So I've been gone quite a while...

Hi there!  So, I've fallen out of the polish world because of some hefty life demands: 2 young boys in soccer, recent promo to HR Mgr, and enrollment into a Master's degree program.  I'm quite a busy girl, and something has to give, so my nail polish, along with my other crafty pursuits, have taken a back seat.

But I finally took the time to do my nails.  I mean, to really DO my nails.  Of course I've slapped some paint on them, but nothing really blog-worthy.  So yesterday, when I was supposed to be doing homework, I sat down and did this:

So lovely!  Although my striping could definitely use some improvement, it's not too shabby.  I love my mani, and I hope to be able to keep my nails nice and long for a while...I've been paying more attention to them and have been slathering on the nail cream and cuticle oil lately, and I think that's why they've stopped breaking so often.  

I'm so happy with my cute nails!  I'm going to have to keep carving out some time for them...

Memorial Day Nails

I got a 4-day weekend, and Memorial Day is on Monday.  I so appreciate the sacrifices of the men and the women in the military, and those who died in serving our country are heroes in my book.  So when I went to paint my nails, I wanted a tribute to our fallen soldiers:

My striping definitely needs more practice, but I think it came out rather nice, and definitely patriotic.

  

As you enjoy your holiday weekend, please take a moment to remember those who have made our freedom possible!

Coming Up Roses!

I love Pinterest!  I have a board where I pin all of the fantastic mani's I admire called "Must-Do Mani's", and I hoard tons of ideas there...sometimes I even do a mani based on one.  Like last night!

I really have a hard time doing my nails for work.  I have to be professional, but I can't stand just plain nails.  Thus my dilemma.  So, THIS MANI by Pshiiit! seemed to be just the answer.  Plain pink, but with a cute and artsy rose accent nail.  Loved it!

Here's my version:

I used Zoya "Lara" for the main pink, and "Sweet" and "Purity" for accents on the rose over a background of "Raven".  The leaves were NOPI "Lime Light" and Sinful Colors "Innocent".  All topped with Seche Vite.

I need to invest in some nail art brushes.  I currently use some cheapo ones I got at Walmart, and it's really hard to control where the polish goes.  Plus, the bristles get hard and don't brush the polish on nicely.  But I think this came out pretty cute anyway!!! :-)

More Magic from Ruby Wing

So the warm weekends scream "outside" to me.  And I had so much fun with my Ruby Wing mani from last week, that I just had to do another.  And I wanted some nail art too!

Here's "Moon Stone" with a little daisy action:

No Sun:

 A lovely pale sky blue.  Perfect for daisies!

In the Sun:

Don't know why my skin color is so different, but check out that polish change!  What a perfect dark lavender!  I can't decide which I like better!

I LOVE MAGIC!! :-)

Catching Up

At the beginning of March, my manager left on maternity leave, and I am now both her and me at work, so I have been VERY busy.  The reason you care is because it leaves me exhausted at the end of the day, and unable to do my nails, much less post about them.  As of Friday, my face has broken out in stress-induced hives, so I am taking the hint, and slowing down, and doing my nails! :-)

Here's my current mani, featuring Ruby Wing color-changing polishes.  It makes me smile to see the color change, and forces me to leave the house to see it, since it changes color in the sun.  The color change is pretty quick, and is triggered by UV rays.  Pretty cool!!

"Birdie" (yellow) and "Gypsy" (mint), before the sun.  Super-cute, springy mani, right?

This took 3 coats to get completely opaque.  Topped with Poshe.

The same mani, but in the sun:

LOVE this color combo too!  So fun!

Here's a side-by-side comparison:

Here are some exciting past mani's I did since my last post:

Black-tipped French with Lacquistry's pretty pastel glitter bomb "Chick-a-dee doo-da".  LOVE this polish!!

Color Club "Halo-graphic".  Gorgeousness!!!

OK, you're all caught up.  :-)

Late St. Patty's Day Mani

I haven't had much time to do my nails, so I really don't have much to post about.  I did do a green mani for St. Patty's Day, though!

My standard leopard-spots-with-a-toothpick accent nail.  This is a rare pic of my right hand since the ring finger on my left hand broke and is now an odd-ball nub.  It's banned from being in pics until it grows out to an acceptable length ;-)

Playing with Polishes

I have finally made it a priority to get my polish hoard collection set up in my upstairs bedroom, so now it's so much easier to play with them.  This should mean y'all will be seeing a lot more pretty nails around here.  

While I was at it, I figured I should re-sort them, since I was overflowing in some drawers:

The ones in the plastic are my Indies!  Mostly my first love Lacquistry (over 50!), but KB Shimmer and Pretty & Polished also have a pretty strong showing.  I sort by colors, and I re-distributed my polishes to fill up that empty drawer a little more, so I'm content for now.

I'm a sucker for unique polishes, and the China Glaze Tranzitions lines appeal to my love for "magic" effects. These polishes change colors when you apply top coat, which isn't really practical since you can't top coat the entire mani.  But it sounds so fun, I caved and bought 3 of the colors: Modify Me, Split Perso-nail-ity, and Duplicity.  I found this You-Tube video, and was inspired:

This is 1 coat each of Modify Me (blue) & Split Perso-nail-ity (pink) applied diagonally on the nail.  I used NYC "Grand Central Station" as the top coat, which made the dark areas.  It was really fun to watch it change, but it seemed a little streaky to me when all was said and done.  I do love the colors, though!  

On an un-related note, my step daughter has been asking me to do her nails, and we finally had some down time to figure something out.  The poor thing bites her cuticles & nails, and she had acrylics taken off last month, so it took some prep to get the nails looking decent.  But she had the cutest idea, and we picked out the polish to make this:

How cute is this?  I likey, I likey!  This was the first time I did nail art on someone other than myself and it was definitely a different experience.  Not too bad, but I felt like I was applying everything backwards.  She was very happy, and that's all that matters ;-)