Some recent experiments

Haven't made a post in awhile here because I haven't really had a whole lot I was particularly fond of, except maybe the rainbow design. But figured I'd post a collection of stuff I've been doing lately.

I've been trying to use more of my newer polishes to test em out. Did a full swatch of Grape Pop by CG and absolutely loved it. 

 This is a perfect purple polish. Not too dark, goes on smooth. This is two coats with SV top coat.





I tried to add pink polka dots to a few nails, but really didn't like how it was turning out, so I cleaned off my ring fingers and added Turned Up Turquoise.

The color goes pretty well with the purple, but after 3 thick coats, I was regretting not layering it over white first. It's very sheer, and dries matte which I did not realize at first. It's a pretty color, and has a bit of a shimmer to it, but I wasn't a huge fan of the turn out.

 So, I wiped my ring fingers clean again, and coated them in Dance Baby, taped off the main part, and added Grape Pop to the corner.

Originally, I was going to add polka dots of Dance Baby onto the purple, but I thought it looked pretty good as is. I did my toes opposite this, Dance Baby for the main color, and angled corner of Grape Pop on the big toe.

I also swatched Color Club's Hot Like Lava. I was originally going to tape off small sections and do black over it, leaving the pink looking like ribbons. But I just couldn't get over how horribly streaky this all turned out. The color is very pretty, but the foil comes through on it's own way too much, and the streaks bugged me too badly to keep on. Will be used only as a layering color from here on out.

 Now this one, I was proud of. I didn't realize it until the day after, but I saw a very similar mani on Pinterest, but with a medium blue instead of the grey, so I guess that was my inspiration. I've been wanting to use Concrete Catwalk, but it didn't seem like a fun happy spring color.

This made it pop, I think. I call it "muted rainbow." Rainbow colors are all CG: Gothic Lolita, Flyin' High, Paper Chasing, Sunshine Pop, and Life Preserver.

Now this one could have turned out a lot better, but I still thought it was cute. I tried to do a jigsaw puzzle mani, but I chose some poor colors to do together. If I had substituted the purple with a yellow it would have come together a lot better, I think

Colors are CG: Life Preserver, Starboard, Flyin' High, and Secret Periwinkle.

 And lastly, just for fun, I tried my hand at doing nail art on someone else. I did my nieces nails in strawberries using dotting tools.

It turned out really cute, I think, though next time I try this I'm going to use a tiny paintbrush to do the leaves instead of a dotting tool for the whole thing.

Colors used were CG: Red Pearl, Paper Chasing, and White on White for the seeds.

Any questions on techniques or colors feel free to comment! Enjoy!
-T

first pink wednesday, and a haul

So, even though it's the last thing I should have done at this point in time, I went slightly crazy over the countless online deals on nail polish. After trying to decide between the main retailers(8ty8beauty, transdesign, etc), I settled on Victoria's Nail Supply, for reasons I don't even remember right now. However I will say they were quick, cheap, and I'm happy.

Onto the photos!

The first is of all of them together. And then I grouped em into smaller photos to properly label them(and to even remember what I got today.) For the record, moving from photos and polish left to right, they are as follows: Color Club Hot Like Lava, CG Adore, CG Flyin' High, CG Paper Chasing, CG Dance Baby, CG Concrete Catwalk, CG Something Sweet, CG Kinetic Candy, Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe, Color Club Sugarplum Fairy, CG Grape Pop, CG Devotion, CG Refresh-mint, CG Calypso Blue, and CG Turned Up Turquoise.

I couldn't quite decide what to do first, so decided to pick at random something I've pinned recently, and came up with a triple pink striped mani. Original inspiration found here

Here's my stage by stage process, of course with a coat of SV in between, and then taped off for the new layers. Please forgive my spray paint and adhesive covered hands ps. The light pink is CG Something Sweet, the barbie pink is CG Dance Baby, and the hot pink is CC Hot Like Lava.


After finishing, I went to the original post to compare shades used, and saw the "We wear pink on Wednesdays tag." I was so excited that this was the first mani I could use that for, and ironically saw that it was her first one too!

Small world.

LOTS of new designs to come in the near future, methinks.

-T

No more red, white, and blue...

...nails for awhile, because hockey season is over! My team's colors are blue/red and a little white, in case you were wondering why I have so many 4th of july designs...

With that being said, that brings me to the first design I have to show you.

Started off with pure white nails, China Glaze White on White style.

I like this white because it's not too chalky. Some whites do just look pure white-out on me.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a pic of the red-only, but essentially all I did was tape off all but the top angled half of the nail, and then painted it red with China Glaze's Red Pearl. I REALLY am not a fan of red ANYTHING, but it's not a bad polish. Has a bit of a shine to it.

After letting that and of course a coat of SV dry, I taped off all but the opposite corner, and then painted over with China Glaze(of course)'s Frostbite. Now Frostbite is a unique blue. Not TOO dark, and a very nice frosty shimmer.

I don't know why, but the blue was an absolute pain in the ass to do. The mani itself couldn't have taken me more than 2 minutes per nail, and that's including base, white, rip tape, place tape, paint, sv, repeat. But the blue just would not cooperate. Even at the end you could still see the red lines through, but as I was going to be in a dark hockey arena all night I called it good.

Here's a couple more shots of how it turned out.

I also thought I'd mention the routine products I use. I don't swear by it, but the base coat I've been using consistently is China Glaze's Strong Adhesion Base Coat. I don't get much staining, but occasionally there is a little. Sally Hansen makes a couple good base coats as well. I don't recommend Seche Vite's, though, unfortunately. As for top coat, I almost always use SV, if I'm doing any top coat.

Moving on... the design I did to inspire the above one, I'm not particularly fond of, because I kind of grabbed the wrong color in the dark...oops. I used the identical method as listed above, but I only did one corner. It was meant to be black with blue glitter, and I didn't realize until taking photos that I grabbed a teal glitter.



Anywho. Black is CG Liquid Leather. Teal is Finger Paint's Art you Wondering. I took a closeup of the bottle to show how pretty the glitter is. The blue I was going to use is EVEN PRETTIER, but I'll save that for another day!



The last mani I have to show you today is another half moon one. I definitely did steal the color combo off of Pinterest, so here is the link to the original post. I wish I had used the OPI color :/.



I started off with a base coat of LA Colors silver glitter...I know it HAD a name, but it's nowhere on the bottle. I've honestly bought about 5 more silver glitters/foils trying to find a PURE foil, but this is by far the best I can find, and it cost a whopping $1 at Dollar Tree. I did mess up one nail a bit :(.



I then used the same method mentioned a few blogs back, but took a pic this time! And did an overcoat of CG For Audrey.


I really wish I could say I like how the colors went together, but I'm not a huge fan. However, it is very spring appropriate, so it's stayed for now. Here's the final result, as well as a couple more pics of the silver to show how well it turned out on it's own. And a super cheap ring I got from Claires, which kind of tied it all together nicely, I think.



-T

My favorite things

Haven't really put much personal stuff on this blog yet, so I thought I'd post a few nice photos to get to know me!

We've all seen the "thinspiration" pics, before/after pics that seem so fake, and I have lost a great deal of weight, so decided to do one myself finally. I dunno if it qualifies for thinspiration, but I'm sure proud of it! Weight loss never really clicks until you see something like this, I don't think.
The first photo is dated June of '07, but I was that weight, or very close to it until about Feb of last year. I've been my current weight for a good 6 months, also, but I don't have any better full body shots. This one I took today in a dressing room and was a similar enough pose to use.

And for ANYONE curious, I am 5'4(and a half), shirt size currently a medium(although some fitted shirts I do still have to get a large, due to my chest), and pant size small or juniors 5, skirt size juniors 3 or small. Prior to this I was a shirt size large or extra large, and pants size juniors 11 or 13, large/extra large.

I'd love to say it's the result of months or years of hard effort, dieting, and exercising, but really 90% of it came from a diet pill. Believe it or not, one actually works(for me, anyway.) I PROMISE this is not a plug, but I do definitely recommend anyone who is looking for a supplement to try Oxyelite Pro. You can find it at GNC, or on Amazon, etc. I DID try months(years) of exercise, diet, Weight Watchers, etc, and I'd lose at most 20lbs. Which was still a big deal, but one bad weekend of eating and almost half would come back.

Unfortunately for me, the weight is gone but I'm still left with some flab here and there, so I'm TRYING to motivate myself to do some real exercise and do a real diet to get the remaining flab off. Ideally, I'd like to turn it all into muscle, resulting in at maximum 5-10 more lbs lost.

Anyway. The real point of this post was to show off my adorable animals, so without further ado here are my favorite things in life. Widget(the white one), Phoenix(the little grey girl), and Allsparq(the fluffy one.)

New crafty things

I've been putting off making new blog posts, because it's soo frustrating to add photos on here for me. So here's a few new things I've done/been working on.

First up is my favorite, a necklace made from gears. Very steampunk, which I like. I saw this necklace on Etsy, made from a bazillion gears, and saw a 12 pack of similar ones at Hobby Lobby(also at Michaels) for $7 and knew I had to make one myself. I would LOVE to link up to the gears, but I can't find them on either of their sites!

I honestly had never made any jewelry before this, aside from your VERY simple beaded things, so it was entirely new to clasp and unclasp the rings, put together a claw clasp, cut the chain, etc. But I think it turned out fabulous. This one in particular is the one I made for my SIL, who gave me my very first Etsy sale(thanks!)


Here's a few more photos, including me wearing the one I made for myself. It's very easy to put them together, epoxy or superglue the gears together, make the necklace, but if you don't feel like doing it yourself, here's a link to my Etsy listing for one. Only $15 shipped! :)

Next up, I finished my bathroom canvas pop-art. I don't really know what else to call it, as it has a very Warhol feel, minus being solid colored. My new shower curtain has elephants and hearts in orange/blue/brown/light green colors, so the butterfly one just didn't quite fit.

This is an up-close pic of it, and then here's another one of it against a few of the accent towels, to give you a better idea of the color scheme I was working with.




The sock monkey helps the colors pop, don't ya think? It was a very sweet gift from the bf when he was living in Texas and me in Iowa, he sent it in a package of Christmas gifts, and sprayed it with his cologne. It still faintly smells like it, too. :)



I don't think I've posted this at all yet, this I actually made a long while ago, when first deciding the new bathroom scheme. The wall had been empty for some time, and I had an empty poster frame to use.

I really wanted to cut the letters out of scrapbook paper using stencils, but I couldn't decide what size stencils I like, or what paper to use. So instead I did a google search for stencils, and copied different letters, then filled them in with various backgrounds from paint shop's library, or random background sites. Printed em out on cardstock, cut em, and glued em on!

The quote is actually a lyric from a song by The Cure, "The Promise." I plan on getting it tattooed somewhere, but haven't found what I want to tie in with it yet. As you can see, I haven't quite finished the decor as there's still Hello Kitty framed pics on the other wall!

As for upcoming projects, there's a few things I'm wanting to work on. I plan on posting some photography onto my Etsy page. I just got a nice big vase from a garage sale for a whole quarter that I'd like to turn into a terrarium. Also got a (badly painted) 2 level bird house, that's more of a micro book case, that I'll at least paint, but I have no plans with from there. We shall see!

-T