New Techniques

Today I have two new nail art techniques that I learned in the process of this 30 day nail art challenge.  The first was yesterday's challenge- galaxy nails.  I found a tutorial that I liked for this technique here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EMgt4_jW5U .  

Maybe this smaller picture will lend better to the galaxy look.

Are you going to give this trend a try? I thought it was fun and made me feel very artsy in deed. The base polish here is Julep Brandt and then I layered NYC Lexington Yellow and Sinful Colors Beautiful Girl, Snow me White, and Ciao Bello respectively.  Then I used Wet n' Wild Hallucinate as a top coat for extra twinkle.


This next technique had me somewhat worried when I saw it on the docket and I was not exactly looking forward to it, but let me tell ya it was fun!  Water marble is very trendy right now and you can see examples of it here http://www.chalkboardnails.com/2012/09/31dc2012-day-20-water-marble.html and there are some great tutorials of the technique here http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9897F44C750F9766&feature=plcp

For my first try I say not too shabby and definitely not frustrating and scary like I've heard from many others.  Going to try this again very soon with some different color variations as the pink here blends too much into my skin tone.  It's true that not every polish works for a water marble nail art, but pick some colors and give it a try- and have fun with it.  The colors I used here were the same as in the galaxy nails above, except for the yellow as it did not work for the water marble.

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Family Night Fun, and Day 18 Half Moons

Hey lovies! 

We had such a fun time Monday night for our spontaneous family night activity.  We were out picking up some quick dinner and we thought it would be fun to head to Kmart and each take 5 dollars to buy someone else an article of clothing/attire for them to wear to work/school the next day.  Here is what we came home with:
Bear found this kickin' shirt for Tim

Bug picked out these major earrings for moi!

I loved this shirt for Mr. Bug- and again- the "cheeze" face.  By the way- a little explanation of this shirt if you don't have children that love spongebob- there is an episode where he rips his pants and gets attention for it and then spends the rest of the episode ripping his pants for attention til he drives everyone crazy with his antics...pretty much like every episode. But haven't your kids caught on to some moniker, saying, or other behavior that they just drive into the ground until it's hard to drag out a laugh for it? Well that's what this is about.  In truth, Bug doesn't share Spongebob's antics from this episode -the boys probably should have swapped shirt ;)...- but that's ok

And Mr. Bear wore this supa fly t-shirt to school today

This was such a fun and relatively inexpensive activity for a family of five(miss bee just got a cutie onesie and shorts so she isn't cast in the goofball outfit pics).  At five bucks a pop- we had a scavenger hunt-like activity w/o the rush through the store than can be insensitive to other shoppers and employees of an establishment.  I will definitely keep this one in mind to try again as the kiddos  get older.  What will your family be likely to come up with?

 Today's NOTD is a half moon mani.  If you don't know what that is- look down at your nails(if they are unpainted) and see the half moon shape of your nail that meets the cuticle.  The purpose of this style of nail art is to emphasize or play on that shape in your nail.  I chose to simply exclude the half moon from the painting and leave it naked, but you can also do a two-toned mani and paint your half moon a different color.  Experiment with it.

This picture demonstrates two things: 1) How striking a matte finish can be and how fun it is to play with.  2) All the nicks I can get on my nails from stopping what I'm doing to go fill 20 water balloons for a water fight that was imminently important!  At least I've got my priorities in check.  The stinkin thing about nail art is- where else is your art going to be in immediately in danger of destruction if you have to put it on pause for a second? :) Keepin it real- probably won't ever have nick-free manicures, and that's ok with me!

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Challenge Day 17; Glitter Nails

This gorgeous Milani purple glitter was screaming out to be used on glitter inspiration day, so of course I was going to do a jelly sandwich which is glitter layered with a jelly polish(or non-opaque cream).  I picked this light yellow to have my two fav colors together on this jelly glitter day :).  The yellow is NYC Taxi Yellow Cream, and the purple is Milani Jewel FX in Lavender.  After four layers (yellow, glitter, yellow, glitter) I used a matte top coat since it finishes off the sandwich just the way I like it- with a non-glossy finish.  This combination ended up looking like a speckled egg, especially with the matte finish.  Try it for yourself, just remember to allow enough time between layers so it doesn't get gummy on you.

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Super Duper Weekend

Hey family and friends!

We had such a fun time together this weekend.  Here are a few of the places we could be spotted:

20-25 times on this thing :)

The "cheese" face makes an appearance yet again.

Picked this bum up somewhere at the mall.

Then the bum got a little sassy.

We decided to give the bum a haircut, and I think he liked it.

Little lovie havin some juice

Tonight for dinner I tried a few of the recipes I have pinned on pinterest.  This is a crockpot chicken cordon bleu that you can find here: http://www.justgetoffyourbuttandbake.com/?p=5636

Another recipe we tried is http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=2718 and they were so yummmmm.  Little bug didn't care for how the chicken looked so he made his meal outta the zucchini.

Here's how the chicken looked after all and I can understand Bug's apprehension but it was super yummy.  Give it a try- you'll love it.

My sweet boys sitting patiently waiting for prayer.

And finally- today's NOTD is inspired by a tribal pattern.  I did these at night and wanted to wait for the nice lighting of mid morning, but then I started to get wear on the tips cuz I didn't use a top coat.  Let this be a lesson to all- always top coat it! ;)

Hope you all had such a nice time with your families as we did!  Love to you all.

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50th post and playing catch up

50 posts gone by now and today I need to catch up for yesterday too since we were out having too much fun- pics to come!  So these are nails inspired by flowers.  I like the look of this tiny little white flower.  The base color on each nail is Sally Hansen Fog and then I just took various grays and painted some outlining and strokes of color, then some little splotches with the tip of the brush with some more grays in the middle.  I was going for a more watercolor-esque look.

As for today's mani- it is supposed to be inspired by something delicate, and I thought these little chains looked the part.  Sadly, I did these nails some time last week and was savin em and now I don't remember the colors I used- but the chains were on a bundle monster plate.

Have a blessed day everyone!!

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Pretty as a ....

Today's nail challenge was a mani inspired by an animal print.  Can you guess what inspired me?

This was a really nice green by Sinful Colors: Exotic Green, and for the peacock print I used the same color for base, and then yellow, orange, light blue, and dark blue dots on top of each other with some light brown around the circles.  I think this looks better from far away but I just did a close-up so you could see the colors individually.  So just stand really really far away from your computer screen ;)

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Inspiration: Stripes

Quick post today to get my daily challenge in.  This was my second go at stripes on my nails.  The first time I used polish and a striping brush to make the stripes and I just wasn't feeling it so I pulled out some little gems and went to work.  However working with these little guys is more like play and it was a fun texture on my nail all day.  If you're looking for some stuff like this they have tons of notions for your nails at http://www.bundlemonster.com/beauty-accessories.html  Let loose- go crazy peeps!

This was Frosted Fucshia from Wet n' Wild.

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