Flowery Polka Dots

I'm not really sure what to call these. But I like them. I got the idea for these from this blog. Hard to tell, since mine only vaguely resemble the awesomeness that is the original design. *sigh*

I thought a shimmery metallic grey would look cooler than black. Not sure now... Still love the color!

Added some white dots with a dot maker. I need to practice a bit more...

My best dots!

Took a day off before adding the flowers - and chipped a nail. So I changed it to red. Boom.

Last step - drawing some flowers. Since I'm not a pro, mine are gigantic.

Did anyone else notice how gigantic my thumb looks? I hope it's just the camera angle adding 20 pounds...

This Week In Ridiculous Photos

So I have a really sweet nail design on right now! But I don't have the pictures yet. I can hear your heart breaking. But I did do a bunch of fun stuff this past week! 

1. I got patio furniture! I have a fairly large balcony, and up until last week the only thing I kept on it was a cooler of beer and a wind-chime. Apparently this isn't very classy, so I found some furniture on the Target website. Amazingly, all of this came, completely assembled, in one GIANT box. I have no idea how they managed to get it up my three flights of stairs, since it was wider than them by far... I also couldn't fit it through my front door... After a lot of dragging and pulling, I got all of the stuff inside and set up.

2. Drunk Bingo has a chandelier. Apparently this has always been there, but I have never noticed it. Way to class it up!

3. Beer is more delicious when it's gigantic. I have my own liter stein, which I use at home, but they're few and far between when you're out in a bar. We went to a new bar last week, Bar Munich, and it was really fun! Not only did they have giant beer, but they also had giant Jenga and Jolly Rancher infused vodka. All of the world's greatest things in one central location!

4. Rodeo time! For those of you who are unfamiliar with Houston, or Texas in general, the month of March is unofficially RODEO MONTH. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is a two week long event filled with music, food, animals, carnival rides, and cowboy attire. If two weeks of this were not enough for you, the two weeks leading up to the rodeo have approximately 230923 barbecue cook-offs and smaller concerts. On Saturday we went to the official BBQ cook-off at Reliant. Parking was outrageous ($20-30) but it was cheap to get in ($10). Unfortunately, 99.9% of the tents were invite-only. So we wandered around until we found free stuff. Eventually we found a tent with unlimited free BBQ and another tent handing out bottles of Jack Daniels mixed drinks. As amazing as that sounds, the drinks were way too sweet and the old man handing them out was way too friendly. But I drank my booze without complaint ;] 

Since everything is bigger in Texas....

5. Spring has sprung! Sunday morning at the ass-crack of dawn I did a training ride in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't too bad (maybe I'm getting better at this?) plus it was a really pretty day!

The money tree has some gigantic leaves. I'm slightly worried that they'll make it fall over...

New Camera, Experimenting with Pictures!

My new camera got here today! It's a Sony Cyber-Shot something, something-or-other. It's better than my phone camera, that's for sure! 

While I'm at home, playing with nail polish and cameras, a bunch of my friends are in New Orleans! Little devils. Since tomorrow is Fat Tuesday, Tully suggested that I try and make some Mardi Gras nails. I totally made the most craptastic nails ever, but I didn't have time to redo them... *sigh* 

The colors I used

In other news, I've been brainstorming ideas for the 31 Day Challenge. The most daunting task sounded like the "galaxy nails." I looked at a zillion pictures of other people attempting this - and that didn't help. I found a few that looked a little easier, so that's what I went with here... I might try the harder one next time, since this really wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be!

Also, I'm still figuring out this camera, so hang in there folks.

In case you're wondering how to do this -

Use a base of either a black or a really dark blue. I did dark blue, since the black I wanted to use was MIA.. Note to self: find my black polish...

From there you kinda just... blob. Starting with a lighter blue, then yellow, red, and orange, sponge on the colors to create a galaxy-esque thingy. I used a Q-tip, but you can also use a makeup sponge. Finally, take a toothpick (or a dot-maker) and dot on some little white stars of various sizes. Tada! Not as bad as I thought. Next time I'm going to try and do some swirly nebulous things. Stay tuned for awesomeness.

31 Day Challenge

So I was cruising some nail blogs today... I could spend hours and hours doing this, but each page I look at makes me feel worse and worse about my picture quality, lack of cleaning up the extra paint, and skills in general.

And then I found the 31 Day Challenge.

This is so intense!! And time-consuming! But it sounds freaking sweet. I feel like I would have to actually plan a lot to get this done... March is a 31 day month, so it'd definitely work... but my schedule is already a nightmare!

So I'm thinking this might happen more in May... I would do it in April, but I'll be finishing up training (and riding in) the MS-150. That'll give me (and you!) time to brainstorm some ideas for awesome designs! 

P.S. If you'd like to donate to my ride, click HERE. I've raised approximately $900 so far, so join in for a good cause!

Rainbow Fish Nails

Do you guys remember The Rainbow Fish book from elementary school? That was seriously the most desired book in the entire world. I was on a waiting list for 4 months before I got to check it out from the library! That's an eternity in 2nd grade time!

My nails today were slightly inspired by this book! They were also really easy to (which is a plus). I used two layers of Ulta Blue Streak then a couple layers of top coat. For the accent nails, I added a layer of OPI Midnight Blue glitter and a layer of OPI Pinata-Yada over the top. Looks pretty scaly to me!

Pseudo Valentine Nails

I hate Valentines Day. I have always hated Valentines Day. When you're little, you just give out crappy little pre-made cards with lame cartoons on them. Plus I never got to pick out which ones I wanted to give away. My mom always went to the store, bought 3 different boxes, and then made my brother, sister, and I duke it out. Being the oldest, I got the shittiest ones since the two little wieners would cry.

When you're older, you're supposed to give a gift to show how much you love someone. What a load of crap. When I pick out stuff, I always go for something I think the other person would want or need - not something that gushes cheesy romance goo. Non-romantic Valentines gifts are only appreciated years later when your ex calls you and tells you that whatever you bought them is now their favorite thing ever. Oh good.

Wow, I sound like an uber bitch.

In the spirit of tolerance, I painted my nails for V-Day, but I did it over a week ahead of time so that by the actual date they'd be chipped - or painted over with a lovely shade of black.

Mirror Shine (from my grandma), Revlon Top Speed Cherry, Nicole by OPI [Justin Bieber] Step to the Beat of my Heart

 This is another really easy one. I did two layers of Cherry, one sideways swipe of the Mirror Shine, and a topcoat. I was going to put the hearts on all of my nails, but after I did one thumb I decided it looked really weird...

I need to find more of these Mirror Shine polishes! They look a lot cooler in real life, btw - like a mirror!

Catchy Cheetah Nails - Take 2

A few months ago I attempted to free-hand some cheetah nails. They turned out ok, but these were way cooler and easier. I've never been a fan of fake nails, but this seriously took a total of 10 minutes to do!! This is from a couple of weeks ago, and they lasted about a week and a half.

Mermaid Nails

1. I have pictures from last week that I totally keep forgetting to post. 2. I wasn't going to post these at all, since I didn't think they were very exciting. But! I've had about 5 different GUYS comment on them in the past couple of days. So here they are!

I actually did way more work than I needed to for these - they're like 4 layers. The first was a shimmery green from Sally Hansen. The second was a blue/green/silver mix. The last two were two different types of glitter - the green one from the OPI Muppets collection, and the blue one was just one from Claire's. The picture is a little weird, but to me they look like a mermaid's tail. :)