Share your Blog Tuesday

I might just do this every week, what do you think?

I have to go on a small rant... I am doing this because I really hate getting like spam in my comments. I check my blog so many times a day and get so excited when I see that you all have left wonderful comments and I love reading them! I go to read some comments and then there are just links from another blogger trying to share their blog with me. I understand that people are trying to spread the word about their blogs which I completely understand. I am guilty of spamming a tiny bit when I first started blogging. I absolutely love checking out new blogs and making new friends! I am just asking that you share your blog with me in a respectful way and I will be happy to check it out. Also I have found that if you really want to get a blogger to check out your blog, just send them an email telling them that you think they may be interested in your blog. This is so much kinder than spamming.

If you have not yet shared your blog with me please leave your blog link in the comments below. If you would like you may also send me an email at Jessicaj.lane@gmail.com.

Also sorry if I have offended anyone and if you are guilty of doing this, I forgive you :)

True Blood Mani

In honor of the season premiere of True Blood, which happens to be my favorite TV show ever!! The season premiere was last night but I don't have HBO so I have to wait until tonight to watch it so don't tell me what happened!! I have been waiting so long for this season to start! I am going to keep this short and sweet so here they are:

It is kind of hard to tell but I actually couldn't fit the whole word "BLOOD" on the thumb :( Oh well I still like them. I started with two coats of Sinful Colors Back on Black. I then did splatter on all nails except the thumbs using Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red. I used a striping brush and WnW French White Creme to paint the letters and the fangs. This design was surprisingly simple to do and I love the way it turned out! Any other True Blood fans out there? Remember not to tell me about what happened :)

Holo Glitter Top Coat

Friday's field trip was to the science center and I really didn't want to wear my picnic nails so I did a simple mani which I ended up falling in love with. These nails make me think of outer space. I found myself staring endlessly at my nails and moving them around in the light :)

Enlarge the pics to get a better look

I first put on two coats of Sinful Colors Black on Black. I then did one coat of the Cover Girl Sparkling Top Coat- Goddess. Simple but so pretty!! Believe me when I tell you that the pictures do not do these justice. In person they are so freaking sparkly!

Giveaway Winner!!!

Drum roll please.........................................................................................



THE WINNER IS...........................................................................................



Sohns


Congratulations. Please respond to my email.

Thank you everyone for entering in this giveaway! This giveaway began at 100 followers and today there are 250 followers! I may wait a little while to do another giveaway but I promise there will be more in the future.

The Picnic Nails Won!!!

Thanks everyone for voting!!!

The Balloon nails had 2 votes, the Picnic nails had 10 votes, and there was 1 vote for alternating.

Just a warning, my nails are now short :( You can see in the pictures that the ring finger nail is even shorter than the rest because that is the one that I broke. I couldn't bring myself to cut down the rest of my nails that short but it shouldn't take too long for the lengths to even out since my nails grow pretty fast. I am still getting used to the short nails and I don't really like them yet. It is kind of like when you get a whole bunch of hair cut off and you don't really like it until like a week later when you get used to it.

On to the Picnic theme... The picnic at work was lots of fun and I ate way too much. Since my nails are shorter I decided to put less of the fiilmo clay fruit pieces on my nails. I decided to just go with watermelon because I was too lazy to cut any of the other pieces.

For this mani I used WnW French White Creme as the base. Then I painted on the lines vertically and horizontally using a light pink art deco polish. Once those were dry I used a small brush and a red art deco polish to paint the red parts of the picnic pattern. Then Using two different sized dotting tools and Sinful Colors Black on Black, I dotted on the ants bodies. I used a striping brush to paint on the legs and antennas. I also added some silver details to the ants to make them look more 3d. I stuck the watermelon pieces on and coated the whole thing with SV which unfortunately bubbled on this design.

My giveaway will be ending at midnight tonight and I will be announcing the winner tomorrow so don't forget to enter!!!

Splatter Tutorial Video

So last week Carrie from OnlineNailbar.com asked me to do a guest blog for her. Well this week Carrie asked if she could use that blog post which happened to be a tutorial and make it into a video. I was very excited about this! I have wanted to do a video tutorial for a while but I find it weird hearing my own voice. This worked out perfectly because Carrie narrated the whole thing and all credit for making the video goes to Carrie! Thanks so much Carrie!!!! Here is the video:

P.S. I just had to share that I broke a nail :( I thought for a minute that the world might end... I ended up cutting down the rest of my nails so the next post will have some nubbinized nails. It is probably better that I have my nails short right now anyways since I work with kids. Nails and children never mix well. I either end up scratching the kids accidentally or I end up not being able to do simple things for the kids like tie balloons or get a knot out of shoe laces. Oh well just had to warn you that my nails are now short...

Share Your Blog Tuesday

I know I have had many new readers join in the past couple of weeks. It is hard for me to keep up with who has just joined so this is a chance for you to share your blog with me as well as with the other readers. Just post a link to your blog in the comments below. I am always looking for new blogs to follow :)

I also wanted to update everyone on the vote tally so far for Thursday's mani:

If you would like to vote please go here and leave your vote in the comments.

Balloon Release: 2 votes                                      

 

Picnic: 8 votes

Alternating: 1 vote

Please go vote if you haven't already!

Monday Nail Art Challenge: Polka Dots & a Little LGBT Support

So I am a member of Polish-aholics Anonymous on Facebook. As I have mentioned before, you should check it out if you love nail polish! The group had started a nail art challenge for Mondays. Polka dots was selected for the first challenge. I was very excited because I have never actually done polka dots before. Since June is LGBT   ( Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) pride month, I decided to show some support with my nails and went with rainbow polka dots! Hope you enjoy them:


Note* The pictures look better if you enlarge them. Just click to enlarge.

For this mani I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White as the base. I then applied rows of dots in rainbow colors using a dotting tool. The pink is Fresh Paint Pom-Pom. The Red is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red. The Orange is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed. The yellow is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow. The Green is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Green With Envy. The blue is Funky Fingers 220 Volts. The purple is Funky Fingers Cheshire. I topped the whole thing with Sv and cleaned up the edges.

What's In Your Purse?

I saw this on several different blogs and decided to do it because I found it to be very interesting. It is rare that you get to see what is inside of another girls purse. 

1. Where did you get your purse, and how long have you had it? 
  - I got my purse from Payless a little over a year ago. It is my spring/ summer purse.


2. What are 3 must-haves (not including keys and wallet) in your purse? 
 - My phone, my sunglasses, and my hand lotion are the three must haves. 


3. What is something that you should have in your purse right now, but don't? 
- Candy! I always have some sort of food or candy in my purse but when I wasn't allowed to eat before my surgery, I made sure to remove all of the food from my purse so I wouldn't be tempted.


 4. What is the thing you have the most of in your purse right now? 
 - The thing that I have the most of in my purse right now is my prescription drugs and lip gloss.


 5. Is there something in your purse you should explain? 
 - I guess I should explain the biohazard bag in my purse. When I had my surgery I guess they told me to take everything off when I was putting on the hospital gown. I must have not heard them since I was so nervous so I left my bra and undies on. When I woke up from my surgery my bra was in the biohazard bag sitting next to me lol. When they started giving me medical supplies at the hospital, I just shoved it all in that bag and that is where they have stayed. 

Since I am obsessively organized, everything in my purse is organized into these smaller makeup bags to make it easier to find things. 

Contents of the first pink bag: Nail file, Two things of lip gloss, folding brush and mirror, gum, bobby pins, and my e.l.f. powder.

Contents of pink bag #2:  This is all of my nails stuff that I take with me. Cuticle pusher, cuticle cutter, Burt's Bees cuticle stuff, e.l.f. cuticle oil, hard as hoof lotion, and my glass nail file.

Contents of makeup bag #3: Allergy medicine, nasal spray for allergies, an old tylenol bottle that actually has ibuprofin in it, hand sanitizer, 3 things of lip gloss, floss, and 3 things of Burt's Bees.

The other random things in my purse: Sunglasses, Curel lotion, a pen, keys, and a random pony bead from work.

This has made me realize that I have way too much stuff in my purse and also that my purse holds more than it looks like it can. I hope you weren't too weirded out or bored by the contents of my purse. 


I tag anyone who would like to do this!

Vote for Thursday's Mani

So each Thursday at our summer camp is a party day. We do all sorts of parties like the costume party. I have done two different designs on fake nails that reflect this Thursdays party. The theme this week is a picnic and balloon release. We made these cute little tags to tie to the balloons with the address of the daycare and the students name. The tag asks that if it is found it could be sent back to us and tell us where and when it was found. We have gotten some back in the past years and it is truly amazing how far the balloons can travel. Anyways I think that each week I am going to post several nail designs that reflect Thursdays theme and then have all of you vote. So here are the two designs for this Thursday. Please just leave a comment on the post stating which one you would like to vote for. There are three options:

1. Balloon Release:

2. Picnic: 

3. Or alternate between the two (not sure if this will look silly or not)

Voting will end Wednesday at 5pm since that is when I will most likely be doing my nails.

Thanks for voting!!!

Costume Party nails

So a few weeks ago my boyfriends brother and his girlfriend Emily moved in with us. The boys are working on a project together and Emily and I are both working at the daycare. On Thursday we had a costume party for summer camp. Emily dressed up like Mario and I dressed up like Tinkerbell. I will try to get a picture of our costumes from one of our coworkers. The night before the costume party I decided to do both of our nails. I did the designs for the Mario nails on fake nails first to practice so I will post pics of those as well. Emily and I had fun cracking up trying to take pictures of her nails. I had to teach her how to model her hands... i dunno i guess you had to be there to think it was hysterical. Sadly I did not get very good pictures of my Tinkerbell nails because my camera died and by the time it was charged, I had to take my nail polish off for the surgery.

Super Mario:

My practice on fake nails:

 Tinkerbell:

So I used so many different colors for these two nail designs... so I am not going to list all of the colors. I am not sure I can even remember most of the colors now. Many of the colors for the Mario nails were actually art deco polishes. I did the Mario nails entirely free hand. The Tinkerbell nails were stamped with the fairy and the stars from some fauxnad plates. "Tink" on the thumb was done freehand. I hope you enjoyed these as much as I did!

I may be MIA for a few days...

Tomorrow is my surgery on my sinuses so I may be MIA for a few days. Last time I was put under, I slept a whole lot after so that is probably what I will be doing all weekend. Also I have a small rant... First of all I can't wear nail polish to my surgery :( so upset about it since I haven't left the house with naked nails in almost a year. Second of all my surgery isn't until 3:30 pm tomorrow and I can't eat or drink anything after midnight (
which is right now) :( I am going to be so starving by 3:30. Why in the world would they schedule it that late in the day??????? Ugh I just want to get this over with. My rant is done now... Just had to get that out. Depending on how I am feeling, I will try to get a post up by Sunday or Monday. Talk to you all in a few days.

Update:

Home from surgery and everything went well! Feeling ok. The only pain is in my hand where they had the iv and a slight headache. Other than that, just a little sleepy.

Nail Color Wheels

I bought some Nail Color Wheels the other day at Sally's and I love them so much! I have seen them all over the internet and never thought very much of them. I saw them and decided to try them just for swatching. It is so nice to have swatches of every nail polish :) You all know how different a polish can look in the bottle compared to on the nail. These let you see how the polish looks on the nail. I also like being able to pair up colors and see how they look together. I decided that for now I am going to organize the color wheels by brand. I wrote the brand name on the back of the color wheels and then wrote the names of the colors on the wheels. I may eventually do color wheels by color as well. I need to get more color wheels to finish swatching all of my colors. Here are some pictures of the color wheels:

Splatter Nail Art Tutorial

Here is the tutorial for the splatter nail art that I posted the other day.

Finished product looked like this:

How I did it: 

What you will need:

• 1 Straw. A normal sized straw will work and possibly a smaller straw from a juice box. Large straws will not work for this.
• Piece of paper to practice on and work over top of.
• Base Color
• Splatter colors
• Foil
• Tape
• Cleanup brush
• Acetone

Step 1: Pick your base color and paint your nails with the base color. I used WnW French White Creme. Allow the base color to dry before moving to step 2.

Step 2: Pick your colors, for this I used 5 colors as pictured below.

Step 3: This step is optional and could be done several ways. I used scotch tape to tape off my fingers to limit the mess. I really hate taping off my fingers so I only did this for left hand and it honestly wasn't that bad cleaning up my right hand without taping it. I have also heard that you can use vaseline or chapstick to keep the polish from getting on your skin. Sine I was using pure acetone to clean up my mani, the cleanup didn't take very long. 

Step 4: I use foil for this but you can use what every you want. Take one of the colors and put a drop or two of polish on the foil.

Step 5: Take your straw and dip it in the polish.

The polish should form a film on the tip of the straw and look like this:

Step 6: Take the straw and blow through the straw. I practiced on a piece of paper first to get a feel for how close the straw should be to the nail and how hard to blow. It really just takes a little practice to get a feel for it. After doing it a few times then move to your nails. I did one or two splatters of the first color on each nail and then did the rest of the colors in the same way.

Step 7: Using acetone, cleanup the edges where the polish spattered on your skin and cuticles. I have a tutorial on cleanup here. Top two are cleaned up and bottom two are not cleaned up:

                                           

If you have any questions about this tutorial please feel free to ask :) 

Splatter Nail Art Tutorial

So there was a tiny change in plans... Carrie from Online Nail Bar contacted me yesterday and asked if I would do a guest blog on the company's blog. I decided to post the tutorial as my guest blog. You can still see it at Online Nail Bar. I will post the tutorial on this blog in a few days. If you would like to leave comments, you can leave the comments on this post, on the Online Nail Bar's blog, or you can wait to comment when I put up the tutorial on here. If you comment on the Online Nail Bar's blog post I will not be notified that you commented. Hope you like the tutorial!

Splatter Nail Art

I saw a couple blogs that had some splatter nail art and decided to try it myself... I am in love with this new nail art technique. I attempted water marbling once and it turned out horrible and I hated doing it and I haven't done it since. I did one hand with water marbling and then took it off immediately because it was such a horrible mess. This technique makes up for my failure at water marbling and so much more!!!! I will post a picture tutorial on how to do this tomorrow so be sure to check back! Our summer camp at the daycare started this week and I wanted to have fun colorful nails for the first day so this is what I ended up with:

My pointer finger and my middle finger are my favorites! The thumb turned out really cute too! These are like little works of modern art on my nails. Each one is different and unique. This technique is very fun to do as well :) Find out tomorrow how I did this!  For this mani I first painted my nails with Wet N Wild French White Creme. For the splatter I used Jordana Pink Romance, Purple Bright, Boy Oh Boy, and Rich Green. I also used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Lightening for the yellow.

I am so in love with the Jordana polishes. I bought them from CherryCulture and if you can you should try these polishes. All of the colors that I have are such rich colors. The consistency of this polish is perfect and so far every one that I have is a one coater. These polishes are just so perfect... I must have more of them! Here are swatches of 5 Jordana Colors that I have:

From left to right: Rich Green, Boy Oh Boy, Burnt Sugar, Purple Bright, and Pink Romance. Aren't these Gorgeous?? Also in the next couple of days I will be posting more on my new color wheels like the one in the picture above!