Oh how I love you, Ruby Slippers!

Happy Monday everyone!! Today I'm very excited to show you a new Nail Art using my all-time favorite polish: China Glaze's "Ruby Slippers". On my recent trip to Sally's to score my Hunger Games polishes, I just couldn't resist snatching up the last full sized bottle of "Ruby Slippers". It's for my personal stash and not to be used for clients, and the only polish I own that is just for me.

As many of you know, I am on twitter and I follow many fellow bloggers as well as several companies who produce products I use on myself and clients, recommend for use by my clients at home and many awesome Nail Techs who's skill levels I hope to one day reach. This afternoon, Cutex asked if we could only wear one polish for the rest of our lives, what would it be? Of course, I answered "Ruby Slippers". Duh.

I still had that in mind when I was looking at my list of "must try" board on pinterest. Taking a look at this, I knew exactly which manicure I'd be doing for today!

It's not exactly like the one on pinterest, but I didn't really intend for this to be exactly the same either like yesterday's was.

Even though I knew I'd have to change this less than 24 hours later, I just couldn't bring myself to take this one off right away. I mean, it's got Ruby Slippers in it!! I really do love it that much.

14 Days of Love - Day 14: Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!! I hope you all have some great and wonderful plans for the evening! I am spending my evening with my fiance..we're staying home for our hot date this year. In years past, we have often gone away for the weekend, but this is the first time in a few years that Valentine's Day didn't actually fall on a weekend day. We've also got so much more going on this year than before and we are also hindered by the fact our usual babysitter, Gramma, is out of the country. No worries though - we still will have our "hot date" - we're just doing it at home this year. Romantic Dinner and a movie!

Here's today's Nail Art...for this one I was actually inspired by one of my previous nail arts from last month - Rainbow Nails!

Well today came just in time because I think I'm fresh out of ideas for this theme for a good few months at last.  Now it's time to post a few regular Nail Arts, a post about Gelish Manicures (because I love that product so much) and start brainstorming ideas for St. Patrick's Day! It'll be here before we know it!



14 Days of Love - Day 13

Holy cow!! Can you believe that tomorrow is Valentine's day? I just realized that I haven't gotten anything for my fiance! Well, now we all know what I'll be doing this afternoon while my youngest daughter is in school!  In the meantime, I bring you today's Valentine's Day themed Nail Art.

Not very fancy, I admit. I'm was feeling like I had done a whole slew of ones that were just sooo busy, so I wanted something more relaxing and simple. Of course, I couldn't resist adding glitter to hearts, just because I had plenty and I love glitter!

My last mani will be in a similar style - but I went in a drastically different direction with it!! See you tomorrow and I hope you all rest well for the big day!!



14 Days of Love - Day 11: The Lost Post

As I promised, I have my missing post for you!! woohooo!! It's been a little bit of a struggle lately to coordinate parenting time with my significant other so we can both get home projects done or further along. I got to sit down last night and do the nail art for the rest of this holiday nail art celebration and I found the idea flowed freely - not just for this - but for other nail arts as well.

You'll notice I started watermarking the pictures. Although I am not aware of anyone stealing my pictures, I figured why wait until it happens to start? I really should have been doing it from the beginning, but now I've got all my pictures watermarked and switched out on my website. Now I will be going through old posts here and switching those pictures for watermarked ones. It's alot more tedious on here than it was on the rest of my website - but I'll find odd moments to do them as I go.



14 Days of Love - Day 12

okay, we skipped a day - I'll have to do a double post to make up for it tomorrow.

Here's another mani I did. It's a mix of stamping and free hand!

I did the xo's and the "Love" free hand, as well as the hearts. Because I have the Gelish Soak-off UV Gel polish as my base color, I was able to make a straight edge without using tape and instead using my french brush.

Wow! It's almost Valentine's day already!?!  I think after this is done, I'm going to do a detailed post about doing a Gelish mani. I took pictures as I did the Gelish portion for these nail art in anticipation of doing a post at some point in the future.

That's all for today! Enjoy the last bit of the weekend!







14 Days of Love - Day 10!

Today's post is both late and is going to be short.

I did a Guest Post on glazedtalons's blog and I highly recommend that you cruise around and read.  Two of the three nail arts I did are valentine's day themed and I posted one of them yesterday as your sneak peek.

More Nail Art pix posted here tomorrow!!

14 Days of Love - Day 9

It's Thursday and as I mentioned yesterday, I did lock myself in my workspace all day and work on nail art. Most of that time was spent removing my old Gelish clear coats and applying a whole new manicure. This time I used a color, "Go Girl". I think of this shade as a "Breast Cancer Pink" and it's one of the reasons I like it. Yah, I know - I really do like pink and glitter. I am a not so secret girly girl.

I did the pictures for a guest post in Thalie's blog and today's love manicure is a sneak peak of that post.

I am definitely getting better at the freehand designs. It has helped tremendously to have a larger variety of art brushes to work with. I still have no figured out what in the world I would use those fan brushes for - but I'll either figure it out on my own - or I'll find the info in a tutorial. I have figured out how to do the kissey lips free-hand.  I have a stamp plate design, but I really don't like how it looks on the nail. One of the things I like about having a gel base color is that I can make corrections to any mistakes or just remove it all without having to completely start over from scratch.

That's all for today! I can't believe there's only five day left til Valentine's Day!! This is a short month to begin with, even during a leap year; it sure is going FAST.



14 Days of Nail Art - Day 8

Well Wednesday is finally here! If you don't hear from me today...don't worry! I was not eaten alive by a spaghetti monster at the fundraiser last night. I am more than likely hiding away in my work space and working on a guest post I'm doing involving Gelish color mani's that have nail art using traditional polishes. I'll be sure to put a link here when that guest post is posted.

Now, onto today's mani!



With No Flash

With a Flash

As you can see from the first picture, this base color does have a gold shimmer to it. It also really is that much of a bubble gum pink - the shimmer keeps the intensity of hue from being too loud. I got a suggestion to do a design to highlight the holiday but still be suitable for a conservative workplace environment and I decided to run with it. What do you think? See any lawyers, investment bankers and the like sporting this look next week? 

14 Days of Love - Day 7

Well today marks the end of the first week! woohoo! Today I went simple again. I thought yesterday's design was a little busy, so I was seriously looking to tone it down. That and I had a last minute client booking. :P

Without a flash.

With a Flash

I really have not been able to truly capture what's going on there with the base color.  It's OPI's "Fit for a Queensland" and it has been quite the challenge to show off the sublte pink and gold fine shimmer that almost turns this into a duo-chrome but not quite. I haven't been able to show it off in sunlight, shade, indoors with and without flash. I still love this polish for this time of year...it's ultra light enough of a hue that pinks don't get lost in the base color and the reds just pop!

It occured to me today while shopping in Sally's that I never mention in any of my posts what I use for basecoat or top coat. I *ALWAYS* use Gelish as my basecoat. I use their base, some structure gel to keep my nails from breaking and the shiny top coat. It goes a long way when I'm doing several different nail arts a day.......and using acetone to remove each one. It protects my actual nail and it makes removal so much easier than a regular basecoat. I also always use "Seche Vite" as my top coat and a few "in between coats" to help base colors dry faster. This has been a seriously critical step when doing the stamping as most of you know.

No animal pictures today. I haven't even come close to showing off all the pets we have but I haven't got any more recent shots of them because I've just been tooo busy. Soon though, soooooon. I already have the pictures ready for tomorrow's post because I'll be spending a good portion of my time today making cereal bars to serve at my youngest daughter's fundraiser for her pre-school tonight. I know when I get in tonight I'll be tooo tired to sit and write. I love being able to schedule my posts. I can share my excitement and passion in a consistant way and still get done all the things that I need to get done.

You guys have a groovy Tuesday!! See ya tomorrow!

14 Day of Love - Day 6

Happy Monday! As I promised yesterday, I took a little extra time and added some fun glitter to today's mani. It's supposed to be a pink glitter and it's definitely pink in the jar, but when you put it on the nail, it's comes out a more coral color. I still like it very much and I used it often in some of my acrylic designs. I hope you enjoy!

This is in shade

This is in direct sunlight

I hope you enjoyed today's nail art. I absolutely have to do some more with nail glitter  next week. 

I am already contemplating what I'll be posting after Valentine's Day but before St. Patricks. I have been wanting to highlight some of my fun acrylic materials and a few designs to go with them.  As I have mentioned before, I cannot put acrylic on my nails because I have sensitivities when applied to my own nails. I hadn't given up on the concept and I think I have figured out how I can do it without torturing myself.  Who remembers "Press On Nails?" Did you know you can still buy the press on gum used for those kits? We'll see how long it takes me to create the acrylic nails to "press" on before I decide if it'll just be a weekly feature for awhile or an every day topic.



14 Days Of Love - Day 5

Happy Superbowl Sunday to all my USA readers. Because I'm such an avid fan of American Football and today is *the* big game, I did a few easy one for today's post. It was soo hard to resist posting pictures of my favorite team (that is playing today) color and saying to heck with Valentine's Day.  I managed to resist and here is the photo for today!

As you can see - I kept it VERY simple. I promise tomorrow's will make up for that a little. I got out some of my extra fun goodies like GLITTER  and I have it all laid out to do tomorrow's mani!  I also had to get some new and current pictures of my dog...just because I was standing there with the camera and I haven't taken any pictures of him since he got shaved last summer.

That's my baby Wilbury. My fiance originally took him in as an abandoned new born pup to foster for our veternarian but couldn't give him up. I mean really? who could resist such a cute face? He's over 10 years old now, which is quite old for his size and breed but he's a healthy happy spoiled puppy.  That's all for today, time to start cooking snacks to munch on during the game!

GO PATRIOTS !!





14 Days of Love - Day 4

Yay! It's saturday! woohooo! Not that it ever means anything for us. We're not working for someone else today but we're defnitely working on projects here at home!  Speakong of projects here's today's Valentine's themed nails.

I did stripes and dots on my fingers with a stamped accent nail.  I'm completely in love with these colors for this theme.  I'll hopefully be spending some time this afternoon locked in my workspace making more fun mani's.  I took some of the money I recieved as a gift for Christmas and purchased some new nail art brushes.  I'd really like to take some time this afternoon and try some new things with those. I also still feel like I need to work on some of my techniques.  Who knows, maybe I'll get bold enough and do v-day theme water marble - I never know what I'm going to do until I get in there and do it!



14 Days of Love - Day 3

I know I am a little late posting today's post. I wanted to download the pix from my camera last night but my Hunni also wanted to use the computer - and it was his turn.  Now that I have the pix off my camera it's time to get to it!!

I used OPI's "Fit for Queensland" as a base color for this one. It's a great color for Valentine's day. It's a milky white with a pink and gold shimmer to it. It has this almost duo-chrome effect that I really like.   That's all for today, hopefully I'll be able to get over to my workspace later this afternoon to do some more.

Do you ever find yourself just so overflowing with ideas that you don't know where to start? That's about where I am right now. 



14 Day of Love - Day 2

Good morning! Today is another day in paradise, and I have today's love themed nail art. I used my stamping plates again today. This time i went with flowers with a few hearts on my pinkie nail. The base color is Cover Girl's Boundless Color "Crushed Shells". I really like this polish, it's a delicate pink and the shimmer is almost like a glitter, but not quite. I know I usually post photos in bright sunlight, but today and yesterday's had to be done indoors for today's I will show both with the flash and without the flash.

The above photo is without flash. Here the pink polish has almost a nude to white color to it but you can see how the shimmer is almost glitter like.

In this photo the polish looks the delicate pink that it actually is but the shimmer is less glittery and the design is definately much clearer.

I'm still fairly new to stamping and quite a few of the upcoming designs will include stamping. The stamping will not always be the only aspect of the design like today and I will be making some effort to mix it up between free-hand and stamping. I have a definite design idea I want to try out tonight for tomorrow's post, so we'll see how that works out tomorrow morning!!





14 Days of Love - Day 1

So, It's February 1st, and we all know what that means! Valentine's Day is just two weeks away! I decided I would post Valentine's themed nail art for the first two weeks to celebrate the Holiday.

I sat down to do this one but my older cat "Boo" wuz less than thrilled to come in second behind nail polish as you can see.

He was very unhelpful until I finally caved and gave him the attention he demaned. Once that was done, he was awesome company while I worked on today's nail art.

This is the first pictures I've posted using stamping plates! I've worn mani's with designs from my stamping plates but had never taken pictures of them. This seemed like a good time to start since I avoided them completely for the nail arts of the past month. I completely free handed the "french" part of this and it shows how long it's been since I've done that. lol

I hope you enjoyed today's nail arts and my adorable but angry kitty.