Happy 2011!

My New Year's Eve manicure! I HAD to use my new OPI. Today is the last day I can use as much of it as I want withouth my nails looking overdone. And today absolutely needs glitters! So I added it to every nail with a dotting tool, unfortunately this picture doesn't show that properly.

A little explanation:
Thumb: pink and golden fireworks, made with a pink striper and a small dotting tool (I don't have a golden striper).
Index: made with a striper, no further explanation needed I guess.
Middle: these are oliebollen, Dutch food we traditionally eat at New Year's Eve. With icing sugar! I used a dotting tool for the oliebollen and a sponge for the white sugar.
Ring: champagne! I used Essence's great nail art pen for the glasses.
Pinky: it's almost twelve o'clock! (Well, some kindly mentioned that it's more like eleven o'clock...) Again, Essence's nail art pen helped me out.

Happy New Year! Read Full...

Holly Jolly Roger Nails

I was so excited about this idea that I didn't really bother to plan it out. I should have made the holly berries a little smaller and put them more to one side so you can see the leaves better. But I still like it!

Thanks for reading!
April Read Full...

Color Club Positively Posh & A Christmas Manicure

This is 2 coats of Positively Posh, a dusty medium creme that I feel indifferent towards. The formula is a bit runny so there was quite a lot of clean up. I have other browns that I much prefer so this one is going to my "to be frankened" bin.
Next I tried some nail art that really isn't my style but I like to try things a little outside of my comfort zone from time to time. I think I would have preferred a more intense green. I used Color Club Feel the Beat & Maybelline Khaki Fringe.


Thanks for reading!
April Read Full...

First christmas nails

It's nearly christmas, so it's about time for some christmas nails on this blog! These nails are one of the first nail art designs I ever made, possibly even the very first! I made them for christmas a couple of years ago. I used a white striper and a silver/glitter one. It's not perfect, but I find that kinda charming for this design. I still like it! Read Full...

China Glaze OMG & Christmas Nails

This is 3 coats of the much loved China Glaze OMG. I featured OMG in one of my very first posts, but I think it's worth showing again. My nails are so much nicer now! The first 2 pictures were taken in full sun, next I took one in the shade and then 2 indoors with a flash.
OMG dries super fast and you can have a bit of drag before you get used to the formula. Once you get the hang of it though, it is very easy to apply and a great option if you need to get out of the house quickly. It's still in my top 5 favorites for sure!



Do any of you know where I can find a list of the China Glaze polishes and the numbers that are listed on the bottom near the name? There is a beauty supply store in town that has TONS of old China Glaze polishes but they are still in their boxes and shelved by number. The owner doesn't want people to browse but expects you to know what you want and ask her for it. If I had a list of the names and numbers, I could easily see what she had without waiting for her to look up the numbers and without having to know exactly what I want before I arrive. I know she has the whole OMG & the Kaleidoscope collections. Help me out and I'll see if I can find some rarities for future giveaways!

Here is my second attempt at a Christmas Tree manicure inspired by Blue Tape and Nail Tips Shooting Star manicure. I don't like how this one turned out very much but I still say it's a great idea even though I messed it up twice! Prove me right ladies and make some Christmas Trees!


Thanks for reading!

Don't forget to enter my LaVaque & Color Club giveaway! Read Full...

NYC Molten Metal & Christmas Nail Art

NYC Molten Metal was one of my first lemmings and it doesn't disappoint! It has an amazing formula, shown here at 3 coats. It seemed a bit sheer at first but the foil particles are super dense. It's a silver & taupe foil. Lovely! And I found it for .50 cents at the Dollar Tree. Woohoo!

Below we have a Christmas manicure inspired by the amazing nail blog Blue Tape and Nail Tips. She did a gorgeous Shooting Star manicure earlier this year that immediately made me think of adapting it into a Christmas tree. My first try didn't quite live up to my imagination but it's still a great idea. You ladies should give it a try! Their are so many variations possible. Thanks again to Blue Tape and Nail Tips for the inspiration!

I used my much loved Zoya Edyta for the tree. It's the perfect color! That's my Wally in the picture below.

Thanks for reading!

Don't forget to enter my LaVaque & Color Club giveaway! Read Full...

Sinterklaas

The very first post on this brand new blog is about Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas is a traditional Winter holiday figure in the Netherlands (and in a very few other countries), celebrated annually on the 5th of December. (Thank you Wikipedia.) He's some kind of Santa Claus: they both wear red, have a white beard and come along in December to give presents to children. Actually, Santa Claus is derived from Sinterklaas! Dutch people brought the celebration to other parts of the world and started to pronounce it in an English way. Anyway, I'm going to celebrate it this weekend with my family so I painted Sinterklaas' head on my nails!

For the beard I used a sponge, a nail art pen for the eyes and mouth and a striper for the little yellow cross. But if you just omit the crosses and perhaps add a little white... it's Santa!

For my fellow Dutch nail art fans who're not that experienced yet, here's a picture of my nails last year (it's only Sinterklaas' hat). This is something anyone can do!

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Dia De Los Muertos-Day Of The Dead-Halloween

I love Halloween and this was my look for this year. It worked out great and I was able to use it again when I went to the beautiful Dia de los Muertos festival held in downtown Tulsa every year. The first 2 pictures are close ups of the makeup from Halloween. I went all out even though I don't normally wear much makeup. The headpiece was easy once I had the bright idea of attaching some styrofoam to a cheap headband with a hot glue gun. Then I was able to arrange the flowers by poking them into the styrofoam.

The next pictures were taken after the Dia de los Muertos festival. I didn't have as much time for the makeup but you can see the whole outfit. I'm wearing the nameless gray polish from the Strange Beautiful-Anthropologie collaboration. I love it and wore it for 5 whole days!



Today is the last day for readers from the U.S. & Canada to enter my CSN giveaway! And international readers can still enter my Apothica giveaway!

Thanks for reading!
April Read Full...

Ashley's Amazing Halloween Costume. MAC Lichtenstein-Comic Book-Pop-Art Look

We love comic books and when we saw this MAC Halloween look last year we were smitten and vowed to try it this year. I didn't get pictures when she was toatlly finished but at this stage you can tell how awesome it is!


Thanks for reading!
April Read Full...

How To Host A Successful Pumpkin Carving Party!

No nails in this post, just lots of pumpkins! This year was the 4th Annual Powertools & Pumpkins Party at my house and it was the most successful one so far. We had over 30 attendees and someone even carved a 50 lb pumpkin (pictured above)! I've seen those at the store but I didn't know anyone actually bought them let alone carved them.
It's so fun to let everybody loose with the saws and the drills and the dremels and just see what happens. A few tips if you want to host one next year.

• Carving outside is ideal but not always possible due to weather. We just rolled up the rugs & threw down some tarps in the living room. It helps to gather stools, sturdy boxes, milk crates and other things for people to rest their pumpkins on while carving.
• I highly recommend the Pumpkin Masters Carving kits with the different sized saws. They can make pumpkin carving much more fun and less frustrating.
• Break out your dremels, drills, hole saws and more! Dremels can be used for shaving details, drills for fancy patterned pumpkins and hole saws make perfect circles in just a few seconds.
• Have a printer handy in case anyone wants to print out a template or a picture to reference while carving.
  
• Don't forget to have lots of candles on hand!
• Start a few hours before sunset and plan on having people stay after dark so they can see their pumpkins on lit up.
• This means folks might be staying through dinner time. My amazing sister Alisa came up with and prepared this year's food and it was a huge hit! She's very clever and made lots of things that could be snacked on throughout the night but were hearty enough to be filling. We had a big crock pot of chili with all of the fixings for Frito chili pies, another big crock pot of Ro-Tel, lots of humus and pita bread, and a cheeseball with red pepper jelly.
• I really like to have punch at parties and I am in love with the one we tried this year. It's called Milk Punch and it's a great holiday alternative to eggnog. Unbelievably delicious! The recipe below makes a gallon of punch. This version was supposed to be served frozen but we started too late. It was still super tasty. Fresh nutmeg is vital!

Emeril's Frozen Milk Punch

Recipe adapted from Louisiana Real and Rustic Cookbook, by Emeril Lagasse, with Marcelle Bienvenu, published by William Morrow, 1996.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups brandy
• 1 1/4 cups bourbon
• 1 1/4 cups dark rum
• 3 quarts half-and-half
• 4 tablespoons pure Mexican vanilla
• 3/4 to 1 cup simple syrup, (equal parts sugar and water, simmered until sugar dissolves and cooled)
• Freshly grated nutmeg

Directions

In a plastic gallon container, with a lid, combine the brandy, bourbon, rum, half-and-half, and vanilla. Mix well. Sweeten the cream mixture to taste with the simple syrup. Cover and freeze until slightly frozen. To serve, using an ice pick, slush the mixture. Spoon into balloon wine glasses and garnish.


And now lots of pumpkin pictures!!

Thanks for reading!
April

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Halloween Nails

I wouldn't quite call this manicure a fail, but it just didn't look as cool in real life as it did in my head. I think that happens to all of us sometimes. I used my awesome new Sation Holiday Spirit as base and then freehanded the night sky with Maybelline Matte Sapphire. I drew the bats with an Art Club Nail Art black polish. The second picture was taken in the shade.


Hope everyone is having a fabulous Halloween weekend! Or just a great weekend in general if you aren't in a part of the world that celebrates Halloween.

Don't forget to enter my current giveaways.

• $65 CSN Stores Giveaway! Ends 11/4.
• $25 Apothica Gift Card Giveaway! Ends 11/10

Read Full...

Dexter, Blood Spatter, Halloween Nails

I finally got around to it! I've been thinking of doing this since I first did some splatter nails way back in March for this post. I think think this is my favorite, foolproof Halloween nail look. It's almost impossible to screw up; anybody who doesn't mind a little mess can easily pull this off!

I had Will fling the polish again but there have been some amazing techniques figured out by my fellow polish bloggers. Please be sure to take a look at all of these gorgeous blood splatter nails too!

• First we have Polish-Aholic's straw technique! Great idea!
• Next we have Nevertoomuchglitter's gorgeous version. She used a flesh colored base and a fan brush with amazing results!
• And last, but certainly not least, we have iPolished's floss pick technique! Simply brilliant!

Remember these techniques can all produce beautiful manicures with other colors too.

Thanks for reading!
April Read Full...

More St. Patrick's Day Fun

I didn't go all out like Ashley did! Amazing! She stayed up all night doing her nails and then went to work. I don't even understand how she did her thumb with the Irish flag with the shamrock in the middle!
Anyway, I had lots of ideas, but couldn't get any of them to work, so in the end I just went with American Apparel Cotton and stamped the argyle image from Konad plate M60 in Konad Green Special Polish. There nowhere close to perfect, but I like them!

I decided to see if any of my facebook friends did their nails today, and my friend Monika sent me this fun picture! She said, "My nails match my salad!". She's wearing OPI Greenwich Village.

Thanks for reading and thanks to Monika for sending me your green nails!
April Read Full...

Treat St. Patrick's Day Like a Real Holiday!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody!!!


This is one of my favorite commercials. It's from 2004. The soccer channel I used to watch soccer on played it constantly and it still makes me happy every time I see it.
Holidays always seem to creep up on me. I wanted to watch some movies and check out some books from the library about Ireland but I never got around to it. There's just always so much going on.
I have the movie Quiet Man that I want to try and watch this weekend. I've never seen it before. It's one of my dads favorites. And of course there's always Darby O'Gill and the Little People. It has a young Sean Connery singing this! It always get stuck in my head (like right now).
I did change my computer background, and strung up these shamrock lights I got from Target a couple of years ago.

What are you guys doing to celebrate St. Patrick's Day?

And now on to the nails.

I did this manicure with OPI Hey Get In Lime! as a base and Tic Tac Green for the art.

On the thumb I did a french manicure with OPI Greenwich Village, but decided I didn't like it enough to do it on all my nails.

This next one took too long to do so I only did it on my thumb. I think it's really cute. It would have taken me 2 or 3 hours to finish though! I got the idea from here.

I used OPI Alpine Snow as a base. For the outline of the Shamrock I used a dotting tool and Orly Enchanted forest. To finish off the flag I used OPI Atomic Orange and OPI Jade is the New Black (one of my new favorite colors!).

The one i'm actually wearing today is much simpler than both of these. Which is more my style.
I'm wearing OPI Jade is the New Black, and on a couple of my fingers I did the Irish flag with the same colors as above.

On my other hand I put the Irish flag on my thumb.

Don't forget to have a Guinness (or several) and wear green!
Thanks for reading.
-Ashley Read Full...