My first 'taping' adventure.

I'd been hesitant to try the scotch tape mani trend just because my nails are curved pretty heavily so every attempt so far has just been a failure because it doesn't stick or it doesn't sit straight. But I forged through because I saw a design idea that was too cute to ignore so I bit the bullet and got to taping. Here's my nautical themed mani, a little early but I was hoping to will summer to come early by encouraging it with my nails.

The colors I used were China Glaze Bermuda Breakaway, Sally Hansen White On and China Glaze City Siren for the red heart.

Ugh, there was a little smudge on my middle finger that I couldn't get rid of. But do you see what I mean by the lines not laying totally straight? You can really see it on my middle finger. 

I LOVED how this looked but the process made me want to kick a pony. I won't lie, I did my left hand and had to go to bed before starting to work on the right one because the tape was driving me nuts. I loved the little heart in the corner though. I'll probably try to add that into others eventually. 

Seasonal Nail Wheels

I made nail wheels for both Halloween and Christmas but never got around to posting them because I kept forgetting. So here they are, albeit a little later haha.

First, here's the Halloween one:
I used so many different colors and acrylic paints and mixtures of colors that I don't even remember half of what is on here but if you want a specific color, I can probably pick my brain to find what I used.

Here's the finished product all laid out!

L-R: Oogie Boogie, Vampire mouth (which came out looking more like the Rolling Stones lips), cat eye, spiderweb, Nightmare Before Christmas, dripping blood. 

Along with the ones already pictured, there is a Frankenstein and a 'boo'. 

L-R: Boo, Ghost inspired by my little decorations I had hanging up, graveyard with a spooky tree, a vampire, pumpkin and the Scream mask. 

Candy Corn, Zero from Nightmare Before Christmas, a mummy, a spider and some cute little bats. 

On to Christmas!

For some reason, my pictures refuse to flip the right way so I apologize for that. 

Rudolph, a string of lights, palm tree Christmas, snowflakes, gingerbread man and a candy cane French tip.

Then there's a Christmas tree, a snowman, red and green sponged under black crackle and a snowy evening.

This is where the flipping gets funny but it lets you see the 'snowy evening' a little better. Then there's a little elf, a wreath, a package and bow and Santa. 

Then next to Santa, there's some holly berries, tartan plaid, bells, Rudolph's girlfriend and Rudolph

I love doing nail wheels for seasonal stuff instead of doing it on my own nails just because it takes so long and my right hand usually ends up frustrating me that it's not worth it in the end. Also, these designs are so cute that I'd hate to take a cotton ball full of acetone to them. I have one more that I'll be posting soon, it's my favorite one!

SEC Football- My first adventure with a nail wheel

So, I'm a huge football fan, namely the Florida Gators and Georgia Bulldogs. I'm aware that this is sacrilege to admit in either state, but I love that damn bulldog so much. In order to gear up for football season this year, I made a nail wheel with each team's logo in the conference and some little football designs. I also broke off a nail accidentally, but give me a break on my first try. 

SEC logo, LSU, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Mississippi State

Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, ESPN logo, Florida, football

Field goal, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama (with Bear Bryant's houndstooth), SEC logo, LSU

Football, Kentucky, football field, Auburn, Tennessee and a field goal

Hope you enjoyed it!

I'm alive!

Holy crap I have not been updating the blog at all. Okay I'm back now and I have a lot of nails to show. This post is going to be a photo bomb of everything that I've done. Most of it is already up on the facebook page but here is a more in depth look. Here we go!


Alright, this one was done on a whim because I was house-sitting for my mom and I was bored so I dug through my sister's polish stash to try some new colors. I used Essie's Smokin' Hot as the base, stamped with my Konad m41 plate and I believe the image was stamped with Sally Hansen's Lacey Lilac. The gold stripe was done with one of my sister's polishes. I didn't catch the name and I'm kicking myself because I wanted to pick it up but it was a gold striping polish from Claire's.

This one was done with my Halloween costume in mind. I had a 'sexy cab driver' costume that I got during a Halloween closeout and I was playing with nail ideas awhile beforehand. This one was done with China Glaze Happy Go Lucky on the tips, Sally Hansen's White On as the base and my Konad m63 plate. 

For this mani, I used China Glaze City Siren (my new favorite red!), Sally Hansen's White On and black Stripe-Rite. I used a dotting tool for the polka dots. I have no idea what inspired this but I think I just wanted an excuse to play with the red polish. It kinda reminds me of a Dalmation at the firehouse. 

This might be one of my absolute favorite manis that I've ever done. My husband and I are getting into hunting and I had just gotten a bunch of camo to wear in the field and I was inspired by it. It helped a lot that I'd also just gotten into the army/camo green trend and had just gotten a haul full of them. I'm not sure how many greens that I actually wound up using, but I do know that the orange is Sun Worshipper by China Glaze with a random neon orange layered over the top to get that blaze orange shade. I also know that a few of the colors used in the camo are Essie's Sew Psyched and Little Brown Dress, black Stripe Rite, White On and China Glaze's Westside Warrior. The deer was supposed to be stamped on with one of my Bundle Monster plates with LBD but it absolutely did not want to do more than an outline so I worked with what it gave me and freehanded the rest. 

Halloween! I had tons of fun with Halloween ideas for the week leading up to Halloween and honestly, a little before that as well. On my thumb, we have the witch on her broomstick, a carved pumpkin on my index finger, Frankenstein on the middle, a spider web on the ring finger and bats on my pinky. I loved the witch and had to get an up close picture of it to show the detail. I had the same issue with the stamping that I did with a deer and wound up filling in a lot of the what didn't want to stamp. 

This was my favorite Halloween design and it was the one that I wound up wearing on the actual night of Halloween. I got into the blood splatter trend thinking that I came up with it myself only to find that it was totally the craze for Halloween manis. Oh well, it still looked cool and it got a lot of attention. I used OPI Skull and Glossbones for the base and China Glaze City Siren as the blood. I even added some bloody fingerprints using red acrylic paints and... my fingerprints. 

This was my attempt to make a political statement on my nails. In November, Ohio had a crucial piece of legislation being pushed through by the governor that would strip union rights and eliminate collective bargaining for the public sector. I'm a future teacher, married to a teacher, daughter-in-law of a firefighter and granddaughter-in-law to a retired teacher with about 4 other teachers and nurses as aunts and uncles. I was very proud to be a part of the effort to kill Senate Bill 5 and stand up for Ohio. 

Okay, on a lighter note, I also started trying my hand at water marbling. My first attempt was so terrible that I didn't even photograph it but the second attempt was much more successful. I used White On as my base and marbled with CG Happy Go Lucky, Concrete Catwalk and Urban Nights. 

This was inspired by one of the nail wheels that I started working on. I was doing a 'night sky' and did a gradient sponge paint with blues and purples and came up with this! I used so many colors in this that I don't remember which ones are all in there, but I finished the look by topping the whole thing with CG In The City.