A Kitchen Sink Mani does a Body Good!

What a day!  I'm so glad to be home in my jammies getting ready to paint my nails and watch a little Dexter!  It has been pouring buckets here all day.  Ahhh good Pennsylvania weather, can't beat it!

So today's mani is the result of me purchasing a few new colors and not being able to wait to wear them.  Instead of wearing just one as a normal person would, I had to incorporate both of them into this mani.  It's the impatient Greek in me, what can I say?

But I do love how it turned out....

I originally was going to stamp something on my ring finger but I think the flowers turned out quite cute!

Colors used were: China Glaze Glistening Snow (pinky)

                            Revlon Urban (Navy)

                            Julie G Damsel (Pink)

                            OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (White)

So after a little momma smacking and kid beating, I realized that I really love pink and navy together. Revlon Urban is nice because it's not quite a deep dark navy.  Sometimes when I wear a dark blue, it ends up just looking like black and this one actually kept its nice vibrant blue color.  Urban is new from Revlon and is part of the Urban Nights/Bubblegum Days Collection.  This little lady has been outshadowed by Girly and Heavenly, 2 super fun glitters that seem to be fan favorites.  If you come across this collection make sure to pay attention to the nice creme colors and not just the glitter babies!  Urban is definitely a nice addition to any polish stash.  I can easily say it is unique in my collection!

Damsel is one of the newer polishes from Julie G.  This brand can be found at Rite Aid and is quite inexpensive but you would never know it from their polishes.  With creamy super saturated colors, you easily could confuse these for a much pricier polish.  I have yet to be disappointed with a polish from this line.  I probably have about 25 of them and I love every single one, color and formula!  And spending less than $4 for a bottle of polish....yeah...count me in!

Hope you guys enjoyed this baby as much as I did!  Stay tuned to YWP for a blog overhaul very soon!  I love posting on here but I really have to get up to par!  I have many tutorials and FAQ's I want to get "tabbed" at the top of the page.  I think a new look for the old girl will be a really great thing!  Hopefully we will have an excuse to slap the fudge out of some mama's once I'm all finished up!

Happy Polishing Loves!

Someone's been playing with the Stamper!!

I know this is a very weird time for even me to be posting but I can't sleep....I officially can say I have insomnia.  I am up all night and then want to sleep all day....not a good schedule for someone who has 3 kids to wake at 6am and a full time job that starts at 8.  It's really flippin annoying to just lay here when I could be accomplishing something, so eff you insomnia, I'm being productive and there isn't shit you can do about it.  I'll show this mother fluffer who's boss.

Ok nails, yes nails....so this weekend I decided to get out my arch nemesis  (insert *gasp* here), the dreaded stamper and try my hand at it yet again.  Whaddya know, all those YouTube videos paid off.  Somone didn't fail miserably and crumble into a heap of big stinkin loser crap....nooooo, someone put on their big girl panties and fucking learned to stamp! (By the way, I hate bitches that talk in 3rd person, this insomnia is really a nasty bitch making me go against myself and all.

I pulled out the one stamp I have been dying to use and prayed that I could finally do the combo I have been dreaming of for months....and it worked!!  This mani has been on the brain since I got this bastard stamping set, have a look, after all you have waited long enough!

SO GOOD YOU WANNA SLAP YOUR MAMMY!!!  Not good as in, "My name's Nicole and I am a bad ass bitch, you all can sniff my butt as I rise to the top", but good as in, "I have been working on this shit for months and I finally got it and now I get to share it with all my lovelies on the blog". 

Yeah??  Yeah!!!  As soon as my Bundle Monster stamping set arrived, I went through my plates and saw BM Plate 215 and knew this little sass master was the girl for me.  I immediately wanted to pair it with red and sparkles and make it matte.  And gosh darnit that's just what I did!

My index and middle finger are covered in the gorgeousness that is OPI Liquid Sand in Stay the Night from the recently released Mariah Carey Collection. I didn't think I would like the grittiness of these polishes but I don't mind it too much. I fought the urge to topcoat and left them how they are meant to be.  I have all of the LS polishes and this is my fave, even though I think they are all pretty bad ass! I promise I will eventually get those swatches up for you patient and loving followers (sounds so cult like, I dig) of mine. 

Thumb and pinky are Layla Softouch Effects in Pure Black.  Actually the Layla bottles don't have names on them and I couldn't find a definite answer for my search at 4 am so we are going with pure black for now.  Softouch simply is neither glossy nor matte but kind of an in between.  It's the coolest finish ever!  I didn't use any topcoat for these nails (which killed me) but I didn't want to lose the effect.

Ring finger is Revlon Valentine and, as I stated, before Bundle Monster Plate 215.  I did use a matte topcoat on this nail after a coat of Seche Vite (for glossiness and to protect the stamp for dragging).  

I hope you guys like this mani as much as I enjoyed creating it!  I am so so so excited to be dipping my perfectly manicured toes into the world of stamping. Now that I'm getting the hang of it, the mani's running through my head are probably why I am awake right now at 5:12 am!

Stay tuned for more of these babies!

Happy Polishing kittens!!

Flowers for a Friend!

Hi kiddos, how are we doing on this lovely Monday night?  Did everyone survive the dreaded first day of the work week?  Here's to hoping this week flies by! 

Last night I received a message on Twitter from my friend Ally over at Reach For the Polish.  She is a sweet hilarious chica that I have met in my nail polish travels.  So she sends me a link telling me to go check out her blog post.  I was floored when I read what she had (probably in a drunken stupor, hehe) typed about lil old me.  She had dedicated a blog post to me and said some of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me. Here is the post  that melted my cold little heart.

  I was and still am somewhat shocked at the downright love I have received since I have started this blog, and the amazing women I have met.  I couldn't stop thinking about all the lovely things Ally had written, even today while at work.  So I decided that I, in turn, owed Ally something to say thank you.  Since she resides in New Zealand, I couldn't exactly drop her a bouquet of flowers, so in true nail blogger form, this is what I came up with.

 

 

oh thanks super large picture for showing up yet again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For this mani I did my favorite, and I guess my trademark, dot flowers.  The colors I used were Revlon Raven Red, Lime Crime Milky Way, and Revlon Knockout.  For those of you interested in recreating these very simple (I swear) flowers, there is a tutorial tab on my blogs home page.  They honestly are very easy to do with a dotting tool, bobby pin or something with a rounded end that you could dot with.  The combinations are endless color wise.  I think I have done this mani or something very similar about 100 times, but each time it is so unique due to my different color choices.  The flowers I did this time were done with my largest dotter.  If you want a more delicate look, you can simply use a smaller dotter and spread the flowers out a little more. 

 

Please go check out Ally's blog, she is absolutely hilarious and so kind hearted.  She's obviously a bad judge of character but we can let that slide can't we? :) 

 

This one is for you Ally Cat....Flowers for a very sweet girl that I am proud to call my friend!!

 

Happy Polishing Loves!!

30 Day Challenge Day 9 Rainbow. (I Hope)

Hey hey hey how are my little nail freaks doing?  This little lady is tired!  Hunter (my biggest baby) had a baseball tourney out of state today so we were on the move.  I was excited because I thought I could hit up some new and unchartered nail polish land but let me tell you, I failed miserably!  Although on the plus side, (you know me, glass half full over here) I did just see on twitter that Ulta now has the Tombstone Halloween polishes from Wet n Wild.  I did pee my pants, but don't worry, I'm all cleaned up now and ready to talk rainbow with you fine folks....

Last time I posted, I realized I had totally skipped over Day 7.  I will get a black and white mani up at some point.  Don't know if I was a little manic that day or if maybe I have some deep dark childhood trauma associated with black and white mani's......either way I apologize, I will make it up with a fantabulous water marble that will knock your teapot socks off.  (Hi Sai!!)

I actually had already done this rainbow mani and she was just waiting to make her grand entrance.  What better time than the present?

Yes I know....more dots, I just can't get enough.  They are so fun, they're super simple and I really enjoy doing them.  I think I shall change my name to Dot.  Could you all please call me that from now on?  Please and thank you! 

I used a ton of polishes for this mani, I'll list them in order from thumb to pinky, base color first.

1. Sinful Colors Island Coral, OPI Cajun Shrimp
2. Essie Navigate Her, Essie Mojito Madness
3. OPI Do You Lilac It?, Spoiled 2 Weeks Sober
4. Zoya Shelby, Sinful Colors Outrages
5. Revlon Dreamer, Sinful Colors Oceanside

My untrieds for this mani are Spoiled 2 Weeks Sober, Sinful Outrages, Revlon Dreamer and Sinful Oceanside.  Do I get extra points for using that many?  A cookie?  A high five?  Anything?

I am really happy with the way this one turned out.  My ring finger is definitely my favorite!  All of the colors I used worked really well.  They were all nice and opaque, no major problems with any of the formulas.  Revlon Dreamer is a gorgeous blue but it was a teeny tiny bit on the chalky side.  All nails have 2 coats and a nice thick coat of Seche Vite on top.  I am a huge fan of SV.  I know some people don't love it, but I do and I use it religiously on top of all my mani's, sometimes 2 when I have a lot of nail art going on.  

Hope you guys liked this one.  It was very simple to do, a good mani for a newbie to the nail art world!

Happy weekend and as always....Happy Polishing!!

Be sure to check out the other hot mama's participating in the "Rock Em, Sock Em Nail Blogger Olympics, err, I mean, 30 Day Challenge.  (Are you guys sick of this yet?)  I'm all in now at Day 9, gotta finish out strong.  Let's see if I can come up with 21 more. 

Butterfly butterfly happy all day....

Whenever I think of butterflies, I think of a song that my kids used to sing CONSTANTLY when they were little. I think it was from Barney, oh those torturous days.....I'm sure you've guessed today topic......I've seen lots of butterfly nail art and thought I'd give it a try. It was actually really easy and I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. I am looking forward to trying different color combo's in the future. For this one I used Revlon Colorstay Coastal Surf. What.An.Amazing.Color!!!! It is a beautiful opaque vibrant sky blue. This is going to look lovely on my tootsies. But back to the topic at hand....get it, at hand....oh I am so cheesy. 

So what do you guys think? Will you try this one? What color combo's will you use?