Dashing Through the Snow... With my pretty painted toes...

The holidays are upon us! I decided to get festive with my tooties!! It's really thanks to the BF. I was going to redo my toes and picked out a nice orange creme: Sally Hansen - Sonic Bloom. I showed him what I was going to use and he did not seem enthused. He said "Why don't you do them for Christmas? With snowmen!" Okay, dear. You got your wish!

LEFT FOOT
Big Toe
China Glaze Emerald Sparkle
Migi Nail Art Pen in white
LA Colors Art Deco in Red Glitter

Little Toes
Unnamed shimmery white from Borghese Allegra set
Unnamed red glitter from Borghese Allegra set

RIGHT FOOT
Big Toe
China Glaze - Caribbean Blue
LA Colors Art Deco in Black
Migi Nail Art Pen in White
LA Colors Art Deco in Red Glitter
Tropez - Black Satin
Konad Special Polish in white
Konad plate M3

Little toes
China Glaze - Emerald Sparkle
Konad Special Polish in white
Konad plate M3

Neon Pastel

Hi and happy hump day! I wish I stayed in bed. I was too tired this morning! I overslept and then had to rush and I hhhaaate that. Anyhoo, this is a mani that I did over the weekend. I was inspired to do a neon mani and this is what I came up with! I used a "frankenpolish" as my base and striped with neon nail art stripers and used neon polish for polka dots.

The base color I named "Louisa" and it consists of mostly white creme and Sinful Colors - Dream On, a neon purple creme. I then added bits of blue shimmers like China Glaze - Adore, and OPI - Teal The Cows Come Home.

The stripes are LA Colors Art Deco in Bright Orange and Bright Green.

I painted 3 white dots at the tips using Migi Nail Art Pen in white, and then layered over the dots with Essie - Funky Limelight, Essie - Flirty Fuschia and Misa - Blue Over A Boy.



Have a great day!
-Elaine

Margaritas! Ole!

There was a post I did a little while ago that was a little weird. It was the "glitter-trimmed" (I made this up) nails. Remember? No? Here is the original post. Well you guys and your comments got me thinking! And you know what happens when I think! Stuff like this:

I made margaritas!!! I painted the tips of my nails with a nice yellow-green, Santee - Melon Green, then I drew the glasses with Migi Nail Art pen in white, and I used Color Club - Sexy Siren to make salt on the rims!! I tried to add limes, but they just looked like green blobs of polish. Next I may make strawberry daquiris....hmmm

Halloween Claws!

My apologies for this late post. I had difficulties getting my pictures to upload over the weekend, and I just figured out why... I had them saved as an incompatible format. I wish it just said so! Anyway, this is post I had planned for Halloween:

What can you create with these?---->

This spooky manicure! I started with a base of my favorite orange creme, L'Oreal - Sizzling Tangerine, waited 2 minutes and then applied a coat of Cover Girl Crackle Polish Ghost Fantome. The crackle effect takes about 15 minutes for the full effect. It is a little tough to wait patiently for that long, but I love the look when it's done. Then I hand drew some little spiders with Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in black!

A friend had a Halloween party and I helped her do some setting up in the days before, consisting of carving pumpkins and making Jell-O shots. Here's the pumpkins we made:

Mine is on the left, hers is on the right

-Elaine

Migi Nail Art Pens Swatches and Review

Freehanding nail art is something that I have always enjoyed doing, but have usually had a hard time with without proper tools (special pens, Konad stamping set, stencils, etc.) I always just did hearts and flowers and dots by dotting with the polish brush of the color I was using! And mayber sometimes with a toothpick. I now know it can be much simpler. One way to accomplish this is with Migi Nail Art Pens.

Here are the 4 colors I have for review. An olivey green with gold shimmer, a gold glitter, a pink creme and a white creme.

These pens have a two way cap. So one end opens just like a polish bottle and has a brush to paint with:

But if you pull the upper part of the cap you find a fine point to draw nail art with while you squeeze the pen:

Very fine point. It's like a needle

Here are all the colors painted with the brush end. Very smooth and even and have good coverage.

Here are some simple designs I did with them: A daisy which I did by painting dots far from the center and then pulling them in, flowers made up of dots, a snowflake, and little hearts made by making the top with two dots and then pulling them down to a point. These pens are wonderful for doing all these and more but I really love them for doing polka dots.

They also work well to do a french manicure since you can freehand the line with the fine end and then paint the rest of the tip with the brush. I also like it because you can draw the ends of the tip real close to the edges very finely. Also, although I don't have a pic ,they work well for halfmoon manicures as well.

Pros: Versatile. Fine point allows for intricate designs, small dots and lines, french manicures, letters and numbers. (I used these for my 30ROCK manicure) Migi gives free refills (2 per order) when you pay for shipping.

Cons: Glitter gets stuck in the fine tip. (Only the glitter pen) I played with the gold glitter and got it to work before I did my swatches for the review, but by the time it came time to do swatches and pics I couldn't get it to come out anymore. Also they can become pressurized and polish will continuously flow out of the tip on its own without squeezing the pen. This however, is easily fixable by unscrewing the brush and screwing it back on while slightly squeezing the pen.

Here is a little sunburst I did on a paper plate with the gold glitter before it stopped working for me:

The colors for these pens are sold in sets. There are 5 different collections of colors. Each retails for $24.99. That means you end up paying about $3.12 per color. Each color has 0.16 fluid ounce of product, so that breaks down to $19.50/ounce. It sounds pricey that way, but really it would be like paying $9.75 for a regular 0.5 oz. bottle of polish which isn't that far off from what a lot of us spend! Plus the flexibility for doing designs more than makes up for it.

Here are the sets:

Gold Collection - 8 shimmers - This has the green I have swatched

Silver Collection - 8 bold cremes - I believe this is the set with the white I have swatched

Bronze Collection - Described as the "french" set - This set has mostly shimmers, but also the gold glitter I have swatched

Black Collection - Pastel cremes and shimmers

White Collection - Neon cremes and shimmers

Thanks for checking out my review! You can purchase these nail art pens at MigiNailArt.com
Each set retails for $24.99, or you can get all 5 for $99.99.

Disclosure: The products featured in this post were furnished to me by the manufacturer or PR company for review. For more information please visit my disclosure policy.

30ROCK Manicure

Happy Thursday! I am very happy today because the season premiere of one of my absolutely favorite shows, 30ROCK, is today! If you don't watch it.... you really should! I was so excited that I decided to do a mani to celebrate!

The title card of the show is pretty simple, so besides for writing "30Rock" on my nails, I was at a loss of what else to do. I thought maybe the NBC peacock would be a good idea. Then I came across this little gem:

If you don't watch the show, it is about a fictional sketch comedy show on NBC called "TGS" and this deal-breaker sketch was from one of the episodes.

"If you're man leaves in boxers and comes home in briefs, that's a deal breaker, ladies!"

So I thought I would used the pink polka dots for the mani. Here is how it turned out:

I used:
base: Color Club - Oooooo La La
Dots: Zoya - Dita
"30": Green Migi Nail Art pen (full review to come)
"ROCK": Black Sally Hansen Nail Art pen


Peacock:
red: Milani - Red to Tango
orange: Misa - Speed of Life
yellow: Sally Hansen - Lightening
purple: Zoya - Pinta
blue: Essie - Mesmerize
green: BB Couture - Poison Ivy
white: Migi Nail Art Pen

I did however, screw up the colors of the peacock on the left side. They should go yellow, orange, red not red, orange, yellow... ooooops. I think the point gets across. It took me a whole day to figure it out.

Have a great day and watch 30ROCK!!!

OC Nail Art Contest Submissions

Hello! Did you all enter in the OC Nail Art Contest!? I did. I didn't submit as many designs as I wanted to, but I did get in five. They were fun to do even if they don't come close to winning. I wanted to share the ones I sent in:Base: Zoya - Malia, Stamp: Konad SP - White, Plate: M2

Base: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri-Lightening, Diagonal: Essie - Sag Harbor, Stamp: Konad SP - Red and Green, Plate: M2, Stripes: Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen - Black

Base: Color Club - Oooooo La La & Tropez - Black Satin, Stamp: Konad SP - White & Tropez - Black Satin, Plate: M2

My Second Favorite

Base: KO - Karen, Stamp: Konad SP- Red, Plate: M2

And my favorite!

Base: Essie - Funky Limelight, Stamp: Konad SP - Green, Plate: M4

So, I think I am kind of screwed because the B Kit is supposed to be plates M4, M8, M15 and M21. I bought a B Kit with plates M2, M4, M8, M15. I don't even have M21. So I think that all but one of my entries aren't even going to count. :c(

I'm scared.