On a personal note....

Hi everybody :-)

Even though I have a few manicures waiting in the wings to be posted, I have decided to deviate from nails for a bit and talk about my weekend. My husband, my son and I shared a first together this weekend, pumpkin carving!! Can you believe I have lived in this country for twenty-two years and this was the first time I've carved a pumpkin for Halloween? I was inappropriately excited for this activity. (Or maybe there is no inappropriate level of excitement when it comes to pumpkin carving?) If you follow me on Instagram, you will see how excited my son was too on our way to my husband's cousin's house, where we actually did the carving. Just kidding, he's a baby. He slept the whole way there ;-)

Here's the little munchkin being held by one of his aunts. I am getting used to it a little bit now but you would not believe how much stuff a little baby ends up bringing with him whenever he goes out. At least he does if he has us for his parents. Maybe we'll learn to pare down over time but experience has taught us so far that we generally regret it when we don't bring something because that ends up being just the thing we need. Once it was a pacifier, another time it was his wrap, another time a blanket, a sweatshirt....an on and on. Now we just bring everything. :-/

He hung in there initally and let us prop him up and take pictures in his cute fox outfit. Then, sure enough, he got fussy and eventually ended up with his dad in a wrap in order to take a nap. Dad was more interested in the game than pumpkin carving anyway ;-)

For my first pumpkin ever, I chose a pretty simple bats flying motif and I'm pretty proud of how it turned out!

I love how it looks all lit up in the dark. 

Baby got his own baby pumpkin and to commemorate the occasion, I designed a little devilish letter N for him. He'd woken up again at this point and once again, we decided to test his limits and try to get some pictures with his pumpkin. He wasn't having any of it!

It was so much fun. I can't wait to do it again next year!!

Sunday Stamping: Halloween Stamping, Black and White Halloween mani with Hard Candy Black Tie Optional

Hi folks!

This post is going up late, seeing how Sunday is more than halfway over. This is my mani for the Sunday Stamping challenge, Halloween themed stamping. I really, really wanted to do a black and white gradient so I finally did it for this mani. Then I took Hard Candy Black Tie Optional out of my untrieds and used it with a few randomly yet strategically placed matte glitter in orange, purple and lime green. I added glowing orange eyes to the skull while the image was still on the stamper, stamping decal style. If anyone is curious about what I'm talking about, I can elaborate if you ask me.

I really love how this looks. Love the randomly hand placed glitter mixed with the black and white glitter. I placed a few glitters down first, then painted a coat of BTO, then placed a few more glitters over it. A lot less time consuming than you would think because it was random placement. I will have to do this technique more often. Gives the impression of having an entirely new form of glitter polish.

Here's all the polishes used in this mani. The plate is Bundle Monster BM 225.

Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris

Sinful Colors Snow me White

Sally Hansen Wet Cement

Hard Candy Black Tie Optional 

Sinful Colors Courtney Orange

Adventures in Stamping Sunday Stamping: Jade Uau! with Halloween stamping

Hello lovelies!

Today I'm presenting another Adventures in Stamping Sunday Stamping mani. The prompt this time was over a holo base. Since I had just received a shipment from Ninja Polish with a few Jade holographic polishes, I had to try out one of them. This is Jade Uau! and wow, what a color! I think I'm falling in love with orange!

I had been really wanting an orange holo and this fulfills all my wishes :-) The house stamp comes from BM 305 and the Jack-o-Lantern stamp comes from BM 224. The black I used is Wet n Wild Black Creme. And, some hand placed black hexes on pointer and index fingers to round it out.

There is still slight holo action in the shade!

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.