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This blog is closed. I am not doing business and have not been in business for over a year. Thank You for your support.

Life is good but it's busy and I have no time for this blog anymore!

Weekend Nutrisystem updates

The weekend is almost over! They sure do fly by in our old age.

I've really been struggling with the weight loss. Don't get me wrong, I'm halfway through my fourth month and I've lost 37 lbs in that short time...but now, as of yesterday, I've officiallly plateaued. That's three weeks with my weight being the same. All is not lost and this is not as discouraging as it seems. How you ask?? It's pretty simple.

Cold as Ice but filled with dreams of Butterflies and Flowers

Wooo!! It's cold here today!! I know some of ya'll aren't nearly this cold but to me it's FREEZING!! I live down here in the Everglades because of the subtropical climate....now where is my subtropical climate??

I haven't done much nail art over the last few months...and honestly, for awhile there I was walking around with BARE NAILS!! oh the horror!! Seriously. Right now I have zero color on my nail but I do at least have a clear coat of Gelish to protect my nails. They got so raggedy I couldn't take it anymore. I just cut them down to nubs and put the clear coat on so I could grow them out again.

I thought I would go ahead and post a few of the pictures of Nail Art I've done when I did it.

Tuesday Food Porn and

I decided Tuesdays will be weight loss journey days.  I first started this "diet" I was thinking OK, they'll give me a little bit of food here and there and just have me eating small amounts during the day and that's what I wanted. Or so I thought. Yes, I to get food throughout the day but I honestly had no idea it's be like this....

Life Altering Year: A quick review

I was looking at my posts and it's been almost an entire year since I last made a post! Holy cow! To fill you in on the last year...because I've decided to make this blog about more than just the nail art I do but ALL the things I do and am into.

Resistance Is Futile!

My geek seems to be showing this week in my titles. That's ok, I have geek pride.

I'm really excited to show these nails this week.  I finished them off this afternoon, got the pictures taken, edited and watermarked and now it's time to get down to business!

Return Of The Nail Art!

I've been pretty busy over the month of January! I've been keeping on track with my New Year's resolutions, filling some custom orders for nails, and helping my husband with his palm trees. In fact, Today I worked on the very plants used in the background photo for this blog and my website!

A New Year and A Not So New Outlook!!

Yay! The world didn't end, and 2013 is here! I never doubted that it would be but I thought it would be fun to celebrate that fact just because I could.

It's that time of year when we look back and then look forward. Last year was the first time in ages I'd actually made a resolution. My resolution was pretty simple - remember to eat a bunch of times a day. I've always been bad for getting caught up in what I'm doing and forgetting to eat meals. I'd fix meals for the kids and not eat any myself. I'm proud to say that over the last year, I took time to eat when I should. This year, the focus is on making sure I'm eating as good as I want to. Making sure I'm not filling up my daily calorie count with too many carbs and sugar just to make that minimum. My second resolution is to be better about making time to get my work outs in.  This second one will be made somewhat easier by the fact that on my birthday a wonderful dog came into my life, she's everything I could have wanted in a dog.  She'll be relying on me to make those trips to the park to play and do some walks with me. Funny how it is I have this tendency to make time to take care of others but not so much on taking care of myself.  Which brings me to my third and final resolution this year. Make that time for taking care of me!

That's pretty much it as far as the resolutions go. So far, so good. I've downloaded this calorie counter app on my phone and I love it. I can look up nutritional facts about pretty much everything and then decide if it's what I want to eat. Of course it also tracks my exercise too :P

As far as the nails go - I'm still going to continue my quest to keep working on my skill sets and making sum awesome nails! woohoooo!  How has your new year been? Any resolutions this year?

A little twist on a classic look

Today I am showing you some pictures of what I've been doing with my time lately. I finally got around to taking some photos. These are available for sale on ebay.

I really liked the Christmas Tree designs with the zig zag style trees and decided that would be perfect to do with mirco-beads since I have so many left from the Fish Egg Mani trend that was so hot last spring. I also took the time to use the Gelish Structure Gel to overlay the bead design. It makes for a smooth nail and keeps the beads completely secure! I have about a bazillion designs in mind for beads and other little nail art doo-dads along these lines.

Now, to the pictures!!

Making that leap

Well today I have no real new nail art. I just felt the need to share what it is I have been doing instead of blogging lately.

Over the last year I've had so many friends and family give me feedback that it's too bad I don't live closer. More than a few are aware that you can buy nail art and have asked - when am I going to start selling them? The girl at my local nail supply has even asked - Do you do that? I've even gotten requests for different designs through my website. Up to now, I have hesitated to go that route partly because of just outright fear of failure and partly because I wasn't sure what would be involved in making that happen. What are the up front costs involved for materials, where to sell it, etc?

When I started getting it from my Dad and my husband, that was it, I needed to seriously look into it. Just for the sake of simplicity, ideally I would like to have used my website. I already have a merchant account through my provider and currently use that account to accept Credit Cards for my services. I have been known to take risks to try something new, but at the same time, I like to keep an eye on my bottom line.

After a few very frustrating days, I was able to determine that my website provider required that I pay an additional fee per month to add a web store to my site. My inner cynic tells me that it's great I have so many supportive people around me, but will I be able to sell enough per month to cover the cost??

Ultimately, I decided that it wasn't worth the risk. So I looked at other options; ebay, etsy, craigslist, etc. In the meantime, I was finally able to purchase some supplies I would need and I got to work. In the end I decided to go with ebay since they are no longer charging you for a basic listing with them as a seller. Of course, that does have some limitations, but those limitations are more than acceptable to me since I'm not bringing a huge amount of inventory to the table right off.  

I took some pictures of my product and this morning I set everything all up. You'll notice I've added a link above to a complete listing of what I have available. Linked it all to my website as well...posted a few links to facebook and here I am.

I thought I would feel more nervous about this venture than I am. I'm less anxious about anyone buying them and more relieved that I did it. It's like I did it and now I can focus on making it work. I've been a firm believer that whatever you put into the things you do is what you get out of them. That's a philosophy that had one pretty good for me so far.

What do you think? Am I nuts? Would you or have you ever put yourself out there like that?

Blogging your heart out!

I don't normally do these things, but now that I actually have the time to do it - I'm all in!!

Sarah Payne has awarded me the "Blog Your Heart Out Button." How awesome! Definitely a blog for you to check out - lots of great videos about nails, make up and other fun girly stuffs. I am so tickled to have her pass this one to me cuz I love Sarah's work and am a genuine fan. Now I get to pass this along to 5 more bloggers that blog their hearts out and answer these 5 questions:


1.What/who encouraged you start blogging?
2.How did you choose what topic(s) to blog about?
3.What is something that most people don't know about you?
4.What are 3 words to describe your style?
5.What do you like to do when you're not blogging?


Here's my answers!

1.What/who encouraged you start blogging? I don't think anyone actually encouraged me as much as I was inspired by the many awesome nail/beauty bloggers out there. I've done blogging before on a few membership based community sites and I genuinely enjoyed it. I no longer maintained either blogs and I really did miss the blogging.
2.How did you choose what topic(s) to blog about? This is what I do for a living. It's never been about making money for me but doing what I love to do. I've been in the business off and on for decades and I keep going back to it...because deep down, it's what I truly love to do. I wanted to share that love and excitement I still have after 30 years of painting nails.
3.What is something that most people don't know about you? That I'm the girliest tomboy you've ever met. I like all my girly girl things but I won't let go of all that 'boy stuff' like sports, cars and comic books. Yah, I have been known to sit and work on a design while watching ESPN.
4.What are 3 words to describe your style? One of these days I'll learn to not ask my husband for help with questions like this "I hate questions like that.....you're not that simple that I can only use three words". LOL So I'm going to go with "Simple" "Direct" and "Creative".
5.What do you like to do when you're not blogging?  I love the beach!! There's nothing in the world that a trip to the beach and a few hours enjoying the sand, sun, ocean and the sea breeze cannot fix. I like being outside in general now that I mention it. Of course, I like being a Mommy and Grammy too. When I can I like to meet up with friends for lunch, dinner, drinks...just hanging out.

Now it's that time for me to pass it on to five more bloggers!!! Be sure to check out these gals and see what they have to say...and don't forget Sarah too!!

1. MsMidnightBlue's Glittery Shiny Bottles of Polish
2. Live.Laugh.Love...Nails!
3. RyCoBra's Southern Nails
4. Tip Top Nails
5. WellNailed x


If you received this award, you must pass this along to 5 bloggers that have less than 100 followers and that blog their hearts out.  Also they must answer the 5 questions above.  It's nice to learn a little something extra about each other.

 Have a groovy day and enjoy the blogs!! Much Thanks to Sarah too!!!

World Diabetes Day Mani

Good afternoon! Today is World Diabetes Day today and I had no idea until I saw this post posted by Maria at Cult Nails on facebook this morning. I spent quite a bit of time last night cruising pinterest to get some ideas and inspiration for my next manicure but I was still not feeling it. After seeing that post this morning - I knew I HAD to do it!! I have type II diabetes and many of my family and friends have both type I and type II, so it seemed the perfect thing to do today! I loved my last mani so much, it seemed hard to find something else to follow that up with.

Now, let's get to the pictures! I'm going to start with my indoor shots.

Here's a few more outdoors. I made more of an effort to catch the holo effects here. One day I will master catching the effect. 

I think I did ok catching the effect on the macro shot but you be the judge as to which is your favorite. To do this one, I started with Seche Vite clear coat, then I added Orly's Snow Cone. Then I added a thin layer of Hits' Poseidon. Poseidon doesn't have a strong color - it builds up with multiple coats but I didn't want that many coats of polish here. Then I sponged on a gradient of Hits' Apolo. Finally I stamped on a flower and then used Hits' Hefesta to create the center dot of the flower.  Finally I finished this mani with a top coat of Seche vite. 

How has diabetes affected your life and your family??  

Falling back!

I've finally gotten a chance to really play with my Hits collection! I've struggled with making a choice...I love them all so much, I can barely choose which ones to wear!! In celebration of "Falling Back" and the end of Daylight's Savings Time here in the US, I went with a fall color scheme and quickly stamped a few leaves over this lovely gradient.

I really wanted to see how the holo looked when you stacked colors over each other. I must say, I'm mucho mucho happy with this. I'm just going to get right to the pictures! I didn't finish until after dark, so look for newer pictures later tomorrow showing this in full sun! I managed to catch some of the holo by photographing this outside in the dark with flash, and I like the other regular pictures as well - the lighting is much better and more consistent.

I love love love gradients, and I love love these polishes. Well worth the wait to get my hands on these!! Now, to get the next collection on my wish list......the newest Cult Nails collection, Behind Closed doors!

That last shot is really my favorite!! Which do you think best shows off this mani? Flash in the dark, regular lighting or full sunlight?


UPDATE: Well after two days - we finally had a day with no haze and I got a pic of full sun. You can clearly see the wear my poor nails have taken in these last three days, and I apologize for that. Sadly, I still was not able to clearly capture holo effect here, so I'm a bit disappointed, but that could also be because I had to wait so long to take the pictures.

Happy Halloween!

Good Morning Everyone!! Happy Halloween! It's been a lot busy here lately. (when isn't it, right?) I hope all of you that were in the path of Sandy find yourselves safe and sound today!!

Today's nail art is one I did last spring, but haven't posted just because the color combination so obviously screamed Halloween! So, I saved it just for today.

Without further ado, I bring you pictures!

I used Mattetastrophe to give the orange a matte finish and left the black glossy and  trimmed the diagonal with a gold glitter. 

I hope your Halloween is filled with more treats than tricks!! What are you dressing up as?? I still have no clue! :O 

The Seasons Turn Turn Turn

So Fall has officially arrived! Living in the part of Florida that I do means there is no change in the weather. We do have many other exciting things going on! After spending what seemed like forever visiting a infinite number of pre-schools, I was finally able to enroll my youngest into one that both of us love! At 14, it's no big deal if your child doesn't love her school, but at 4, it's a bit more important that she feel comfortable! Maybe I'm just a fussy Mommy because she's my youngest, but I'm OK with that! I have mentioned before that I live on an Avocado Tree Grove. It's that time of year again! PICKING SEASON! My weekends are now filled with picking one of my favorite fruits and an endless supply of that yummy and fabulous beauty essential. I'm still contemplating trying a few nail/skin beauty treatment recipes this year!

Speaking of nails, after a month of insanity, things have finally settled into the new routines, and we're all recovered from our first round of "back to school flu". Those of you who also follow me on twitter know that  my nails went naked for almost two weeks. That's the longest period of time my nails have been naked since 2009.  I was sick most of that time, so my poor naked nail were not subjected to much abuse.

I had recently decided to start offering Gelish enhancements and had purchased all the supplies for that already. So today's nails are not just nail art - but my first attempt at a Gelish enhancement over white tips. I have noticed on the blogs, twitter and pinterest are full of fall and Halloween mani's. I do have future plans to join in on those soon! I already have some pictures of some I did last spring based on a random polish color inspiration. October is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so I felt it was appropriate to begin this month with Nail Art inspired by that. Cancer is a cause near and dear to my heart as both my parents and my baby sister are all Cancer Survivors! This coming week, I will be looking into ways I can turn my nail art talents to raise money and spread the awareness!

Well, I've rambled on long enough and now it's time for the fun pictures!

Recently, I was able to take delivery of the Speciallita Hits no Olimpo Collection! This is the Atena from that collection. The ribbons and centers of the flowers is pink acrylic paint. I really love this look! I alternated  the accent nails on my other hand. I'll be wearing this one for a few days!! 

That Was Unexpected!

Good Morning! I've never mentioned it here but lately I find myself considering opening my own little nail studio. I keep seeing all this wonderful equipment out there on the internet that would be great for a little studio. I could easily reinvest all my income from my call-in business and grow my business by doing that. However, I do still have to do my share to pay the bills, so that's not a very realistic plan. With that in mind, I have recently been doing some job hunting looking for a part-time "day job" so I can seriously make moves in that direction.

I got a call this afternoon for an interview tomorrow, so that means I had to re-do my nails! woohooo! With all the busyness that came with preparation for then Tropical Storm Isaac, I missed last week's blog post and also skipped out on doing my own nails. Because the call came early in the evening rather than morning or afternoon, there was little time for me to do my own nails. Rather than my usual process of removal - I decided to just go with a "fill". The nature of the job meant that I couldn't be too bold with my color and design, so I started with just a coat of red once I'd prepped the nail. I noticed that the glitter from my old manicure was showing through that one coat of red and I really liked the way the black from the old design showed through as well. That settled it - I knew what I was going to do! Gelish Sandwich with a black french tip!

You can almost see the glitter showing through but not quite. I wasn't able to capture the glittery effect no matter how hard I tried. I will say that it very much was like "Ruby Pumps" Lite. lol It has all the depth but the glitter is not quite as in your face.

Another shot from a different angle. I used "Hot Rod Red" here and it's a fairly versatile color. It very much reminds me of a "jelly" finish in regular polish. Sheer but opaque after a second coat and never streaky. Perfect for the Gelish Sandwich! I'll be adding nail art to this as the week goes on but for now I decided to keep it a little more toned down for tomorrow! 

Freshening Up

One of the things I like the most about UV Gel polish is the fact you can wear regular polish over it. Three weeks is a long time to wear the same look. If you're anything like me, you need to change it up a little bit, at the very least from week to week.

One of my favorite ways to freshen up a UV Gel polish mani that feels "old" or boring is to use regular polish for nail art OVER your base color. I did just that to freshen up my wedding mani! Here it is on my wedding day.

Here it after a quick stamp with little glitter dot flower centers added. 

One of the most common things I see in my business is young ladies who cannot wear nail art during the week because of job restrictions. However, they come see me Friday afternoon - and I'll add nail art using regular polish for the weekend which they then remove using regular polish remover before going back to work on Monday morning. 

Freshening up your mani doesn't always have to be done to hide wear and tear! Have some fun with it!! 

The honeymoon is over!

Well the official honeymoon where you go away is over at least! The metaphorical honeymoon isn't even close to being over yet. I didn't change my mani for this - and this is why I recommend getting gel color to ALL brides! No need to worry about your nails - they still look great and you can focus your attentions on other more FUN things.

I didn't post last Sunday because we were in Orlando for a long weekend. We took the kids with us and no trip to Orlando is complete with a day or two at Disney. We stayed at our Timeshare resort, so two days at Disney and another day of enjoying our resort's awesome amenities! Here's a few quick pix!

I'm obviously not in this one since I'm taking the picture. lol

This is one of all of us at the resort wearing our ears (or in the case of my dad - his Micky Mouse Straw Hat). A good time was had by all!! 

Now, life is back to normal, I've even gotten some things done towards finally getting seriously settled into the new apartment. I know the traditional dream is to get married and come home from your honeymoon to your "new house" as a married couple. I highly don't recommend you do that unless you took at least a month to get settled in first. LOL Sometime in the next few days I'll be changing my mani and next week's post I will have actual nail art for you!! So many new exciting ideas have come out while I was gone, and I have no end of inspiration for things I'd like to try!!

Post Wedding Check-in

Well, I have made it through all the insanity and I think I managed to not loose my mind. lol We are now moved into our new place (though not completely) and we had a lovely wedding, and we're enjoying our "family honeymoon" this weekend. I'll be back to posting regularly, but initially, I will no longer be making daily posts. I will, however be posting at least once a week while I try to get our daily lives back to normal and get the lil one set up for the new school year.

Without further ado - I bring you a wedding photo! For the moment, it's the only one I have access to but I promise to post at least one more of the entire dress.

Of course, since this is a nail blog - this entry would not be complete without a photo of my manicure for the day!! I did my nails with Gelish and I took this picture almost a week later so there is some growth going on there. I still love the look!

The flowers are from my daughter's bouquet. She was one of my bridesmaids and I had to get the nails with the flowers becauses I did like my wedding flowers. I wonder how much of that is because I did my own flowers? haha! 

That's all for this week - I'll see you all next Sunday! Have a nailicious week!

More Experiments with Gelish

Happy Sunday! I hope you all enjoyed your weekend, I am on the road to recovery from my recent illness. It was not serious but it was enough to keep me from my blog and nail art for awhile.

While I was away, I did change my gelish and for those of you that also follow my twitter, I discussed trying to create a gelish sandwich and a sunset gradient. My sunset gradient is one of my most popular nail art designs, especially in the gel. However, during the removal of my old gelish manicure, I accidently broke THREE nails down to the nail bed. It was pretty devastating for me because they are so short, it looks like I bite my nails or something like that. But I can't stand uneven nail lengths, so I cringed and cut and filed away. I reapplied my new gelish mani doing it in the usual way on my left hand and trying to incorporate the "jelly sandwich" technique into this gradient.

I have very mixed feelings about how this experiment came out. You be the judge.

It came out ok but unlike the previous attempt with the sheer color - the glitter doesn't really pop through...it's so much more subtle. This is a disappointment for me, because the boldness of the colors with a sunset gradient requires less subtlety and that super visible depth that I had with my regular Gelly Sandwich.

There's a macro shot of this one. Please pardon the horrible length.  You can see the glitter is there if you go poke someone's eye out or stare at it for awhile. Let me post the pix of the sunset gradient the way I normally do it with the shimmery glitter coat on top of the gradient.

I think the regular sunset gradient came out much better. Not just because of the shimmery glitter being on top but also because I did a better job sponging it on with this hand too. This was an all around experiment on a number of levels. Normally, when doing a gradient using gelish, I do one coat with more definite 'lines' and then sponge on the next color to blur the line. I had used this technique because each color requires two coats and when I started working this out with the Gelish I was not as good with gradients in general or working with the gel itself as I have become over the last few months. 

The change in my gradient technique is a definite WIN, but the Sunset Gelly Sandwich is a fail in my book. What do you think??