♥ Maybelline - 'Shooting Stars' ♥

~♥~

A quick post of Maybelline 'Shooting Stars' thumbs only....... before I get to a full mani with this, I had to try it out and see how well it will last and any application issues... etc. I have used 3 coats on a acrylic nail with no base or top coat, and other pic;s with a black polish also. I am on the fence whether or not this will look good without -my customary dark base to really show off the glittery-goodness.

I always dis-liked how bar glitter looked, Of the ones I have used I thought the pieces of glitter were too long and I did not like how it only ended up going in one direction. I also recall that the polishes that i have used with bar-glitter took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to dry, so I just didn't bother with them anymore. I don't remember seeing this Maybelline polish in the store when it came out. I hope that I can find more in the future...... Hmmmmm. Anyhoo---- here is a little sample of a pretty "Antique Polish ", that I found at a discount store in my town. The bar-glitter in it is more of a medium length of bar-glitter, = which is rad = and it dried very fast which meant that I could do alot of coats, but I had to do 3 and found that to be sufficient 'glitter coverage'. The first coat I polished my nails -side-to-side-, to get the bar glitter to be multi-directional, instead of just base to tips, then the 2nd and 3rd coat, I polishes normally, form base to tips. However, the polish did go in all directions on it's own ... so that was rad too!

1 Coat Black polish & 2 coats of Shooting Stars

I am very pleased that this polish has two distinct types of glitter in it, Can anyone recall if this came in more colors than just this? I imagine this polish is at least 8 years old, maybe older.... I have not seen it on other blogs or Goggle images yet. I love the pretty silver glitter and the blue bar-glitter together. 3 coats - no top coat, and I am eager to get this on my nails ASAP!

♥

♥ Maybelline - 'Blue Aluminum'

~ ahhhhhh sunshine, finally ~

 & below indoors

My 100th post! WOW! I was surprised to see that I have had 6200-ish visits, of course at least 1500 are me, checking to see who has updated their blogs...... This is lots of fun and I did check out blogger a few years ago, but did not have anything to contribute. I had previously taken pictures of my long natural nails, but not with the quality that I am taking pictures now, I will hunt around my old pictures and see what I can find.


Here is an awesome antique polish I scored for $1.00 at a discount shop in my town. This may be older, but it applies perfectly, and dries sooooo fast. It is a pretty baby blue foil that catches the light so beautifully. I am sad that I do not have any fuzzy pictures to post. This is 2 coats, with 1 coat of China Glaze Fast Forward.... which picked up a bit of the blue polish when I was putting the CG Fast forward on... weird. But it still looks pretty.

That red mark is a burn I got from a hot glue gun, the melted glue dripped on me = OUCH!


I am trying to get the same pose but from different angels and camera settings and lighting. It is Friday night here, and I am getting ready to settle down with my DH and a big bowl of chips. So no epic writing....

~♥~ Have an awesome weekend! ~♥~

indoors

 

sun

  

 shade

  

 ♥

♥ Sally Hansen 'Radish' & Nail Stickers ♥

My blog description is Less Shop'in - More Paint'in

Thats Right! Less shopping and more Mani / Pedi's ....... and Photo's!

~ Outdoors- Full-on morning sunshine ~

~♥~

Here is a lovely black looking Sally Hansen 'Radish'. I was so elated that I figured out what was going on with my camera and so I took a million photo's. This polish is one of those ones that just looks very dark and black in most lighting. When compared to a black object though, it is easy to detect the purple-ish colour. And so I had to get outside for this one ♥


This is two coats of 'Radish', followed by these lovely Nail stickers, and then some Flakie/Glitter on the tips and covering the sticker ( I thought it was too harsh with just the polish and nail sticker.... and so, glitter to the rescue). Then 2 coats of China Glaze Fast Forward, which is an awesome top coat and I am very pleased with it so far. And I went back to my 'Glitter under the tips thing'

~♥~

This radish polish is one that I picked up at a little pharmacy in my neighborhood for $1.25.... there was a few pretty polishes in this 'Bargain Basket' I waited for 2 weeks then went and picked up what was left for Frankening..... Now when my 'Mini-No-Buy' is over I am gonna pick up some Sally Hansen Hard As Nails ...... the same formula as this in WHITE and GO TO TOWN creating some very pretty lilac's and other purple colors.

~♥~

I have found a better way to take indoor photos, I am using one of those fancy-pants light bulbs that is supposed to mimic bright natural light.... I am not ready to drop the cash on a fancy light fixture for taking photos of my nails... and my home is bursting with stuff..... lots of stuff...... I think it looks alright, it is picking up the color accurately so far, I will be getting to my polish's that lots of other bloggers have worn, so I will see how this is working out, It is always so gloomy here..... My fingers are crossed for the rest of the week for some sun-shine.... but all day sunshine !

~♥~

Any hoo I am in a rush today, I know I looooove reading everyone else's beauty/nail blogs, and so I am aiming to add at least 3 posts a week, for your reading/viewing enjoyment. I am totally skipping all the doom and gloom of the world news, and just turning to this medium for all my internet reading.... Remember no matter how silly/insignificant you think your post may be, every idea shared = helps someone somewhere...

So Thanks again bloggers!

 

  

  

  

~♥~

♥ Maybelline 'Dee-Wine ♥

~ Maybelline 'Dee Wine' 2 coats & China Glaze Fast Forward 1 coat ~

~♥~

This is a very shiny pretty polish form Maybelline..... 2 coats and dries super fast. My only complaint's are that I think the brush handle is too big, and the polish dries soooo fast that I had 'crustiness' around the neck, that I picked up and polishes into my nails. It is a lovely wine shade with shimmer, from my bargain store haul. This is an antique polish. While I think I picked up alot of these, there was a few more that I wanted to get but did not grab. And now I am thinking about those polish's........




I think I naturally have lot of yellow in my skin tone, but some of these photos make my skin look even more cartoon-ish yellow. My new plan is to do side-by-side comparisons with popular / common colors, for more perspective. And take a photo with polishes that everybody has, I looked at some polish's in the store and they did not look like what is on the blogs? This week I will be working on a montage post of all these Maybelline polishes, and will be trying out a 'collection post' in addition to how I do my posts regularly... with a million pictures!!! I hope to do this with all of my "family's" of polish

sun

 

shade

sun

 

indoors......looks kinda coppery

♥

♥ Maybelline 'Matte Rose' Nail Stickers & Glitter ♥

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First = That Vaseline thing is a big time saver, it's only been two polish changes and the corners of my cuticles are a little softer.... I will give it a few weeks for prognosis = but I can say that it saves alot of time, and I do not have a "Nail-Polish-Halo" for my photo shoots! I am heartbroken without macro mode.... but the sun came out so I cannot complain. I really did not learn anything about indoor photos of tiny, tiny objects.. and am considering building a light box just for fun.... and of course Brooke is RAD! Please send her some free goodies nail polish companies......

~♥~

I keep using the nail stickers that i think are the "Ugliest" first, for practice = before I use the ones I think are the nicest and prettiest, but then I end up loving them sooooo much. Every one of these nail stickers is soooooooo pretty. These can be found here at Beauties-factory, or google them, there is lots of pretty ones out there. These are thin, but also very strong, and so far I have only ripped one ( I am gentle ). I love the look of Konad's but I know that will be an endless collection and where will I put it all? At the moment I am happy with all my stickers and glitters and gems, but I am certain I will end up with a one, Dang those are cool!

~♥~

So I have painted my nails with my lovely Maybelline 'Matte Rose', then added a nail sticker 1/4 " away from my tip. Then I painted my tip with a plain white, then added glitter to the white tip, and and just a dab of glitter to the tiny black roses. i added 2 coats of China Glaze Fast Forward, which is AWESOME, I will definitely buy that again when I need it. It has a nice licorice smell to it, well, a very chemically licorice smell when applying......

 

  

 To do both hands I have used a little under half of  the nail sticker design. Wow these stickers will last forever!!!!!


Here is a smorg of pictures....This time though, I cut the stickers just before the edge of my nail, and I have done dishes and tided up and so far there has been very little problems in this area. I did not rub down the stickers enough towards the free-edge, i was fixated on thee sides of my nail beds and I neglected the tip-area. Towards the free-edge there is alot of lifting... Glitter to the rescue.

~ Painted my tips white ~

~ Below is a good photo to illustrate how I did not do a good job adhering the sticker properly towards the tips of my nails, I did cut the stickers just short of the sides of my nail.. Next time I am sure I will get it right.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

~ Add a little glitter....... Viola~

 

 

 I think this is a very pretty look, with two coats of a good quality TC, I cannot feel the ridge of the nail sticker....Hopefully, cutting them smaller than my actual nail bed size will prevent any future lifting. I know it is silly to add shiny top coat to a Matte polish, but the polish job I did was really pitiful. The color though is beautiful, and I am not a fan of mellow boring colors. I say everything is beautiful, don't I?

~♥~

♥ Maybelline 'Matte Rose' & Purple Comet' & SH's

 
~ RING finger- 'Purple Comet' 3 coats...others 'Matte Rose' 2 coats ~

~♥~

There is a picture of my naked, vulnerable nail towards the end.... probally the only one I'll ever put on here willingly. My nails are so thin, but very very sharp. I cannot be bothered with all sorts of hardeners and vitamins, those things did not work for me, so I am a faithful acrylic nail user.

~♥~

Here is a little haul I picked up at the beginning of May. Maybelline 'Matte Rose' and Maybelline 'Purple Comet'. I bought these and 3 others at a bargain shop in my town for 2 each,and later they were priced at $1.00 each, so I bought 6 more...... I found the SH's at another store in town I rarely visit, but am glad I did. There is a little pharmacy in my neighborhood, and they had a basket with some older polishes in it. I had already bought 1 bottle each of Sally Hansen 'Root Deep', and 'Radish', but I went back and grabbed the other 3 bottles of 'Radish' (I know, I know.... it's dark purple, not red like a radish... )for FRANKENS, so I will say that I am not going to be short of any shade of purple I desire for the rest of my life. I did a few experiments and they all turned out really, really pretty. I also picked up another Sally Hansen polish called "Peanut Shell' Which is a very pretty Beige/Sand color.... I guess the theme for these polishes collection is things underground? That's pretty " deep " for a nail polish company....

~♥~

These Sally Hansen polishes were $1.25 each. I am not sure how old they are... but I cannot recall a SH collection that was all earthy and shizz with names like these.I am pleased that they are very richly pigmented. I swatched some darker coloured SH 10 day no chip nail color's early last week, and they were really like, watery and sheer..... hmmm, I like my polishes opaque unless they are for layering.....

~♥~

Currently I cannot turn the "Macro-Mode" on my camera on.... I do not know what button I pressed but everything else is working fine. On most newer camera's there is a setting that is for flowers, so I have to go into the menu and select this 'flowers' setting, which is macro mode, and that is what I am doing for now, and it is working just fine...... but normally I just press the macro button on the back of my camera, and it goes all macro { ......EXTRA SAD FACE===== :O( ......}. I hope my husband can help me fix it !

~♥~

So... onto the photos. This matte shade was difficult to apply, I like my skinny brush handle, and so I had alot of brush marks... This is also an antique polish, so it's a little on the thick side. But, it still dried in less than 5 minutes. Sadly it was soooo gloomy here early this morning, It is dufficult to see the matte-ness in the photos....and just as I started decorating these nails ( next post! ) the sun came out .... DANG ~

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~ Indoors with Flash ~

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~ Outside with Flash - under gloomy cloudy skies ~

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♥♥♥ !!!!!! BARGAINS !!!!!! ♥♥♥

~L-R -'Radish', 'Peanut Shell', 'Matte Rose', 'Shooting Stars' all are 2 coats!!!!~

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~♥~ Awesome Tip ~♥~

Wow, this worked really well for me!

So I totally tried this and it works VERY well. I applied Vaseline around my nails on to my cuticles with a small lipstick brush. After doing a hideous, sloppy polish job, I waited for my nails to dry, then while washing my hands I used a soft sponge to gently nudge and slough away the polish that was surrounding my nail bed. I was impressed I did not mange to get any Vaseline onto my nail bed!

EVERYONE has cool ideas and different perspectives....... if you are reading this, please get your functional, productive and helpful ideas out there in the world! I sorta thought about doing this before but never did. This is an simple easy thing to do, I am a little miffed that I spent all that $$$ on those little corrector pens and used Q-tips etc. and had cotton stuck to my beautiful polish jobs! DANG!

~♥~

This will help in the future as I sometimes change my polish more than 4 times a week, all that drying acetone/ polish remover use is sure to catch up with me in the future. Vaseline is an excellent moisturizer. Most moisturizers... like 80% of whats on the market today, have petroleum derivatives .....look it up!

Every once in a while on a Sat./Sun. ..... If I am bored or if I think my hands and feets are a little neglected, I will use a heavy duty moisturizer on my feets, then Vaseline, then put on a pair of thin socks and then a pair of big/thick heavy socks and run around my house like this. Yep, it does feel gross, but it is good maintenance !!!! I am lucky my feets are in really god shape, but i still do this. I have never had any problems with dry- dry- DRY skin on my feet... EVER....

~♥~

I still had to use another tiny make-up brush dipped in Nail Polish Remover on some area's surrounding my nail. But not anywhere near as much as I would have before. I imagine I will see a noticeable improvement in the near future. What an awesome tip!

~♥~

~♥~ Mabelline - 'Matte Red' ~♥~

~ Sunshine ~

Here is another polish form my latest bargain haul... Maybelline 'Matte Red'. this is a very pretty color and looked beautiful matte and with a shiny TC. It dried super-duper fast. These matte's I have found dry so fast and the brush handle is so thick that make my polish has a lumpy application. But they are very pretty and only 1-2 dollars. The China Glaze 'Fast Forward ' top coat is really good, it really does dry fast ( did not think it would) and is really, really shiny.


It is Saturday night and I am ready for some chips & dip and hangin out with my DH... Have a great weekend!

~ Shade ~

~♥~

~ Shade ~

I have used CG 'Sexy in the City' as a prop, because I have not done a Mani with it yet..... so this is a little reminder to get on it.... I really wanted this one, too. yet it sits in my little area of 'un-worns'( shame on me )

~ These next  photo is with 1 coat of China Glaze 'Fast Forward' Top Coat in the sun ~

~ 2 coats of Matte Red  no Top Coat ~

~♥~

~♥~ -Storage- ~♥~

I know this is not for everyone, but I am outgrowing my previous storage solution, even though I have been giving away polish's I do not use / need. I will be picking up one of those awesome Ikea HELMER Drawer unit's on casters, in the future..... but until then, I want to be able to grab my little box of goodies and do my nails / toenails, anywhere in my home or outside. I have used Tomato boxes that the grocery store gets... they are very very strong, I have fallen & landed on one with minimal damage. Unless there is squished tomato in them, they are great for storage and last alot longer than legal boxes.




I am calling this sort of thing I do " Marge's home made Pepsi ", when Lisa Simpson,(of The Simpson's ) goes to a school dance, Marge makes her some home-made Pepsi... I think that it too funny! And so the relevance of that is yeah, I could buy something like this, but I could totally do it myself, too. and it's not just because I am a bargain hunter, and yeah, I am a little on the cheap side, but I really want = what I want. It turned out functional and has been great so far. I just have to not buy any more goodies or I will have to put those in another spot. but by the time I run out of space I will have a Helmer already.



Also, how would you even go about making 'Home made Pepsi'?




I have found Tomato boxes, form the grocery store.. (no squished tomatoes please ) Using just a glue gun, I covered them with a durable fabric, then lined the inside with poster paper from the dollar store in hot fuchsia, then covered the seams with a black ribbon using a glue gun.



Then I made 2 separate removable boxes, one for polishes, and one for tools- like nail files, buffers, and whatever. I used a pretty heavy duty cardboard, and again with the glue gun just fabricated a simple square and rectangle box. Later I covered these two boxes with black poster board from the dollar store, and used clear packing tape around the seams. The larger of the box's I was clever and created a handle and glued it to the bottom of the 'mini' box so I could easily remove it to get to the other polishes / goodies below. They are resting on brackets I made by gluing several pieces of foam board together then gluing the 'bracket' to the sides of my tomato box.




I have glued a piece of heavy duty cardboard covered in the pretty fuchsia paper, to the middle of my box to create a permanent compartment =and= for the upper box with the handle to rest on just in case the 'brackets' i made give way. This has held up exceptionally well..... so far.

Where all my polish's are lined up in the compartments, I covered a piece foam-core board the length of the compartment with the same hot fuchsia poster paper, wrapping the fuchsia paper around the foam board, and then gluing it to the foam board. These are not fixed in place, because I am sure to change their spacing as I get new polish, or give away ones I no longer use. I have made them long enough so that they stay put, by just wedging them in place. That bugged me about Caboodle's, and Sassiby's (memba those? I think that is what their name was. ) those cosmetic and nail polish storage things, the nail polishes always jiggled around in there.




I made sure to leave a space between the two 'upper' boxes for tall nail polish removers to fit in. I have yet to cover the inside of the lid with the pretty pink paper, and will be trading out my purple false-nail storage boxes for the black boxes that i have found that come with screws and nails and such = because the purple boxes have a space between the lid and each compartment, and my false-nails are getting all mixed up.....

This box fits perfectly under my bed and while it is clearly home made, it is not an eyesore like some other things i have used for storage, which I am short of at the moment.... because i have too much stuff ♥



So.... it sorta looks trashy and home made, but I am totally over buying all these storage containers only to find they did not fit-in in my new home, or it's contents have outgrown them. I am looking forward to that Ikea thing... it's on caster too.... I hope my descriptions make sense. I could not find a box big enough to hold everything, yet was small enough dimensions to fit where I needed it to fit. Alot of pretty fabric covered boxes you can find at like Walmart or Winners, or Homesense, (T.J. Maxx in the U.S. ) are cardboard, like the same stuff your DVD Player comes in, If you need specific dimension and pretty and functional at the same time, you will have to go all D.I.Y. on that !



I will be making another one of these, with different compartments for my hair accessories and hair appliances ( good-grief ) I think that I have hair accessories and hair stuff in 3 separate areas in my home (... NO MORE!!!!! ) I will be sure to take better detailed pictures .





Any questions, please add a comment and I will answer. I hope I explained this well, it gets a little confusing and I am sorry I did not take detailed pic's of the whole project. But I will next time.

~♥~

~♥~ Indulge - 'Chocolate' -~♥~

~♥~

K... I was a little worried about these photos but they don't look too bad up on blogger...... This is Indulge Beauty 'Chocolate', a very pretty gold shimmer chocolate. It is very unlikely that I will be wearing this in the near future, maybe around X-mas time..... Like all these cute mini polishes, they dried pretty fast, and have a lovely shimmer to them. These are all indoor photos as I remember the day I wore this and it was friggen cooooold!

~♥~

 

This is two coats, no top coat. On my MIDDLE finger, I have used 1 coat of Sally Hansen 'Radish' which is a deep, deep dark purple, and two coats of Indulge 'Chocolate'. No top coat.

 

  

 

There = = = = Yippee I finished something I started, Now I just have like 30 more to wear and photograph and post. It sounds like i am complaining but this blogging is lots of fun! It's way better than reading sad news and such... and work, real work. Happy Saturday!

~♥~