Hulk angry! Want to smash!

Broke two nails. Crap Beautiful. I felt like turning green and ripped and start terrorizing my neighbors. Didn't take a picture of the breaks because I had to file my nails down ASAP or else I would start chewing on them (yeah, I'm a die hard nail biter). You know when you fold a piece of paper in half real well and there's that sharp crease? The tips of my nails did that, and I blame this!-

Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps. I stopped using this a while back and forgot why. I certainly remember now. Yes, the stuff hardens my nails (yay) but at the same time, my nails lose their flexibility (d'oh). As a result, they don't give under pressure, they just snap. Should've done two layers of the stuff, but it gets so stringy (like when you use a hot glue gun). *I wish I knew how to type out that irritated tsk-sigh noise.*

So. Back to square one. Painted my nubbins purple again.

Threw on a Bundle Monster stamp.

Now the waiting game. Enjoy your Halloween!

Purple and silver and matte and shiny and stamping and. . .

Redid my nails, and I have to admit that I am satisfied with them this time around. I used a combo of techniques for this manicure: I stamped, I matted, I shinied, and I sponged. I tried to get some good photos in, but the camera doesn't do my nails justice. (Trust me, they look much better in real life.)

Ignore my cuticles. I was in a hurry to take photos so I didn't do a good job at cleanup (at least, that's my story).



I really like how my thumbs turned out-
silver to purple gradient

 Can you tell which nails are matte and which are shiny? The purple I used was so gorgeous I almost decided to do a solid one color mani. (It's tres Risk- Secret Passion)

I have hit the Motherload.

Ok, I'm about to hyperventilate. I have been eyeing Essie's Matte About You polish for a month (basically ever since I found out it existed on everyone else's blog). At my Ulta, the polish is 10 f*cking bucks. NO THANKS. I can't afford that. Guess what I saw today?!?!

$4.99?!?! YES!

Two bottles of polish for half the price of the bottle I wanted? Yeah, I snatched that baby up. Sweet! I don't even own a single bottle of Essie polish. Now I am the proud owner of two! I ended up buying ten bucks worth of stuff (I was originally there for some makeup) and used my $3.50 off of $10 coupon. I was elated.
     Then, I stopped by K-mart (yeah, apparently there's one left, and its near where I live) because they were having a sale on Wet n Wild polish (the cheapy stuff that's usually 79 to 99 cents). I bought 4 bottles and I paused when the cashier told me my total:

Total cost:  $1.08

She said "one-oh-eight." Oh. My. God. That's a quarter a bottle! As soon as I made it back to my car, I threw the stuff in the back seat and practically ran back into the store. I hoarded some more polish!

Yeah that's right- I bought another clear bottle

That cost $1.50. And I've been longing for these next bottles so much I sprung on them too- and they were buy one get one free!

Four for the price of two!
(cost me 4 bucks total)

My total this second time came out to be less than 6 dollars. Holy sh*t. I have just doubled my polish collection for less than ten dollars (excluding the matte stuff). Needless to say, I now understand how you ladies feel when you get in a buttload of new polish. It's like a high. Let's hope I don't make a habit out of this.

Tips, tips, and more tips.

Well, I decided to post my current nails, and I have to say- I still don't like them. It's not like they're hideous or anything, but I didn't get the result I wanted. To me, they looked more preppy than edgy.

I guess the pics don't show it, but the dark tips are actually navy.

Humph. I might have a redo before a week has passed. We'll see.

Webbed feet revisited

I was able to finish stamping my toenails, and I think they look more finished now. Since I couldn't get my black polish to transfer, I used my navy one instead and that worked nicely.

On another note, I redid my nails today but. . . they didn't turn out the way I wanted them to (again!). I think I'm going to wait a day before I decide to post them. I was aiming for something edgy and I ended up with splat. Shoot, I might just end up redoing them. I hate it when ideas go sour.

More giveaways posted!

   Whew, it's been a long day! I found and linked quite a few more giveaways that are going on, so be sure to check them out (and quick, some are ending in about two days). I signed up for all of them myself, but I highly doubt I will win any. That's fine though; these people have some pretty sweet blogs to follow.

Webbed feet

Ha ha. Get the pun? My toes, with webs. Webbed feet?. . .

Anyway, I painted my toenails alternating orange and black for a Halloween look. Then I used my Bundle Monster stamps to put a web on my big toes and a spider on the second toe. I originally wanted to make a black spider web, but the plate and the polish weren't cooperating. I ended up using white, which is fine with me.


My right foot



And my left

Notice the green arrow on my left foot? There's a smudge there from when I tried to stamp on a black spider, but the image didn't transfer completely (these Bundle Monster plates are tricky to work with), and so I had to remove it and cover it up with orange polish. From far away it looks fine, but up close it's more noticeable. Here is a closer shot:


See the smudge under the web?

My toes turned out alright, but it feels like there's something missing on them. I'm going to see if I can jazz them up some more later today. I wish the black spider would just transfer!

Fail (?)

Ok, so I had this idea: marble half the nail. Sounds good right?. . .yeeeaaahh, not really. Keep reading.

   First, my base colors were yellow and orange. The orange covered nicely, but the yellow looked a little streaky, even after two coats.

Streaky yellow. . .

     I've always liked alternating solid colors for my nails, and maybe I should have stopped here. Add one more coat of yellow, throw on top coat and call it a day. Or I could have stamped something on the nails. But no, I had try this:

     Ugh, what a mess. My fingers were covered in polish, and I used tape too. I was so disappointed, I decided I wasn't going to post them (that's why I didn't post yesterday). My nails may have been a failure, but I didn't want to bother repainting them. So after a good 15 minutes of clean-up:

     Huh, they didn't look as bad as I originally thought. Actually, the more I looked at them, the more they grew on me.  And I especially liked my left thumb.

This pattern turned out well!

My right hand didn't look too shabby either, although I had a few bubbles for some reason.

It's a little more obvious on the thumb:

See the bubbles?

All in all, I started off hating my manicure; it took me nearly half the day to like them, but I think they cleaned up well. I'm kinda glad I didn't redo my nails, they're sorta funky. I'm also glad I decided to post them today.

I'm seeing dots!

Check these bad boys out. Dotted them myself too. I remember my nails took forever to dry that day. The nails are half silver (shiny gray?) and half shimmery white topped with red polka dots. Those were fun to wear.

 

I added watermarks because of the Luux scare.
Not that anyone would want to steal my pics, but still.



My right hand.



And my left.

I need a better camera. This one stinks. The only nice thing is that I didn't pay for it; I won it from some survery I took. It's a Nikon, but towards the bottom of the line. There's got to be a way to get better quality photos. Maybe I should fiddle with the settings.

Anyway, that's the last set of pics I have until Saturday, when I redo my nails. I plan on including toe designs too (you can't just leave those out). I'll see what I can come up with!

New Tab! *Giveaways!*

So I have a new tab now! Click on it to check out some sweet giveaways from other bloggers.
(It's up there on the top. . . after HOME and MY MISSION).

Dude, nail polish floats.

Water marbling. It's genius. Why did I not invent it? Heck, why have I never even heard of it until about a month ago?! Look that stuff up, it's totally worth trying. (Check out My Simple Little Pleasures blog under the Addicts I Stalk, she is so badass at it). I tried it for the first time two weeks ago (so that would be before the red and black tips) and this is the result of my first try. Not bad, right? My index finger looks like a half butterfly to me. I used three colors in this one: orange, black, and a slightly shimmery peach. The whole process is a mess, but then again, so are all nail painting techniques.

You know, I think I might try water/nail marbling again when I redo my nails. Let's see, what colors to choose. . . should it halloween oriented? I've already used orange, hmm. . . think, think! Oooh, I should add some stones too! Ah! I've got it! I can't wait to test it out and show it off!

Right, back to you guys. I've got ONE more nail design to post tomorrow before I'm all caught up on my designs. Actually, I should have two but I didn't take photos of one of them. What a shame too. Imagine this: Green french tips, giant white flower with green stone center on the thumbs, two tiny white flowers with green dotted centers on each ring finger. Its not original, but still pretty cool. Maybe I'll recreate it again. Maybe. I seriously need to find some sets of hands to paint.

Last Week's Nails

Hurrah! I have a follower! I was afraid NO ONE would ever look at this page! Thank you so much Serena (aka Lacquer Love)! I didn't think I would get so excited, but I am! And your page actually encouraged me to start my own blog, because you also began your blog relatively recently. I was worried that I would be starting too little too late, you know?

Anyway, I've decided to post some pics of my nails from last week (you know, before I had this blog idea). It's striped red and black with a stone in the middle. Well, they were originally stones, but I kept picking at them until they fell off. So, I used nail stickers as a replacement. They ended up looking pretty much the same. I was lazy, so I didn't paint the tips and clean them up with acetone like a professional. I "cheated" by taping off my fingernails into slants and painting the exposed tips.

Doing tips is always a love/hate relationship for me. I completely love how elongated, glamorous, and sophisticated my nails look, but I hate that I don't get to paint my entire nails. Like maybe I jipped myself out of a full manicure. But dang! They make my short nails look good!

Check back tomorrow. I want to post some nails that I did based off of My Simple Little Pleasures' water marbling technique. Freaking cool.

Forget the color swatches. Give me a design!

First off, I'm not a blogger. As a matter of fact, I don't even read blogs as a hobby. However, I have recently developed an addiction to nail art that led to days (oh yes, days) spent Googling images for nail designs. Let me tell you, I was not satisfied. Most images led to blogs that mainly displayed polish colors. Not knocking on you guys gals (you really have great stuff), but I need something more than color. I need designs! And here is where my addiction has led me, to create a blog for nail art. I refuse to paint my nails daily (that's just unfair to not enjoy a design for a week), but that will not stop my quest for glorious nails! I want to share a buku of ideas, but that's where I need your help! Send me your images! Give me your feedback! Show the world that nails love to dress up!

Whew, sorry. . . Got myself all worked up. I like nails too much.

Anyway, let'd kickstart this bit** (excuse me) with a photo of my nails this week. This is my first attempt at nail stamping ever, so no laughing! I used one of the Bundle Monster plates I ordered on Amazon. Ugh, did I mention my addiction has led to me ordering things online, something I prefer not to do? This is might drive me to insanity.

(Oh yeah, forget the polish on my skin. I was so excited, I didn't do a cleanup.)