Ever Polished Your Man?

Well I sure have! I give him a manly pedicure quite often, as I've blogged about before. This includes doing his cuticles, lotion, clipping, filing, and I tried to PedEgg his feet once and his callouses were like concrete. So that one didn't really happen lol.

I don't polish them, he won't even let me do clear. Though I did mention matte to him once so I might be able to get away with that when he comes home from deployment. He will totally need a pedicure then....eeeww!

I have managed to get away with painting his toenails once or twice.
I did this pedi on Labor Day last year the first time Jeremy met my parents. Not the first day, but the first week long visit since they live in Tennessee and we live in Virginia. So it wasn't their first impression haha, but close. I was on the kitchen floor painting my mum's toenails and he was standing close to me on the kitchen rug. Before he knew it I turned around and polished his big toe red! He danced around and squealed but I strategically said "Omg Jeremy careful if you move around so much you'll get nail polish on mum's rug and you'll lose all your brownie points!!" He shut up quick, stood there, and let me do it!!! Haha! So I went all the way and made his toe a little American flag to show our Labor Day patriotism lol! I was doing the stripes last with my Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen, so I quickly french tipped the other toes too. He wasn't too happy about that :P.
This one I did with my Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen while we were sitting on the couch. It's so light and gently he didn't even notice till I was done!

Have you ever snuck up on your man and polished him, or convinced him into letting you do it?

Easter Lily - Color Club Revealed

I just got acrylics for the very first time and I'm really self-conscious about them. They're awesome because now my nails don't break and they're super hard. My cuticle line is odd though and not perfectly smooth. I guess that's what I get for going to a student to get my nails done really cheap lol. When I take this mani off maybe I'll try buffing them more. It's kind of hard!

This was my Easter manicure with a pretty lily and tips from my new Bundle Monster plates. I tried and tried using the actual tip stamps, but I actually found using part of a full nail design worked better. Since I had done my base color the night before and it was super dry, I could just rub off the stamp that wasn't in the right place. Do that next time you stamp, it's so much easier and less stressfull when you mess up!

Color Club Revealed is a pinky coral creme with a hint of coral shimmer. Sadly the shimmer doesn't translate to the nail very well, but even without it the color is very pretty. This is two coats and it's fully opaque.

For this manicure I used Color Club Revealed for my base color. To paint the Lily I first used Stride Rite White to make the six petals. I let Color Club Get a Clue melt into the middle of each petal to add some light pink. Then I took a toothpick and added lines of Zoya Areej down the center of each petal. Areej was also used for the dots, and the tips on my other nails. Pure Ice Excuse Me made the center of the flower with China Glaze Peachy Keen for the stamens.

What did you do for Easter? I live 8-10 hours away from any family, I don't have kids, and my boyfriend is on deployment, so Easter was a little rough for me this year. My friend Amber invited me to come to family dinner with her, her super cute daughter Judy, and some another friend of ours. It was really nice :). My family is English, so for Easter I made a traditional English Easter Simnal cake. It's a fruit cake with marzipan in the middle, marzipan on top, 11 marzipan balls to symbolize the apostles (Judas was a baddy so he doesn't count lol), and a nest made from a chocolate flake bar with mini-eggs and little chickies in it :D. I love it! Isn't it cute?

Free Nail Stamping Plate from BornPretty

Got my stamping plate from BornPretty today - Hello Kitty!!

Won't this go super cute with my Hello Kitty filmos Kati sent me? I need to do a HK manicure huh!?! I like how it isn't all HK though, and it has some other cute things.

You can still get your HK plate for free by going here. It took about two weeks to ship and was free. Free shipping too, so all the way free not just almost lol. I made an order with BornPretty not too long ago for I think some half pearls and shaped rhinestones. I so don't even remember lol. What's great is that it's free shipping and low prices, so you can just order on a whim and only get one thing - no biggie! Did you know they have legit Konad stamping plates for $1.55?!?!? Seriously, I wouldn't believe me either. Go look. They're the really popular ones too, and a lot of these are on my wishlist! That's $1.55...free shipping....wowza! And if you use my link when you purchase, I will get some credit for it! I just now started this, so I'd like to see how well it does :D. Here is my link: http://www.bornprettystore.com/?ref=181.

AND when I got my HK plate there was a sticker on it with a coupon code for 5% off. I think you all could use it too!
The code says: BPS5 in case you can't read the picture :D.

Have you ever ordered anything from BP, would you, if you haven't why not?

I'm Back! Inspired by a New Package!

I suppose I took a hiatus recently, unplanned. I'm still not really sure. I have been busy lately and have had some final exams with more coming. Everyone needs a break sometimes? So I was walking out to garden, one of the things I've been staying busy with lately, and I saw a package on my front door step! But first, let's pause for gardening pics.

First you do the rows...Yes my markers are broken pieces of baseboard moulding lol. I'm resourceful.


Then you plant stuff - these are sugar snap peas.


Here are some onion seeds. I also planted carrots today. The rest is still indoors from when I planted them before the last frost. They're cute little seedlings now and I'll be planting them maybe in a week or two.


And here is where I am after this stage. I went ahead and marked where my tomatoes and peppers are going to make sure I leave room since I planted the onions, carrots, and peas kind of in the middle. In addition to these, there will be two types of tomatoes, three types of peppers, spineless zuchini, yellow squash....I think that's it. I have strawberries in a cute little hanging basket in the front :).

ANYWAY! I picked up the package and OMG ITS FROM KATI! That means nail polish and chocolate. Kati is one of my very best nail polish buddies, and Amber and I both have started swapping with her. My birthday is super soon too (May 4th) so it's like a swap and birthday in one!!

Loads of polishes, some nail stickers, 2 filmo canes (Hello Kitty and...a rabbit I think), a super cute kitty tin, and tons of num nums (orange chocolate pastilles, gummy bears, caramel filled waffle cookies, fruity tangy gummy that are awesome, coffee hard candies, and loads of mini Ritter bars in different varieties of chocolate.

The polishes included are Essence Nail Art Special Effect Topper Hello Holo, Essence Nail Art Special Effect Topper Mystic Mermaid, Essence Nail Art Magnetics Hex Hex!, Essence Nail Art Magnetics Magic Wand!, Essence Nail Art Magnetic Mystic Wish!, Essence Nail Art Magnetics Pixie Dust!, GOSH Holographic, Teez Nail Laquer Cool, Catrice Dirty Berry, Catrice Sold Out Forever, and Catrice I Wear My Sunglasses at Night.

I quickly swatched a couple on my nail practice plastic thing...whatever it is lol.

Catrice I Wear My Sunglasses at Night - Black jelly with green, hot pink, and purple flecky glitter

Catrice Sold Out Forever - Mint green creme with very slight bright green shimmer. Can you believe I didn't have a mint green before this one?

Catrice Dirty Berry - Purple with a hint of blue with silvery purple shimmer

Catrice Dirty Berry with Essence Nail Art Special Effect Topper Mystic Mermaid - This topcoat makes the polish a little more frosty, a bit lighter, gives it a small blue tinge, and adds silver and blue shimmer. Cool huh!?!

Catrice Diry Berry with Essence Nail Art Special Effect Topper Hello Holo - Clear polish with medium sized round holo glitter. It flashes all sorts of colors, hence the holo.

Now the real question is, which one do I wear first? I need a new pedicure, so that's where I'm starting. And I do love my nail art ladies, so give me some ideas using one or more of my new polishes!!! Post here, and I'll put a poll up as well.

My Stash Yo

I've been working on my stash post...finally right? I have started a list that you can see here and also at the "My Polish Stash" tab at the top of my blog.

I started with a caboodle to hold my polishes, moved to an awesome huge plastic container from Michael's that kept my stash portable.....Then I had an incident in my car where two of my brand new polishes broke and polish got on the seat of my brand new car. So that was the day I decided to make my stash stationary and just keep it in my house.

I bought a Melmer, put it together, painted it up nice, added nicer handles, and beautified it. It really is nice. I kind of want a Helmer now though because I have to keep my other things related to polish (removers, frankening supplies, Zoya color plates, etc) in a separate box because there really isn't enough room to put it all in and keep it organized nicely. I'm not super happy with that. Don't worry, a post with a review on the Melmer, the changes I made to it, and how I organize my stash is coming. Just thought I'd give my readers a heads up and let you see the list I started. I have 211 polishes total and I'm still working on the list to add all those.

Bundle Monster Contest: Half of My Heart is on Deployment

I entered the Bundle Monster nail art contest to win their new set of nail stamping plates. You can vote for anyone and everyone you like, once per day, from now until the 20th, by giving them a thumbs up on the contest page. Above is my entry photo, under Megan Rhoads so you can find me.

Please vote for me every day!

I'm super excited and really want to win, so click the link above to vote :). Remember you can vote for anyone you like each day, even if it's everyone.

On to the details of the manicure! I started by making a base that looks like Navy camo by sponging different colors together. Zoya Kelly was my first color, my palette to sponge on top of.

Then came Color Club Sheer Disguise. I have no idea why I keep coming back to this one. It must be awesome, because I don't even like blue much lol!

Next came China Glaze First Mate, the perfect navy blue.

Finally was Zoya Dove, a light gray creme.

After a topcoat of Seche Vite to make it dry quickly and even out the surface, it was perfect! It even brought out the colors and made it look instantly brighter. See how it looks kinda like the camo? That is the hat he wears to work. I have it hanging on his side of the bed on the bed post while he's gone.

After I had my camo base, I moved on to the stamping! I used Bundle Monster plates 2, 8, 9, and 12. Thank you to Miss Monkey for letting me borrow them to make sure I could enter the contest! I ordered my own recently, so now I have my own set too :D.

Here are my thumb stubs. I like both of them in ways. I think the left one would have been perfect if I had placed the kiss a little more up and to the right, so it overlapped the word less. And the hearts on the right one are super...not in the right place lol. The red wasn't showing up at all by itself on my semi-dark background, and I had to use red, so I tried doing it over white. As you can see above that worked well....most of the time.

For this manicure I used in order:
Orly Nailtrition (Used about 3 times now and liking it)
Zoya Kelly (dark gray)
A sponge paint brush thing that I found for super cheap. Just like at a hardware store.
Color Club Sheer Disguise (light blue)
China Glaze First Mate (navy blue)
Zoya Dove (light gray)
Seche Vite Quick Dry Topcoat
Bundle Monster plates 2, 8, 9, and 12
Konad Special Polish in White and Red
Diamond Cosmetics Silver Brocade (on chain and anchor)
Orly SecNDry

Voila!!

I Love Areej, She Loves Me

That's right, Barney is guilty of blackmailing Zoya into making a polish that matches him. Doesn't Areej look just like Barney lol? I can't decide if this make the polish better, worse, or doesn't matter. Pretty funny though! I wore it for just a couple minutes before I looked down at my hands and said....wait a minute! :D

Zoya Areej is a lovely magenta cream that leans ever so slightly more towards pink than purple. I expected her to be slightly more pinkish, but she's still so pretty. As usual with my Zoya pretties - application fabulous, opaque in two coats, muah! This is also the color I used on Ginny's nails when I stamped them the other day. Areej held up really well to my intense gardening, which is why her surface appears a little scuffed.

Jeremy sent a package to me recently, which included Hula Hoops. They're an awesome extra crunchy potato chip that fits on your finger. This is how you eat them :P. Areej modeled them nicely, no? :D

Nail Time With Ginny

I've been talking about Ginny with you guys a lot lately and she's been on my mind a lot lately too. If you haven't heard, here is some information about her. My major in college is Therapeutic Recreation - fun stuff that is specifically designed and chosen for each patient to be therapeutic and work on things they need help with. I work with Ginny every Saturday. I call myself her caretaker, and not her babysitter, because it's so much more than that. She is 12 years old and has multiple severe disabilities. She doesn't speak, and eats only soft foods mostly through her G-tube. She sure loves frozen yogurt though; tried that the other day ;). With all these awful disabilities that she has, Ginny still has so much potential for happiness in her life. She doesn't respond to me very often, or seem to enjoy doing much, but nail polish is something she really loves.

I just got my Bundle Monster plates and was excited to play with them. Ginny's mother doesn't like her nails to be polished so that she can inspect them for bruises since Ginny does not express pain. I had the fab idea to take them with me, along with Zoya Areej, and Orly SecNDry and stamp her nails! That way you can still see through it really easily, and she gets to have her nails all pretty too. I used BM16 on her left hand for a full nail design, but decided it was too messy since she wouldn't let me push back her cuticles or rub off the nail polish that got on her skin. I moved to butterflies from the BM4 plate for the right hand and that was just perfect!

Here she is holding them out for me while I dry them haha! How cute is that? She has some issues, but every time I see her I am so surprised and amazed at how much she does understand and care about. I'm just holding her hand up here, but I said I was going to dry her nails and started blowing, and she knew what to do!

I said "show me your pretty nails!" Here Megan lol! She's holding my hands here :). I really don't get much affection from her, so this is a big deal! I was strapping her into her wheel chair for a meal one time, so my face was already close to her head. I kissed her on the top of the head and she pushed me away lol. Moody pre-teens!

Here she is all polished and reading her new favorite book. There is a pony on the front and you can feel its hair :D. The cutest part of the whole thing was that she really liked the stamping. She seemed so distracted in between nails, but when I would be a moment from being ready to stamp her nail I'd say "here comes the butterfly" and she'd hold out her hand for me. She liked it!

I tried to make her sign for you guys, but she wasn't that interested, so I initiated by moving her hand closer to her face and I asked her to say "thank you". She blows a kiss :D! Ginny says thank you ladies for loving her pretty nails!!

See Ginny's other polish adventures: glitter toes, Christmas toes, and her final pedi you voted on!