20 Feb

Fun and Funky Pink and Black Skittles

Hello ladies!

I hope everyone is doing fine. I am just now entering my third trimester and the baby is doing great. I can complain of aches and pains but that sounds rather boring. Don’t you think? Instead, I just wanted to pop in with a quick post to share a quick skittle mani I came up with. I was in the mood for something a bit bold and funky and this is what I came up with. I have some swatch posts coming up but I wanted to share this fun nail art first.

Fun and Funky pink and black skittles

Fun and funky, right? I’ve used several different polishes including Medusa from Nails To Go on my ring finger and Decadent by Sinful Colors on my middle finger.  I also tried out the craft scissors and ziplock bag technique for the first time. I painted a couple of coats of black nail polish onto a clean ziplock bag. After the polish dried, I peeled it off the plastic and used some zigzag craft scissors and cut some strips. I polished my pinky nail with two coats of Rendezvous by Seche and, while it was still a little bit tacky, I carefully placed the black zigzags and applied topcoat to bring it all together.  The glitter bits on my pointer and middle fingers were added using a tiny dot of nail glue to keep them in place. I recommend using an orange wood stick to apply the glue in the exact place you want it. Then seal with top coat.

Well, that’s all for now. Like i said, I’ve got some swatches coming up next. I hope you enjoyed seeing these fun nails and that perhaps it inspires you to think out of the box a bit and have some fun with your next mani. I hope you have a wonderful week and that you get to make someone smile today.

Hugs,
Rach

08 Jul

CND Pink Bikini with Glittery Tips

Hello ladies!

I’m sorry that it’s been so quiet around here this past month. Between being out of town for a while, finishing up the school year with the kids, needing a break afterwards, taking care of other responsibilities, and enjoying motherhood and life in general, it’s been hard to find the motivation to sit and blog. I have been doing my nails, though, so I have some things to share with you soon.

I’ve got a short and sweet post for you tonight. I started with CND Pink Bikini. I’ve told you before how I love the formula of the Vinylux polishes. This one gave me some issues at first. I think it was because there was some dried polish at the neck of the bottle. I cleaned up the neck and then it worked out well enough. So pretty and fun to wear! The weather has been so gloomy and rainy here in Cebu and a pop of color is just what I needed!

CND Vinylux Pink Bikini Swatch

I sponged some Ocean Green (Sinful Colors) on the tips of my nails. I grabbed Ocean Green while I was in Texas last year and I really love it paired with this pink. It is iridescent and so pretty.

Pink Bikini by CND with Glittery tips

I’ve always loved glittery tips and it really is one of the easiest ways to spice up a mani. All you need is a makeup sponge and some glittery polish. Just put some glitter on a bit of the makeup sponge and start dabbing. You can’t really go wrong.

These sparkly nails are my entry for Day 7 – Glittery! of the OMD3 Challenge hosted  by Brijit from Brijits Digits, Jacqui from Craftynail, Jemma from Eeeek! Nail Polish!, and Lindsay from Nail That Accent!. Check out the other pretty glittery nail art below

I hope you are having a great week and that you make someone smile today!

Hugs,
Rach

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05 Mar

Dry Brush Nail Art and Stamping with JR17

Some products used were sent to me for my honest review.
All opinions are my own. 🙂

Hello!
It’s late in the evening and I have been up working on a crazy jigsaw puzzle my sister gave me as a gift. TWO THOUSAND pieces! Seriously? The person who thought of making a puzzle over 1000 pieces has a very sick mind. Rant over!

 

I thought I’d make a quick post for you to share these fun nails I did last weekend. I received two of the new JR Stamping plates from My Online Shop for review. Thanks again, Meann! I picked JR17 and JR2 because I don’t have anything quite like them. I decided to start with an accent nail mani.

I used 4 colors for my base and dry brushing. All of these were sent to me by the very lovely and talented Jacqui of Craftynail. (Thanks again, Jax!) I started with 3 coats of OPI My Vampire is Buff and then used the dry brush technique by Chalkboard Nails and The Lacquerologist to add strokes of OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui, My Paprika is Hotter Than Yours and Sinful Colors Pull Over. I used 2 coats of Suzi Says Feng Shui for the accent nail and stamped an image my son picked out for me from JR17. The little mess up you see with the stamp was total user error. I was trying to hard to center the stamp on the nail and ended up accidentally touching it on a part and then moving it a bit. Oops! But the plate worked perfectly. I played around with several of the stamps on this plate and they all looked great. I’m still working the kinks out of my stamping to my nails skills. Any tips on perfect centering would be very welcome. 😉

You can get your own JR Stamping plates along with awesome stampers and accessories at My Online Shop. They are on Instagram too.

I hope you are having a great week.
Hugs,
Rach

20 Dec

Swatch This – Cinderella by Sinful Colors

Hi all!
I hope this quick swatch post finds you gearing up for a relaxing weekend with family and friends instead of stressing out about last-minute shopping to do before Christmas day. Our family draws names each year for gift giving, so we don’t have a lot of shopping to do, and I was able to get my shopping done without too much stress. Now to bake goodies and wrap the gifts!

If you follow me on Instagram, you have probably already seen this swatch. Here is Cinderella by Sinful Colors (with San San Warm Blue for undies… ya know… because I’m a VNL-aphobe and Cinderella is what I would call a jelly). I love the shimmer in this polish. Pretty isn’t it? It is another perfect shade for the winter season. Despite spending my whole life in the tropics where temperatures are FAR from freezing, I still dream of a white Christmas and to see snow glistening on the ground. Cinderella’s glistening glow just has to suffice for now. Oh well! I’m off to finish some baking. I’ve got chocolate chip pumpkin bread in the oven right now. Yum! Mr. Nailinator even fired up the A/C so we are baking in comfort. Have a great day! Don’t forget to make someone smile. 🙂

14 Oct

Wheel Of Time Nail Art – The Stole of the Amyrlin Seat and The Flame of Tar Valon

Howdy!

Wow! That is quite a title huh? I decided to put all that in the title in hopes that this would be easily found by anyone searching for Wheel Of Time (WOT) nail art. I couldn’t find any when I Googled it although I know I have seen something somewhere a long time ago.
If you have read the EPIC 14 book (plus a prequel) series by Robert Jordan then you can probably interpret and enjoy this design easily. But in case you have not, I’ll give you a brief explanation.
In the WOT world, the Amyrlin Seat is basically the queen of the whole world as all kingdoms bow to her and submit to the will of the “White Tower”. The White Tower is where all women who can channel (do “magic”) go to be trained and when they graduate to a full fledged “Aes Sedai” they pick an “Ajah” based on their personal preference. Each Ajah goes by a color (Brown Ajah, Grey Ajah, White Ajah, Red Ajah, Yellow Ajah, Green Ajah and Blue Ajah) and they dress according to their Ajah’s color. The Amyrlin is head of all Ajahs. She is “from all Ajahs and yet of none” and to symbolize that, she wears a stole with a stripe of each of the 7 Ajah’s colors. That’s where I came up with the stripes. The accent nail is “The Flame of Tar Valon” which is the official symbol of the Amyrlin and the White Tower. That is just a tiny bit of info about the series. It is a REALLY long story!

I imagine if you haven’t read the books then this won’t be much of a manicure to you. But, even if you aren’t familiar with the MASSIVE back story behind the inspiration of these nails, consider how hard it was to free hand these stripes. Ha! It did take a while and I know they are not perfect. I planned to do both hands but it was so late after I finished these that my Cinderella hand just got skittles so I could get to bed at a decent hour. Then my topcoat bubbled in the middle of the nail. Oh well, sometimes topcoat kills the mani. I struggle at times to float the brush to avoid smudging and to avoid bubbling at the same time.

That’s all for now. I meant to get this up on Saturday but time got away from me. It tends to do that with two kids to run after. I hope you all have a great week.

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