31DC-D29 - Blue Base

Hey y'all!

Well, I finally saw the dentist yesterday, and prognosis: root canal.  Fun!  All I can say is that I'm happy that I'm not in the overwhelming pain that I've suffered the past 5 days waiting for that appointment!  Now we can return to regular broadcasting... whatever that means around here.  Today's prompt for the 31DC is Blue Base, so I decided to play around with another abstract technique to create this look.

Magical Mondays and 31DC-D12 - Film

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Happy Magical Monday!  Today I'm back with the next installment of the collab series I'm doing with Belle Glamour, celebrating one of our favorite mutual interests, Harry Potter.  It also works out quite nicely that today's prompt for the 31-Day Challenge is Film, so I could kill two birds with one stone!  This month, Cat and I are showcasing our favorite characters from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (Sorceror's) Stone.  My personal favorite character is Hagrid, played by Robbie Coltrane in the films.

12DOC: Presents!

Hey y'all!

Happy first day of winter (officially)!  Seems a bit bizarre, given that I've been wearing a uniform of sweatshirts, long pants, and socks for months now, but I'm still a Texas girl at heart and it's bizarre that my flip-flops were retired for the year in October.  Today marks the penultimate prompt for the 12 Days of Christmas nail art challenge!  It's also the final assigned prompt, because Tuesday's prompt will be freestyle and open to all the artists' interpretations.  I find this prompt particularly appropriate though, because it involves something that I still haven't done and need to do quickly - wrapping presents!

12DOC: Santa!

Hey y'all!

Happy Sunday!  We've officially put the first week of December in the bag, and as such, today's prompt for the Challenge Your Nail Art 12 Days of Christmas Challenge should bring a few very familiar faces to you, because today we're doing Santa and/or Elves!  I know you'll be shocked by this, but I have *another* nail charm for this prompt!

Texas Traveling Nails

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Happy Friday!  I've been gearing up behind the scenes to power through the rest of the year, and hopefully to start posting to my neglected YouTube channel again on a weekly basis.  My hope is that I'll be able to do nail polish swatches and art here on the blog, and use my channel to do tutorials for polish nail art and... acrylics/gels!  Since taking my tech training, I've been gathering supplies and practicing with them so that I can hopefully start those weekly videos before the end of the year!  I'm waiting now for my gel supplies to arrive, along with a training practice hand, which I'll use for the videos since I've decided I'm rubbish at keeping my own hands in frame while I'm working on them.  In the mean time though, I've still got a lot of polish nail art to show you, and I'm starting with the nails I did last month before setting off on our trip to Texas.  I wanted something sparkly and burnt orange and white (because I'm a Longhorn, afterall), and threw these together the night before we left (in a rush because I still had to pack!).

Halloween Jumper Nail Art CYNA Classic Orange & Black

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Happy Tuesday to you!  You may have picked up a few hints that I've been on vacation the past couple weeks.  Hubby and I returned from a trip back "home" to Austin on Sunday, and we're both still recovering from the trip.  On the plus side, I have a lot of new goodies to show you coming up, and I can't wait to get started playing with them!  Thankfully I've had a few really awesome ladies step forward to give me some guest posts so that I can focus on getting everything sorted while still providing you with some great nail art!  This week, though, I have a whole handful of Halloween-themed looks for you as part of the Challenge Your Nail Art group's October offering, so come back every day this week to see 4 great seasonal looks, and the linkup to all the other participating artists.  Today's prompt is Classic Orange & Black, which I used to create this fun Halloween sweater/jumper look.

70s Rectangular Pattern nail art

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Well, what can I say?  Happy Monday?  To my American readers... I hope you're not freaking out about the ebola, but if you are, please take some time to educate yourself on how it's transmitted and what the actual risks are, rather than turning on the tv and getting your information solely from the idiot box.  *rant off*  Okay, with all that out of the way, let's talk about some nail art!  This week, the Pick-n-Mix Challenge prompts are 70s and grey+color - so I combined those into this funky rectangular look.

Matted oxblood flakies nail art

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Wow... looking at the date today, and I'm instantly transported back in time four years, when I made my first trans-Atlantic trip with two girlfriends on our first big-girl vacation to Ireland.  We spent 10 days touring and eating and drinking and it was hands-down my favorite vacation of all time.  To commemorate the trip, we all got matching shamrock tattoos dated 10-10-10.  There's no point to that story, really - I just felt like sharing it.  LOL.  Today I have a nail art look created for the Inspire Me Nails group challenge prompt: Unusual, Untried, Unloved.  I've created a matted oxblood nail with flakies.

Avast Ye Bilge Rats Pirate Nail Art Challenge Day 4: Treasure Maps

Ahoy, me hearties!

Today I be back with more pirate themed nail art, and today I be celebratin' a seadog's greatest tool: the treasure map.  When ye hides yer booty, it be important t' know where ye've stashed it, so a treasure map helps ye get back t' ye gold!

For Chibi

Hey y'all.

I'm heavy-hearted this week.  Several months ago, I talked about Chibi, the sweet, adorable dog who has been my mom's constant companion for the last 10 years.  Of course, he is so much more than that, and when I said I was heavy-hearted, I was lying.  Right now, I am completely broken-hearted.  Our sweet furball crossed the rainbow bridge on Monday, a week shy of his 12th birthday.  Today, I want need to talk about him.

My oldest picture of Chibi, at about 4 months old.

Mani Monday: Purple and Gold marble with BPS water decals

*** This post contains items which were sent for review and affiliate links. ***

Hey y'all!

For today's #manimonday, I took Saturday's swatch of Every Month is Oktoberfest and added nail art with a Models Own that I won in a giveaway and some water decals from Born Pretty Store sent me for review.

Zigzags and Confetti nail art - TPTC

*** This post contains items which were sent for review. ***

Hey y'all!

First off, I just need to say that ever since yesterday, I've had the song Trouty Mouth stuck in my head.  It's torture.  Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.  You may have figured out by now that I've really been having fun playing with the new stamping plates that MoYou Nails sent to me for review, because I've been on a bit of a stamping spree the last few days.  Today's Tri-Polish nail art is no exception, except that I also got to use three of the new polishes that I purchased from MoYou Nails as well.   The first Tuesday in August brings round a new set of colors with which to work, and I ended up with this look which has a bit of a circus feel to it.

Battle of: the Matte Top Coats!

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Before we get into this, I just want to take a moment to thank you all for the really astonishing amount of support I received for my No H8 post a couple days ago.  I'm kind of taken aback by it, to be honest, and feeling thoroughly humbled that so many of you read it and took the time to show your support!  That said, I hope I can continue to bring you back to read my ramblings.  :)  I've been threatening to do this post for a while now, and a week of challenge prompts that left me, well, "less-than-inspired" provides a good opportunity to show you my breakdown of five mainstream matte topcoats in the first of what I hope to become a series of "Battle of:" challenges.

"Fluid" abstract inspired by FingerFood - TPTC

Hey y'all!

Welcome to another Tri-Polish Tuesday!  Today's look is brought to you in just about every way by the lovely and talented Sam at FingerFood.  If you aren't familiar, you definitely need to first crawl out from under your rock, then hop on over and check out her blog, because she does some of the most amazing artwork on her nails.  I've had the privilege of befriending her over these past few months as a budding nail blogger, and when she learned that I was having trouble finding good cheap neon polishes in my part of the country, she offered to help me fix that problem!  Last week I got a little package containing some LA Colors neons, and a surprise bonus leather effect polish from Pretty that my local Poundland doesn't carry.  How sweet is that?  I felt the only appropriate way to repay her was to do this week's Tri-Polish in her signature style, using the colors that she'd sent me, and so I present you with this...

Cadbury's Mini Egg Nail Art - TPTC

Hey y'all!

I thought really long and hard about doing an April Fool's joke here... but decided not to because I couldn't think of anything clever am a nice person.  The first of April heralds the beginning of a new set of colors for the Tri-Polish challenge, and with Easter being so late in the month, I imagine we're going to be seeing a lot of soft pastel blue, pink, and yellow looks before it's all over.  I have had this idea kicking around in my head for a couple of months, but when I had to reshape my nails last week after that bad corner break, it immediately went to the head of the class because I couldn't think of anything more clever like to make the best of bad situations.  Today I have a super simple but almost instantly recognizable nail art look for you - Cadbury's Mini Eggs!

Happy Birthday Capt Tightpants, featuring Browncoat Nailart

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Today should have been a GOT Polish challenge mani, but... well, we all know that I only do that when I feel like it, and the yellow/peach theme was not nearly as enticing to me as celebrating the birthday of my #1 on the laminated list - Mr. Nathan Fillion.  I have <3ed him literally since he was Joey Buchanan, and as we all know, a man's Buchananity is what separates him from reptiles and lawn furniture.  I even forgive you for that horrible affair with Dorian, Joey.  History aside, however, Nathan is best known for two roles anymore - if you know him, it's either as Captain Malcolm Reynolds on "Firefly"/"Serenity", or as Rick Castle on "Castle".

In any event, to celebrate my future baby daddy's 43rd birthday, I did my nails!  So much shock!  So much surprise!

 

via Troll Meme Generator

Guest post for FingerFood

Hey y'all!

I'm guest posting today over at Finger Food!  Go check it out!

Here's a sneaky peeky of what I got up to:

Hope you're having a great day!

CNTCWC D6: Christmas Food

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Christmas week is finally here, and last night, we finally got a bit of snow that stuck around til morning.  Of course it has all melted now by the afternoon, but it's something, right?  Today's theme in the CNTCWC is Christmas Food, which has already been on my mind as we get preparations done for Christmas day. I toyed with several ideas for what constituted Christmas food, but the one that *always* makes me think Christmas and nothing else is gingerbread houses, so that was the inspiration for today's manicure.

Llama Nails Holiday Challenge week 7: Hanukkah

Hey y'all!

Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving break.  Here in jolly ol' England, business was much the same as usual:  chilly weather punctuated with days of "nice" weather.  By nice, of course, I simply mean I wasn't freezing my ovaries off.  It's officially December now, which brings with it a new nail art challenge and continuation of the existing challenge I've been working on for Llama Nails.  Doing two challenges at once will be interesting, and by interesting I mean "oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die."  The new challenge comes from the FB group Crumpet's Nail Tarts which is spearheaded by Debbie of The Crumpet, and is a really large group of nail enthusiasts.  The challenge is winter/Christmas themed and will only last for the month of December.  My first challenge nails will be posted tomorrow.  I'm really looking forward to this theme as I have some great ideas for it.

Today, however, I continue on the path of the Holiday themed manis with this week's entry: Hanukkah.