Day 23-JAWS!!!!!

I am going to be honest up front. I have never seen Jaws all the way through. Crazy, I know.  I have seen parts here and there, but to be quite frank....I'm scared.  Giant man eating shark. Enough said.  But I wanted to so something fun and a little bit dark so I chose to be inspired by this movie anyway.  I also have fallen waaaay behind on my 52 week challenge (I figure I have done a manicure every single day, the nail gods will forgive me) and yesterdays theme for that was Under the Sea.  Voila, I combined the two and you get Jaws nails.  I really am loving these 'inspired by' themes as I get to do fun free hand nail art.  It is really helping me get better and learn techniques to a steady hand.  I still suck at free hand on my right hand, but I'll get there.

For these nails, I used NYC Cashmere Creme for my ocean/sky base.  I then used Orly Grave Mistake to draw in the letters and the dripping blood. This is a PERFECT color for blood.  I can't wait to use it for all of my halloween manis in October!  The thumb is Wet n Wild Caribbean Frost.  Jaws himself is NYC Sidewalk and I used It's So Easy black and white stripers to do the details.  For my swimmer, I first used the white striper and then went over it in Sally Hansen Sorbet to give them a more natural skin color. On my right hand I got lazy and decided to stamp a shark on my thumb.  I used Sally Hansen Silver Sweep with plate m27.  

My thumb was giving me trouble....the polish shifted :-(

Do you have a favorite ocean themed movie? Since Jaws is not my favorite I would have to say that U-571 is the best ocean movie....plus it's a WWII movie. Double score.

Come back tomorrow for a book themed mani that I haven't decided on yet. :-P It will probably have trees though!

Thanks for stopping by, and go check out the other lovely ladies who are participating

Day 10-Aloha Means Hello and Goodbye

Did you know that Hawaii became a U.S State in 1950 in the month of August? Me neither! So, I chose to do Hawaiian nails for my 52 week challenge for today.  Plus, today is gradient day in the 31 day challenge, so I combined the two. Gradient Hawaiian nails! I have seen numerous GORGEOUS Hawaiian gradient nails that depict the Hawaiian sunset and the shadow of the trees.  I just love these nails, but I wanted to do something different since I'm a bit of a non-conformist :-P  So, I chose a pink and purple gradient and used yellow and black to stamp Hawaiian symbols, there is a konad stamp that is all Hawaiian symbols! YEAH!

I tell ya, I have come a long way in the gradient department. You should see my first attempt :-P BAAAAAD!! I have a love hate relationship with it because it is so pretty but I can never do it quite right.  Today's is not too bad, plus I covered it up with some stamping.  I still need to learn how to do it better! Tell me what you think.

Base-Sinful Colors Purple Diamonds
Gradient-Sally Hansen Love Rocks
Stamp-m29 using SH Lightening & Kleancolor Black

Left Hand.....I couldn't get my watermark to stay on this. weird :-P

Well, I was bummed to take off my puzzle pieces from yesterday, but I am quite pleased with these.  Now who wants to take me to Hawaii?? Anyone? Anyone?

Thanks for stopping by.  I appreciate all your comments. 

Now go check out the other ladies participating!

Day 2-Orange You Glad you joined the Coast Guard?

Happy day! I was able once again to fit two challenges into one mani! Day 2 of the 31 day challenge is Orange.  And today is the Coast Guard Challenge for my 52 week challenge.  How convenient she says.  The Coast Guard colors are orange and white.  Some might argue that it is more of a red but I know the truth since my husband was in the Coast Guard (keep reading and you get to see pictures of him in uniform!) I had put the Coast Guard on my schedule since the 4th is their birthday! Take a moment to sing Happy birthday to the Coast Guard.  I'll wait.  This year, they celebrate their 222nd birthday.  If you want to know a little more about the history you can check it out at the official U.S Coast Guard website. Just so you know, the Coasties are a crazy bunch of people.  My husband and his Coast Guard friends always have stories to tell that would make a sailor blush.  A Navy sailor, not a coastie.  Did you know that the Navy calls them the Hooligan Navy? Not very flattering, but true.  A fun bunch of folks!

Orange Base & Stripe-Spoiled Orange you Glad
White Base-Sally Hansen Hard to Get
Blue Stripe-Sally Hansen Co-Bolt Blue
Stamp-QA5 with Maybeline Bold Gold

Why, so serious Stuart?  I mean Sir Cooke.

This was all before I knew him! 

HeHe. Look how cute he is....and how young!!

Well, thanks again for stopping by! I appreciate all your comments.  Come back tomorrow to see yellow nails! I have no idea what I am going to do yet, so I will be surprised too :-P

Before you leave check out the other lovely ladies participating.  Have a wonderful day!

Go for the Gold

I have Olympic medals planned for next week on my 52 week challenge, but the Summer Challenge was having the same challenge today so I decided to do it early.  Or, I may do it again next week. Who knows.  Anyway, I recently bought this gorgeous Ultra Pro called Gladiator and just had to use it for today's challenge. Yes, I know Gladiators are from Rome and the Olympics originated in Greece.  Still, they both competed in an arena.  Potato, Potato. :-P
Once again, I went into this with one plan and ended with something completely different.  I actually wanted to show silver, gold, and bronze but just couldn't make it work.  So instead I chose to go with the design of this years medal, which looks like this....

I love the off patterned lines and thought this was a great idea to put on my nails.  How do I put gold on gold was the tricky part.  Thankfully I have an It's So Easy Gold striper that is only a few shades off of my base color and it worked great!  Just different enough to stand out but not so different that you can't tell it is gold! 

I feel a bit guilty as I have not watched any of the Olympics this year.  I love the Olympics, I just haven't had time.  I am more of a fan of the Winter Olympics but still I love watching them...especially the swimming.  I did watch a snippet on the Today show about Race Walking.  Who knew this was a sport?  It looks a lot like a deranged form of mall walking.  I am sure it is exhilirating and hard. But it looks weird.  

Well, thanks for stopping by and checking me out.  I appreciate all of your comments!  

An Apple a Day

First of all, I had to switch up my 52 week calendar.  Today's post is supposed to be Coast Guard and Thursday's is supposed to be fruit. I switched them because the Coast Guard's birthday is next Saturday and that just made more sense. So, today you will get fruit and like it! :-P

Secondly, I now love Kleancolor! More importantly I love Kleancolor Black for stamping.  It is so nice and thick and stamps so dark! YEAH! 

Thirdly, Seche Vite top coat is my new best friend.  OMGEEEE are my nails shiny and thick.  Who knew? I mean, I guess a lot of people knew.  But I didn't know.  Now I know. Double YEAH!

Fourthly, I did some serious nail care today.  After looking at my last post, my cuticles were in complete disarray.  

And lastly, these nails turned out way better than I had planned.  It was a simple idea based around the new China Glaze Jamaican Out that just came yesterday in the mail and it just went from there.  I love it when that happens.  I also love when I am able to match my 52 week challenge schedule up with the Sunday Stamping for Adventures in Stamping.  So, what do you get when you take fruit from my challenge and  red and black from the Sunday Challenge? Strawberries you say? Watermelon?  No, apples of course!  And here they are....

Glitter Base-Spoiled Pirates Booty
Red Base-China Glaze Jamaican Out
Black-Kleancolor Black
Stripe-It's So Easy Gold
Stamps-QA18 using Kleancolor Black & SE18 using Wet N Wild Red Red

Thanks for looking! Hope you had a great weekend and I appreciate all comments!

Olympics

I am bummed.  My Olympics nails were really a complete failure.  I had such a great idea and it just wouldn't come to fruition.  I tried three times and finally ended with this.  (I ended up taking them off to put on my new indie color anyway)  I may attempt to do some more later this week.  I also have another Olympic themed nails set for next week, so maybe I will be able to redeem myself.

The idea behind these nails was to use the colors of the Olympic rings and the style of the 2012 Olympic torch which is a really cool gold with cut out dots.  I also used a home made water decal which I was in love with but just wouldn't lay on my nail right.  So, here are the pictures.  Blah.

Also, here is a picture of the 2012 Olympic torch to give you a reference and to understand why I used the circle stamp.  

As I mentioned in a recent post, Courtney at The Cute-icle Chronicles will be joining me starting today on the 52 week nail challenge! She is super talented and I can't wait to see what she has done! So go check her out. 

Thanks for looking! All comments are appreciated :-)

Fairy Princess

Sometimes you have an idea and it doesn't quite come out right.  This was one of those :-P  Day 6 of my 52 week challenge was faries and I was so excited about it.  I even bought a nail polish from Target by Sonia Kashuk called Fairy Princess.  It was just gorgeous in the bottle and even is a pretty color on, but it doesnt cover well and leaves lots of blank spots.  But I covered it in the new Wet N Wild Prismatics so it was all good.  I love those btw.  They are so much like the China Glaze ones but cheaper! YEAH for spending less!! So, the color turned out just fine and I do like my little fairy....I even did some coloring in and some dotting.  But the stamping on the other fingers just wouldn't turn out right.  I stamped and removed, stamped and removed, and stamped again.  I think maybe one finger on each hand turned out ok. Oh well, you can't get it right every time.  So here it is.  What do you think?

I like this picture....it looks so pretty in the sunlight and the flowers behind

Thanks for looking! Have a wonderful week!!

A Girl Can Never Have Too Many Shoes or Purses

Just a warning, this post is a bit picture heavy! I love the color of these nails and couldn't stop taking pictures.  This is Day 5 of the 52 week nail challenge.  If  you haven't seen my schedule check out the post in my blog roll.  Today's challenge was shoes and fashion. I like these stamps, especially the shoes, but really my favorite thing is the color! I found a new brand called Chameleon at Rite Aid in Michigan.  It really is like a chameleon...changing colors.  I plan on going back and getting some different colors! I took pictures of my nails at the three different stages of this manicure.  One with the base coat, one with the gradient, and then with the stamping.  What do you think of this color?

Chameleon-Nucleus

Just the base coat. What pretty shine!

Base coat from a different angle

I then added this Pettites Color Fever called Banish

I thought it gave another extra sparkle :)



Outside in the sun after stamping plates BM-307 & BM-213 using Spoiled Correction Tape

In the Shade....you can see the gradient better here

Thanks again for looking! Let me know what you think, I love to hear all of your comments!

Pretty in Plaid

I am loving this 52 week challenge because it is pushing me to do things I wouldn't normally do.  I don't love plaid and probably wouldn't have done this had I not scheduled it.   I am a shcedule whore.  I had a hard time deciding if I wanted to do free hand plaid or stamp.  I was tired last night (as I had just driven from Pittsburgh to Michigan)  so I decided to do the stamping.  I am pleased with how it turned out.  They feel Scottish and I want to come up with a clever name but I can't think of one.  What would you name these? 

Base coat is Milani Black Swift with two coats of Orly Androgenye
Stamped with Spoiled Correction Tape using m60
Striped using Wet N Wild Red REd



You can sort of see the sparkles from the Orly coat in this picture

Have you looked at my schedule for the 52 week challenge?  Check it out on my blog roll.  Maybe you want to do it with me! Thanks for looking

Wedding Date

So very true :-P

Today, is day two of the 52 week challenge and the challenge was Argyle.  I think we all picture old men in golf socks or old socks when we hear Argyle.  But not me.  I think of the Wedding Date with Debra Messing and the ever so lovely Dermot Mulroney.  Everybody say yummmmmyyyy!  If you love a good and stupid romantic comedy check it out.  Anyway, there is a scene where Debra's character Kat is going to her sisters bachelorette shower and it is a golf themed shower at a local London Pub. So the girls dress in short skirts and Argyle socks.  I just happened to love her outfit and her socks!  Now for the life of me I can't find a good picture of those darn socks, but I found a much more enjoyable picture where you can see the tops of her socks :-)

As you can see the socks are a lovely pink and brown (if you can tear your eyes away from the boy)  I designed my Argyle nails in honor of those socks since they got to touch Dermot.  These are my favorite nails thus far.  I hope you like them.  BTW, no stamping 

Base is Sally Hansen Diamond Brillant Blush
Pink is Wet N Wild Tickled Pink
Brown is Spoiled Nirvana
Shiny Brown is Spoiled I'm Ba'Roque
and the White is Spoiled Correction Tape

I am proud that this is all free hand :)

On, one last note I discovered this Sally Hansen Diamond Brillant Blush which is the base for all my fingers but the ring finger.  I love it because it allows me to do french manicures where my nail bed looks almost nude.  It covers the yellow that has become my real nails.  Thank you Sally Hansen!