Finally- a successful water marble!

Holy COW I am so excited! I've been wanting to water marble for ... well, ever since before I started this blog. I've tried and tried, and failed and failed... until NOW!

Granted, this is a crappy photo of a not-so-inspiring water marble, but the exciting part is that it worked for me!! I used (gee, wait for it...) the China Glaze Electropop polishes and they spread like a dream!

So, once I remove the manicure I'm wearing (probably tomorrow or the day after) I'm going to try and do a water marble. Maybe a RAINBOW water marble!! I'm so excited I could just pop.

Also, once I saw how cute this was, I wanted to embellish it a bit. So, I added to it just a bit. You know I can't leave anything alone...

I added some dots and a tiny little heart in the corner because apparently valentine's day affected me more than I realized. Either that, or I'm still love-struck by my husband. :D

Ok, it's 5am and I still haven't slept. I've been working on a surprise that I might get to show you tomorrow... so cross your fingers for me!

EEEE! Water marble EEEEEE!

See my disclosure statement for more information.

My husband got me a surprise!

My husband is awesome. We've never been particularly wealthy financially, but I feel like we're beyond rich in love. I know it sounds disgusting, but it's true... and we go out of our way to show it as often as possible.

Take for example a couple of days ago. I'd been home, feeling like I was going to die from the plague (or just feel really really gross for the rest of my probably-short life), so he and our son went to the grocery store to pick up a few things. While they were out, he found in the clearance aisle of the local big box store a packet of folders.

These folders were especially interesting because instead of having pretty colored designs on them, they were black and white- they were designed for you to color in with your own colors, your own designs. He knew I'd seen them multiple times and thought about buying them, only to decide they were too expensive for what they were.

Have I mentioned I'm frugal? Yea. Just a bit...

That night, he came in and told me to close my eyes. Then he pulled out the goodies he'd found one by one, placing them in front of me. His eyes beamed with love as I giggled (and blew my nose, and coughed), and once again I thought just how lucky I am to have married my best friend.

A Cinderella Story

Let me tell you, I feel so relieved being able to post a simple, beautiful look after my previous fails. I find it very frustrating when I can't translate what's in my head to what's on  my nails. Thankfully, that wasn't a problem with this look!

Also, I'm still feeling pretty icky, so I didn't do my usual photoshoppery to fix my poor pathetic cuticles. I apologize in advance, but I feel the look is princessy enough to forgive. I hope you agree!

So- this all started with an email I got from KKcenterhk. I almost missed it, because it somehow wound up in my spam folder! Thankfully, I saw it, because they wanted me to try their water decals. I said sure, and after browsing for what seemed like hours, I finally decided on N.NAIL-WDHHC069-Silver- a set of metallic filigree designs.

In all honesty, I wasn't sure what to expect. The water decals I've seen and used prior to this point were very thin, and I couldn't imagine a metallic water decal actually working. But I was optimistic, and eagerly awaited the chance to try them.

Click this one to see the detail on these decals!

Once they came in, I was absolutely floored. They're absolutely gorgeous, shiny metallic silver and so delicate! The only problem I have with them is that they were too darned hard to photograph- I must have taken 20 pictures and this is the best of them!

They are slightly different than other water decals I've worked with, though. Instead of coming loose after seconds, they take a few minutes to really turn loose from the backing paper. I actually used a pair of plastic tweezers to peel them off once they were saturated, but they're very sturdy and held up beautifully.

However, once I had them in hand I couldn't decide what to pair them with! I wanted something simple... no holos or duochrome to take away from the delicacy of the design. I also knew I wanted to put a stone inside the circle of the design. It just seemed made to be accented!

Finally, I decided on a polish I didn't think I'd like at all- Kinetic Candy by China Glaze. It's a pretty enough polish, it was just too pale, too blue, too  Easter for me. I decided to add a coat of Love My Nails Dazzling over the top, and a tiny blue gem from my Fing'rs Nail and Body Jewels.

I don't know if I've mentioned this lately, but this is probably my favorite set of nail gems. They're tiny and so sparkly, plus there's such a fun variety of shapes! This set was provided by the kind folks at Fing'rs ages ago, and I keep finding new uses for it!

You see the end result here... this blue sparkles like Cinderella's ball gown, and I don't want to hear the clock strike 12! I've had this on for days and don't want to take it off. It's so shimmery and delicate, and I am just in love!

Who knew I could be a pale blue, Easter kind of girl? Certainly not me! I also left the Dazzling off my thumb, just to show the decal a bit more clearly without all those sparkles.  I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story.

Water decals were provided by kkcenterhk.com for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

A teaser post because I am sick.

I wish I could show you what's on my nails at the moment, including the process to achieve said look. Instead, I am producing prodigious amounts of toxic biohazard waste from my nose, which seems like it's kicked into production mode for the world's most disgusting slime factory. I don't know what one would want disgusting nose slime for, but I'm sure there's an evil genius out there plotting the world's doom who could figure a use for it.

Too bad for him I'm keeping it all! Bah, you can't have it, evil genius! You'll have to find your own snot factory! This one is on the side of good!

... yea, I think the cold meds are kicking in. Or the sleep meds. Or maybe the pain meds... I'm on a lot of meds.

So instead of the awesome post I had planned for today, you get a single picture: my thumb. It's a hint of how awesome this manicure is...and it's also the only photo I could finish prepping before I had to lie down and actively germ fight (in other words, sleep). Enjoy it, and hopefully tomorrow there will be glorious descriptions and photos and other nicenesses.

It's a pretty picture, I think. Or maybe I just need sleep... at this point, I can't really tell. I'm going to sleep now, since I'm typoing more than I'm typing, and I'm spending to much time correcting the corrections I already corrected....

Say goodnight, Laynie.

Goodnight Laynie! :D

The room is all spinny. This makes it much harder to type a straight line!.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

11 Questions Tag, as seen on Mocha Mish Mash

I saw this idea on Mocha Mish Mash and thought it looked fun, so I'm doing it too!

 1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought? "Oh Lord, I look SCARY when I'm sick!"

 2. What are the top 3 Beauty Products you cannot live without? Lip balm, leave-in conditioner, and nail polish. My lips stay chapped, my hair is so frustrating now that it's curly, and dude, it's NAIL POLISH!

 3. What are your best physical features?  Hmmm... I'd have to go with my eyes. I get compliments on them.

 4. What your favorite form of exercise? Walking and swimming are the most fun for me. I used to do much more, but the fibromyalgia sort of kicked my butt.

 5. Do you play any instruments? Yes! Well, sort of. In high school I played clarinet, flute, saxophone, piccolo and bassoon. (Yea, I was a bit of a multi-tasker!) Since then, I've dabbled a bit with piano and guitar, and I'm planning to get a ukulele soon!

 6. What is your worst pet peeve?  I don't know that I can pick just one! People who willfully spread misinformation infuriate me, so I'd go with that I guess.

 7. Seen anything weird lately?  Honey, my LIFE is one big weird thing!

 8. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?  Someplace where the temperature doesn't swing 40 degrees in 24 hours would be nice!

 9. Do you believe in love at first sight?  No, not really. I think you can be drawn to someone, or feel the possibility for love at first sight, but actual love takes time.

10. Do you sing in the shower?  I sing everywhere!

11. What is your best childhood memory? Gosh, that's a hard one- I have a lot to choose from! The first one that comes to mind at the moment would be sitting in my mom's lap when I was 3 years old, watching Elvis on stage. My grandmother had told my mom she was crazy for taking a 3 year old to a concert, but I promised her I'd behave...

So there we were on the floor, and I knew that if I didn't behave myself my mom would leave. (Ok, I didn't know it at the time, but I think she would have stayed, since it was Elvis. But I digress...)  Elvis was on stage, singing and handing out scarves, and I had a FIT! I wanted to badly to go and get a scarf, but my mom said he'd be done by the time we got there. I was so sad, but I wasn't going to throw a fit, because... you know, ELVIS!!

That pretty much sums up my obsession with music!

Never paint your nails when you're sick...

Wow. You know how sometimes you have a great idea, and yet the execution of it just totally fails? Yea. This was one of those days. I blame the cold medicines and the plague. I didn't bother cleaning these up much because I just wasn't gonna keep them on.

First, I painted my nails with two coats of Love My Nails white, hoping to get the move vibrance out of my rainbows, then taped around my nail like you would for a water marble. I was planning to have gorgeous rainbow gradients, topped with some sort of black pattern.

Best laid plans, I guess. I was feeling lazy, so I just sort of estimated where the color should go on the sponge. I kinda overshot, so I barely had any purple and I had no red/pink at all. Bleah. Worse, when I pulled the tape off I had white edges!!

This isn't awful, I know, but it really isn't at all what I was going for. I said to heck with it and decided to try something different on my right hand...

... except apparently, something different in this case was something hideously ugly. I figured I'd dab the color onto the nail somewhat randomly, then paint over it with black. But... no. This was ugly enough I couldn't wait to remove it.

It makes a fun blog post, though. See, all those times I tell you to have fun with it, because it's only nail polish? I mean it!

At least I like what I did afterwards. But you'll have to wait til tomorrow to see what that is! I know, I'm such a tease...

So come back tomorrow. Today's nails are a total Cinderella story!

Stupid plague...

See my disclosure statement for more information.

CND Green Scene

Happy Monday, everyone! I hope yours is better than mine... I'm missing a funeral because I'm sick. Oh yea, it's loads of fun in the Layniefingers house! But even though I have the plague, I couldn't help but show you the newest polish I got in the mail!

The lovely folks at CND were kind enough to send me a bottle of Green Scene, and it's absolutely perfect for St. Patrick's day! This green is rich and opaque- you're looking at one coat!

This polish applied so beautifully. It's buttery smooth, and practically applies itself! I'm sure you could do two coats for maximum coverage, but I found one coat was perfect!

I love the color, as well. It's the perfect kelly green, warm and mid-toned, not too dark and not too light. If I were going to design a basic green polish this would totally be it!

Once I'm feeling a bit less like death, I'll experiment with stamping it, or stamping on it. But for the moment, all I want to do is to curl up in a ball and sleep til I'm not sick anymore.

I can try, right?

Green Scene retails for $9 and is available at cnd.com.

EDIT:  I got energetic earlier and decided to test out how well Green Scene would stamp. Turns out it stamps beautifully... look at that butterfly! It's rich and opaque, and absolutely gorgeous!

This is definitely a new favorite of mine...

Polish was provided by the manufacturer for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.