Cold Swirls

Hello, Gorgeous! I hope you're doing well! Or, at least, better than I am... Nails first, then news!

It may be the season for turkeys and orange and brown and other fall-inspired colors, but I'm simply uninspired by it. So I looked for inspiration elsewhere, and found the snow, and the wind, and the ice that I had to battle for windshield territory this morning. Inspired by this tutorial, I decided to try a somewhat-skittle with different colors and a different "charm". 

On my left hand, I used three colors (not including the nude or the glitter)

On my right, I used five colors. What a difference, eh?

Also, my camera hates the nude color I used. Grrr.

I used a nude, unnamed Color Workshop from a few years ago as my nude. Over it, I sponged Kleancolor's Metallic White. Using tip guides, I created french manis using the unnamed Rue Beaute, Sinful Colors' Snow Me White, Zoya's Robyn, Finger Paint's Inkblot Blue, and Kleancolors' Metallic Blue. Then, using my medium striping brush, I created the swirls, using a small dotting tool, I created the dots, and then using Winstonia W120 stamping plate and Snow Me White, I created the snowflakes. Lovely!

So on to the news! I'm moving back to Vegas to go to school to do nails professionally! I. am. terrified! December and January are going to be suuuuper hectic, and I may or may not be able to make regular posts during that time. So just a heads-up, you may not hear from me for awhile. I'll be okay, though. I'm thinking I'm going to do what Nailed It, NZ did, and blog about school. We'll just have to see. Please bear with me during this transitional time!

HPB Presents: Fall Favorites!

Hello gorgeous! How's the weather? We're under a "winter weather advisory" for freezing rain right now, and it's 29°F. Miserable. But that's when I get to put on my favorite sweater and cuddle up with a special someone and some hot chocolate (or hot apple cider) in front of the TV and binge watch TV shows on Netflix (last night's discovery was Once Upon A Time... OMG!). 

Today, I'm doing another linkup with Hobby Polish Bloggers, and this month's theme is Fall Favorites! For a while I couldn't decide what was my favorite thing about autumn, or how to depict it on my nails. Is it the turning of the weather, going from miserable to lovely? Is it the gorgeous change in the leaves? Is it the fat squirrels running around, preparing for winter? Yes. And so much more. 

And then it hit me: my favorite sweater. Seriously, the first day it was below 40°F, I was rocking that sweater. And I have worn it at least once a week since. I friggin' love that thing! And yet, I don't have a pic of it. Sorry :(

But I do have pics of this mani!

At first I didn't like that the red was so uneven, and then I realized it's a sweater.
Everything's uneven about it lol

The grey and burgandy, the fat stripes... everything about this mani turned out exactly how I wanted. And it was easy to do, I just freehanded the stripes with a small-ish brush. Two layers of LAC's Lost Soul, then a layer of Diamond Claws by Dragon Claw Polish, and then laying down the stripes using Sinful Colors' GoGo Girl. I used acetone and more Lost Soul to clean up the lines, and then topped with Diamond Claws. Pretty easy, pretty fast, and I'm thrilled. It perfectly sums up autumn to me.

Hobby Polish Bloggers is a wonderful group of women that I am proud to be a part of. So many lovely women who are experiencing the same struggles that I do: trying to get more views; trying to balance a full-time job, children, nail care, and the blog; nail care; the lust after new polishes by amazing creators; breaking a nail and being unable to salvage it... All of the trials and tribulations. They're there for me. I also get great tips and tricks from them, and new goals to aspire to (like someday being able to paint half as well as Narmai over at PiggieLuv). 

Every month, HPB does a linkup. Here's this month's participants: 

An InLinkz Link-up

I hope you have a lovely rest of your autumn, and please enjoy a hot cocoa for me!

In the comments below, please let me know what you're favorite thing about Fall is!

Snow Days

Hello from the midwest, where it went from 60°F to snowing the next day.

I was not ready for this. I am cold.

But in celebration of the season, I've done an homage to my family's second-favorite snow activity: Snowmen!

To create this look, I used an unnamed pale blue Rue 21 nail polish, a single coat of China Glaze's The Outer Edge, from their The Giver line, and to create the snow, I dabbed on OPI's Liquid Sand Solitaire. Pretty easy, and actually very quick. 

This was the first time I've used The Outer Edge. It's a dream to use on the nail, very easy to control the glitter, but a nightmare to get off the cuticle. I do like the way it looks, though. It's made of dense, tiny white matte glitters and then some less-dense, even-tinier silver glitter suspended in a clear base. 

I top coated with Diamond Claw from Dragon Claw Polish before I dabbed Solitaire.

Are you excited about winter? If so, what's your favorite part?

Happy Belated Birthday, Blog!

So my blog's birthday was a long, long time ago. Like, September... But I *just now* got my blog's present, so we're celebrating! YAAY! The blog is 2 years old! So I got me a present! A Macro Lens!

I bought it at ThinkGeek. It's a rubber band that holds the lens to my phone's camera and allows me to take shots from SUPER close and SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICALLY zoomed in. So I took some shots while doing tonight's mani.

The lens

China Glaze's Cosmic Dust with an LED lamp for lighting. 

China Glaze's Cosmic Dust, again. Just trying to get the holo to appear

It's been a long, horrible week. There was a death in the family, and I don't get to say goodbye. I'm exhausted and getting motivation has been extremely hard. So I decided to do an easy mani that I enjoy wearing, which is a waterfall. In purple, which is a fun, easy color to wear.

I hope you guys had a better week than I do. Have a wonderful rest of your week as well!! 

October Challenge: Week 5

Hello darlings! It's almost time to say good bye to October and hello to November. I'm honestly sad, I love October and am sooo not ready for cold weather. We had such a mild-mannered October that I don't want to see it go.

It's also the final week in the challenge, which, I gotta say, is not something I am sad to see go. Though it is not the challenge's fault, but my own health. *shakes fist at immune system* These past couple weeks have been extremely hard to pull off, but I have done it!!!

This final week's theme is:

This mani very nearly did not happen due to bad planning, bad timing, and a bad immune system. I did not know tonight was Beggar's Night (what they call "trick-or-treating" 'round these parts), and also I spent the afternoon with my friend and her daughter and my kiddo in the Big City. I am currently expecting a food baby, due in a couple of hours (thank you, my darling Huhot!), and on top of everything, I'm not sleeping well. So yeah this was really difficult to pull off.

The original plan for this week was supposed to be recreating this mani. After two days of contemplating exactly how I'm going to pull it off, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I'm too tired.

So I decided to do my favorite one of that mani's monsters: The zombie!

Besides the fact that none of them have noses, I like these ugly guys. They each have a distinct personality and creepiness.

I used 7 shades of green blotched on with a fatter round brush, a couple of shades of brown, and red to make these guys. Pearls with black polish and red polish for the eyes.

Hopefully health-wise, November will be a better and easier month. 

HPB October Halloween Mani Link-Up!

Second post in a week? Am I sick?! Why, yes I am... But fear not, I seriously have a real post for you today!

So I recently joined a group on Facebook called Hobby Polish Bloggers. HBP is a fun and informative group of lovely ladies who are always there to give feedback, helpful tips, and answer questions. I'm so thankful to have found this group, and they've helped me so much! One of the fun things they do is a monthly mani linkup, and this month's theme is hardly surprising: Halloween!

My bestie, Whitney, is in looove with Nightmare Before Christmas. So I decided to a mani for her (I will also probably do this mani on her)! I found this pin, and decided to do something a little different.

This is what came of it:

What a happy Jack!

So happy!

Uh-oh. Someone pissed him off...

I'm pretty pleased with the way these turned out. I'm not in love with the ring finger, but everything else? Ooooooh yeeeeeah. LOOK AT THOSE JACKS, I AM SO FRIGGIN' PROUD OF THEM!!

To create this, I used two brushes, five polishes, and a some red striping tape. For the polishes, I used Sinful Colors' Tempest, Enchanted, and Black on Black, Sally Hansen's White On, and Pure Ice's Kiss Me Here. I topped with glow-in-the-dark and NYC's Turbo Dry Topcoat. I was planning on doing the stripes using striping tape, but after struggling with the tape on my ring finger, I decided to do it by hand. No regrets.

To explain what a linkup is, basically down below there's going to be some links and previews of other bloggers' manis, as well as mine. You can click the links to view the others' posts! Fun, right?

As always, please subscribe off to the right, share, and feel free to leave a comment!

An InLinkz Link-up

October Challenge: Week 4

Phew, it's been a long week! Hope yours went by better (and faster!) than mine! Both kiddo and I have been sick, which means 10-hour shifts on little to no sleep, AND my favorite cuticle nippers broke :(

But never fear, nothing like a little stomach bug and some insomnia will keep me from painting my nails! I have a challenge to complete!!

...And a challenge this week's theme has been, too! This week, I created something inspired by:

After a week of searching and trying to come up with ideas, I finally decided on this one. Using the tutorial over at The Nailasaurus, I wanted to create a foggy, misty look. For the accent nail, I didn't want to create a bedsheet-ghost, I wanted to create something kinda realistic and creepy so I decided to do a humanoid-ish ghost.

The things that look like glitter are from the glow-in-the-dark paint I used to give her a glowing aura. Looks pretty cool in the dark, but my camera simply can't capture it, and I cannot find a blacklight for the life of me.

It took me several tries to be happy with the colors for the Nimbus nails. I kept trying to throw black in there and it just wasn't working. Finally, I decided to dump the black and hoo-boy am I glad I did. 

The colors I ended up using were Sally Hansen's White-On, LAC's Lost Soul (appropriate, right?), Sinful Colors' Tokyo Pearl, and Pure Ice's Kiss Me Here. I watered them down with acetone and then used regular cotton swabs. To blot, I took my cleanup brush and mixed White-On with acetone and brushed it on in 1-2 strokes per nail, keeping it as thin as I could.

For the ghost girl, I just used White-On, Lost Soul, and Kiss Me Here, layering them on top of one another with my striping brush until I had her. I'm pretty thrilled with how she turned out!!

Next week: Monsters! There's a good chance I'm planning something big with that one... dunno ;)

Next time we see each other, it'll be time to Trick-Or-Treat! Have you gotten everything ready? What are you going to dress up as? As always, please subscribe off to the right in the Google Friend Connect widget, and leave your feedback in the comments :) Happy Halloween!