What's That Say? I Can't Read!

Greetings Children of the Night! Well here is my first post in a series all about food! OK, I admit it, I'm *obsessed* with food. Well, maybe not obsessed. It's more of a love/hate relationship really. However, I'm not about to get into my food issues here and now. On the up side though there is one food I will always love, bacon.

Sun

 This is my homage to bacon. Please tell me *someone* else actually sees the bacon in this? I'll be honest, this mani was a total pain in my @$$! I didn't have a brown red so I mixed one drop of Sally Hansen Cherry Charisma with two drops of Finger Paints Sketchy Character (the bottle in the picture). In the light, it came out a smidge too red for me. The lighter meat color was an ancient bottle of Cutex Beige and the white "fatty" base color is Sinful Colors Snow Me White. So it's one coat of Nail Life Gripper, two coats of Snow Me White, and then the stripes.

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Shade

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 For those of you who don't get the title of this post, here is a little reminder of the Beggin' Strips ad.

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Hope y'all enjoyed my bacon. I'm going to try water marbling again for an event this weekend, then food number two! Thanks for reading.

Water Marbling, my new foe

Greetings Children of the Night and a big hello to my new followers! Thanks for reading.

As I'm sure most bloggers are, I'm a junkie for other blogs. Eventually I'll get around to posting some of my favorites on here. I've been seeing a lot of buzz lately for water marbling. It seems to be the new 'it' thing on nail blogs everywhere. I read up on it, watched *tons*of YouTube videos and thought to myself, "hey self, that is a really cool effect and looks really easy. Let's try it!" So I did. *snorts* Easy it is not!

  I figured I would do peacock colors. I picked out a dark navy chrome, a purple shimmer, creme teal, shimmering green, and a really pretty deep metallic gold. I used many different brands (maybe that was my problem?) but it was the Finger Paints that refused to spread. My water may have been *slightly* too warm.

Left (non-dominate) hand

I love the way my pinky came out here. You can really see the green and gold.  Even the thumb looks OK.

left thumb

My polish wouldn't spread, it dried way too fast and then I ended up with some really muddy marbling.On this hand though, you can see all the muddy-ness and the air bubbles. Again though, the ring finger and pinky came out pretty good.

right hand

right hand

Over all, it came out *ok* for a first attempt. I'm not giving up though. I will win! *brandishing fist* Ahem, yeah enough of that. Have any of you tried water marbling? How did yours come out?

Irish Toes are Smiling

Greetings Children of the Night and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I usually wouldn't think of posting a picture of my toes seeing as how I know it can just weird some people out. Well, that and I haven't had a proper pedicure in *years*. However I was struck for an idea for this skittle pedi and after the Boy's reaction to it I felt it should be shared with everyone. When he saw my toes, he blurted out, "why can't you just get drunk on St. Patty's Day like a normal person?!" Personally I like the end result.

 It's one coat of Nail Life Gripper and one coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. After that I put a second coat of color on each nail; the green is Sketch n Etch (Finger Paints), the orange is Wet n' Wild Fantasy Orange. The big toe is just a taped off stripes (I use blue painter's tape) to resemble the Irish Flag.

Simple but a fun effect. The Boy can't wait for me to take it off. He likes it when my fingers and toes match. What did you guys do for St Patty's Day? Leave me a comment and share.

The Green Eyed Monster

Top O' The Morning My Children of the Night!

Honestly if you're anything like me you have a tendency to curse the day star. All the same, St. Patrick's Day happens to be one of my favorite holidays, right next to Halloween. That meant I just *had* to do a themed mani. I had a good friend post a picture for me on Facebook of some really lovely inspiration. When I tried it, it really didn't work out for me so I ended up doing something slightly different.

Image source

 Instead, I started with one coat of Nail Life Gripper then a shear lime green color and did two coats. It's from the L.A. Colors shimmer brights collection. The color itself doesn't seem to have a name. After that I did the top third of my nail in two coats of Finger Paints Key To My Art. Once those had dried I used a cosmetics sponge and sponged Finger Paints Sketch an Etch in the middle of the nail. This ended up giving me a really cool ombre effect. After they all dried I put two coats of Sinful Colors Green Marsh over the top. Green Marsh is an ancient color I can't even find on eBay. It's a lovely green and silver holo bar glitter in a clear base.I ended with two really thick coats of Sally Hansen Super Shiny.

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 In this picture you can really see the holo/rainbow effect in the silver bar glitter.

sun

shade

indoors with flash

I think you can really see the gold tips from Key To My Art and the ombre effect. I love Key To My Art in the bottle. It looks like liquid gold.

indoors no flash

Green March #175

Here is the bottle of Sinful Colors Green Marsh. My mother bought this for me when I was still  in high school as a St Patrick's Day gift. I had *completely* forgotten I even had it until I found it in a box of goodies at my mothers house. I added a little cheap clear polish and *voila* it was just like new! I guess my Sinful Colors obsession started young.

I really wanted to go back to my nail art roots and do a little free hand design but I just haven't been able to find the time. I've been cleaning like a madwoman for the company we're having on Saturday for dinner. At this point I'm just hoping that my mani will last until Saturday.

Have a wonderful holiday and enjoy a pint for me.

Ren Faire stripes

Hello Children of the Night. It's been awhile since I did a nail post and this one (again) is not one of my best. I got really sloppy with the striping and you can see some serious bleeding around the tape lines. Next time I'll make sure not to rush it. 

It is Bay Area Renaissance Faire time here in Florida or BARF as we call it.  Here is a link if you're a local. Make sure to come out and see it. My ren costume (yes I'm one of THOSE people) has a green striped underskirt. I figured I'd do my nails to match. I didn't actually end up going, funny enough. The weekend I do go though I'm going to repeat this mani but much more carefully. It's two coats of Nail Life Gripper, two coasts of Sinful Colors Snow Me White, and the tape stripes were done with scotch tape and two coats of Finger Paints, one coat of Sally Hanson top coat.

My cuticles finally look good *grin*

Ignore the chip in the pinky

Here is the skirt I used as inspiration.

Ren skirt with overskirt

Ren Skirt without

So here is the picture I promised of my V-Day mani. It was taken on my phone so not the best but you get the idea.

I'm going to be doing some work for Party Like a Pin-up (here's their link) so I'm going back to my red nails for awhile.