NOTD: Stormy Silver Lining

I was in a bit of a rush so I just a simple mani today... Revlon Top Speed in Stormy with Kiss Nail Artist Paint in silver glitter.



Nothing fancy... I just did a silver starburst type patter on my thumb and ring fingers on each hand.

Thanks for reading!
- Kim

NOTD: Audrey, Zebras, and Reagan

I tried out one of my new Bundle Monster plates today. I used BM-223 with Essie Licorice over Sally Hansen Whirlwind White. Then I added half-moons and tips with China Glaze For Audrey. I really like this one... I think I have a new go-to quickie manicure. :o)



My only complaint about this one is that my SechVite smeared the stripes a little bit. I'll have to figure out how to correct that.

And in other news, in addition to my Bella Roo, I've had this little thing running around my house.


This is my sis-in-law's dog, Reagan, and we're puppy sitting while T and her new hubby are on honeymoon. This dog is 5 pounds of fur and cuteness but my dog HATES her. Anytime I pick Reagan up, Bella starts barking and growling like crazy. Who knew dogs could suffer from only child syndrome. lol.

Thanks for reading!
- Kim

Handwriting Tag

I stumbled across a new blog tonight, The Nailasaurus. She uses a lot of Bundle Monster plates in her nail designs and I got lost for about an hour in her blog just looking over her great manicures. Definitely check her out!

One of her blog posts is about this Handwriting Tag that had been passed around the blogosphere. I know I'm waaaaay late to this party but this looked to cute to pass up. :o)

Clicky click the picture to make it bigger!

Now it's your turn if you wanna play along! Here are the eight questions. Just write your answers down and take a picture, then tag who you want to play too. :o)

1. What is your name? And your blog name?

2. Blog URL

3. Write: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

4. Favourite quote

5. Favourite song

6. Favourite band/singers

7. Say anything you want

8. Pass it along to a few bloggers

Thanks for reading!
-Kim

NOTD: Inspired by Nail Art Express

One of my absolute favorite nail blogs is Nail Art Express. This girl has some serious talent and she comes up with the sweetest designs. (Anything with dainty florals or polka-dots and I'm sold!) I found the prettiest manicure in her gallery and I wanted to try my hand at it. My version is no where near as neat and crisp as hers but I like it just the same. (Click on the links above to see her gorgeous work and see all her other amazing designs.)



For this manicure, I used Wet n Wild Megalast in Private Viewing for my base color. It's a peachy tan color and very, very close to my skin tone. (Another new favorite nude!) Then for my designs, I used Sally Hansen Whirlwind White, Snappy Sorbet, and Rapid Red and Essie Little Brown Dress. Simple and sweet! I plan to invest in some dotting tools after this because sometimes, a toothpick just ain't enough. :oP




Thanks for reading!
-Kim

NOTD: Manicure Overload!

I thought I'd share these three manicures together since aren't really anything special. I tend to use an abstract design on my ring finger when I'm in a hurry but want my nails to look decent. I've also been neglecting my cuticles and I have a few stubby nails, lol. That's the price I pay for being clumsy.

First up, we have Revlon Mon Cherry. This is one of the scented polishes and it really does smell like cherries once it dries. I thought it was cute and it wore well. Application was easy-peasy. I used SecheVite on top and I could still smell the cherry goodness so I'd dare to say that it may have a stronger scent if you leave the top coat off. For the design, I used my Kiss Nail Artist polishes again. I highly recommend them for super-quick freehand designs like this!


Next up, we have the wedding nails... T's colors were malibu blue and fuchsia so to keep up with that theme, all the girls got matching pedicures using OPI Koala Bear-y and had designs painted on using white and bright blue. When I got done at the salon, I headed over to Ulta to pick up a bottle for touch ups in case we dinged our toes-es. I did my own fingernails using the same color. I didn't want to do anything over the top so I just did the same design as before and switched out the black for blue. Simple yet pretty!



And now for the last one... while I was at Ulta, I went a lil' polish crazy and picked up a few lot of various colors that I didn't need. (including a clearanced OPI Suede that I can't wait to try!) One of my impulse buys was a bottle of OPI Skull and Glossbones. I really like this color! I've always been a fan of unique nudes/neutrals and this one is definitely a winner. I generally find that I need at least 3 coats for light colors like this but surprisingly, it only took two thin coats to get full coverage. I ended up doing a third because, again, I'm clumsy and I ended up mushing the polish on my middle finger and I tried to even it back out instead of taking it all off but you can totally see the lump in my nail, lol. Oh well!

I painted the design using a liner brush with Essie Smooth Sailing (I was trying to keep things nautical, lol) and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White. Then I made the dots using my Kiss Nail Artist black. Simple. ♥


As always, thanks for reading!
-Kim

Long Time, No Post!

I have been so busy lately! There's been a lot going on at the homestead. For starters, we're in the process of redoing our living room and dining room. We had water damage to our wood floors thanks to a leaky door frame. The contractor took the floor up and found there was a lot of water damage to the subfloors all around the perimeter. Low and behold, it turns out the house wasn't wrapped before the siding was put on. Ugh. That turned into A LOT of additional repairs but our new door is in and our new floors are down. Now we just have to paint.

Oooooh, shiny.

Then, in a positive turn of events, my beautiful sister-in-law and her fiance just got married on Sunday. Pete and I were in the bridal party and it was a ton of fun being a part of their day... and I just love any excuse to get all dolled up. Besides all of the festivities on Sunday, we had family events on both Friday and Saturday night as well. Pete and his sis are from a 100% Italian family, so no matter what the occasion is... you eat and eat and eat and eat. I seriously think I gained about 10 pounds over the weekend.

Me and my soon to be mister. ♥

The bride & groom with their family.


The bridal party + the groom's mom. :o)


I ♥ that guy.

These were just a few pictures snapped by friends at the wedding. I can't wait to see the ones by the professional photographers! We staged a few pretty good scenes and I hope they turn out as awesome as we all hoped.

But I think we're out of the woods for a little bit now. It'll be back in full swing come July... Pete has a cousin that's getting married. And theeeeeen, Pete and I are getting married in October! Woohoo!! I'm just a little bit excited... this has been an event that's been six years in the making!

Thanks for reading!
- Kim

P.S. -- Next post will be all nails. ;o)

Stylish Blogger Award!

I was tagged for the stylish blogger award by Wacky Laki. Thanks girl! This is my first ever blog award so I feel official now! lol :o)

The Rules

Thank and link back to the person who sent you the award.

Share seven things about yourself.

Spread the love. Award recently discovered bloggers.

Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award.

This sounds simple enough so onto the facts...

1. I've lived in the same county my entire life until 3 years ago when I got a wild hair and moved across the county line. Even with the move, I'm still less that 10 miles from my parents' home.

2. I'm an avid animal lover and activist. I currently only have one pet, my Jack Russell/Chihuahua named Bella. But growing up, I had all kinds of pets including but not limited to dogs, cats, a tarantula, iguana, tree frogs, mice, chickens (not for food or farming, they had names and I played with them.), numerous varieties of fish, hermit crabs, snails, pygmy frogs, snakes, etc.

3. My dream job would be for me to be a freelance artist but I'm too afraid to take the plunge into it so I dabble here and there. I sell my jewelry and accessories in a local boutique and take commissions on my pencil drawings. I really think I could do if I could just get over the "what if's"

4. My family had a hamburger and ice cream shop when I was a kid and I started working there when I was just 11 years old. One of the first things I learned was how douche-tastic the public can be... I had been yelled at, had food thrown at me, and was even repeatedly punched in the head by an old woman over butter pecan ice cream, all by the time I was 13.

5. As a teen, I was really into goth style clothing and music. I kept my hair dyed all sorts of wild colors until I accidentally dyed my parents' bath tub atomic pink with Manic Panic. Then my dad banned all hair dyes that I couldn't by at Wal-Mart so I ended up with red and burgundy hair for a long time.

6. I never had a best friend growing up. I had several good friends over the years but I never had that deep partner-in-crime bond that a some girls had. I'm not sure why but I suspect it may have had something to do with my tomboy ways as a kid. I'd always prefer to play with the boys instead of girls until I went high school and then I just wanted to hang out with my boyfriend. lol

7. I have no musical talent whatsoever. I'm tone deaf, have no rhythm, and can't play an instrument to save my life. I'm sooo bad that I was kicked out of chorus in the 6th grade and it was open to everyone.

--------------------------------------------------------

That was harder than I expected, lol. I was having some serious writer's block! But now it's my turn to tag some other bloggers! There are so many awesome nail blogs right now and there are new ones popping up everyday. Here are a few that I recently started to follow:

Queen of Friggen Crap

Polish, Puttering, and Ponderings

heartNAT

Nicole - Top to Toe

NOTD: Dragon Scale Nails

After seeing this tutorial on Rebecca Likes Nails, I decided I wanted to give the whole gradient manicure thing a try. I really wish I had thought to take pictures of the process but alas, I wasn't that forward thinking. Oh well...


I used 2 coats of Essie Smooth Sailing for the base. Then for the gradient effect, I used OPI Dating a Royal and Essie Licorice. I did this kind of backwards... I sponged on the black first using a makeup applicator sponge and then I blended with the blue using the same sponge tip. After that, I used one coat of SecheVite to smooth everything out and on top of that, I did one coat of China Glaze Matte Magic. Once all of that was dry, I got out my new Bundle Monster plates (yay!) and used the snake skin looking pattern on plate BM215 with Sonia Kashuk Smoke and Mirrors. Here is my final result...


I think this one came out really cool (way better than the previous Avon nightmare!) and I want to try it with a different color scheme now too. I was thinking an olive green to black fade with gold snake skin would look amazing!

And one last thing, I named these my Dragon Scales Nails because they remind me of the cover on the book Eragon by Christopher Paolini. (Yes, I'm a nerd. Don't judge me. lol)


I hope you guys liked this one and as always, thanks for reading!

- Kim

NOTD: What. The. Eff. Avon?

Welp... this is one of those manicures where I had an idea that seemed really awesome in my head but when I went to put it on, it just kind of sucked. The amusing part is that I REALLY hated it but I got a ton of compliments on it today from random people. I guess it was because it's so freaking bright, everyone noticed how they were painted, lol.


I tried two of the Avon polishes I just got last week (Sunshine and Mambo Melon) and as much as I wanted to love these, I can't. They honestly have to be two of the worst polishes I've used in a very long time. The formula on both was very thick and goopy and it went on so streaky. I swear, it was a battle trying to get it to go where I wanted. It was literally like trying to spread grape jelly on toast with a spoon... I eventually got it spread out but it was a pain in the ass to do it. In addition to the formula, the brushes are sooo wonky. The post and the cap are squared but the bristles seemed to be rounded which made holding the brush awkward. I'd have to swipe the excess off one way and then readjust my hand to paint. The Mambo Melon gets an extra strike against it because I had to trim some of the bristles... they were short and broken in places and sticking out to the sides.

I'm just really, really disappointed. I'm hoping the yellow will be salvageable as stamping polish later on but I don't know. I'll let y'all know how that goes when I get there.

Now as for the design itself, I just wanted to do a simple two tone look with a curved line diagonally across my nail. I painted my entire nail in Sunshine first.

Three (yes, 3) coats of Sunshine.

I let that dry for a bit and then I used a liner brush to freehand the curved line as a guide. Then I used the regular polish brush just to fill it in.

See the streaky-ness? This is with two coats of Mambo Melon.

This is where I planned on stopping but I wasn't feeling it so I just used some of my Kiss Nail Artist polishes to add an abstract swooshy design. (The last set of these I bought came with these little gem sticker thingies so I put one of those on there too.)

So bottom line, Avon broke my polish loving heart with these. I still have the Mink color to try but after this mani, I'm not sure if I ever will.

So what do you guys think? Is this just a fluke or are Avon polishes like this in general?

Thanks for reading!
- Kim

NOTD: Glittery Taupe Drawer French Mani

I tried the Pure Ice polishes I got in my latest haul for this mani. The base is Top Drawer and the glitter is Spit Fire.


These are my first Pure Ice polishes and I'd say they're pretty decent for the low price point. (I paid $1.99 each for these two.) The Taupe Drawer gets good coverage, goes on smooth, and dries pretty quickly. The only thing I didn't like about the application is size of the brush... it's fairly small but that's a personal preference thing. For example, I ♥ the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri brushes but a lot of people complain that they're too big.

I really liked the colors of these in the bottle and they look awesome side by side, like they were made for each other. Once I got the polish on though, the Taupe Drawer seemed to wash me out a little bit... it has a purplish gray look to it. It's okay but not my fave. Now the glitter on the other hand, looked a lot different on my nails than it did in the bottle. It's very purplish but once out of the bottle, that's gone and there is a lot of silver, blue, and green.... still cool, but not what I expected.


I wore this mani for two days and I ended up with quite a bit of chipping by the second day. I also noticed that it peeled off in sizable pieces so before I took it off, I tried peeling back a bit and I was able to peel off almost all of the polish on my pinky nail in one piece... kind of weird.

So, I would say this is a good polish for someone who changes their polish frequently. If you're looking for longer lasting wear, I'd shy away from these and go with a higher quality brand.

Thanks for reading!
-Kim

NOTD: Taupe Drawer and Spit Fire

Drugstore Haul and Some Avon

As I was on the way to a baby shower on Saturday, I realized I didn't have a card for the mom-to-be. I stopped at a Walgreens to get one and I took a peek at the nail polish. I should know better... I ended up walking out with all of these. lol.

Here are some closer pictures of each:

From left to right, Sinful Colors in Neon Melon, Dream On, and Frenzy.

Essie Smooth Sailing and Licorice.

Pure Ice in Taupe Drawer and Spit Fire.

In addition to my drugstore haul, I also got some polishes that came in from Avon on Thursday . I haven't bought any nail polish from them in about 7 or 8 years but I remember I liked them a lot. The bottles were different back then so I'm interested to see if they're the same as before or if the formulas have changed with the bottles.

From left to right, SpeedDry Mink, Nailwear Pro Sunshine, and SpeedDry Mambo Melon.

I'm really looking forward to trying out all of these and I'm seeing some great color combos here. I've been brainstorming some ideas and can't wait to share them with you all. :o)

Thanks for reading!
- Kim

NOTD: Nubar Reclaim

I kept this one super simple since I was in a rush when I did it. I mean, I didn't even use a base coat. I did two coats of Nubar Reclaim and a coat of SecheVite on top.

Artificial Light.

Camera Flash.

Artificial light.

Artificial light.

Natural light - with cloudy skies. :o(

This is my first Nubar polish, ever. I've determined I need more... lots more.

The formula is amazing and practically perfect... it's thin and smooth without being too runny or goopy so it goes where it needs to with little effort. On top of that, you get total coverage in two coats. I'm also well into my second day of wear and still no chips and that's even after doing a load of dishes sans gloves. Super easy and awesome.

Green is my all-time favorite color to begin with but this is such a lovely hue. It amazes me how Reclaim can be such a grassy green yet have this rainbow of color running through it at the same time. So, it's official... I ♥love♥ this color!

So what about you? Is green a do or don't on your nails?

Thanks for reading!
-Kim

NOTD: The Matte IS Magic

I was going to completely change my mani tonight but while I was browsing through my polish stash, I came across my bottle of China Glaze Matte Magic. On a whim, I painted it on my thumbnail just to see what the Nfu OH 49 would look like mattified... and WOW! The pictures don't do justice but it makes the transitions in the colors stand out even more. I actually liked it better! So I painted the rest and decided to wear it for another day. :o)