I'm ALIVE and swatching a Melissa polish!

Good Afternoon!!

It’s been FOREVER since I last posted and I do apologize. I’ve been slacking because I started college(whooo-hooo!!) I only felt like I could really post something today cuz I have time right now. Moreso, I feel like I can cuz I had such a productive day yesterday. Organized all my clothes, put summer cloths away, brought winter clothes out, changed/cleaned out my purse, and finished all the details of my latest school paper.  Just saying…but organizing may be one of my favorite things to do. :P See?

The only thing I haven't done yet it color code....

Yes, I am THAT obsessive in the way I do things. But I can see everything, it’s nice and neat and I won’t have to worry bout where they’re supposed to go, cuz they will have a place now. :D

Yes, my drawer is missing a knob. It's irritating.

And Yes. I do keep candy in my drawers. Where else am I going to keep it?  :9

NUTELLA!!

Anywhoo…

This mani today is a swatch and I can’t for the life of me find out where the brand comes from. It’s an unnamed polish by Melissa. This polish was one that I got from a friend that was wanting to get rid of all her polish( for some insane reason…:P) and this was one that I took. Practically brand new and it wears great!

I think that this may be my new fav polish for several reasons.

#1. It’s kinda glittery without the pain of trying to take it off.

#2. It’ a darker shade, which I like.

#3. It goes on *so* nicely.

                                                                                      

Again, I do apologize for the lack of post as of late, but I probably won’t be doing a post every week since I don’t have as much time on my hands. ^^ Hehe! Time on my hands…lol But, my goal is to be more consistent in getting my school done so that I’m not posting once every two or three months.

So that’s the plan.  :)

Allison

Maze Mani On Ugly Toes..

Ok, peoples. I know I’ve been a total slacker this past month. I’m sorry. I started college(yea me!!) and I just haven’t had the time to actually write a post but I’ll be writing a few tonight and saving them for a few days from now.  Here’s o one I did a week or so ago.

So I really didn’t like the white that I had because it was all gloppy and thick(which I fixed yesterday) so I decided to use acrylic paint. For the entire thing. And I found out why you don’t use acrylics for the entire mani, which I will explain later. 

I had been on YouTube watching nail videos(shocker) and I stumbled across this one and I thought “Oh, that would be really cool if you showed a path!” So that’s what I did. Started with a white base and did the maze part with acrylics. I printed off a maze from my computer to help me with actually doing a maze and it was harder than I thought. I’ve never been one to do mazes so it was weird…

So it worked out just fine using all acrylics at the beginning until they started flaking…

You know how the acrylics are kinda chalky in texture after it dries? My guess is that’s why it flaked, cuz it wasn’t one whole layer. And because it was chalky, whenever you’d move your toes and the nail bed would flex, instead of flexing with it, it would just crack underneath it. So that’s what happened. 

Definitely a good learning experience, but one I’ll only do once.  :) What are some nail blunders you’ve made?

Pure Ice Jaguar - Vintage Lace

Morni…Afternoon!

For the mani today, I saw on Pinterest(shocker) this tutorial for how to do sort of a lacey type mani with a cloud mani. And for some odd reason, I can’t find it on Pinterest, but I found it again on Lacqueerisa’s blog and I guess it was originally Nailside’s. Both AMAZING bloggers! Super simple, incredibly cute. 

So, a few weeks ago, I had won a really cute polish via the County Fair Nail Art Contest, Pure Ice Jaguar, and I had been wanting to use it for *something* for a while to see how it works. So I used that for my base. A little streaky, but it’s really quite cute. It was somewhat opaque after two coats, but the bottom of the nails was to be covered anyways, so it would have taken at least three coats to be completely opaque. But, it dries nicely, so that’s a plus. 

So anyways…:) I decided to use two contrasting colors.  And gold and blue seem to be good ones. So I used that(PI) and China Glaze’s For Audrey using the vintage lace tutorial. I did a terrible job on my right had and a decent job on my left hand. :)

So what do y’all think?

In Christ,

Alli

Kiss Nail Dress 56707 KDS09

Good  Morning-Almost-Afternoon!

So the other night, I wasn’t really in the polish mood but I still wanted something to be on my nails because I had been giving them a break from polish during my last camp week. And I was getting a bit pissed off actually because of that. Retarded I know.  :P But anyways, my dad wanted me to take him into town for a while and so I thought that I’d drop by CVS and pick up a thing of “nail stickers” or whatever you call them. So I got some! 

Kiss Nail Dress 56707 KDS09. I’m wondering if that thing there<<< is supposed to be the name. I have no idea…BUT, it came with 28 strips in 14 sizes, a design booklet that’s really cool, and a file with two different file densities on it. This is nice, cuz you can use the courser one to actually remove the excess strip, and the finer side to file it smooth.

The booklet had some very cool ideas in it for other things you can do with the strips and hopefully I’ll be able to do something with that soon. :) We’ll see. 

So here’s the first day’s wear. Er..Night. It took about fifteen-twenty minutes to do them, start to finish, but I’m sure that if you were focusing more on the nails than something else(like I was doing..), you’d be able to get it done sooner. Heehee!

And here’s day three. It says on the box that it last up to 10 days, but you would have to be really nice to your hands for them to last that long. Either that or you’d have to be willing to put up with the hang-ups from them. On the fourth day, which is not pictured, I took them off because of a few reasons.

#1. They were catching on things and that SOOOOO bugges me.

#2. I was bored with them.

#3. I felt no pride in them. You know how you do a really cool mani and you’re just like “Yea! I did those myself!”? So yea. :P

I really did like them when I put them on and it was GREAT for a really quick mani when you either don’t have time or you just aren’t in the mood to paint.  Loved the design as well! It’s so cute and that gave me a very obvious idea for nails. It’s almost a “Dur dur-dur dur!” moment. :P

Have you ever tried any nail “sticker”? What did you think of them?

In Christ,

Alli

Bundle Monster Plate 319 - Rainbow Style!

Afternoon, Chickies!

Sooo first off…I’m sorry for being absent. I’ve been working at a summer camp for inner city kids with one or both parents in jail and we teach them about Christ and what he did for us. We get to do a lot with the kids and sometimes, this is the only time in their life that they actually hear the name of God that isn’t in a cuss word. :/  And these kids just LOVE attention and boy, do we love giving it! It’s always a cry fest for us counselors when they leave cuz we won’t be seeing them again for another year….If they come back. This was my third year of being out there and it’s really rewarding and very tiring. :) It has really challenged me in my walk with the Lord and it has helped me be able to explain the simplest concept to someone. Er…I’m still learning how. :D

Anyways, that were I was for so long. So. :) For this mani that I’m showing you, I used one of my new Bundle Monster plates(!!) and some rainbow colors. For my base coat, I used Pure Ice Superstar and a variety of colors with plate 319. If you’d like the list of colors, please comment. :) I was wanting to do a quick mani and I wish that I had taken more time doing it because obviously, it's a bit messy. But I thought it was cool. It’s not exactly what I wanted, but ok. 

Actually, that reminds me. Has anyone else had any trouble with the new BM plates not transferring to the stamper?? There’s a couple in my set that don’t want to work and one was the owl print that I was really looking forward to. :’’(

So yea. So what have y’all done this summer? Hope it’s been a great one!

In Christ,

Allison

County Fair Nail Art Contest!

**Warning: This post has LOTS of pictures. 

Hello, my lovely readers!! I have exciting news! I won my first ever nail art contest!! It was part of our county fair and it was for amateurs so I thought it would be a great idea for me to do it. I figured that even if I didn’t win, that it would be a good experience and that I’d meet some people that were passionate about nails. And I got both! There were only two other people competing however.  The older one, Jana, was so nice and she was really good! She had only been doing nails for a month and I thought they were great!

                                                                              Here I’m getting ready…

                                                  Me being obsessive about where my polishes are…Heehee!

                                                                                    My cheer squad! 

                                                Starting the mani with my bangs in my face. Like always. :P

So concentrated. Earlier today, I had done the mani and I had had a stiff cup of coffee and was all jittery and it turned out great. So I figured that if I could do it all jacked up on coffee, that I’d be able to do it without jitters. Well….I was shaking the entire time. Literally. So it was good that I had a practice run beforehand. ^^

                                                                  Jana’s and mine finished product.

                                                                                           People…

                                         So happy that it’s done! It was a bit terrifying but SOOOO exciting!

                                                             All three contestants and the two judges.

                                                                 Me grinning out of shear joy. Nbd…..XD

                                                                                       And Jana and I.

So are you ready to see what I did?!?! Tada!

I did a gradient with blue and green for my base, used an brown and light brown for the tree, and just various colors for everything else. If anyone want an entire list, just comment and I’ll get it. I’m bushed right now and I don’t want to go see what they are all called. ^^  Lazy me…I will say that I used Sally Hansen, China Glaze, Pure Ice, some Revlon, Elf, Essie, Sinful Colors, aaaaannnnnndddddd......I think that's it. :D

                                   And I got this stellar ribbon! Bragging rights are actually really nice. Lol 

My prize was this really pretty goldish color by Pure Ice, Jaguar, and a gift certificate to the sponsoring salon for a manicure. 

Anyways, it was a blast and I’m ready for round two! I’ll have to think of some other things to do for next year and hopefully, I’ll be better than I am now. Oh, and I have several more new ideas of what I should do with my nails! Any suggestions are very welcome. :) Hope y’all had as good of a day as I did!

In Christ,

Allison

Sally Hansen Insta-Dry Orange Impulse

Afternoon!

Today’s mani I just wanted to try doing whatever I could think of with just a couple colors. So I chose orange, grey, and white. I was quite pleased with the outcome, but there were definitely things I’d do differently.

I used Sally Hansen’s Insta-Dry Orange Impulse, Pure Ice’s Kiss Me Here, and Pure Ice’s Superstar. And then for the thumb(which is down low), I used matching colors of acrylic paint. I’m really digging the acrylics right now. XD For the middle finger, I used the white base and then stamped twice with RA plate 119 in both the grey and the orange and that was one of my favs of this mani. 

I really enjoyed doing this and I’m going to be doing it again. Perhaps in the next post.  :)  Have a great day!

In Christ,

Allison