Mellow Yellow Happy Ending

     I can't help but laugh at some of the names that companies come up with for their products.  Happy Ending...REALLY?!  Ok, enough of my sick twisted mind.  So, yesterday was my last day free on my five day vacation.  I spent two days celebrating my birthday and another two driving three hours away to see my Grandma with a girl friend and her two year old and seven month old.  Sounds really fun, doesn't it...  I spent some time at Chuck E Cheese lol.  But it was worth it seeing how excited my friends little daughter got when Chuck E Cheesus (as she says) came out and gave her a hug and took a picture with her.  OK, so as you can imagine, I came home exhausted.  I am so glad I took yesterday off.  I used to be the type of person to come home and head straight back to work.  I think I'm getting older... Any ways.  I started working with Mellow Yellow yesterday and after two separate manicure fails from lack of patience for it to dry and kept smearing it, I decided to go with a different color that wouldn't require so much cleanliness.  I am sorry for not cleaning my nails up but it took me two hours to just get some sort of good color on my nails so at that point I didn't want to clean them up.  I had pretty much given up.
     Now, if you live in Oregon I'm sure these will make you think that I am a Duck fan, (one of our college's mascots) but rest assured, I am not.  I know, I know, please don't throw rocks at me.  I am a Beaver Believer all the way.  I really abhor sports but since the Beavers are ALWAYS the underdog I always vote for them.  The funny thing about the town I live in though is that there aren't really many Duck fans until they start winning a lot of games and the all of the sudden there are Duck banners and flags and stickers EVERYWHERE!  I swear, you would think they barfed all over my town.  I don't even get on facebook on game days because ALL of my friend's updates are about the game.  I have friends who post play by play and I want to gouge my eyes out.  Ok, enough blabbering for today.  Here you go.

Inside with flash no topcoat on yet

 Inside with out flash - no top coat

 Outside no flash, no top coat

Finished product

Base coat: Yello-out

Base color: Happy Ending - 2 coats from Sinful Colors

Polka Dots: Yellow Mellow - applied with a dotting tool- from Sally Hanson

Top Coat: Out the Door

I just love the tiny gold glitter in this color.  Makes it perfect for St. Patrick's Day, don't ya think?  Don't worry, I used this as the main color in my Patrick's Day mani!

Hope you like this.  If you have any comments, questions, critiques I would love to hear them in the comments below.  Thank you.  Have a great afternoon!

Stamping Sunday

     Wow.  What a CRAZY week.  I haven't been able to post since Tuesday and I have felt so bad, like I have been neglecting you guys.  Yesterday was my birthday and I have five days off of work!  Woot woot.  To me this is a huge deal because I work six tens a week.  I spent ALL day yesterday working on swatches and blog posts!  Yay for you and me.  I am working on swatching my ENTIRE collection and going to set up a different tab on my homepage so if anyone wants to see a swatch they can click on that page and each color will be linked to the specific blog post.  It will be a lot of work but I think it will be so worth it.
     Sundays are for stamping!  I am glad that I am finally getting the hang of it because I was seriously frustrated with it for the longest time.  I am still going to invest in the special polishes for stamping but I have found a FEW in my collection that will work for this process.

Inside with flash

 Inside with out flash

Outside in the SUN!!!  I am SO excited that it is out! 

Base coat: Yello-Out
Base color: Real Simple by Essie - 3 coats
Stamping color: Midnight Plum by Avon
No top coat
The stamping plates from Essence are not numbered but it is the plate that came with the original kit that can be viewed here.

Do you like stamping?  What are your tips and tricks for stamping?

Somewhat successful stamping

     Since my last experience with stamping I practically gave up.  The one that I posted wasn't a bad one but I had tried a few times and was very upset and let down.  I have came to the conclusion that I really do need to invest in the special polishes meant for stamping.  I have read in a lot of blog posts that metallic colors work pretty well so while I was sitting at home sick this morning I went through one of my buckets of polish and did a little experimenting.  I came up with one color that I thought would work for stamping, and it did.  As you can tell I messed up on my pointer finger and missed the edges on my thumb and middle finger.

Inside with no flash

 Outside

 Indoor with flash

 Indoor no flash

 Outdoor no flash

 Indoor with flash

     Do you like my nubbin of a thumb nail?  It broke today.  :-(

Base Coat: Yello-Out

Base Color: Simple by Sally Girl

Stamping Color: On A Trip by Wet N Wild

Stamp: I wish I could tell you a plate number or something of the sorts but the Essence plates don't have a number.  But you can see the plate in this blog post.

Do you guys have any suggestions for stamping colors that are cheaper than the Konad special polishes?

Lemme See Your Peacock Fly

     If you follow me on Facebook you may have seen this picture I posted this weekend of my jean shopping trip.  I know, I know, buying jeans turned into buying jeans, shorts, and nail stuff.  Outlet malls are the DEVIL. Not to mention hubbs was supposed to go with me but got a "migraine" all of the sudden.  Don't men always get them when they are supposed to go shopping.  Funny thing is, is that I am probablly the fasted clothes tryer oner you will ever meet.  I HATE shopping for clothes, especially jeans, so I grab my size, try it on, do a few squats, and bam, I'm out the door.
     When the Nicki Minaj collection was released this January (2012) I wanted nothing to do with it.  I was not a fan of her.  And then I saw her on Ellen with Sophia Grace and Rosie and saw what she did for those two little girls and all the sudden I liked her.  :-)  If you haven't seen Sophia Grace and Rosie you NEED to watch the clip I just linked to.  It is about five minutes long but it will just melt your heart.  Any ways, after I saw this I started looking in to everyones swatches for the line and decided that I needed to add Fly to my collection.  I was finally able to do that this weekend.
     While on my jean shopping adventure I walked past a Claires.  I have never bought any polish from Claires before but have seen a lot of bloggers talk about their nail products before and decided to get it a look.  I found the two mini collections featured under the "picture" link above and left!  I knew hubbs would not be to excited about my venture.  I have a little rant about the Claires mini polishes.  They have NO NAMES on them!  Which I was fine with at first until I saw my almost exact mani on Rebecca Likes Nails blog today and she had a name for this polish.  I find it very ironic that we have almost the same mani post for the same day. lol  Great minds think alike.
     If you're anything like me when I was young and knew everything, you learned that Icing and Claires were the same stores but with a different name on their product.  In Rebecca's blog post she states that the glitter polish she purchased at Icing is called Lemme See Your Peacock.  I went to the Claires website to see if the names were the same and low and behold, they didn't have this product in the full size bottle on the website, and they didn't have this product on the Icing website AT ALL!  Hence, where my frustration came from.  But I will say, I got this coverage from the glitter in one coat!  I did blop the brush down at the base of the nail a few times and then just pulled the glitter in a normal painting manner.
     Ok, enough typing for todays post.  Here is my final product that I really really love!!

Indoor with no light

 Outdoor in shade

Outdoor in Sun

 

 Outdoor in shade (There was no sun left when I went to take this pic)

Base Coat: Yello-Out

Base Color: Fly by OPI - 2 coats

Glittler: Lemme See Your Peacock from Clairs - 1 coat

Top Coat: Out the Door

     What do you guys think about this?  Does it bug you when there aren't names on products you purchase?

Mani Monday

I am hosting Mani Monday over on my Facebook page. Please post your pictures, including your name, first only is ok, and what you used. I may have disabled the feature that allows people to post to my wall so if you can not post them please email them to me at melizajane20@gmail.com and I will post the. ASAP. Once I get off of work I will disable the sharing feature on my wall and post a new post for today! I can't wait to see your goods!