Inspired by: Beachcomber bracelet

(All products in this post were purchased by me.)

Hello!

A while back I took my yearly trip to Carmel, one of my favorite places in the world. It's a small coastal town with a town center that's filled with interesting architecture, fun shops, and hidden pathways and gardens. One of the things I've always loved about it is that it's a dog-lover's town--lots of stores have bowls of waters and treats for the dogs, and the beach is an off-leash dog beach. I've loved that about it even though I haven't had a dog for years...and this is my first trip there since having a dog (and her first trip to the beach). It was a blast...but that's another story.

This story is about the manicure I wore on that trip, a beach manicure inspired by my 'beachcomber' bracelet:

I wanted something that would go well with the bracelet and have a fun, beach feel to it. So I started with a base of Julep Tracy, one of their textured polishes in their line. The blue of this polish reminds me of the ocean, particularly the color of the water at the Carmel beach; the glints from the texture remind me of the glints of light off the waves of the ocean:

Julep Tracy, two coats, artificial light

Next I sponged on top with Finger Paints Don't Make A Scene, a soft peachy beige, to give it the look of hints of sand showing through the water. I added clumps of glittery sand-dollar-like shells by putting dabs of Jindie Nails Mango With The Flow randomly on the nails; then I finished by stamping starfish and shell images from Cheeky Jumbo Plate 2 with China Glaze Passion:

Under the boardwalk...

Under the sun...

We'll be having some fun...

I love how this came out. The colors are subtle and work well together, and I think the final product is soothing and calm. What do you think?

Hope you're having a great holiday weekend, maybe at the beach! Hugs and love,
M.

Before & After: Funhouse Of 1000 Corpses

Hello!!

Today's 31 Day Challenge prompt is to do a manicure inspired by your childhood. To be honest, my childhood doesn't inspire very many good memories and much of what I could come up with to represent my childhood took things to a darker place than I think this prompt is meant to go! So I decided instead to do a manicure inspired by 'childhood', rather than my particular childhood.

When I think of the magic of childhood, I think of bright colors and happiness. And I recently got a polish that just speaks all of that to me--ironically, it's meant to be a Halloween polish, Jindie Nails Funhouse Of 1000 Corpses:

Jindie Nails Funhouse Of 1000 Corpses

...and up closer :)

This polish makes me smile when I wear it, and it makes me think of cupcakes with sprinkles and those inflatable rooms filled with colored balls. It makes me think of circuses, and parties, and fun, all things that every childhood should be full of.

I know everyone is going to hate me for this, but...I felt that the perfect added touch would be two bright, pretty crackles I recently got in my Spoiled bucked (Spoiled Pretty Pink Punk and Inmate In Love). I know most people don't care for crackles, but I really love them; I just don't love them all the time. Anyway, I did a gradient with them, but putting the orange vertically across half of the nails, and then the pink horizontally on the bottom part of the orange stripe:

Bright, happy colors

...for a bright, happy life.

For me, this manicure has whimsy and fun. Sure, it's not something I'd wear to an elegant night out. But every woman has to have a multitude of sides, right?

Thanks for looking, and please check out the other child-ish manicures linked below. :)

Xoxox,
M.

Megabright Megapixels

Have you ever heard of Jindie Nails? There's some awesome glitter in this Etsy store, and I picked up a rather large shipment a while ago.

One of the colors I liked most from the pictures in the store was a polish called Megapixels.

I thought I'd pixelate the look further by zooming in on the pixels as accent nails.

The colors I used include Megapixels from Jindie Nails of course, Hanging in the Balance (China Glaze), Sunshine and Pink Flip-Flops (Barielle).

Reminds me of sitting right up next to the TV just so I could look at the tiny squares that were forming the magical images on the TV.

Man it feels good to be doing nail art again!

NOTD: New Years Eve nails

Hello!!!

Today is the final prompt of the CNT Winter Holiday Challenge, and the prompt is New Year's Eve.

I bought Jindie Nails Monstar back in October when I picked up some of her other polishes; I thought it was a cool Halloween polish with a twist. But, I also thought it would make a great confetti polish for New Year's Eve. I love the poppers that have streamers that come out when you pop them at midnight, and this glitter reminds me of that--the bar glitters remind me of the streamers and the other glitters look like the confetti.

For the New Year's mani I layered it over Sally Hansen Lustre Firefly:

Jindie Nails Monstar over Sally Hansen Firefly

Jindie Nails Monstar over Sally Hansen Firefly

I think it's pretty darn festive! What do you think?

Thanks for looking, and please check out the other manicures linked below. :)

Xoxox,
M.

Indie-licious Review: Jindie Nails

Hello!!

Today I have a final Christmas Indie polish review for the season. I'll still be doing holiday manicures, of course! But my next Indie review won't be centered around holiday polishes.

I've ordered from Jindie Nails before, and have found the polishes to be of high quality; so when I stopped by to look at her holiday polishes and saw Grinch, I had to have it. I put it in my cart and came back later that day to buy it.

In the meantime, it had sold out completely.

Luckily for me, she had decided to make more, in order to satisfy all the people like me who didn't get it the first time--and she hustled and hustled so we could get it in time for Christmas. And I'm so glad, because Grinch just makes me happy, pure and simple. It captures the fun, whimsical colors and shapes from the classic show, and captures part of the storyline, too--in each bottle there is one black heart and several red hearts, to represent the Grinch's tiny black heart and its transformation to a larger-than-normal loving heart. These are not meant to be a part of every manicure, but are just a fun, thoughtful touch to surprise you one day when you least expect it. However, she will add in extras if you ask her to do so. :)

Grinch has an avocado-green crelly base, with a variety of red and white squares, and white and red bar glitters (and of course, the previously mentioned hearts):

Jindie Nails Grinch indirect light

Jindie Nails Grinch, direct sun

Jindie Nails indirect sun

In these pictures I'm wearing 3 thin coats of Grinch, plus a coat of Seche Vite. The formula is very nice, it applies well, and without having to struggle with the glitters. It didn't require extra topcoat from me; while it is a glitter, it isn't unusually thirsty. I love the contrast of the colors and the play of the shapes, and I can't wait to wear it again. If you missed it, I did some nail art with this polish; you can see it by clicking here.

The second polish I got on a whim...I wanted something with a clear base that I could use to Christmas-up any manicure I was wearing, so I decided to grab Just Elfing Around. JEA is a magical blend of green hexes, red hexes and squares, white hexes and squares, and holographic glitters. Because I'm wearing it over red here, the red glitters don't show up as well in the pictures as they did in real life, but you can still see them:

Jindie Nails Just Elfing Around, direct sunlight

Jindie Nails Just Elfing Around, indirect light

Jindie Nails Just Elfing around, indirect light

Angle shot to show the red glitters a bit better

The choices she made regarding this blend bring the glitters together in a fun, but not overpowering, way. There is enough sparkle and magic due to the silvery holographic glitters to make it blingy, and enough color and texture to make it visually interesting. In these pictures I'm wearing a dabbed gradient over a red holographic that I made by putting Literary Lacquers Greatest Treasures over China Glaze Adventure Red-y, and I love how it looks with the holographic! You know me, I hate to put anything over my holos, but I think this really worked well together, and shows how versatile this glitter is. Without a doubt, it's my go-to Christmas color glitter for nail art and topping. I also did some Christmas skittle nail art with this polish; you can see that manicure by clicking here.

You can find Jen's polishes here in her Etsy shop, although she is on vacation until after Christmas. Also, her polishes will soon be sold through Mei Mei's Signatures, Ninja Polish, and Llarowe, so she's revamping her business a bit right now and I don't want to quote prices for you since they may vary. But she'll be back very soon, and her polishes are definitely worth taking a look at!

Thanks for stopping by today. :)

Xoxox,
M.

(The polishes in this review were purchased with my own money.)

Before & After: Christmas Skittle mani

Hello!

I love this mani soooo much...I think it may be my favorite of all the Christmas manis I've done. The only thing that annoys me is that I was so excited about the color, I forgot to clean up my cuticles on the swatch. So please forgive me for that!

Anyway, I started with a base of Zoya Elisa, a perfect Christmas shimmery red:

Zoya Elisa

Zoya Elisa...pay no attention to the messy cuticles, lol

I've fallen in love with skittle manis lately, thanks largely to Sammy Nailasaurus whose blog you can find here. Skittle manis are both simple but not simple...it seems simple to thrown on a different design on every nail, but getting a pleasing balance overall can be a challenge. But when it's done right, it's beautiful, so I decided to give it a try:

For the index nail, I used gold laser lace; this was my first time using it, and I learned a bit about what not to do, lol. On the middle finger, I put glequins down in a column, and put rhinestones on top of them; one of them showed up much lighter gold on camera than the others for some reason--argh. On my ring finger, I stamped the poinsettia design from LeaLaC plate LLC-B using China Glaze Passion, and on my pinkie I put a coat of Jindie Nails Just Elfing Around (I'll be reviewing this later in the week).

I loved this so much I actually did both of my hands with the same mani and wore it out to an event. Oh yeah, baby--that's true manicure love.

Thanks for taking a look!

Xoxox,
M.

NOTD: Jingtinglers

Hello!!

"And they'll shriek squeaks and squeals, racing 'round on their wheels.
They'll dance with jingtinglers tied onto their heels."

The highlight of my Christmas season has always been my yearly viewing of 'How The Grinch Stole Christmas!" and 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'.  As a child, I remember laughing and loving all of the silly names for the silly toys that the Whos played with during their celebration, and I wanted to capture the spirit of those toys here. I used a base of Jindie Nails The Grinch (Indie alert; I will be reviewing this later in the week), and then stamped over it using China Glaze Holly-Day and Bundle Monster plate 206. Don't these look like they could be jingtinglers?:

They'll dance with jingtinglers tied onto their heels!

They'll blow their floofloovers. They'll bang their tartookas.

They'll blow their whohoopers. They'll bang their gardookas!

Eventually I got my own copy of the show on DVD, and I love not having to watch it when the networks decide to air it--which was usually shortly after Thanksgiving when I was growing up. For me, the time that makes sense to watch The Grinch is Christmas Eve--to remind myself what is really important about Christmas as the celebration begins. 

Because Dr. Seuss wanted to remind us that we aren't celebrating things. We aren't celebrating those jingtinglers, or any of the other trappings. The jingtinglers are a way, a tool, that we use to show our joy and to celebrate what really matters. And as we all now, even after the The Grinch stole everything, Christmas still came: 


"He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming! It came!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And the Grinch, with his grinch feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling. "How could it be so?
It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages, boxes, or bags!"
He puzzled and puzzed till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."

Amid the shopping, the hustle & the bustle, and unfortunately the tragedy of this Christmas season, I leave you with that sentiment and this: hugs your loved ones close this Christmas, and shake those jingtinglers with the joy and gratitude of celebrating what's truly important in life. 

Xoxox,
M.

NOTD: Candy Canes

Hello!

Today is the second prompt in my Winter Holiday Challenge, and the prompt is Gingerbread Men and Candy Canes. I'm assuming (hoping) that this means we can choose one or the other, and I'm choosing candy canes.

I love what I did, but had the worst time ever getting a picture of it. I used a jelly-based glitter, and while it covered well, when I tried to take pictures of it, it went transparent and showed the underwear. If I adjusted the light down so that the polish was less transparent, the colors got dark and muddy. So I'm going to just show you the best I could do and hope the idea comes across, lol.

I started with a base of Sally Hansen White On and covered it with Jindie Nails Yule Love This (a special 'thank you' polish she made for people who ordered the week of Nov. 7th), a milky glitter with red, green, and gold circle glitters. Then I stamped stripes using Wet N Wild I Red A Good Book and LeaLaC plate LLC-A. I filled in some of the stripes with Glitzology Little Red Corvette, a red jelly with red glitter of all shapes. Here's what it ended up looking like--well, sort of:

This is the closest to what it looked like in person

Grr...so dark in order to get the look right...

Ah well, what can you do...

I'm bummed because I really love how this came out. Traditional candy-cane-ish, but with the multi-colored glitter poking out of the white and tons of red glitter in the red stripes. But I just couldn't capture it well. I hope that these pictures at least show you the idea, in case you want to do something like this yourself.

Anyway...thanks for checking it out, and please check out what the other participants did (almost certainly guaranteed to have better pictures than I do!).

Xoxox,
M.