Delicate Feathers

Feeling in a very feminine & delicate mood today, I thought I'd wear some nude tones. I usually go for darker colors, but today, everything pointed to try something soft & airy. The day is beautiful & sunny, with a crisp breeze. I'm having a great hair day, so good that the gusty winds are making me feel like I'm in a photo shoot. I'm wearing my favorite dress pants that compliment my booty & my prescription sunglasses just came in & look fabulous! So I picked out a lovely nude from Sephora by OPI called Dear Diary & then painted some random white feathers on each of my nails to give them a little something extra. I hope y'all are enjoying your day as well, until next time!

Simple Monday Elegance

My good friend bought me the Betsey Johnson mini set from Sephora by OPI for Christmas & I had yet to use any of the polishes, so I grabbed one to test out today called Too Too Turq. It's a lovely muted turquoise with some subtle shimmer to it, I paired it with a simple swipe of OPI Goldeneye down the center for a touch of elegance.

Bright Light

Bright Light

Soft Light

Where in the World Challenge: Hungary

#11, Hungary: I was struggling with this a bit, I don't know much about Hungary so I really had to rely on Google searches &/or looking at what the other ladies had come up with. Mandy, from Chameleon Stampede had found out that a Hungarian physicist is responsible for the HOLOGRAPHIC method, and here I quote from Wikipedia: "The Hungarian-British physicist Dennis Gabor (Hungarian name: Gábor Dénes),^[1][2] was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971 'for his invention and development of the holographic method' "

Well, any excuse to use holographic polishes, I'm all over that! I just did a holo post a few days ago, but y'all gotta let me get away with another one so soon, pretty please?  So I grabbed a couple of my favorite holo's, Nubar Reclaim & Butter London Fishwife, and went to work. This is also my very first tape Mani  so it's exciting for me. I just recently bought some of that nail tape that I've seen a lot of other bloggers use, I found it to be a little tedious & time consuming. But since I've mainly been a freehand nail artist I wanted to at least try it out. It's not really up my ally but I'll give it a few more goes with some other color combos, so we'll see! Maybe I'll try using some regular tape & see how I like that, cause the nail tape was slightly difficult to control & tends to curl up a little making it hard to place.

Anyways, back to the Mani, I put Fishwife on as my base & Reclaim on top, it resulted in a very pretty & subtle tape Mani:

Nail Art Contest by Kelsie

This is my entry for Kelsie's nail art contest she's hosting in honor of her 1 year blogiversary, yay!

As per her rules, I picked a picture from her pinterest board called Nail Inspiration. Here's the one I picked:

I used OPI My Boyfriend scales Walls & China Glaze QT, then used acrylic paints for the detail. 

Here is my interpretation:

Where in the World #10: RUSSIA

Today we travel to Russia & one of the things I most love from Russia is VODKA! All the drunks say "HELL YEAH!" lol, I kid, but the Russians know how to do it right & who doesn't enjoy a vodka cocktail from time to time. My favorite would have to be the dirty martini, with extra olives please. So that is what I bring to you today, some little martini glasses on my fingers.

I used my Essie Luxeffects Shine of the Times as my base to give my fingers a little party feel, then used acrylic paints for the martini glasses.

Holographic x3

I spent about 3 hours Sunday sketching one of my tattoo concepts; I'm hoping to eventually have enough money to do a 1/2 sleeve & have been devising my design for a few years trying to get it just right. It's a big decision & it's gotta be right. Anyhow, by the time I was done with that I guess all my creative juices had been used up because I tried several nail art designs for my weekly change up ( I usually change my design every Sunday) but was unhappy with all of them. Finally I just figured I'd wear a solid color that made me happy until inspiration struck me again. So I put on one of my holo polishes, China Glaze QT, & as I was putting it on I was inspired to combine a couple of my other holo's to make a simple accent nail. Here are a few pictures of the resulting holographic heaven :-) The other 2 polishes are Nubar Reclaim & Butter London Fishwife.

Liquid Sand

Yay, I got my Mariah Carey liquid sand "Stay the Night", it's very unique & I found it quite gorgeous! There have been a few posts about her liquid sand collection & the general consensus is that this color is hands down the favorite of the bunch. I have to agree, it's just so unique, drying to a matte finish with a kinda bumpy feel while still having so much sparkle to it, is just wonderfully intriguing to look at. I heard one girl describe is as looking like hot lava. I had it on my nails for about 5 days & there was no chipping at all, I could tell it would've probably lasted quite a bit longer, the only reason I took it off was because I snagged my pinky really low & had to cut all my fingernails to match (yes, i'm one of "those" girls). So after I cut them, they just didn't look quite right & so now I'm wearing something neutral until they grow just a little bit. But I was terribly upset I had to take it off & can't wait to wear it again. All pictures are 3 layers, but they looked the same with 2, next time I will just put on 2 layers.

Where in the World Challenge: UK

#9 UK: When I think of England I think of Big Ben, double decker buses & tea time! There is something nostalgic about a teacup that makes you think of dressing up as a little girl, playing with your sisters/friends/stuffed animals & having a tea party that makes you just smile. I've done a mani before based on a cute little tea cup I found with roses on it, so I wanted to do something just a tad different this time. I found a picture on DeviantArt for inspiration & just went with it. I used Orly Nite Owl as my base color & used acrylic paint for the little teacup on my ring fingers. Please bare with the terribly short nubbies, I snagged my pinky really badly the snag was super low, so I cut all my nails really short so it's not too noticeable. Anyhow, this color is such a pretty neutral, it makes even the shortest nails look elegant, I'm very happy with the result.

Here it is before the design, see how tiny my pinky nail is, lol~!

Nubar Greens for 2013

2013 is going to be a good year for me, you know how I know? Green is the fashion color of the year, emerald is my birthstone, therefore this is my year & that's that, lol! But seriously, how wonderful is green polish? I'm always finding myself drawn to greens, whether they are light, dark, bright or muted it's such a beautiful color to play with & I'm so excited to show some new greens I bought just for this.

First up we have a stunning Nubar holographic green called Reclaim. Wow, just amazing, so rich & full of holographic perfection, I can't stop staring at my nails. 

Next up we have another Nubar called Greener which is a deep emerald green, absolutely stunning, I'm in love:

Cirque du Soleil

Just a quick little post with a layered swatch of a couple Cirque du Soleil polishes I picked up from China Glaze the other day, Bend over Backwards & Get Carried Away!

This was the most true to color picture I could get

China Glaze Tranzitions

Wow, I've been seeing a lot of new fun polish inventions coming up for the new year. First off, I have for you, (insert drum-roll here) the new China Glaze Tranzitions. Goes on one color & changes when you add the top coat. I quickly ran to sally's & picked out a couple to try out! What you do is apply your base color & wait for it to dry about 10min, then apply a clear top coat either all over the nail or in a design like french/diagonal/stripe or some dots etc., sit back & watch the magic...the color will change as the top coat dries leaving a really cool look.

My picks: Metallic Metamorphosis & Shape Shifter. I decided to put both on at once, so I swiped one on the left side & one on the right side, waited for it to dry a bit & then painted the top half of my nails with a clear top coat. Here is what resulted:

Cool textures I want to try this year: 

• Velvet manicure
• OPI Liquid Sand
• Zoya PixieDust

What are you looking forward to trying out this year?

Where in the World Challenge: Sweden

#8 Sweden: I knew, right away, that I wanted to do a mani in honor of the lovely Swedish miss Ingrid Bergman. I have always loved her in films, there is the obvious Casablanca, but I also loved her in Anastasia & my favorite The Bells of St. Mary's.

(I do not own this picture, I found it in a google search)

But what should I actually do? I started a Google search & a picture of nails popped up, there is a polish actually called Ingrid from the China Glaze vintage collection, how perfect! Since the holidays have been hectic, & getting back to work has been so busy, finding the time to do something brilliant was a bit challenging. I decided to go with just using the polish named after her as my base & do a crackle on top.

So here is my simple Ingrid Bergman mani:

Looking back at my favorite things for 2012

This past year has been so great for me & all I can wish is that this new year only gets better! I wanted to post a few of my favorite things that happened this year both in my day to day life & in the nail art world.

Me & my Hubby on court after the Rockets game

2012 brought:

• The paying off of all our debt, except for the mortgage, thanks to the teachings of Dave Ramsey
• A new addition to our furry family, Figaro!
• My Vikings making it to the playoffs....YAY!!!
• A trip to see my relatives in Minnesota that I hadn't seen in years!
• My hubby & I losing 25 & 15 lbs. respectively. 
• And last, but not least, 2012 brought the birth of my niece & nephew. They were born to my twin sisters only 13 days apart, how cool is that!?

For funsies, here's a picture of the twins when they were 3, L-R: Tammy & Julia

Tammy's boy, Leonardo Drake Antony, Dec 11 2012

Julia's girl Natalia Robyn, Dec 24 2012

My year in nails. The following are some of my favorite things concerning my nail art journey this last year:

1. Well first off, this year I started my blog, yay, on Feb 7th! I now have 44 followers, Thanks guys!
2. Entered my first contest , Feb 27th, making a design using just the dotting tool.
3. Learned some new techniques like newspaper & clouds
4. Won a couple awards: Appreciation & Liebster
5. Tried some nail wraps
6. Hosted a couple movie/nail nights here & here
7. Purchased my first Butter London polishes
8. But most exciting of all, I was featured in Seventeen magazine for my Christmas Cardinal design!!!

The following are my top 12 favorite nail designs of 2012:

#12 Mom's English Roses

#11 Spring Daisies

#10 Burberry 

#9 Gold Filigree

#8 Summer Lovin'

#7 Antique Floral on Newspaper

#6 The Big Blue waves

#5 Little Mermaid

#4 Vintage Lace

#3 Steven Tyler

#2 Christmas Candle

#1 Firefly/Serenity

Hopes for the new year:

• Have 6 months worth of savings put away
• Sell our boat (anybody looking?)
• Travel
• Continue losing weight
• Remodel home
• Have a BABY!

I hope you enjoyed my favorite things, here's to many more days filled with favorites! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I will leave you with a lovely poem I found by Edgar Guest:

A happy New Year! Grant that I

May bring no tear to any eye

When this New Year in time shall end

Let it be said I've played the friend,

Have lived and loved and labored here,

And made of it a happy year.