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 =]

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=]