First Magnetic Mani

OK, ignore my crappy magnet job and check out the color combination....

2 Coats of Essence Steel Me (in a trade from lovely Buzzwheedle)...in retrospect, I would have done better using a close color for the undies and 1 thicker coat of the magnetic polish.

But here we go...like I said, ignore my lousy magnet work. 1 coat of Pure Ice, Oh Baby over the top...

 Some of my nails have such a sharp C-curve that I only got striping across the arches.

 Pink duochrome shimmer...*sigh*

I picked up a China glaze magnet from Sally Beauty Supply, and they work tolerably well, but I still want to play with making my own. 1 coat of Out The Door over the top glossed this mani right up!

I really love how the combination of textures and colors looks....might get me through the wimpy lines, hehehehe! What do you think? I know not everyone like magnetic polishes...but I love the options plus the metallic aspect...love me some metallic polish!

A England Elaine and Flakies!

I broke down and bought some A-England polishes after my friend Saundie raved over the formula. Nothing spoke to me quite like Elaine, though. I adore a purple creme and Elaine is an amazing purple.
I did get A-England's Dragon, too *drool*  (it whispered...loudly).

Here it is-Inside under Ott lights.

Two lovely coats of A-E Elaine..one was close, but I had some cuticle drag at one coat, so I used two.

Outside, above and below-SUNSHINE! This was out on our deck and probably the most color-accurate pictures. Two coats of Finger Paints Asylum on accent fingers.

This picture is just an extra, hahahahaa! I swatched my A-Englands as soon as I got them in the mail :0)
From Left to right... Elaine, Dragon and a franken of mine I hadn't tried on my nails yet.

I bought my A-Englands on http://shop.llarowe.com/ and they got to me in terrific shape and FAST! I love shopping on her site-shipping is affordable and it gets to me quickly-however, my bank account does not love it, hahahaha. 

Whimsical VS Voodoo Doll

WOW...2 diametrically different manis in my opinion...You will have to tell me which one YOU like best :0)

First- Revlon Whimsical.  I used a very pretty but PIA franken for the undies on this one. My very first franken and  a pain to apply evenly. 2 coats of carefully applied Whimsical over the pale blue franken.

I totally feel like an Easter egg with this mani...and I do love Easter (plus those malted milk ball candies that look like this!)

OK, Next... Nail-venturous Voodoo Doll. A friend shared her bottle of this polish with me and I really love it! Totally opposite feel than Whimsical...one is light and fun, the other is dark and mysterious.

2 coats of NV VD over a medium grey franken of mine. This polish is topcoat hungry!  2 thick coats of SV and still a bit bumpy...

So what do YOU think....If you had to choose between these two manis, which would you choose?

For some weird reason, 2 of my last 3 mani's have had "pop-offs"...the whole of the nail polish came off in one fell swoop...left my naked nail behind without even a backwards glance. I'm not sure what the deal was, but I think it was the polishes interacting with each other....It was Nirvana butterflies and the Voodoo doll manis! Cross your fingers for Whimsical...

Butterfly Nirvana

Hope everyone had a fun and safe St.Patrick's Day if you celebrated! I'm not much of a party-er and stayed home and relaxed with family.

This mani evolved while I worked on it...I initially planned on stamping a chrome black right over Sinful Colors Nirvana, but I saw an untried and got maybe a bit carried away, hehehehe...
2 coats of SC Nirvana-love this color...

 Combined lighting from Ott light and fluorescent light bulb, above.

Just a tiny little Ott light I found-makes me look pale but maybe the most color-accurate picture.

Now with the untried...Sally Hansen Glass Slipper-ooh are those white Flakies I see?? Yup, I think they are. My friend Saundie bought this and was telling me how pretty it was. I had seen it, but didn't realize what it would look like on the nail...awesome polish imo.

 Above, with no topcoat...a little bumpy

Ooooh, you can see them better in this picture...tiny little flakie goodness in my eyes :0)

OK, it looks better from a distance, I know...close up the color accents on the butterflies are a bit wonky, but I still love them. This may be one of those times when I should have stopped while I was ahead, but I wanted a tiny bit more color on this mani. Nirvana is such a cool/odd color to put other colors with, I am not very confident in my color pairings with this one.

Here is a pic of the Sally Hansen Glass Slippers-looks like a plain Jane glitter polish to me!

New Franken: Leprechaun Toes

I was playing around with some frankens...feeling sad about TKB's ordering situation, and I came up with 3 frankens...2 were keepers, one was a bit "iffy".

The one for today's mani I think I will call "Leprechaun Toes". I really wanted a sparkly, flashy green for St. Patrick's Day.

3 coats of LT (hehehehe) with not nearly enough topcoat!

 I really like how this one turned out...OK on its own and would also look awesome over black or a dark green or even silver/grey, I think...

 There is actually black hex glitter in this, but none came out on my nails....

So you can probably guess on the one I goofed up, lol.... I miscalculated the amount of shimmer the pigment would add, and over did things just a wee bit.  The far left franken is inspired by Lynderella's Change...I love that polish and don't think Iwill ever be able to get that one, so I made something I could pretend was Change, hehehehe. The middle one is my Leprechaun Toes and the coppery mess on the right may have to go....
OH, and thanks to MK at http://polishandpigments.blogspot.com for her site that has helped me with glitter issues! (And ABOP that pointed me there!!)

On the flip side of things, I am trying to set up an Etsy shop with some of my craft items! This seems to be making my husband happy...wonder if he thinks it will fund my craft addictions?!

Mouhahahaha! As IF!

Mari Moon Chameleon

I will apologize ahead of time for the messiness of this mani. I wasn't feeling very good and basically did it as quick and easy as possible...so in other words-MESSY! I really needed to re-do the gel nails underneath and file down some length, but that wasn't gonna happen!

One coat of Sally Hansen Black Out, Poshe in between, with one coat of Mari Moon Chameleon over the top. This polish is stunning, my pictures don't do it justice! Every way I turned my hands, I kept seeing different colors. Here are a few!

 Purple, Woot!

WOW, that green is stunning! and the most prominent color of the polish.

In this last picture, it almost looks like a beige sparkle, but I couldn't catch the purple/plum shade that was paired with this color...it was elusive, lol! The company sure pegged this color right on! At some point, I want to get a better picture of this, but I was not up to the task that day. I bought this at Llarowe's site, and I love it!
One more little bit of fun...a picture of one of our alpacas, Tom Sawyer. He is a bit over a year old and that fleece he has is longer than my fingers (and they are long fingers!). Later this spring, we will be shearing Tom and his cousin. Tom is the talker of the two boys and it is fun to work with him. At least he wasn't the one that kicked me!

Awwww, his nose is so soft.....

Sunshine Spam Alert!

I think it is official...I have spring fever, but since the sun was playing peek-a-boo, I needed some on my fingers.

OK, enough craziness!

2 coats of Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow...

Gimmee SUNSHINE!

One coat of this awesome polish I bought called...L'Oreal Tweet Me



Look at that amazing orange glimmer! I noticed THAT after I brought it home. Almost took my breath away it was so cool. I added some copper hex glitter I bought for frankening. Unfortunately, it made a nasty chemical goo once it was in polish a few hours. Ah, well, it still rocks!

Hope you found some sunshine of your own.

Mari Moon Artsy and Zoya Ginessa Mani (Spam!)

Hey there, it has been a long miserable week so not very fun. Back to things that make me happy and bring sunshine to my day :0)
On to the manis...

I broke down and bought some Mari Moon polish, and I am ADORING it! I bought a set, and will be splitting it with my friend Saundie (she wanted Unconventional) so I may keep the rest. This stuff is to die for *sigh*

Two coats of Orly Liquid Vinyl, with one coat of MM Artsy over the top. Speed dry top coat in between colors and on top. (Out The Door brand)

Above, you might be able to see the blue and the purple at once....below, the rosy pink color..Can't wait to try the other colors, now!

I thought I would try the picture style that Alizarine Claws uses..but no one can do it like she does! She has phenomenal nails!

Now, a not so fab mani, but it was pretty...
Two coats of Zoya Ginessa. I used MM Daring for the dots, and then used some of the Zoya speed dry drops over the top. I STILL dented it during the night! I really love Zoya colors, but the fact that I can't expect fast drying OR mix and match as easily makes me crazy with frustration!

Here is a little friend of ours we had to say farewell to this week....Snowball. Goliath liked/tolerated her. I hope we made her day as bright as she made ours. We shall miss you sweetie