Lisa Frank Nails!

Sooo... I totally ripped this off from another nail blogger, and I feel I must give credit where credit is due. It's due here:
http://kroniclesofakonader.blogspot.com/2010/08/neon-and-leoparda-match-made-in-heaven.html

SO, what I did was.. I painted my nails with a white base. I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind White. Then I freehanded the stripes using CHG Towel Boy Toy, CHG Pool Party, Essie Funky Limelights, and CHG Flying Dragon. Then I Konaded on top using the leopard print Konad plate. Someone on either my Twitter or Facebook suggested I add unicorns and glitter to make it a TRUE Lisa Frank experience. Well, since I don't have the mad skilllllz necessary to do unicorns, I topped it off with a couple of coats of Cover Girl City Lights.

And I got...


THIS:


I LOVED IT! I actually wore this for a few days before removing.

Nail Art!

Here is some nail art I did recently.


I keep seeing these strawberry nails everywhere, so I decided to do this myself.
I used China Glaze Cherry Pie for the berries, OPI Jade is the new Black for the leaves, and I dotted on black and white with a toothpick for the seeds. I REALLY liked how this turned out. :)



And this is some stamping I did in preparation for a fun weekend. Sadly, this chipped like... three hours later. :( China Glaze OMG stamped with Konad Special Polish in Black with the arrows and stars design from a Bundle Monster plate.

Happy Fourth of July!

Also, happy 10-days-til-my-birthday! If I'd been born in France, my birthday would be a holiday.

So, here's my July 4th manicure. I wore this to a get-together my husband and I went to last night. We came home with a new kitten. I'm a sucker for baby animals. Our other two cats are... lukewarm towards the new kitty, at best. But we're working on it. We have sweet kitties, so I feel sure that with some patience we'll have them all hanging out together in no time!

Oh wait, I was gonna show you a manicure. Here you go! I used Zoya Blair for the red, unnamed Goldie blue for the blue, and I stamped the stripes from one of the Bundle Monster plates and the stars from another Bundle Monster plate using Sally Hansen Whirlwind White. I had to go back over the stripes with my Art Deco nail art polish in white, because the Sally Hansen wasn't opaque enough.


And check this out. This is OPI No Room for the Blues, which I found on clearance at Trade Secret. ALL of the bottles were marked with this price. I had to ask the cashier, "So, how much is this nail polish... REALLY?" (By the way, it was $4.99.) I should try to sell this on eBay for like $75. I mean, it was ORIGINALLY $120, so clearly $75 is a deal, right?!



And because I can't resist... here's a picture of our new baby. I've yet to choose a name. I really like Jezebel. I also like Dobby because she reminds me of a house elf, and the other HP house elves had stupid names. Also, Dobby was awesome. :)

Recent Fauxnadicures

Wow, Fauxnadicures totally gets the red squiggle underliney thing.

So, I've been having a ton of fun stamping lately since I ordered the Bundle Monster plates. I really prefer the full-nail stamps. I do hate that the Bundle Monster full nail stamps are so narrow. I have fairly narrow nails, but they don't cover my entire nail width. I bet these things would be really horrible for the ladies with wider nail beds than mine. STILL, I've been stamping away. Here are some of my recent looks. I'd tell you what plate the images came from, but I'm way too lazy to go look. However, all of the stamps came from the Bundle Monster plates, and not my Konad or other Fauxnad plates.

Here is Essie Splash of Grenadine with Konad Violet Pearl on top.


China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy with Konad Special Polish in Black. This one got me a LOT of comments. The neon-y-ness of Flip Flop Fantasy is really hard to capture in photos, but this was BRIGHT.


This was OPI Who The Shrek are You with Konad Violet Pearl for the checkerboard tip pattern. This was my first attempt ever at stamping tips, and let me say... it is NOT easy to get it straight. My right hand was pretty crooked, but I wore it anyway. My pointer finger was a casualty of my job.


This is Essie Lapis of Luxury with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind White for the stamp. I think I'm going to have to break down and buy the special Konad white polish because I cannot find a white that stamps decently to save my life.


I didn't have adequate sunlight to capture this one, and it was very, very subtle, but I liked it. It reminded me of, say, curtains in a funeral home. LOL. The base is Rimmel Hard Edged stamped with Nina Ultra Pro in Viva La Velvet.


This is what I'm wearing today and I LOVE IT. It may be my favorite one yet. Then again, I love the color combination of aqua and dark brown. This is a base of Orly Gumdrop stamped with Kleancolor in Dark Brown. OH... Kleancolor. I had no idea where to get this stuff, but I went to an asian beauty supply store close to my house, and they had a TON of it for $1 apiece. This is some GOOD STUFF. I actually have another post planned about my trip to the asian beauty supply. :)

Bacon Mani

So, some of you may know that I love bacon.
I've made chocolate-covered bacon.


I've made bacon fudge and bacon chocolate chip cookies, too, but I don't think I got any pictures of those.

For Halloween 2007, I made my own bacon costume out of foam, velcro, and paint. Uhh, pardon my messy room here.


Here I am dressed as bacon with my friend Marcy.


SO, naturally, when a friend suggested I try a bacon mani, I had to do it. It's not great, and this was actually my second attempt, but it's decent. :)
I used OPI Oh to be 25 Again, Zoya Dea, NYC Polyester Pink Creme, NYC Mulberry Street, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On. Enjoy!

Green of the day!

So last night I gathered up all my green polishes and put them in a basket. Then I let JJ pick which one I'd paint my nails with. I think I'm going to continue this for the next 18 days (that's how many greens I have) because I'm terrible at making decisions like this. He picked OPI Gargantuan Green Grape Matte. Oh no! I hated this polish as a matte because it looked downright putrid on my nails.

I put a topcoat on it and I actually really like this glossy. It's a nice spring green. I realize it's not the same shade as the regular, glossy Gargantuan Green Grape, but I still like this shade.

Then I stuck some nail stickers on. I looked through my Konad and Fauxnad plates and I don't have anything remotely resembling a shamrock... or a leprechaun... or a pot of gold... or beer. And I don't think I can freehand paint those things on my nails. So, flower stickers it is!

I took this photo this morning against a lovely backdrop of sleet and snow. WTF. This winter has been way more snowy than I'd like. When I was little, growing up in south Alabama, it would snow, like, once every five years. And that's enough for me. I am SO READY for spring this year.

I'm back!

Didja miss me? I still have pictures to post. :)
I had a friend in town all weekend, so I painted my nails Thursday night and removed it last night. My manicure for the weekend was OPI Mad as a Hatter on top of Zoya Ibiza. It wore like iron! And I used the tinfoil+cotton balls trick to remove it -- I'd never actually removed glitter like that before, but it worked awesomely.

This was my mani after 3 days of wear (not too shabby).


And this is what I did last night. I tried the swoop mani, using Orly Snowcone, China Glaze Grape Pop, and Nina Ultra Pro's silver metallic (does this have a name? if so, it escapes me). The lines could be straighter, and it could be less goopy in places, but overall I dig it. Besides, most people aren't looking at my nails in full sunlight in macro mode. :)

Nails of the Now

I painted my nails with three coats of Essie Castaway and applied decals I ordered from this eBay store (cheap!!) and ended up with this.

It's so cute I could just puke!

Nails of the day and good news

First... I got bored with Icy Iris last night, so I did this to it. I like it. :)
I used my Art Deco nail art pen in silver glitter on the tips, and used a Nailene nail sticker on the ring finger.


I got official word today that I'm being promoted at work, so I bought myself something I'd been wanting.
Ohh yeeeah, it's the Urban Decay Alice in Wonderland Book of Shadows. I can't WAIT to play with it. :D

It needed something more...

So I kept looking at my nails and thinking they needed something else. So, I took my silver glitter Art Deco nail art polish and put some silver glitter on the tips. I like it. :)