Christmas Haul

Hi everybody,

This is just a big picture post of all the goodies I locked down by doing fun manicures for family and friends. I'm really excited to show it all off, but really this is just filler while I go about collecting photos from all my friends of their funky nail-dos so I can do a guest mani post. Sorry it's winding up being about a week between posts here. I think that's going to be the norm until April, as I am working on a tapestry submission for an upcoming touring exhibition.

Also I promise PROMISE I am working away at my first giveaway. I'm pretty excited about it. I put my little stash together and I've decided I want to add a few more polishes to the mix, so that will probably take until after my next payday. But it's in the works!

Okay here are the pics :P

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in: Lightening, Brisk Blue, Lickety-Split Lime, Whirlwind White

I found out that the white, and the yellow will work for stamping. the yellow one, of course only really works on some colors, but I look forward to trying out the blue and green as well. Hey, I can do some fun manicures on light backgrounds. :D You can see I've used quite a bit of the yellow and white already. :) I actually picked up another bottle of white and I have a slightly different yellow which hasn't got a name just the number 04.


Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in: Gray By Gray, Thinking of Blue, Wet Clay, and Commander in Chic. Drool. The Thinking of Blue I've actually used as a one coater under full nail stamps. I love one coaters. Also the bruses are really wide, and I found they worked for me, especially when painting other people's nails.

SH Xtreme Wear in: Black Out, Sun Kissed, Lime Lights, Emerald City, Blue It, White On, and three frankens using 3 bottles of White On and a few drops of more saturated colors. Sorry I can't remember which ones!

Left to Right: Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Diamonds and Brilliant Blush, Joe Moss, L'Oreal Luminescence and Party Hop, Revlon No Shrinking Violet, Minted, Totally Toffee.


Sally Hansen HD Hi-Def, Digital, and Resolution, Red Girl-dollar store finds by the hubby-Star (holo hearts and circles) and Illusions (holo bar glitters), Cover Girl Disco Dazzle, and Pink Twinkle.


OPI Top Coat and Drip Dry, China Glaze Cheers to You and Midnight Kiss.


My first OPI! Green-wich Village, Ski Teal We Drop, Pamplona Purple, Malaga Wine, Off With Her Red and My Private Jet (Fweeee! SOOO spoiled)


Gosh is my new best friend right now. All four of these stamp and stamp well. Left to right: Nero, Metallic Purple, Metallic Green, Metallic Blue. I went out and picked up a second bottle of Nero already because stamping black is a staple for me.

And the IsaDora!

Graffiti Nail Top in Subway Green--Which is this most amazing dark teal YUM. and Plain White for the base color.

OHHHH Boy that was a lot of spam. Sorry for the lame color quality!

Cheers and have a great week!
JQ

Dollarama/Michaels Haul and a Mani of Course! (PICS!)

I got everything in the below except the dotting tool and the polymer clay at one of the local Dollaramas. A buck a piece! Pretty good deal. :) (all prices are CAD):


The dotting tool was a $2.50 purchase at Michaels. Oh Michaels! How I wish I was full of dough so I could buy more of the WAY COOL stuff in your scrapbook/card making section and use it all for my nails. :P The stickers are fairly small and sticky, so I'm hopeful that they will work, especially the ones that don't have a lot of fine pointy bits. Oh well for a dollar each these two sheets were worth it just to try.


The polymer was the cheaper variety from Michaels as well. I am very curious about these Fimo logs and since I love a crafty project I want to start making my own unique ones. If I can generate enough interest I might even sell some (OR have a giveaway of my very own?), although Bundle Monster has a pretty sweet deal on them. :D


And these groovy little sticky rhinestone sets are probably meant for scrapbooking or something, but I think I could use them on my nails. They provide a bit of variation in size so I can combine them with the stones in the wheels I bought. They are on sale at Michaels for I think $1.50 but I was glad I passed them up, because I found them for 1$ a piece at Dollarama, and there were like a bazillion colours, plus several colours of pearls which you can see to the right. I only got two neutral ones. I made a real mess going through the rack! :P But I'm a tidy gal. I cleaned it all up.


last but not least I got a few more wheels for a dollar each. I can't tell ya how much I am in love with that store right now! OOOh RETAIL THERAPY !


Phew!

FINALLY time for the mani.

I was inspired by Blue Tape and Nail Tips' ND6: Shooting Star (I just found her blog recently and I like it there!) so this was my mani project from a few days ago:


I used two coats of an olive green franken that has a wee bit of gold shimmer in it for the base. I didn't use tape as I wanted my shooting star tails to curve around my tips. It was a good excuse to break out the Art Deco and play. :)

I outlined where I wanted the tail of the shooting star to curve in the Art Deco fuchsia sparkle, then filled it in using my Sally Hansen X-Treme Wear Strobe Light. I finished it off with an iridescent star sticker (from above haul. Worked quite well, although I had a bit of trouble getting all the little tippie-bits to stick down) and a couple coats of Seche Vite.



Thanks Blue Tape & nail Tips for a lovely inspiration. Her Shooting stars are pretty full of awesome so you should definitely check them out!

Okay Okay I'm signing off! I'll be posting today's mani plus a pic of my first polymer clay project-- citrus fimo logs--either tonight or tomorrow morning!

Thank you all so much for popping by! I scrolled down and realized that I have 29 followers already! WOW! Thanks for all the support. <3 <3

Hugs,
JQ!

I'm all organized. It feels Groovy.

I got a fantastic tool box for 10 bucks today, and I couldn't wait to get it home and round up all my polish. It fits all my other nail things as well, except my remover, which is too tall. You can see my Konad, rhinestones, pedicure kit, nail pen, toothpicks, cotton wipes etc here:


And of course all the polishes underneath. BTW my crying fit a few days back? Sheepish!!! because once I got all my polishes in the same place I realized I have been over dramatic. I still have PLENTY of polishes, though I really need to get my hands on a bottle of thinner.


This is a nifty pedicure set I got today for 6 dollars. Tried out the clippers and they seem sharp.

The new polishes I procured yesterday. Bit blurry but the colours are pretty accurate. The Ardene nail polishes are all neon and don't have names. The Wet n Wilds are from front to back: Blue Moon (navy), Sunny Side (orange), and Night Prowl (a sort of fuschia sparkle in a black base).


These are my nubbies. Glaze Craze was just lamenting her shorty nails the day before I went to the park with my boy and totally tore both my pointer nails! Arg! But on the plus side I get to try growing them out again with a more squared shape instead of the ovals I had before. Anyway there are tons of cute things to do with shorties. :)

Here is my first nubby mani:


I used 2 coats of the Wet n Wild Sunny Side for the base, and tipped it with the Blue Moon. Then drew a line with my brush up one side of each nail just left (or right on my right hand) of center. Where it joins the tip I placed an orange rhinestone.

Closer...sorry I am still having issues with my camera.


And one more for good measure :P



That's it for that but I'd like to post a link to yet two more giveaways while I am at it. I will try to set up a separate page for these entries next month. Please go see Oh My Polish and sign up! Her blog is full of fun nail ideas!
And check out Magic Maid's superfantastic polish giveaway too!

Last but certainly not least Polish Hoarder Disorder has posted the latest Challenge Gallery for last week's challenge: Just the Tips!

Cheers everyone!
<3 JQ