Inspiration: Chunky Necklace

(Contains affiliate links)

Hello!!

I'm super tired tonight, so I apologize that this is gonna be a fast post today (makes up for me talking too much yesterday!). Today I have a manicure that was inspired by one of my favorite necklaces. I'm showing it here with the shirt and shorts I wore it with the day I did this mani:

I love this necklace because it has a variety of shapes and shades of blue and white, so I wanted to capture that on an accent nail. :)

I started with a base of Finger Paints Midnight Sleigh Ride; yes, my platonic-relationship-turned-love-affair with this brand has been continuing to build. :) I stamped using a fun image from Pueen 16 (click here to see my review of that set) that has circles or different sizes with inner concentric circles, and also rectangles. I stamped with Sally Hansen Brisk Blue, and then filled in some of the circles with Sally Hansen Blue-Away. Finally I finished it off with square blue rhinestones:

I love this sort of simple, accented stamping on a single nail to really make a design pop. And look at that pretty subtle shimmer in Midnight Sleigh Ride--pretty, no?

Thanks for looking! Tomorrow I hope to have the next Cheeky jumbo plate review for you. :)

Big hugs,
M.

Review: No Worries Polish

Hello!

I have a charming indie brand to share with you today: No Worries Polish, who recently sent me some polishes to review. :)

You know that I think it's important to support independent polish makers, but I've never really said a lot about why I feel that way. For the most part in all walks of life, I like to support small business and artisans whenever possible; of course I buy from major brands too, and I don't mean to suggest that they're unworthy of patronage in any respect, as a general rule. But...I have a deep appreciation for that aspect of the human spirit that drives someone to do something well, take pride in something they love, and throw themselves into making a living at it. Perhaps it's just the romantic side of my nature, but I believe there is something beautiful about producing something from your heart, from your hands to mine, no middle-man, the way business has been done from the beginning of time. And, there is more honesty and less possibility of shenanigans (yes, I did just use that word). I like looking into the eyes of the person who grows my lettuce, fixes my shoes, and makes my polish (okay, in that case 'looking into the eyes' might be 'having conversations over e-mail'--same thing :P ). Why am I taking the time to say this in my review today? I'll explain more about that later. But for now--we must POLISH!

First up I have No Worries Polish Mermaid Dancing, a bright blue shimmer with small light green glitters and large silver hex glitters:

No Worries Polish Mermaid Dancing, indirect sunlight

This polish has a child-like feel to it that makes me want to put on a flouncy dress and hunt for fairies in my garden with my little niece. The particular shade of blue is bright and sunny, a cerulean sort of bright that stands up against the large silver glitters. When you stare down at this polish, the depth in the shimmer pulls you in. It's a happy, dreamy polish.

I'm wearing two coats here, and while I didn't have any issues with the formula, I did place the large glitters a bit. There is no shortage of them, and they aren't hard to get out, but larger glitters can try to stay where you don't want them at times. It certainly didn't take much effort at all to spread them out where I wanted them. :)


Next up is Titanium, a silver frost with small navy blue and pumpkin orange hex and square glitters, along with some medium squares, throughout:

No Worries Polish Titanium, indirect sunlight

No Worries Polish Titanium, direct sunlight

Let's just get this out of the way right now--If you're a Denver Broncos fan, I don't see how you can not own this polish. As a 49ers fan, I can't claim that's a selling point for me personally (grrrr), but serious now, how perfect is this for your team! I think there might be an ordinance requiring you to purchase it...I'm not sure, but I'd look into it if I were you. :P

For the rest of us, Titanium has a good formula, and I'm showing two coats here. As many frosts tend to be, this one can be a bit stroky, but not as bad as some, for sure. I think Nicci has done a great job of getting a good balance between the blue and the orange--the larger percentage of the blue glitters helps balance the brightness of the orange glitters to make a visually pleasing combination. The addition of some squares rather than just circles also gives just a bit more dimension to the polish.

But here's my favorite, by far: Truffula Tree. If you don't know, the Truffula tree is a central part of the Dr. Seuss book 'The Lorax', which is an indictment of a consumer society that destroys natural resources due to greed. The Truffula trees are beautiful, vibrant, colorful tress that get cut down in order to manufacture goods--to the point of extinction. The Lorax tries to speak for the tress, and reminds us that if we don't care about our environment, certainly nobody else will. This polish celebrates the striking, vibrant colors of those trees with a beautiful bright carrot-orange jelly base, small grape-purple hex glitters, and medium green-teal hex glitters, all curled up in a soft shimmer:

No Worries Polish Truffula Tree, artificial light

No Worries Polish Truffula Tree, indirect sunlight

I think she has perfectly captured the whimsy and fun of those trees. This shade of orange is so sunny and vibrant, so rich for a jelly, it's just delightful. Every time I looked down at my hands while I was wearing this, it made me smile. And it probably goes without saying but...you know you're going to see this polish again come Halloween time. I'm not sure I've seen a more perfect Halloween polish, ever, end of story, even if that's not necessarily what she intended with it, lol.

This is two coats, and the formula was excellent on it. The large glitters are sparse, and you have to shake the bottle well before using to be sure you get them, or go fishing for them (I'd recommend storing this one upside-down if you can). I totally get why she didn't use too many of the large glitters--more of them with these colors would have turned this polish into a parody of itself--and if you want more of them for some reason, you can grab them out and put them where you'd like. I wanted just a little flicker of the larger glitters here and there, so that the orange and purple could sing, the way I believe Nicci intended them to do.

And I do admit that I like having a reminder when I look down at my nails to be respectful of the planet I live on, in a fun, happy way. :)


Okay, so I started off this post talking a bit about why I like to support small businesses when I can. I chose to bring this up during this review because I believe this goes doubly for Nicci--not only is she a small business owner, but her husband is in the armed forces (and their story is a very touching one). I believe that is also worth supporting, and deserves to be mentioned here. Now, would I buy horrible polish just because a military wife makes it? HECK NO. My money is too precious to me for that, lol--I'd find another way to be supportive. I wanted to review these polishes without knowing that fact about her. But, if I'm going to buy a pretty polish, I do like having the opportunity to support  someone who sacrifices so much for their country. I don't mean to be political about this, and I seriously doubt that Nicci wants you to buy her polish for any other reason than you love it. I just think that getting pretty polish and supporting military families in the process is, well, to borrow words from Martha Stewart: it's a good thing. :)

Here is Nicci's story if you'd like to know more about her and her husband:

My name is Nicci, and I'm an Army Wife. 

I met Bob, the man that is now my husband 3 years ago. He came into the small town store that I worked at to help his 8 months pregnant sister-in-law get balloons for her brother's 30th birthday. I was the girl that inflated the balloons.

If you would have told me that 3 months later he and I would be dating (thanks in large part to our sister-in-law), and that a year after that we would be married, and planning a move to a duty station in the Middle East, I would have told you, you were crazy.

But, that's what happened. And the funny thing is, my parents, grandparents, and his parents, knew it as soon as they saw us together.

My husband is my hero, and I would follow him to the ends of the Earth. He's something I had honestly believed I would never have in a spouse. I didn't think men like him existed, but I know now that they do. He supports me, he's proud of me, and he's my biggest fan. He's also one of the strongest people I've ever met. 

He's a 2 time cancer survivor, and he found out he had cancer when he was deployed in Iraq, of all places. He had known there was something wrong before he left, but he didn't want to abandon his team, so, he ignored the warning signs and went anyway. 

After they found the tumor he went through treatment at Walter Reed, not knowing if he was going to be diagnosed as terminal, and not knowing if he was going to suffer permanent damage. After his first tumor was resected, and he was given a clean bill of health, he put his uniform back on, and went back to work. 

The second time was 6 months after we started dating. He went in for his checkup, and they found a tumor. I was with him, and we were both shocked. He had shown no symptoms, but there it was on film, clear as day. I promised him I would be there for him, because the last time he was largely alone because he didn't have a significant other, and he didn't want his family to see him in such a state, and told them not to come even though they wanted to. He can be stubborn, to say the least.

The day after he had his second tumor resected, he went back to work. He didn't even consider taking a day or two of leave, even though his bosses, and I told him it would be ok.

Most people don't even know he went through all of that. Because despite it, he was and is a happy person. 

Before I met him I was a little neurotic, to say the least. I was maxed out on credit hours a semester at my university. I had to get out in 4 years or else my scholarship would run out, and I couldn't afford that. That mixed with some other things I'd rather not talk about affected me in a not so great way. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and I was a big worrier. 

After we got together I noticed I started to mellow. Things didn't stick to me like they used to, and the biggest sign something had changed was, I had stopped biting my nails.

This was huge for me. It had been a habit ever since I could remember. Something I had tried countless times to stop, and failed. Then I just stopped. It took me a while to notice, by the time I did, my nails were long enough for me to paint them. I couldn't believe it.

I was so proud to have nails, and I started painting them a new color every 3-5 days. My husband let me buy whatever nail polish I wanted, because in his words I could be addicted to worse things, like crack, haha.

My nails and my polish collection got pretty famous here in our village in Saudi Arabia. Girls started to want to borrow pieces from my collection, and even started asking me if I would paint their nails because I was so good at painting mine.

Finally, one of my friends voiced something I had been thinking about for a while. "Nicci, why don't you make nail polish? You love it so much, you should."

I talked to my husband about it, and being the wonderful man he is, he told me to go for it. I read up on the process, got advice from a fellow nail polish creator, bought all the supplies, and soon I had my first collection started.

Nail polish for me represents something more than what it is. It represents a part of my change, my metamorphosis from a neurotic girl, to a calm and collected woman.

That's why I call it, "No Worries Polish." That's what my husband, and my happy, lucky life makes me feel. No worries.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I apologize for the length, but I hope now you know me a little better.

You can find No Worries Polishes at Nicci's Etsy store, by clicking here. Right now she is having a sale, with a number of polishes at the bargain price of $6.25 for a full-sized polish. And of course her polishes are three-free and not tested on animals. Would a lover of The Lorax have it any other way?

Thanks for reading! I know I kind of had a sentimental overload what with Dr. Seuss book and all, so I thank you for your patience with me today. I guess you got to know a little bit more about me in the process, too. :)

I hope you are having the most wonderful of Sundays. :)
M.

(The polishes in this post were sent for my honest review.)

Collage of tutorial on isolating parts of stamping images. :)

Hey there!

A while back I did a tutorial on how to isolate parts of stamping images...I thought I'd put a collage together for that tutorial and here it is!

Also, please do let me know what other tutorials you'd like to see. :)

Hope you're having a great weekend! :)
M.

Tutorial: Working with dried flowers :)

Hello!

I had a request for a tutorial on working with dried flowers, and I'm happy to report I've finally managed to pull it together!

There are two main kinds of dried flowers you'll find when you buy them for nail art:

On the left is a single pressed flower, and on the right is a group of little flowers that look like spokes on a wheel. The main difference here in my opinion is that I like the way the single flower looks as is, but I don't want to work with the 'spoke' flower as is, I want to work with the individual flowers in the cluster.

The simple, easy way to work with dried flowers is to apply topcoat to your mani and simply lay them on the topcoat; finish or not with another layer of topcoat as needed. In my opinion, this only really works well if you are working with the single flower type on the left; things got a little bit more tricky for me when tried to work with the spoke flower either as a whole or when I split it up. The problems are that if you have multiple pieces, your topcoat is going to dry faster than you want it to in order to allow you to adhere the flowers well. Maybe I just work too slowly, I don't know...but I have another method I use when I want a more intricate pattern and don't want to have to worry about that dry time.

Another issue that comes up with dried flowers is that they are extremely fragile. Even when putting on a single flower, you can easily knock off a petal or part of a petal, especially if the edges are curling up and you're trying to push it flat. You do want to work carefully regardless, but this method also minimizes the damage somewhat. :)

Step 1) Let's start by cutting off some little flowers from the spoke. If you just snip them with your scissors, they'll fly everywhere, break, and be unusable. So what you do instead, is put your finger over the flowers to secure them, and snip them off so your finger prevents them from flying off:

Now you have one or more flowers beautifully separated from the rest:

Step 2) Put some of your topcoat on a palette of some sort; I use a random piece of plastic. You're going to use this to attach your flowers:

Step 3) Using a dotting tool, put a dot (or more) of topcoat where you want your flowers to be. I'm going to attach both a single flower, and lots of little minis from the spoke flower. First, for the single flower, I'm going to put 5 dots, one for each petal, approximately where I want the flower to be (This will adhere each petal and help keep them from breaking while you work):

Step 4) Using the remaining topcoat on your dotting tool, carefully pick up the flower by touching the dotting tool to the flower. Then place it down on the nail where you put your topcoat in the previous step:

If you don't have enough topcoat left on the dotting tool to make the flower stick, put a tiny bit more on the dotting tool--but not a lot. If you put a lot, the flower won't want to come off of your dotting tool, and you'll break the petals trying to get it off. So err on the side of too little.

Step 5) For the smaller flowers, which I want to arrange into a bouquet sort of pattern, you're going to follow the same procedure, with two differences. First, use the smaller end of your dotting tool to make it easier to be precise and see what you're doing. Second, apply one dot and flower at a time--one dot of polish, one flower on top, next dot of polish, next flower on top, etc.

Here's what things look like so far. Notice how the petals of the green flower curl up a bit. There are two ways to fix this. One way is to use the small end of your dotting tool and put a bit more topcoat just under the edges that are sticking up, and then gently pat them down with your tool onto the polish. The other way I'll show you here.

Step 6) Cover your flowers in a generous coat of topcoat:

Step 7) Push down any parts of the flower that are sticking up into the topcoat with the small end of your dotting tool. You may have to have patience, because the topcoat needs to be thickening a bit or else they'll just pop back up; so push them down, and if they don't say, wait a couple of seconds and push them down again. Gently. :)

Step 8) Once your flower is all pushed down where you want it, put on a final coat of topcoat. If you didn't have to push anything down into your previous coat of topcoat, you may be able to skip this step; if I had only had the yellow flowers here, I would have been able to do that. But if you had to manipulate the flowers a little, it will leave a bit of a messy appearance in the topcoat, so a second coat will smooth that right over:

And here is your final result! Using this method I was able to shower after working out, and wash my hands several times through the day without losing one petal from my mani--and on that mani I had flowers on every finger. If you only use one coat of topcoat, I suspect you'll get a bit less durability. :)

Like I did last time, I made a little collage of most of the steps for ease of use:

Please let me know if anything here is unclear, and I'll fix it! Also, I think I'm starting to get the hang of tutorials, so please please please let me know if there are any techniques you would like to see, and I'll do my best to make a tutorial of it for you. I'm not sure what you guys would like to know, so chime in and give me direction!


Hope this was help; thanks for looking. :)
M.

Nails 4 Ways: Fergie Ferguson Crest Syrah

Hello!!!

I've never really been too tempted by the Fergie by Wet n Wild polishes...all I'd really seen was the glitters, and I wasn't too impressed by them. But then... I saw Ferguson Crest Syrah. Horrible, horrible, horrible name--beautiful polish. It's a brown-magenta-purple multichrome with a flecked finish. I did wear it for nearly a day before I had a chance to take pictures, so please excuse the tipwear:

Fergie Wet n Wild Ferguson Crest Syrah

I couldn't decide what to do with it, because I had two ideas, so I decided to show you both of them, and combine them. :)

First, I decided to stamp on it with Sally Hansen Brisk Blue and Cheeky Gals plate GA29
Plus Sally Hansen Brisk Blue GA29; I wanted to create a rich, bright contrast--oh yeah baby, this is not something you wear to work:

Ferguson Crest Syrah by Fergie Wet n Wild + Sally Hansen Brisk Blue

But hey, maybe a Polished Pairing is more to your liking. I thought that might be fun, so I combined it with Hit Polish (aka, D&R Apothecary) Wisteria Lane:

Fergie Wet n Wild Ferguson Crest Syrah + Hit Polish Wisteria Lane

And maybe you're like me, and you just can't decide...I understand. Sometimes I want to wear ALL da polishes myself! Especially when they look this good together:

Ferguson Crest Syrah + Wisteria Lane + Brisk Blue = Holy crap that's bright, but awesome!

I admit. This is not for every occasion. Mardi Gras comes to mind...or some other extravagant, over the top fun event. But what can I say, I love to be crazy sometimes. :)

Which do you like best? Or do you think it looks best all by itself?

Thanks for looking. Big hugs!
M.

Before & After: Franken Flashback

Hello there!

Okay, so I tweaked my franken a bit more, and wanted to show it to you full-manicure, as requested. In my hurry to get it up tonight I fought the light a little, so you'll have to sort of piece it together. First, the pic that represents the color well, which is a light milky sage, with green, gold, and white glitters:

Lacquer Or Leave Her! Irish Rain

Then two pictures that show the contrast with the glitters best, but wash out the green a bit and looks more of a mint shade than it really is:

Lacquer Or Leave Her! Irish Rain

I'm not sure that I'm fully happy with it, but I think I may leave it for now. It's still a bit thin--this is three coats, and I still wish it were a bit less milky. But it's a pretty sage sort of milky rather than a pastel, which I like. And at least you can see the glitters, and that's a definite improvement from the first from-scratch I made. And I do like the blend of glitters--not too much, not too little, and some differences in color and shape to keep it a bit interesting. Just too...milky.

Anyway, I needed to do a 1970s manicure for my Llama Nails time period Challenge, and I figured this makes a nice 1970s sort of base, so I thought I'd just use this. I picked an image from Pueen25, which has been screaming '1970s' to me since I saw it. I stamped with Sally Hansen Lightning on three of the nails, and with a rainbow of Rapid Red, Lightning, Orange Impulse, Lickety-Split Lime, and Brisk Blue on the accent nail. I finished off with some 3D Nail Art Confetti from the set Mash sent me for review:

I like how the glitter in the background looks sort of like a comet trail or some such behind the flowers, and I think the combination of flowers and stars is very 1970s, and so is the random rainbow, lol.

Anyway, I would definitely still love any opinions and/or advice on the franken, and I hope you liked the mani! Please check out the other 1970s era manis linked below. :)

Hugs, loves, and frankens...:)
M.