A new post?!??

Yes! The last few months have been terribly busy with out of town guests coming and going several times and travel. The last few weeks have also been traumatic. Hopefully things are starting to calm down now.

Unfortunately this post is my Fourth of July nails a few days late. But at least it's still the weekend of the Fourth! right?

I used Essence Colour and Go Glamorous Life and Orly High on Hope. Both of these seemed appropriate. for different reasons. I stamped the white stripes with Cheeky 10, and the white stars with Cheeky 4, both using Konad Princess white polish. I hand painted the bows.

I hope you are having a great Fourth of July weekend!

Hope to see you soon! 

Earth day 2013 with Sally Hansen

I won a blog contest! Woot!!! From the sweet KarenD at Frazzle and Aniploish
I was sooo excited. She gave away the same amount of polish as the number of years she has been on this earth...Earth Day...see that connection there. *wink* Thank you Karen!!!

I used Sally Hansen Tropical Brights to do my Earth Day mani. It was fun and intricate. I thought it would be easier than it was. But I will try it again!

My entire hand! The shock

My awkward right hand.

I was going for an interwoven theme. "I knew you before you were woven together..."
I used a piece of waxed paper and painted about three coats of polish of all three colors. Parrot, The Sky's the Limit, and Temptation. Then with craft scissors I cut the paper and the dried (after a day or two) polish into the rick rack strips. I painted my base colors. Most nails were blue, some on my right pink and some on on my left green. Then I stuck the strips on (sans wax paper) and topped it off with top coat. Some of them smeared a little.

Will you try something like this? I need sharper scissors!
Have a great day! 

March of manis

For a multitude of reasons I got off track with my posting, so here are the March manis I did not get to post. :)

The Easter Ones

The Layla Project

Jindie Nails with Orly Miss Conduct

My bunnies that I loved and were soo easy with dotting tools. They took sooo many colors.

My Easter Proper Nails. Mostly Laylas and all free hand.

My after Easter Nails. But everyone called them Easter eggs. I guess they were still in an Easter mood or maybe I was :) It's been an Easter tradition the last three years to do a pastel rainbow.  Maybelline Banana Puddin (sent to me by a dear fellow Texan) fit in so well with this one.

Reciprocal Gradient Nails
How about that title? I love these over at My Simple Pleasures and tried to follow her tutorial. I goofed and left off a piece of tape. The entire time thinking, I really think three lines would look better. I didn't realize the tutorial shows three until I went back to grab the link. Oops. Oh well. I also think my tape is much narrower, at least, it would have looked better with wider tape. On to the picture.

  

My sponge was too dry on my last round of sponging. I used Elmer's glue around my cuticles for faster cleanup.

It just peeled right off and I had very little cleanup. I liked this so much better than taping around the cuticles. It was good for this application, I thought.

I used China Glaze Designer Satin, 

The Greens

For St. Patrick's Day of course!

Borghese Mento

Cult Nails accents on Essie. I loved this one.

KB Shimmer Get Clover It for the big day :) It's a jelly that looks so yummy you want to lick.

I'm going to try to start catching up on April now... 

Have a great day! 

Oz the Great and Powerful - Evanora's Nails

We were able to go see the new movie Oz the Great and Powerful this weekend. It was great! I noticed Evanora's nails right away and thought about trying to replicate them. What sealed the deal was when DH pointed them out to me.

I'm pretty sure in the beginning of the movie, they were emerald green, but toward the end they were black. Considering it is time to start posting in green and emerald is the Pantone color of the year, I chose to do them in emerald.

My inspiration, Evanora the sister of Theodora. Who are witches in the Emerald City of Oz the Great and Powerful:

I used Essie Pink a Boo, two coats for the base. I used my striping brush and made a tiny dot in the middle of the end of each tip of my nails as a guide. Then I taped off the large green triangular piece with painters tape. I painted each with two coats of China Glaze Emerald Sparkle (a nod to China Glaze who chose the correct colors in their Oz collection). I removed the taping pulling it toward the center of the nail. I did these one at a time. It dries fast enough on the first coat so that this went fairly quickly.

For the gold striping, I started with China Glaze 2030. I painted free hand stripes. This dries really fast, so I immediately went back over those stripes with OPI Gift of Gold. I am really happy with the way it turned out.

Have you seen the movie? Do you plan to? I thought it was a great compliment to the original. Did you?

Have a great day! ♣

Finger Paints Itsy Bitsy Spider and English Roses

I picked up Finger Paints Itsy Bitsy Spider at Sallys last week and couldn't wait to wear it. I decided after a day to do a English Rose pattern on it. I really like the outcome. For some reason it reminds me more of an 1920's chorus line than old wall paper though.

I used Ulta Snow White to freehand the stripes. I tried mixing a shimmer with the white for the dots and all that accomplished was to make them a bit irregular looking. I used Konad m65 and stamped the rose pattern with Konad white. Then I freehanded color where I wanted it using Konad green and China Glaze Designer Satin. I mixed in a bit of Layla hologram that really doesn't show up much.

Here is Finger Paints Itsy Bitsy Spider alone. It's really pretty.

See the bit of duochrome. A wee pink tone with all that blue shimmer.

What do you think of Itsy Bitsy Spider? Any ideas on how the name connects to the color?
Thanks for looking and have a great day! 

OPI The Man with the Golden Gun with Emily de Molly Blue Eyed Freak

I was recently lusting after this polish, OPI The Man with the Golden Gun, and a friend offered it as an RAOK!! How wonderful is that?? I was thrilled with the thought. But when the package arrived, it also included this beautiful Emily de Molly, Blue Eyed Freak. A note was included saying that TMwtGG popped over Blue Eyed Freak. So I had to try. This is my first Emily de Molly. However, I had been dying to try Finger Paints Blissfully Blue, so I combined them. I used China Glaze Electric Beat as the middle color for my gradient.

Please excuse the tip wear. I wore this for several days and received numerous complements. It was everything I expected it to be and I'm so happy with it! Thank you G!!!
Have a great day! 

Snowed in?

I've heard some of you are getting a lot of snow. We had just a little Christmas day, but today is beautiful sunshine. Soo here's the only snow I have.

Love these Pretty Serious polishes! Galaxy Invader is from the "They came from beyond Space" collection. I stamped with Konad M59, Chez Delaney T37, and D07

This is one from my flaky obsession days. Color Club Snow-flake over a blurple  franken.

Stay warm and thank you for looking!