OPI and Broken Nails

 

 Today I'm wearing a little OPI.  This is from the Burlesque Collection.  I love a good vampy polish, this is Tease-y Does It.  I swear my clean-up looks better in person.  Once I get this super-awesome camera out I see all the mistakes.  The nail polish application really isn't the real trouble here.  As you might have read before I work at an animal hospital.  This past weekend was a hell weekend.

I broke some nails.

I broke not one.  (This is my favorite nail, luckily I saved it with a little nail glue.)

Not two.

Not three.

Not four.

Not five. (This one has to stay short.  It breaks while I bowl every week.) 

Not even six.

But seven.   This one breaks my heart the most.  This is the only one where my entire length broke off.

This was a really hard weekend both mentally and talon-ly.

Milani Glitters!

I work the evening shift at the hospital which means I get off work after midnight.  That's usually when I do my grocery shopping.  Well as you may know parts of the US were slammed with an Ice Storm a couple weeks back.  I could not bring myself to attempt to bring in groceries over the ice. 

Last night was the first night in about three weeks that I've bought myself food.  I always swing by the cosmetics section when I'm at Meijer.  I'm always watching for new nail polish displays.  These past few months I've been watching the Milani display, looking for the new glitter nail polish.  Well last night I finally found them.  I don't know if you've ever been shopping at a supermarket at night but there's typically no one around.  Well I let out the biggest squeal when I set my eyes upon these beauties!!   I've had the silver polish (gorgeous) since early December, but I just couldn't find any of the other glitter polishes. 

Looking at the swatches from the other blogs out there I just couldn't imagine purchasing the red glitter or the large chunky glitters.  The gold glitter especially.  It looked too gaudy for my tastes.  Well guess what... It is the first one I've worn.

I applied one coat of China Glaze Midnight Kiss followed by one coat of Milani Gold.  I love the speckled look.  I can't wait to try it with other colors.  I think it would make a fab St. Patty's day manicure.

I started out with just one coat of the Gold on all my nails, then I started back over with a second coat.  You can see it on my pinkie.  It took it to that gaudy-land that I just can't handle.  So I left it this way and I LOVE it.

Day 7 - Happy Valetines Day

So my original plans were to create a landscape on all my nails.  I wanted to stamp the cherub image from my image plates on my thumb and make a sky background with blue polish and clouds in the foreground.  With red Cina hearts glued on top. 

Well I was WAY too tired after my weekend.  I work all weekend at the hospital leaving me super tired Sunday nights.  I ended up sleeping 15 hours.  And only woke up 2 hours before leaving for work.  So I decided to slap on some Strobe Light glue on these pink Cina hearts instead.

Happy Valetine's Day.  Hope you enjoyed the week of V-day nails.  I'm enjoying myself here at work with the girls. :)

Day 6 - Pepto-Pink Valentine

If you haven't met this glitter yet.  It's called Strobe Light.  I LOVE it.  My current favorite glitter.  Super tired so I'm only posting pics today.  Hopefully I can complete my big plans tomorrow before work.

Day 5 - The Anti-Pink Valentine



I flat out got bored with reds and pinks and I needed to do something a little different a little simpler.  So I splashed on a little Orly Halley's Comet.  (BTW I love the shiny colors in this collection.  I find myself wearing these polishes all the time.)  I love how long my nails look with this polish. 

So my original plan with these was to stamp over this polish.  But as I was gearing up to stamp away I remembered that I had these hearts from that Create-a-nail sticker collection.  I'm really disappointed with these I'm not sure if you can see it in these pics but when I applied my topcoat over top the outline on the silver hearts wiped off.  The gold stayed nice and bright but the silver pooped out on me.

Tomorrow I shall present my Pepto-Pink Valetine.

Day 4 - The Anchors Away Valentine

Here's my China Glaze Anchors Away V-Day manicure.  I started out with Pelican Gray.  I find it odd that it looks almost purple in these pictures.  It's really a very subtle gray.  Then I added a the nail design using my brand new Bundle Monster plates!  I used my absolute favorite pink of all time Ahoy! over the gray.

This is my very first full nail stamp.  I can now understand why all the girls complain about the image being too small for the thumb nail.  I wasn't too bothered by it.  Probably because I knew I was going to take it off in a few hours. More MORE MOREEEE V-day manis to do.

But, As you can see I'm still perfecting my stamping technique.   It's getting better.

Tomorrow's my Anti-Pink Valentines Nails.

Day 3 - The Vampy Valentine

So on day three I wanted something darker and not so girly.  So I tried on my China Glaze Lubu Heels.  Funny thing about it was that I was just going to leave it.  I thought its enough nail art to make me happy for the day.  Plus I really didn't want to go further with the design.  I mean this marathon blogging about valentines nails is starting to leave me feeling uncreative.  I just want to sit in a nail polish free hole for a day or two.  :P

But as fate would have it I ventured over to Chloe's blog again and got inspire.  Also, I got tired of the simple Lubu Heels and I wanted to spice it up a bit.  So I added Hard Candy Matte topcoat at a diagonal.  I actually didn't do too bad with the line.  Then I thought, "wouldn't my Hot Topic red glitter look amazing across that diagonal."  So I did. 

I always show my dad my nail art.  This is one of the few I've been proud of.  So when I showed him he said "Wow I really do like that one."  Did he just imply that he doesn't like my other designs?  Hrm.  Oh well.  Here to the Vampy Valentine.  I was sad to take it off to prepare for day 4.

 

 Day 4 is turning into a China Glaze Anchors Away Masterpiece.

Day 2 - The Funky French Valentine

So on Day 2 Valentine's nail I attempted my very first french manicure... It ended up being a Funky French manicure at that.  I'm no where near as good at these as Chloe.  Here nails are always perfection.  I think mine are until I get out my dad's camera.  Then I see the uneven polish and the dry cuticles.  AND the bald spots at the tips.  Ooops.

I used China Glaze's Ahoy and Branding Iron for this look.  I felt like the Branding Iron tips look like chocolate next to the super pink Ahoy.  These bright pinks are my favorite nail color.  My arsenal is building up with them.

What I used.

I used a nail brush from Born Pretty to achieve the narrow tips.  All in all this being my first time I've ever free-handed nail art I'm not too disappointed.  However the girls at work were!! One of the girls took one look and said "That's it.  I'm not impressed."  She was expecting more nail stampies.  Oh well I love it. :)

Tomorrow I've got a super simple, vampy Valentine's nail.
Edit: It's not so simple any more :P

Seven Days of Valentine Nails - Day 1

Now That I've received my Born Pretty AND Bundle Monster plates I've been a nail stamping fiend.  This is another stamp from my BP plates m07.  I loved this idea in theory but the execution sucked.  I applied my basecoat and then a layer of Sally Hansen White On, then Orly's Winter Wonderland overtop.  I'm not sure if it was my impatience or the color itself but I felt like I couldn't get it to dry.  I waited almost 30 minutes before stamping my images and had to redo my pinkie 3 times.

I ended up stamping China Glaze Branding Iron over top.  I LOVE this red.  It so deep but shiny. Then when I got the above pinkie stamp I said "Good enough!!" and left it at that.  It looks like my impatience took over when I applied the final topcoat too.  Look at that streaky design.  :(  Another nail fail.  

 

But I think tomorrow's V-day nail will be much nicer.  I'm wearing it now and I LOVE it.  My first attempt with the funky french.

Zoya Crystal and an Ice Storm Warning

  As many folks know there is a huge storm here in the midwest.  Luckily I have a boss who understands that driving about an hour in sleet/freezing rain is ridiculous for a 6 hour shift.  So I get to stay home tonight!! 

  

  As a result I've done some fancy nail art. (Well fancy for me).  I work at a veterinary hospital in the emergency department.  This means any nail polish I put on is gone by the next day.  With this ice plus my day off tomorrow that means I can wear stuff like falsies and nail stickers!!

  A couple weeks back I purchased a nail kit.  I believe it was a Fashion Diva kit, but I threw out the box and I cannot seem to find it anywhere online.

 

  The set came with 5 sets of nail stickers.  I was personally attracted to those neon stickers.  (They were perfect for my 80s inspired mani that I never got pictures of. :( bummer.)  It also came with two sets of falsies, the pink ones above and then this set of white with purple shimmer.  Unfortunately the set didn't come with enough sizes to cover all my nails.  So I had to put a nail from another kit on my middle finger.  I also lost my pinkie right after I applied these so it's got a generic nail too.

  This is actually my ideal nail length.  But the way I abuse my nails at work I can't seem to get them past the length they currently are.

  After applying the nails I decided I wanted to test drive one of my 3 free Zoya nail polishes.  It's Crystal!!  I think this is an amazing blue with gold flecks.  I tried it once on my short nails and it was icky.  It's amazing how a few extra centimeters can make a polish look so much better.

Blurry pic alert!

  And lastly because I've been stuck indoors all day and I get bored real easily; I added some stickers to Crystal.  Saweet.

Purple Flowers and Color Club

So I whipped together another look this afternoon.  I'm still working on getting better with my fauxnad designs.  I used Born Pretty plate M08. 

Can you see the holo sparkle on the plate!!



I used Color Club Catwalk Queen - that lovely vampy deep purple on the left, and Fashion Addict- a gorgeous pale purple holo.  With a little Orly Bonder Basecoat, my half gone dried up Seche Vite.




The whole look.  I absolutely love these colors together.  I'm still perfecting my stamping technique as you can see from my pinkie.  And HOLY GOSH! do you see that little bit of yellow polish on that nail??  I wore that on Friday night to an 80s tribute band concert.  I've done nail polish remover twice.  How does that stay on so long?



These were my two favorite nails.  I got the stamper to work on both.  But I apologize for those overly dry cuticles.  I had just used acetone to remove some glitter polish.  I forgot to apply my Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream beforehand.



Here is the lovely picture of my thumb.  I hate the way Seche Vite shrinks my polish when it starts to dry out.


All in all I love this look.  However it's a good thing you can't see my right hand.  The stamps are going different directions.

Thanks for reading!

My first look!

Earlier this week I got my purchase from Born Pretty.  And a couple weeks back I received Pelican Gray from China Glazes Anchors Away Collection.  Then last night while at the bar with my dad I stopped at the neighboring Target to pick Nicole by OPI Pitch Black Glimmer.  As a result I had all the ingredients I needed to attempt one my favorite manicures as seen on the Canadian Nail Fanatic.

I started out with Pelican Gray. 

Then my Dad called me to go out to the bar.  In my rush to put on my clothes.  You might already be thinking what happened next.  Oh yes, my right hand suffered the brunt of the attack.

Look at the zipper marks on my index finger.

I said screw it and left.  While out I picked up Pitch Black Glimmer.  Got back from dinner and drink and fixed my right hand.  And attempted that super-awesome manicure.

Here's what happened on my left hand.

I placed my stamper image from BornPretty M71 first.  Then layered Pitch Black Shimmer over.  As you might be able to see I smudged the whole darn thing.  My ring finger is the only one that made it out half-way nice.

Pay no attention to the smudge on the thumb.

So then I decided to do the glitter under the stamp.  I attempted this method on my pinkie, ring and middle finger before I realized it wasn't stamping right.  So I top coated the glitter and stamped over it.  Finally I got decent nails out of my pointer and thumb.

All in all this was a fail.  I didn't have the heart to remove this.  I'm still wearing it 24 hours later.  It took me just to darn long to take it all off.  I don't want to even begin to think about removing the glitter.  Ugh.