Country Hoedown!

 I just finished my 15 week 560 hour internship, wahoo! Now as soon as I graduate in two weeks, I'll actually have a life again! And my birthday is in two days! One of the things I did at my internship was plan and host a family event. The theme was Barnyard Hoedown and these are the nails I wore!

I didn't think about it till bed time the night before, so I did this super quick! Cow print on most of the nails, with an animal accent nail, and a gingham thumb nail. This one is a baby chick with Sally Hansen Yellow Kitty and NailArt orange :D.

Here is the piggy with OPI Sparrow Me the Drama and Sinful Colors Feeling Great.

Oink oink! I used Nubar Diamont as a top coat for the first time and definitely should have let my black dry longer, as it smeared. Good thing cow spots aren't perfect.

Chirp chirp! The white was one coat of Milani White, which is super sheer sadly. So I topped it with one coat of an unnamed off white shimmer from WetNWild, their Rock Solid line.


Here is a close up of the gingham nail. It actually wasn't too hard! I couldn't find a stamp for anything so I just free handed it.

One of the activities I planned was decorating cupcakes like farm animals. Here is a chicken cupcake! :D

The photo booth was a big hit and was super fun. We had all sorts of props including the pitch fork I made. The kids actually painted the cow!

Grab your partner and do-si-do!

Guest Post: Mmm Cupcakes!

Hello lovelies of Painting Rainbows, I'm Danielle from With A Sparkle . As Megan is away I thought I would bring you some cupcake nail art! I started with Sally Hansen 

Maximum Growth in Real Royal. In the bottle this polish reminded me of 

chocolate which then made me think of cupcakes!

Real Royal is a dark polish with a brown/orange shimmer. You can see it 
better in the sunlight.

I stamped the cupcakes using Bundle Monster plate BM014 from the 

original series. My favorite polish to stamp with is the LA Colors Art 
Decos that can be found at Dollar Tree. They come in lots of 
different colors and are only a dollar. They have a thin brush and are 
good for nail art too. For the cupcake I decided on vanilla (using the 
white polish) with strawberry frosting (using the baby pink polish).

 

I'm still rather new to stamping, so please excuse the smudged one. I 
also always do my stamping so the design is facing myself. If you'd like 
to check out my nail art, please stop by my blog! I hope you try out 
some cupcakes on your nails, they are making me rather hungry!

----------------------------

I really want cupcakes now lol ~Megan 

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?

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Review

I finally got around to trying Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Laced Up! I bought them for $6.50 ($8.50 at Wal-mart with a $2 off coupon). I waited so long because they're supposed to last a whole 10 days, and I didn't know if I could handle not polishing all that time haha.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects are strips of real nail polish that have a sticky side that goes on your nail. They come in loads of colors too. The steps on the box say "Peel, Apply, Shape." They also "Last Up to 10 Days" and have no dry time.

Sounds easy right? There were loads of good reviews too (All Laquered Up, Valentine Kisses, The Polishaholic, etc) so I decided I'd try them. Well I freaking hated them. Like super fail. So let's start with the cons lol.

Cons:

• Took forever to apply - like 2 hours.........
• Didn't want to stick to my nails, not very sticky. I had to use remover to sort of melt it a bit to make the part near the free edge stick.
• Easy to tear when you're removing the excess
• Annoying that there are 16 strips instead of 20 so you could get 2 uses instead of 1
• Strips are really not that big so I don't think they'd fit wider or longer nails.
• Didn't last any longer than a regular manicure - chipped after 2 days, awful after 3
  Yes I used a top coat.
• Not a good price $8.50-$9.99
• Says no dry time but pretty much everyone would apply a top coat to make it last longer anyway...meaning yes dry time.

Pros:

• Freaking awesome patterns and selections available
• Easy to find - Drugstores, Walmart, Target, Ulta, online, etc
• Looked great on, 99% like regular polish
• You can use the extra strips as accent nails. Sometimes you can use one strip for two nails if you have shorter nails.

So now for some pictures of the Sally Hansen Salon Defects.

They're so easy to tear. I managed to kind of smoosh it back on, but it still looked bad.

These chips were with a top coat, normal stuff, after 2 days.

Bottom line: FAIL
Would I buy again? If they were $2.

OPI Heart Throb

OPI Heart Throb is a sweet bubblegum pink sheer. I got this thinking it would be opaque. That's what I get for trusting the bottle lol. It's still super cute though. This is after white tips and 3 coats...or maybe 2 lol...I can't remember.

The tips were done by hand with a Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen. I like these pens when it comes to nail art that is in small parts. But I find that when I do bigger things, like french tips, the "formula" dries weird and cracks.

 

You can see that effect in the above picture a little more. I think this has something to do with the fact that the Sally Hansen Nail Art Pens are a "quick drying formula" and not actually nail polish. I have never noticed this problem when doing normal nail art like dots, little flowers, etc. 

I took this picture from farther away to demonstrate what it looks like from a normal distance. I really don't think the odd cracking tips are noticeable to everyone else, just to me since I closely analyze my nails lol.

Anyone know of a pretty pink creme that is totally opaque?