Contests Update!

Sorry if I just now replied to your comments! 

Just a catch-up post where I let you know what is happening with the contests I entered this summer.

I won the stamping contest!! The contest was hosted by Diana of http://dutch-diana.blogspot.nl/ who is SUPER SWEET and awesome. I will post when I get my prize package in a few weeks :D I got decals, some crackle polish, Konad plate, stamping polish, and nail art accessories!! 

I entered this in Nails by Ms. Lizard's 4th of July Summer Themed contest and WON!! I could not believe it, back to back wins for my nail art...My prize was two patriotic frankens made by Ms. Lizard. I will be sharing the polish with my family over the holiday weekend. She wrapped the package so nicely, I feel awful for not taking a photo before I RIPPED into it!

Coming in JULY, I will also be hosting a stamping contest!!! I will have one freehand/other nail art category for my non-stamping followers, too. I will be giving away some of my favorite nail goodies, polish, and frankens of course :) I will also have a random Rafflecopter winner for those who do not feel comfortable entering nail art or don't have time.

I am very thrilled and humbled by these wins. That is why I would love to give back through a contest. I need to move first, though, in case any random costs come up (and to unburden me as I defend my thesis). So stay tuned!!

And thank you VERY much to the hosts of these contests and the judges!

Glitter Franken Time: Sorta This, Sorta That!

So I have a friend who doesn't understand frankening, which I am trying to understand...but I get the whole "it's messy" thing, I really do. Because my hands have just now (3 hours after this experiment) free of glitter and clear polish residue. BUT you like frankening right?!

Anyhow, this friend liked the Pentimento swatches from Lynn's new collection. It is basically The Glittering Crowd (or the fruitcake one) with lots of white. I decided to do a hybrid version of the two. Notice I did not say the full name of the creator...I am not concerned with hits on the blog! Don't need the dramas.

Supplies: YouMix glitters, TKB glitters. You will need YouMix's Death By Glitter (its like a glitter factory exploded; there are some white and black in it) and a good variety of white glitters, such as micro glitter, small and large hexes, bar glitters, and square glitter. I also added some more black bars. I like black bars. 

The end result did not have as much white micro...well, not as much white period. I plan on making my friend one with much more white. What I would do is start with a mix of white glitter and then add the colored glitter.

It is a bit clumpy. I thinned it but I think it needs some work.

My right hand!! Sorry for the poor cleanup, I wanted to catch the sunlight.

Again, it is just a random glitter recipe. Add glitter until you get it to where you want it to be. If you need to use measurements, do it! I fill the bottle 3/4 full then add the glitter little bits at a time. As with anything, it just needs finagling to get it right.

Story of a Broken Nail

*sings the title of the post to the tune of Owner of a Broken Heart*

and it is so funny because my heart was broken when, during yoga today, my husband accidentally broke my left hand pinky nail :(

He was UPSET. He knows I love my nails. I shrugged it off after a few minutes and did the tea bag method (google it, it is amazing) to fix the nail. First, I glued the uh...sad dangly part back on.

Luckily, I had pieces that WOULD glue back on.

Once I filed and buffed down the tea bag part, I shortened all my nails. I haz a sad. But I was meaning to do this before we moved anyhow.

Then I put on Zoya Tamsen (this is not color accurate imo, it is a red with some orange; very warm) to show you how well my lil pinky is doing. Going to be very careful with this baby. 

I hope to go see Brave on Friday or Saturday night. I think I will do theme nails. Have you ever used the tea bag method? Are you going to see Brave?!

Teal Tuesday: Dots and Abstracts

This is my mani for Teal Tuesday (ok, this post is late!)

The theme was dotticures. I knew I wanted to try something abstract and I wanted a nice sparkly but neutral base. 

I used a base of 2 coats Wet N Wild 2% Milk, which I love as a nice milky nude jelly base and then topped it with a coat of China Glaze White Cap.

Then I had fun.

I used a fan brush to get the under-color strokes. A striping brush was used on the lines and swirls. Dotting tools were used for the dots.

Trying to show you the sparkly!

Stamping Sunday: Birds in Brown

Taking pictures of shimmer is just not fun without a light box. :( But oh well, the point of this post is...

Stamping Sundaaaay which is themed 'Glitter' this week.

This is Bettina Magnolia which I won in a contest given by confessionsofapolishaholic.com! It is a tan color with beautiful bronzey gold shimmer/glitter in it. This is without a top coat, mind you! It is pretty chunky!

It shiiines....so gorgeous

This is the point at which you are inundated with photos! I stamped using the large ebay plate H19 which I only bought because of the bird imagery. Stamped with Kleancolor Dark Brown

You can see that I am playing with watermarking!

Oh right, I put LA Girl Glitter Addict in Flashy on the middle, ring, and thumb.

The flash really highlights the copper glitters

Aaaaand this is where I put more birds on it! I mixed some Konad Special Black with Kleancolor Dark Brown and stamped some birds from big ebay plate H24. I luv these birds, they're adorable little chickadees to me. 

Tired of birds yet?!? Oh, btw, that is my free Target Beauty Bag! I got it today :)) It has lots of shampoo samples (yay) and SPF 70 sunblock (yay for my face!)

Here is a photo of the plates I used. They are a little finicky sometimes and some of the images don't work as well as others. They are sooo cute tho. It was hard to get both birds on my nail in the full nail design on H19 plate (on the left; the bird design is on the right). Can you see em? Little turds. This is why i had to add more birds!! 

My Cats on My Nails

If you don't like scatological humor...you may not want to look!! xD

I did some nail art recently using a base of Pure Ice Home Run

...of my cats and their favorite activities.

First, my goofy cats:

Seaka!

Cat dinosaur mode. She is goofy and skittish, just a hilarious cat.

Camacho, aka Meowcho aka Turd-Faced Cat

Camacho inbread

These are all Camacho. 13 lbs of ham, poo, and attitude.

He displays his rear end all the time..is this a male cat thing?

Seaka is on my thumb in pounce/freaked out mode.

They don't deal well with flash, but there is the girl and the nail, hehe.

Fun Swimming Pool Nail Art

Just a quick nail art I did for a contest..

the water refraction thing is a stamp!

The pinky is noodles, haha

I am sad the boy's bottom isn't in the middle but I was distracted by Netflix O_O

NOTD Dragon Glitter Franken!

I made a kinda pricey (for me anyhow) glitter order with YouMix last week and I decided to play around a bit. I was inspired by a franken I saw on a message board called Blood of The Dragon (based on A Song of Ice and Fire series' Daenerys Targaryen) but I don't remember the creator :/

Anyhow, I thought the concept was great but I didn't like the ginormous hexes and thought it needed a little punch up. 

This is one layer over one layer of Golden Rose 327 and an accent of Essie Jelly Apple.

I love the brown bar glitters. I got brown and white bar glitters because I think they are rather cute. The holographic ones obviously irritate me! There is NO HOLO in this franken!! yayyy!! 

It is made of shades of evergreen, grass green, copper, red, and brown with some matte green glitter thrown in for a touch of light. Draggins has teeth and claws after all!

Jelly sammitched! It looks cute like this but maybe too opaque. 

Soooo cuuuute! It's the green dragon! Another single coat on top of the jelly sandwich. There is no shimmer, but I did add tiny "floam-esque" bits of yellow matte glitter. I like it this way.

This kinda matched my dinner of red chile chicken tacos with avocado ^_^

You ever see someone hold a cat leg as a prop?! He has such bunny legs.

This is my boy! <3 look at those paws! Sorry for the furry mess, I can't keep that dang cat tree cleaan!! ><

Fun in the Sun Stamping!

Hello all, sorry for the lapse in blogging lately. I waste so much time on the computer but when I think about blogging, "I could be working!" Then my cat lays down to sleep on all my papers and I get lazy again!

I decided to get a little artsy this week, though, and created a scenic stamping mani for a contest where the theme is Fun in the Sun. I am excited to blog about this actually. I actually drew this up on paper and stamped where everything should go before I stamped it out. 

I started with a base of Sally Hansen Barracuda 

And sponged on Sally Hansen Brisk Blue for the top of the sky and in areas with ocean, the ocean background. Then I went over the sky again once it dried with SH Barracuda to tone down the brightness of the blue.

Cleanup! I usually just rub a qtip around the skin until I do detailed cleanup. Especially with blues, don't want to have smurf hands!

I painted down a little OPI Skull and Glossbones where I wanted sand/dirt. Then I sponged on Sally Hansen Quick Sand, which is sparkly and sand-like. 

Then.....I stamped. A lot.

I used my new MASH plates and Konad/Fauxnads for this.

I don't know any dolphin songs soooo I was singing Baby Beluga the whole time in my head >_>

I know, lots of photos! I love this though! Even if the butterfly stamps were jerks! 

Baby beluga in the deep blue sea...sigh, it is there again. haha!