On today's installment of "How to Suck at Blogging 101," we'll cover topics such as: disappearing for extended periods of time with no explanation, crappy phoneblogging, lazy manis, poor time management skills, and how to avoid and alienate all the wonderful people you follow.
In short, I am a really bad blogger. I fully recognize how much I suck at being committed to a regular schedule. I really should be able to make this a once-a-week blog, and I don't really have a satisfactory excuse for not being able to do that. I don't want to just abandon this blog, but for some reason it's just really hard for me to keep up with. And it's hard for me to keep up with all of you guys' blogs too, which I hate because I really want to be able to check them all!
I was out of town for spring break (skiing in Colorado!) which was a lot of fun except I had no reception. I'm following 100+ blogs which is a loooot to keep up with if I can't check in every single day, which is getting to be an impossibility. Also, I've heard that Google Reader is disappearing July 1st? Can anyone tell me why and what alternatives are out there?
Anyway, I've got some things from Born Pretty Store to review for you so I'll show you one of them today.
I've always wanted to try those cool dried flowers so I really wanted to review these flowers because they had a nice variety.
I started with OPI My Pointe Exactly which is quite sheer, so I used four coats. Then I topped it with Finger Paints Flecked, a blue-green flakie. Then I put one of the turquoise flowers on my ring finger.
I really like it, I think it looks really nice! Unfortunately I went out grocery shopping later in the day and I think all the layers hadn't dried fully, and I banged my ring finger and the flower tore and it all wrinkled up. :( Which was unfortunate but no fault of the product. So I would give this a positive review! I think it looks really nice.
Here's a coupon if you guys want to use it! They've got lots of great nail art supplies.
I've got another product from Born Pretty that I need to review, so I'll make a Herculean effort to get that up next weekend. I'm really going to try to get on a weekly schedule and I hope I can muster up the commitment to do that! I hate being a fair-weather blogger so I promise I'll try harder if you'll still have me. :)
Hello my beautiful followers, I love you all! How are you wonderful people today?
Today I've got a mani that I've seen a few times around the blogosphere, and it started with OPI Cajun Shrimp. Then I used a black nail art pen to outline my nails all around the edges. The pen cracked a little bit as it dried, but you get the idea.
Unfortunately my nails are ridiculously curvy so it's kind of hard to see the outlining on the edges sometimes, but I like this idea overall! It's pretty cool and I like the red-and-black combo.
Have you taken any exciting journeys into nail-art land recently? Anything new, or maybe something you finally got around to trying? I'd like to see! :)
Good evening, ladies! I hope you've all had a wonderful Easter. I, for one, am stuffed to the brim and probably won't be eating again until sometime around November. I just can't resist jelly beans and Cadbury Creme Eggs, which are pretty much pure sugar. They are delicious. All in all a satisfying day.
I did a wee bit of nail art to mark the occasion!
The flowers smeared a bit and the egg is dented, but ah well. You get the point. If you want to know about any of the colors, just ask away!
The first round of voting has come to a close, and we now have six final names that you guys will pick a lucky winner from! Since I'm too lazy to re-upload all the pictures to this post, HERE are the pictures of the franken you are naming if you need a refresher.
Thank you so much to everyone who entered! There were some names that I really loved, you guys were so creative! I have to give a shoutout to some of my favorites that didn't make the cut:
-You Blue It, Baby!
-Laura's Theme (for obvious reasons)
-Sunken Treasure
-Disco Lagoon
-Gaudy Pool Party
-Azure Hurricane
But you are all so creative and wonderful and I love you.
So I did some really awesome nail art and it looked super awesome in person but all my pictures turned out absolutely suckish and I am really frustrated. So I'm leaving them tiny so that they don't look as blurry.
This manicure is entirely Essie. I used Turquoise & Caicos for the base, Little Brown Dress for the branches, Raise Awareness for the flowers and Your Hut or Mine for the dark pink centers. It looked so good aghhh! I'd been wanting to try a cherry blossom manicure forever and it looked so great in real life. Ugh. Why does my camera do these things to me flarhghgghgg...
Anywho, I hope you like this even though it's not as awesome as I wanted. :)
It's not very good but gosh darn it is nail art and THAT IS HOW YOU DO IT SON.
I started with Zoya Kristen and shyeah. I really like how the diamonds turned out but I'm not sure how I feel about "Lucy" on top of it. Not exactly how I envisioned it, but oh well.
Also.... I did some One Direction nail art. *cringe, waits for tomatoes to be thrown* I knooow I'm sorry but it had to be done. I was just wondering... do you guys even want to see it? I know they are probably not most of you guys' cup of tea so I don't want to offend anyone with an aversion to British boy bands. But it's nail art! So I figured you might appreciate it.
Hiiiii everyone! Sorry for being MIA, I have been sick sick sick and I have just not felt like doing anything. But I couldn't just leave you all out there in the cold on a day like today! Because it is ST. PATRICK'S DAY and I have an actual, honest-to-goodness, I-put-an-effort-into-this mani for you.
It's a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow! The base is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Going Green followed by two coats of Sinful Colors Green Ocean. If you care about any of the colors used in the design, just ask!
Also I keep getting occasional comments using the old Blogger comment system rather than Disqus, so I'm guessing Disqus isn't always loading for you guys. It hasn't happened exceedingly often, but I don't really know how to fix it... Any suggestions?
I've been sick for like... All of spring break. It's NOT FUN guys and I hope I'll feel better soon so that I can be back to my normal energetic self! I feel bad for just going off and ditching you guys though. I still loooooove you! *hugs*
So this is the first nail art I've done in approximately 5 bajillion years and goshdarnit I am PROUD.
I started off with 3 coats of OPI Pros & Bronze. Yeah, it's a little sheer, but it's really pretty! It's got a kind of shift from predominantly pinkish flecks to more orangey looking.
And then I kind of just... did that... I taped off my nails diagonally and stamped it with the circley pattern and then used a nail art pen to draw the lines along the edge of the design. I thin kit looks pretty great! I'm trying to get more inventive with stamping rather than just stamping color-on-color because that gets old.
Anywho guys, I would like to ask you for some nail-art inspiration. Have you seen anything really awesome that I should try? Or maybe you have a super cool idea that you'd like to share. Or you could just give me a random word and see if it inspires me. I'm really up for anything!
Also, I am just in the most fantastic mood today. I really am somewhat distracted because I'm listening to One Direction right now... Judge me as you should. I would judge me if I was in your shoes. Really, I tend to look down on anyone who enjoys boy bands but... They're British. I can only resist for so long! THE ACCENTS HOLD POWER OVER ME. Not to mention they are completely ADORABLE.
Well happy day after Valentine's Day, all! I find myself in the peppiest of moods, golly gee the world is a beautiful place. This kind of sums up how I'm feeling right now:
Moving on! Another lady that makes me happy is Tyne from lovebeangirl. She's wonderful and is always so sweet and has lovely nails! And today she is going to entertain all you lucky readers.
"Hello everyone, my name is Tyne, So nice to meet all of Laura's lovely followers. I am so excited an honored to do a guest post for Laura she is seriously the sweetest and her blog is one that I check almost daily. So onto the nails I have for you today, I had seen a tutorial on nailside (http://nailside.blogspot.com/2012/01/tutorial-freehand-cloud-design.html) that she did so well that it looked do-able even for me. I have seen a lot of other bloggers already try this, and have great success. So I too wanted to give it a go. I think it came out pretty good and Im pretty happy with it.
The polishes I used were:
orly snowcone
orly flirty
opi funky dunky
Okay well that's all I got so it was a pleasure, and thanks again Laura."
Thank you Tyne! I've seen this one before too, it's really pretty and I think Tyne did a great job of copying it, I love the color choice! The pink shimmer peeking out between the blue and purple is so cute.
If you like what you see (and I'm sure you do) then you should FOLLOW TYNE NOW!!!
That is all for today, my beauties. Until next time, I bid you adieu!
Happy commercially-created-pretty-pointless-holiday-that-usually-causes-more-pain-than-pleasure Day, my lovelies!
I kid, I kid. I have nothing against Valentine's Day, but it's not really anything special either. So this year, guess who's my valentine? YOU! Yes you, all you beautiful people, I love you so much.
Here, I made you a Valentine!
I didn't want to do anything too pink or gross for today so I decided this was appropriate without being ew.
If you want to know about specific colors, feel free to ask!
And now, as I bid you adieu, I leave you with a bunch of CUTE.
And sadly, a dream it will remain. No chance of snow down here in Houston, sadly. We did have actually for realz snow two years ago, but I doubt it will happen again any time soon.
Anyway, to drown my sorrows of living in a snow-less land, I decided to do a snowy manicure. I started with two coats of Love & Beauty Royal
I scrounged this one out of the polish bins at Forever 21 (who is trying to look all shwanky with their new logo, XXI, like Roman numerals makes them more sophisticated. Psh.) pretty much unscathed, although the other two I grabbed I had to wipe down with acetone. Anyway, it is super pretty, it's got a murky teal base full of duochrome glitter flecks that turn from blue to purple. It's pretty awesome, but since I was pining for snow I decided to stamp over it.
Okay, in all honesty, when I first saw this stamp I thought it was a wheel. You know, like a ship's steering wheel. Is there a certain name for that? I'm pretty sure it's not called a "steering wheel," it must be something more classy. Anyway, after seeing other people use the stamp on the interwebz I realized it was a snowflake. Oops, my bad. After I stamped the snowflakes on, I slapped on a layer of Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Diamonds because really, what does glitter not improve? (hint: NOTHING)
I like how this one turned out, it's pretty. It's not WOW but I'm saving that for Christmas day, so hold on to your tacky sweaters, kiddos.
Are you going to have a white Christmas? If so, please take pictures so I can live vicariously through you.
