Big Huge Giveaways: I Better WIN!!

This will be my only post about a giveaway this month.
There is a Rafflecopter giveaway and the prize is an iPad2 and a Kindle.
I would love to win these. I just got a Nook Color for Christmas but I have been wanting an iPad but its just not affordable. If I won one, I would be ecstatic! The Kindle would probably be a gift to either my mom or my son.
Not sure which yet. I'll have to win to make that decision.

I entered to win it on Amandalandish's blog.
http://amandalandish.blogspot.com/2012/01/rafflecopter-giveaway.html

Here is another giveaway for a Kindle Fire plus a ton of Amazon money:
http://www.opalstevens.com/2012/01/new-year-new-reads.html
I did a ton of filling out forms to get all possible entries for that one too!

PCFC Inspired by your favorite jewelry

Ok so this week is to do a mani inspired by your favorite piece of jewelry. I happen to dabble in making beaded jewelry also so I made this set about a year ago. Its a pretty long necklace. I also made a double stranded bracelet and earrings to go with it. The earrings are not pictured.

I like the pinkish colored beads in this set. It has a pretty pop of color that I wanted to match with my mani. I just tried to make a sparkly pink color to match the beads. I am thinking I should have made some black design over a couple of nails to match the focal bead, but I haven't done that here.

Here is a macro of my thumb. I didn't think my camera would do this good of a macro, but its decent!

I started with a base coat of Seche of course and then I used one of the Mini's from the OPI Burlesque set. I think it was called The Show Must Go On but there are no labels on the mini bottles and I can't find the box. I don't think I threw it away but IDK. Then on top I used Sally Hansens Diamond Strength called Wedding Crasher. It is really shiny, even in the dark. I was going to try to use just the SH polish but it was pretty opaque and I didn't want to have to do eight coats. So I just layered but I think the glitter spread out pretty evenly and made a good combo.
Here is the OPI without Wedding Crasher on top.

I need a fill but just ignore that. LOL
So what do you think of my jewelry inspired mani?

PCFC Animal Print... Do Angry Birds Qualify?

So I am doing this challenge and the first one is to do animal print nails. I will post the list of the dates and themes at the end of this post. Since I don't really dig animal prints, I decided to do some animals. Birds. But not just any birds. Angry ones. I only did my left hand and I think I will try this mani again sometime in the future and do the pigs on my right hand. We all know how easy it is to do nail art on your dominant hand right?

Anyways, on to the birds!

 I got my son this bracelet and he left it with me after his basketball game so I got the idea to just use the birds as my animal print since zebra or cougar prints aren't really my style. I didn't do the green bird but I was pleased with how the other birds turned out. I should have put the little white spot under the yellow bird, but no bad for a first attempt.

I think you can tell what I was going for. Here are the polishes used for this mani and I did all drawing with my dotting tools.

Week 7 - Jan 6th - Zoe -  Animal Print

Week 8 - Jan 13th - Joy - Inspired by your favorite jewelry (earrings, necklace, ring)

Week 9 - Jan 20th - Abby - glitterbomb

Week 10 - Jan 27th - Lynica - polka dots

Week 11 - Feb 3rd - Caitlin - Inspired by your favorite book.

Week 12 - Feb 10th - tackiest Valentine's mani EVER

Week 13 - Feb 17th - Felicia- 

Week 14 -  Feb 24th - Maria - themed like your bedroom eg wallpaper, duvet cover

Week 15 - Mar 3rd - Rachel - 

Week 16 - Mar 10th - Julie- tape mani of your choice

Week 17 - Mar 17th - Arielle - Spring Break mani

Week 18 - Mar 24th -  Lisa

Week 19 - Mar 31st - Alyssa

Week 20 - Apr 7th - Jebba - Franken mani

After Christmas Mani and NYE nails!

Please note: I decided to enable the word verification on my comments because I was getting weird spam posts that I didn't like. Please don't let this deter you from leaving a comment if you are a reader of my blog but I hope this extra step will keep out the dumb spam. I do NOT want it to keep you from posting regular comments. Thanks!

Ok I had to make 2 posts so I don't overload you on pics in one post. So here is my mani I did after Christmas since I wanted to do something other than red, even though I totally loved my festive reds. I am going to wear them out at Valentine's Day and probably 4th of July too.

For my first step I put one layer of this duo-chromey purple from Rimmel London Lasting Finish Pro called Violet Metal. Its such a pretty purple. I do have a couple others like it in my stash, but the formula on this one is better than the Sally Hansen one I think. If I wasn't going to layer over it, I probably would have gone with another coat. Don't you just love the blue shimmers?

Then I put Butter London's Black Knight over it. Admittedly, I thought BK was going to be less opaque, which is why I wanted the bottom color, but it really didn't need it. You can barely see Violet Metal underneath. BK is so gorgeous. I put this on because I thought it would be good to wear out for NYE if I didn't have time to come up with something else before we went out.

However, we got back from Grandma's and dropped the kids off with my baby sister and had a few hours to get ready before our dinner reservations. New Years Eve is also our Anniversary and so we wanted to go to an adult only dinner and then head to my favorite piano bar to ring in the new year. We decided to go eat at this Brazilian grill where they bring meat around to your table on huge knives. OMG it was delicious. The meal special that night came with a glass of champagne and a yummy chocolate dessert. Hubby took these pics of my nails from across the table.

I used these gorgeous nail strips by KISS.  They are so awesome! I still have them on and its almost 4 days later and not a single chip. I had to put Seche on the edges because they had little rough spots that were snagging stuff and I didn't like that. They are not smooth over the whole nail at all. They are bubbly but not rough. Does that make sense? I have even done dishes and laundry and they are holding up so well! Still look like the day I put them on!
I don't want to take these off but I have decided to join a few challenges for 2012. The first one is on a facebook group called Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge. It seems like the perfect group for me to fit into. They have a friday challenge and this week is an animal print. So I am not sure if I am going to do a zebra or a snakeskin. I am not an animal print kind of girl. I did paint the cougar spots and the owl on my sister but zebra is the only thing I have ever worn on my nails. I don't even own anything with animal prints. Thursday will be a sad day when I take my blingy NYE mani off. :(
The second thing I want to join in is another weekly challenge I saw on http://www.jennafroggy.com/2012/01/challenge-week-1-make-it-sparkle-mani.html and I think Jenna saw it somewhere else and so forth but it looks awesome and I am going to try to do these two mani's a week. That should be reasonable right? Two posts by friday of every week. I guess I can put that on my list of resolutions.
It seems like everyone has a list but I really have just a few...
Minimum of 2 blog posts a week.
Post more scrapbooking stuff.
Save money so we can take a trip to Orlando next Fall.
Eat healthier. Not nearly as much fast food!
Get my migraines to stop or severely decline.
Keep my house cleaner.
Declutter and organize.
Pay all bills on time.
And be the best mom and wife I can be.

If you haven't posted your resolutions yet, feel free to leave me a comment and let me know if you are striving for something that's not on my list or something that IS!

Here is a pic of me with my dessert too. I forgot to put on my jewelry before we got to the restaurant. I am usually finishing up my final touches before we walk into our destination. My jewelry just slipped my mind and I felt naked without it!

Here is a pic of my total look with jewelry after we got back home after our date. You can barely see the top of my favorite sexy boots.

I'm also trying to find a cool closing phrase for my posts, but everything sounds too cheesy...so Stay Beautiful!

Happy New Year!! Bring it on 2012!!

Ok well I have had a very very busy last month as I am sure everyone else has. With the wonderful holidays and the family time, its been impossible for me to sit down and blog. My hubby had his first week off from work in 3 years last week. So the kids were also home from school and finally go back tomorrow!!

This is going to be a nail post and maybe I will have to turn it into more than one post since I have a TON of nail pictures to show you all.

I am so excited that I am getting close to 100 followers finally. I am already putting stuff together for a giveaway!

I totally dropped the ball on the 31 days of Christmas Nail Art. I did take pics of the mani's I did the last half of the month and they fit a few of the easy categories but not so much art since I was short on time.

So here is what I did do:
China Glaze Glittering Garland is my most festive green. It IS from a holiday collection. I love the shimmer in this. Its so pretty!

Next I layered white stripes over it and then filled in the stripes with a gorgeous red glitter by Sally Hansen from the Gem Crush collection called Ca-Ching! Sorry bout the mess, I didn't do enough clean up on these.

The Christmas season put me in the mood for red though and I LOVED glittering up my reds. Here I have OPI's Fresh Frog of Bel Air over Ghina Glaze Ring In The Red. RITR is soo close to Ruby Pumps so I am glad I have these 2 beautiful reds to last me a long time.

I think I put two coats on the right hand and I liked it better.

And my last Christmas mani is back to Ruby Pumps with some China Glaze Fairy Dust thrown on top for extra sparkle. I swear I was staring at my nails in the sun while we were driving to our family gatherings.
How could you not when Fairy Dust is soo amazing!? Sorry about the shiny fingers. Cuticle oil is our friend and I was desperately needing it and shiny is better than dry right?

 I am wearing this mani in the below pic of my hubby and I by our tree. Our 5 yr old took this pic so the angle is from a little too low LOL!

Well there you have it! Hope you enjoyed this installation of my nails. Stay tuned for another post soon because I have an after Christmas look and of course my NYE nails!

HUGS & POLISH!