not so with this product...I squeezed slightly, then built up the force with it after nothing happened, and after about five or six squeezes, a little squirt flies out onto my hand.  I was like really?  It was enough for my cheeks and blending my concealer under my eyes.  I made the comment in the box on the feedback page while I was reviewing the product to earn the ten points, so hopefully someone has read it at Birchbox.  All in all, I'm going to stick with my Neutrogena.  The Healthy Skin Enhancer has SPF 20, it's oil free, it has retinol treatment, and it's tinted the same as many other tinted moisturizers out there.

And now, onto the Color Club Disco Nap from their Foil Collection!

I think this is my first foil.  This is so pretty! Application is awesome, One coat was fine for almost all my fingers, but I used two coats and that made it perfection.  If you're looking closely, you can see streak marks a little, but I don't care =] for giggles I sponged China Glaze Luxe and Lush from the Hunger Games collection on my thumb and ring fingers, as well as added Seche Vite top coat to all of them:

It's hard to tell, but in person the flakies go really well with the gold  in my opinion.  Top coat helped in hiding the streak marks, and didn't change the foil-y finish much, I think this is another winner from Color Club =] This is $8 on the Birchbox website. I'm really thinking about getting the other polish in the collection, Foil Me Once, which is a really pretty fuschia color =] I really feel like this is going to help me through the Crumpet's summer challenge (there are some olympic-related challenge days!)

Onto the perfume! This is Arquiste L'Etrog

I haven't actually used this yet, but I opened the top and smelled it.  Smells wonderful =]
The description from the website:
"This transporting scent will take you to an exotic Mediterranean cabin built out of palm leaves and foraged branches. Beneath these opening woodsy notes hovers a bright base of Etrog citron, which is native to Calabria, plus lush date and fragrant myrtle. The overall composition is warm and citrusy without veering into overly sweet territory."
This description is great, and I love the reference to the Mediterranean, because when I sniffed this awesome perfume, it immediately reminded me of my awesome aunt, who is no longer with us.  Her husband was Greek, born and raised there, and she absolutely loved to visit Greece.  When she died, she split up her collections between her nieces, and I've added a little bit to them over time.  Of her collection, a large portion of it is perfume bottles, I have a lot of mini bottles and regular sized ones, some empty some not.  I don't know why this reminds me of her so much, it's been almost 11 years, but it does. I'll keep this in the collection, but there's no way I'll spend $165 on a full sized bottle..

Then there is the beautyblender blendercleanser.  Birchbox sent me a beautyblender a couple of months ago, and that makeup sponge is AWESOME!  You get it wet, squeeze out the excess water, and the sponge doubles in size.  It works so well at blending everything together, and you can use it all over! for anything! I do wish I had the blendercleanser because I resorted to using my Neutrogena Deep Clean facial cleanser..you know, the big bottle full of orange stuff?  Which worked pretty well.  But now I really wanna get another one!  This stuff is also great for cleaning your makeup brushes=]  I would definitely recommend it, but this is my first brush/sponge cleanser, so I'm sure if you've found something cheaper (this is $17.50 for 6 oz.) that works for you, I'd say go for that.  I'm so cheap lol  No, I haven't used it on my makeup brushes yet but I will =] 

So that's it for my May Birchbox review!  Be expecting these monthly=]

The last thing I want to leave you with today is my awesome upcycling of my old Birchboxes into a new nail shelf!  The idea just came to me, and I had asked my boyfriend to build me a shelf but then I thought, why go out and buy supplies for a shelf, why not utilize stuff I already own??  I have collected a lot of my Birchboxes.  For one, they're cute.  For a craft enthusiast like myself, throwing away this completely reusable box once a month is just crazy talk.  I also save the lovely tissue paper that comes in the boxes.  You never know when you're going to need a cute box and some tissue paper!  Seriously..

So here's what I did:

I used some masking tape to hold them together as well as tape down the paper I wrapped them in.  I used the little description cards that come in the boxes to sort of stabilize between the boxes:

The layers are not attached, so I can add more and move stuff around whenever I want!

I was hoping this would, but it like PERFECTLY holds my entire stash, including all my top coats and base coats and such.  You can tell from the top shot that there is just a little bit of room for more.  That shouldn't take very long to fill =]  I'm so pleased with this!

Any thoughts?  Do any of you have monthly beauty subscriptions?  I love reading about other Birchboxes and stuff like it, and I've often thought of adding on something else, but until I can save more money $10 is all I'm willing to shell out..

Zoya True Spring Collection! (super teeny tiny haul)

The other day I realized I had accumulated about 240 Birchbox points and decided I would use them to grab some full-sized Zoyas!  I have two minis that have been sent to me in my Birchboxes over the past year, and recently I received Bevin, which is an opaque sort of teal color, it's not dark but it isn't very bright.  It's dusty!  It really is very pretty=] No pictures of Bevin yet, because to me it's a kind of color that I just haven't been in the mood for lately.. no offense, Bevin!

So I was super excited when the mail ran a couple days ago, and I got my lovelies!  

This is Tru, which is a grape-colored purple, but it's deeper than that.  Not only is it saturated, it has shimmer to it!  The website says the shimmer reflects gold, orange and red, and from what I can tell that's probably pretty accurate, though I see more red than anything. I tried blurring the pictures some, but really I guess you can only tell the shimmer from the bottle pic in that last shot, which actually shows all of the shimmer!  I just loved taking pictures with this one.

Then there's Cho.  Now, I seem to keep collecting nude polishes, but they're always pink toned.  Cho is an opaque nude.  I was shocked!  this is completely opaque in two coats, how cool is that?  Cho basically looks like my skin on my nails.  Now, let me just say that I don't tan.  Not like I haven't tried or that I won't or that I'm a freak about sunblock, (I am) but my whole lifetime of trying to tan has just left me sore and befreckled.  This color is my nude =] I love it so.  It has really fine silvery shimmer in it, I love that added bonus.  Not only is it a super awesome nude, it's got super awesome shimmer!  I have no idea why I love nudes soooo much, but after Cho, I am definitely diving deeper into the nudey pool on the nudey beach =] (kidding) But I will be grabbing up some more beige colors from now on, just to have the variety. =]

Of course I couldn't just leave those manis be!

for my Cho, I left it as is for the most part, only accenting my ring fingers with China Glaze Fast Track from the Hunger Games collection.  I love that color!  You can't really see all of the shimmery goodness that Fast Track has to offer in this photo, and for that I am sorry.. but it's packed with gold shimmers and looks very much like liquid sparkly shimmery gold when you lift the brush out of the bottle.  God, I love it.

For my Tru, I did the same thing, only changing up the ring fingers.  I sponged some CG Fast Track onto the tips, and then Maybelline Bold Gold (I think that's what it was..) on top of that.  Then I used my cheeky plate with a little star design, and stamped twice using the gold color, so that it would fill up the rest of the nail space.  

For my second Tru mani, I went over my ring finger with NYC Starry Silver Glitter with a sponge.  I don't remember but I think I did two layers of sponging on that.  I doubt I will ever use a polish brush to apply glitters ever again! This glitter is freaking awesome!  I did not realize the glitter was holographic until I saw the pics.  It just looks like a light lavender purple and the darker blue circular glitter pieces (as well as super full of fine silver glittery goodness!)  But here you can see more, a darker purple, a lighter blue, and a green.  I also found another picture that shows red and yellow. Again, i tried to blur that pic so that everything could get caught up in the light.  I fail.

All of these manis and swatches are done with a coat of Gelous as base coat, then Topped off with Poshe.

I love these colors! I think if I had to I would pick up Skylar also from this collection, but I would much rather explore other collections since I am still verrrry new to Zoya.  One thing I know for sure, I NEED Zoya Zuza.  soo pretty!

My Birchbox should be here soon!  A few days ago I got an e-mail saying it was shipped, which I thought was weird since they normally go out on the 10th of every month, and that was like the 6th or something when I got that...and there still isn't any tracking info up yet!  Yes, I track my packages, I track them ferociously. Gotta know when my babies are comin' home!


Have a great day =]

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?

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? =]

China Glaze Stone Cold & Secret Periwinkle

I would like to start this post off by saying my inspiration for this mani came from Nailside's blog, a super awesome blog that I love to follow!  I follow a lot of nail blogs, and I do love them all.  Nailside's manis just always seem to speak to me though, they're always saying things like "You know you want to try to recreate this somehow, someway!!"  And I reply back with "Yeah, but I really need to invest in some actual scotch tape instead of just regular stupid tape that lets polish seep through around the edges of my fingers and throws the whole thing off.." you get it..

anyway, she usually has some easy to follow tutorials for her tape manis and whatnot, and I think this one is the mummy one.  The only difference that I can think of is I'm not sure (because I'm too lazy to check right now) if she leaves her tips out when doing these manis or if she angles the tape still on the tips of her nails.  Either way, I tried to get my tips as straight as I could.  This is two (maybe three?) coats of CG Secret Periwinkle.  Not that two coats wasn't dandy, but I think this was the day I was like "I'm gonna do THREE!!" I'm just a maniac..

horribly indoors:

Then I decided to do the mummy tape mani which can be found here,

And I honestly think it would've been better if my nails were a bit longer.  Oh well! Then I did a layer of CG Stone Cold (another great one from the Hunger Games collection) and then I think I did a layer of Gelous on top.

Refrigerated:

Now, I've gone all out of order.  This mani was done before my first post of Magic Wok nails, which was done before my For Audrey Simple nails.  The pictures are obviously horrible compared to the other post's pictures, and I doubt those can be much better so...sorry about that!  I'll definitely be uploading some newer pictures tomorrow.

I worked with my dotting tools for the first time today!  I had to redo my nails though.  I took pictures first, but I realized after I had gone off to bed and woke back up in the middle of the day that my colors (Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails French White, Kleancolor Neon Aqua, a red from Finger Paints but I can't actually remember the name right now and finding it online would be a headache) were totally the same colors of a work friend's mani that she had showed me the day before and though I was using a white base with blue and red dots and hearts and hers was totally different, I refused to suffer the embarrassment of copying a friend's mani.  I always have better nail ideas when I'm falling asleep or waking up.  I really need a notebook by my bed because I always think of something really cool but I don't really remember it much when I wake back up..

Have a great day =]