Kiss Everlasting French Tip Nails in Medium Length

Sometimes, a girl just wants some glam on her nails.

Walgreens recently had their Kiss products Buy One Get Half Off and I decided to try out the medium length. The number is 54249.

Now I love Kiss Everlasting French Tip in real short length. The number is 54248. These are the ones that have the salon uv gel effect base. I'll do a comparison in another post.

What I want to talk about today is the medium length with the same salon uv gel effect base.

 These were very easy to apply with the pink gel glue provided.

Yes, I know these don't fit me. You can see my real nail's edge under the glue on nail. But I really loved the length and had in mind to use stickers to cover the gap.

 

I layered stickers from 2 different Kiss Nail Artist Sickers packages.

 One of the sticker sheets has floral designs of varying sizes. Each floral center has a different gem color: blue, yellow, pink, orange, green, red. On each nail I used a different gem color.

Here's a close up of the stickers:

 I polished them with clear nail polish. Whenever I felt a little raise from a sticker's edge, I would just put on another clear coat of polish.

 I'm really pleased with how these turned out!

(PS: I'll have a vlog sometime this week. I woke up with allergies active and I sound like I have a cold.)

A Break From Reality

Ok. Not a psychotic break, but a mental break from everything we're dealing with about this move. I just needed some time with my polishes, and acetone fumes.

I decided to try one of the instant polish pens I have.

I covered my nail, in a cream color (forgot to take a pic) and then added red and black dots. (I dreamt of Zombies last night. This reminds me of bloody eggs...eek!)

I was researching pirate nail art on youtube. Someone did this, only better.

I used a dotter to make the red stripes then added the white stripes and black edge with the dotter.

And finally, I went all dotty. I won't show you my right hand because the lines are just too wonky.

Now here's the odd thing. I used a different nail building base, Barielle Protein, then Essie Ridge Filler, and Nicole Polish Pen, and then these polishes. A little while later, I noticed that the polish was pushed back from my nail's edge.

I pushed a little more and this happened...

Yeah. The polishes peeled down to the bare nail bed. Have you ever had this happen?

I peeled every nail of polish and took short work to clean up what little was left.
Maybe the polish underneath was not completely dry.

Well, I'm about thisclose to gluing on some nails because I miss 3-D pieces. Yep, I'm addicted to bumpy nail art. And I suck at doing nail art with my left hand. It's very limiting.

After I made this post, I put on some new nails. I'm going to do a video for tomorrow with all the new stuff I ordered and bought over the weekend. Stay tuned!

Fun Nails

I ddin't smudge the dot on my middle finger, that's flash blur.

I bought this Milani during CVS's sale BOGO 1/2 off. It's Ruby Jewels, a vibrant red with glitter. Swoon!

LA Colors (no name) copper, Milani Ruby Jewels, Kiss Nail Art Paint White, Sinful Colors Call You Later, Revlon Emerald City

• I sponged Emerald City and brushed Call You Later over it.
• 2 coats of Ruby Jewels
• Lined and dotted with white
• Dotted copper on the V

This was a quick nail art. I did it right before dinner (last night.) Didn't have time to clean up the edges but by tomorrow, they'll have washed off.

No Glitter Nail Art Challenge

I decided to challenge myself to see if I could come up with nail art and NOT use any GLITTER.

Here's what I came up with...

I painted 3 lines from cuticle to tip with these polishes. Then with a dotter I dragged through the still wet lines.

Wide side swipe with All That Glitters. The rest is pretty much self-evident.

Two sides

I think this is my favorite.

• I painted the whole nail with Mint. 
• Then darker areas with SC blue. 
• White lines. 
• Then SH purple. 
• Then Green paint in the middle.

A take on the moon mani-

Dots instead of a solid moon

without flash

Then dots on the tip

All simple designs to do. What do you think of my challenge?

Limoncello & Marino

It's almost time for me to remove my Kiss nails. I wanted to do something with them though before that. 

I went from this...

To this...

 Polishes:

Borghese Rapido Marino and Limoncello, Kiss Nail Art Paint Silver, Milani Charmed, Sally Hansen XD In The Spotlight

• Two coats of the Borghese Rapidos
• Another coat of Milani Charmed
• Limoncello over the pearls. (I used my dotter to cover the pearls)
• One coat In the Spotlight over the Borghese Rapidos
• Lined middle with Kiss Silver nail art paint

 I had put so much clear top coat over the stickers to keep them on the nails, they felt pretty smooth and I believed I could paint over them.

I really love the Limoncello and Marino. They really do dry quickly and cover completely in two coats. In the Spotlight is such a cool glitter.  Do you have these polishes? What do yo think of them?

Great Polish Great Bargains-September Haul

Here's a video of the polishes I succumbed to buying this month.

• Milani Charmed & Ruby Jewels
• Essie Sew Psyched
• Butter London The Old Bill & HRH
• Sally Hansen XD In The Spotlight & Going Green
• Borghese Marino, Limoncello, Patina Pearl
• Confetti Papa-Razzi

Did you get on the Butter London deal at Ulta today? What did you pick up? Did you have a large selection?

The Tram

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. If not,  it'll all be over tomorrow.

This weekend, my husband and I went on a tram up the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque NM. Now this is something we did for our 1st wedding anniversary. He wanted to go again for our 7th and I agreed.

My husband is on this "one last time" sort of kick. We are planning to move to California before the end of the year, and he's racing to get things done around the city before we leave.

BECAUSE WE'RE NEVER GOING TO COME BACK ONCE WE MOVE!

At least that's probably the feeling so he's going on hikes and long bike rides and pointing out places where he lived, or hiked or biked or threw rocks onto cars (when he was a kid) or almost lost Little Bennie (during the only time the arroyo flooded where he lived when he was young).

So this re-tramming was on his list.

6 years ago, the tram tickets were $15 a piece. But we felt they were worth it because we ate the most incredible steak nachos at the restaurant on the top of the mountain.  Now the tram tickets are $20, there's no more steak nachos to look forward to.

Anyway, I've got some pics. They're not your ordinary pics I suppose. Here's a link http://www.sandiapeak.com/ if you want to see the tram and the view and all that.

Here's some pics I took. I admit I'm jaded and I'm over the whole "oooh it's a majestic view".

Here's the descending tram coming straight for us.

Ok, not really towards us to ram us, but we do run beside it at one point and the impact sways the tram car.

 Tram Car Shadow Rock

(My band's new single)

Portobello Burger

When my husband saw it he almost blurted out that they'd burnt my meat. 

Then he remembered it's not beef.

After we ate, I went into post lunch + higher altitude coma. And my husband went geocaching.

It hailed and then rained while we were in the restaurant so all the benches outside were wet. I decided to head to the visitor center. I had my journal and a magazine to pass the time, until I could go back outside and sit.  But I spent most of my time people watching.

There were a lot of people milling around the redwood decks, and along the trails, but when it came time for us to go back down on the tram only 7 remained.  Our tram car operator told us they get really busy at sunset. And it was true, by the time we reached the bottom about 60 people were lined up to go back up to the top.

Tram car 

While we were walking up to the tram, I noticed this woman in the white pants.

She wore these heels on a tram ride to a rugged terrain?

At first I just thought she was ill prepared, but maybe I was just jealous that she could feel confident to wear platform stilettos to a place where hikers, skiers, cliff climbers and outdoorsy types congregate.

And since this is a nail blog after all, some more shots of my anniversary nails.

7th Wedding Anniversary Nail Art

Ok, so I couldn't get to sleep the other night. Enter iPhone. I never thought I'd use my phone so much but that was before my husband got me this mini-computer. It's actually faster than my 4 year old macbook.

Anyway, I was looking up symbols/gifts/colors for the 7th wedding anniversary since mine is... today!

7th Wedding Anniversary Symbols

Traditional: Copper/Wool
Modern: Desk Sets
Flower: Jack-in-the-Pulpit
Gemstone: Onyx/Yellow Sapphire
/Golden Beryl 

7th Anniversary Color:

Yellow or off white 

Well, I was stumped on what to do for a special nail art, but not for long. 

I decided on grey for the wool, and off white for the complementary color.

The other day, I bought some Milani (BOGO 1/2 off) at CVS.  One of the polishes is Charmed. It's a black glitter polish.

Polishes:

Milani Charmed, Confetti I<3 U, China Glaze Jitterbug

Charmed is a gorgeous black with silver glitter. I <3 U is a very pretty pearl, and Jitterbug is a striking silvery-grey.

I wasn't sure how elaborate I was going to get with the nail art and enhancements, plus I wanted a little more length on my nails than where my natural nails are right now.  So I reached for these:

I knew I wanted french tips and these are my favorite.

I used the lace from this sticker package.

The half pearls from this package.

 And white flowers from this.

I first lined up my nails and painted pearl slants with I <3 U. It took 3-5 coats to get to opacity. (I added 2 more coats after I had painted Jitterbug)

Without flash

with flash

2 coats of Jitterbug here. Then one coat of Charmed.

Once everything was dry, I added the flower and lace stickers along the I <3 U edge and pearls to the grey area on the thumbs and ring fingers. I went back later and put clear top coat over the entire nail.

I added a line of black with Kiss Nail Art paint to define the grey area better.

I was going for grey wool jackets over silk and lacey blouses.

I have to say, I haven't felt this good about my nails since before I went on vacation. I know my natural nails are growing and are mostly healthy. But I missed having them all the same length and shape.

I wanted to show you a close up of my thumbnail. I used 2 over sized nails for my thumbnails because I didn't want to waste them. I cut them down on the sides and across the cuticle edge with regular scissors and rounded the square sides on the tips. Cutting larger nails down worked better for my flatbed thumbnails with horizontal cuticles. The nails, because they were bigger, are less curved, and lie flat against my natural nail.

And here are closeups of each nail.

 The floral/lacey sticker is different on each nail on both hands, but identical to the finger's opposite.

We're going on the aerial tram today and eating lunch on top of the mountain. 

Something we did for our first wedding anniversary.