My other Love

Ah yes I have another love... As much if not more <GASP!> than nail polish. As much as I am a Geek I am also obsessed with Football. I get loud, I get obnoxious, and I think the tv can hear every call I say. However, I am only super bad like this with ONE team! And that is what I am highlighting for you today. Now you may ask, what did she do again? HAHA Well I wanted to pay homage to my favorite team, the New Orleans Saints.

 I grew up with them and no matter where I live on this big green planet, I will always support and bleed black and gold. Plus, I got a FANTASTIC polish in this week by mere coincidence that helps me achieve this awesome quest! Talk about the Holy Grail. I love this one Indie Polish company called Fandom Cosmetics. Though, I hadn't bought anything yet <darn no buy> I have been making lists. When I could finally buy, I was like um what to do, what to do?! Felt like a kid in a candy store. Then I saw that they had come out with a beautiful new line dedicated to LOTR. Now my adoration for Tolkien goes back to my childhood, so how could I possibly ignore Fate saying this is the one? I nabbed My Precious so quick you couldn't blink! And let me tell ya it definitely is the one polish that could rule em all! WOW! Just perfection.

 So that is part of the story. Then I needed just the right black polish. Hmm, choices choices. That was to be my shelves. I have about 15 different blacks so I went digging. And came up with Maybelline's Color Show Twilight Rays. I picked this because, irony enough, it had gold specks in it!!

So now we got the best of the best going here. AND we have the cast of now so let's see how this manicure came out!! I used my Dazzle basecoat and Nuance topcoat <as I wanted it to bling and sparkle>.  On the left hand I thinned out My Precious to almost non-existent on the brush to go over the Twilight Rays.

On the right hand I left My Precious dense as it is meant to be over Twilight to give it more of a bling effect. As we like it in New Orleans, bold and loud!

I definitely must say I am ready for some football tonight!! GEAUX SAINTS!

Overall there is only one way for me to describe my feels toward Fandom Cosmetics, My Precious:

So go check em out!!!!! Or say hi on their facebook page!

What are your thoughts of My Polish??

<I bought and paid for this polish and all reviews are solely my own>

Blog Sale

Well it has come time that I must do this. I have to do a blog sale.. Now this is a whole new realm for moi so bear with me as I get this up n going.

I have TONS of polish that I will be editing and adding in as we go. I will update as things sell as well.

I am offering surprise boxes of 6-7 polishes for 25 dollars shipped. You let me know what color you don't like and I will do my best to work around it and make you a super special surprise.

Shipping is 2 dollars for first item then 50 cents for items after that. Will do multi-discount deals.


First set I have to offer is :

Ninja Sunny Floam <please note usage line> Ninja Floam. 8.00 each



Next Set up is:

Nailnation 3000 Gloworm - 9.00, F4 Tomboy - 6.00, F4 Stormy Night- 6.00



Third Up is:

China Glaze Magnetix - <l to r> Instant Chemistry, Attraction, You Move Me, Con-Fused? 2.50 each

Fourth Set is:

Sally Hansen Sugar Coats Razzleberry - 3.00, NYC Charming Rose Creme - 1.00,
SH Sugar Coats Bubble Plum - 3.00, Sinful Colors - Ocean <FLAKIES!!> <no label> 4.00

Fifth Set I have up for you is:

1.00 a piece - WnW Grey's Anatomy, Sparked, Rain Check


Sixth up:

 WnW Fantasy Makers R.I.P set - 3.00 for all

Some Opi for you:

Suzi's Hungary AGAIN! (mini), OY! Another Polish Joke (mini) ,You're Such a BudaPest (mini), Can't Find My CzechBook (mini) <mini set of Euro-Central 6.00>



Last but not least:

Sparitual - It's Raining Men 6.00

And with that I will end this post thinking of:

Gradient Stars

A gradient of new beginnings. A normal gradient uses sponges which I do not have any makeup sponges at time so I decided to do my own concept. I started off with my Dazzle Base Coat. I decide to use all Julep colors for this idea. The first color was Alaina and made sure the have a good coverage on all the nails. I let this color set in before attempting this feat. Then I set out Cassie and Seche Vite top coat. I placed Cassie along the tip and immediately use the topcoat starting at the tip and going towards the cuticle. I did this for a streak affect and to blend it into the bottom color. I repeated this method on every nail. After it dried, I didn't feel it had a wow factor so I used Tracy and repeated the method using topcoat immediately after putting Tracy on the tips of each nail going towards the cuticle again. Here is the results of this madness.

When Daleks Attack!

I was stuck on ideas for a manicure. So I asked if anyone had any ideas. A dear friend suggested Dr. who theme. I asked her to elaborate and she said Daleks and TARDIS. That is where this manicure came from. I started off with a simple approach of Dazzle base coat, let it dry and then got down to business. On the pinky nail I put Matte n.a Oscar, on the ring finger and middle finger I used the femme fatale's Edge of the Cosmos, on the index finger I use Color Club Bright Night. I let this dry for a good 15 to 20 min. Then I proceeded to do the detail on the pinky finger. I found a dotter size and put three dots in the center my finger when the China Glaze Black Diamonds. I took the brush and edged the tip of my finger at the bottom of the Dalek. I streaked the first dot slightly out to make the top of the Dalek. On the index, I placed two white <Essie Marshmallow> squares and let it dry about 3 min. then I edged it in China Glaze Black Diamonds. I went over the edge with Color Club Bright Night to even out the lines and let it all dry. I waited up about 45 min. Last but not least, I used my matte topcoat to finish it off. This is the final product. <My Dalek is updated from black and white>

ARTastic

I must say I love Art. Any type I just love it. Today is last day <we hope> for the cast, and I wanted to try a new manicure. I didn't know what. I went through three ideas. Third one I was dead set on but couldn't find my brush. So I grabbed a different brush. I wound up with something similar to the Art Style of Splash Art. Now if you are going do wha? Let me explain Splash Art was made most famous by Jackson Pollock. Fantabulous artist with wicked ideas. Love, love, love his work. But I digress. This actually wound up being a super easy mani and I will definitely be storing this one away for future use! I started with my base of Dazzle, did a coat of Julep Nadia (FINALLY a yellow that is thick and works well!), then I put some Dream On Sinful Color in my Nail Art lid (I use an old prescription bottle lid), and grabbed out my feather brush (posting picture below). I dabbed the brush making sure the tips got wet but stayed apart and splashed it across my nails in varying patterns. I let it dry and covered it with Dazzle topcoat. And voila, we have Splash Art nail style!

Matte my dear

I kept noticing all those pretty manicures that were matted and couldn't figure it out! Well, I went on a challenge this week. I did a LOT of matte work. I used NYC Matte Topcoat for these "experiments". Think of Dr. Frankenstein trying to create the monster here ok? Then I had an awesome email on a blog from Julep (which I cannot find now to reference so I apologize) that said to make a good white manicure is to put your basecoat on then a thin white then matte coat then reapply white then your regular topcoat. Well, this got my mind a-thinkin'.... So I decided to test out *that* theory. EUREKA! I figured it out. The manicure you will see here (don't mind the nail that is little it attacked a mattress that was being moved darn Jedi powers failed me again) is a result of that build up and then some. So let me explain what I did. I switched my basecoat as I have been wanting to test out Dazzle base (I really really LIKE it!). I place my base down and let it dry good about 2 minutes. I picked a bottom coat color (for the index I picked Essie Marshmallow) and put a thin layer and near immediately put the matte topper on it. Once it dried (I wanted 10 minutes), I put another layer of Essie Marshmallow and put in my jewels to dry with it. Now applying jewels is NOT easy. I goofed and had to redo it as I touched the polish and it went kaput. Once the second try went good I covered with another layer of matte (including the jewels) to give it a flat subdued look. Now you can pick any combo you want to do this idea but I do suggest matte in the middle of layers now to give it the secure look and not as much mess or fuss. To get the "marbled" look on my other nails while they were still drying I put white on the color to subdue it and enhance the red or blue or pink. I did the same method of putting a matte layer in between. This method with so many layers does take a while to fully dry so please make sure you don't do this before going in the TARDIS or off to fight the Rebels. I would suggest putting on a good movie or marathon (might I suggest Princess Bride for a movie?) and enjoy!

Big Bang BOOM

Well after two days of really trying I finally did it. It took going to a store and buying a new polish but I did it. I thought I was going to have to buy two but alas I had a saving grace. I was trying to do a Patriotic manicure with my nails and being that I do not do great polish on my right, boy oh boy, did this get fun. I will say this all started at noon on Thursday. I had a great image in my head and some great polish. I said yea let's do FIREWORKS. Red, white, and blue. This should NOT be hard even in my condition. I could never be more wrong. The first polish job wasn't bad but it didn't just POP. Then I said ya know I am a Padiwan let me use the Force and paint the left using my good four fingers. HA HA HA! 3 hours later and lots of tears I had to Surrender all. That was so not going to work. I now have one finger about to lose a nail below the quick and another that did lose the nail below the quick *yeow!*. Okay so back to the right fingers. I took off my ring finger mani and my index and got to thinking more. I pulled out even more polish and attempted something different. Well ring finger finally looked good but index was still atrocious! So at about midnight I called truce. It stayed naked over night. After a night of dark horses, 7 am rolled around and I had a BRILLIANT idea (mind you my left hand is not my dominant hand!) let's do the flag on that finger! So off to work I went again. We cannot discuss what occurred or what was said at that point as I think Darth Vader would have turned red! I realized what was going wrong. The red was all wrong and my white was too low. I set a task to trot off and find both new colors later in the morning. I was going to be Sir Galahad and save the day for my nails. But alas the mail came before I left. Influenster picked me for their #SunVoxbox and in it was a GORGEOUS red by SinfulShine Colors. It is an all free box that is sent for me to review (which I will do so in another post) Alas my fair maiden had arrived. But I was short for a white. So off to town I went. I found Essie's Marshmallow and prayed this would be it! I came home and got to work. At 5:30 yesterday afternoon, I *finally* decided on my index finger. Would you know the final result does not have the Essie in it? But I will say that the Essie Marshmallow is a fantastic white! Okay so here we go this is the nails du jour.. All are Orly Bonder for Base Coat and Dazzle Top Coat. Pinkie has Color Club Bright Nights Topped with Lynderella's Ice the Snowcake, Ring Finger is China Glaze White on White Topped with Lynderella's When the Moon was a Star and Ice the Snowcake, Middle Finger is China Glaze Red Pearl Topped with Lynderella's Ice the Snowcake, Index Finger is SinfulShine Colors Devious Topped with Lynderella's When the Moon was a Star and Ice the Snowcake. And here ya have it my boomer for Fourth of July:

And here is the bottle of SinfulShine Colors that I received that I found out is available at Walgreens. Can we say trip to Walgreens in the Milennium Falcon coming up soon?

Polishes are Tribbles!

WOW. Who knows Polish could be like Tribbles?? One minute I was starting out and the next I blinked and I had TRIBBLES. Now if you have never Star Trek you might not understand that. But alas if you have you will! Tribbles reproduce worse than dust bunnies. They just keep popping up. And that is what is happened here. My polish collection has massively reproduced and I have absolutely no room for it. So I am now in the stages of trying to slay it with my might light saber or is it a sonic screwdriver? hmm Either way we must fix this or I cannot buy anymore treats to show off once I get this cast off! If you are reading this blog, you are invited to participate but are in no way obligated. I am selling a lot of items below retail cost. Quite a few I forgot I even had so they haven't even been used :( . I feel bad for neglecting them. Kind of like Trouble from Labyrinth getting tortured and being treated so meanly. So call in the rocks it is time to cull the herd! Here is an idea of the polish collection (note the word idea as it doesn't fit in just one area anymore but four). Just to give you a theory of this, since April I have somehow accumulated 400 bottles of polishes of all sizes.

This is the box I consider my "extra" polishes. I also have a box of my extra nail art supplies etc. I have 2 boxes of nail art supplies now as well.

Cast N Jewels

Well as some already know, I have been stuck out because I am a clumsy oaf. I smashed my right hand up so good it was louder than a troll crunching bones. Ironic since the hand is broke, but that is another feature. My hand I *usually* paint pretty is my left. Well with this little snafu I have had to learn fast how to paint my right pretty. Now, fast is NOT in the vocab when it comes to nail pretties. So, please bear with me and maybe by the time this cast comes off we will be on a keel that I will be able to have 2 pretty hands to paint and show off at a time. The mani I am going to show you today is one of my better feats this week. One of my dear friends sent me a thing of jewels and instantly I turned into Golem. MY PRECIOUS!! Then my brain started thinking of Hoggle and how he would hoard them jewels forever. Glad I know I have leverage if I wind up in the Labyrinth!!! So I put on my Orly Bonder, then a bottom coat of Orly Passion Fruit, covered with a good coat of Delightful Handmade Lacquers Tigeria Blood and while it was still wet I put my jewel where I wanted it. (The polish as it dries acts as a glue and holds the jewel in place) The picture does not have my top coat as I was so tickled pink on how this came out. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Now I am off to try to color-coordinate my purple cast!

Stars and Moons but not the TARDIS

Oh my Oh my Oh my!!! I must admit I was feeling blue today (not the color) due to the impending storm coming in. I wanted to do a pretty manicure but didn't know what to do. So I pulled out my bonder and started thinking. Thankfully, my thinking didn't start a fire since we are drenched in rain but boy the smoke smelled FUNNY! Well, I remembered a dear friend sent me some GORGEOUS Lynderella Polishes. So since I was feeling blue, I thought let's do blue (the color)! So I grabbed out a Spoiled (Drugstore)'s First Class Only that I hadn't tried yet and Lynderella (Indie Polish)'s When the Moon Was A Star. Time Travel Sakes' Alive! I wish I could get outside and show this glitter bomb in the sun but alas it is hiding today for it's nap time. So I put on 2 good coats of the Spoiled and then I covered it well with the Lynderella and BOOM! If I didn't know better I would think I was trying to make a TARDIS on my hands Definitely a way to make a sad blue day a happy blue. I hope this picture gives it justice and shows you how awesome I love it. It is just total sequin glittery goodness.

Gifts, Surpises, Oh MY!

One thing I love is surprises. Absolutely and utterly!!! You are probably wondering now what does that have to do with polish?! Well, let me explain. I decided to venture off and try a monthly subscription service. The one I chose to try was Julep. They give you the first box free with code 'freebox' (valid as of posting) and just pay s&h. Then about the 24th of every month they will send you out an email, asking if you want to get the next box. To sign up, you take a profile quiz helping them decide where you fit and what you might like best. This is where the surprise comes into play. Depending on your profile, you will get make-up and/or polish. There are profiles for just polish and some for both. I fit into one called Bombshell. I must say I absolutely have LOVED the polishes they keep sending. For June, I got a gorgeous hot pink and a neon green plus a DD cream. All of them are absolutely me. As I said in the beginning, I love surprises. They can truly be so much fun!! If you decide to venture, give them a try and let me know what you think about it. You can get there quick and easy by clicking on Julep and just filling it out :) . Here is my mani with Raegan (the hot pink) with Orly Bonder as the basecoat and Seche Vite as the topcoat. Pictures truly do not do it justice!!

And this picture is the contents of the Julep box for June.

Indie Polish

Okay we touched the other day on things to have fun with polish. I mentioned Indie Polish which is not a corporate polish but made by independent people. I have to say I am slowly moving into learning about this part of the Nail World and so far I have enjoyed it a bit. Today, I got my second ever bottle from a company called Cosmos Lacquer. I had to come and share this awesomeness with you! It is called The Galaxy and it definitely brings to light everything from the galaxy all to your fingertips :).

Okay so to explain the photo, I started with my basecoat and put one coat of Essie Mojito Madness. I let this dry super well. I dabbed (yes when you like certain types of glitters dabbing is okay you don't always have to brush it on!) on a layer of The Galaxy over it. I hope you can see how special this polish is. As Cosmos has brought us the stars and moon to our fingertips with a holo glitter effect. (Will get more into what are holos in a future posting).

As you can see, depending on your light the glitters show up as slightly different effects. It polishes on super easy even for a beginner. And you don't have to worry about fighting the polish to getting the glitter even and feeling like you get a fair layer on your nails. Just a perfect topper for your polish and I honestly don't think there would be a bad color to put it on top of!

If you want to grab this polish it is available at her store on Etsy, Cosmos Lacquer


Disclaimer: I did purchase this polish, and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Nail Polish Words

I have posted before about terms that I have seen used but I thought since I have become more aware of them I would do a new post on them. Now we do not have the new camera yet but I will put pictures in of examples just bear with me until we get it :) .

Okay so let's talk manicure tools first --

For me, I use a File to get the dirt and grime (gently) from under my nails, a cuticle pusher to help keep them in shape, a 7 sided buffer because it is easier to keep up with than anything else (I use the Medium Grit to level out my nail ends to a square shape as that is least breakable on me) (I use even out/smooth nail/shine on the nail itself to make sure there are no bumps or grooves). I also have a pair of tweezers but that I use for nail art not for pre-work.

To prepare the nails and make sure they stay healthy I keep a bowl on hand which I put olive oil in (warmed in microwave) to make sure the nails stay moist. I also have Jojoba oil (you can purchase cuticle oil with it already mixed in or buy it pure and mix it yourself) mixed into some cuticle oil and a cuticle cream that I use.

Now is the fun part, to decide what art are we going to do. So many choices and only 2 hands to polish! You can choose to do what is called a Drugstore polish or you can choose Indie Polish. Now an example of drugstore polish is Orly (picture below), Sally Hansen, or one of the many many others. Or even China Glaze (can be found at Sally's). Basically Drugstore means the polishes you can walk in a store and purchase off the shelf.

Or you can go with an Indie polish as shown below with Cosmos Lacquer's Hoofbeats.

Okay so we are at the point we have decided polish but are we going to go simple and just polish or should we embellish and explode the universe. I love to make the galaxies come alive so I tend to go overboard with a LOT of my polishes. Soooo many choices if you go this way. You can choose to do some dots (there is a previous post on this) with dotters

you can choose to play with brushes and make freehand designs or your own french manicures (like I did)

you can do stamping! (yep on nails :) )

or even tape.

These are the ideas I have fiddled with so these are the ones I am going to stick to for now. In future posts I will show you more ideas.
Now that you have a basic idea of what you might want to play with it is time to get started but with WHAT?! A good basecoat. I have learned that a popular one (and I like it too) is Orly Bonder. You can purchase this in the store. I get mine at CVS. Super easy and convenient.

Okay now you got your basecoat on. Let it dry. Then have fun with whatever your design might be! I can't wait to see what you come up with....

Now a good finisher for most designs is a good topcoat. This is one that I use and it does have high reviews. It is called Seche Vite and is available from Sally's store and online.

Now you might ask what about the polish that jumped off my nails? Well, I have been looking for a brush I was told to buy. It seems like this brush is much more different to find than the Death Star! It might even be harder to find than the TARDIS at the rate I am going. I was told a nice eye shadow brush would work wonders. For now, I am using a q-tip for clean-up but it is a fiasco as q-tips like to shed more than Chewbacca!

Mind you this post is in no way complete but it is a beginning to a beautiful opening of Nail Polish. I hope I haven't overwhelmed you. I just want to make sure you are able to get as good a start as possible. A lot of the nail tools in this post I was able to purchase from Amazon at very reasonable prices. If I can answer any questions, as usual just ask :)

Tape Marble

Well thinking is fun. When it comes to polishing, thinking can bring all sorts of things to mind! Last week, I talked about water marbling. One thing that can be a problem with water marbling is the MESS. Huge huge mess. Another thing is time and polish. It takes a lot of polish and a humongous amount of time. Well my lack of attention popped in and I said hmm how can we make this easier. Now I didn't want to be bothered going online to search or youtube it (though I am fairly certain this idea is out there somewhere). I started fiddling. What I do best is think and fiddle. I spent all week going through my polish and try to find pretty ones that might work for this idea brewing in my brain. Well today it finally popped together. I got out my WnW Megalast I need a Refresh-Mint and put that on (over my bonder base) let it dry super good. Then I pulled out my trust Color Clubs (remember these are my favorite polishes!). I grabbed Wham Pow, Twiggy, and Poptastic. At the same time I grabbed my scotch tape, scissors and my lip balm. Now you are probably thinking what in the world am I up to?! I used the lip balm to coat my fingers around the nail not touching the nail (easier clean up this way). Then I made sure I had some nail size pieces of tape which I cut down a bit with scissors and placed them off to the side for easy access. Then the fun began! I placed a drop of each CC I picked out in no particular order making sure not to over do any color. I covered the nail gently with the tape and lifted. I got a marble pattern without water or needle! Yaya less than 5 minutes and perfection. So I continued to do this on each nail. And I am going to put up two pictures. One is before cleaning (inside), and one is after cleaning (outside). I am putting an outside picture this time so you can see how pretty it looks. An easy simple marble for your nails without the hassle. I am looking for ideas on what you would like to see. Remember this is a beginner's blog so I would like to help you out on your nail journey as I learn my way in the nail world!

before cleaning

after cleaning 

First rule of Polish Club

I have been trying to figure out what to do next. So many options!!! Plus Doctor Who has sent us on a Wibbly Wobbly conundrum with Finale in two days. Well here is what I decided. Water marbling!! Yep, you heard me. I ventured into water marbling. Now I have two pictures with different color patterns to show you ideas of all the niftiness you can do with this. *NOTE* If you are afraid if getting messy this is NOT for you. You will make a mess it will look awful at first but do not fret it looks beautiful when done. Just do not go into it with pre-conceived notions. Have fun! Remember that is the first rule of nail shine :) For this (and remember I am distracted easy so no video endurance required) you will need a bowl or room water, some toothpicks, some fun polishes (I like china glaze for this as this don't dry fast), petroleum jelly or tape. First thing first - tape around your nails making sure not get your nails in the process. Now if you are like me, I am allergic to tape, use the jelly instead, and do not get the nail or the polish will not stick to it. Make sure you coat all the fingers well around the nail and under the nail too plus other side of fingers. Put your base coat on (I use Orly Bonder). Then you put your bottom coat down. For the black and white pattern shown here I used a white bottom which is CG White on White. (as you can tell I didn't finish cleaning yet)

In the bowl of water I put a few drops of the White on White (CG) mixing with Liquid Leather (CG) until I felt it was enough. I took the toothpick and created a design in the water (polish should be sitting on top as it is stronger consistency than water). Then I dunked my finger in letting it sit for a couple of minutes. I blew on the water to help dry the polish. When I felt it was finished I used the toothpick to clean up any excessive polish out of the water twisting the polish around the toothpick. I then repeated this process one by one for each nail. *NOTE you will use a ton of polish and again you will create a disastrous mess.* When you are finished with all the nails, all them to dry thoroughly. I let it sit for a good 30-45 minutes before I did anything else. After drying you can cover with your top coat (I use Seche Vite) and let it dry thoroughly. Then clean up begins. If you use tape, you just gently peel it off of each finger (another reason I hate tape) using a q-tip or make-up brush to get any areas missed. If you used jelly, you can wash your hands with soap and water and get the polish on the jelly off. Any excess polish is easily removable with a q-tip or small make-up brush and polish remover.

This pattern was made using more than 2 polishes. I used CG White on White as my bottom Coat. In the water each nail I changed intensity as I was trying to make it look like a storm coming in with lightning. I used CG Argo (the green color that is lightly in it), CG White on White, CG Deviantly Daring, and CG Immortal (grey color).

Above all, Remember the first rule of Polishing: HAVE FUN!

Nail Art as a Voice

Last post, I explained that I like to use my new found freedom of polishing as my voice. It is hard to miss nails done up pretty with designs, letters, decals, or pretty polish. Also, last post I stated that Lupus was not the only thing that I bring awareness to in May. Let me first start off with a quote.

"When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras”. This is something that is taught in medical school. Always go with the simplest solution because that is usually what it is. But what happens when it isn't? For 27 years, I was that person that was mistakenly thought of as a horse, when in fact I was a zebra. It took a doctor all of 15 minutes to tell me what it was because he thought outside the box.

You see I have a rare collagen defect. I have a disorder known as Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. My knees bend backward 19 degrees (think of an archery bow and you have my knees). My fingers can overlap on top of each other. The list goes on for over-flexibility. But it doesn't stop there. My skin is stretchy and very pale and you can see my veins sitting under it in a lot of areas. I bruise almost instantly from anything. I do not walk anymore from this and one of my other disorders. I have multiple degenerative discs that are getting worse. I have begun to have osteoporosis already and barely in my 30's. I have 2 valves prolapsed in my heart (meaning they are leaking out instead of sealing shut when the blood comes through). I have a pacer in my stomach to make sure I can eat due to another complication of this disorder. I faint a lot and get dizzy plus my blood pressure stays abnormally low and my heart rate stays abnormally high or drops dangerously low due to another complication. There is no cure. I didn't know I had this when I had children even though I knew something was wrong. One of my children has this disorder though not to the same degree and I pray to God every day it does not disintegrate to this level for him. My other son developed a syndrome similar yet more dangerous than mine. There are other parts to this but I won't go into it now.

You ask why bring this up on a nail polish post. I will explain why. My nail art is my voice. The symbol for EDS'ers everywhere is the Zebra. My Jedi bless her heart knows my journey in life and she is starting her own line of polish. She took it upon herself to create a Polish for those of us on this Journey. I put it on yesterday and I cried. She hit the nail on the head with it. It is everything I would imagine a polish to be for us Zebras. A touch of this and a touch of this. Bits of black and bits of white. I placed it over my neon Color Clubs because as Zebras we are all colors. We define no boundaries. We are all bright spirited. I hope you enjoy Hoofbeats as much as I do. I will cherish this polish. She has made more bottles to sell and is going to make a donation once they sell to EDS Network C.A.R.E.S and I bless her for that. For this organization gives only to research. On that note I (again no camera sorry!) give you Hoofbeats layered over Color Club (different neons).

Lupus Awareness

Okay I come today out of a bit of seriousness. Coming up in May, is Lupus Awareness. This is a disease that I along with many, many other are affected by. The symptoms range across the board from the well known butterfly rash to lesser know central nervous issues. The type they have me diagnosed with is CNS Lupus which is a rarer form of this disease. It doesn't matter "type" though. All that matters is we need to learn more and realize that so many suffer in silence. Being in nail art now has given me a voice (one that truly helps since my "real" voice doesn't always like to work right). I did a post for April showing Autism Awareness. I will have another May Awareness post but for now, I am focusing on Lupus. It is a silent disease it is not seen by anyone but the person that has it. You may think the rash we have is just a bad sunburn. In fact, would you believe doctors say in theory we are "allergic" to the sun? I just went out with my kids for a few hours and had to take allergy meds when I got home for hives from the sun. It is a disease that is overlooked because the symptoms are so widely ranged and go across the board. It is a "mimic" disease. It means it sometimes is first diagnosed as something else. Sometimes it takes years to correctly figure out the diagnosis. Doctors suspect now with me I had it at least 7-10 years before they pinpointed that I truly was ill.

 Now after all that I want to share with you my voice for Lupus Awareness. As everyone knows I am the Padawan. I am very new to nail art and wanted to do something special for Lupus. So I thought and thought, I finally turned to my Jedi and asked her opinion. We considered decals. I said that might be an option. Then I said no I did that for Autism. I want this different. I said I know let me spell out Lupus in polish. How can people miss a woman in a wheelchair with the word Lupus written on her nails?! So I got out my Orly Bonder, my CC (Color club ya know I love this brand!) Puccilicious as it is the closest purple to the Lupus butterfly at least to my color blind eyes, my new CG (China Glaze) White on White, my whole pack of brushes, and my new bottle of Seche Vite topcoat (considered one of the best topcoats btw!). And sat down to get to work. I placed the Bonder on first and let it dry real good. I put a good coat of CC on. And screwed up my thumb (not a good polish session if a glitch doesn't occur!) so I got my remover out wiped it off and started that nail over. After the glitchy and all the other polish dried super well, I went through all my brushes and decided on a super thin brush. I poured a little bit of polish into the cap I use for my jobs like this (easier than it coming out gobby onto the brush ;) ) and first did a thin outline for the first letter. I then went over it slow but sure and filled it in. I followed along and took time doing each finger slow but sure with the same premise, a thin outline then a fill in to get the right pop look. I let them dry real well so they do not bleed at all. And when you think they are dry let them dry another 10-20 minutes (hint from my Obi). Then I topcoated it to give it that perfect look. Here is a photo of my Lupus Awareness. I hope it gives you inspiration and an idea to have fun with your polish! Polish can be a voice even when we don't!

Mishmash Polishing

Sorry I haven't posted. Had some upset in the household with my health and my 3 yr old dog is very ill. I am going to show you a couple things I have accomplished in the last 24 hrs out of boredom. I am also going to include my son's polish choice. He is 12 and he is all boy but he loves his polish. So as I am on my journey with my Obi and Jedi (mini-Obi earned her saber ;) ), my son is also learning. He is also learning that he is bucking trend as it is not "normal" for a boy to like polish. I will refer to his as my Apprentice. So on Monday I found an awesomely gorgeous polish from Color Candy (CC) called Twiggy. It is a Lime Green. I fell in love. I know what love at first sight is now :) Last night my son wanted polish done. I said well go pick (picking for an ASD child can be overwhelming especially when the polish covers the dresser top). He comes back with four. I said okay which one. He goes um NONE. I said okay try again. So he comes back with 2 black. So he got one hand in one shade of black and the other in another shade of black (yes black comes in multiple shades). Here is his photos now.

He doesn't sit still well but he doesn't mind that mom isn't the perfect painter.

After he was finished I realized I had one of my nail brushes nearby and I really liked his black nail paint... But I still really enjoyed Twiggy (lime green). I thought hey how about a streak down each nail. This was created by orly bonder, CC twiggy, Maybelline Essence, and Rimmell T/C.

Yep I landed with cat eye's. Go figure! I decided to go ahead and do the other hand as well.

Now we move on to today Wed the 24th of April. I talked to my Jedi and I needed some distraction due my baby still very ill and not home. I said okay I got all the polish out and I got all my brushes. Is this a dangerous combo? She laughed and said uh oh. Well I would break it all down for you but to do that would take a whole different post. Let me just say if you are bored and got polish. HAVE FUN. Try something be brave. The worst that can happen you grab the polish remover and start over. So this is now my left hand. I don't have a good photo of my thumb but it has crackle on it. If you have never done crackle, it is a MUST TRY! So fun. Put your favorite polish on let it dry real good. And pick a different color crackle/shatter to cover doesn't have to be thick. It does break up as it dries. You can cover it with a topcoat if you want to make it shinier. But anywho here is my Mishmash of the left hand of fun :) Remember polish is like art.. Your nails are a clean slate. Just keep the oil on them Put a coat of base and then play! :)