Misted Paths: An Experiment in Monochrome

OMFGPonies, I feel SO accomplished! I know, I know, it's just a video, but I've figured out how to combine my photos, animated tutorials, and video footage into cute videos for YouTube! That makes me super happy, and also means I'll be doing lots more video soon! But let me get to the good stuff...

What you're looking at is Wet and Wild's Grey's Anatomy. Have I mentioned I love this polish? It's got such an understated glow to it that only shows up in certain circumstances. I could write for ages about this polish, but that's a post for another day!

However, for this design I put on three or four coats of Grey's Anatomy so that it would be opaque. Then I used topcoat to adhere black rhinestones onto the nail in swirly patterns. For some reason, this made me think of cobblestone paths that twisted away in a morning's mist.

Also, these rhinestones came from Viva la Nails. I love them, and find myself reaching for them often. They're perfect for making eyes- add a big dot of white polish and then drop one of these tiny stones into place, and you've suddenly got an eye with a LOT of character!

Yea, I read WAY too much fantasy. Don't judge, 'k?

My favorite part of this, though, would have to be the video that my husband helped me put together. Granted, I could sit here and fiddle with it for another week or two but I wanted to just get it posted so I can move on to other videos. So, let me share with you my new intro and outtro, as well as my first YouTube tutorial!

 

Let me know what you think about this design. Would you wear it? Is it just a bit too much? Is it not nearly enough? Talk to me!

Til next time!

Rhinestones were provided by Viva la Nails for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

My New Manicure CleanUp Brush!

OMG, y'all, I have the BEST news.

Some of you may think I have super-amazing nail painting skills and never ever make a mess. You couldn't be further from the truth. I have shaky hands, and I end up with quite a mess around my cuticles. It's ok, though, because once I learned how to clean up with a brush and some acetone (or regular polish remover, whatever) my nails looked great!

I went through a lot of brushes, trying to find one that would be perfect. Big enough without being too big, nice angles, the right shape. Finally, I found one that I fell in love with. Wet n Wild makes a creme eyeliner that is freakin' amazing, and the brush that comes with it is perfect for cleaning up your nails. (It sucks for lining your eyes, though- get a new brush for that!) Best of all, the eyeliner costs a whopping $4, so I don't feel like I'm breaking the bank when I need to replace my brush.

Unfortunately, that brush is almost a year old and it's pretty much died. Acetone isn't the nicest to brushes, and these poor bristles have lost their oomph. When I went to replace it, I couldn't find the Wet n Wild liner ANYWHERE!!! This was QUITE a problem!

Well, on the ride home from dropping the kiddo off at summer camp, we stopped every few hours to stretch our legs and walk a bit. Lucky for me, I checked the cosmetics section in one of these tiny little towns and found a new brand of makeup called Black Radiance. It's a lovely cosmetics collection for darker-skinned women, and they had my brush!!

At that point, I didn't care if the cream liner worked or not, or if it was even in the package. I just wanted that brush! The good news is that it cost even less than my original Wet n Wild liner! This lovely package cost a grand total of $3.88- a price I was more than willing to pay.

Well... ok. I won't lie here. I actually picked it up and carried it in the buggy with me for a good 15 minutes while I decided whether I was going to buy it or not. Cheap or not, we're broke and we still have to go pick up the kid in 3 weeks! But eventually, I decided to go wild and bring it home with me, and I'm SO glad I did! The brush is utterly gorgeous and even works for putting on eyeliner, if you don't have any other brushes. I'd still recommend using a nicer one, though.

As if this wasn't enough good news, the liner is actually amazing! I have a feeling it's the same liner as the Wet n Wild, since it comes in the same colors and is made by the same parent company as Wet n Wild. Since I already have black liner, I went with the chocolate brown and couldn't be happier. I applied a test line onto my hand just to see how well it lasts, and after countless times washing my hands, sleeping with it, etc, it was still looking exactly the way it did when I put it on. This stuff STAYS!

I also love it on my eyes... the brown is dark enough to really make my lashline look thick without screaming "Look At My Eyeliner!" I'm loving this stuff!

So if you're looking for a new cleanup brush, head to your local cosmetics department and look for some cream eyeliner. If you can find the Wet n Wild, grab it, but the Black Radiance is just as good!

Til next time!

I bought this one with my own money, and I'll buy another when I find it!

See my disclosure statement for more information.

I Love the Way Chrome Polishes Stamp!

I had a few extra dollars a few days back, so I decided to splurge on a stamping polish. Hee, I say splurge like it cost me $30 or something... I spent $2 on a Pure Ice polish from WalMart!

But let me tell you, these Pure Ice chromes stamp like nobody's business! I was actually really impressed when I saw the pigmentation of this one. This is definitely a one-coat dream!

I know, so what did I get? I got Pure Ice Pussy Cat, which is a very pale silvered blue chrome (or perhaps is should be a blued-silver? I don't know...). It's absolutely lovely for stamping, although it left little dried strings of polish on the edges of my nailbed.

 I chose to wear this stamped over a Wet n Wild polish I won from KittyPolishnBags. Deep Wine is just that, a gorgeous shimmery deep wine that just works beautifully with my skin tone. I could have worn this alone but I was really in the mood for some stamping. The fun thing about these colors together is how they interact together.

Although Pussy Cat is clearly blue in the bottle (and if you were to wear it alone), when stamped over Deep Wine it loses almost of the blue, becoming a very beautiful rich silver. I can't begin to explain how much I enjoyed this combination!

So, if you're looking for an affordable, gorgeous stamping polish, head for the Pure Ice display at your local WalMart. The chromes are fantastic!

Wet n Wild Craze- Shield

I've whined a good bit about Wet n Wild's basic polishes here. Maybe it's my base coat, maybe it's my application, maybe I got a couple of bad bottles, or maybe it's my chemistry. I have no idea. But I've finally found one that I absolutely adore...

Shield is a desaturated metallic gold that applied like a dream. The brush is very short and squatty, but I found that I had no problem with control, or with reaching the polish in the bottle (like the problem I've had with other bottles). This polish went on smooth and gorgeous and I had almost no need for cleanup, which is odd for me!


I'm also oddly amused by the bottle design. The swirly paisley on the cap makes me smile, and I think the bottle is just adorable. It's not really elegant, but it's cute as can be which also works for me!

I'm not sure why, but I'm often drawn to metallic polishes. It's sad, because they almost never look good on me! Golds are too yellow and make me look sickly, silvers are too cold and just look odd. But this? This is the perfect metallic tone for my skin, in my opinion, and happily I don't cringe when I see it on my fingers!

Unfortunately, I forgot one of the main things I've been testing when I use a new polish- I forgot the stample! I feel so silly, but there's no doubt in my mind that this would stamp beautifully, especially over black. Can't you just see it now...?

Aiee, Poor Caribbean...

Oh dear. You ever do something pretty, and then just keep on going and destroy it? Yea, that's what I did here. The Caribbean Frost was pretty, but I got bored. Really bored. This is what happens.

See, first I grabbed my stamping kit. I have it all in a cute little bag that Kellie G. sent me. (If it wasn't for her, I'd still be stuck with the same single plate I had.) I dug through all the plates and decided to go with M78. It's a really cute pattern that I've wanted to use more than once, but never got around to using. Since I just got those gorgeous Maybelline Aluminum polishes, I decided to see how they'd stamp on this lovely shade of teal.

It was... pretty. It was fairly sheer, though. I wanted more! I then decided to fill in the cheetah spots with black and white. That was AWFUL!! Thankfully, the Sally Hansen Nail Art pens are water-based, and I could remove them without any damage to the stamp. It was really not something worth saving,unfortunately.

Then I decided to try the silver and gold. They were... better? I don't know. I'm not fond of this look, but I decided to keep it on for whatever reason. A coat of Seche Vite made it durable and shiny, and dried quickly as usual.

Oh, you may be wondering about the naproxen sodium in the photo. I've managed to damage my knee somehow, so I'm taking these around the clock to help with inflammation. I was amused at that bottle being closest to hand. I know, I have a weird sense of humor.

All in all, I don't think this is a horrible look. I just don't have long enough nails to make the best use of the pattern, and it ended up looking sort of disorganized. But it was the first time I used a whole-nail stamp and it turned out nicely. Also, I learned a lot about stamping and design. So overall, it was a great learning experience, right? :D

What would you consider one of your more educational nail polish experiences? Have you done a nail art design that just made you want to take it off and start over? Tell me about it in the comments! And coming up tomorrow, I got a special surprise in the mail that I get to share with you! See you then!

Sally Hansen Nail Art Pens were provided by their PR company for evaluation.

I always wanted to go to the Caribbean...

I have a problem. It's a great one, but it's a problem, regardless. I'm indecisive, and now I have a box full of untried polishes that is just almost impossible to choose from. Seriously, I'm sitting here looking and just totally overwhelmed. For this mani, I decided to ask a friend to choose my color.

"Pick a color. Any color, I'm bound to be able to come close to it..."

She laughed at me, then said, "Well, I'm wearing this sort of teal-blue-green color on my toes... how about that?"

And that's how I decided on today's color, Wet n Wild's Caribbean Frost.  I like it, I think, but I don't think it likes me. I can't quite decide if I like it on me or not...it's so green! But it's an absolutely lovely color, with just enough shimmer to make me smile.

Unfortunately, I had the same problem with this one as I did with Wet n Wild Eggplant Frost. I'm going to have to try it over a bare nail, maybe it's my base coat causing the problems? Whatever, these two polishes were horrible to work with. The polish didn't want to go where I wanted it! I'll try it without a base coat first, and then maybe try thinning it out a bit with my polish thinner. It's frustrating, because these are absolutely beautiful polishes!!

I finally managed to get the polish mostly where I wanted it, though, with only a few curse words. (I have a bit of a potty mouth when I'm frustrated... or, well, when I'm breathing. :D) A coat of Seche Vite made things look even nicer, and I managed to get this cleaned up better than ever before, I think. I'm finally getting the hang of using acetone and a brush to clean up. It only took me what... 3 months?

One good thing about how Caribbean Frost is how well it stamps. I've gotten a bit OCD lately, so whenever I get a new polish, I put it into my spreadsheet, then I do a sample stamp with it onto a small sticker. That way, I have a reference of how well it stamps without having to remember details on all of my polishes! I've managed to go back and do sample stickers on about 1/3 of my polishes... the ones I think would stamp well. It's so much easier than having to dig through the spreadsheet!

Clearly, this one stamps like a dream. I want to see what it looks like over black. Ooooh, that's an interesting idea for the future! *rushes over to make a note in her spreadsheet* Sure, that might be geeky, but it helps me remember what I wanna do!

So yea, this is what I've worn for the past day or two. I have to admit, it's growing on me. I think I'm going to have to stamp on it to see what it looks like then...

Then again, knowing me, I'll destroy it totally. I'm good at that! Oh well... stay tuned for tomorrow's exciting conclusion to Wet n Wild Caribbean Frost! Will it be stamped on? Will it be a masterpiece, or will it be ugly! Wait and see!!

Enough! Take off that polish already! TAKE IT OFF!!

Back again? I know, you're dying to figure out just what else I could add to my manicure... It was pretty blingy and over-the-top as it was, could I actually do much more with it?

Silly lovey, of course I could!

I got an incredible package in the mail from KellieGonzo (who writes Also Known As, a rather kick-ass blog). See, we're been Twittering back and forth for a bit now, and she's as sweet as can be. Out of the blue she asks me for my email. Turns out, she says she's got a few Konad plates that she unfortunately hasn't been able to figure out how to use, and she wondered if I was interested in them. She'd noticed that I'm having a ball figuring out all the things you can use a Konad set for.

Well, I get to the mailbox the other day and find her package. Turns out her idea of "a few plates" is 14 plates, a holder, and 3 special Konad polishes! I kid you not, I squeed like a mad person! My husband just laughed at me as I went over and over the various bits, because it was just like Christmas! Honestly, y'all, I wanted to hug her!

Thing is, once I had those plates in hand? I couldn't let them just SIT there... I had to USE them. So I dug through til I found something I thought would be simple enough to go over what was on my fingers, but still fun enough to do, and simple enough I would be able to do it. First time Konading on my own fingers you know? So I picked out a simple dot pattern, and sure enough, 15 minutes later I had cuteness on my nails! I photographed it without topcoat, because I was afraid the Konad would smear and be ruined.

It wasn't, though. It survived just fine under my Sally Hansen topcoat, whose name escapes me at the moment. It's in here somewhere, though...

Problem is, those patterns are awfully small, and my thumbnails are awfully large. First I tried stamping my thumb vertically, but that left 1/3 of my thumbnail blank, which just ... I'm not ready to match up a pattern yet. Getting it on straight was enough excitement for the day! I cleaned off the stamp and started again, this time putting it at the base of my thumb. That left a bit of space at the tip, which I covered with the swirly bit there. It'd be nicer if I hadn't smeared it, but... meh. Bite me. It's my first time, and that's ok!

And there you have it. How I put more layers of polish on than any one person should EVER have on their fingers at one time. And it looked CUTE, too! Of course it finally chipped, and that chip made me crazy, so I had to take it all off, and now my nails are bare as ever. Funny how that happens... but I've got a lot of birthday polish and Konad plates to play with, so I'm sure they won't be bare for long!

Gosh Rainbow over Wet n Wild Eggplant Frost

Hi again! Lots of craziness at Chez Laynie, and I'm having such fun documenting it all. Around the blog, there have been a few changes- I've added a box on the left so you can ask me questions at Formspring! I don't know how well that's going to work, or if I'm going to keep it, but hey, it's a good start, right? Also, I've incorporated Google ads to the blog. Don't worry, there are no big flying graphics or blinky things to annoy you. But if you see something interesting in the text ads, feel free to click. I've already seen a couple of things I'd like to click!

I've also added a counter for my feedburner (holy wow, I had no idea so many people had signed up!!) as well as a cute widget showing off my Etsy listings. Not sure if I'll keep the Etsy one. What do you think? Is it a keeper? Ah well... let's get to the nails, shall we?

Oh my gosh, this has been the HARDEST look to photograph!! Seriously, I have taken more photos of my nails this time than I think I ever have, and that's saying something! Of course, that means you have to look at more pictures, but hey... it could always be worse, right? I could have broken more nails, or...

...oh wait, I did. Meh, no big deal. Worst case scenario, I always have nail tips, right? :D

Ugh, I'm all over the place right now! Let's start at the beginning, shall we? As soon as I picked up Eggplant Frost, I knew it needed a coat of Gosh Rainbow over it. I wanted to see how the deep warm purple affected the Rainbow flakies. (For the record, Gosh Rainbow and Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure are dupes... one has slightly larger flakes, but there's no real reason to own both, other than the fun of it!)

So, after wearing Wet n Wild Eggplant Frost for a day, I put a single coat of Gosh Rainbow over the top, then a layer of topcoat. This stuff was so insanely pretty that I simply couldn't stop looking at my fingers, watching the colors change as the angle of the light did. My husband laughed at me on more than one occasion for being lost in thought, just looking at my nails...

I also need to apologize for these first photos. I was so excited about this combination that I decided I had to take pics for twitter, even though I hadn't even cleaned up and was still oily from my quick-dry topcoat. (Speaking of, that's a post for another day... I'd be LOST without it, and it's cheap!) So the first few pictures are sloppy and embarrassing, but they show the colors so well. Forgive me?

The next day I went outside and sat on my front steps with my cameras, taking photo after photo, trying to get a video to show how this stuff interacts with the light. No go, though... the videos were all blurry, and utterly useless. I haven't given up on video yet, I'm just not at a point I can do it well enough. I'll get there, though, and as soon as I do, you'll see video!

I imagine the neighbors must have thought I was insane, sitting on my steps taking photos of my hands. I often wonder what my neighbors think. Once I'd gone to visit my dad, who lives at the end of a dead end, and there was the cutest turtle just sitting there in the road. I had my husband stop the car, grabbed my camera, and soon was lying in the road, camera on the ground, taking face-to-face photos of the turtle.

Before long, one of the neighbors came out of her house, terrified. She asked if we needed her to call 911, so that an ambulance could come. She must have thought he hit me with the car! We both said no, everything's fine, there's a turtle in the road! She looked at us as if we'd lost our minds...

Maybe she's right. I have more stories like that than the average person should, I think, but it's fun. I wouldn't want to change the way I do things... it's what makes me me!

My poor camera, though... it had the worst time trying to photo this combo. You really do need to enlarge at least a couple of photos, if for no other reason than to see the amount of sheer amazingness. The purple shimmer in the Eggplant Frost seemed to really step up with the Rainbow flakes, so there was an amazing amount of just ... I don't know. Prettiness? Downright crazy understated blingy goodness? Sexiest nail treatment since holographic polishes? I have no idea, I guess... I'm totally at a loss for words, at least coherent ones!

 So yea, I consider this to have been a very successful layering experiment. But do I stop here? Heh... those of you who follow me on twitter will know the answer to that one! Tomorrow, my lovelies... tomorrow you'll get to see what else I did to this!

Wet n Wild, Eggplant Frost

Whew! I finally get to wear some of my birthday polish! Actually, I was wearing it in yesterday's haul entry, but I hadn't talked about it yet. I'm wearing the Wet n Wild Eggplant Frost polish, and I have such mixed feelings about it.

First, there's the color. This didn't photograph anything near what it looks like in person, not that there's anything surprising about that. Interesting (to me, at least) fact- lots of digital cameras have problems capturing purples. It's something to do with the sensors inside the camera, but it's beyond me to explain. Just know that when your purples look blue, it's not your fault!

So, back to the polish... It's a deep, gorgeous blurple. You can see the blue tint in the bottle, but most of that shimmer is hidden, so that just the tinest hint comes out with your topcoat. It's a rich, warm royal purple, incredibly deep, and I just love it to bits.

I'm not sure why they named it Eggplant Frost, though, since this is about as far from a frost as you can get without being a creme. The tiny bit of shimmer it has almost disappears, which is sort of frustrating for a shimmer/glitter junkie like me. That's ok, though... it's so pretty, I could deal with it.

Except for one this. This polish was so incredibly difficult to work with. I don't know if it's just this polish, if it's all Wet n Wild Shine polishes (I have some others to test out, so we'll see, right?), but this one had me cursing. It's like after the first sweep of color onto the nail, it dried and became miserable- clumpy, draggy, uneven, and then it bubbled like mad. I didn't do anything different than I normally do, so I can't imagine what the problem is. It was frustrating enough that I'm tempted not to use it again, though.

The good news is that once I got it on, two coats was totally opaque. Adding my topcoat made the bubbles almost disappear, and within minutes I was in love again, my cursing all but forgotten. It's stayed on well (3 days so far, with extremely minimal tipwear other than 1 small chip I repaired invisibly.) It's a workhorse polish, I just wish it wasn't such a prima donna to work with!

I'm planning on picking up a bottle of thinner this afternoon, maybe that'll help it. As for this manicure, I've got a hint as to what tomorrow's post will be. ;)

Birthday Haul!

This is something I will rarely do. I don't generally spend money on nail polish stuff. Because of that, I don't do haul posts. Even this time, I went for colors I can use in artsy stuff to round out my palette. Still, I got $50 from my dad for my birthday day-before-yesterday, and I spent a bit on me. Don't get me wrong, $20 went to fix my car's AC, because I live in hell South Louisiana, where the heat index has been reaching 110° or higher on a regular basis. AC is not a splurge, it's a necessity.

But then, my husband told me he wanted me to get something for myself, something to make me happy. (This is where everyone is supposed to smile and saw, "Awww, he's awesome!") So I did. I went digging through online coupons and things, and I decided to look for what I might be missing, and so... well... here we go. I took pictures.

First off, I was running low on remover & acetone, and you know how important those are! So, I grabbed one of each. The remover was $0.98, the acetone was $3.45 or so.

Then I went to look for the stickers I've been drooling over for months. Seriously, well before I started painting my nails, but alas, they were sold out.  No cute cupcake & crossbones decals for Laynie. =(

That's ok. In a way, it's better, because that leaves more room for polishes, and boy did I ever shop well for polish. Now, the two purple Wet n Wild polishes (Eggplant Frost and Wild Card) were from the other day, I just hadn't photographed them, so I stuck them in with the birthday haul. They were birthday, just not from Dad's contribution. I also decided to get the Carribean Frost because it's such a pretty teal, the Shield because OMG, it's a gorgeous sort of warm pewter color, and I'm always needing clear polish to mix with. All were $1 except Shield, which was $2.

I also grabbed a couple of Love My Nails polishes, because hey, $1 polishes make me happy. I chose Hot Tamale because it's such a gorgeous, vibrant shimmery orange, and Dazzling because it's such an understated, purple/green shimmer. Seriously, it is insane, and it's so pretty!

Rockstar Pink was the biggest splurge of all, and it was from my actual birthday. I spent $2.50 on it, and it was worth every penny. It's a crazy glittertastic party, and I wouldn't change a bit of it. Well, I might make it a little easier to remove, but hey... it IS glitter, right?

And here's the fun part: I found a coupon at Walgreens online to get Sinful Colors polishes for $0.99. Be sure to double check if it's valid in your area, unfortunately it's not valid everywhere. There's a limit of three polishes per person, but that's why you bring a friend. I dragged my husband along and picked out six polishes that I think I am absolutely in LOVE with!

Happy Ending is a beautiful grassy green shimmer, Love Nails is an absolutely KILLER sky-blue shimmery/frost (not sure which), Let's Meet is a summery golden yellow shimmer, Dream On is the most impossible-to-photograph vibrant purple (almost fluorescent), All About You is a mix of gold and coppery glitters in a practically-clear base, and Call You Later is a crazy mix of multi-sized Green and Gold glitters in a practically-clear base.

And because that's not enough, I also got a nail art kit from the Dollar Tree because I have all sorts of strange ideas running through my mind for nail art, and lots of them involve little multicolor stones of some sort. it comes with 120 gems and a small bottle of top coat, and it, too, was $1.

If you've been keeping track, that's less than $20 spent today and less than $25 spent total. Not bad for 15 polishes, 120 rhinestones, a bottle of acetone, and a bottle of remover, yes? I'm giddy. I love getting a good deal! The only problem I have is...

... how the heck am I gonna STORE these babies? O.o

Heaven Nail Lacquer is waiting for you...

I got so many questions about where, exactly, I bought my Heaven polish. I felt a little guilty, because I was waiting til I could get there and snap a few pictures to tell. What can I say, I wanted to share all the colors, not just one! So... the big secret is out. If you're looking for lots of fun colors at completely affordable prices, go to . . .

You read that right. Go to the cosmetics department at your local Albertsons grocery store and pharmacy. I bet you didn't know they had an extensive cosmetics department! The only way I knew is because I have a family member who used to manage the cosmetics department in her local Albertsons. She would bring me the most wonderful things all the time.

The interesting thing is that the Albertsons cosmetics department isn't managed by any old grocery store manager. No, they realize that cosmetics are important to women, so their departments actually are staffed by cosmeticians! So you really should stop by and look to see what's there... you might be pleasantly surprised.

Oh wait, I did that for you! Now, let me preface this by saying that just because these were found at my local store doesn't mean they'll be at all stores, but I know that this is a concept Albertsons is proud of across the board, so I bet you might have more luck than you might expect. So, your mileage may vary, keep your seatbelts on, and let's see what I found!