UM Grizzly Mani

Today and most Thursdays during football season, we are allowed to have a University of Montana Grizzlies Jeans Day at my workplace. If we want to wear jeans, we have to wear the UM Griz school colors, lol. Works for me since I attended/graduated college there. And I will do almost anything to wear jeans and a nice T-shirt, lol!! Normally we have to wear dress slacks, nice blouses and dress shoes. Not ultra conservative, but not casual either. So here is my Maroon/Silver mani, those are the college colors :0)

Revlon Ruby Ribbon, which is a "suede" polish (2 coats), 1 coat of Sally Girl silver glitter over that, and one heavy coat of SV over the top.  *SIGH* sparklies are so pretty!

I am still wearing regular polish over my gel polish that was applied 9/22. So it has been a full week now and I will show you how they have changed over the nail polish removal, wear and tear. See the picture below and don't ralph at the staining :)



The red arrow shows the only cracking that is noticeable to picky me....a little notch in the nail wrap I did with the gels. VERY little...but I pick at stuff like that, so it is important. I wrapped all my nail edges with the base coat, 2 coats of sheer pink and again a base coat layer. Not bad! The green arrow shows how the whole thing is growing out. If you click on the picture, you can see the raised line of the gel polish a bit away from the cuticle. Also, they are losing their lovely shininess, but that is totally workable. After all, the goal was to protect my thin nails, provide a smooth base for regular polish and nail art, and maybe prevent nasty *^#%* stains from happening! So far, it's meeting my goals! I will probably re-apply the gel over this weekend, because I hate that much gap near the cuticle.

Take care, and be safe everyone!

Franken Funfest! and Gel polish update

I finally received my low-budget order from TKB trading....bottles, color/sampler tray and clear bases. That was all I felt like I could get this time, but my wish list was much bigger, lol!

Now the fun started! ....I had already made hmm, 3 ? frankens and needed more bottles...I was going into franken detox! I blew through 6 of the new bottles like nobody's business. Here are 2 of the new polishes, I did give a little peek of the green one on a previous post.

This is the bright green I made for my daughter. Middle finger has 2 coats, that seems to give the best effect. Since my nails don't curve downwards, no full holo effect, but still pretty!
This brown franken was made with the color-morphing pigment.

Full sun and I was AMAZED! This was the color-morphing pigment, green-gold. I only saw the green inside, but outside-gold... W O W ! I'm thinking this one needs to be Named. Molten Chocolate. How's that sound? Yummy? IT IS!!!!

Click on the pictures of the polish in full sun to see some of the gold. Pesky color was playing hide-and-go-seek with my camera.

Inside, artificial light, you can see the green a bit better. I can see I am going to have to find the funds to make another order for polish bottles and bases.

Regarding gellac under regular polishes....
I put on gellac and some sheer pink gellish polish last Thursday night, have changed my polish 2 times since then, using non-acetone polish remover. Even though the gel polish has lost some of its beautiful shine, it's holding tough and has still protected my nails amazingly well! Also, I think it gives a lovely smooth finish under the polish. I am going to hang tight and see how long I can keep this one application going before it shows or starts cracking/flaking.

More frankens in my next post! Take care and *don't sniff the fumes!*

New Franken Fun!!!

When Morenailpolish was selling the color-morphing pigments and some other goodies, I put an order in and patiently waited for my goodies to arrive (she had a HUGE response!). And arrive they did, this week!! Woo-hoo!
Man alive, I can't wait until my empty bottles come in so I can play more! Here is a little picture of my pigments and little tiny sample of one polish I made last night for my youngest daughter...I don't have a name for it yet...maybe I need some help?!

If I didn't think the Copyright police would find me...I would name it after Kermit, since I love the Muppets, but ah, well!!

I also made a very cool teal franken with color-morphing pigments and a purply-maroon holo-franken my friend Saundie is trying out. More pictures in another day or two, hopefully!! If I can pry my teenager away from World Of Warcraft (WOW) hahahahaa! 

Oh, and if you are looking at the pigments and drooling, go check out morenailpolish.blogspot.com, because I think she has more now! She did an awesome job of labeling, weighing, shipping and just putting up with more insanity than I would have-in order to fill people's orders.

Copper-Clad Leopard Print

Sorry it has been so long since my last post, but Fall is busy for our family! On to the mani I promised!
This one was SO cool! I did one coat of Revlon Copper Penny over the gellac base coat, and then a leopard print with Wet N Wild Black and dabbed in some SH Chrome purple....WOW!!!!!

One coat of Copper Penny....yummy polish

Viola! I have to say, this was one of the most popular manis I have done, and I loved it!. I have never pegged myself as an animal print girl, but I do have to say this one fit me to a "T". I used a nail art fine brush to dab those little purple chrome bits in. I have seen Nailnerd do this style with red, but that wasn't me (sorry dear lady!) But this is, lol!! Darn...may have to play with the tiger print next!!

I am still playing around with the Gel polish and mostly underneath regular polish as a protectant for my nails. This past weekend, our whole  family got together to help another family member work on their ranch....basically, making sure all the cows and calves were healthy before winter hits. I only chipped my right pinky, and a tiny one that I could just file down a bit. I thought that was amazing. It was pretty funny that my niece had her nails done too, so I didn't feel so goofy!



Gellac? Woot!

OK, this shit rocks..no other way to say it!

I am really good at teaching myself things, but I thought this stuff would be more difficult, even with all the YouTube info out there....
I have done them twice so far since this weekend, mostly to try and remove the nasty staining in between, LOL!
But here are the pics with actually 2 coats of ibd Gellac bonding base coat. My theory was, if one coat is pretty slick, what does 2 look like?! A still, glassy pond.......

Shield your eyes from the obscene staining, hehehehehe.....



And this stuff held up to housework (I didn't cut ANY punches)...moving a kiln complete with scratchy firebrick and mowing (lawnmowers and my nails don't get on well, LOL!)

Since I have ridges, it coats those like.....syrup! And regular polish slicks over this stuff like butter! Right now I am wearing a metallic polish mani and we shall see how it holds up. I will say that speed dry top coats don't speed dry at all over this. It was a wee bit of a pain to remove, but not horrible by any means. Looks like a good weekend plan for me, as strong as it is. I will keep you posted with how this stuff is working out, but I paid $31.50 US dollars for the lamp, and just under $9 for the base coat. Frankly, the gel/shellac polishes are a bit boring compared to what you can do with regular polishes and acrylic paints, lol! So I am not swapping all my cool colors out, that is for sure! Confession time...I even did my toes in this stuff, just to play! Gives a nice smooth base for any polish
Oh, here is what I had on before the gels....Failed Red glitter sandwich! pretty, though!

Tomorrow's mani....Copper-Clad Leopard print! Wowsa!!

Quick update on "The Loot"

OK, it is almost 1:30 am...I have to be at work by 7:30am and I can't sleep, so what do I do? I blog!!

I have quite a few pictures, but first, My UV lamp and Gellac base coat came in, so here is a sneak peek.
This stuff is amazing--slicker than...oh never mind, I'll behave :0)

More tomorrow...must try to sleep now and will probably dream of frankens, gel nails and my new toy (a kiln)...woo-hoo!

Matte Pink Flakies

I'm not doing anything fancy tonight because I HOPE my loot from Amazon will come in the mail tomorrow. I did some retail therapy last week-it was a pretty rough week at work, and ordered an inexpensive UV lamp and some shellac base coat. The awesome lady/cosmetologist that does my hair knows I am freaky about polishes and stamping. She told me my regular polishes will cure harder with a lamp...plus I think it will be useful for other things, like broken nails. At any rate, I am excited to start experimenting with this.
On to today's mani...after which I will show what happens when you miss a tiny bit of base coat-pure nastiness!
I started with 2 coats of Sally Hansen Twisted Pink...and topped with 2 coats of ABOP's Flakie Franken...a polish which Rocks!



This stuff is so blingy that my camera couldn't focus with 2 coats on, LOL! Normally I do one coat and it focuses fine....not so today!

Then 1 coat of Essie Matte About You- I have been dying to try this look....I have seen a lot of people put flakies and matte over blues and purples, but I have missed seeing pinks, so here we go :0)

Gorgeous, isn't it? Why did I wait so long to try this look? Not a clue, because I am loving it!

Now for the nastiness...my last mani stained in the weirdest way. I must have missed a tiny bit of base coat, or maybe it was just thin in one spot, but look...

Green dots of nastiness. I was able to buff most of this off, but imagine what that would look like if I used that dark green over the whole nail with no base coat? Blegh....My nails are still light yellow/green from a few months ago and my Day-Glo Green/yellow mani. Halfway gone and it was 2 months ago roughly....

Take care and be safe.