So I went a little stamp-crazy....

I really love how this turned out! I used the new Sinful Shine Wisp, stamped with Konad pink over my ring finger and Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Twisted Pink as a base on all others. Wisp was my white stamping polish-I think it worked really well for this :) I played around with my pinks to get a match for the Konad pink, but still not perfect lol!

So what do you think?! Too much? I had loads of compliments on this mani and it was unique enough that it didn't bore me...which is saying something for me! I usually do my nails Sunday night and then again on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on the wear. I can't stand any level of chipping. Now for the pics!

Here's what else I've been doing...

Strawberries from my daughter's strawberry plant ^^^

Ceramics that thankfully did NOT blow up in the kiln, below...

And my poor Nova freaking out from fireworks, finally stopped clawing at the walls....

Yup, she crawled into that tiny crevice next to the couch all by herself...

Playing catch-up!

I plan on spamming everyone with many pictures, lol! Hope no one minds-if you are curious about a polish and I haven't listed it...ask, and I shall find what I used!


First hmmm, maybe my pink/Breast Cancer Awareness manis... I know, October is over, but they were still great manis!

Above, Sally Hansen Twisted Pink with  diluted Nina Ultra Pro holo topcoat that spoke to me...
That's the full-strength version below, with my new all time Zoya Holy Grail topcoat. If you have bought any of these new NUP polishes in this different bottle...the brush is unbelievably HUGE! My poor skinny pinkie was swamped...

The Polish Hoochie introduced me to the Seche Ultra V-Best thing for slow drying Zoyas---I can now really love Zoyas!

Below, I can't remember if this was Sinful Colors...but I think it is...pretty slate gray with a blue-ish sheen to it. I stamped over it using LeaLAC stamping plates and Konad special pink stamping polish

Below... I think I used the diluted NUP holo polish (above)...not totally sure, though...But I liked it!

Below, my very first successful water marble!! Whoo-hoo! I used my 6Harts Secret Galaxy for the blue you see. I know I used my dotting tool a bit much, but that is ok, I guess, I was very proud of the result!

One last mani...My best friend gave me a Zoya that just  wasn't her color (not sure I believe her!) and here is my mani for the fist time using the Seche Ultra V....this was stamp-able in under 10 minutes, I was SO happy! Such a vibrant color, I thought, but clean-up was bugger...

 

 

 

Ok, slide show over...I hope you liked these!

New LeaLac Stamping plate

I broke down and bought one of LeahAnn Larowe's new stamping plates from her site, shopllarowe. I got stamping plate A-XL and finally received them and tried the stamps out right away!

So thrilled with these! The images are huge and that allows a person to put stamps on the nail a bit differently for each nail, which I have found hard to do with other stamping plates.

Here we go...

 

Base is Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet 2 coats. Stamped with Konad stamping polish in green. Such a clean gorgeous combo, I thought, but I wanted to try out a new polish I am working on :0)

 

I was extremely pleased with the final look. The polish I used as a layering polish is a gold/green duochrome with scattered, sparse gold holographic particles...very fine glitter, basically. It really doesn't change the color of the polish under it....just adds some glamour. What do you think? I am considering adding this one to my etsy site to sell.

Fall is in the air here...no frost yet during the night, but it is getting down around 45F at night. We lost one of our cats recently...he just never came home-we suspect someone is poisoning cats in our neighborhood and he was not a roamer. I still miss him. A lot. So many changes recently, and he was a steadfast little friend. Goliath actually adopted us. We rescued him when he had been abandoned in a rental home-the previous owners had locked him and his little buddy, Dove inside the house and then just left. They managed to get out, and it took my daughter 2 weeks to catch him. Once he was in the house and we were getting him healthy, he bonded to my husband and I like nobody's business. I nursed him through a bad respiratory illness and couldn't take him to the Humane Society for adoption...so we kept him and he kept us. Fifteen pounds of tough, lovey fur. We miss you Goliath.

 Whoa...not sure where that came from...Didn't mean to impose that downer-sorry everyone.
 

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!

Delicate Diagonal Stamping

I picked up some clearance polishes at CVS Pharmacy over the last week and tried out one of these today. The polish I used was Sally Hansen's Gray on Gray. Pretty awesome color, in my book...Looks like a blued-out gray creme in the bottle, but looks and is more gray than in these pictures. As always...my camera picks up the blue more, so things are always a bit more blue than in real life.

Here is one coat of GOG (lol!), with no topcoat...

Now picture this a bit more gray.... Pretty darn good coverage in 1 careful coat, but I went for two coats, and a topcoat before I stamped.

I am already in love with this polish/color. The brush is flat and rounded at the tip. It was different at first, but I think I kind of like the brush. This was one of the Sally Hansen "complete manicure" polishes, and I had not tried these yet.

I used a slice of clear tape to mark off my nails diagonally and just stamped half of my nail with a Bundlemonster "full nail" pattern using NYC white creme.

Ignore the fuzzy lint on the tips, please! I had lotion on and wanted to swipe it off my nails and the lint free wipes left lint, hahaha! This is with one coat of quick-dry top coat over the stamping.

I really like the clean simplicity of this mani. Yes, I had to restrain myself from adding more! Every time I looked in my polishes and then looked at my nails, I thought nothing could do it justice, so I left it like this :0)





My first Christmas mani

I finally broke down, put away some of my un-Christmas-y polishes... and did something that makes me feel the season a bit.

I got this idea from http://morenailpolish.blogspot.com  when she pulled out her red holo nail polish...her mani was MUCH cooler!!! She reminded me that I had made a red spectraflair franken, so here we go!

Two coats of my super easy Red holo franken (this stuff dries really fast with spectraflair in it) and stamping with Konad m5, using NYC french mani white.

This would definitely look better with a downward slope on my nails, but I have what I have.....funky nails! This is with SV as a topcoat.

I started out stamping with the star on one of the Bundlemonster plates, but the corners of the star would not lift with the stamp...so I switched to my konad plate and I had lift-off! YAY!

I love how this turned out, so glossy and glowy...and I didn't see any smears, so life is good...

Gift/craft stuff.....I have made a few leather-covered altoid boxes for tampon/pad  holders, some big gummi bear soaps, even with cherry scent!

Small leather id holders are next.....

I missed stamping....

I haven't done a stamped mani for some time and tonight I realized I have missed those manis. Weird, I know, but life has been just a little too hectic to take much time with nail stamping.

Tonight, even though my weekend was a little crazy...I felt the need for a konadicure, or what passes for one in my home :0)

One coat of Wet N Wild Black Creme for a base. Then one coat of Sinful Colors Daddy's Girl (*sigh* I hate the name but love the color). Here is the uncleaned version of how that looks, even though you may have seen it before.

These pictures definitely DON'T do this polish any justice. All sorts of subtle glitter in a purple base, and just gorgeous to apply, also.

I didn't want to hide any of the purple flash, so I decided to stamp some leaves near the edges with Sally Hansen Black Pearl Chrome. They turned out very pretty (if you don't look close, LOL)

Much prettier in person, though. The purple glitter flashes more frequently and is more visible. In these pictures, seems like only the other colors of glitter are showing :0(

**I have a quick question...I want to put more of my craft things on, but what do you think? I originally started this as a crafty blog, but the fingernail polish has taken over. Do you mind if I put occasional craft projects on? I am working nightly on presents for my family, but I won't be able to post them until after the Holidays :0) My girls are sneaky enough....I can't let the secrets out until Christmas, Mouhahahahahahaaaaaa!!!!!** If you are really curious, e-mail me :0)

Chocolate Crocodiles!! + some furballs

Oh, wow...this was not my favorite stamp to start with, but it is growing on me like...never mind, can't think of anything not gross lol!

At any rate, our local Walgreen's was having a sale on Sinful Colors polish...why? NO clue! This stuff is normally $1.99 a bottle, and the sale made it $0.99/bottle...yeah, I had to restrain my spending urges, cause I was feeling down....So I only bought 3 bottles, Mouhahahahha!
Even worse, then I saw Sally Beauty Supply was still open-Woot!? Bopped in there and they had a 'buy a Poshe TC, get the cuticle treatment for free'-Man they pushed all my cheap buttons!!Since my cuticles have been growing their own hair, it was a no-brainer :0)
OK, I bought one polish for me and 2 for a swap I am working on. I kept Sinful Colors Nirvana...YUM....

3 coats with top coat, but only to dry it faster....chocolaty goodness like this gets marred too quickly!
2 coats would have been enough...but I had some blips to cover.

Stamped with Sally Hansen Chrome nail polish and BM 224 I think....

Not snakeskin, but definitely reptilian...I finally decided it reminded me of crocodile skin...I can live with this, snakes might take longer....
Not the best stamping. not the best pictures-and it looks WAY better in person. As I looked at my gnarly fingers all day, I decided that it was fairly work-appropriate-the color, that is. Most workplaces probably wouldn't like the stamp...but it was perfect at my work. So as I said...it grew on me.

On to the furballs! First, I love my pets. Almost as much as I love my kids and they have complained about this many times. We have 2 cats, 1 dog and 1 ferret...oh and I can't forget 1 lone gerbil that we somehow inherited from my oldest daughter. All are rescues-or have rescued me. My cat, Goliath falls into the second category-he rescued us, when my first dog was very sick and old....He had been abandoned by his previous owners and it took my daughter 2 weeks to catch his wily butt.

Who could NOT love a 15 pound noisy furball that looks like this? He is my big, mean and protective baby. He and his fellow kitty, Dove have stayed with us :0)
Nova (Latin for "new") was at a pet shelter and I know she was abused to some degree...but she is happy now and is my sweet pup.

Ya, I know, she wants another doggie treat, lol

Take care, everyone...I will be gone for a week starting this weekend...family reunion...But I promise I will be back! 



Ghost mani-not a total failure!

Hmmm, This mani was awesome-until I stamped little ghosties on it! I started out with 2 coats of a gray franken that I put a bit of color-morphing pigment into. You can't really see it though, but I liked the finished polish anyway.
Here we go...pretty gray with an almost undetectable hint of blue glimmer...

 Alrighty then...pretty but too plain for me, hehehe. I wanted to get a light stamp that would sort of be a subtle background...should have stopped there. The part where this is not a total failure is that I discovered Orly Golden Halo is a rocking stamping polish! I have hated this polish since I put it on my nails, but I couldn't bring myself to toss it.
Ignore my lousy stamping, hairy cuticles and check out the gold lines under the crappy ghosties.....

The gold stamped lines looked AMAZING over the grey. Should have stopped there...but at least I have found a great new stamping polish. This stuff is so sheer I could never wear it on its own, but is like gilding your nails, the gold stands out so much!



Gah....I have to get some of the AHA cuticle cream. I have heard a lot of people go on about Poshe...what do YOU use? I use a mixture of oils on my cuticles, but obviously the hairy hang-nails are getting out of control...at least on a few fingers. They are tiny enough that I miss them until I look at my pictures....

Haunted House Mani (pic heavy)

This has got to be the most Kick-butt mani I have ever done! I have also tagged on some other pics at the end for fun.

On to the nails!! I used 2 coats of a Finger Paints orange frost that has a cool greenish duochrome. I haven't worn it in years, because I have only recently discovered what huge fun nail art can be :0)

After the FP layers, I sponged on Quirius Eggplant from this mani. Then for kicks and giggles, a little China Glaze Frostbite on the tips. After that, I was inspired to slap on a layer of Pure Ice Heart Breaker so it looked like this:

Freaking awesome at this point, in my opinion...almost left it that way!!
BUT.....I had this great idea to use bits and parts of the new Bundlemonster plates. I used the church/house, and parts of the pumpkin/vines and tiny little bats, lol! I used Wet N Wild Black to stamp...
I had to pull out my DSLR to take the next pictures, because the haunted house is hard to see....

I TOTALLY love how this turned out...my thumb and my middle finger have the same designs on both hands---so awesome. I can see this will be very distracting until I am forced to take it off, lol!!

So on to some other pics I wanted to share. I am a really crafty person and I wanted to make a special pincushion out of wool for a family member that is a quilter/sewer/gardener. This is it....so cool I am selling some of them, too!

Also, I was able to go out exploring on some 4-wheelers with my husband on Monday afternoon and talked him into taking a picture of me  It was a fun afternoon, but too short. I love Autumn, but I am still not ready for winter here in the mountains, hehehehe.....