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 :)