Mani Monday!

WHOA! Can you believe it? Another Mani Monday post! I may take a break next week though, my nails are looking pretty rough under that polish. 

So anyway, I had an awards banquet on Saturday night, and I needed my nails looking fancy and a little horsey. I actually had a slightly different manicure planned, but it turns out, that purple glitter wasn't in a clear base. Oops.

Here is the dress I was needing to match:

It's a little tough to see in the photo, but the dress is a very pale mint green with a silver tulle (I don't know how to spell that...) and purple/bronzy sequins. I had wanted to do mint nails with purple glitter done as a gradient, but it wasn't to be! Purple tips worked too. I also used the Jamberry nail wraps you've already seen as accents. Rio on the left thumb, and the horses on the right middle. Here are more pics:

I started as I normally do with Nailtiques as a base coat. The mint color is L'Oreal Mint Glacee. I wasn't in love with it. It took three coats to get full coverage and still was a bit streaky. It did dry fairly quickly though. The glitter is Julep Aviva. It's a great color and I think if you did the entire nail it would only take two coats for full coverage. I finished off the mani with the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Top Coat. 

What's on your nails today?

Mani Monday!

It's been a LONG WHILE since I've had a Mani Monday post. But this snowy weekend allowed me the time to get things done in the house AND have time to let my nails dry. That's a feat!
Saturday proved to be one of the laziest days EVER in my 34 years. I got up early, fed the horses, made breakfast, lounged around... Finally cleaned the barn and turned the horses out between 1 and 5, then commenced more doing nothing in the house. It was epic. But as a result, I vowed to be MUCH more useful on Sunday. And I was! So much so that I had time to do my nails! And try out my awesome new custom Jamberry nail wraps. I will apologize in advance for the terrible photos.
Left:

Right:

Close up of my Jamberry nail wrap:

My main nail color is Sally Hansen City Pleasure. It's a subtle, yet shiny gold that is perfect in two coats. I did my tips in Maybelline Color Show Avante Green. I regret the polish choice for the tips. It took heavy coats to show up, and it was really tough to keep them even and straight with the multiple thick coats. A darker more opaque green would have been better.
My Jamberry Nail Wrap was my own custom design. That's Rio! I should have made the picture smaller though, since my nails aren't very long. Poor pony got cut in half! Once I use up this sheet I'll try again with a smaller photo. Stay tuned for nail wraps featuring The Pugs too!

I always start my mani's with Nailtiques as a base coat. Lately I've been finishing them with the Sally Hansen Gel Top Coat that I got from Influenster. It does seem to keep my mani fresh longer!

So that's today's Mani Monday. What's on your nails today?

Crafts and nails, OH MY!

Now that it's winter I have time to do all kinds of things other than just ride horses and go running. (Though I'm not doing either of those things which is not good for my waistline. Oh well.) I recently found some adorable beads on the Goody Bead site that I just HAD to string. I decided to make bracelets specific to each of my "kids" and one for me too! You can see them stacked all together above. I also made a few others. Let's take a look!

Rio's Bracelet

 When Rio first moved to the US he really only responded to two words : Handsome and Cookie. So it seemed appropriate to have a cookie on his bracelet. Plus some apples and first place ribbons of course. For all of the bracelets, I used my farm colors of hunter green and tan. Though I substituted gold beads for tan since that's more fun.

Jamp's Bracellet:

 Jampy has this habit of holding his head really high and making strange faces, so he earned the nick name Jamposaurus rex. I was so excited to find T-rex beads for his bracelet!

Ducky's Bracelet

 I think his is pretty self explanatory... Rubber ducks of course!

Pia and Artie's Bracelets:

 Their's are both the same. Not very creative I suppose, but they do have the same interests, so I don't think they'll feel slighted.

My bracelet:

Pugs, Ponies, Ribbons, and French Fries! I'd say that sums me up pretty well.

Others:

 These lapis beads look SO PRETTY with my trusty watch. If I wasn't afraid of breaking it, I would wear this combo every day.

Chanukah Bracelets:

 I made one of these for me, and one for my mom. They're adorable and festive!

Turtle bangle:

I have a similar bracelet that I bought ages ago using ball beads in between the tubes. I thought to myself, hey, wouldn't that be cute with turtle beads? Why yes, yes it is!

Besides crafting, I like to try and do my nails on occasion during the winter. Since I'm not regularly bathing horses and cleaning tack, they don't chip and look awful quite so quickly.
This past week, a friend of mine hosted an online Jamberry party. It's similar to hosting a tupperware party, but instead of kitchen goods, it's nail wraps! What a great idea! The neat thing about Jamberry is that you can also custom design your own wraps, aside from choosing one of the many stock options available. I ordered one sheet of a stock print and also some customs. The customs haven't arrived yet, but I will be sure to show you when they get here! I tested out my stock choice as accent nails last night. Let's go see the man!

 The wraps have little horses on them! I know you're shocked that I would choose the pony print... I know, I know. I'm so predictable. Whatever, how cute are they?!
My other nails are sporting a gray color from Maybelline Color Show called Audacious Asphalt. The glitter top coat is from OPI and it's called Where's My Blanket. (If someone can explain that one to me, I'd appreciate it! They always have cute names that relate to something, but this one is lost on me.) The glitter topper has black shreds with pink and mint hexes mixed in. Super cute!

 So that's what I've been up to in my spare time. That and cleaning out the closets... I'm up to 8 bags of purged items!

How are you spending these cold evenings? Doing any crafting? Are you braving the elements and getting your miles in? Riding in an indoor somewhere? Tell me what you're up to!