Because he died, I live

As a Christian I always find this day so difficult.  Good Friday is the day we celebrate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  It seems so wrong to celebrate the death of our beloved Savior. But today we know because he died and took on the sins of the world this allows us to live on eternally.  As someone who has loved ones in Heaven this is something that gives me hope each and everyday.  Because I believe Jesus died for my sins I will be reunited once again with my beautiful sister, Lisa and my Dad.  Nothing gives me greater joy.

On the day my Savior died to forgive my sins I am humbled. I've never felt worthy of such a sacrifice

Thanks for stopping by! 

Spring Cleaning way late!

Hi Everyone

I got yelled at the other day for having way too many pictures on my laptop so I've been going through my albums and I'm actually finding some mani's I did that I never posted!  Sort of crazy hey???  I actually ran across this one the other day and I remember thinking of it as a failure as it didn't look like the picture I was trying to recreate.  

Looking at it today I honestly do not see a failure here!  What do you think?

I did this the end of November in 2014 yes over a year old!  I know this is a saran wrap base with reds, pinks and whites and the some FUN stamping

This would actually be a really lovely mani for Valentine's Day don't you think?

I think one of my favorite bases after a gradient is a saran wrap base!

This is the picture I was trying to recreate.  It's cute isn't it?

Here it is with the mani

What do you think close or not really??

It's the end of days----maybe

Hi Everyone!  A happy Sunday to all.  Tonight we have the double whammy of a blood moon along with a lunar eclipse.  And of course we do because it's cloudy as hell here so yet again another eclipse not witnessed by me! UG but who am I kidding??? It doesn't even start until after midnight and I'm in bed by 9 pm most nights LOL!

To mark this occasion as I may not ever see this again since it's not happening for another 20 years, I decided to haul out my Messy Mansion MM52 plate which is the Mayan Doomsday Calendar.  I'm not going to lie this mani didn't turn out as well as I had hope but my base was KILLER!

I just loved this base I did but the black stamping over it wasn't the best choice 

Here's the plate I used.  It's really cool!

I started with a base of Zoya Pepper and then did the saran wrap method with Nails Inc Vigo St as well as Zoya mini I have with no name on it! Yikes!  No clue what it is LOL

I think I like my pinkie and  index finger best

And my thumb!  My thumb turned out great too

All in all I think this is a pretty good mani to welcome the end of the world just in case we have it! hahahah!  

I hope wherever you are you have the chance to see tonight's eclipse.  I'm sure I'll catch pics online tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you all have a fantastic day!

Sunday Challenge--Pastels!

Hi Everyone!!  Happy weekend!  The sun is finally out here and we've had two very nice days to our weekend.  Yesterday I spent some time with my little sister and our grandnephew Sean.  We took him to a kids event they had and watched him run around and play like crazy and then I treated everyone to ice cream.  It was really nice to spend my Saturday not working for a change!

Today I'm working on some Springish cleaning.  I cleaned out our hallway closet and tossed out a bunch of stuff I never use or haven't used for a long time.  I also tossed out old makeup and reorganized my current makeup stash.  And in the process of cleaning out the closet I found a brand new never used bottle of OPI The Lifeguard Makes Me Blush. Now how's that for perfect!  It's a sweet summer pink too so it will go to good use for sure.

I also cleaned the bathroom, scrubbed the bathroom floor and cleaned the windows in the living room today and all of that was done before 9 am!  So that means I get to spend a relaxing rest of my day reading and doing my nails!

I'm also reorganizing nail plates today because I got the 2nd Wistonia set in the mail yesterday.  So much fun for a Sunday LOL!

Today's challenge for Adventures In Stamping is pastels.  I'm not really a pastel person or should I say I wasn't.  It seems like suddenly I'm in  pastels because I got a few of the pastel Kiko Cupcakes and I really like this pastel look I did for today's challenge.

I hauled out some of my Sinfuls from their Sugar Crush line last year and did a saran wrap smoosh method with Orange Cream, Cotton Candy, Sweet Nothing and Sweet Tooth.  I stamped with a plate from new Wistonia set--W204

I'm not sure why I'm so late on these Wistonia plates!  I got the 2nd set and really like them so I'm sure I'll go back and pick up the first set as well

I must admit that today was the first time I felt my smoosh saran wrap method was successful too!

The blue Sweet Tooth is probably really too dark to be called a pastel but Spring is SO hard to transition to!  How do we go from dark vampy Fall and Winter colors to pastels in the Spring?!  It seems crazy to me!

This is as pastel as I'm going to get!

I hope you all are having a great weekend!  Thanks for stopping by! 

Flower Power

Hi Everyone!! Happy Monday!  All of our snow here in Wisconsin is nearly melted.  We can see tons of grass but still have those ugly brackish black mounds of snow stuck with debris hanging out.  To me this is the worst part of the transition between Winter and Spring--that ugly brackish snow.  We had a couple of days in the 40's but this week is supposed to be chilly for us again.

To stave of the blahs about the weather not being exactly what we all want it be be now I went for a few flowers to cheer me up.  I didn't want to go Spring crazy though because we're not quite there yet.  I settled on some lovely blue and brown to get me through the day

I'm wearing Sea Spray from China Glaze on my index finger and OPI What Wizardy Is This on my pinkie.  I did a saran wrap mani with Sea Spray and White on the middle and ring and then stamped with Loreal Brownie Points--a great brown for stamping--with Lily Anna 06

I think it's a perfect little mani for that transition time between seasons!

I had a great day yesterday hanging out with my friend Emily.  We tried to do some water marbling and it was a huge FAIL but we did a couple other ideas using techniques we've seen and those were great successes!  I'll be sharing them with you all this week!

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you all have a fantastic day!

Ice, Ice, Baby!

Hi Everyone!  Happy Saturday!  I have the day to myself today and I feel like I really need it.  I need to head to the grocery store bu then that's it.  It can be another day of winding down for me, which I will thoroughly enjoy I'm sure!

I worked on this mani idea last night and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  I wanted to do something with the frost image from Bunny Nails HD-F plate so I did a simple saran wrap mani using Sinful Colors Sugar Rush which is a pale blue and then white.  Then I stamped the imaged with SH Silver Sweep with the frost image

I decided to matte it up instead of going shiny with it

Many mornings our windows here have looked just like this LOL!

What do you think of this look?  Do you think is looks like frosty windows or more like tree branches?

Thanks for stopping!!  I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!

Don't koi with me

Hi Everyone!  Hope you're having a great day so far.  My new camera came yesterday!  I got home late and it was sitting waiting for me.  I'll have to wait until this weekend to check it out and try it out but pretty exciting news!

I've got a Japanese koi mani to show you today that turned out pretty good.  I had some help with Messy Mansion MM20 plate.

I started with a base of Zoya Thandie and then did a saran wrap mani by putting OPI Take The Stage over it, then I dabbed white on with saran wrap to get the koi look.

I turned my plate image sideways when I stamped to give my fish their scales

It's a bit more sparkly in real life but maybe the new camera will fix these issues next time they happen LOL!

I'm not sure how great this looks with my skin tone but it definitely looks fishy LOL!

Check out what everyone else did for today

Between a rock and a hard place

Hi Everyone!!! Happy Hump Day!  How have you been handling the time change so far.  I pretty much hate it.  Does Mother Nature think we're stupid?   We know a day or two after the time change, in this case--"fall" back when we look at the clock at see 8pm it's really 9pm for crying out loud!  I'm  normally in bed by 9 so I start fading fast around so called 7pm LOL!

I've got another based on a "real" rock mani for you today.  I saran wrapped and splodged and followed no particular rhyme or reason to come up with today's stone!

I know this stone is some sort of jasper but I really don't know which one

I also think I should have gone with brown instead of black on top BUT this turned out way cool so I'm happy as is!

I used a bunch of greens!  I know for sure I have Sinful Colors Innocent and Pistache in here along with Illmasqua Rampage and I think I did a touch of Zoya Pippa to boot!  And of course some black on top

A pretty close doppleganger for my stone--I think it should be call the tree frog jasper!

I really do love this green mash up mani and I hope I can remember to use something like this again for St Patrick's Day!!

What do you think?  Do you like the mani's to look like an actual rock or do you prefer yesterday's mani  of just the solid color?

Matchy, Matchy!

Hi Everyone!!! Happy Friday!!!!  Last Friday I went to a wine tasting fund raiser with my friend Angelika.  We had a blast and I actually tried some red wines AND liked them!  All this time I was positive I was not a fan of red because I like something really sweet.  I tried a Moscato Lambrusco I just loved and another Halloween sweet red wine.  We had some great food, listened to the jazz band and bid on a few items.  All in all it was a great night.

Because I was able to lose 40lbs before the big event I got to wear a new top and jacket that I got months before but were too small.  I really wanted to try to match the top.  Here's a pic of it with the jacket

I hauled out some like colors and did some saran wrapping and some stamping and this is what I came up with

I used a few of my SA plates and I think it turned out great!

I love that ring finger!!!  I did it again on the thumb but had a bit of a corner accident with thumbie LOL!  No time to fix him I had to keep on moving

Here's the mani with my shirt--how'd I do???!!!

I've got a good weekend planned--nothing but 'me' time!  I've plates from Messy Mansion to review so I want to work on mani's to go with those fabulous plates AND of course Halloween is coming up so there are mani's to be worn!

What's everyone else got going on for the weekend??

Recycling isn't just for plastics or cans!

Hi Everyone!!! Happy Friday!  I'm really glad it's Friday and I'm looking forward to a fun weekend.  Tomorrow I'm meeting up with my friends Stephanie and Danielle and we're going to brain storm some Halloween mani ideas, try some new techniques and just have an all around blast!  I can't wait!!!

Today I'm featuring a recycled base with some new stamping on it!  I loved my Fall Leaves saran wrap mani so much I decided to try something else with it.  And what a lovely surprise it turned out just how I had hoped!

What does this look like to you?????????

When I saw this image on Pueen47 I instantly thought TURKEY!

Thanks to the lovely Revlon Vixen for helping me model my turkey feathers LOL!

I really loved that base I did and I love it even more I could do it all over again and make it look completely different!

I think I did a great job recycling AND matching my inspiration pics perfectly.  What do you think?

I hope you've enjoyed this weeks Autumn Theme!!! 

Where oh where is Bob Ross?!!!!

Hi Everyone!!! Happy Monday!  Today starts a week long theme of Autumn.  Some friends and I are posting together this week showcasing what Autumn is to us.  It should be interesting!!!  Some of them don't even have 4 seasons where they live!  I do though!  I live in the glorious state of Wisconsin where we have 4 seasons every year and Fall is definitely gorgeous here.    I feel very blessed to wake up and look outside and see sugar and red maple trees in a gold or rich red and the aspen in their gorgeous yellows.  And of course mingled through them all are the majestic pine trees!

Well they are majestic until you try to paint them on your nail.

Here's a word of advice people--just because you receive your set of 3 detailed brushes for nail art means you are suddenly an artist!

I tried channeling Bob Ross but it just didn't work LOL!

My base, however, is MAGNIFICENT!  I used a ton of polishes to create my base--Nails Inc Hamstead Gardens--the ugly mustard yellow no one seems to like but that I love, Sinful Colors Innocent, OPI A Roll In The Hague, Revlon Vixen, Zoya Envy, Darcy, Josie & Thandie were all dabbed on with saran wrap over one coat of Hamstead Gardens.

It all went wrong with those happy little trees!  My index pine tree is like some sort of mutant!

Sometimes less really is more!

I love how thumbie turned out!

This is the picture which inspired me!

Look at all these gorgeous Fall colors!!!!!

Here's some shots with flash

Sort of makes the pine tree on my index even more mutanty!!

I really loved my base and even the pine tree on my swear isn't too bad.  I think stamping over this base would have been great too--I might just drag it out again since the challenge is a week long!


Check out what my friends came up with for Autumn!

Wrap it up!

Hi Everyone!!! Happy Sunday--I was MIA yesterday due some much needed rest and relaxation.  Working all that over time took a toll on me so I lazed around, watched Discovery ID all day and read some hot romances.  WHEW!  I feel totally refreshed!  I did have a bit of a struggle with today's AIS challenge though!  Usually I have a great idea when a theme is picked however yesterday I was really struggling.

The theme for today is over a saran wrapped base.  There are a lot of cool saran wrap mani's out there, I just wasn't feeling any of them!  I decided to look through my stash and try to work out something with some untrieds I have.  Nothing stood out too much then I hit the brown drawer and I snagged Essie Mink Muffs and Zoya Cheryl (which I've owned for 2 years and never put on once and added a bottle of Zoya Pasha to the mix!

I really love how this non traditional for summer mani turned out!  

I did 2 coats of Essie Mink Muffs first--let it completely dry and then topped it with a coat of Zoya Pasha and dabbed away with the saran wrap.  When that was dry I put a dab of Zoya Cheryl on a metal plate and then dabbed the saran wrap into and splodged it on randomly. 

 Honestly I wish I had a copper metallic to stamp with--but I didn't have anything light enough so I reached for Maybelline Bold Gold and DRK-B and stamped a couple of accent nails because I liked just the base so much I didn't want to completely cover it

I added the matte top coat because it just looks so much better matte!  Check out thumbie!

I should do these saran wrap mani's more often!

Hope you're all having a great weekend!  Mom and I are off today to check out The Wolverine!  Hottie Hugh Jackman to the rescue!!!