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