My awesome Birthday Do-Over Nail Mail!!!

Hi everyone!!

I am SO excited over today's post because I got a wonderful, wonderful box filled with goodies from a friend of mine on FB. In the cute little cupcake card she sent with everything she said "...since you were sick on your birthday, we can pretend this is a do over." I'm all for that!! (for those who didn't know, I had a massive tooth/lower jaw infection on my birthday and I had to go to the doctor and get antibiotics and was absolutely miserable. Everything's ok now, tho!)

Look, just LOOK at all the awesome stuff she sent me!!!

First, the list of polishes:
Megan Miller - Lemon Ice (I know, right?? Megan Miller!! :O ) I love the peacock feather on the bottle, and the bottle and cap are so cool looking.

WnW Magnetic - A Force To Be Reckoned With (my first magnetic!)

WnW Wild Shine - Sparked (pink glittery goodness!)

Sinful Colors - Snow Me White (SO glad I didn't buy this a couple days ago like I was planning on - finally a decent white!!)

Sinful Colors - Rich In Heart

OPI - Pepes Purple Passion

Nicole by OPI - Just Busta Mauve

Pure Ice - Busted

Also 2 little boxes of minis, 8 that are color polishes and 8 that are glitter polishes.

And if all those awesome polishes weren't enough, she also sent me:

All seasons and all episodes of True Blood!! (you know what I will be doing tonight!)

ROLOS!!!!!

A little box of Russell Stover assorted chocolates

Hello Kitty boxes of candy!!

A cool palette of 12 different eyeshadows!! Gorgeous colors!

A small spiral notebook with cupcakes  on the front and back cover. So cute!

A Memory card game that has cupcakes on the cards

A 5 pack of mini gel pens

two sheets of little rainbow stickers, one with hearts and one with holographic-y stars!

I love, love, love everything in my birthday do-over box, thank you SO much!!

Can't wait to wear these polishes! ~pops a Hello Kitty candy in her mouth and smiles~

Peace.

Wet Cement :)

Hi everyone!
Tonight I decided to break out a polish that a FB friend of mine gave to me, that I have yet to try. It is WnW's Wet Cement. Looking at it in the bottle, I was all "meh"...was not very impressed with it. But once I got it on my tips I loved it! It's a very lovely medium taupe, sortof a brownish taupe with a purplish undertone to it. 

Looks great on my nails!! I did two coats of it to reach opaque. Then I decided i'd look thru my decals, since I have tons of decals that I hardly ever use. I found these white floral decals that looked lovely on it, so here it is:

I probably could have done with more decals on the thumb, but I love how the decal on the ring finger looks with this polish. I am glad I finally decided to try out this polish, I am loving it!
Peace.

That's a wrap!

Hi everyone!

Earlier today a friend posted on my FB page suggesting that I do a saran wrap mani. I've seen this mani around before and have always wanted to try it. Some people call it a plastic wrap mani, or a cling film mani.

I've also seen two different ways to do it. The first way is to lay down your base color and let it dry, then choose the color you want over the top of it and do one layer of that on your nails (do this technique one nail at a time so the polish doesn't dry before you get to it with the saran wrap!).  Before it's dry, wad up a small piece of saran wrap and dab-dab-dab around over the still wet coat of polish. The wet polish will stick to the plastic wrap and be lifted off your nails.

The other way I've seen it done is to put a little puddle of the top color of polish onto a plate, lid, CD, whatever, and wadding up the saran wrap and dabbing it into the puddle of polish, then dabbing it onto your nails here and there.

I decided to put the layer of polish onto my nails then dab the saran wrap to remove the polish in places. This is two coats of China Glaze Lemon Fizz and one coat of China Glaze Secret Peri-Wink-Le.

It looks pretty cool, and it's SO easy to do. (Hey look, it's my right hand! ~gasp~ )
Have you ever tried this technique? What colors did you use?
Peace.

G is for.......

Hi everyone!

G is for Gage...er... I mean Giraffe!

I did this manicure for the son of a dear friend of mine who likes giraffes!

First I did two coats of China Glaze Lemon Fizz. Then I stamped using Sinful Colors Nirvana.

Overall, I am a bit disappointed with the end result of this, as the image on the plate (MASH 20) was too small to cover my entire nail, so on all but the pinkie (don't look at the pinkie!), I had to double stamp, then go back over a few areas with my brush and remover to try and separate some of the spots.

Then, I mattified it, because hey, giraffes aren't shiny. Not entirely sure what happened on the pinkie, but I think it's a result of overzealous clean up, and that's what happens when remover hits the matte top coat. Let's just pretend that a bird flew over the giraffe....

See T? Giraffe nails aren't that hard to do, and I KNOW you have the MASH20 plate ;)

Peace.

Versatile Blogger Award X2 !

Hi everyone, guess what? Crystal over at CDesigns92 nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award. Thanks Crystal!

I know, you are thinking, hey didn't you already get that award? Well, yes, I did. But no one ever said I couldn't accept it more than once!

The only problem is, I do not have any more relatively new blogs to nominate, so I really hope it's alright if I just do the 7 more random facts about myself. Besides, what better way to get to know me than to have me share things about myself?
So, here we go!

1. I work for my parents, for a company called Books Are Fun
2. I don't consider myself to be very "girly-girl", but I do like girly things like butterflies, hummingbirds and of course, nail polish
3. I love the AMC TV Series The Walking Dead
4. I have dabbled in many different crafty things, from decoupage, to scrapbooking, to card making, to altered books, to carving my own rubber stamps, to beadwork (rosaries, jewelry, phone dangles...) I have so much random craft stuff it's unreal.
5. My favorite colors are colors in the red family (ie. burgundy, crimson, candy apple red) and the purple family (ie. lilac, amethyst, violet)
6. I have never been stung by a bee, hornet or wasp (and I hope I never get stung!)
7. I LOVE EATING CRAB LEGS!

Peace.

OPI at Target?

Hi everyone!
Thought I'd share with you something a FB friend of mine just told me - OPI and Nicole OPI polishes are at Target! I haven't been to a Target in years and years, so this is news to me. If you already knew this, then treat this as a reminder that there's more than one place to buy your OPI polishes!
Look at the yummy displayyyyyyy .....

OPI is $8.50 and the Nicoles are $7.00 . Some of the colors, between the two labels, are nearly identical.

Peace.

My frickin' franken

Hi everyone! I thought I'd make a quick post to show you the frankenpolish I just finished. It's in a tiny bon-bon's bottle. I actually used the color that was originally in there, called "copper", I guess...there's no name on it. It's a very sheer brown base with what looks like silver shimmer. It was mostly full, so I just added a couple drops of Petites "Mango", and some shiny orange glitter and some shiny gold glitter. Shake, shake, shake, here's a bottle shot:

Then I put some on my nails. Pinkie is one coat, ring finger is two coats, middle finger is one coat over Sinful Colors Nirvana, and pointer finger is one coat over WnW black creme. I'm not sure I like it over black.

I've already decided to name this one "Autumn Sunrise". Can you tell I'm ready for summer to be over already? What do you think of my franken? What undies would you wear with this? (by undies I am of course referring to a base color, not the undies on your body!)
Peace.

Posts from the Past

hi everyone!
So ever since my last blog got deleted, I've been crying a little bit inside over the past manicures I had posted on there, so I've decided to do re-posts of past manicures every once in awhile just to show everyone what I've been up to the past couple of months. This post features a couple of manicures I did in July, one that I did when I first got my MASH stamping plates, and my totally awesome galaxy manicure. Enjoy!

Peace.

Versatile Blogger Award

Hi everyone!
Woke up to good news this morning..... Ash over at Painted Nubbs nominated my blog for the "Versatile Blogger Award".

Weee!

The rules for those nominated are as follows:

1. Nominate 15 some other blogs who are still relatively new to blogging.
2. Let them know that you have nominated them.
3. Share 7 random facts about yourself.
4. Thank the blogger(s) that nominated you.
5. Add the Versatile Blogger Award picture to your post.

First of all, thank you for nominating my blog, Ash :)

I think these blogger awards are a great way to discover blogs you may have been unaware of before, and get to know new people who share your obsession with polish. It's also a good way to learn new techniques and get inspiration from others.

Here are 7 random facts about me:

1. I love the Victorian style (decor, architecture).
2. I'm not a fan of ice cream, I will only eat sherbet.
3. I have 7 tattoos.
4. The only jewelry I wear on a continuous basis is a small sterling silver hoop in my upper left ear and a sterling silver toe ring on my second right toe
5. I have a boyfriend that lives in England.
6. I don't read the fortune from a fortune cookie until after I've eaten the cookie.
7. I have never had a broken bone in my life. (knock on wood)

On to the nominations (sorry, there won't be 15 because I don't follow very many newer blogs right now)!

[kossori hana.]
Can't Hold My Lacquer
Crazy Nail Lady
Elanor's Nails
Fancy Schmancy Nails
Once Bitten Nails
The Fox Claws
Too Cute-icle

Peace.

Robin Moses Inspired Daisy Nails

Hi everyone!
Earlier today I was browsing nail blogs, and I happened to find myself at the Robin Moses blog. I started browsing, and a couple of manicures really tickled my fancy. I watched the tutorials for them on youtube and thought "I could maybe do something that almost looks that cool..." (considering the fact that I suck at freehanding and have shaky hands, so using brushes is hard for me)
So without further ado, I present to you, my Robin Moses inspired daisy nails!

Her own design is so brilliant and looks quite awesome, compared to my childish attempt at recreating it, but if you don't look too close, they don't look half bad.

For the base color, I did two coats of Revlon Peach Radiance. After that dried, I felt that the "radiance" part was a bit too radiant, so I did one thin coat of Maybelline Blushing Bride, which is a very very sheer pinkish sort of color. I then sponged a bit of Rimmel London #606 Dazzle on the tips.

I used a couple different nail art brushes and acrylic paint to do the stems and flowers.

So, what do you think? Have you ever done any freehand nail art inspired by Robin Moses?
Peace.

One Stroke Fail Nails

Hi everyone!
If you have been following me on Facebook , you may remember the youtube video tutorial I posted not long ago detailing how to do one stroke flower painting on your fingernails. To watch the tutorial, click right here .
On my Facebook page, I said that I wanted to try this. So tonight, I tried it.

And failed. Really bad.

I have some acrylic paints that I have had since....oh....forever...so I decided to break them out and try my hand at this one stroke brush painting thing.
It looks so easy.......but don't be fooled!! I think my acrylic paints were too runny or maybe I just sucked too hard or something, but wow. It looks like a three year old scribbled on my nails or something.

I showed it to my mom (who is usually the first to see my new nail art and give her honest opinion, and I love her for that!), and she said "Well, I like the one on the middle finger".....hahahaha. I love you, mom!
I am thinking that I have got to practice this one stroke brush painting a lot more before I attempt this again. What do you guys think? Have you ever done the one stroke brush painting on your nails before?

P.S. The base color on my nails is the wee "franken" I did last night by mixing white and black to get myself a light grey. Still have to come up with a name for it, but i'm leaning towards naming it "Steam".
Peace.

My first "Franken" ?

Hi everyone! If you're following me on Facebook then you may already know that last night I decided to make my own nail polish color, due to the fact that I don't have a light grey in my stash. I thought I did, but it's a silver. Bah. So anyway, I cleaned out a little 1/8 oz. bon-bons bottle with some acetone, then filled it back up most of the way with Revlon's White on white, then added about 3 drops of WnW Black creme and shook to mix it up. It turned out great! Just the right sort of light grey that I was wanting.

Now I know that some of you out there might think "that's not making a REAL franken..." and you may be right...but every franken maker had to start somewhere, right? :)

Here are the pics - sorry if the grey has a sort of blue-ish tint in the pics, blame it on my icky camera. It doesn't look blue in real life.

My only dilemma now is what to name it. So far I've come up with "Mourning Dove", "Steam", or "Greyscale". Do you have any suggestions?
Peace.

Very Lovely

Hi everyone!
A day or so ago I was doing my regular blog browsing (and also re-following blogs I'd been following before the icky blog deletion catastrophe of mine), and I happened to get back onto a wonderful British blog I had been following, The Nail Newbie . Several days ago she did a post that had a very simple but oh so lovely nail art design that made my wee nubs go "SQUEE!", and I knew I had to do it myself. You can see the inspiration for this new nail art right here!
At first I was going to go with a light pinkish base color like she did, but nothing I had in my stash cried out to me. Then I saw it....an untried, unnamed Hello Kitty polish in a purplish taupe that made me smile. You know I love HK. A Facebook friend of mine sent me this polish a while back, along with a PLETHORA of other yummy polishes. So, I made that the base coat.

Then, since I am still really clumsy when it comes to using my new nail art brushes, I instead reached for a fine-tip black sharpie, and very (sortof) carefully did each letter of the word "love" on my nails. (I have fairly shaky hands so the lines were a tad wobbly..)

After I got the letters on my nails, I thought they needed a little "something-something", so I broke out my MASH plates. On plates 16 and 17 I found little heart images, so I used #16 on my thumb with WnW's Disturbia, and #17 (cleaning one or two hearts off with a q-tip) to stamp on my other fingers. Then, at the suggestion of a couple ladies on my FB page, I added little gold dots to each nail in various places.

Pay no mind to the center of the "o" on my middle finger - I overstamped and tried to clean it up, but just ended up smudging things around. D'oh!
So ladies, what do you think? Win or Fail? Do you think you'd ever do this on your own nails?
Also, don't forget, you can follow me on Facebook by liking my new page in order to get notices of updates to my blog or just random pics and ramblings - check it out by clicking here!
Until next time,
Peace.

Restocking some supplies

Hi Everyone!
The time comes for us all when we must venture out and restock our supplies. Today was my restocking day. I'm running dangerously low on cotton balls and polish remover, so those were a must. I also wanted to get some acetone to have on hand for cleaning out empty polish bottles and easier clean up after a mani.

The feathers and glitter I picked up at the new JoAnn's that recently opened up not too far from us. I got the feathers in order to recreate a cool feather mani I saw on YouTube, and the glitter...well...I haven't figured out what to do with the glitter yet, but it was so pretty I couldn't pass it up. The cotton rounds, magnets, remover, acetone and HK Dig 'n Dips were purchased at Walmart. (Yes, HK stuff is a necessary supply item!) I can't believe how much more HK stock Walmart has been carrying these days. It used to be that the best HK stuff could only be found at Target. Thank you, Walmart!
Surprisingly enough, even tho I walked up and down the beauty aisles looking at the polishes, I didn't buy any. 
So ladies, what do YOU think I should do with all those packets of glitter?
Peace.

Uptempo Plum and my new mani mascot!

This morning, to try and forget about the pain and swelling in my jaw, I decided to break out one of the polishes my FB friend sent me in my birthday nail mail. It's Uptempo Plum, a Sally Hansen Instadry. At first glance it looks black, but if you look closely, or you're out in the sun, you'll see that it's actually a VERY deep plum color with a slight reddish shimmer to it. Very lovely, I adore dark colors. (sorry, no swatches :( )

After I went to WalMart earlier today and picked up a few polishes, I decided to use my new Ice Queen on my ring fingers and thumbs. Not bad, not bad at all! Another friend of mine on FB has a sort of "mani mascot" that she holds when she's taking pictures of her manicures, and so I started wondering...I should get myself a mani mascot! (Sorry to copy you but the idea was so cute and clever that it had to be done!)

I was thinking, looking around my room, and then my eyes settled on this adorable mini bunny plush that looks like a marshmallow bunny peep on my wall shelf. I bought this cute plush a long time ago from a good friend at her Etsy shop, Gummy Bunny Studios .

The young woman that runs the shop is so talented, very creative, super nice and quite intelligent. You should really check out her shop if you are looking for unique, cute and well made trinkets and gift ideas.

I know, I know, it looks like a dormant shop right now, but I have spoken with the owner of the shop and she assures me that while she's been rather busy with other things in her life right now, she has plans to start listing more things in her Etsy shop soon. She even plans to start doing painted acrylic nail sets! I can't wait to see them! So keep her in mind if you're looking for affordable, adorable and creative gift ideas, for yourself, or for someone else! Now, a couple of pictures!

Isn't that peep bunny plush so cute?? I love it! It has a little glittery pompom tail that makes it even cuter. You can see pics of it at the Gummy Bunny Studios shop .
And now, since the flash on my camera really doesn't capture the small hex glitters of Ice Queen, I present to you a somewhat crappy no-flash picture of my thumb nub :

I quite like the way Ice Queen looks over Uptempo Plum, even tho I had to fish a bit to get the little hex glitters out. what is your opinion of the overall mani? What do you think about my newly christened mani mascot?
Peace.

Just a baby haul to cheer me up

Some of you may have just read on my Facebook page what happened with me on my birthday yesterday. (If not, you can find it by clicking here )
The WalMart near my house is a sortof smallish one, so finding certain things there is a bit difficult sometimes. I was looking for some specific craft supplies, but after not finding them, I headed over to the polishes.

I was good, I spent less than 5 dollars. I've been wanting to try a matte manicure for awhile now, so I finally picked up NYC's "Matte Me Crazy" top coat. I also grabbed an L.A. Colors nail hardener/base coat. I've been going thru the base coat like crazy. And, I also picked up Sally Hansen's "Ice Queen".

I saw someone swatch Ice Queen on another blog recently, tho I forget where exactly, and I thought it looked rather interesting. It's a bunch of small hex glitters in lavendar and teal floating around in a clear base along with some what looks like silver and multi colored (prismatic, maybe?) micro glitters.
Very interesting, can't wait to try it.

(sorry for the crappy close up shot)

Do you have Ice Queen? What do you think of it? How would you describe Ice Queen to someone?
Peace.

New FaceBook page for followers!

Hi everyone! I finally found out thru a friend how to make a page for my blog on FaceBook and I was actually successful. Now I won't have to annoy friends on my personal page by announcing blog updates. You can follow me and get facebook updates about my blog by clicking here and smacking that "Like" button!
Peace.

Past Nail Art

Even though my blog was deleted a week ago, I continued to play with my polish and take pictures, so I will share a couple of them with you so you can see what I've been up to this past week. The first one was done using Wet n Wild's Tickled Pink and a black sharpie to do the swirls and dots. I accented my thumb and ring finger with little pink rhinestones. I did this one for a friend of mine because she likes the black and pink combo, and I used a sharpie to freehand the swirls because I couldn't get my stamper and plates to work right for me hah hah!

A couple days later, I did this one, using Sinful Colors Nirvana as the base color, Wet n Wild's Tickled Pink for the design on the accent finger, and Finger Paints Paper Mache for the dotted lines.

Which one do you like better?
Peace.

Birthday Nail Mail and Birthday Mani

Since it is my birthday today, I figured what better way to start off my new blog than with some birthday nail mail and my birthday mani!
I have a FaceBook friend who is also into polish and she sent me a wonderful present for my birthday! She packaged all the polishes up in an adorable Hello Kitty soft-sided tote, too. Yes, I love Hello Kitty!

Inside the tote were these awesome polishes, some of which were on my wishlist on my last blog:
China Glaze Shower Together, For Audrey, Four Leaf Clover, Secret Peri-Wink-Le, Gothic Lolita, Blonde Bombshell and Japanese Koi.
OPI Don't Mess With OPI
Sally Hansen Instadry Bronze Ablaze and Uptempo Plum
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Parchment
Orly Royal Velvet
And a cute mini HK bottle of berry scented polish that came with a charm and a sheet of little decals.
HEAVEN!

For my birthday mani I decided to take the inspiration from the HK bag and the HK polish packaging and do my nails using some of the new polishes. 

On my thumb is a base of For Audrey, with Lemon Fizz dots and a little mini HK polish another friend of mine sent me awhile back. On my pointer finger are two mini HK polishes from the same friend, with dots of For Audrey, Lemon Fizz and a mini HK polish. My middle finger has Secret Peri-Wink-Le as a base and stamped with Lemon Fizz. Ring finger is Lemon Fizz with one of the HK decals, and my pinkie is a base color of Orange You Hot and a mini HK polish color. What do you think?
Peace.

Intro and Explanation - Why a new blog?

Hi everyone!
My name is Michelle, but everybody calls me Crimson, so I'm more used to that. 
I live in Southern Utah and am not married, have no children, so I have plenty of time to play around with my polish stash!
This blog will be a place for me to share my nail art and manicures, as well as polish swatches, hints and tips, links to other blogs, and eventually my crafty stuff and photographs I've taken, when the mood strikes me.

I originally had a nail blog that I started in the beginning of July of this year, but about a week ago, I tried to remove a newly created email address and the whole blog got deleted. I tried several times to fill out the information needed to undelete the blog, but after all of my tries, I was told that it was not possible to undelete it because the information provided was not sufficient to prove I was the owner. Whatever. So Anyway, since today is my birthday (Happy Birthday to meeeee) I decided that I would start a new blog and make a fresh start.