Day 8-Metallic

Tiger Tiger Woods Y'all.  These were the words that my husband said when I showed him my nails for today.  Funny thing is....they are not tiger nor golf nails.  I guess the metallic orange and the black stamping threw him.  Alas, all I can see when I look at them now are a tigers strips. Totally not what I had intended.  I used a barbed wire stamp for goodness sake.  I tried to stay away from the accent nail, but I just couldn't help myself.  I added a little glitter to it, nothing too flashy or stand-outy (yes, that is a word) Just enough to say, 'hey look at me, I'm super more awesome than the other nails'.  Because your nails talk to you too right:? :-P

I used two Kleancolor polishes for this manicure and I gotta tell ya, I just love the Kleancolor polishes.  They go on so nicely, and the glitters are ever so cool.  My only thing is that I notice a weird smell with each of them.  It's not a very pleasant or unpleasant smell, just weird.  Does anyone else notice this?

My whole idea behind the Metallic nails and the barbed wire was to make it all edgy and a little dark like Heavy Metal music....then I added the glitter and I think all my badassness went away.

Base-Kleancolor Metallic Mango
Accent Nail-Kleancolor Fireworks
Stamping-BM323 using Milani Black Swift

Hope you liked these 'metal' nails.  Please feel free to leave any comments....I love them all!  

And don't forget to check out all the other lovely ladies participating in the 31 day challenge. 

Day 7-Ebony and Ivory (aka Black and White)

This manicure was really a no brainer for me as far as coming up with an idea.  I play the piano, and a piano is black and white.  So there you have it. I play classical music and have two tattoos that are music inspired.  My favorite composer is Frederick Chopin....the Fantaisie Impromptu is my arch nemesis. It is such a beautiful song but sooo hard. Some day I will get it right :-P
So, the question was which stamps to use since I have a bunch of music inspired stamps.  In the end I chose to go with my newest ones.  Not much more to say...it actually went pretty smoothly and quick.  I just need to get better at putting the stamp on straight.  I think I may have figured out the trick by the end of this manicure.  I will have to do some more testing and then I will let you know the technique (if I can explain it)

Black Base-Milani Black Swift with Orly Androgynie on top
White Base-Sally Hansen Hard to Get
Stamps- sheet music is m73 using Black Swift & the piano is m58 using Spoiled Correction Tape

My lovely piano 

I have included the Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu played by the uncomparable Rubenstein if you want to listen to a beautiful piece of music.  I just listened to it for the umpteenth time and it still brings me to tears. I'm a dork, I know. 

Thanks for stopping by.  I appreciate all comments you leave!

Don't forget to check out the other ladies that are participating too

Day 6-Candied Violets

Two things I am in love with today:

1.  The new shape and equal length of my nails
2.  Another D & R Apothecary polish

It only took me 8 months :-P but i finally was able to get my nails to be pretty much the same length and figured out how to shape them correctly.  It sounds like it would be a simple thing, but it wasn't.  I don't know why, it just wasn't.  I love the rounded square nails, but was never able to get it right.  I finally figured it out.  I may be an idiot for it taking this long, but that's alright.  I think I was afraid to cut my longer nails even though they weren't the shape I wanted them to be.

So, today was day 6-violet.  I love purple.  (Because yes, purple is violet.  Potato, potatoe). It's almost up there with green.  I especially love purple and green together! But today, I stuck with just purple. It's so pretty that I almost want to eat my nails.  I used another D & R Apothecary polish called Candied Violets for my base.  I tried to go with the name of this polish for my inspiration....candy! yum.  I even used a candy stamp on my accent nail, although it is really hard to see. I really love this manicure....almost enough to not want to take it off tomorrow! Naaah

Such a pretty glitter with purples and whites....even some color changing glitters

Base-Sally Hansen Brilliant Blush then D & R Apothecary Candied Violets
Tips- It's So Easy Striper purple
Accent Nail Base-Milani Hi Res
Stamp-BM 306 using Maybeline Color Show Amethyst Ablaze

Here you can actually see the detail of the candy stamp :-)

Thanks again for stopping by! Hope you enjoyed today's mani :-)

As always, check out the other ladies who are participating in the 31 day challenge!

MSMD-Pink Gradient

I always want to do a MSMD but something always happens on Mondays and never get to.  There is so much great art out there I want to try it all!!!  I do find that when I try to replicate someone else's nails it often ends in a fail.  Today that was not the case.  I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do today but I knew I wanted pink.  Some days I just feel pink.  I even put on a pink dress this morning.  If you knew me in the past this is pretty funny.  When I was in high school I was anti-pink, pretty much anti-girly things. I was a bit of a feminist and believed that people (boys) should like me for who I was on the inside and that being a girly would take away from my personality.  I also thought that I didn't need to learn how to cook, sew, be a domestic diva.  These things were what girls were stereotyped to do and this was not going to be me.  I look back at this and laugh at my idealistic and naive beliefs.  Plus, look at me now.  I'm a stay at home mom who loves to cook, do my nails, and dress is pink.  Who knew?  Anyways, onto the nails.  I got my inspiration from Colores de Carol who I happened across on pinterest today.  I do not have the same stamp, which I am totally bummed about cause it's gorgeous.  And the one that I had originally picked out, which was similar, just would not stamp. booo.  So I chose one with flowers.  I think it turned out pretty good.  I still am not very good at gradient.  But when you stamp over it it doesn't look too bad. So, what do you think?

Thanks for looking! Have a great week

P.S.  I am very excited to have a fellow awesome nail blogger join me in my 52 week challenge starting this week.  Her name is Courtney and her blog is The Cute-icle Chronicles so go check her out! She is very talented. Plus, we used the same freakin stamp today.  How funny is that :-P

Glittery Girl Skulls

Today's Sunday Challenge was new favorite stamp.  Ummmmm, this is like asking me what my favorite book or song is.  They are all impossibilities.  I simply can't answer that question.  So instead I chose my newest stamp.  I was on vacation when they came, so coming home to new stamps was pretty exciting! I really like this mani.  I hope you do too!

Base-Sally Hansen Gunmetal
Glitter-Milani Silver
Stamp QA5 using Spoiled Correction Tape & Sally Hansen Wined Up

Thanks for looking! I appreciate all comments :)

My Babies Birthstones

This week's Sunday Summer Challenge is Precious Gems.  I thought, ooooo girly stuff!  I wanted to do something with the gem amber but couldn't quite figure it out.  There are a lot of gorgeous gems out there, I even learned a little about gems through a Colored Gem Tutorial that was suggested to us by Emily Esqueleta Blasphemy who happens to be a gemologist. Check out her blog here :-) After a lot of thought I decided to go the birthstones route.  I don't talk a lot about my children on here because doing nail art is something that is for me, and it's good to have interests outside of your children.  But there is no doubt that my children are great inspirations to me.  My daughter is 4 and was born in April and my son is 10 1/2 months and was born in August.  Both have beautiful birthsto
nes.  April is Diamond and August is Peridot, a beautiful greenish yellow gem.  How lucky that those colors look so good together! I used a lot of polishes for this mani and I am still not sure how much I like it.  It has a lot of texture which I am not a big fan of.  But I think it looks pretty.  What do you think? 

as a base coat I used Sally Hansen Brilliant Blush and on the ring finger Sally Hansen Ivy League
For the tips I used Sally Hansen Silver Sweep and Spoiled Show Me the Money and striped with the Ivy League
I then globbed on glitter flakes from Studio M called Covered in Diamonds (how appropo)
I stamped with BM-315 using the Silver Shimmer and BM-317 using Milani Black Swift
I then added a small rhinestone

I love the little bows and I love my children :-)

If you want to know your birthstones....or someone you love, here is  a chart

 Thanks for looking!

She Sells Sea Shells Down by the Sea Shore

Tonights mani kills two birds with one stone.  That's an awful saying right? Who the hell was out killing birds with stones? Was it with a slingshot? It's a disturbing image.   Oh well, the point is I was able to do one manicure that covered both my Summer Challenge and my It's So Easy Nail Contest.  Friday's challenge is sea shells and the Nail Contest is Summer designs.  So voila! Two birds. One stone. This one took me an extra long time to do and it doesnt use any stamps just free hand baby.  Being that I am a beginner, I am proud of the work I did.  It's not professional or anything fancy like that, but I like it.  And it probably won't win me any awards, but it's purty :) What do you think?

As always your comments are appreciated! Thanks for looking

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

Pittsburgh Pirates

I'm a little behind....

This sunday's Challenge for Adventures in Stamping was Something I love.  There are a lot of things that fall into that category in my life.  My children, my husband, my family, the piano, books, my friends, my life :)  But at the time I was visiting some of my family in Pittsburgh.  *Quick fact....my whole family is from Pittsburgh and we're a bunch of nuts when it comes to their sports teams, the Steelers mainly! Only a few still live there but that doesn't mean our blood doesn't run black and gold*  I love visiting Pittsburgh and my extended family that lives there and on Sunday we went to a Pirates game!  I love a live baseball game too.  It was a good game, two homeruns by their star player McCutchen.  Unfortunately is so blazingly hot that my baby was not having a good time.  Anyway, here are my nails that I did in honor of the Pittsburgh Pirates!

This is the Pirates logo that I used as some inspiration

Base coat is Sally Hansen Lightning
The bandan is Wet N Wild Red Red and stamped in Milani Black Swift using BM19
Also, stamped ring finger with Milani using stamp BM 301
I used the Kiss black striper to draw the tips on the middle and pinkie as well as the P
The baseball is Spoiled Correction Tape white and the wet n wild Red Red

A few pictures from the game....

A gorgeous picture of the stadium!

My son, Jack

My daughter, Holly, in the middle and her cousins

Blue Bayou

For today's Summer Challenge it was supposed to be Summer Water Marble.  I failed. I have done water marble and have done just fine.  But I could not get it right tonight.  I tried twice.  No go.  So in order to get to my Lost episodes waiting on Netflix I threw some things together and they turned out perfect.  I love them.  The base color is Blue Bayou and I topped it with a coat at the tips of Milani Gems Teal.  There is very little to say, just look at the color :)

Thanks for looking! I hope you enjoy