Texas Recap and Mani Parties!

Hey there guys and gals!

So I've had a very busy last two weeks.  Hubby and I have been on vacation to visit my family and friends back home, and I may or may not have gone a little kooky picking up new polishes to add to my collection.

Totally did.

Seriously, though, I was crazy.  I even bought a bottle of sheer pink Rimmel at the airport and some nail polish remover wipes so I could say I'd done an airport mani.  Hubby was unwilling to take pics, and my fingers were covered in oily residue from the remover wipes, so I have no concrete evidence of such, but that's probably okay because I finished about 30 seconds before we had to board the plane, and the end result was a smudged mess anyway.  Undeterred, however, we set off for Texas on a 10-hour, ass numbing flight.

All of my favorite people are in Texas, and after almost 6 months in England, I definitely needed some deep soul-connecting with my girls.  We ate a lot of dinners out (I'm pretty sure I gained about 72 pounds on this trip) and had a lot of fun visiting with my peeps, including my two darling "nephews", who are almost-3 and just over 1 yr old.  Of course we had to hit some karaoke, and I was able to see all my folks from Raggedy Anne's.  It made me a little sad because I really enjoyed hosting that karaoke show for almost 2 years.

I just can't say how much I love my girls.  Caryn, Pam. Courtney, y'all are my rocks.  I miss you all daily.

However, I also had the awesome opportunity to meet two of my virtual snark-mates, Evin of Food Good, Laundry Bad and Shelley of Slightly Off Kilter.  These two gals are real life besties, and I am so happy we were able to get together for a huge nail polish party!

The only thing this party needed was wine.  Or vodka.

F'real though, can you even count how many bottles are on that table?

It's a lot.

Evin was gracious enough to host this little party after her kiddos went to bed, and I'm ashamed to say we woke the baby because we were laughing too hard.  Somewhere in between the laughs, though, we were able to get some nail painting done, and I was able to experiment with my new stamping kit and plates.  Evin is a huge Doctor Who fan like me, so naturally when I picked up My Online Shop's MJXII plate, I knew we would have to do some Who nail art.

What I've discovered is that A) I need more stamping practice, and B) Evin needs lessons on how to paint her nails instead of her fingers-while-occasionally-hitting-nails.  Her base color is China Glaze First Mate, and the stamping was done in the Kiss striping polish in white.  After many tries, I finally managed to get her little Adipose baby on there (top right), but I couldn't get a clean TARDIS (bottom right), so Shelley put that one on.  It's a little wonky, but we decided it's just wibbly-wobbly, as TARDIS' should be.  To finish, I painted a Converse for the 10th Doctor, David Tennant (top left) and a bow tie for the 11th, Matt Smith (bottom left).  I could have spent a lot more time doing more on her nails, but unfortunately time got away from us and we were on a schedule.  Overall I'm fairly satisfied with these nails, though the bowtie is a bit sloppy and, again,  I definitely need more stamping practice.

Then I did a sort of graduated dots pattern on Shelley's nails.

She started with a base color of China Glaze's Galactic Gray, and then I added the dots with a dotting tool using OPI's Vesper, which is one of the Bond Girls Liquid Sand collection, a deep plum purple.  What I learned:  texture polishes don't really dot as well as cremes and jellies.  However, I think they look pretty good together.

Again, ladies, I had a blast and we definitely need to get together again!

On a different night, I did another mani/pedi for someone who shall remain nameless.  Her fingers are done with ILNP's Birefringence, and her toes are in Finger Paint's Avant Garde Green.

Of course, these pics were taken at night so they don't really capture the beauty of either polish, but I will be swatching both in future posts.  Oh Em Gee I have so many new polishes to swatch and review!  Total polish heaven!

In case you were wondering what *I* was wearing, here's a snap of one of the few looks I threw together:

My index, middle, and pinky are base colored with OPI's My Boyfriend is Buff, and my thumb and ring fingers are Max Factor's Max Effect in Dazzling Blue.  Then I came in with a dotting tool and added the streaks and dots of Sephora by OPI in Slushied, Finger Paint's Avant Garde Green, and OPI's Incognito in Sausalito.  I added some blue/teal hex glitters from the ELF Disney Villains Nail Art Kit in Ursula.  I think the colors worked really well together for an aquatic, sort of coral effect. 

Although I would have loved to have stayed longer and seen more people and done more things, we had to come "home".  I promise I will return soon, y'all!