Mani Monday Red and Green Sincerely Polish

Happy Mani Monday!  I can not believe we only have one more Mani Monday after this!  The year has flown by!  This week Lindsay had themed red and green for Christmas of course!  I have done so many red and green Manis I am almost tired of them to be honest. Not Christmas manis but just that color scheme....but it is the perfect color choice!

I have lost a bit of my nail art mojo and took a very easy way out this week.  First let me tell you about Sincerely Polish.  Sincerely Polish is a pretty new Indie company I came across on Instagram owned and operated soley by Karen.  First she is a sweetheart and second her polishes are awesome!  I am loving all Indie companies right now but I prefer to mostly spend my dollars at newer companies.   One I get to buy nail polish and two when I wear the polishes I get to tell people about these smaller companies. win win! I commend larger Indie companies for all their hard work to get there and plan on trying some in the New Year. On my most recent order Karen added in a little red jelly mini called Holly.  Oh no a red for Jaime and her picky ways.  I LOVE this one!!!

I had some major photographing issuies so please excuse that! Now that I have bored you to death on to the pictures.

I am no good at photographing with a mini and the shine caused all kinds of blurring!

 With a matte topcoat!  I think it makes it look like a gummy candy.  So squishy!

 Can you see all the little sparkly goodies hiding in there.

So for this Mani Monday we have a simple mani with green studs...hehehe...I told you I took the easy way out this week!  Happy Mani Monday and if you have read through all this Thanks!!  Happy polishing!  xoxo Jaime

Mani Monday Favorite Blue

Happy Mani Monday!  This weeks theme is favorite blue.  I love a blue Mani and have tons of blue polishes! I could not just pick one.   It was hard as I stood there looking at all my polishes to narrow it down to favorites.

 First I would like to show you Dream from Zoya which is new to my collection but has quickly become a favorite.  This picture is from last week I think.  I posted this on Instagram but neglected to get a blog post about it.

How beautiful is this blue and just look at all the shimmer!  It just sparkles on your fingers!

Next I have more of a brighter blue from Revlon.  It is called Mesmerize.  It is very bright and fun.  It is such a happy nail color!  Mesmerize is from the Brilliant Strength line and it applies very nice and easy.

Lastly I would like to show you a favorite mid tone more muted blue.  This is Blue La La from Nina Ultra pro.  It is another go to color and applies very nice.  Great formulation on this one.  The brush is also wide.  I know a lot of girls like that.

I really think that I could of gone on and on with blues, if I had time to swatch more last night I am sure I would have included a light blue and navy just to hit all the bases.  I tried to pick ones I have not shown on the blog before.  What is your favorite blue or one you would recommend me adding to my collection?  Happy Mani Monday and Happy polishing!!!  xoxo Jaime

Mani Monday Snowman

Happy Mani Monday friends!  This week the theme is snowman.  I love snow people.  They  take over my house once the decorations go up for Christmas and some get to hang out all winter!!  

Here are my nontraditional snowman lady nails!  I have a fuzzy sweater that is a soft purple and it may be silly but if I can I like to match my manis if I can, so I decided to try some soft girly snowman nails. 

I used Sally Hansen Hard as nails in No Hard Feelings for the purple nail and polka dots.  The light blue base is Sally Hansen x-treme wear in Breezy Blue.  The glitter is Loaded Lacquers North of the Arctic Circle.  The snowman is White On  from Sally Hansen 

x-treme wear.  Be sure to check out the other Mani Monday girls and their snowmen nails on facebook! Thank you for stopping by and Happy polishing!  

Mani Mondays Metallic

 Happy Mani Monday Friends!  This week the theme is Metallic!  I personally love metallic polishes.  I really prefer them to have a foiled metallic finish because it that cuts out the need to worry about streaky nails.  I think the reason I enjoy them so much is they are shiny and happy.   

I chose to use a lovely polish that was gifted to me by Marianne, PolishSleuth in our little swap and I love it!!  It is from Avon and I believe it is called Lilac Quartz and it is part of their Brushed Metals collection.

There is a slight texture to this polish but I don't

think it is considered textured.

One thing I like about these foiled Metallic polishes is I can control them really well without making a mess around my cuticles.  I am still learning and my bare clean up line at the cuticle can be kind of wide at times.  With these types of polishes I can go right next to my cuticles and I think it makes my nail beds look really long. :)  How do you feel about metallic nails? As Always thank you for reading and Happy polishing!

Mani Monday's Halloween

Happy Mani Monday!  This weeks theme is Halloween.  I had a rough weekend but still wanted to participate in Mani Monday.  I really did not feel inspired at all, but had seen many little mummy nails going around, so I decided to give it a try.  I think these are cute even though there was some smearing.  I think with a little practice I could really improve my little guys and hope to try doing girl mummies before Halloween is over.

 I used Sinful colors Black on Black for the thick eye area and just used a smaller brush for the other black lines.  The white base is from Broadway nails, it is  called Snow White.  Don't forget to check out the other ladies and their Halloween inspired nails.  There are links to their blogs on my homepage and you could always stop by the facebook page  Mani Monday's.  Thanks for reading, Happy Halloween and happy polishing.

Mani Monday Gradient!!

Happy Mani Monday!  This week is gradient, which I just adore, so I was really excited about this week.  I am not even the best at gradients but I just love them.  I guess I have sorta fell into a gradient spot.  Really I prefer the look of a 3 color close in shade gradient.  Then top it all off with a glitter in a coordinating color,  because glitter makes everything better in my world.  As soon as I saw the gorgeous teal that Marianne sent me in our little swap I knew my gradient would be going teal this week!!

Here are the polishes I used to achieve my look this week.

The base coat I chose was Cutex Baseworks.  This base coat works just fine and dried pretty quickly.  My trio of shades were LA Colors in Meadow, China Glaze in To yacht to handle and another deep teal that unfortunately does not have a name on it.  I started with a coat of Meadow and then layered all three colors on a make up sponge and dabbed away. In all honesty, as you will see in my next photos, even though in the bottle the Meadow and To Yacht to Handle do appear to be different, once blended together it really looks as just two colors in my gradient. I then topped it all off with LA Colors glitter polish in Treasure Island and a nice coat of Seche Vite.

In the Light box

In full sun

Generally I do my nails at night and natural light is not an option unless I want to have the early morning sunlight, and I feel that changes colors and casts the pink/red glow.  This was pre-done so I could test my current method of using a light box against natural mid day sunlight.  I think my photos don't look to different than the mid day sun pictures and so far no complaints about the quality and my followers and readers are slowing growing.  It is exciting to have people that appreciate my hobby and what I do with it! This really is all for fun for me but I would like to have a nice blog and Instagram that people actually enjoy to read and look at.  As always thank you for reading, Happy Mani Monday and Happy painting!!

Mani Monday Canadian Thanksgiving

Happy Mani Monday!  Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian readers!  I was not exactly sure what I wanted to do for today but I did assume that Canadian Thanksgiving is pretty similar to American Thanksgiving.  Family and friends enjoying time together celebrating their blessings. My first attempt was a total fail.  I used mostly red and white and tried to do little maple leaves and my leaves looked like stars....total fail!  I decide to switch gears and go for Fall colors.  This is another fail!!

First of all lets talk about doing 2 coats of orange on the index and pinkie and cutting corners and only doing one on the ring finger because I was adding stripes anyway.  What happens...you end up with 2 different colors!  Next lets see maybe a little self control with the gold glitter stripper would have been better! Does one really need glitter on every nail? (yes...hehehehe)  Lastly lets look at these maple leaf tips on the pinkie and pointer.  Who was I trying to kid they look like chicken feet!!!!  This look had potential but it just didn't do Canada's Thanksgiving any justice!!

Here are the polishes I used to complete my chicken foot mani. :)  Sinful colors Laced Up, which is matte from the Leather Luxe collection, Revlon Hot for Chocolate, which I am not sure where I even got but it is a nice deep brown and I enjoy it and a Art Deco stripper in 24K Glitter.  Have a wonderful Mani Monday and I hope you got a chuckle from the chicken feet!!  Happy painting! xoxo Jaime

Mani Monday Fall nails

Happy Mani Monday friends!!  I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and is having some nice fall like temperatures. Fall is my absolute favorite season.  We have lots of beautiful fall foliage here in Indiana along with crisp morning and evening air.  It is very refreshing after the long humid summers here.  I can take heat but the humidity gets to me.  Our summer was mild compared to the last few years but still lots of humidity.  Fall brings yummy smells like fires and freshly harvested fields and beautiful harvest moons and fantastic colors spread throughout the trees.  That brings me to another site I love to see....a whole new batch of nail polish looks!  All the deep jewel tones and browns and golds, I just love them!

I decided to go with a polish that I have been waiting to wear since purchased in late July or early August.  By now we all know I am a mostly drug store shopper and a Sinful colors junkie so I knew exactly the polish to pick.  I chose Sinful colors Leather Loose from the Leather Luxe collection.

 Matte

Topcoat

Leather Loose dries to a matte finish as do all the polishes in this collection.  This is the only one with the treasure of shimmers in it.  It goes on nice and is perfect in 2 coats.

I really really wish I had done my pictures during the day so that I could have gotten a better topcoat picture.  This picture does not do the beauty of this polish any justice at all.  I had a horrible time getting the beautiful gold shimmer that came to life once top coated.  This deep chocolate brown with gold just says fall to me.  I am not a fan of gold polishes on me, I feel silver is a much more flattering metal on me, however I love a pairing of dark brown and gold!  The gold studs came from Five Below.  Thank you for reading and Happy Mani Monday!  Don't forget to check out what all of our wonderful girls are doing this week https://www.facebook.com/manimondays Happy painting!!!

Mani Monday Favorite Nude

Happy Mani Monday!  This weeks theme is our favorite nudes.  Believe it or not I only have three or  four nude polishes in my whole collection!  I love color and I am lucky enough to be able to wear color most  times.  It is always nice to have a couple nudes for the times a bright nail may not be appropriate.  I choose Wet n Wild Megalast in the shade Wet cement.

To me this is a perfect nude and honestly as nude as I would care to go other than maybe a subtle baby pink.  I have tried others colors but them seem to just blend to my natural skin tone to much and give the appearance of plastic hands.  An honorable mention for nudes would be Revlon's Graceful, which is a lighter nude but still works well with my skin tone.  I am wanting to find a nice subtle cream nude.  Any suggestions?  As always please gheck out the Mani Monday's facebook page to see more great picks.  There is also a list of great blogs on my front page of lovely ladies who participate in Mani Mondays!  Happy Mani Monday and Happy painting!

Mani Monday Stripes

Happy Mani Monday!!  This weeks theme is stripes.  Without messing with striping tape I am a one trick pony with stripes.  A solid base color and stripe it with a stripper brush.  I did not have the time to give Mani Monday the time it deserved this week.  We have been cleaning up the mini fall getting ready for fall and putting all these fresh veggies to good use making sauce ect.  My previous mani for the challenge I am doing had a lot of black and man did it stain, so sorry my hands are a bit of a mess.

I only own 2 Julie G polishes.  I do not live near a rite aid and found them at a Big lots.  I believe they are both Christmas polishes.  This ones name has come off but the other one I bought with it is under Mistletoe.  I have been wanting to wear one of them so bad.  I thought this one may work for anytime but clearly doing gold stripes has made my Mani scream Christmas!!!  I adore Christmas and I love the main so Christmas stripes in September it is.  :) Happy Mani Monday and happy painting!!  xoxo Jaime

Mani Monday Fancy French

Today is Mani Monday and this weeks theme is fancy french.  I was not exactly sure what to do for this so I picked my love exquisite dance and decided plan around this polish.  I used this for my delicate day in the 31 day challenge started by chalkboard nails.  Can you tell I am trying to use this polish as many times as I can before I finally give up the light colors until next spring?  I love this pink for the light pink shimmery goodness it contains.

Please excuse the dry skin

The challenge is drying me out!

I used a no name silvery polish underneath exquisite dance to create the tips.  I am not sure how I feel about that choice even though I am happy with this Mani overall.  At first I thought maybe it just gave it a dirty look by not using a brighter shade.  I added little rhinestones for even more sparkle and called it a day. Thanks for stopping by for Mani Monday.  Be sure to head over to Facebook and see Lindsay's Mani Monday page.  I also listed the other girls blogs on my blog homepage.  Happy Mani Monday and Happy painting!