Saran Wrap Marble

I just went to the dentist and I totally can't feel half of my face.

Luckily I only have to type this and not try to speak it while drooling all over myself. I have an earth-toned experiment with saran wrap to show you guys! I've been meaning to try this one for a while now and I am so glad I did, this is so super easy and nowhere near the mess of a splatter mani. Take a look at mah pretty marbles! (Ignore my dry hands, I was doing dishes when I was like "Oh crap go take pics before I ruin it!")

Polishes used:

• Sally Hansen Salon Manicure base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• Revlon Bare Bones
• Sinful Colors This Is It
• Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet

I am in love with how this came out! From far away it looks mostly minty then close up and it's all like BAM, LOOK AT ME I'M A PIECE OF AWESOME MARBLE! It reminds me of some of the most beautiful pieces of jasper stone that I saw at a bead show one time. I loves me some jasper stones. The clean up on this was a non-issue, I had less issue with it than a normal sponge gradient clean up. For those not familiar with the saran wrap technique, take a small piece of saran wrap and scrunch it up into a ball. Dip the ball into your color of choice and dab away! If I found that I used more than I would have liked I just dabbed at it with an un-dipped portion of my saran wrap and it made it nice and marbled again. This is sooooo super easy and I have no idea why I was ever afraid of it. There is really no wrong way to do it and I love methods like that because it makes my inner perfectionist go sit in the corner while the rest of me can just relax and have fun. I already know I will be doing this again with neons soon, I am super curious how less muted colors will look.

I hope you all are having a great week so far, I'm gonna go poke the numb side of my face until it stops making me laugh. It's gonna be a while.

Memorial Day Sandwich

Happy Memorial Day to you all! For today's mani I have my first (somewhat successful) jelly sandwich to show you. I have tried a few times to do this technique but for some reason I just couldn't get it to look anything like all the pictures I see. This time I think I figured out the right thickness for the top layer so it isn't all streaky and weird looking. Since it's Memorial Day I went the patriotic route with colors and as a happy accident the silver in the glitter I used went kind of pinkish red under the coat of jelly polish. Take a look!

Here's a few of the sammich before I stamped on it.

Polishes used:

• Sally Hansen Salon Manicure base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• Essie Marshmallow
• Pure Ice Blue Glitter (I don't know it's real name, the sticker fell off >.<)
• NYC Starry Silver Glitter
• Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby 
• Salon Express stamping plate SE22

At first I wasn't sure how I felt about this but after wearing it for the weekend I'm pretty happy with it. I got a lot of wear and tear out of this mani plus I was glad to have a use for the mostly lame stamp plates that came with my stamper. Hope you all had a great holiday weekend, sorry for the short post but I'm still enjoying mine ^_^

Oh Frak, I'm a Cylon!

Friday on a holiday weekend, awwww yeah!

I have been on a super Battlestar Galactica kick lately. I can remember watching the original series as a kid (no I'm not that old, it was reruns thank you very much) and recently I was like oh snap the new one is on Netflix, score! Then I was horrified to learn my husband had never seen any (oh the nerd shame) so a marathon was in order. Since I now have him thoroughly hooked on it, he suggested Battlestar nails. How could I resist that, really? Be warned, a Cylon took over my camera to make these pics extra crappy. I had a  bad camera day, but for reals some lights flashed that don't usually so it was totally Cylon interference.

Polishes used:

• Sally Hansen Salon Manicure base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• Sally Hansen Black Heart
• Sally Hansen Pedal to the Metal
• Essie Blanc
• Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby

This was so frakkin' hard to photograph. (I will never get tired of Battlestar jokes, you have been warned.) The last pic is crap but it shows the nice metallic look it had, all nice and bright like an evil toaster. This was my first attempt at a splatter mani. I think the thumb came out the best and I definitely will be doing this again at some point. It was so messy and FUN! I may tape my fingers for next time to save myself clean up work and I have learned that dark colors can be a pain but still totally worth it. For those interested in the process, I followed this tutorial at The PolishAholic. I did add a small cardboard box to the process because I know myself and when I make a mess I don't exactly hold back. The box got turned on it's side on the table and I put the target hand inside it, that way when I blew through the straw the mess was contained. I felt so smart lol. 

I hope you all have a great day and for those of you in the US a nice start to the Memorial Day weekend! Thanks for reading!

More Awards?!

You guys are killing me... with kindness! I can now add two more awards to my award page thanks to the super awesome Brianna and Maisky! ^_^ It seriously blows my mind that not only do people look at my nail habit photos but also actually read what I have to say. So a huge thank you to these lovely fellow bloggers and also to all of my readers. I would still be painting my nails and taking pics cause I'm just weird like that but it's very nice to know that there are so many sweet people who take the time to look and comment. I really appreciate all of your feedback and for those of you with your own blogs I love to see all the great things you come up with as well!

So thank you all for enjoying Nailpocalypse, now 100% trans-fat free! Wait.. I mean no more comment verification code (which in my defense I had no idea was even turned on, thanks Sue :P).

Stamping Fun With Sally Hansen Pens

Hi guys! Today's post is entirely the fault of Kat from Hooked On Polish. She commanded that I use my Sally Hansen pen for stamping and so that is what I did. I'm such a good listener ^_^

I've had my Sally Hansen Color Quick pen for quite a while. I bought it last year, used it once, and promptly shoved it in a drawer when it leaked on one of my favorite shirts and stained it. Granted, I probably shouldn't have been trying to paint my nails in the car (no I wasn't the one driving) but still, that was my shirt yo. MY SHIRT! Sadly I loved the color I got, I just wasn't skilled enough to handle the pen delivery system apparently. Thus it sat unloved in my bathroom until last week when I saw Kat use one for stamping. Check it out!

Indoor light.

Natural light.

Blurry but more color accurate of natural light.

Bonus attempt at a super macro shot.

Polishes used:

• Sally Hansen Salon Manicure base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• China Glaze Flying Dragon
• Sally Hansen Color Quick pen in Green Chrome

I love this color combination but man Flying Dragon is a weird polish. It says it's a neon but the only thing neon I found about it was that it dried matte. That said it is great for stamping over because of the super fast matte drying time. It's not very bright like you would expect a neon to be but I do like the berry shade it gives. The bottle color is gorgeous with shimmer and small round blue glitters but sadly I didn't get much of that on the nail. You can see it pretty well in the macro shot but in person it was hardly noticeable which was disappointing. Oh well, I can't complain cause it was free since there was a buy two get one free sale at Sally's when I got it. Still a great color for all sorts of things, just not what I would consider very neon. Also, yay dark polish and it's not all up in mah cuticles! Oh pure acetone, let's be friends forever.

I'm glad I found a use for my Sally Hansen pen, it didn't deserve to be neglected because of user error. These things really are great for stamping and probably for use as intended if you're not a spaz like me. I may go get some in a few more colors now. Have you guys ever rediscovered something you thought you didn't like?

Sparkly Bare Bones

Hello readers new and old! Hope you're all having a good start to the week.

Today's mani is kind of plain. After all the nail art for contests I did last week I wanted something kind of simple. I was also very lazy so this is what I wore most of the weekend. I did have a neon green/yellow on before this so if you see any spots on my fingers I assure you I am not jaundiced, I just suck at staining myself with polish. Also this weekend I finally got myself some pure acetone so ignore any overzealous clean up and super dry cuticles, I was experimenting. Are you sick of me talking yet? Here, have some pictures.

Then of course I had to play with matte top coat.

Polishes used:

• Sally Hansen Salon Manicure base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• Revlon Bare Bones
• NYC Starry Silver Glitter (two coats)
• NYC Matte Me Crazy top coat

Bare Bones is my first Revlon polish and I have to say, I am happy. My husband actually picked it out when I said I was looking for a nude color so I was even more surprised when I loved it haha. The formula was great in two coats, applied nice and smooth with no dragging and dry time was pretty good on it's own. The brush was nice and wide which I love too. The pics didn't really capture how smooth and velvety this looked with a matte coat but I really like it. I was going to stamp over this but then I decided I liked it as it was. Also I was too lazy :P 

Since today was kind of boring, I shall leave you all with a pic of my cat making a derp face, enjoy!

Mod Flowers

Hi, everybody! (Hi, Dr. Nick!) Simpsons reference, I made myself laugh.

Today I have another set of contest nails, this time for the floral themed contest hosted by Kayla Shevonne to celebrate her blog's 1 million views. You read that right, a million. Pretty awesome right?

I am not normally a flowery kind of girl, so I knew if I did this it would have to be something not exactly... well, flowery and girly. I'm secretly jealous of those of you who can wear stuff like that. And now it isn't a secret. Oops. Anyhow, I found my inspiration for this look from this adorable apron on Modcloth. (My best friend would be so proud of me for window shopping there :P) Here's a view of the pattern in case it sells and you can't see the link. Or I did it wrong. Either way, I PLANNED AHEAD! You're welcome.

Polishes used:

• Sally Hansen Salon Manicure base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• Essie Master Plan
• Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby
• Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up

This was all done freehand with a small paintbrush and normal polish.  Not quite how I hoped it would turn out but eh, I had fun playing and that's what counts right? Right. I thought that a white base like the apron would have been a little too bright for me to stand so I went with a gray base instead. I like it but I will admit to being curious, I kinda wished I tried it on a test nail at least. Lesson learned. All in all I don't feel like it's my best but I suck at flowery anything so good enough lol. What kind of style do you guys hate to do?

Latte Inspired Mani

Hey guys! Hope you're all having a good week so far. My arms hurt from the gym >.<

Today I'm gonna show you something delicious! Yes I said delicious and no I don't advocate the eating of nail polish. Although I did see an episode of that show My Strange Addiction where the chick ate nail polish. My friend was all "Omg that's so bad for you!" and I was like "Noooo what a waste of polish!!". We can see where my priorities lie. Lay? Lie? Eh, grammar. Anyhow, today's mani is inspired by latte art. Incidentally I'm also submitting this for the one year anniversary contest over at Copy That, Copy Cat since I'm counting it as food related. Take a look!

Polishes used:

• Sally Hansen Salon Manicure base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• Sally Hansen Bittersweet
• Orly Prince Charming
• Essie Marshmallow

After staring at entirely too many pictures of awesome latte art and making myself very hungry, I decided to use that for my contest entry idea. This was my first attempt at needle marbling a shape on purpose, usually I just plop polish wherever and see what happens. This is also my first contest entry so delicious fingers crossed! Aside from my horrible clean up job I am pretty proud of these. I don't know what it is about dark colors but for some reason I can never get it completely clean looking. Like I thought they were okay looking before I went to photograph them but then looking through the pics I was like wtf it's like I didn't even try. I need to just get over it and buy some pure acetone and the right shape brush. That or I'm just doing it wrong. What type of clean up methods do you guys prefer to use?

Hard Candy Beetle

Hi everyone! It's a good thing I had the forethought to take pics of today's beauty when the sun was out yesterday. Today is an appropriately gross (rainy) Monday.

Today is a swatch day because I will be spending the day drooling all over my keyboard in a Guild Wars 2 beta coma. Don't be sad though, the swatch I have for you is pretty spectacular. It's my very first duochrome polish! Look at this sucker!

Clicky the jump cut for a LOT more pics of this beauty!

Mother's Day Classic French

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! I hope you have a great special day!

For pretty much as long as I can remember, my mom has had acrylic tips. The lady who did (and still does) her nails was always super sweet to me, letting me tell her jokes and giving me nail polish to play with while she worked on my mom. Even just last year when I went with my mom to her Christmas time appointment Kim (the nail lady turned family friend) handed me two ridiculously awesome China Glaze polishes in red and green as I sat there. While I was super happy to play with sparkles, my mom has always been very classic with her nails. It was always plain french tips or one solid creme of some type of red to dark mauve variety. Sometimes in winter I've seen them get close to brown or a very dark plum but that's about as exotic as they get. So in honor of Mother's Day, I give you an ode to my mom's nails. They may be kind of plain but they remind me of mom <3

I couldn't leave them for that long, it just wasn't in me. I needed sparkle!

Polishes used:

• Sinful Colors base coat / Seche Vite top coat
• Sally Hansen First Blush
• Essie Marshmallow
• Assorted dollar store rhinestones

This mani was pretty straightforward. After a day or so of the french I dabbed on some top coat and stuck some rhinestones on, nothing too fancy. I have to say after my recent spree of stamping and color it was a nice palette cleanser to have something clean and classic for a few days. I can see why my mom is drawn to this look, it just feels nice and it goes with everything.

So if you have a mom, remember to thank her for being awesome! Well, unless she's a really horrible mother. Then just say thanks for getting knocked up and leave it at that.