The mani of firsts, but the first of many! (heh)

I crack myself up. No, really, I'm proud of that title! Go ahead, read it again.

You're back? Ok, now for explanations. The other contender for the title was going to be Halloween Skittlettes (skittlettes being a term coined by Marta of Chit Chat Nails, to be explained later). The evolution of this manicure into a Halloween based mani was completely accidental. I originally picked Sinful Colors Hazard and Love and Beauty Bronze because I just wanted a bright and cheery but not an overdone mani. So my first iteration of this mani was actually this:

Keep reading after the break for more.

Twinkling Night with Diamond tips

I showed you guys my franken polish Twinkling Night in my last post. In today's post I'm going to show you the shimmer/glitter tips I added to this mani. I felt like it needed a little more bling. The "just plain black" look was just begging for some work on it.

Since I can't leave a mani alone until it's time to take off or it's just too thick, I added these large glitters to the base of each nail. The first time I saw them being used this way is by Nailasaurus. I think she got hers from the Born Pretty store but I got mine at a local dollar store.

My First Franken!

I am so excited to bring you today's post. Not many of you might think that the polish itself is exciting but I do because it's my first franken! I created it after seeing recipes for BL The Black Knight but in the process I deviated from the formula and came up with this. It's not quite where I want it but I can always tweak it.

I created this a while ago so forgive if I don't remember exactly what I have in here. I think it is a combination of WnW Black Creme, SH Rockstar Pink, Ulta Pinata-Yada-Yada and L.A. Colors Rainbow Glitter with clear. I think I need to up the clear and glitter quotient more. In real life from a little distance it just looks black. 

Honestly, if I just had more empty bottles, I would be mixing polishes all the time. (I know, I can buy them. Just haven't gotton around to it.)

Here is a further away picture. 

What do you guys think? I love how it looks in pictures but I'm going to have to work with it to get it to look better in real life.

Sangria Stamped

So yesterday I posted a swatch of Savina Sangria. Today I'm going to show you the stamping did over it. This was done with a Sally Hansen Color Quick Fast Dry Pen in Fuschia Chrome. The image used is from the Mash m60 plate.

Savina Sangria

Peoples, I am very excited. Today, as I got ready to write this post, I discovered that overnight I passed 1000 pageviews! That means you all are actually coming to read this! Thank you :-)

Muse with Fall Inspired Sugar Spun Accents

Hello everyone! The start of this weekend is a wet cloudy morning but I don't mind. It's days like this, when the sun peeks through once in a while that you can really see the beauty of all the fall colors. Everything seems so saturated with color! As I mentioned in my post of Sinful Colors Muse, it was another such fall day that inspired this next manicure. I also used a technique that was new to me called the sugar spun technique.

Sinful Colors Muse

Wow, look at this you guys. I am actually going to show you a polish that is somewhat current! This is Sinful Colors Muse, from the fall Muse collection. Many colors of that collection were new as far as I know. The only ones I already had were Last Chance and Rain Storm.

Revlon Dreamer Swatch with Patchwork Accent

Edit: This is an old post. I was trying to modify some things on the blog and it just republished itself. Sorry!!

Revlon Dreamer is a polish that I passed up over and over again. I would keep picking it up at the drug store and think what a pretty color and then put it down again. I'm glad I eventually picked it up. I think my Love and Beauty Aqua is probably a close match but I have not done a side by side comparison.

Springtime Gradient...Oh, wait, it's fall??

This manicure may be seasonally out of place but this has to be my favorite gradient yet. This was done with Sinful Colors Olympia and Sinful Colors Exotic Green.

Sinful Colors Olympia

For my current mani, I chose an unlikely color for fall but this green was just calling to me. This is Sinful Colors Olympia. I believe it's one of their newer colors. I picked it up last spring when they had a Greek collection. It is beautiful. The formula is great, this is two coats. Dried suprisingly fast and glossy. This was taken without any topcoat although I did add that later after a few more "adjustments" to this manicure. I will be posting more of those over the next couple of posts. For today, I just wanted to enjoy this color all by itself.

The creamy coolness is practically soothing, isn't it? Like a cup of hot green tea....

In other news, this weekend we hosted one of the more elaborate meals we have prepared since we moved for my husband's relatives. It was a marathon of chopping, frying, sauteeing, simmering and some yelling all day yesterday. And just so we're clear, it was my husband in the kitchen while I did my best to help him out without actually getting in his way. In the end though, we have some large quantities of delicious Indian food that will serve as extra meals for the next couple of days. I just wonder how long it will take for the smell of spices to finally leave the house...

It Purple Layered - Rainbow Purple

Now I get to show what I did with the It Purple I showed you last time. I put some Chunky Holo on it. This is layered with Kleancolor Chunky Holo Fuschia. I got this from the Cherry Culture website. They have several colors available but I only got a few since the base is so sheer that I just wanted ones vaguely in each color group. The effect of layering this polish on dark colors is phenomenal! I love it and wear it for days every time.

Purple!!!!!

I am currently too lazy/loving my mani to change it so I thought I would post another one from the archives. I adore this purple. It was a polish I had picked up a long time ago at a beauty supply store I couldn't find again if my life depended on it. The brand is I.C.E. and it's in bottle shaped like a Kleancolor bottle. The color is called It Purple and they would be right. This is IT!!

Unfortunately, I only took one picture of all it's glory because soon after this, I layered it with something else. As beautiful as this is, I was in love with that layering combo. I will show that in my next post, probably.

In other news, I have had about five days of clinic so far and although there have been a few minor challenges, I am actually enjoying myself! I am not going at a very brisk pace yet so that might have something to do with it. It is a scary, yet wonderful feeling to know that I am using a unique expertise to help people who are in need, even if it's just to say, "that's nothing to worry about". I don't think you have to be in medicine to know what that is like. 

Sinful Colors Folly Watermarble

With all the pink manicures floating around for breast cancer awareness month, I wanted to get in on the action too. So I pulled out another one of my untrieds for this one, Sinful Colors Folly. Of course, I could have featured an actual breast cancer ribbon but then my mind started wandering and I went from ribbons to ribbons of pink to watermarble! I hadn't done one in a while so I thought it was perfect!

A summer mani - Neon Orange

Summer is well on it's way out the door here and as I was browsing through my old pictures, this manicure instantly reminded me of those bright, hot days, making me wish they were here again. Especially since I spent the day with my husband, in the cold rain, trying to fit a sofa into the house that it turned out to be too big for. I don't know what we were thinking when we bought it.

Pinterest inspired skirt mani

When I first got on Pinterest, there was this picture of a skirt that really drew my eye. I pinned it, then I started wondering what a mani inspired by that skirt would look like. A year later, I finally had the polishes that might make it work.

Gradient Glitter Sandwich

I don't know who invented the glitter sandwich, but I applaud them. What a great way to take those "useless" sheer nail polishes and showcase their strength. This by no means is my first glitter sandwich but I wanted to see what would happen if I created a gradient sandwich.

Ingrid Accent Update

I just can't leave a plain manicure well enough alone. It's ok. I love accent nails! They're a quick and subtle way to add nail art and an element of uniqueness to a manicure. I showed you the base of the manicure in my swatch of China Glaze Ingrid. For this design, I totally copied the idea from Jane from Nailside from this post. I wanted something that seemed appropriate for fall. I stuck to China Glaze colors for this. I used China Glaze I'm Not Lion from the Safari collection and Riveting from the Hunger Games collection.

China Glaze Ingrid

Today begins the first day of my career as a legitimate independant practicing physician with my very own patients. I figured I probably shouldn't have tiny blue flowers on my nails when I talk to a gentleman about performing his vasectomy. So I've put on something a lot more sedate and professional looking.

Dotty Blue Flowers

Whoo!! This post actually features a current NOTD! I figured I could use my old ones as fill in's if I didn't have a current one to post.

Across the Universe

So, still getting through the oldies, this is Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe. Icing has a dupe for it now called Hey Sailor Boy which I also have and might post another day for comparison. Here, I've worn it over China Glaze First Mate. Soon, I'll start posting new stuff along with the old stuff, just to keep things interesting :-)

My nails haven't changed a whole lot since I wore this, over a year ago but somehow they look better to me now.