First Blog Award: Fabulous Blog Ribbon

Melanie at Samples by Entaeyen is so nice she passed along the Fabulous Blog Ribbon to me! Thanks Melanie :)


The rules for accepting the award:
Post the rules on your blog.
Name five of your most fabulous moments, either in real life or in the blogosphere.
Name five things you love.
Name five things you hate.
Pass the ribbon on to five other bloggers. (Leave them a comment to notify them of their win.)

Five of my most fabulous moments (in no particular order):

1. Starting my blog! 
2. Gaining followers and likes
3. Holding my newborn niece for the first time
4. Learning to be confident in myself
5. When I decided to pull my head out of my butt and do what I needed to, to go for my diploma. 

Five things I love (again no particular order):

1. Nail Polish!
2. Food
3. The Sims
4. Family (not a thing but they count)
5. Reading

Five things I hate:

1. Spiders!
2. Liars and cheats
3. People who annoy the ever-living stuffing out of me
4. Bigots and the ignorant. Why can't we all just get along?
5. When I'm waiting for something and it seems like it just won't come

Five other bloggers....now this is seriously hard! I'm going to go with blogs I love and always read, who haven't got the award yet:

1. Corinne from Galactic Lacquer (amazing nail art and smart!)
2. Heather over at My Husband Ate All My Ice Cream (she's a huge help and hilarious!)
3. Leticia from Teen Polish Junkie (young and knows what she likes, gotta respect that!)
4. Alyssa from Frugal Polish (super nice and love her blog!)
5. Shelly from Shelly's Sassy Nails (just because she's awesome)

Try It On Tuesday: Blue Water Marble

Today is Try It On Tuesday and quite a few of us nail bloggers participate. I tried last week but my polish just wouldn't cooperate lol. Luckily I got something workable this week :) So the first one I'll show you is a fail. I did my pinkie, ring finger and middle last night and they came out good but when I tried to do my thumb and index finger it just didn't want to work well at all.

Looks like crap right? Yeah, I thought so too. I ended up taking those two off and re-doing them until they looked decent:

Jen of Jen's Nail Files sent me the fimo slices recently (thanks again Jen you rock!) and the rhinestones I got in a temporary tattoo kit. Sorry for the horrible lack of cleanup but I don't really like this and am thinking hard about taking it off lol. The polishes I used for this Try It On Tuesday mani are: 

WnW- Bijou Blue (used previously)

Fingerpaints- Cerulean Seascape (not used before)

Orly- Blue Collar (not used before)

China Glaze- Sexy In The City (can't remember if I've used it or not lol)

Sinful Colors- Why Not (don't think I've used it before)

Sinful Colors- Love Nails (probably used it before but no idea for sure)

Fingerpaints- Laugh My Art Off (used previously here)

The blue is for AMC Awareness and you can read about that on Jilltastic Design's Blog right here)

As always, thanks for stopping by :)

Quick Post: Blog Changes

Just a short, quick one for you guys tonight :) If you are reading this from the Blogger Dashboard please do me a favor and click on the blog name to go to the blog and read this. There isn't that better? The reason for that is I made a few design changes and I would like your opinion :) So please look at the background and the text and tell me what you think. I've had some complaints about the comment text being hard to read, I'm hoping it's better now. If you have some other ideas (or you know are great at blog design and wanna hook me up for free let me know heehee). I think I like sticking with the heart kind of theme since it goes with the name but I'm still thinking about header images and all of that stuff. Any input (positive!) is appreciated :)
As always, thanks for stopping by :)

This world and the people that live in it

First off I want to say this in NOT my usual kind of post.

Today I want to talk about the people I see in public. I have always been an observer, particularly of people. I look around and I notice things. Since I've gotten into nail art I've especially started noticing manis of course, but also just people. I wonder what people think and why they decide to do what they do.

We've all seen the people of WalMart pics and whatnot so I'm sure you'll see where this is going lol. I am definitely not in the least bit able to cast stones (though I totally do lol). There's a reason I save the back of Glamour for last and that reason is Don'ts. I like to look at those pics and say to myself WTF was she thinking?!

If you hang out with me on my Facebook page you may know that the bf and I tend to go to the stock car races every Sunday. It never fails that I see some things that make me scratch my head and think to myself, "Really? What was she thinking?" So here are a few things that someone may be thinking when you see them in public:

1. Unsupported saggy boobs. Chances are you don't have boobs like a porn star. They aren't perfectly perky and you need some kind of support. Wear a freaking bra! It never fails, every time we go to the races I see chicks free-boobing it when they really shouldn't be. Now if you don't care a bit then good for you, just know that others are thinkin it. (I frequently see older women without a bra with their boobs hanging down to their belly buttons lol.)  

2. Perfectly made up but dressed like you crawled out of the reject bin at Goodwill. I see chicks that have perfect hair and makeup all done but they are dressed in hacked off sweat pants and a tank top that looks like it's been at the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper for 2 weeks. What the hell? If you are gonna do it, do it all.

3. Fat rolls. Cover that nastiness up! Believe me no one wants to see it. Oh and if you are a guy keep your shirt on! Nobody wants to see your beer belly jiggle like a bowl full of jelly.  

4. Stupid tattoos. Today I saw a girl with a barcode on the back of her neck, a pot leaf on her shoulder, and a Playboy Bunny by the back of her ear (she had more but I couldn't tell what all they were. To me this is ridiculous. I love tattoos and I have one with plans for more but when it comes to stupid things, just Don't!

5. The wrong clothes for the weather. I saw a guy a couple of weekends ago wearing shorts, tennis shoes, and a stocking cap. Really dude? It's too hot for a shirt but not too hot for that hat? Wow!

6. Ridiculous facial hair. I get that it's your choice but don't expect me not to snicker and point out your choice to the bf.

7. Well dressed people who don't bother to dress their kids. I understand kids are messy and go through clothes quick or they may have had an accident so I try to look past this. But if your kids are wearing pajamas in the middle of the day I have to wonder.
                                      
8. Skinny jeans. Most ridiculous fashion I have ever seen. I hate them, loathe them in fact. And it takes a certain body type and outfit to be able to pull them off. I count them up there with mom jeans. 

9. Rooster hair and other crazy hair styles. I saw a woman with bleached white hair and she looked like a rooster. Seriously what are you people thinking? There was a kid we saw at the store yesterday who either had cut his own hair or someone thought he was a dalmation since he had spots all over his head. C'mon mom fix that! 

10. Leggings. I cannot tell you how many chicks I see that have leggings on and either don't realize they are see through or don't care. They wear shirts that are too short and you see their underwear (or not ewww!) or they randomly bend over. I went with my sister's family to the St. Patrick's Day parade this year and this chick ran out in the middle of the road wearing leggings, bent over at the waist to grab a piece of candy and not only could you see every single bulge and ripple along with her underwear (so glad she was wearing them!) but they were also ripped and worn out in the thighs so everyone saw that too.

So there you have it! 10 things that make me scratch my head in wonderment lol. I hope you are all baffled along with me but if not, let me tell you right now that I will not tolerate any rude comments. Your opinion is your opinion as is mine, 

As always, thanks for stopping by :)

Butterflies!

If you hang around my Facebook page then you may know that I recently got a ring from Copious. While I love the ring it does have the capability to turn me green lol (thank man for clear fingernail polish!) You may also know that I was having quite a bit of trouble the other day with Sally Hansen's Blizzard Blue. I REALLY REALLY wanted to use it to do a mani that matched my gorgeous new ring so I decided to try it again before I called it crap and got rid of it. It didn't want to dry at all and it was ridiculously bubbly :( 
2 coats of Sally Hansen's Blizzard Blue (FAIL) and the ring:

Can you tell how bad that is? Seriously, it was complete crap. But try again!
3 coats this time, stamped with Kleancolor Metallic Aqua and Sapphire and 1 coat of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Teal: 

Woohoo! Better definitely though the Blizzard Blue still didn't want to play nice :( 

And with the ring :) So what do you think? Have you ever tried to match jewelry with a mani? Would you? 


As always, thanks for stopping by :)

Guest Post: Answers!

Samantha, cuticle remover and cuticle softener are two different products. Only use cuticle remover if your cuticle growth is excessive. As far as softener, you can use it, or just very gently push cuticles back after a shower/bath. And again, only trim if the cuticle material is split or unruly! Also, be sure to use cuticle trimmers, by Mehaz or Tweezerman, not the little v-shaped 'cutter' that you get at the drugstore!
Cuticle oil, or any moisturizer, is really about personal skin type and geography. Keeping your hands moisturized slows the aging of your hands, keeps nails from becoming terribly brittle, and can help maintain your mani for an extra day or so! Even grapeseed oil is wonderful!


The only reason for a gap between your cuticle and polish is: our skin produces oils to keep us moisturized, (in theory) :) and if you have not properly removed cuticle growth before polish application, your polish will lift and peel quickly. If you have prepped your nails properly, take your polish right up there! It looks fresher longer, and you'll be happier with the end result! Just be sure to clean up your 'messes', so your mani looks amazing from day one!


As far as my personal routine...I wear acrylics, so I use pure acetone to remove polish. I rebase ~ twice a month, unless I'm being lazy :) I change my polish/design as often as once a week to as rarely as once a month! Depends on how much I like what I put on, and how bad I mess 'em up at work or in the garden! I have VERY dry skin, and I live in Colorado...there's not enough lotion on this continent to keep me moisturized! Find what works for you, even if its a generic! And never apologize for it! :D


Yellowing of your nails is common and annoying...you can try different base coats, but some people yellow no matter what! A 5-10 minute soak in hydrogen peroxide will usually help...or if you have great nails and are in a hurry, a purple buffing block, (very fine), will take that stain right off! Some polish brands are more likely to stain than others...some pigments are more likely to stain...you just have to decide what you're willing to tolerate :)


Keep asking me questions! I will try to keep answering!
Have a great night all! Last hours of the Summer Solstice...enjoy!

Born Pretty? Pffft No Thanks!

I would like to start off this post noting that this is MY blog and as such I will post whatever I'd like to. I also know that how well things go with this blog depends on you my readers so I try to keep things clean and upbeat. This will NOT be one of those posts. This post is a rant. 


If you have been reading for a while you may know that I purchased some stamping plates from The Born Pretty Store (post seen here). Now I got a lot of plates all at once for my birthday and as I don't always do a stamping mani I haven't gotten around to trying all of them yet though I used a Born Pretty plate for this mani seen here. I picked that image out and tried it and it worked great so I felt comfortable thinking that like all of my other plates I wouldn't have a problem. I went ahead and replied back to their email saying yes I had received my order and that all appeared well. 


This was absolutely not the case! I tried to use another plate on my last mani seen here and here. I found a super cute flower and figured I would just stamp it real quick since we were on our way to a party and I just wanted a little something extra. The first one I picked didn't work at all no matter what polish I tried or which stamper I used. In fact no matter what I did it wouldn't work. SO I tried a different plate. That one wouldn't work either. Well by then I didn't have time to keep messing around and just used a different set (MASH ) and found an image hurried up and stamped so we wouldn't be late. 


I pretty much put it out of mind with everything that has been goin on here lately figuring I would get back to it later and keep trying. I was supposed to do someone else's nails the other day and I knew they would want Hello Kitty and since my BP plates were the only ones I have with that image I pulled them out again to practice and get some ideas. I was pretty annoyed when it refused to work (I could only pick up a corner of the bow). 


So I emailed the customer service who had previously been so nice and I waited for a reply. Now anytime I have had to deal with something like this before the company is generally very reasonable. I figured it would be a somewhat simple matter to correct, after all I had spent good money on these items. I got an email back giving me advice telling me to take off the film and "that it is impossible that the plates can't work well". 


Maybe this wouldn't offend you but let me tell you I was VERY offended. Basically I felt I was being called an idiot. In two emails they are saying its not their product but me that is the issue. Now I had already told them that I was a blogger before (I had emailed them asking for a coupon code to share with you guys). So it's not like I'm exactly inexperienced with stamping and the mechanics of it all. I emailed them back Friday less than a minute after I had received an email from them telling them I felt I was being blamed for an issue I feel to be theirs, that I was sure it was a mistake in quality not a deliberate issue and that I had already tried everything they suggested and nothing would work. 


They have ignored that last email so I emailed them today telling them that due to their complete disregard of this issue I would never purchase anything from them again and that I would urge everyone else I could to do so as well. Will they get back to me? I doubt it. I am one person and they are popular with bloggers due to sending items for free to be reviewed. Where I sit right now out of 12 plates 5 do not work at all, 4 plates almost all the images work and 3 work somewhat (one plate only 2 images work). 


I hate to say a bad word about anybody but after this kind of 'customer care' I would never ever do business with them again and I hope you all think about this issue if you decide to. I also know I'm not the only one who has had issues and gotten the run-around. 


As always, thanks for stopping by :) 

Gay Pride Month, Naked Nails, NOTW and a messge

For Gay Pride Month everyone is doing some kind of themed nails. I wanted to take it up a notch of course, try to do something a little different. It doesn't help that the rainbow has seven colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) and I have 5 toes on each foot and 5 fingers on each hand (as do most people lol). So I did a little improvising: 

The other pics are terrible really but the colors show great:

Sorry it was right after my shower so my toes are wrinkly lol. Anywho this is WnW Red Red, WnW Sunny Side Up, Ulta Sun-sational, Sinful Colors Irish Green, the big toe has 3 colors (though you can't really tell lol) Zoya Tallulah, a mix of WnW Bijou Blue and Fingerpaints Be A Pal-ette for the indigo, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Purple Potion, CG Fairy Dust and WnW Kaleidoscope over it all. That's a lot of polishes! 


As for my fingers I wanted to do something a little different so I decided to paint them white using Fingerpaints Well Cultured Pearl and stamp rainbow colored flowers on them using my MASH 15 plate. 

 So same colors minus the indigo since I just didn't have enough nail room lol. My nails really are way shorter than they were though you really can't tell. 

As far as I'm concerned it shouldn't be just one month out of the year I feel it should be an all the time thing, pride for who we are and what we support. Gay Pride to me means being yourself and feeling that you won't be hated for who you are and what or who you like. Maybe if everyone was more accepting of others the world would be a happier place. Maybe if you didn't feel you would be persecuted for your beliefs, feelings and sexual orientation everyone would be more confident and get along better. Maybe there would be less bullying and suicides. It's something that I have personally dealt with as well as seen for myself. No one is asking for special rights just EQUAL rights. 


My wish is a wish that people will soon understand that being gay is not a disease or a choice! People who are gay are not looking for a cure or special rights, but acceptance and Equal Rights.


Will you be doing something for Pride Month? I might add something to my toes :) 


As always, thanks for stopping by and I hope you all take a look at how you treat others :)

Hauls & Nail Mail

I thought I would share with all of you who aren't on the Facebook page yet what I got recently :) If you haven't checked out Copious yet I would highly recommend it since most of what you are about to see I got from there. 


The first thing I got was this super cute super sweet card and stones from my friend Sherry :) 

I also got these Kleancolor minis (which I thought would be full size) from Copious along with Julep Melissa. The Kleancolors are Metallic Sapphire and Metallic Fuschia. And a pearl ring from Sneakpeeq.

And a couple nights ago I got Wet N Wild Sunny Side Up from Walgreens. 

Last night I got these three Pure Ice from Walmart: No Means No, Mint dream and New Lilac.

Today in the mail I got from Copious:

Pure Ice Rio, Kleancolor Chunky Holo Teal and Sally Hansen Gem Crush Be-Jeweled

From Ulta today: 

 The first dupe I've accidentally bought: Sally Hansen Xtreme's Virtual Violet and Marine Scene (which I didn't have)

 Ulta's Purple Haze and Alter Ego

NYX Glitters: GP09 Disco Ball and GP01 Blue

And from Dollar Tree:

 Flakies!

 Bar Glitter

And Microbeads

So there you have it all :) I've been a busy little bee lol and I still have a couple more things coming from Copious. Really if you haven't signed up yet you really should. You get $10 free credit just for signing up and they sometimes send you email offers for more credits. They gave out one Monday for an extra $10 and $10 for Marilyn Monroe's birthday. 


That's it for this post if you haven't entered my giveaway from Julep yet you can find that here. Also make sure you sign up to be a Julep Maven and get your first box for only a penny using the code MAVENINTRO when you check out. You can do that from here. 


As always, thanks for stopping by :)

Quick Post: Amberlee's Giveaway

Go check out Amberlee's giveaway on her blog here. It's great and it would definitely be awesome to win :) And don't forget to enter my giveaway of course! 

Julep Review & Giveaway

Today I have a treat for you (and of course for me lol): 
I got the chance to review a Maven Box from Julep and I jumped all over the chance, of course. So here are some great pics for you!

So we'll start with packaging, it comes in a box that I find pretty useful actually. I keep my stamping supplies in one that you can read about here. The polishes are all bubble wrapped inside a pink gift bag that rests on a bed of confetti and tied with a black ribbon. I think Julep does a great job with packaging. 
What I actually received is the It Girl box that came with 2 toe separators and three polishes. 

So cute!

From left to right: Brooke, Mandy and Jessica

So who wants swatches? You guys of course! 

Mandy, Jessica and Brooke 1 coat inside house

1 coat, sunlight

One coat, sunlight

One coat sunlight

So very opaque in one coat for both Jessica and Mandy. I would use Brooke as a topcoat over other polishes.

2 coats, inside the house no direct light

2 Coats, Brooke Direct Sunlight

Brooke 2 coats, direct sunlight

Mandy and Jessica 2 coats direct sunlight

2 coats shade

2 coats shade

Mandy and Jessica both have great pigmentation and I don't think they really even needed the second coat. I definitely plan to use them for stamping in the future! Brooke is very sparkly and pretty :)


The polish applied great and the brushes were all even, no stray hairs. I would definitely recommend signing up to get Julep's monthly Maven Box. 


Now to one of the best parts: Because Julep is awesome they are giving ALL of you the chance to try one of their boxes for only 1 penny! Yes, you read that correctly, 1 PENNY! So all you have to do is click right here and take the style quiz. It will tell you what your style is (if you don't like what it picks for you, you can change it by clicking see other styles and adding the one you want to your cart). When you checkout use code MAVENINTRO. Make sure you choose your state and your balance will be $0.01.


Now for the best part, Julep wanted to do a giveaway for you guys! 


The giveaway will run for a week and is really easy :) Don't forget to click and get your 
first box for a penny!


As always, thanks for stopping by and good luck :)


**I received the products mentioned above free for a review. I was not paid for said review and all opinions are my own.**


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