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??  

Foil Rose

Good Morning and happy Friday Eve! Today's Nail of the Day is a simple one and it matched my mood.

I had some other ones to show you but the pictures came out just toooo poor. I do love the way the light hits the foil on this one. Thanks for reading and have a groovy day!

Delicate Bridal

Good Morning and Happy Monday! I'm off teaching preschool today, I was supposed to have the day off but I volunteered to cover for one of the other mom's who sprained her wrist. Poor girl has this HUGE splint on it and she really can't do anything with it. Besides, I like teaching these kids and there's not that many weeks left in the school year.

On to today's nail art. This is one I did during Valentine's but I find it still very much appropriate for the bridal season.

I decided to do today's pix large because this is such a delicate design, I really want you to see it properly.

The base color is a Gelish color, Taffeta with red and green polish stamped over it.  A little regular nail polish remover and the bride is sporting a low-key but pretty look for the honeymoon! 

That's it for today, tomorrow I will show the mani I have planned for my own wedding this summer. To say it's a bit non-traditional would be an understatement. Thank you for reading and have a Groovy day!

Hearts and Brides

Good Morning! I hope your Sunday is going well, I apologize for the lateness of my post but I'm a bit sick. With that in mind, I'm going to really short today. Enjoy!

Here I stamped the hearts in red, then stamped over them again in white to give the design the illusion of depth.

That's all I have for today, I hope you enjoyed. Have a great day and thank you for reading!

Spring Green

Happy Monday!! I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. I certainly did! I changed my gelish last night and it was completely weird! Usually when I remove my old gelish, the product sometimes completely comes off on the cotton and nothing is left on my nail. I opened my foil to discover that I had broken a corner of my pointer fingernail on my left hand and the gelish had been holding it firmly in place. The broken nail was actually still stuck to the gelish on the cotton ball. In retrospect, I should have taken a picture because it was just soo unusual!

I was too tired last night to do more nail art, whoever, I did an extra one the night before! woohoo! On to the pictures!

This is such a cute delicate design and I finally got around to it! I like the overall look, but I was sorely tempted to use a matte topcoat on the green - and I may still try it. I'm on the fence about it. I just love Emerald City so much! 

That's pretty much it for today. I hope you enjoyed! I'm already planning my "Fish Egg Friday" Mani and I've got everything ready to go. So many ideas and the need to copy designs I've seen from the other ladies that I've had to write them all down so I don't forget! lol

Have a Groovy Monday!

OPI Ink Stamping!

Good Morning! I hope you enjoyed yesterday's Fish Egg Friday post. I certainly enjoyed doing it and reading what everyone else came up with!

This morning's NOTD nail art is OPI's OPI Ink with a stamped design in silver.  I was trying out different full nail stamp designs from the recent plates that I purchased. I got so many that it's going to take awhile for me to get through them all. Take a look!

The design on the plate had half the nail covered with the stamped color as the background base color as a cut out and then switched on the other side to the exact opposite. No matter how many times I re-did it, I could not get the stamp to show the outlined flowers, only the cut-out side. Even though the full design didn't come out I still kind of liked it.

I tried to do it so you'd get different coverage on each nail, just to demonstrate how different it can look depending on how much you cover the nail with the design. I also took lots of pictures from different angles.

I hope you enjoyed today's post and thanks to everyone for their comments yesterday and the great participation from all the readers and the bloggers!!  Have a groovy Saturday and enjoy the weekend!

Can you be subtle with a color this vampy?

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you have a groovy week and are ready for the weekend!

I'm a huge fan of Sammy and her wicked stamping skills, and some of my favorites of hers are done with darker colors, so I decided to give it a shot. I love what I do, I love doing fun bold designs on myself, but I am a professional and it's usually not my tastes that I need to be catering to! I'm not a fan of dark nail polish colors but I just loved this one in the bottle since the moment I laid eyes on it. I was disappointed in how little glitter actually comes out on the nail - but those non-glittery clients I have (yes, they do exist!) actually like it that it isn't so glittery and sparkly. It's these gals that I had in mind for today.

I picked that stamp design because it's much more subtle without being almost invisible.The nail color is OPI's OPI Ink.

Here's another angle with the light coming from a different direction and you can see how the color goes from a bright blurple to almost black. It's not a duochrome but you definitely get different looks depending on the lighting.  I find it much more suitable for a club than anything else but everyone has their own aesthetic.

I hope you enjoyed today's post and thanks for reading! See you tomorrow! 

Funky Retro NOTD

Good Morning and Happy Hump Day! Today's NOTD is definitely retro and funky. I am in a springtime mood but that seems to be expressing itself in contrasting colors with retro and funky stamping designs!  I've decided to not fight that at all and just go with it and see where it takes me.  Now, onto the pictures!

Sadly, no amount of adjustment using software is ever going to really show that awesome light pink. It's a bubblegum pink with a gold shimmer. It's Milani's "Sunkissed glow". I often call it my "barbie pink" lol

I did a few more of these designs yesterday, so look for them this week. I chose this color combo for my Mani of the week that I'll be walking around with for the next few days and I'll be showing off that design later in the week too!

Enjoy and have a groovy hump day!!

I'm feeling Tigerish..How About You?

Happy Monday everyone!! This morning's nail art manicure is one I'm genuinely excited about!!  I was inspired by an comment on my personal facebook page about yesterday's blog post. I am so happy with how this came out that I got a little more creative with my pictures than I usually do!!

I'm holding a hand carved gazelle Tommy's parents got in Africa. I thought it fitting  for the theme.

There I'm holding a carved Lion. I cropped the head out of the picture since it's not actually a Tiger and to maintain some halfway decent proportions to the photo.

This one was relatively simple to do. I have the perfect golden/orange nail polish by Milani, Metallic Mango. Using a make-up sponge, I sponged on Milani's Golden Goddess  at a diagonal. Finally, using another make-up sponge, added white to the corner of each nail.  Using one of my newly purchased stamping plates I stamped on the stripes in black. A nice top coat of Seche Vite and *POOF* I have Tiger Nails!

I hope you enjoyed and if you gave this a try - post the link to it in the comments!! (Links to anything other than Tiger Nails will be deleted so be good!)

A More Subtle Approach

Good Afternoon! Today's post is a little later than normal because we spent all day yesterday welcoming my mother and father-in-law home after a two month cruise. After a wonderful but exhausting day, I was just too tired last night to remove my Gelish. I have been able to get to it and now I've found the time to post pictures of my efforts.

I decided to keep my gelish simple and just use a simple white. It's great as a background color and also great for putting polishes over. Since St. Patrick's Day is this Saturday, I thought I'd begin showing some St. Patrick's Day themed Nail Art.

Today's Nail Art I thought I would skip the obvious shamrock and go for something more subtle. I happened to have this design on my stamping plate and it always brings to mind "Celtic Knotwork". I thought it would be perfect for this one.

The green and orange are from the Irish Flag and I felt mixed with the knotwork, it would be a more subtle "Ode to Ireland". I'll leave it to you to decide how that worked, I personally like it. 

And one more just because I can and have them today.

Here's a few more in the shade.

So that's about it for today. I'll be doing some more art later today to post during the rest of the week. I wonder if I can find a way to put "Guinness" on my nails? Because what's St. Patrick's Day without Guinness??

Pineapples

Today's Nail Art is relatively simple but I was just inspired by one of my favorite crystal and crochet patterns - the pineapple. One of my recent purchases has been a few new stamping plates and I have really wanted to do the pineapples. I couldn't think of any colors that just "go" with a pineapple - so I decided to just go ahead and put it over my Gelish Sunset Mani. The sunset always reminds people of the beach and I thought a pineapple would give it a tropical flavor.

Taken in full sun

Also taken in full sun

Taken in the shade outdoors

Also taken in the shade outdoors

That's all for today. Starting tomorrow I'll be doing St. Patrick's day themed Nail Art. Putting the luck of the Irish at your  fingertips, literally.

Ocean Sunsets

Thank you for your patience! I am finally back at it and did a few quick ones this morning! I'm still wearing my Gelish Sunset Gradient and I decided to use that at my starting point. I'll be changing that soon to prepare for St. Patrick's Day this week!

I don't really have many pictures of this one to post because I just didn't like how they came out. Lots of shadows! It really has been awhile since I took pictures of my Nail Art in the sunshine!

That's all for today, I'll be back tomorrow with a few more pictures since by that time I'd gotten the hang of direct sunlight pictures!! Enjoy the last bit of the weekend!!

Fairy in the Flowers

Happy Hump Day everyone!  The week is half over. Today's post is going to be really quick because this morning I'm covering for one of the other mom's at my youngest daughter's preschool. Today's mani is not especially difficult or very challenging, however, it's the one I'm currently wearing and loving.

That's my Gelish sunset gradient as a base "color" for some stamping I did. I was looking to do the fairy since I have her on two different plates and it's just cute.The fairy really only fits on my middle finger and I felt that I just needed something else. So I stamped the flowers on the rest of my fingers, deliberately changing the alignment a little bit on each finger just to keep it from being repetitive and give the impression that she's in a field of flowers.

That's going to be it for today! See you all tomorrow!!

Gradients on my mind

A Groovy Good Morning to everyone!! I know I talked about posting my "Hunger Games Mani" today but I did the Mani and after looking at the pictures, I'm just unhappy with how it came out. I'll be taking another shot at it really soon, so don't think I forgot about it. I mean, how can I? I have all those amazing polishes just calling my name.

I do however have a design for you today that includes one of the Hunger Games polishes, Stone Cold. I've been almost obsessed with doing gradients lately and I'm just letting that impulse run rampant since it's something I do well. Now, on to the pictures!

I originally stamped the flower on, but even with such a dark color, it came out very faint looking and the bottom 2/3 of the flower was barely visible. So, I just took a fine tipped brush and the actual polish color and darkened it. It doesn't show well in the photos, but I made a center dot from a gold holo polish by Color Club's Art Club. I really liked this color combo and I thought about this specific gradient when I was in Sally's buying the polish. I realized the silver foil I was looking to get for stamping would look awesome with it - that put it at the top of my "to-do-NOW" list.  It vaguely reminds me of the book cover for Hunger Games, at least as far as the color scheme goes. One more pictures because I really love the colors.

I love that colors are bold but not LOUD. I personally love to wear loud colors on my fingers but not everyone does, so I try to come up with designs that fall into that. What do you think? Is it bold but quietly so?

Palms in the Sunset

I'm very excited to bring you today's nail art - I hope it inspires you to relax and enjoy the weekend - even if you have work through it - hopefully you can catch a few moments to relax!!

One of the things I love about living where I do is we get some amazing sunsets. Even better we have views of the sunset with the shadowed trees in the foreground. It's an amazing sight and I thought I'd do my best to bring that to you today. This is one of my better efforts. I'm so in love with it right now that I'm going to post all four pictures!

I'm holding the bottle of shimmer I used on the gradient to give the sunset a little sparkle.  This particular one by Orly is awesome! It has a variety of shimmer colors and pretty much goes with EVERYTHING. 

Yah, I bought the plate for this solely for the palm tree. It also has a pineapple...now i need to figure out what do I do with a pineapple nail art?? ohhh now i have an idea!! ok back to the pictures.

One last one because I can.

I can see this one being popular. Mom's maid asked me today about me doing her nails...I think her hands would look GREAT in this! I think I even have the colors to do this one in Gelish, gotta make sure her mani lasts!!

Ok folks, I hope you found today's nail art worth the wait. I just needed a night to relax and finally finish reading hunger games. I can see my teenager didn't like it....but I like it. I'm not as embarrassed by the romance as she is. 

A Hint of Monet

Good Morning Everyone! I hope you are all having a wonderful  day.  I've always been a big fan of the Fine Arts, I'm a long time visitor to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and if I were in the right tax bracket, I would be one of their "Patrons". lol

I was inspired for today's Nail Art by Monet and his landscapes. I used one of my stamping plates (I have no idea who puts it out) but it is a little pebble pattern. I used the same design over and over in different shades to try and get same effect. One of the colors didn't transfer so so nice..but I kept it anyway because it fit in the with the theme. You can see it poking out from behind my smile line.

Now for pix!

I hope you enjoyed my interpretation of Monet! 

Button Down Nails

Good Morning! I did these last night, but was up late working on some other nail projects and it was after 3 am until I got in, so this morning's post is going to be more pictures and less writing.

You really can't see the pink of the base color in these pictures. 

I hope you enjoyed that. You'll notice I now have a new base color. That is Gelish's "Taffeta". It's a great neutral color and I know this is going to horrify some of you, but it does have VNL. I actually have a client to prefers to have VNL always on her hands. I'm am hopping to really sell her on the gels since it's weeks in between our visits and I know how she loathes doing her own touch-ups.

I hope you all have a Blessed Day!!