My wonderful friend Jacki had a baby boy!

Hi Readers! My sweet friend Jacki from Adventures In Acetone welcomed a new baby son into her family.  Her husband and daughter are as over the moon with the new arrival as well!  I might sound biased, but really I'm not, I've seen him and he's adorable!  He is one lucky boy to have someone as sweet and kind as Jacki for a mom.  In honor of his arrival a few of us are going blue to celebrate.  Congratulations to Jacki, Wes, big sister Hailey and welcome to our polish family, Owen!!!

This is pretty dang cute--not as cute as the stuff Jacki can do by hand but cute nonetheless!

I used an underwear of Zoya Robyn and topped it with Zoya Twila and then stamped using BM307.

Check out what all my friends have come up with to welcome sweet baby Owen into the world!

Internet Mother's DON'T Always Know Best!

Hi Readers!  I think most of you by know my choice of colors leans toward the dark side.  Face it I'm just not a summery, pastel, neon wearing gal!  Give me those dark vampy colors and I feel at home.  A couple of months ago I bought Orly's Buried Alive from the Dark Shadows collection and I have yet to wear it.  So I hauled it out along with my recently purchased China Glaze Exotic Encounters.  I decided to toss in my favorite "ugly" color China Glaze Trendsetter and a gradient was born!

I love how this turned out! It reminded me of the jungle!

I was wracking my brain for a stamping idea as i was leaning toward tribal or animal print--giraffe in particular.  I asked my internet daughter, Rebecca of Rebecca Likes Nails what I should do and boy did she ever come up with a great idea!  Really Readers she is not just another pretty face!

Since it had the jungle feel she suggested the leaves image from Mash-50

I think it's fantastic!!!!

I'm wearing an olive green top tomorrow and this mani is going to be perfect!


What do you think of this one?  Do you love this pretty "ugly" colors or are they not your thing??


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

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . .

Hi Readers!  I got a few polishes recently and wanted to use them in a mani.  I stopped in at Sally's and picked up the only color from the China Glaze Safari collection, Exotic Encounters AND my Butter London order arrived in which Knees Up, Bluey, and Branwen's Feather were in there.  Looking at Bluey and Exotic Encounters together I knew I could do something with them.  I debated on whether or not I should gradient AGAIN and decided--yes, yes I AM going to gradient again.  I hauled out on of my fave--okay it IS my fave China Glaze, For Audrey,and a gradient was born.

I love how much is missing from my bottle of For Audrey, because it means she is well loved!


She goes great with Exotic Encounters too!

Let's add Bluey to the mix to see what we come up with!

Bluey can be a bit greeny when stamp with him over teal lol!

And you know when I saw these colors together my mine immediately went to Mermaid Mani BUT I held myself back so just because it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck doesn't always mean it's going to be a duck!!! LOL!

I really do love the richness of Bluey but it was not as opaque as I thought it would be.  I'll be using him again a few times I'm sure!  I know he'll be a fabulous gradient partner to someone!!

Hopefully my ding dang pinkie which broke this weekend will be grown out by then so he looks even better or a full size finger nail LOL!

Here's a picture of the polishes I used and my sponge. 
I stamped with Bluey using MASH-41.

Were you surprised I held off doing another mermaid tail???? I am lol!  I love how this turned out though!  You can never have too many animal print mani's I think!


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

Summer Challenge--Buttercups!

Hi Readers!  I did this mani a week ago!  I had to wait to post it though BECAUSE I inadvertently nailed the Buttercup theme for the Summer Challenge!  I wanted to wear something bright and summery to my niece's graduation from high school so I decided a lovely gradient of Zoya Pippa and Zoya Tracie and then I really wanted to haul out my lovely, lovely, LOVELY Mustard Fields by Sonoma Nail Art.  The results were stunning!


Here's the gradient before the Mustard Fields topper

Look at how seamless that gradient is!

 I loved this lemon lime look!

But here's the real beauty!  The gradient topped with Mustard Field's!!

GLURG!!!!!

See the little flowers in Mustard Fields?????! Instant buttercups!

I could not stop staring at this mani! AND I got tons of compliments on it at the picnic party!

And hello!!! Remember this ring I made when I received the first bottle ever made in the entire universe of it???!!!!!!

Luh-Uh-Uh-shus!!!


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

Can oil and water mix?

Hi Readers!! Lately I've been been obsessed with the OPI suedes.  I'm not sure what it is about a matte polish but they are rather fascinating.  The look weird and feel weird sort of like an octopus I guess.  I was working on some gradienting the other day--because I seem to have an addiction to them--and wondered if it was possible to gradient a suede or matte with a creme.  Turns out it is very possible.  Here's a pic before deciding whether to do matte topcoat or glossy over this

I decided to try matte and then glossy over it and after my first glossy finger I knew it was glossy all the way!  Pinkie is the only one matte here lol!

Right under the light--look at all that buried shimmer a suede has in it!!!!

I decided to glossy up the pinkie too and then of course stamp on it!

Isn't this pretty?  I stamped using a Christmas Ivy design on BM318 LOL!  It is totally a Christmas themed plate but I didn't care! It looks great!

And last but not least here's my latest ebay ring!!!

I love it! And it was $4 free shipping, can't beat that!

So how did I do this?? I gradiented using OPI Honk If You Love OPI and We'll Always Have Paris suede.  By putting the glossy topcoat over it the suedes buried shimmer really came to life! I think it looks like a scattered holo.  I stamped with my favorite Milani White On and used the trellis/ivy image on BM318.  I love this mani and of course it matched a work top lol!

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

Funny thing happened on the way to the Sunday Challenge

Hi Readers! Remember yesterday's post with the Sally Hansen prisms I used for our jewel theme? Well I had done a mani I really loved and intended to stamp over it BUT honestly I loved it too much to stamp over it!  Since I was trying a few things yesterday I decided to save this gem to show you today.  This is just a gradient and nothing else but sometimes simplicity is all you need.  It was my intention to do a duochrome gradient and then stamp over it using another duochrome BUT this was too lovely to do anything to.  My duochrome gradient is Sally Hansen prisms Amber Ruby and Scarlet Ruby and as with all duochromes they really come to life in both light and shade.  Up first is the shade

I love this gold to red look

I used a base of black first to help the duochromes find their inner beauty

It sort of matched the colors on my laptop case!

I really couldn't stop staring at how pretty it was

I'm impressed with how seamless the gradient is

Now for the light pics

A TOTALLY different look yet really almost the same!

So sparkly!

I think we are nuts as a whole to care more about our health than these non 3 Free beauties LOL!  

Dear Sally Hansen why can't you make something like this again??? WHY??!!


This was just WAY too lovely to stamp over. And you all know I don't say that very often!


Duochromes are my thing just like gradients--I can't live without 'em!


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

Sunday Stamping Challenge is jewels!

Hi Readers!  The theme voted on for today's Adventures In Stamping Facebook challenge is jewels.  Pretty much anything goes as long as it's jewel related.  I expect to see a lot of cool things!  I was trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do for this challenge and my first though was an Illamasqua skittles because Baptiste, Phallic, Viridian and Scarab are all precious and semi-precious stone colors.  While in the process of thinking what I could do with that I came up with a completely different idea.  Almost all of my Sally Hansen prisms (my precious) have jewel names so what better way to celebrate Jewel day than with polishes named after jewels?????  To amp it up I decided to haul out the WetnWild Coloricon duochrome glitter polishes I used just the other day and do some gradienting with them.  Here's what I came up with for today's challenge

This is a skittle of sorts using Sally Hansen Turquoise Opal, Ruby Sapphire, and Emerald Amethyst.  On the Turquoise Opal I gradiented with Bow In My Presence which has the same turquoise to purple shift.  On the Ruby Sapphire I used Speak When Spoken To which has the same blue to red shift and for Emerald Amethyst I used Born Into Privilege which is a greeny gold.  I have to say out of all of them my favorite combination is the Emerald Amethyst and Born Into Privilege.


Of course duochromes really come to life in the shade which is why I think I love them so much!  What other polish can you wear when it looks awesome in the freaking shadows??? NONE!!!! Take that stupid holos!

The Emerald Amethyst shift is really noticeable here with the purple and green.

The light really draws out the turquoise color in Turquoise Opal


This is just a lovely skittles gradient I think.  I can't wait to try this again and use just Emerald Amethyst and Born Into Privelege and stamp over it

What do you think of this one readers? After yesterday's mani it's nice to see a lovely gradient LOL!


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