The Bald and The Beautiful, Part 2

As a general rule, I am NOT a fan of pink. Recently I have been wearing it a bit more (at least for polish), but imagine my surprise when my favorite of this wonderful duo made me think of what a disco ball might look like if Barbie had one in her dream house.
This polish is amazingly sparkly! Packed with all kinds of glittery, girly, pink goodness. It was a bit on the thick side, and I had a few issues with application but it all evened out and I'm loving the results.

You can see part 1, HERE. There is also links to information on the wonderful little girl that inspired this duo. Thank you again Llarowe for doing this. It's an amazing gesture.

The Bald and The Beautiful, part 1

As stated on www.llarowe.com; "This is a two polish collection in tribute to the beautiful Talia Joy, a blogger who battled cancer and lost that fight on July 16th with a spirit that encouraged so many.  100% of the proceeds of this polish will benefit St. Jude's Hospital."

Talia's story....  (thank you llarowe for the link to this!)

That last sentence made my decision for me. I was buying these polishes whether I liked the colors or not. Cancer has effected my family in terribly profound ways. My nephew is currently battling Stage 4 Neuroblastoma (as some of you may know from previous posts), 2 friends of mine that have been in my life for nearly 20 years have also recently beat Cancer. One breast, the other; Hodgkin's lymphoma. Childhood cancer in addition to all other forms of this nasty disease, well frankly they make me angry. I can count on 1 hand the number of family members I have lost that didn't die of cancer. The rest had it in 1 of it's many forms. What some people don't know, is that childhood cancer is severely underfunded in regard to research. In fact (unless things have changed recently) it is on the bottom of the list.

Anyhow, first I am going to show you the blue side of the duo. Talia's favorite color was blue. And this blue polish is amazing. At first I was a little upset, I was expecting the bright & bold blue that I saw in the release photos. And in the bottle I thought maybe I was sent the wrong polish, but after a swatch on a nail wheel, I realized I was mistaken. The purple shimmer, the subtle color shifts (that I didn't even notice until I began typing this), and it's just all around beautiful. Just like the little girl this is in honor of.

Stay tuned for part 2, coming soon!

skull, hearts, love, and fairy!

The last few days have been emotional to say the least...pretty craptacular if I'm being honest. My Grandpa died, and I was not able to get down south for the visitation/funeral. My Aunt & Uncle had a baby girl on the same day, and due to an all around feeling of ick, I haven't been to visit yet. Anyhow, I was needing to do something to relax, and as my fellow polishaholics you all understand that a lot of the time, doing our nails is a big way to relax. So after a temporary "tattoo party" with my daughters. I decided some Pure Ice Jamaican Me Crazy, some white polish, a stamping plate, and some temporary tattoos would make for some interesting results. Well, at least I like it, lol. My cuticles and skin around them (on my thumbs specifically) have received the most damage with all the stress/emotions.

Please use a No. 2 pencil

Continuing with the back to school week manis. Today, pencils have inspired my mani.

ChalkBoard inspired

I've had these pics ready to load and post for a couple days now, and couldn't cause my computer was on the fritz. Meant to do this first thing this morning, and got sidetracked with a LOT that's happening within my family today. 1 family member in the hospital ill, another family member in the hospital giving birth to the newest family member, lol. It's just been a busy day all around.

So, I wanted to do something inspired by chalkboards that you would see in school (or at least when I went to school before smart boards and dry erase boards). The finished product doesn't really make me think "chalk board". I'm not sure what it makes me think honestly.

back to school week!

While the mosquito bite on my foot is basically keeping me awake, lol. I figured I would do my nails. So while watching Dangerous Minds, and going through my kids backpacks and making sure they have all their stuff for their first day next week, I decided to do a back to school week of manis! The first one is inspired by notebook paper. I will admit, I am not entirely pleased with the results. I could have taken more time on the letters. Anyhow, here it is :)

Antique-ish Letter/envelope?

Another Fing'rs nail art tattoo. I heart this one. My only problem was that the tattoo started peeling after a day or so. Now, I don't know if that had something to do with the topcoat (i used matte) or if it was just something that happened. I haven't had it happen before. Again the art tattoos in the fing'rs kits are very big. I was able to cut it into fourths/quarters for 8 fingers, and cutting one in half for the thumbs. Using only 3 tattoos instead of 10.

Sinful Colors, Opening Night....and an unhappy polishaholic

Went to Walgreens the other day, and in one of the displays for new Sinful Colors polishes I see this tealish looking color that my children said I needed, I didn't argue, lol. While I have other teal colors, I didn't have anything quite like Opening Night...at least not under the lights of the store.
So I get home, do a mani with this color, and decide it needs a little something extra. So I put Pure Ice's "It's Complicated" on top. With accent nails left from a previous mani.... Well, here's the results...

I was really digging the look of the results, and added a matte top coat, and still really liked it. Fast Forward an hour or so, take a shower getting ready for bed, and completely ruined the mani *insert sad face here*.
So, I take off the polish and.....

Oh the stains! Scrubbed my fingers with a mani brush and some 3D white toothpaste and it came off. By this point I was so frustrated that the mani wasn't dry (my own impatience part of that) and then I take the polish off and my fingertips and parts of my nails were blue. But I couldn't go to work with naked nails, so...

3 thin coats of Hard Candy Sugar Rush...angled picture to show how well the 3D white toothpaste removed the stains :)

Fing'rs stamping!

As most of you probably know, Walmart is now carrying a whole new line of stuff from Fing'rs. I found the display and literally squee'd while in Walmart. One of said items is a stamping kit. For me, the stamper itself was crap, and the scraper seemed to take all the polish off. However I used a different scraper and stamper and discovered that the plates are actually pretty awesome. So, here's my stamping adventure using Fing'rs stamping plates.

First I wanted to show a swatch of what is quickly becoming on of my go to polishes when I am just not sure what I want to do. So, here's 2 coats of China Glaze's First Mate.

 Then I decided to try the Hounds tooth stamp. I like it a lot!

UPDATE: Apparently my bottle's label is wrong...this is Hey Sailor! Not First Mate, fist mate is blue... did not realize that until today lol