Sunday, July 29, 2012

Essie She's Picture Perfect

We had a family trip planned for Saturday. So, what did I do Friday? Cleaned house with no polish on. Brilliant right? And, the expected happened, I broke a nail, so I cut them all down. No big deal, I like them short from time to time. Seems like they are short a lot lately though. :)

I decided Essie She's Picture Perfect for a family outing would be great (there's always bound to be pictures!) It was thin and gloppy at the same time. I'm blaming that for the instant tip wear look.


I decided to stamp it with SdP-76. Then, I needed more color, so I dotted that with Jade Delirio Rosa and Sally Hansen Going Green. I liked the final outcome. My FIL even commented and asked me if a professional did my nails. Yes! Me! lol ;)


I've updated the Giveaway page with the latest info.
Have a great day! 

Thursday, July 26, 2012

For Kara

I've been meaning to post these pictures. This is one of my A Musing collection that I never posted. I hope to open shop this weekend. So, while I'm  waiting to hear back from my 100 ~ 100 ~ 100 winner (1st draw), here are pictures.  Doh!!! There's still 22 hours left!!! If you haven't entered yet, do it here.

As with any neon I've ever photographed, it is more neon in person.


Here's another fun one that I'll have available for at least a limited time. Wonketti. 


I almost named it...

(100 - get it? lol)
See you soon! 

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Jade Delirious Rose

That's the way I see it... I love this color (aka Jade Delirio Rosa). If I had a top 20 list, it would be in it. This one came from Ninja. It was worth the wait. These pictures are day two. So the wear is pretty good on these.

Diffused sunlight




I was a bit distracted and did some cleanup but got back on track and took these in the light tent.


I decided to stamp it with Bundle Monster 310 and Konad Princess White.


I went outside to take these shots.


I realized then that my hummingbird feeders were empty. So, that had to be corrected. In the meantime...



Hey, stay where you are Jilly, I'll work around you. But, I gave up.


She fills the tent up completely. Silly girl.
Have a great day! Oh, and remember to enter my giveaway! The entry form is here. Only 4 days left!

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Technically speaking, I have a tent and other news

Yes! I did it. I bought a tent.

Not a light box, but a light tent. I found an awesome tutorial for making a collapsible light box because I am tight on space. Then I realized I would spend almost as much on the materials to make a box as I would on buying a premade tent.

So, I bought a tent. Let's look shall we?



Lesson number 13, if left unattended, Lady thinks it's for her. Jilly was right beside, waiting for a turn.


Back to the beginning. It comes in a cool little zip up pouch that is an 8 inch circle about an inch thick. The contents look like this.


The first "unfold" it looks like this (and popped me in the face). So, step back.


Completely open, it's a 16" cube with a nice little opening for a camera lens.


The cover is velcroed on, so it comes right off for easy access.


Inside are more velcro tabs to hold the back drops. Included were white, blue, black and red fabric. I also cut a 16" wide poster board the fit in perfectly (so no wrinkles or fur).


Now, the tale of two lights. This is my old light. I used it for the first pictures I took. However, it bit the dust the second time I opened my tent and the tent hit my light instead of my chin. It knocked the light onto the tile floor. :/ That first pop, is a big one!


I bought this really nice fancy light for my tent premier. 


But when I took it out of the box, a screw was the first thing to greet me. Here it is in the tent (taken with my now deceased light).


When it wouldn't turn on, I did some searching and behold. The screw home that wasn't. I was not about to try to fix this lamp out of the box. So, back to the store she went. The replacement works great. 



These are taken in my tent with my deceased old light only. :)



I think with some tweaking and the new light, I'm going to enjoy it...once I learn how to avoid that first pop.

I also received my order from Ninja and an little extra. 


I love magnetics, so I was super excited to see this! This is what the magnets look like in the box and how I tried to work it first.


I realized, with that arrangement, I would have to adjust it for each nail or it would be the wrong height every time. So, I just used the little handle to hold it on the nail. Which worked OK as far as a holding device.

This is the polish that came with it.


It smells very strongly. It was very thick and pigmented. I could not however get a good pattern with it. I need to play with it some more and use a different magnet and try this magnet on my other polishes to see if one or the other work OK. Sometimes, the magnet is to blame and sometimes the polish. I'm not sure which in this case, but it was really iffy and the smell was strong enough I didn't want to keep playing with it. It's a really pretty color though!

I'm not going to say this was sent to me for review, because to my knowledge this was a gift because my order took a bit of time to get to me. Thanks Ninja. :)

In other news, I have new square bottles for my polishes. See:


My colors make a rainbow!


I had every intent of switching to these and staying with them. I love how squares store. I'm not sure I love them though. At this time, if you place an order, I will ask you to specify bottle choice until I am out of one or the other.
Have a great day!  Oh, and remember to enter my giveaway! The entry form is here. Please let me know if you have any problems with the form.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

DDP Cherry Jubilee

I've been meaning to post about this forever! I love it. Of course, I've loved every single DDP I've tried :)

This is Cherry Jubilee at two coats.






Kudos if you can spot the picture that is "not like the others" and tell me why. ;)
See you soon! 

Hey, remember my giveaway? I put it up here. I'm still working on finalizing prizes, but I wanted to get the form up so you could go ahead and enter if you want. Please let me know if you have any problems with the form.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

OPI Spotted and random stamping testing

Hey, remember my giveaway? I put it up here. I'm still working on finalizing prizes, but I wanted to get the form up so you could go ahead and enter if you want. Please let me know if you have any problems with the form.


A few weeks ago a friend, a wonderful generous little friend, was able to obtain OPI Spotted for me. I was so excited to get it that I put it on immediately. You might recognize the mani in the shot below, but here is my best shot over Wet n Wild The Gold and the Beautiful. None of these are superb, but I wanted to share.



Fun stuff!

I've had these stamping comps on my mind for a while. I thought I would go ahead and throw them in today as well.

I have three stampers I use. One from MagnoNails, One from Dashica and the regular Konad stamper.
I did a comparison stamp of all three of them with the same image Konad M69 on a clear glass cabochon. They work pretty well on these, because the surfaces are somewhat flat. My nails unfortunately are not. So these do not stamp the same on my nails, each have a different purpose when it comes to stamping.

The MagnoNails is usually my favorite for full nail images. As you can see, there is no polish left on it. It completely transfers. (the reflection on the glass messes up the image on the cabochon). The Dashica is my next favorite for full nail images. It curves around my curvy nails and gets the tip/corners.  Konad is only good for me for small images because it cannot curve around and catch all my nails. Think trying to stamp half a marble and that's like stamping my nails. Not literally, but it sure seems that way! lol


Then I did a comp of the several different tiger/zebra patterns I have. I used the Dashica stamper for all of these. Are you surprised to see that the Bundle Monster plate is nicer looking than the Konad? (Don't ask me why I used one of the messiest colors for this test...oh, I guess it was so it would show up better.)


And finally, I received my DRK-B plate from Ninja. I had heard there were problems with this plate so I took her for a test drive. Why not test my stampers too. Here is my test resluts (with my fancy labeling).

Just looking at the full sheet, the strongest clearest images, every time were marked XL which is the MagnoNails stamper. The Dashica is right behind it. Konad was variable, but again, I can only use it for some of my images on my curvy nails. 

The other good news was that all of my images on the DRK-B plate stamped just fine. :) I hope you have the same luck.

See you soon!