Froggie Mani

As I said in my previous post, I bought a cheap acrylic paint set at Walmart.  Here it is:

I had hoped it would be good for nail art, and I think it worked out great.  Nail polish is good for simple, quick nail art like dotting and stamping, but it dries really fast.  Acrylic paints are better for more complex nail art designs because you don't have to keep stopping to put out more color on your palette.  It stays wet and usable on the palette for much longer than polish.

So, here is my first nail art attempt using acrylic paints:

Froggies!  With lily pads, lilies, and some yummy insect munchies!  Here's a closeup of my left thumb:

And here's my right hand:

Closeup of right thumb:

The frog on my right thumb looks like the ... "special" brother of the one on my left.

Hopefully one day I'll get as good at painting with my non-dominant hand as Rins.

So, did y'all get anything from the Zoya promotion?  I bought Jo, and got Jem and Yara free!  I bought Cynthia and Neeka a few weeks ago.  Dree is the only other color that I really need have to have want from their fall collection, but I entered to win it, so I have to wait till the contest is over just in case I win (spoiler: I never win anything).  Here's a blurry but sparkly-showing picture of my new friends:

Jo, Yara, Jem

xoxo, Natalie 

Meh.

I am just not really feeling this mani.  I don't know if I over- or under-worked it, but it just didn't look as awesome IRL as it did in my head.  I think it's the ring finger that's throwing it off.  I should have stayed in pattern on all fingers, or done the ring in either the glitter or the holo.

I wanted something cool and watery to combat the horrible heat here, but it just didn't work out the way I'd planned.  Anyway, I used OPI Ogre the Top Blue for the base on all nails, the Ulta exclusive color Glitterally the Best Silver Ever on the ring, and OPI Blue Moon Lagoon and Pure Ice Strapless for the others.  I made the wavy stripes using painter's tape and scrapbooking scissors.

Hopefully my next mani will be better.  I bought a pretty cool acrylic paint set from Walmart - 24 tubes, all different colors, for $11.97!  Not masterpiece quality paints, I'm sure, but I'm hopeful they will be good enough for nail art.

So, have you ever experienced the heartbreak of a disappointing mani?

xoxo, Natalie

Perloined Mani and Dead Lemmings

(*Note: No actual lemmings were harmed in this post.)

I have been wanting to do a mani based on my favorite pair of Chucks for a while now, and when I saw MaD Manis' Obnoxious Punktastic manicure, I was jealous because it was almost exactly what I wanted but hadn't been able to think up myself!  So, I stole - ahem - freely adapted it.  I hope they don't mind!  Here are a few pics of the mani and the shoes:

I used the fishnet pattern instead of zebra stripes, because I always wore torn fishnets with my Doc Martens in high school.  I used Cult Nails Devious Nature for the base on the pointer, middle, and pinky, China Glaze Liquid Leather for the base on the thumb, and OPI Show it and Glow It for the base on the ring, the bow on the skull, and the lightening bolt.  I used Konad Special Polish in Black for the stamping, and Bundle Monster plates.  Make sure to check out MaD Manis' original - it is super-cute (and much more expertly stamped)!

I also killed some lemmings late last week, and they arrived today!  I went on a discontinued-OPI eBay spree, and I got Movin' Out, Midnight Blue Glitter, and Glacier Bay Blues.  They are SO pretty; I can't wait to wear them!  Behold:

OPI Movin' Out, Midnight Blue Glitter, Glacier Bay Blues

Even my crappy camera and lighting can't disguise their beauty!  Well, that's all for now.  I have to get up at 4am (I hate the "opening" part of working the opening shift, but I love getting off work at 2:30 pm!), so I'm off to bed.

xoxo, Natalie

Another dotty mani

I have been away from my little blog for a while.  I had a bad sinus infection, so I am on these really strong antibiotics that make me really tired, and I swear they also make me high!  Seriously, I feel buzzed all the time.  If I close my eyes, the room spins!  It's weird.  I also have been working the closing shift for the past week, so between that and the antibiotics I pretty much have been waking up, going to work, coming home and going straight back to bed.  But I did manage to stay awake long enough to do a new mani, using my Zoya Mod Mattes.

But first, a confession:  I hate matte polish.  It isn't a visual thing, it's a touch issue.  I hate the way it feels on my nail when I touch it.  The feel of it is the tactile equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard to me.  I think it looks cool, but I can't stand to have it on my nails.  If I like a matte color, I will still buy it, but I always put shiny top coat on it.  I loved all three of the Mod Mattes colors, but I love them even more with a couple of coats of Seche Vite!  So, on to the mani:

I mostly took pics of my right hand, because I have a gross scrape on my left ring finger, right at the cuticle, from opening a box at work.  See:

Eww.  I took these pictures last night.  It looks even worse today, now that it has scabbed up.  No matter how much vitamin E oil I put on them, it is just impossible to keep decent looking hands at a home improvement store.  Sigh.

Also, I have six followers all of a sudden!  Wow!  Hi!  I am working on a little giveaway thing, and I should have more details about it in a short while.  I think it will be fun.

xoxo, Natalie

Lowe's Heroes Nail Art

So, as I mentioned before, I work at a very large home improvement store.  I was going to avoid saying which one, but it's hard to talk about the Lowe's Heroes project without mentioning the name of the store, since it's right there in the title and everything!  Anyway, as long as I don't spill any corporate secrets (which, since I'm not really privy to any, shouldn't be hard to do) or say bad things about Lowe's or my co-workers (and I have nothing bad to say about either; I love working there and I adore the people I work with), I won't violate any Lowe's policies.

The Lowe's Heroes project is a volunteer organization made up of Lowe's employees and organized by Lowe's. The fact that it's voluntary means you can only participate on your own time, not when you are on the clock.  I was afraid I wouldn't be able to participate this time because I was scheduled to work Monday, but luckily (well, luckily for me but I guess unluckily for her) one of my co-workers called in sick Saturday, so I got to work her shift and be off Monday!  Yay!  Lowe's Heroes does various things in the community, like helping out with disaster cleanup and such.  Tomorrow we will be demolishing and removing debris from two of the many houses that were destroyed in the recent flooding here in the Memphis area.  While I am terribly sad for the people who lost their belongings in the flood, I am also really excited about tearing down the houses.  Don't get me wrong, I love to create, but I also love me some destruction!  I will probably be stomping around like Calvin in Godzilla mode and saying, "Natalie smash!  Natalie smash!" a lot.

(copyright Bill Watterson, of course)

I usually wait a day or two to take pictures of my nails.  For one, I have really sensitive skin, and my cuticles usually look like hell afterwards, all red and irritated-looking, even though all I've done to them is pushed them back and maybe trimmed or buffed off a little dead skin.  Also, I am horrible at painting my nails, so I have to do a LOT of cleanup, and I always have some staining from the polish and acetone around my nails.  I like to give my manis time for the cuticles to de-reddify and the polish stains to get washed off before I commit them to pictures.  However, since I am not really expecting this mani to last through the day tomorrow, I went ahead and took pics right after I finished it.  Please ignore the redness, and the red and blue stains!

Right hand:

For my left ring and thumb and my right thumb I painted images from the Lowe's Heroes logo.  For my left ring, I just did some heart stamps from my Bundle Monster plates (03 and 08, in case you're interested).  I used Orly Royal Navy, Essie Retro Red, OPI Blue Shatter, and China Glaze White On White.  For the little people, I mixed Royal Navy and White On White.  Oh, and I used white Konad Special Polish for the stamping.

One more note:  Swatching is very important in knitting, so that you know you're using the right gauge to get your item the correct size.  I am finding it's important in nail polish, as well!  My original idea involved red nails with blue shatter AND blue nails with red shatter.  I decided to try this out on some fake nails first, and boy, am I glad I did!

Red nails with blue shatter = oooohhhh, pretty!

Blue nails with red shatter = massive FAIL!

Brown, dried-bloody looking mess!

(Sorry for the extra-long post!)

xoxo, Natalie

The previously alluded-to mod dot mani

Having run out of outfits to match my red, white and blue nails, I came up with a mani that will be difficult not to match.

Right hand:

It's not totally original (Cris at Let Them Have Polish does cute dotty manis like this a lot), but it makes me happy!  I used OPI Fiercely Fiona (yellow-green) and Ogre the Top Blue, Pop Beauty Turquoise and Ultraviolet, and Cult Nails Devious Nature (pink).

In other news, I finally got a real phone, an HTC Evo.  I love it, however, I am now in the throes of an Angry Birds addiction.  Gotta go, got pigs to kill!

xoxo, Natalie

Happy Independence Day!

Hope everyone has a happy and fun 4th!  I wasn't going to do my nails for the holiday, but inspiration struck Friday night, and this is what I came up with:

With flash:

Right hand:

For the nail colors and flag, I used Essie Retro Red and Mesmerize, and China Glaze White on White.  For the stamps I used BM02 and Konad Special Polishes in Red, White, Blue and Silver.  The silver didn't show up too well, though.

I went to Ulta yesterday to check out the new polish line they are carrying, Pixel.  They were just putting the display together, so I did get to see some of the polishes, but I couldn't buy them yet.  I'll have to back later this week.  They also had the OPI Shrek collection for $5.00 each, but all that was left was Fiercely Fiona and Ogre the Top Blue.  I got those two, and two Pop Beauty colors, Turquoise and Ultraviolet, which were buy one get one free.  I think my next mani will involve all those colors, and perhaps Zoya Lolly.  And dots.  I'm starting to feel a mod-dotty mani coming on...

xoxo, Natalie