Guest Blog: Pam's Introduction

Hi! Lena has invited me to do guest blogs. As I'm so new to this technology, and unknown to her wonderful fans, I thought I'd take the opportunity to 'introduce' myself! My name is Pam; I'm a wife of almost 22 years; mother of three and grandmother of two; I am a master nail technician of 26 years!
I know some of you do nails for fun, while others make your living this way :) I may not always have the answers, but as we all network, we can find them! And please know, although I do consider myself a master nail tech, there's always room for improvement, so do not hesitate to question or offer different opinions!
For this first blog, since I am so unsure where to begin, please make suggestions as to what each of you would be most interested in. The suggestions with the most attention will be the ones I will address first :)
Let's have fun!

Eden Fantasys

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Sally's Haul

So Sally's had an awesome sale this weekend, 50% off all red-tagged clearance. Which I figured was great since I had my birthday coupon $10 or any $20 purchase and a 15% off any $20 purchase. Too bad I found out I couldn't use any coupons with the clearance sale :( But that's ok since there wasn't anything on clearance that I absolutely HAD to have lol. But I did end up using my coupons for some goodies (of course since I can't go in there and NOT get something). So onto my newest pretties :)
First from Dollar Tree:

Glistening Purple, a purple glitter

Then Sally's:

Caribbean Temptation, Lubu Heels and Dorothy Who?

And from the new Dark Shadows Collection:

Mysterious Curse

With Flash

Sorry for the multiple pics of Mysterious Curse but I was trying really hard to capture the prettiness of it. It's like a purple-blue duochrome and is absolutely gorgeous. I also got some necessities:

Cuticle Oil

Well maybe not necessities lol. I usually use the 100% Acetone from Dollar General since its only $1.25 for 10 oz. and usually lasts me a little while but I thought for some reason that the Beauty Secrets was like double so worth the $2.79 price. Alas that was not the case :( But that's ok live and learn and all that lol. 
So a confession here: I've never in my life used cuticle oil. I mean I moisturize and lotion and all that but before I really got into all the nail stuff I hadn't even heard of it lol. Sally's was mostly for hair stuff maybe once in a while a nail polish or 2 lol. Ohhh how I've been converted lol. 
If you haven't liked the Facebook page yet I'm almost always around and you can reach me there, by leaving a comment on here or by email at lenalovesnails@gmail.com. As always, thanks for stopping by :)

Nails Of The Week and Contest Entry

Yep that's what I said so onto the nails first!

Because I never show off my right hand :)

This is the pic I used for the contest :)

So there they are :) LA Colors Circuits (black) and Wet N Wild Red Red.The contest is homemade dotting tools only, art must be only dots and ends tomorrow, Monday May 28th. As you might be able to see I used a toothpick and a broken paintbrush handle. I actually like them (you can tell since I did my right hand too lol). Did any of you enter the contest?

Let's see, hmmm in other news: The Facebook page is doin pretty well (if you haven't come and "liked" it yet please do. I'm on there all the time and I love it when people share their pics and opinions. Well nice opinions lol. And I post a lot of other stuff on there like tutorials, links to giveaways and contests as well as fan photos.

There's a Twitter account now: you can follow @LenaLovesNails. I won't promise to tweet all the time but I will definitely try lol. I can tell when my posts are getting too long because it makes everything so slow, so I'll end this one now. Hope to see you all on the facebook page, I think we have fun there. Off to get ready for a cookout, as always , thanks for stopping by :)

Contest Art!

So after much ado, I have all the pics of my ideas for Tip Top Nails' dotting contest. I was informed that they have to be visible dots so some of these designs won't work after all. My original thinking was that it was anything done with a dotting tool. All of the designs were my own ideas though my Facebook likers contributed some color combo ideas. Now on to the nails!

I was told I can use the ladybug and the blue star design ones. 

My favorite...too bad it wouldn't play well with my cam :(

So I'm not sure for the second set or the little hearts if I can use them or not but based on what they told me: 
Hi Lena, there have to be noticable dots and you may use different sizes but only 2 colours, your base colour is colour 1 and your dots are colour 2. Hope this makes sense. Love Joan

I'm guessing that I can use the flowers (also based on them sharing flower manis on their Facebook wall) but I can't use the scrolls or drag marble. 

So pick your favorite (preferably of the ones I think I can use lol) and let me know with a comment! Thanks everybody for helping and as always, thanks for stopping by :)

Ohh Such A Tease!

Can you guess what this is gonna be based off the title? Lol I would think so! Of course its a quick tease :P 
Having made my page I've found so many other nail artists as well as other beauty related pages and that has led to me finding a few contests. Of course lol. So I'm trying to decide what I wanna do for Tip-Top-Nails-South-Africa's dotting contest. (The link will take you to their Facebook page.) The rules are only home-made dotting tools may be used and only 2 colors total may be used. So I'm feeling pretty creative as I've been thinking about it most of the day and I thought I'd share a couple pics with you guys :) 

I think I like these ones. With this contest I'm doing a bunch of ideas and I'm gonna let y'all help choose what I do. Full post tomorrow after I finish the other design ideas I have and I'll explain how to let me know what you like. If you wanna see more right this minute head over to my Facebook page and look at the album Contest Art. (If you haven't yet please like my page to stay up-to-date on what's going on.) Ok, bed time for me, as always, thanks for stopping by :) 

Another quick post....No really I swear!

So a few things from today I wanted to share with everyone: 
I made a Facebook page :) you can find it under Lena Loves Nails or right here. 
I'm already up to 13 likes! That makes me sooooo happy and excited you have no idea. It was kinda my breakout there since I didn't really tell my friends or family that I started this blog. I suppose my thinking was that if random strangers I'd never talked to didn't want to read what I wrote then why would I subject my family to it? Anyhow it'd be great if you hop on over and like it! 
Second thing is Yamii from over at yamiidoesnails hosted a giveaway tonight for the first set of Bundle Monster plates. Now I never ever win anything. Gambling, giveaways, contests you name it my luck is horrible. But tonight thanks to some great friends I won! Woohoo! Super excited over here lol. Thanks again Yamii!!!!!!!
So I promised quick and this is as good as I can do lol. As always, thanks for stopping by :)

Quick Post-Toes

I tend to feel the urge to blog much more frequently than I generally do but luckily for me I have stuff I don't have posted on here lol. SO from the archives these are my toes from last week. I do them much less than my fingers since as most nail painters know polish tends to stay on toes longer. If you don't like to look at feet I understand and I'm sorry but this is me and my blog so I will write what I like :)

Anyhow this is 2 coats of Wet N Wild white with the blue and purple stripes being the Stripe Rite striper polishes from Sally's. I stamped white flowers on using more WnW white though I'd have to check to see which plate I used lol. The little purple flowers are cute little embellishments that I got in an 8 pack from Dollar Tree and I love them sooooo much. 

I've been doing my own nails since I was about 13 or so though I didnt get into any real nail art kind of things until about a year and a half ago. And then I was really only doing it on my toes since I'm not very steady with my hands lol. In fact the mani I have on now is the first time Ive ever done tips without a guide. Its all a learning process and I love that there are so many talented ladies who share what they do so everyone can learn :) Quick post? Maybe not so much lol. Anywho do you do nail art on your toes? I'd love to see! As always thanks for stopping by :)

Nails Of The Week and some News

Ok I seriously didn't like my birthday mani and since I didn't have internet all day I chose to re-do my nails. And I took a ton of pics lol. I also have a little haul to do but I totally forgot to take pics today and the lighting in my house seriously sucks :( Anyhow I didn't ever realize that LA Colors made the Art Deco art brush polishes and never noticed that it says LA Colors right on the Art Deco bottle. Duh lol that'll teach me to pay attention. But yesterday I got LA Colors Jewel Tone (since when do they name the polishes? None of my older ones have names lol) and thought it looked an awful lot like an Art Deco:

Now onto the nails!

So this is 2 coats of Circuits by LA Colors (black) and 2 coats of Jewel Tone (blue and purple glitter). So pretty but I felt it needed a little something so I stamped some stars using my new Born Pretty plate M17. Sorry no pics of just that added lol. I still thought it needed something. The other day I dug through all my other craft supplies and found some sequins that I've had for years and since I just happened to have some blue and purple stars I stuck those on too lol. 

Oh look, my right hand!

I always do my left hand first since I'm a righty and I found out quick that my star sequins were definitely not color-safe. As soon as I tried to topcoat with my Seche Vite the color started comin off. You can kinda see it in a couple of these pics. At this point Ive lost one star (off my right index finger) and most of the other ones are almost all silver :( So cute idea but need better sequins lol. Anyhow I still like it and I'll just end up peelin them off and top coating them again :) And I finally got almost all of them square shaped woohoo!
On a side note I've found a few nail art apps on the Android market (now the play store)  and I totally love them! Ive gotten some good ideas and if nothing else its nice to look at pretty nails ;) They are Hair, Nails and Makeup which has tips for all three as well as vids and pics and the other app is Nail Art Gallery. You can download pics from both apps. Ok this is gettin super long so I'm gonna stop lol. As always thanks for stoppin by :)

Birthday Mani & Naked Nails

As promised my birthday mani:

Only one pic and it's not a great one. I really wasn't very happy with it. I liked it better before the scrolls lol. But everything is a learning experience, and I learned that I can do scrolls with a toothpick. Yes, seriously a toothpick! I really love how some scrolls look and I wanted to try it. It's not too hard actually lol. Anyhow evolution of this mani:
2 coats of Sally Hansen Lavender Envy:

And 2 coats of Finger Paints Well-Cultured Pearl:

Honestly I should have left it alone at the point but I wanted to stamp little gold crowns using Ulta's High Roller but it didn't show up very well at all. So I added flowers using a homemade dotting tool and when that still looked a little too plain I did the scrolls. I threw some Pure Ice Busted on before the flowers and scrolls as well. 
And naked nails before the mani: 

I'm slowly trying to get them all shaped square which is slightly more difficult on my right hand since I'm always breaking my thumb nail and its pretty round lol. As always thanks for stopping by :)

Born Pretty Stamping Plates

Ok so let me say that technically its now the 18th not the 17th which I said I'd post on however I don't consider it the next day til I wake up lol. That being said I'm still considering it Thursday which is my birthday :) Yay Happy Birthday to me the big 25 lol. 
 If you've read the previous posts then you'll know I not only picked out all my presents but I got almost all of them a while ago lol. If you haven't read the previous posts and don't want to I'll sum it up real quick. I got a set of Red Angel plates, a set of MASH plates and lots of nail polish along with some other goodies.
 I also ordered a set of stamping plates from the Born Pretty store. I love all of it. Of course I do, I picked it all out lol. My plates from Born Pretty came the other day after almost a month of shipping time due to them being shipped from China lol. See I had no idea that's where they would ship from. So I was pretty impatient lol. Anyhow they finally came this last weekend! 

Stamper and Scraper from Born Pretty

So now I have 5 Salon Express plates, 12 Born Pretty plates, 25 MASH plates, and 21 Red Angel plates. That's a lot of plates and designs! 

In this pic above I actually put the Red Angel plates in the little MASH baggie things since the MASH have a paper backing and the Red Angel ones don't. I absolutely don't want my plates all scratched up (which is part of why I don't use the scrapers I have). I keep them all in this cute little Tupperware bowl that is square shaped and the perfect size. I keep that, my scrapers, stampers and cards I actually use for scraping in a Julep Maven box lol. If you stamp how do you store your supplies? I still have to show my birthday mani take one but I think that will wait til morning lol. As always thanks for stopping by :) 

Nails Of The Week

So after a couple of back to back busy weekends I've gotten a little behind :( So I'm goin to play catch up with this post and post again tomorrow :) 

Nails of last week:

Fingerpaints Inkblot Blue and Laugh My Art Off

Inkblot Blue being a neon dries matte

So I started off with something completely different: 

Sinful Colors What's Your Name

Excuse my file in the pic lol I was just kind of taking as I go shots. My original plan was to do black with neon blue tips in a funky french. Needless to say I really didn't like it at all. 

Fingerpaints Inkblot Blue and Sinful Colors 

My hands aren't always very steady so I thought I would cover the lines up with tiny blue microbeads which probably led to my dislike of it. I ended up taking the whole thing off and just doing the Inkblot Blue. And of course I love glitter so I added the Laugh My Art Off which is beautiful blue glittery prettiness :) 
The What's Your Name has so much pretty blue/green subtle shimmer I had to take a few pics to share:

Hard to see it really in the pics but believe me its there. I probably would have used Wet N Wild Black Creme but it ran out half-way through a water marble I was doin before this. Supa sad face :( So I gave up took the whole water marble off and went to bed. (By the way I live right next to a Walgreen's and they havent stocked more of the WnW black in like 2 weeks, Grrr! Ok well I gotta go and figure out something to do with what I got goin on with my nails now, as always thanks for stoppin by :)