Vacation Nails-Part Four!

It's hard to believe I've been back to work almost two weeks and am still posting pix from my vacation! Here's another mani inspired by some nature related shots when I was away.



Here's mani in progress: Started with skittles. Colours starting from thumb and clockwise are Essie Splash of Grenadine, OPI Osaka-To-Me-Orange, China Glaze Entourage, OPI DC Cherry Blossom and Essie Shelter Island. All two coats.



Then stamped to match the pix below from my holidays as my inspiration. Image plates used were fauxnad's T39, T41, T44, T20, H30 and B03 with a variety of Konad special polishes.



Lastly added a few dots using the colours of the mani (blue is Essie Shelter Island and the orange is OPI Osaka-To-Me-Orange) and white (used Konad special white for dots).



The two nails I liked the most were the thumb and index...I think I may do another mani with just the images and colours from these two nails....another mani, another day! I think the purple and orange are kinda cool together!



These are the pix that inspired the mani:



I just realized when I posted these pix that the above pix has a bee on the flower on the left. Never noticed it before now or my skittles may have included yellow with bees!





We spent a few evenings fishing off the dock...if the mosquitoes weren't too bad, that is. This was one of the fish caught...and later released.



As we were fishing, some ducks swam right up to the dock! We decided to feed them our worms, which put an end to our fishing that night!



One night when I was scanning the waters edge to take pix of fish by the shoreline, all of a sudden this massive thing was seen in the water. You would have thought I seen Jaws as it seemed so huge and out of place and I was all excited about it...it literally was a foot from the shoreline and then went right under the dock where I was standing. It turned out to be a beaver...a little bit down the river, it finally surfaced.



Blue jay at the feeder at the cottage. The birds and chipmunks were entertaining to watch as we relaxed on the deck when we weren't out sight seeing or shopping.



I hope I'm not boring you terribly with my vacation pix! I can fully understand what was interesting for me may not appeal to everyone...especially when there's nothing too exciting in these pix!

Thanks for looking!

Vacation Nails-Part Three!

This post is a whole lot more than vacation nails....its experimenting with layering again, a fantastic swap, vacation pix, matte polish and frustration all bunched into one! Let me explain....

While I was on vacation, there were tons of lilies in bloom along the many lakes we seen. Most of the lily pads weren't visible as they were about 30 feet from shore. On one of my last days of vacation, I finally found a lake that had some close enough to the waters edge to took a few pix of the lilies close up. This was the mani that I came up with inspired by the lily pad pix I took.



I wanted a base colour to represent the darkness of the waters that the lily pads sit on...not too great of an intpretation if I have to spell it out, is it? lol! This was one coat of Bloom Mena topped with one coat of Sinful Nail Junkie.




Here's mani in progress:

One coat of Bloom Mena that I received from Kaz over at Pretty Random. I've been a follower of hers for a while as she has some really interesting posts about hard to finds, etc. When I stumbled upon a polish she was looking for at the supply place time forgot, I fired off an email offering up a swap if she was interested. In exchange, one of my lemmings was attained with Bloom Mena. While I had seen pix of it that showed holographic sparkle, it was barely visible and I had a hard time capturing it with my camera....maybe in the sun, it would be more visible, but when I'm taking my pix in the wee hours of the morning, the moon is out, so not the best pix...maybe another time, I'll be able to capture it. I was also surprised that this dried kinda matte; I'm sure it would be more spectacular with a shiny topcoat, but I knew I was going to be layering and stamping it so just left with no topcoat.



Then added a coat of Sinful Nail Junkie that I picked up on vacation in Haliburton. Taking pix of this mani frustrated me beyond belief! For the life of me, I could not accurately capture the colour/flecks, etc. of the layering in the pix. Then stamped with Konad IP m66, using Konad white special polish. I purposely only stamped the one finger as I wanted to take some pix in the morning to see if I could get more accurate shots so put on a coat of SV and off to bed I went. Unfortunately, when I woke up, discovered I had some shrinkage. Took another pix in the morning; this pix is a little bit more accurate.




Just before I took off the polish, I matted it for fun. The effect of the layering is a little bit more visible when it was matted. This was pretty cool...if not for the shrinkage.



Here's thumb comparison...excuse the hangnails!



And pix of lilies that were the inspiration. I so wanted to get better pix of this area as there were both yellow and white lilies, but couldn't get close enough as the shoreline was all boggy.



These were the pix I got at another area closer to shore....do you see the dragonfly in the pix?



One last pix...



Thx for looking!!

Vacation Nails-Part Two

Here's another mani I wore when I was on vacation a week or so ago.



Borghese Castello Blue stamped with Konad princess special polish in cool red, then topped with LA Girl Glitter Addict in Celebrate. This was another layering experiment...all centred around how I could use Celebrate in layering along with stamping. Image plate was Big SdP G.

Here's mani in progress....I took pix in the sun and shade and it looks a little different in each so a few shots in both lighting.

In sun:







In shade:






Just before I removed this mani, I put Essie matte topcoat on it...this was a kinda cool, edgy look. Pix don't do it justice really which is unfortunate!



A few more pix of my holidays....this is the Lookout Tower just outside of Dorset that my kids and I climbed one afternoon. This is an old fire lookout that they've turned into local attraction. Stats say that the tower is 465 feet above the Lake of Bays, which is the lake you see in the pix below. Here's a pix of the tower just outside of Dorset so you get an idea of how high it is:



The view at the top of the tower.



And then looking down...you can just see the tips of my neon orange vacay pedi!!



Not too much to see here except the tops of trees and the lakes...but it cool to walk up and see the view...and good exercise to boot! Another place I want to go in the fall for some fall foliage pix...I say it ever year but never seem to make it there...maybe this year!

Thanks for looking!

Vacation Nails-Part One!

I recently returned from holidays and when I was away, I spent a bit of time in the region of Haliburton County, which is one of many cottage country areas in Ontario (there's also a town named Haliburton, which I did visit, where I was able to score Sally Hansen Prisms in Ruby Emerald, Ruby Sapphire and Garnet Lapis.....the cottage crowd mustn't be into polishes too much to leave these gems untouched!!). A good friend of mine has a cottage in the area near Carnarvon on Halls Lake...about halfway between Minden and Dorset....so my family and I spent a few days in the area checking it out. I've been going to my friends cottage for about 15 years but hadn't visited in a few years since I got my own weekend getaway place...but it was nice for a change of scenery!

I thought I'd share a few of my vacation nails as well as some pix of my trip if you wanted to have a peek....or just look at the nails, if you want to skip the scenery shots, no problem!

This was my mani for a few days...I wanted something bright and summery that would look good whether I was shopping, at the beach or on a hike. This fit the bill, I think!



This is two coats of Essie Exposure, using Big SdP-F, Konad special polish in white and random coloured dots.



Two coats of Essie Exposure.



Stamped.



And dotted!

And a few pix of my walk along Buttermilk Falls, which is right on Highway 35. Not to be confused with Niagara Falls (lol!!) this is just a very (very...very... very) small waterfall that runs from the Kennisis River that drains Halls Lake (where I was staying) into Boshkung Lake.

This is what you see as you walk along from the top of the *falls* down to the end where it drains into the lake.













Whats really cool about this pix (to me!) is that you can literally stand on that slab of rock on the bottom right hand corner and be within feet of that rushing roaring water....which I did!







Far away pix of my dad, who had hiked up ahead of me...I was lagging behind taking pix!


If I remember, I want to return to this exact spot in the fall ...I think it would be an amazing pix with fall foliage.









This was a nice way to spend an hour or so with the family. It was an easy walk...we were all in flip flops....and seen a side of the landscape that you don't see in the city!

Thanks for looking!

Casino Night!

A couple weekends ago, I was a dealer for Casino Night; here's the mani I wore to deal the cards. It was kinda interesting being a Blackjack dealer...considering I've never played Blackjack in my life! But it was fairly easy to pick up and we had a lot of fun!



Image plates used were fauxnad m40, D14 and Big SdP-A with Konad white and black special polishes and the Sally Hansen Insta-dri in red.

Here's mani before stamping: Used OPI Alpine Snow for white, Sally Hansen Insta-dri unnamed red and, because I had no black polish on hand as I was on holidays and only had a few polishes with me, I used a black striping pen (the kind you can write with like a pen but it also has a brush)! It was a good alternative as it was so well pigmented and it did the job nicely!




Sorry for the lack of posts the last couple of weeks! I've been on holidays. While I had every intention of posting my manis while I was away, unfortunately, when up in cottage country, sometimes the internet signal isn't the best and I wasn't able to stay connected long enough to upload pix. I'll have to do a couple catchup posts of my mani's while I way away along with a few pix from my holidays if you want to see what I was up to!

Thx for looking!