THIS IS SPECTAC - I'VE OUTDONE MA'SELF

Finally heard from the hospital this morning. They did the usual run through with me, "do you have this", "have you ever had that", "what medications do you take", and on and on and on.

Once we finished up with that always boring bit of business, she told me to be at the hospital at 2 p.m. That's right, 2 p.m. At first I was really happy about it because I honestly thought they would make me be there at 6 or 7, which would have suuuccckkkkeeeed.

After thinking about it, now I'm not quite as happy because it means I won't even get home until at least 10 p.m. For some unknown reason that really chaps my ass. Oh, well. I just want it over with.

I considered saving this one for some other time, but I just can't do it. I'm too in love with it to not share. And you even get a half-assed tutorial with it! How lucky are you all feeling right about now?

TA-DA!! Here's what I ended up with!

And here's just a shot of it all by itself in its full-size glory. Hot damn, this is one fantabulous mani!!

The glitter polish base is two coats of Studio M Magic Attraction. It is a really pretty glitter, one of my favorites. I just used Sally Hansen black on top of the striping tape.

I actually copied the design off of a Konad plate that I love and had to have specifically for this pattern. And like everything else on my Konad plates, the design is way too tiny for my nails. So yeah, I'm loving this.

Oh, for cripes sake. I'm in the middle of typing this and just got an email that this is already up on the Nail It magazine webpage. Sheesh. That kind of takes the fun out of putting it here. 

Nail It has told me to submit any tutorials I do from now on. After I finished this one up on Saturday night, I emailed it to my contact person.  She didn't waste any time using it.

Can't say I blame her; it's friggin' gorg. IMHO, of course.

TRIBAL TUTORIAL

Not a perfect weekend, but certainly not terrible.  I at least got a couple hours in the "cool" (as Griffin calls it) on Friday and on Sunday. Other than that I didn't really accomplish a thing. If I was smart, I would have spent the weekend trying to catch up on sleep, but that didn't happen.

I was very excited to find out that my first nail tutorial is in the August issue of Les Nouvelles Esthetiques & Spa magazine. Since that wasn't supposed to happen until September, it was a pretty huge surprise. I haven't received my actual issue yet, but you can see the article here:  Les Nouvelle Esthetiques & Spa Magazine 

They did change a couple of things since I had written it directed toward people wanting to do their nails at home. They hadn't made it clear that I was supposed to be gearing it toward professional nail techs for how they can do things on their clients' nails.

They also added a line about a "smooth brush being impertive", which is not my line.....and it's also not me that incorrectly spelled "imperative" as "impertive".  They're supposed to be fixing that for the online version of the mag, but we'll see.

Now onto the mani. The most time-consuming mani eva! I actually tried doing just my thumb on Saturday night. Decided I could do it so I painted my left hand yellow and went to bed. The next morning I did a couple of more steps on my left hand and painted my right hand yellow.

Always topcoat. Somehow while I was in the pool I managed to screw up all of the nails on my right hand because I hadn't topcoated.  That meant I had to start over completely. Dammit.

It isn't a difficult mani, per se; but it sure took a lot of time. Doing my right hand was terrible! I sure wish I was ambidextrous. Or at least an ambi-turner. (some of you will get that).

So here it is! I don't know if I'll ever do another one, but I like this. And just for the record, I saw this mani somewhere else but don't know who to give credit to because there was no blog link.

 

And here's what I used:  China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, Kleancolor Pastel Teal, American Apparel Hassid, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure White Out, Sinful Colors Island Coral along with striping tape to make that initial "V", a tiny brush for filling in and a dotting tool to make lines.

I'll be wearing this until at least Wednesday. Way too much work to take it off.

Put it this way; this was so much work and took so  long that I don't even want to do my nails.

THAT'S THE WAY, UH-HUH, UH-HUH, I LIKE IT. (uh-huh, uh-huh)

I stayed awake after work! Yay me! Sad that I'm so excited about something so ridic. But it meant I had lots of time to play with my nails and catch up on some tv. I figure in about 2 weeks I'll be caught up on the tv watching. 

So I guess I have no VOTD today because I'm just not in a complaining kinda mood.  That'll change if I don't get to lay in the pool this weekend, just so you know.

I forgot how much I hate taking off textured polish. It's not as bad as glitter, but it's still kind of a pain in the ass. I had it on my damn toes, too. For the record, the whole pedicure thing was a complete waste of time and effort since I haven't worn sandals all week. 

Anywhosers, once I got that all off, I was ready to actual do what I tried last night. 

I am liking this a lot, although I will say it looks much better in person.  Something about the way the light hits this when I take pictures makes it look different than in does in real life.

My white base coat for this is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure White Out. After I put a coat of Seche Vite and let it dry, I taped off my  nails using striping tape.  Then I took a small sponge-type eye shadow applicator and dabbed on the lighter peach, which is Barielle Peach Popsicle. I used the opposite side of my sponge applicator and put China Glaze Life Preserver on the tips. I played with them a little bit to make the colors blend a bit, and when they were dry I threw on 2 more coats of Seche Vite. 

I think it's purdy.  Since I have no plans for the weekend I will probs leave it on for a couple of days. 

For the record, "I have no plans" actually means, "My ass better be laying in that pool or there will be hell to pay".

NOT A DAMN CLUE WHAT THIS IS

Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday. My internet wouldn't stay connected for more than 10 minutes at a time all last evening until really late when it just finally quit working altogether. I was pleasantly surprised to find it working when I got up, although it still isn't being very trustworthy.

Charter's latest "idea" for fixing it was having us get a new modem which they "claimed" should fix the problem. Epic fail. Assholes. If they were as good at service as they were at bothering me to get their tv and landline things would be great. And it's shocking how many different numbers they call me from. I have Mr. Number on my phone and laugh when I see that they've gotten blocked, sometimes 7 or 8 times a day. But then they'll manage to sneak in a new number like they did on Thursday night. I will give the woman credit, though....she wasn't pushy at all and once I told her we had DirecTv, she wrapped up the call. And then I went to Mr. Number and blocked this latest number they called from.

I don't want to talk to Charter. Ever. 

Now here's a mani I did back in April for Custom Nail Solutions. I haven't a clue what I used to do it. In fact, I somehow managed to delete it from my computer. The PR person asked for it yesterday minus my blog name watermark, and that's when I realized it was "poof"....gone.

I found it by going back through my sent emails and snagged it from when I emailed it to them the first time. So at least I have it, even if I don't know exactly what it is. It has glitter. And it's blue. 

I do remember they had asked for something kind of ocean/glitter inspired.  The only other thing I know is I obvi used striping tape to do this.

*EDITED* Martha from my nail fun group did her usual detective work and found where I had actually posted this mani. She's the absolute BEST at doing that! The colors are Sinful Colors Gorgeous and China Glaze Prismatic Optical Illusion.

Got some local nail addicts coming over for a fix this evening. My daughter was supposed to come from Marinette with her friend to join us, but she's sick and isn't coming. I'm pretty saddy pants about this because I was really looking forward to having "girl time" with her. I never get to see just her, and sometimes it's nice to be able to do that.  Maybe next time, I guess. :(

If things go well tonight, perhaps I'll be posting pics of mani's other than mine!  I figure it'll be fun trying to get them to do my hand pose.

TROPICAL COLORBLOCK

Oooo, my bathroom is coming along nicely. My new light fixture came today. A new sink is ordered along with a new scale and toilet paper holder. Tomorrow night I'll probs start refinishing the top of the counter. That'll be a few days kind of job. 

I think I almost have Kev convinced that we should buy a kit to refinish the tub and shower. That sounds like a nightmare to do, but it will really make me happy to not have the disgustingly well-water stained crap we have now. Even when it's clean, it looks dirty, which makes me feel like a slobster. I'm not the neatest person on earth, but I am no slobster.

Anywhosers, I did this mani last night and would have posted earlier, but we decided to go out for dinner tonight and then stopped at what we jokingly call our mall so I could get an upholstery needle for fixing that rip in my recliner. My ex offered to fix it for us, so I'm hoping it will at least look good enough to not annoy me every time I look at it.

I got striping tape happy last night. I'm loving the Square Hue polishes this month so I just had to use two of the immediately.

I started off with a base of American Apparel Cotton. I love this polish; it's white without being too white.....know what I mean?  Then I grabbed my striping tape and taped off my sections before filling them in with Square Hue Collins Avenue, Ocean Drive and Sinful Colors Savage and Sweet Nothing.  I wasn't thrilled with it shiny so I used my Butter London Matte Topcoat. Done deal.

It really didn't take me as long as I thought it would to do this. I like it so much I'm keeping it another day.

Truth be told, I'm only keeping it because it's too late tonight to take it off and do something else. But at least I'm wearing something I don't hate for two days. 

 

QUILTED - FOR EXTRA SOFTNESS

Another weekend come and gone way too fast. Heavy sigh....

I did get a whole lotta' tv watched. Sadly, that's about the only thing I accomplished. I sat outside or in my beloved recliner, playing on the internet, watching tv and taking pics of my hummingbirds. It appears I have two males hanging out in the front window, and so far I've only managed to catch one female. I swear I smile every single time I see one feeding. Love 'em. 

I've been meaning to do this "quilted" mani for the longest time and finally got around to doing it today. I'm pretty perturbed the quilting doesn't show up in the pictures very well, but in person it does.

When I bought my glequins on eBay, I also got 5400 rhinestones for $7. I'm not sure why but I'm in a sparkly mood. You should see me do my jazz hands!! I am fabulousity personified! Truly!

For this one I did a basecoat of Nfu Oh 355, which is the lighter of my two pinks. Then I took striping tape and taped off the quilting. After I had them all taped off, I did a coat of Nfu Oh 354 and while still wet, slowly pulled off the tape.  

I buy my Nfu Oh's from Fabulous Street, and their creme polishes like these are on sale for $10.63 right now; I paid $12.50 full price which I didn't think was too bad considering how much I saw Nfu Oh going for on eBay.

Originally I was figuring I would use clear rhinestones but once I saw the pink ones in my rhinestone wheel, I went with the light pink. They are much more obviously pink in person.

Overall I like how this turned out; I wish you could see it in person because it's much more striking than my pictures show.

Hubster just got home, so I'm outtie! See ya' tomorrow!

PURPLE? BLUE? BLURPLE? WTF IS IT??

ARGH!!!!!

No, I'm not in pirate mode. I'm just frickin pissed! Why can I not for the life of me get purple to photograph correctly? I can't stress enough how frustrated I am. Horse hockey...not frustrated; Pissed with a capital P.  Once again, ran around the house for different lighting, outside, in the lightbox even though I only have one good light....I even tried doing it at the office!! It just figures, though, simply because purples are my fave. How many times do I have to call bullshit on this?

So there's my vent of the day, hereinafter referred to as "VOTD". That'll save me at least 2.5 seconds of typing since I'm sure you have noticed by now that I almost always have a VOTD. I'm really not quite as cranky as I read. People that know me may disagree with that last statement, but they can suck it. ;)

See how pleasant I am? Who wouldn't give just about anything just to be around me and able to bask in the pleasure of my ever-so-sparkling personality?? 

On to the purple mani! Or whatever it is now; blurple, I guess.

I had seen a similar mani on Pinterest and thought it looked pretty cool. I actually considered doing it in either green or blue, but I have SO many purdy purples I just had to do it this way. Once I finished and saw it in the daylight, holy yikers, this biotch is bright!! I don't know if I like it or hate it. By the time I decide, I'll be taking it off. 

I went with Color Club Express Yourself. I was not impressed with application. It's not glossy but not fully matte, either. It took three coats to get it to cover evenly.  I then did a coat of Seche Vite to make sure it stayed smooth. 

Since I wanted a "true" matte finish, I grabbed my Butter London matte topcoat, and I needed two coats of that for even coverage, too. I detect a pattern here. 

The next issue I was worried about was how well my striping tape was going to work over the matte topcoat and whether it would pull off without damaging my finish. Most of the time I'll just freehand a french tip, but I was going a little wider this time and wanted to make sure they were perfectly straight.  I taped off all the fingers of my left hand and then did the tips with a coat of the SV. Once I finished the last finger, I went back and started pulling my tape. Success on all but my thumb. Dammit.

I finished off all nine fingers and then went back to try again on my left thumb.  It took me four re-do's to get that sucker to work. WTF? I did finally get it to stop ruining my night. 

Good thing or you'd be reading a second VOTD in the same post.  

BLECH - NEON AGAIN

On Friday I finished the polish reorganization which was supposed to mean that yesterday I'd clean out my closet. Guess who was too damn lazy to do it? I spent part of the day uploading photos into the Polish Sickness Facebook page....am done all the way back through October and part of September. I'm not sure how far back I'm willing to go with that project because when I look back at stuff I did last year, some of those that I thought were decent now I think are SOOOO bad!! 

Another part of my day was spent posting pics on Instagram and wandering all of the FB nail groups I'm now in. It feels like my brain is only ever thinking of polish and polish-related stuff. There aren't enough hours in the day for this "hobby". Hopefully once I load up everything I already have on my computer into the Facebook page and onto Instagram, it'll be a lot quicker and easier to just load up one at a time as I do them. Maybe then I'll take the time to do other things, like lay in the pool if it ever gets warm enough to even put it up.

Okay. That's enough bitching! You didn't come here to read a whining post, correct? If you're here, you're expecting to see nails!

 

If someone had told me I'd be doing neon again, I wouldn't have believed them. Neons are just not my thang. I've accumulated several and considered not even keeping them, but I figured at some point maybe I'd use them in a marble or something. I've actually seen this particular mani on Pinterest and didn't care for it; now I ended up doing it. And I still don't care for it! lol

For what this is, it turned out. How's that for a glowing review! I wonder how anybody can live without striping tape. I seem to be grabbing it all the time; good thing I have a lot of it. I've only used it a couple of times for actually wearing on my nails, which is what I bought it for, but I'll probs use it all up just for making straight lines. I'm estimating I'll be around 60 years old when I use it all up; I have a lot of it.

All I did on this one was sponge on different color neons on each nail. After my topcoat dried, I randomly laid down some striping tape and painted over it with black. This time I actually let that coat of black dry almost all the way and then had to add a second coat before I could peel the tape off. Since it was almost dry, the black did dry with little ridges on their edges, but a coat of topcoat took care of that. 

Since my neons from the tip mani were still sitting next to me on the table, I just used those same ones; China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, QRS Belmont Garden and Sinfuls Dream On and 24/7.  The black is Orly Liquid Vinyl, which is now my new fave black.

Has anyone ever seen the QRS polishes for sale anywhere? I bought ten of them in a lot on eBay really cheap, and I really like them and wouldn't mind getting some more.

Lordie, I wish it wasn't Sunday already. Weak sauce. I really need my ship to come in so I can retire and become a lady of leisure; I would be SO good at that! Much better than I am at nails.

I DID IT!!

Crap instructions aside, I did it! I put my Helmer together all by my lonesome. It was a pain in the ass, but I'm glad I got it done. I did not want to wait until Kev gets home on Tuesday. That jumble of random polishes laying around homeless was driving me. I would like to know how my fourth white Helmer is not the same color as my other three white Helmers. Um...isn't "white" white when it comes to metal? Weirdness.

Even my bins got a clean-up. I did discover I don't dare give my whites and blacks their own drawer.  It wouldn't be long until I'd just have to take them back out to make room for more colors. For the time being, I did give the sheer almost-whites a drawer even though I doubt they'll be there for very long. It might be time to steal a couple more bins out of the garage. I think I had eight bins that I bought when I first started this craziness. Once I bought my first Helmer they were banished to the garage, but it wasn't long before six of them were needed again. Am I going to have to eventually buy more of them?? Damn my addictive personality.

Next up on media mani's is a not too shabby stamped dealio. It makes my life easier and takes less time when they need mani's that I can accomplish by stamping. That freehand nonsense sometimes is a challenge for me. Luckily I only end up having to do my left hand for the photos. Left hand coordinated I am not.

Purdy dark green and gold - if you're a Green Bay Packers fan, shut it....I don't wanna' hear it. At least one of you knows who I'm talking about. KIK (and a bunch of you know what that means) 

I've used another Studio M for this, Happy Hunter. I wasn't sure what to use for the gold because I needed something a little more metallic, and some of mine don't work very well. I was pleasantly surprised that the first one I tried, Orly Glitz, stamped perfectly. I've tried using some of the others from that collection for stamping without luck so I'm not sure why it worked this time. Whatevs. I'm glad it worked!  This was another DRK-A image. Honestly, I need to find some new plates that are big enough to cover my nails; I'm getting bored.

I spent a bunch of time last night watermarking photos and adding them to the Polish Sickness Facebook page. I still have tons more to do!! Why I thought that would be a fast process, I have no idea, because it is time consuming. Have YOU gone and liked the page? I'm at 51, so please come like it and share it. I'll beg if I have to. ;)

I see a nap in my future; I stayed up until 4:30, and a good sleep it was not. I had to get up twice to shake myself out of some weird-ass nightmares. I hate when that happens. And those damn dogs do not seem to care that we went to bed late. Baylee still was bugging me at 8:15 a.m. I tried to ignore her, but she climbs on my head and talks to me. My brains are not cut out for 75 pounds of Lab on top of them. Turd.

Enjoy the weekend! 

NEVER SAW THIS BEFORE

TGIF....for realz. It's been a tiring week which is what happens whenever I take a day off. Bossman must get his motivation on when I'm not here. All I know is playing catch-up blows. The end.

Finally finished up doing the CNS requested mani's last night. I decided that since the hubster didn't remember to put my Helmer together, I would attempt that starting at about midnight last night. I figured, "hey, can't be too hard or take too long, right?" Wrong. Talk about piss-poor instructions, or mabes I was just over tired. I just know that it did certainly not go as planned. I'll be finishing that little project this afternoon. 

Part of my plan for the weekend is to get that thing set up so I can rearrange my polishes and have a spot to put the bunch of new ones that I had no room for. I'm really hoping that I'll have a spare drawer for my blacks, whites and topcoats because those poor things are stuck in a bin on top of a Helmer at the moment along with the bins that hold all of my other art supplies. For some crazy reason, I thought having Helmers would mean I wouldn't need those bins. Sha', right.  Guess again, elk breath. I wish I could say I won't buy more, but we all know that is simply an unrealistic goal. I do not, however, have room for more than the four Helmers. God help me once that fourth one is filled.

On to the mani! I had never seen this one before. I actually had to ask for clarification after reading the description of it.

The more I look at it, the more I kind of like it. It's sort of cool, and it certainly is different. Once again, I don't know if I'd do it again, but you never know. It might be fun in some other colors.

My periwinkle for this one is Studio M Hydrangea. I love a good periwinkle, and I'm a fan of the Meijer Studio M polishes. Decent price, and I find the quality and application to be really nice.  

Pull out the trusty striping tape!!  Add those little segments of Orly Liquid Vinyl, topcoat, and then go take it off because there's one more mani to do! Perhaps you'll see that one next; perhaps not. ;)

Honestly, I love reading the comments you guys leave for me. You've all been really great, complimentary and supportive. I hope that means this little project is worth the look and the read.

Enjoy your weekend, peeps!! Rumor has it we should get into the 50's, maybe even 60 this weekend!! I'll believe it when I see it, but hope springs eternal, right? 

NEON NIGHT (kinda)

Sunshine!! What a nice change! It's still way too cold here for almost May, but it looks like we're supposed to have a balmy 50 degree week coming up. Wowsers....I hope the heat doesn't get to me. This weather has really diminished my mood and my motivation, even for nails. 
 

Is this seriously a new trend for summer 2013? If so, I don't like it much. At least it was easy. This is one that was requested for use in some media stuff. I try to do whatever is asked of me.  Whether or not I personally would wear it in public is irrelevant. So I did this one and then removed it right away to move on to another.

I did get very lucky because I was able to give them some of my older mani's which will save me a lot of time. Normally I only have a couple of days to get them all submitted, so I have done 3 or 4 now and will do a couple more tonight.

I wanted to do a basecoat of something sheer enough to cover my light pink Custom nails but didn't want it too opaque. For that I dug out my China Glaze Linger, which I've probably had for 10 months but never used. I seldom use sheer colors, but this was perfect for what I needed.  Neons!! Something else I rarely use, but I have somehow managed to accumulate them just the same.  I just dug through my Helmer drawers and pulled out the brightest things I could find.  For my yellow, I used China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, the pink is Sinful Colors 24/7, my green is QRS Belmont Garden, purple is Sinful Dream On and the orange is LA Colors Shock.  Holy brightness!!  And of course there's nothing like striping tape to make some nice straight lines; super helpful! Scotch tape works well for a lot of people, but I've gotten pretty attached to the striping tape method.

Overall, this is probably not something I would do again, but I still think it turned out okay. 

Now, here's a question for you who are taking the time to actually read the blog posts:  Should I continue writing the type of things I write in here? Or do you all prefer just a straightforward, "here is my mani and this is what I used" kind of blog? This enquiring mind wants to know! Since this is new to me, I don't want to waste anybody's time with a bunch of garbage nobody is interested in.

Until next time! :)   

Hi!! For those of you that have been stopping in and are now following, THANK YOU!! I'm amazed and humbled at the number of hits on here already. 48 followers is nothing compared to the blogs I normally frequent, but I think it's a HUGE number for a nobody in the nail community, and I am thrilled! Some of you I already know, but for those of you that I don't, I would love for you to leave a comment and tell me how you found me and a bit about you. Turnabout is fair play, right? ;)

As I was saying last night before I was so rudely interrupted by trying to not write a 500 page novel, my ever faithful fiberglass nails were shot. I was spending more time redoing them than I was playing on the internet. Unacceptable!! I decided it was time to try to find something more practical that could hold up to the constant doses of acetone and non-acetone polish removers.  By some strange stroke of luck, I ran across an article talking about Custom Nail Solutions. Hmmm, what could these be? I'd never heard of them. My fingers did the walking right over to their webpage. No way!! This can't be possible!! Why on earth has no one ever come up with this idea before?? 

Custom Nail Solutions nails are absolutely the single, most life-changing, impressive, gorgeous things I have ever spent money on for myself.  The process was developed by a dentist. That's right; a dentist. It's a system where you do impressions of your nails, just like a dentist would do for teeth.  From those impressions, full reusable nails are made to fit perfectly on you. Your nail beds are as individual as your fingerprints; there is no one else that has the same as you. I was finding this whole thing intriguing.  I kept reading and learned that they are guaranteed for life to not break, crack, chip, stain and can be decorated with anything you like. Polish, wraps, gels...anything. Amazing idea, right?

So off I went to wander the interwebs, trying to find and absorb every little bit of knowledge I could find on this miracle product I had just found. The more I read, the more I knew it was something I had to do. They have different packages available, and I went with the basic set. That kit was $139.95 plus shipping, which was around $35 (if memory serves). The shipping covered all of the UPS shipping; them shipping the impression kit to me, me sending it back and them sending me my finished nails. Sound pricey? I guess that depends; if you're getting fiberglass or gels done at a salon, how long would it take you to spend $170? Doesn't seem so expensive now, does it. More about these tomorrow! In the meantime,

this is tonight's mani. I'm not super excited about it, but I guess I can't be completely in love with everything I do, right?  I did a basecoat of Color Club Fashion Addict. Once that dried I grabbed a pair of craft scissors and scotch tape, taped off near the cuticle and used Zoya Monica on the rest of the nail. Topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite.  I found the craft scissors to be a pain in the ass because they aren't very sharp and didn't cut through the tape very well. In other words, I wasted a lot of tape.  Eh...it'll do until tomorrow.

And that's when I'll be back to let you all know more about my Custom nails. :)