Neon nailsies and a bit o' life!

Hello and Happy Saturday evening to you all!  Since I was off work on Friday and going out of town, I decided to do a "funky" mani with neons (love 'em but I feel weird wearing them to work) and attempt a technique I've never tried before but recently saw in a tutorial video on YouTube.  It did NOT turn out like I envisioned because I could not find a small enough brush. :(  But it was still kinda cool, and I enjoyed it for a couple days. :)

First of all, can I say that as much as I love the neon mint color of ChG's Highlight of My Summer, the formula is HORRENDOUS!  :O  It gets sooo streaky, and yet, giant ridges build up in other places and it's just a royal pain in the butt to get decent coverage.  I think this is three coats.  Dry time was decent at least.  The accent nails are a polish I've showed you before; Maybelline Pretty in Polka.  I love their jelly/black & white glitter polishes! Drops of Jade is also in my stash. ;) 

As you might have guessed, the technique is one-stroke brush flowers, but mine did not really turn out.  I stupidly got the white and the pink (NYC French White Tip & Sinful Colors 24/7) reversed for the first two.  I'm not even going to try to describe it, so if you want to see how the pros do it, watch this awesome video!

So, since I only have & only wanted  to show you one photo of that mess, on to "life!"

Last weekend my little brother and I made the long-ish (6 hr) trek to New Ulm, MN to visit our mom's sisters and their "kids."  We're actually all around the same age...my brother and I both have cousins there that are the same age as us, and one that is smack dab in between us. :)  It was a really nice weekend and it felt good to finally reconnect with them.  It'd been YEARS since my brother saw that side of the family, and about 2 years since I'd been to New Ulm for a visit.  Plus it was nice to have someone to share the boring drive with - other than when he was driving like a boy and ruining my gas mileage!

Clockwise from R:  Jane (my aunt), Hannah (her daughter), me, Morgan (my brother)

Here's us having a sushi FEAST at a pretty spectacular place in Mankato. :)  Thankfully, we all enjoy sushi and so I thought lunch in the big city was in order!  Hannah had heard of this new place from a couple friends and they happened to have a $15.99/person all you can eat sushi lunch special.  I don't know how the 4 of us managed to eat only 3 rounds of 3 rolls...plus the most amazing crab rangoons as an appetizer - they were seriously to DIE for - like Turkish delight or something! lol
Somehow the sushi was very filling and totally delicious.  Mmmm.  Darn, now I want sushi!  :P

It was Oktoberfest while we were there - New Ulm is a very  German town, complete with a Glockenspiel & it's home to Schell's Brewery, so Saturday afternoon we walked around downtown and happened to catch the petting zoo as they were packing up...

Now that's not something you see in MN every day!  He was really cool... as we walked up, he kept saying: "Hello," and "I love you."  At least I think  that's what he was saying!  There was also a kangaroo, some other kind of big bird, a llama, a dromedary camel, and a couple other things I can't recall.  Hannah's 2-yr-old daughter was there before us with her dad, and she called her mom & kept repeating: "camel!" :D  It was pretty cute.  She knows a lot of animals for being only 2!

Now, on to TODAY!

I almost wan't going to include this, but since my friend's costume & my shirt kinda go (color-wise) with the mani I showed you, I figured meh why not!  Plus, I'm pretty excited that I did my first-ever 5k run/walk today!!! :D  Let me tell you, if someone said to high-school me (who about died every time we had to do laps for gym class) that in 10 years I'd be running a 5k of my own free will, I would have literally rolled on the floor laughing.  But, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles; here I am...

Here's me and my lovely friend, Janette, who convinced me to do this with her!  So up until 8 days ago, I'd never really run a day in my life, other than when absolutely necessary. :P hehe

I have no idea what our exact times were (the timing device they were using kept freezing because it was so cold) but I'm guesstimating it was around 45 minutes?  And we walked a lot of it.  But I'm pretty proud of us!  It was surprisingly not nearly as bad as I thought and all my mental freaking out and worrying about being the last ones to finish was for naught.  We'll probably do another one in Fargo in May. :D

Oh, this guy greeted me this morning when I was about to sit down by my mirror to get ready.  I'll spare you the big photo!  Needless to say I got ready in the bathroom instead.

ISH.  I HATE spiders!  When my roommate got home, I had her kill it. :P  I'll usually kill them, but I was already on edge with nerves about the run. 

Have you ever accomplished something you never thought you'd do?  If so, I'd love to hear about it!  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed this post even though it wasn't all about polish. ;)

Summer fun with Maybelline Polka Dots + matching crèmes

 Good eeevening, daaahlings!  LOL, I guess I’m in a goofy mood tonight.  And this is a rather “funky” manicure, so I guess it fits. J

After months and months (ok, not really that long) of admiring the new Maybelline jellies on other peoples’ blogs & wishing they’d arrive in my Wal-Mart already, I SPOTTED (haha!) them in a Walgreens & managed to restrain myself & purchase only the one I really wanted: Drops of Jade (since I was getting 3 Sinful Colors as well, and earlier that day, I’d scooped up 3 of the new Fing'rs Heart 2 Art polishes from those fun Wal-Mart displays).

Polishes, L-R: Drops of Jade, My Buoyfriend, 24/7, My Kryptonite, In Mint Condition, V.I.Purple, & Set In Rhine-Stone

Immediately after I left Walgreens, I was thinking about the hot pink version of Drops of Jade, but oh well, I don’t live anywhere near a Walgreens, so my loss, I guess.  L  Well, whaddya know: not even a week later, I was perusing the cosmetics section in my local WM, and lo and behold, there stand four of the Maybelline Polka Dots and three of their new “Holographics” (*cough – aka lame duochromes- they need some bloggers working there so they get their finishes straight)!  And wouldn’t you know, one of the four happens to be Pretty In Polka. :D  Yay!!  While perusing my stash, I discovered I had two colors that would be perfect matches to the jellies.  And thus, my mani was born:

For some reason, the SinfulShine refused to photograph true to color! It's coming out much more blue & muted in these photos than IRL. Grrr.  Although I don't feel too bad - even the swatch on the SC website looks like this! lol

My original plan was to use OPI Mod About You (perfect 50’s pastel pink) and Maybelline Green With Envy (perfect 50’s mint green), but once I saw how they all looked together, it was not a pleasing combination (sorry, Essie - I was sad too).  Ergo, plan B! ;-)

I started with a thin coat of each jelly (well, over the obligatory base coat of course) and one medium coat of Kleancolor Neon Pink & SinfulShine My Kryptonite from Sinful Colors' new line with Gel Tech (very shiny, I must say!).  Both of the latter were smooth & easy to use (although the Kleancolor brush wasn’t the best - I’ve used worse) and OPAQUE IN ONE COAT! :-D LOVE me some one coaters!  And then I decided to do a medium-thick coat of the jellies, which covered beautifully and had a great payoff of the small & medium black & white matte hexes.  Dry time was good on all four polishes.  Jellies continually & pleasantly surprise me with their quick dry times. J

The small fuzz begs your pardon for ruining the lovely, squishy aesthetic

If you haven’t picked some up already, I would highly suggest getting one or two (or all!) of the Maybelline Polka Dots.  The bottle is small, but for only $2.97, I don’t mind. J  The other colors are orange, blue, and clear with the same black & white glitters.  Which I’m thinking would be fun to use over any color – I saw a neat skittles mani on another blog using the clear one.  I would include the image here & credit the blogger, but that still feels wrong to me, so just head on over to Google to see what I’m talking about. J

I hope you are enjoying the hot, hot days of summer!!  Just remember; before long it'll be -60 million degrees & snowing! (at least, it will be here in northern MN)