100 Followers! WOW!

Giveaway TIME! Whew can't believe there are 100 of you. I honor of Breast Cancer awareness month I figured let's keep it PINK!

Of course there is some pink polish, Essie's Lion Around and SPARitual Laughing in Pink...

But what is one of my giveaway's without some jewelry... so here is a one-of-a-kind Breast Cancer Awareness bracelet!

I was thinking of selling these and giving 75% of the proceeds to Breast cancer awareness. If you're interested let me know, I'm going to make them on a custom order basis and I'll set up an easy shop link for you.

Once again I'm only going to run the giveaway for a week or so, I hate waiting forever to win something and I like to think you do too! It is open till Wednesday 19th.

One entry per account, one extra entry if you blog about it, one extra if you tweet about it.

Best of Luck, and thanks again everyone for the support all of you have given me!

"I want to make a ding in the universe." - Steve Jobs

In tribute...

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To everything, there is a season...

I am feeling very "fall" lately.

I think the combination of the change in season and changes in both my personal and professional life are convalescing, making me slightly melancholy and nostalgic.

So I'm packing away the bright, sunny summer shimmers and fluorescent, bring out the moody tones of fall.

After putting on the base coat, I used barielle's unraveled rust. (I love this deep chocolate brown).

I stamped this cute leaf design from my bundle monster plate with CQ rustic dream. Rustic dream is an AMAZING dou-chrome polish only available at Rite Aid, that I know of. A definite pick up for fall.

Well love and chip-free nail polish to you all!

Flock Together...

This new feathers trend is an interesting one, I starting seeing it in hair, then jewelry... the next logical step–NAILS!.

I'm part of a Facebook group and someone shared a picture of a feather manicure, I had to try it.

Here is it:

1. I used China Glaze Classic Camel as my base color
2. I laid down one layer of Seche Vite topcoat then gently placed the feather on top.
3. I used a small eyeshadow brush to lay down on the pieces of feather by gently patting down. I let that dry and then
4. painted one more coat of top coat going from the tip of my nail to the nail bed as not to disturb the way the feather laid on my nail.
5. I cut off the remaining feather that extended beyond my nail with nail clippers. (here's a hint, cut a bit of you nail also, the feather will end up much more flush and not fray.)
6. One last layer of Seche Vite on top and I was done!

I was very dramatic in person and I will try this one again, a little extra time to do but definitely worth it.

I found the feather's at Michael's Craft Store and cleaned them with rubbing alcohol before placing them on my nail.

Love and chip-free nail polish to you all, until next time.

In Memorial...

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Coming Soon!

Nail Polish Rings to be added to my Etsy shop!

Stay tuned!

From left to right; Gold flakie with Green, Copper Hex glitter,  Gold to Burgundy Purple glass fleck.

Love and chip-free nail polish to you all!

Tight pants, soap and bad parking...

When I first learned that I could take type and designs and transfer them to my nails one of my first instinct was to see what comics would look like.

I am blessed to have an amazing friend, amazing artist, he has an online comic and of course in honor of this amazing story and comic I give you... the end of things nails.

Evan, the main character, goes through his own internal struggle with weight, the idea of growing up and out of his parents pre-destined image of him and finding his true self. It is a definitely must read. Check it out here endofthingscomic.com

Here are the nails!

I see I'm nearing 100 followers, I've got some surprises planned. Stay tuned this week!

Love and chip-free nail polish to you all!

Flakie-gasm ahead, WARNING!

I've had this obsession for flakes for a while, running a close 2nd behind hologramic polish is my love for flakie polish. What is a flakie polish do you ask, it is a type of nail polish that has mylar-irregular shaped sparkles suspended into it.

I have a feeling this a going to be a growing industry trend with more and more nail polish companies releasing these types of polish. Most notable lately, Color Club released "Covered in Diamonds", OPI has released "Lily I love you", Nubar released "2010" in 2010, Orly has released "Fowl Play" and Essie is releasing a gorgeous flakie in it's Holiday 2012 line called "Shine of the Times".

One company does currently have the market cornered on high-end flakie nail polish, they are Nfu-Oh and unfortunately I do not own any of those polishes... as of yet.

I do own some "lower" brand polishes, I do wear a lot of nail polish so if it can hold up to 1-2 days in my life and not chip or wear I'm willing to give it a try. I don't judge or try not to in regards to nail polish.

Here is sampling of what flakie polishes I do have:

From Left to Right:  love & beauty light green, Claires - purple unnamed, Nubar 2010, NYX Peach Ave., Color Club Covered in Diamonds

From Left to Right: Orly Fowl Play, love & beauty current, Nubar 2010, NYX Peach Ave., Color Club Covered in Diamonds

From Top to Bottom: Orly Fowl Play, Nubar 2010,

NYX Peach Ave., Color Club Covered in Diamonds

From Top to Bottom: Orly Fowl Play, Nubar 2010,

NYX Peach Ave., Color Club Covered in Diamonds

love & beauty light green ( click to view larger)

love & beauty current ( click to view larger)

That's all for today, love and chip-free nail polish to you all!

Fighting for the Ovaries!

September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness month...


You may say... here we go again another month highlighting another sickness/illness where companies will want me to purchase something color-coded. 


Instead of just drinking the koolaid and dawning your favorite teal nail polish, lets learn about what Ovarian Cancer is, how we can education ourselves in detection and how we can help in finding a cure.


DEFINITION
Ovarian Cancer is (as described by the MayoClinic) a type of cancer that begins in the ovaries. Women have two ovaries, one on each side of the uterus. The ovaries — each about the size of an almond — produce eggs (ova) as well as the hormones estrogen, progesterone and testosterone.

Ovarian cancer often goes undetected until it has spread within the pelvis and abdomen. At this late stage, ovarian cancer is difficult to treat and is often fatal.

DETECTION
Symptoms of ovarian cancer are not specific to the disease, and they often mimic those of many other more-common conditions, including digestive and bladder problems.

When ovarian cancer symptoms are present, they tend to be persistent and worsen with time. Signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer may include:

• Abdominal pressure, fullness, swelling or bloating
• Pelvic discomfort or pain
• Persistent indigestion, gas or nausea
• Changes in bowel habits, such as constipation
• Changes in bladder habits, including a frequent need to urinate
• Loss of appetite or quickly feeling full
• Increased abdominal girth or clothes fitting tighter around your waist
• A persistent lack of energy
• Low back pain

DONATION

Here is just one site where you can show your monetary support for research and those fighting the decease.

http://www.ovationsforthecure.org/


An in honor of you reading till the end of the post. Nail Art.

Love and chip-free nail polish to you all!

Ready for takeoff!

Are we all seated, seat belts buckled and tray in the upright and locked position? Don't turn off you electronic devices though...

First a note of business... we have a winner! The magical bracelet and full set of WnW craze polishes goes to Mindy from our neighbor to the north! You have till 1:00pm EST on Sunday, Aug. 21st, 2011 to get back to me to accept your prize.

 





I have for you a design done with the Fall 2011 Essie collection.

I simple and quick design, I used Very Structured as the base color, then Power Clutch and Case Study in a half moon tip design.

I love the creme quality of the Essie polishes and they lend themselves wonderfully to the 3-brush stroke technic. 2 coats is all it took for the base and the tip design was done with one.

Looking forward to fall and these beautiful muted palettes.

Thanks, love and chip-free polish to you all!

Give-A-Way Time

You all deserve a present, because you humor me, put up with my bad grammar, my mispellings and because you like me, your really like me! Now that there are nearly 50 of you I wish I could give something to each of you individually but I'm poor. So I made this spiffy bracelet, and I'm giving way the entire WnW Craze line from last fall.

Crossed fingers, this is my first giveaway and I'm praying things run smoothly. Only a week to enter, I hate waiting forever to win something.

The Bracelet!

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The Polish!

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I'm sorry but the GIVEAWAY HAS CLOSED.

We're not in Kansas anymore...

I discovered my new love, scattered hole nail polish.

After I found my two lemmings, CG Crystal Ball and CG Grape Crush. I made some dupes, and thought of other crazy colors I could add holo glitter too. RED! I needed a true red polish with holo glitter.

This is what I think Dorthy's shoes in Wizard of Oz should have looked like, red hologramic sparkles reflecting magical rainbows. Like all beautiful nail polish, no pictures nor words do it justice.. but we still try.

I couldn't leave well enough alone.

Inspired by some little kids artwork, maybe I could layer black over this and scrape it away to reveal the red underneath? I swear I've seen it somewhere.

I'm a firm believer that everything I believe to be original in life, design or nail polish it's all been done before, it's just new to me.

So here is my crayola etch version with black polish layered over the top, what do you think?

Til' next time, love and chip-free nail polish to you all!

Truly, truly, truly Outrageous...

I'm a child of the eighties, if I wasn't playing with my, my little pony's or being forced to watch transformers/He-man with my brother... I was watching JEM and playing with my JEM dolls.

Pink hair, rock n' roll lifestyle and light up earrings, she left barbie in the dust.

So onto the nail art, inspired by JEM!

I used my goto basecoat, CND Sticky, an unnamed salesgirl (Sally's Beauty Supply) polish the brightest fluorescent pink they have, and used the scotch tape technique with Opi DS Coronation. I love the holo sparkle!

I had an incident with a CTA train, needless to say, the train won and my pinky nail didn't. So we're starting fresh, trimmed and new. Celebrating freedom and nubbins'!

To get a great online tut of using scotch tape to get an edgy clean nailart design, checkout Chloe's Nails!
http://chloesnails.blogspot.com/2011/01/ask-and-you-shall-receive.html

Make sure you check out the queen of the tape manicure:
http://nailside.blogspot.com

Love and chip-free nail polish to you all! Til' next time.

Smurfs on the train..

In honor of the movie being released I couldn't help but do some smurfette nails.

Do you like?

Check out Katy Perry's Smurf nails:
http://twitpic.com/5vb42c

Check out Melissa's at the Daily Nail:
Handpainted gorg!
http://daily-nail.blogspot.com/2011/07/blast-from-past-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.html

Have a smurfy day!!!

Venom

Along with the Cheetos the Cheetah manicure I did, I couldn't help but do a snake print one.

I found this print on an awesome bag I couldn't afford... second best thing, put it on my nails of course!

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I love the way my thumb came out, I may have to redo do this mani in some more "swampy" colors and just use the thumb pattern on all my nails.

I'm going through some douchrome love so I'll be putting you all through that in the next couple posts. With all this dearness in the midwest, some rainbow flashing colors seem perfect.

Love and chip-free nail polish to you all!

It's alive...

I just wanted to share this franken'd polish I mixed up lately.

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It's the perfect nude for my skintone, it reminds me of the Zoya touch series that just came out but does it have this much gold flash to it? Anyone know if there is a polish on the market close to this?

Love and chip-free nail polish to you all!!!

Ice Cream, U's cream...

I've had this nail design on my mind for a while, luckily WnW is running a contest so I figured I would attempt it.

Click on image to view larger.

I used WnW craze Rustic for the cone and stamped on Barielle Unraveled Rust with my fishnet stamping plate.

Thumb: Strawberry

Pointer: Mint Chocolate Chip

Middle: SUPERMAN!

Index: Peach

Pinky: Lemon Sorbet

Hope this post didn't make you too hungry.

He's nothing but a Cheetah.

I do have one guilty pleasure, for all my slick modern outward appearance,

deep inside I love animal prints.

I think it was bred into by my parents, who both own silk/polyester leopard shirts. I don't think I had any say in this biologically ingrained need. I only let this deep embed secret rear at it's head on special occasions. Inspired by all these gorgeous leopard print designs like Melissa's at The Daily Nail (See them here.), I decided to try my hand at a cheetah print instead. 

See here how I accomplished this:

I used my CND Stickey basecoat, 2 coats of Finger Paints White (Sorry sticker fell off not sure the exact name, all I know is it's "white"). I then used facial "wedge" sponges with Essence Colour&Go Sundancer and China Glaze Papaya Punch to create the gradient background. 

I stamped the Bundle Monster Plate BM-225 cheetah print on with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out. A coat of Seche Vite and I was out the door.

I really love this for the beach. It's super bright and obnoxious, but in a good way. 

Love and chip-free nail polish to you all!

No Diving

I haven't been sketching any nail designs lately because I'm too damn inspired by everyday life... it happens. What's a girl to do...

So I went from swimming in a pool and seeing this....

To this.

I used WnW Garden Hose as the base, 1 coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust, then Artclub white for the stripes.

When I got in the pool, I matched the aqua colored water, its was a perfect summer manicure.

Love and chip-free nail polish to you all!

Stroke of Genius

I'm usually a minimalist in many things.

My design work tends to air on the side of simplicity, why wouldn't my "nail designs".

I'm in love with the simplicity of this design, and very happy with the "frankened" nail color I used as the base. It's a fluorescent neon coral, it was asking for a stark black design.

My favorite nail, I think the grainy texture of the brush stroke is just sooo cool.

Love and chip-free polish to all of you!

...if a woodchuck, could chuck...

I know, I know your thinking WOOD GRAIN? Having to design and research for the wood industry and industrial woodworking for the past 4 years has given me an appreciation of the natural beauty in wood. Can't help it.

So here's how I accomplished today's manicure.

I started with basecoat, I've been using CND sticky lately and it's wonderful. Followed by two thin coats of China Glaze Going My Way?.

I printed a black and white wood grain pattern about the size each nail on a laser printer. Cut each nail sized strip out and let it sit in a glass of rubbing alcohol.

Once throughly soaked, placed the strip of paper on throughly a dried nail, pressing firmly then lifting gently to reveal the transfer onto the nail (see manicure "french poetry").

One coat of Seche Vite and I was out the door.

Gotta saying this is definitely one of my favorite manicures I've done of all time.

Yay for trees! BTW I used recycled paper.

Love and chip-free nail polish to you all!

It's not you, it's me...

I really wanted to love this polish.

I picked this “black poppy” nail polish up last night at PacSun. Who knew they carried polish? right?

It called to me from the counter, lured me in with it’s holographic shimmer. I was mesmerized. I knew I had to have it, my life would not be complete. Like all first meetings, you start dreaming of your future together. What kind of magical artwork will I create with you, my beautiful Preciousss...

On the ride home, I thought about others that may compare to you... OPI Private Jet, Color Club’s Revvvolution... but I knew you were special, you were different...

Racing up my 3rd floor walk up, I kicked off shoes threw my purse on the floor... I had to have you.

And then, the moment of truth... you’re a dud. Like most men in my life, you didn’t live up to the hype. Pretty on the outside, crappy on the inside.

While this black holo from PacSun is tempting, it applies like mud and is extremely streaky. It’s a one coater, I tried two coats but it gooped up and got too thick and I removed it. It dries matte which you would think would be cool, but then the streaks in the polish don’t settle out.

I covered all this “black poopy-ness” with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust, then  one coat of Seche Vite.

I wanted to love you so, maybe it’s me, not you...

I will still keep the polish, and use it for some jewelry projects, we’ll still be friends. But real polish love, it’s not meant to be.

Anyone else stop by PacSun and was fooled like myself?


UPDATE! Beauty Secrets Polish thinner was purchased, a couple drops in the bottle worked magically but texture of dried polish is still "sandy". STAY TUNED for a dupe comparison with Color Club Revvvolution.

Celestial

In my nail blog lurking, I've discovered many of you share my love of beading and cabochons.

To pay homage to this love of jewelry making I wanted to show you one of my latest nail art/jewelry hybrid projects.

While you can see some of the pure gorgeousness that this bracelet is in this picture, in real life, IT'S AMAZING!

I love the light blue/purple silver holo, it matches dark washed jeans perfectly. Making it a very functional piece for a t-shirt and jeans kinda girl, like me.

Honestly I can't remember the exact mix of polishes I used, but if you interested in recreating it I can dig them up for you.

The best part of the bracelet, is that it was part of a kit at Target. Once again if you want the details, I'll be happy to pass them along.

Love and chip-free polish to you all!

French Poetry

Getting the swing of this blog thing, bare with me fair readers. Any tips on photography would be greatly appreciated.

So today we have FRENCH POETRY, I feel inspired by France and Paris lately, maybe something is telling me I need to go on vacation to the french riveria.

So here was the sketch:

I once again started with basecoat, two coats of China Glaze Heaven.

I typed up some wording and printed it out on a laser printer, soaked the small nail sized strips in some rubbing alcohol and placed them on my throughly dried nails pressing down firmly.

Gently, I lifted the paper, leaving the toner left on my nail.

I love this technique and I will be using it a lot in the future, STAY TUNED.

I could have stopped here, oh yes I could have, but I needed some shimmer and stamping awesomeness.

I pulled out one of my favorite stamping polishes, China Glaze Avalanche and BM plate 09 and 15 to add some floral goodness. Bundle Monster Nail Art Nailart Polish Stamp Stamping Manicure Image Plates Accessories Set Kit 21pc

I know, I know, my middle figure is going through some personal issues and will be grown out and back to normal soon.

Ever tried toner transferred nails? Your thoughts?

Love and chip-free nail polish to you all!

French Boudoir

Yes not only do I sketch out nail designs on paper I give them names.

This one seemed to be the red light district version of your standard french manicure so... 

FRENCH BOUDOIR seemed to fit so much better.

I started with a basecoat, two coats of China Glaze Heaven. My "goto" neutral for french manicures.

Once everything was throughly dry I used bundlemonster stamping plate m57.

I don't use konad polishes, I hear they are amazing... and blah blah blah... but this girl tries to save money, and in saving money I use Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme wear in "Black Out". It's tricky but I've been able to use most polishes with high pigment content for stamping just took time to figure it out how to do it.

So with the stamping plate, I stamped the fishnet pattern from nailbed to 1/2 the length of my nail, then on the same m57 plate I used the lace pattern right below were the fishnet pattern ended.

I topped everything off with a coat of Seche Vite. 

Here is the sketch and the result, your thoughts?

I

loved the way these turned out, perfect for a little black dress and a night out.

Sneak Peek for the next manicure....

That's all for today,

Love and chip-free polish to you all.

Just a little explanation and introduction is needed...

I've jumped in.

After months of lusting over pretty nail polish pictures and denying myself the ability to share my artwork, I've started a nail blog.

Oh but not your average nail blog. One where I can show "my process" of drawing and brainstorming out my nail art on paper before attempting it on my nails.

What I can promise is my creativity in expressing my design talents in the form of nail and jewelry art. My two hobbies and after work passions. Also the occasional misspelled word and some imperfect grammar, but how many of you are actually reading posts anyway, right?

I hope you enjoy and I look forward to comments and suggestions from the nail community that I feel like I'm already a member of.

Here's a sneak peek of my first post;

Wishing you love and chip-free nails.