Day 16-Tribal

I think that when most people think of tribal they think of Africa.  While the word does conjure up images of men and women living off the land in remote areas of Africa, I mostly think of the Native Americans. There is something so appealing to the history of my own country and I have always loved learning (and teaching) about the different native tribes that once inhabited our lands.  This is especially true of the natives from the Northwest Pacific coast.  Those that lived off the spoils of the ocean and carved totem poles to tell stories of their families and to explain natural phenomenons.  Tribes like the Haida and the Chinook.  I have always loved the intricate art of the Northwest tribes. Especially the simple but detailed black and white pictures of ravens, whales, turtles, salmon, and many other animals.You often see these designs replicated in tattoos.  A few years ago I was able to go on a trip to Alaska and see much of this art up close and in some places watch native artists create them with wood and ink.  Best vacation of my life :-)

So, I chose for my tribal nails three colors that were prevalent throughout much of the art that I saw...red, blue, and black.  I then used a stamp that had tribal like prints on them.  I was disappointed that the stamp was a little too small for all of my nails and the french tip that I used didn't line up straight.  So although I like this manicure, it could have been better.  What do you think of when you see these nails?

Base-Confetti Blue Bayou
Red Base-Sally Hansen Rapid Red
Stamp-BM 221 using Kleancolor Black & SH Rapid Red
French tip-BM219 using Kleancolor black 

Thanks for stopping by! Tell me what do you picture when you think of the word tribal?

Come back tomorrow for what I am sure is to be a very glamorous mani! GLITTER!!

Check out the other ladies wonderful manis too!

Day 12-Where does Strawberry Milk come from?

A pink cow of course!!  I know, you are rolling in your seats laughing because you have never heard that before!

Today's theme was animal print.  I had a lot of ideas for this one. I wanted to do snake skin, then peacocks, then a clown fish.  I looked on the internet for inspiration, thought about animals that I thought were cool, and then I started browsing my stamps. Lo and Behold I saw a poor unused cow stamp! Now we just did black and white, so it couldn't be just an ordinary cow. Noooo. It had to be a PINK cow!!  There isn't much more to say than mooooove on down and take a look :-P

Base-Sinful colors Oasis
White-Sally Hansen Hard to Get
Stamp-BM 222 using Kleancolor Black

I love this cutesy manicure! I can just picture sweet little Pink Elsie Cow with all her sass roaming the field eating grass with style ;-)  

Thanks for stopping by! I love and appreciate all of your comments :-)

Check out some more beaoooooootiful mani's from the ladies below

Day 11-Dotty the Octopus

We now begin the part of this challenge that focuses on patterns.  It's going to get harder.  I'm very excited to live up to the challenge.  So, today's mani was Polka Dots.  I have great dotting tools and i was thrilled to do a mani with NO stamping. Don't get me wrong, I love stamping...I just wanted to do something different. I've had some success with my dotting tools in the past but I find that I am trigger shy and this ends up messing me up.  So, I went into this with confidence and a steady hand and all in all I like the way it turned out.  I named this Dotty the Octopus because the end result looks like the little suctions on an Octopus' tentacles. My neighbor totally agreed!

I started with a beautiful new base color called Spaced Out by Misa (a brand I had never heard of)  Then I used three dotting tools to create different dots.  At first, I put only one color of dots on each of the non-accent nails, but then decided to add another smaller dot inside each of those.  This is what made them to look like octopus tentacles :-P And the accent nail uses all of the colors.

Misa Spaced Out :-) I just loved this color! I almost didn't want to do anything to it.  You really can't see how pretty and shimmery gray it is in the pictures though

Pink-Color Club Hot Like lava
Teal-Wet N Wild Caribbean Frost
White-Sally Hansen Hard to Get
Black-Milani Black Swift

This was a lot of fun to do, even if it took a lot of time and patience.  Hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for stopping by :-)

Check out the other blogs participating before you go!

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 9-Rainbow Puzzles

So today was another first in my nail polish world.  I used two colors on one stamp! ooooooo, crazy right?! I was quite nervous about it because I wasn't sure I could do it right, but it turned out to be quite easy.  Some nails didn't turn out perfect, but all in all it was pretty cool! I also used the cute puzzle stamp from the 3rd bundle monster set for the first time today.  I have seen a lot of cute manis done with it and i have been wanting to use it.

I really had a hard time deciding what to do with the rainbow mani because I have seen so many out there that I want to try.....skittles with animal print, a rainbow dotticure, rainbow french tips. But in the end, this is what I decided to go with! Hope you like it.

Base-Sally Hansen Hard to Get
Stamp-BM 319
Stamp Colors- Sally Hansen Rapid Red, Spoiled Jail Bait, SH Lightening, SH Lickety Split Lime, SH Co-Bolt Blue, Maybelline Amethyst Ablaze

I love the Sally Hansen Insta-Dry polishes for stamping.  They all work so well!!  I also love the Maybeline Color Show Metallics. It's awesome that there are good polishes out there for stamping that don't cost an arm and a leg.  

Thanks for stopping by. I love all of your comments.

Don't forget to stop by the other ladies blogs to check out what they are doing too!

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 3-Yellow Buzzz

This mani was supposed to be easy.  I had planned for it to take about 20 minutes.  Color, stamp, stripe, done.  HA! Of course everything that can go wrong with a simple mani, did.  The base coat went on great, but the humidity just wouldn't allow it to dry.  Painting the tips with the striper went alright, but my accent nail still wasn't dry.  So, I decided to put a coat of fast dry on to move things along.  Needless to say I ended up smudging that so I had to start all over.  This happened twice. GRRRRRR.  I finally got all that done and wanted to do one little bee stamp and it kept drying so fast that I had to stamp twice. So my bee looks all janktified (spelling?)  All in all it turned out alright and I sure do like this bright color.  The bee is so cute....he just looks like he's been chopped in half. :-P Buzz Buzz

Base-Sally Hansen HD Lite
Stripers- Kiss Black & It's So Easy Yellow
Stamp-BM301 using Kleancolor Black

Have a wonderful day! Thanks for looking and I appreciate all your comments.

Please check out the other ladies participating before you go 

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!

Day 1-Red Splatter

If you don't know this already, I am an awesome multi-tasker.  I have had many years of experience at it....9 years of teaching, 4 years of momming.  Now apparently, a few months of nailing and I can make one mani work for two challenges.  I know you're impressed, who wouldn't be? My talents are endless :-P  For today's challenge I was able to make my first day of the 31 day challenge and the Summer Challenge work together.  The summer challenge was summer splatter.  I have never done splatter.  I still don't think I have.  The first day of the 31 day challenge was red.  I love red. Red reminds me of passion...especially a dark red. It makes me feel all sensual and 'go out and watch Magic Mike' frisky.   I have very few red polishes though.  I think red is one of those colors that doesn't have as many shades to it as the other colors.  I wonder why that is?  Well, my mani tonight is hardly frisky or sensual, it just is what it is.  I didn't have the patience (or willingness to clean up all that mess) to do a real splatter.  So instead I used a toothpick to drag blobs of polish on my nails to make it look splattery.  That's totally a word.

Base-Wet n Wild Burgundy Frost
Splatters-Sally Hansen HD Lite & Wet N Wild Red Red

Thanks for looking! I appreciate your comments.  But before you leave, check out some of the other marvelous girls who are also participating in the 31 day challenge.

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!

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