Daisy Crazy

China Glaze – “Sky High-Top”

SNOW!!!! ……finally

I couldn’t wait to get snow again…. like REAL snow…. so-I-can’t-drive-to-work snow; need snowplows and boots snow; may have to leave work early snow!!!

And even though they aren’t forecasting a blizzard or a very large accumulation…. I’m still crossing my freshly manicured fingers – well, nails – in the hopes of the forecast just being WRONG, and flakes blanketing this place into halting.

Snow is so calming to me. And at the same time, excites me. I might even like it more than sunny days…. but that race is definitely neck & neck.

There was obviously no question about what theme would cover my nails…. it was more a query of how the interpretation would play out….

I went with the typical, and with shimmery silver….. but I tried my first “gradient” and “sponging” manicure. There. will. be. repeats. TRUST. ME.

It turned out to be much easier than I expected and I love the look.

I used OPI “Moon Over Mumbai” as my base.
Then sponged on:

Color Club “Sheer Disguise”
OPI “What’s With The Cattitude”
Essie “Coat Azure”
China Glaze “Sky High-Top”
Sinful Colors “Midnight Blue”

I used a white nail art striper (and a silver glitter one to add to one snowflake on my ring fingernail) to create my snowflakes. White polish with a tiny dotting tool for random dots of snow falling, and Sinful Colors “Queen of Beauty” for some shimmer over the snowflakes.

Sounds like a lot, and I definitely didn’t need to use that many blues…but it was still faster than some of my “regular” manicures!!

Automatic Nail Polish Remover

Jan3 by Cheryl Cheryl

I am falling in love with my new Automatic Nail Polish Remover machine.

Maybe for the wrong reason today.

I happened upon these Kiss Nail Art Stencil sets with striper polishes while traversing the aisles of CVS on a break from work. Nope, had no business even going to that section of the store.

Geeked is an UNDERSTATEMENT! I was like Woot! Woot! This might be a great alternative to purchasing a stamping kit…. which I have certainly been considering while perusing the zillions of nail polish blogs out there in the blogosphere with amazing nail designs. I’ve been extremely hesitant because for some reason I feel like a purist with nail design and want the “graphics” to be organic. *shrugs* I don’t even know what that really means…SMH. The stamps somehow seem contrived to me. (Watch, I’ll have a stamping kit next week – with ALL plates available, will be singing the stamping praises and have the best rebuttal known to mankind to explain the contradictory behavior and mindset. I should be a politician!)

I rushed home from work to create a work of art!! -_- NOT. I ended up with this horrific blue monstrosity and raggedy stencil designs that weren’t worth the dot of polish I dabbed onto my nails.

China Glaze “Sky High-Top”

Super underwhelming, ugly even.
And I can’t even blame the polish color. I think it was brought down by the flat color choices for the design. In the bottle, the color was really rather attractive. Still fell completely flat.

These stencils: ONE TIME USE ONLY! No I don’t mean “use for multiple nails” for one time. I mean, you can effectively use ONE stencil for ONE nail for ONE time and that’s pretty much the life cycle of the stencil. Unnecessarily difficult to work with. And though the material is decent for the first application, they don’t hold up. The design easily stretches out of shape and is therefore no more good. There is also no credible way to clean the old polish from the stencil. I tried both acetone (which really I should have known was going to nearly melt the poor stencil – I mean, that’s what is used to remove acrylic nails and glue. LOL) and polish thinner. I paid approximately $8 for this stencil set. At least I got 3 nail art stripers (which would have costs me about $2 a piece) and 24 stencils out of it.

THIS is where my super crush began on my new automatic nail polish remover machine. LOL.
I can personally attest to this machine’s efficacy. See for yourself:

**Disclaimer: “NO COTTON SQUARES WERE HARMED IN THE REMOVAL OF THIS HEAVILY TINTED NAIL POLISH.” lol.

I got these results after having already removed the past 2 manicures’ polish which included acrylic paint dots AND 5 coats of glitter polish. I did NOT change the remover solution before removing this polish. I was WAY too anxious to get this mess off my nails!

Go ahead and click the picture… link to the www.transdesign.com website and get one. You know you want one. Winking smile