Valentine's Countday - 5 days to go!!!

I had to take of my water marble mani because it was chipping and I was picking at it. No good at all. Guess that makes it OK to change my mani so often!! I know everyone has been swatching Sallys Hansen's Gem Crush and I loved how to fushia color looked when I saw it online so obviously, I had to try it!

Overall, I like the polish. I used the Lady Luck color and it seems to be one of the more popular colors (at least right now for VALENTINE'S DAY) I headr it was supposed to have pretty good coverage but once I tried it on one nail I decided I wanted to have a matching base coat underneath. I ended up with one base coat of Essie's Jamaica Me Crazy, and 3 coats of the Gem Crush!!! Ahhh - so much polish. Also, the sparkle seemed to be dull but once I put on a top coat (back to SV....) it brought the color back to life.

Sorry for the blurry second picture; still getting used to the "nice" camera. Speaking of photos, I know my husband has photoshop on his computer but neither of us know how to use it; any suggestions on programs to touch up my phots, add a watermark or label?

Only 5 days until V-day; do you have any exciting plans?!?!?



Valentine's Countdown - 6 days to go!!!

I actually did this mani last night but since I posted my mani's from the weekend I saved this one for today because I knew I wouldn't be able to do a new one today. I have tried water marbling before but never really liked it; recently I read a few tips online and this attempt came out much better than anticipated. I got lots of compliments on my nails today at work and even some of the GUYS said they liked this and thought it was cool; which is pretty good since I work with a bunch of engineers!

Probably should have cleaned these up a bit before I took the pictures but I was just so glad it was mostly successful that I took the photos right away. Two things that I tried differently on this water marble; 1. I picked polishes that were thin (runny?) so they spread a lot better in the water. 2. I used filtered water. We have really hard water here and I read online it works best with soft water so the filtered seemed to work well.

The colors I used for this mani were NYC White (as a base coat before the marbling), NYC Fushia Shock, Essie's Size Matters, Better Together and finally No Chips Ahead. With the two last mani's using No Chips Ahead instead of SV I have noticed that neither keep my nails from chipping, but that SV is sooo much faster so if I'm going to get chips regardless, might as well have my polish dry fast.

Even with calcium enriched base coat, and trying to remember to take my vitamins, my nails still seem very weak and once I even notice any growth they ususally break :-( No Fun! Any suggestions on helping to strengthen my nails???

Valentine's Countdown - 7 days to go!!!

This weekend my mom and sister came over to my house to go out to dinner and do nails. We ended up going to dinner first so by the time that we got back to my house, neither of them really felt too into nails or trying anything crazy. Luckily, on the way home we stopped at Rite Aid and I was able to find my first magnetic polish and my mom generously let me try it on her. (It was quit ironic that I found it too because that morning I had just been telling my aunt that I couldn't wait to try it but hadn't seen it anywhere).

Neither of these mani's are very Valentine's inspired but that's ok, can't force everyone to be as excited about it as I am. ;-)

I tried to take a couple of pictures of my mom's nails to see how the magnetics worked out so hopefully you get the idea. The polish brand is Magnetix but didnt have a color name. It was a nice dark grey/purple. The directions said to keep the magnet over the nail for 15 seconds but it seemed to work better if I hovered for around 30 seconds.

P.S. Doesn't my mom look cute posing with her nails?

My sister wanted to do plain white matte nail polish. I don't have matte polish though (Where can I get this?!!?!) and I didn't really want to do plain white so I used my NYC White and added two coats of Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Glass Slipper. I like the Sally Hansen and it's almost like a franken with clear/white flecks. Not in love with this mani but that's ok. She (hopefully) left happy. 

Valentine's Countdown - 9 days to go!!!

This morning as I was running errands and ended up at Wal-Mart (believe it or not, the closest Wal-Mart is approximately 15-20 mins away --- and not because I live in the middle of nowehere, but because there is a Target literally 2 minutes away that I frequent 2-3x per week; ahhh!) Anyway, Wal-Mart has a slightly different selection of polishes than Target and today I picked up a nice pink color for Valentine's Day. Below is a swatch of it but will probably end up trying a design or stamp on top in a day or two once the color is old.

Today I ended up taking the pictures with our nice camera instead of my iphone and for the most part I like how they turned out. Still trying to find where in the house gives the best lighting / blackgroud / etc. so any suggestions are appreciated.

The polishes that I used for this mani were NYC's  Fushia Shock (2 coats - 1 coat vs. 2 was pretty much the same color as this is a creme polish but I always feel better using 2), also, switched things up today and used Essie's No Chips Ahead top coat. I have use this TC before and it really does seem to keep your mani from chipping for a couple of days, the only draw back is that it's not a quick drying TC so I had to sit around for a while to make sure it was dry. (No biggie though because I was able to catch up on some Tabatha Salon Takeover re-runs)

With Valentine's only 10 days away, hope to having some new V-day mani's soon. Stay tuned...

Valentine's Countdown - 13 days to go!!

I can't believe it's already February, and that means Valentine's Day!!! It's not that I'm even super mushy so much as I love all the girly pink, hearts, flower, etc that accompany the holiday (though my husband did suggest a super nice dinner at the fondue place downtown so that's really exciting <3)

Didn't feel like getting too crazy tonight so we went for some simple stamping. I don't love how my stamping skills are so I still need more practice. It seems like the first stamp is crisp and clear but after that they are blotchy and no good; should I be cleaning my plates in between each finger? Anyway, here it goes...

For the all over color I used Essie's Lion Out; I like how it goes onto my nail but it's a little too close to my skin color for me not to think of mannequin hands so I think that I will be using it as an accent color moving forward. For the stamp color I used Essie's Size Matters. Finished it off with SV; speaking of; I am getting low and need a new top coat. Is SV really the best? I love it for it's quick drying properties but is that really the most important? Just a thought...