Leopard Print Nails

This happened by happy accident!  I took off the Plaid Nails, and it took forever!  I was using non-acetone remover :(  By the time I got all that blue off my nails, it was LATE...but I had to put something on my nails....so I went looking through my Wet n Wild Fast Dry polishes for something "Fall-ish" and settled on The Gold and the Beautiful.  After 3 coats (or was it 4?) I called it a night and went to bed.  


And they stayed bare gold for two days!  *gasp*  I wasn't really enamored with the plain gold, but hadn't had time to do anything else....


Then last night, I turned pure gold into leopard!

This design is great because you don't have to be perfect!  Just like my Cow Spots, you don't have to make perfect dots for this!  I used a dotting tool and NYC Fifth Avenue for the brown spots.  Then used my smallest dotting tool to add "C" shapes and "( )" shapes to the spots with Wet n Wild Black Creme.  

More photos.....

Bear Claws

My friend "T" wanted me to do her nails before she went to watch her friend play basketball this weekend. Her friend plays for the Missouri State Bears who played the Kansas State Wildcats this weekend.  (btw, her friend didn't win)


Anyway.....I painted bear claws on her fingers with her friend's #14 on the thumbs.

Polishes used:  Wet n Wild Burgundy Frost, Wet n Wild Black Creme, Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris, Wet n Wild French White Creme.

Plaid Nails

The Polish-aholics Anonymous Monday Nail Art Challenge was plaid!  

This was my first attempt at plaid, and I'm pleasantly surprised.  

Here's the first pic...

I used Zoya Phoebe for the background here.  It's a gorgeous, pearly matte.  Blue polishes like this one have a reputation for staining...badly.  Plus, matte polishes have a tendency to chip easily.  So I started this mani with a single layer of Sally Hansen Double Duty Base and Top coat, wrapping the tips - which means putting polish on the flat outer edge of the nail.  This helps prevent chipping.  After that had dried really well, I added a single layer of Zoya Phoebe, wrapping the tips.  The matte polish dries really quickly and the first coat looked really streaky, but that's to be expected.  When Phoebe was dry, I added another base coat layer, again wrapping the tips.  Then two coats of Phoebe, wrapping the tips, to finish it all off.  Whew - that's 5 layers of polish!  Hopefully, that layering will help this polish last, since obviously, I can't put a no-chip top coat on top of the matte!


To make the burberry-esque pattern, I started with white Kiss Nail Art Paint, a striping polish, and hand-painted both a vertical and horizontal stripe.  I waited to that to dry because when I was testing out this idea on paper, I learned that without letting the polish dry, my next layer would cause some serous smearing.  The next layer was the black on the sides of the white.  When that was dry, I added the pink.  All three (white, black, and pink) are hand-painted with Kiss Nail Art.  To see more of exactly what these polishes look like, go here.


To clean-up around the side cuticles and the base of the nail, I used a small brush dipped in pure acetone.


Ready for more pix?

And as I was taking these photos, my darling five year-old decided to "add a little something" to my photos.....her fake spider....LOL!  And you know how I feel about spiders! (read this one)

Hope you enjoyed these!!

AAAaaaand...the WINNERS ARE....

AAAaaaand...the WINNERS ARE....


ANDREA (Entry #39)and LINDSEY (Entry #12)!


Andrea is a good friend of mine, and it's so fun that she won!!!
She won the Pure Ice Prize including Busted, All-Nighter, Gold Dust and Celestial

Lindsey is a Polish-aholic who blogs at http://neverlandnailblog.blogspot.com/
 I think my very favorites were her Whirly-Swirly and Breast Cancer Awareness Nails with matching lips!!  Go check them out.
Lindsey won the Hard Candy Prize including Beetle and Matte-ly in Love.

THANK YOU

to everyone who entered,
everyone who follows my blog
and everyone who 'likes' my Facebook page!

GIVEAWAY Update

The NoJunkNail Giveaway is closed as of 12:01am Central Time 11/14/2011.


Winners have been e-mailed!   As soon as I get a response....I'll be posting the winners!!


THANKS to everyone who entered and to all 83 of my followers and 54 who 'like' my Facebook page!  if you haven't 'liked' NoJunkNail, you can do that here.


THANKS AGAIN!!

Zoya Alyssa, er...Zoya Charla

Zoya should have named this polish "Alyssa" because Zoya's Charla is SO ME!  Any of you who actually know me in real-life know that THIS is my color!

I've been working really hard at being more "neat" as I polish my nails.  I'm trying really hard to have less on my fingers.  The hardest part has been not "flooding the cuticle."  In nail polish circles, it's best if you don't get polish all the way to the base of the nail, but instead leave just a little bit of a gap.  This is difficult!  But I'm getting MUCH better, as you can see below...


These were taking in all kinds of different light and I LOVE how SPARKLY it is!  Have I mentioned I LOVE THIS COLOR??

First, here are some of my favorite, non-conventional photos.   

and some photos with the Zoya Charla bottle

Indirect sunlight

 Direct sunlight

Different angles and different lighting make all the difference!

For those who are curious, here's a layer list:

1) Sally Hansen Double Duty base coat, wrapped tips

2) 3 thin coats of Zoya Charla, with wrapped tips on first and last

3) Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat, wrapped tips

Then I cleaned it up with a small brush in acetone where I got a little too close to the skin.

Have I mentioned I love this polish?  My new, all-time fave!  I love this Zoya, my very first, and I cannot wait to try out Ginessa, Pippa, and Phoebe!  You can see them in the bottles here.

Wet n Wild Craze and My First Zoyas!

Have you entered my GIVEAWAY yet?  You could win Hard Candy or Pure Ice polishes from NoJunkNail!  It ends at 12:01am on November 14th!  Click HERE to read more then enter HERE!


Earlier this week, a member of Polish-aholics Anonymous on Facebook alerted us that Dollar General had a bunch of Wet n Wild Craze collection in 6paks for $4!  So I ran to my local DG and SCORE! 12 bottles for $8 = $0.66 each!
ALSO, on that very same day, my first ZOYAS arrived!  I got 4!  On Halloween, Zoya ran a promo code that allowed you to get 2 free polishes and just pay shipping!  I used 2 different e-mail accounts and ordered a total of 4 polishes!  4 bottles for $14 of shipping cost = $3.50 each (each bottle is usually $8!)


 I am the QUEEN of cheap polish!  LOL!  (See my Walgreen's haul, too.)
Pictures??

All of the packs had multiples in them.  Here's what I ended up with:

(left to right)  Buffy the Violet Slayer(1), Grey's Anatomy(1), Nocturnal(2), 

Morbid(2), Shield(2), and Jade(4).  

Apparently, they had a bunch of Jade to get rid of.....

And then there were ZOYAS!!!

ZOYA polishes are great polishes and more expensive than I usually spend on polishes.  Zoya.com says Zoya Nail Polish has been awarded as the longest wearing natural nail polish by an independent panel in Women’s Health Magazine. Zoya Nail Polish is a nail polish free of toluene, formaldehyde, DBP (phthalates) and camphor and is vegan-friendly. Nail Polish by Zoya offers over 300 gorgeous nail polish colors to choose from, plus 4 seasonalcollections of nail polish every year. Zoya Nail Polish was specifically formulated to deliver the longest wear possible on natural nails. 

And here are MINE!

Charla, Pippa, Ginessa, and Phoebe

 Here's my November acquisitions...so far....

I also won a blog giveaway from The Crumpet in the UK, so TWELVE more polishes are int mail headed my way right now including two UK only polishes!

Check out her cheeky blog here.

Coming next:  Zoya Alyssa...I mean, Zoya Charla!

Royal Flush

Go see how I painted these (and how long it took) here....


Polish-aholics Anonymous on Facebook has a challenge every Monday.  This week, it was "Hearts".  I didn't want to do anything that looked Valentiney, so I went with these.....

And these...'cuz Spades are really just upside-down hearts, right?

P.S.  Have you entered my GIVEAWAY yet?

It's About TIME!

Without a doubt, the #1 question people ask after seeing my nails is:
"How long did it take to do those??"


So for this blog post, I set out to take pictures with my watch as I went through making this design - Royal Flush Poker Nails.  Here's a peek at the finished design:

*click HERE to go see a BUNCH of pictures of these*

Alrighty - here we go...

 8:45 pm - I sketched out my design on paper before I began.  I don't always do this, but since I wasn't sure at first where this was going, I started with pencil and paper.  I sketched out several designs before deciding on the Royal Flush.

    8:50 pm - Foil Method.  I put acetone on half a cotton ball on top of each nail, then wrapped in foil.  This makes removing polish a breeze!  I leave the foil on for about 5 minutes, then gently twist each foil covering and pull to remove polish.  Then I touch-up any corners or sides where polish is tricky to remove.

    9:00 pm - Clean Nails!!

    9:05 pm - (sorry, no clock)  I use an old toothbrush to clean out extra 'gunk' hiding under my nails and get them nice and clean before putting on new polish.

    9:15 pm - Base coat.  I use Sally Hansen Double Duty.  After the base coat, I let it dry really well before adding polish.

    9:25 pm - First coat of Wet n Wild Shine French Creme.  And then drying time...

    9:30 pm - Second coat of French Creme...then lots of drying time....

    9:50 pm - Black card outline with Kiss Nail Art Paint in black and a few spots with white to cover up my "oops".  I think this was the hardest part of the whole thing!  I'm still getting used to the way striping brushes work, so making the slightly rounded edges of the cards was a bit of a trick.

    10:00 pm - Just finished painting on the Hearts on my left hand (using my dominant right hand) using Pure Ice Crimson and toothpicks

    10:10 pm - Just finished painting the Spades on my right hand (using my non-dominant left hand) using Wet n Wild Black Creme and toothpicks

    10:20 pm - Finished painting green outside the cards with Wet n Wild Fast Dry Sage in the City and a small brush on both hands

    10:30 pm - Finished putting a second coat of Sage in the City on both hands.  Then I used a cotton ball dipped in acetone to clean-up around the edges.  Let it dry for quite a while, then added a topcoat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

    11:00 pm - DONE!

So......"How long did it take you to do that?"  Just over 2 hours!!  But most of the "time" is spent just waiting for things to dry!

Wanna see more pictures of this one???  GO HERE NEXT!