Day 26 Favorite Vacation- PDX

Phew I got this post in before the day was over!  The theme for day 26 of the OMD Challenge is FAVORITE VACATION and my fave has always been Portland Oregon!  My best friend Amie has lived there for about 10 yrs now and I usually make it out there at least once per year.  I always fly into Portland International Airport so the airline code PDX is engrained in my brain!  I’m always scouring the web for good prices to PDX.

portland_or_pdx_nails

Amie and I have done some fun stuff over the years during my vacays- ghost tours, seaside excursions, weddings, devouring mass quantities of meat (her hubbie’s a butcher)… but we usually have the most fun together just doing nuthin and hanging out!  Friendships like that are priceless, don’t you think!?  I have another trip to PDX scheduled for August.  A nice break from work, some Portland sunshine and some much-needed time with my BFF and her family (oh, and pugs too).  Can’t wait!

pdx_nails

Here’s what I’m wearing- two coats of a Julie G gold polish called Metallic Heels, some studs from Claire’s Boutique and my black Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen.   It was nice and easy, which is perfect for a TGIF-kinda friday!

There’s only 5 days left of the challenge! The links will be open til Aug 5th for any last minute submissions… then we will pick our 4 random winners!  It’s pretty exciting!  From looking at the raffle numbers it looks like you’d have a good chance of winning too- especially if you’ve been participating everyday!  Good luck everyone!

26 Favorite Holiday/Vacation :

omd_challenge_july_2013

Day 25 of OMD Challenge- Dazed and Confused!

dazed_confused_dvd_insert It’s INSPIRED BY A MOVIE day in our nail art challenge!  Have you ever seen Dazed and Confused?  I’ve seen it probably 100 times!!  Last night I pulled out my special edition DVD case to find all kinds of fun stuff inside.  There’s a movie poster in there… and check out this cute insert that looks like a high school notebook with scribbles all over it!  This insert was my inspiration for today’s manicure:

dazed_and_confused_nail_art

I used ten different polishes for this manicure… but the hardest part was getting the right base color.  I ended up layering a couple different shades and then sponged three different colors over top.  The fade effect is very subtle, but at least it resembles the color of the insert now !  I drew my scribbles on with my Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen and then painted a few multi-colored circles on with dotting tools and a skinny detail brush.  I prefer more cohesive designs on my nails- but still, this mani is funky and fun… and I love that it depicts one of my all-time favorite movies!  What do you think?

dazed_confused_movie_nails

Tomorrow is INSPIRED BY YOUR FAVORITE VACATION day!  I dunno about my past vacations…. all I can think about is my upcoming one in August.  I need some time off so bad I can taste it!  Some de-stressing and time with my BFF is definitely in order!  Southwest Airlines- take me away!!

25. Inspired by a Movie :

Day 15 of OMD Challenge- Heart Nail Art!

hearts-manicure

I can’t believe we are half-way through the July Nail Art Challenge!  It’s a lot of work to consistently put out original nail art designs every day- but so worth it, right?  Day 15 is all about HEARTS and I have a cute purple design for you today!

I started with two coats of Butter London Scoundrel which is a nice dusky purple.  A few of my nails I topped with two coats of an OPI glitter called Lights of Emerald City.  Since that OPI glitter is white I decided to make some white hearts on my other nails to pull the design together.  FOR THE HEARTS: I started with my Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in black.  I am loving this pen and just ordered two silver ones (do I see a giveaway in Crafty’s future? Yes, yes I do!)  I drew the hearts on with the black pen and then dotted inside the hearts with NYC white nail polish. Since I used my skinniest/smallest dotting tool it was easy to position the white inside the black heart shapes.  I like the way that they have a nice black outline around them now.

Do any of you guys have a white textured polish, like maybe OPI Solitaire?  If you use that to fill in the black heart outline then I bet they’d look like cute little PUFFY HEARTS!  Wish I had a white textured polish like that!

purple_hearts_nail_art

Do you use nail art pens?  They’re handy to have!  Mine is from Sally Hansen but I wonder how the other brands work….

You can view the other heart designs here:

15. Hearts :

My interwebz are down but my nails are painted!

It seems like I have been absent on my blog the last few days…. but the real issue is my internet service!  I’ve only had very intermittent internet connectivity in the last week… but don’t worry- I’ve still been painting my nails!  I have been extremely frustrated this week but there is some value to the saying: keep calm and paint your nails!!  If you don’t wanna hear all about my technology woes- then scroll straight down to my nail pics.  But if you want to be a shoulder for me to cry on… then keep reading!

Ya see recently I upgraded my Time Warner cable internet from standard to ULTIMATE!  Sounds great right?  Well, ever since hooking it up we have had a heck of a time connecting our month-old HP Pavilion desktop to the ethernet.  After much troubleshooting we have gotten it to the point where our wireless works fine on our tablet and WiiU console, but the hp desktop will NOT connect via the ethernet.  We have looked for malware and viruses, bought a brand new expensive modem/router, restored the desktop to factory settings, swapped cables, etc…  but to no avail.  I have had time warner internet come out to the house twice and have spent hours and hours on the phone with them and every other company I can think of.  Nothing works and it all seems to boil down to an hp (hardware?) issue.  I have already been on the phone for hours today, so I’m taking a break to update my blog and get the nail art challenge info rolled out.  But my next step is to call hp AGAIN and harass them- I won’t take NO for an answer this time.  I deserve some support since the desktop is new and under warranty.  Every other company I have called in the last week has attempted to help (especially Norton Security… this guy Norman went above and beyond to help me troubleshoot an issue that wasn’t even virus-related).  HP- now it’s your turn to be the hero.  Please don’t let me down this time!   The OMD nail art challenge starts today and I need my interwebz!  And if any of my readers have any recommendations or tips- I would love to hear them!!

Now that I got that off my shoulders- do you wanna see the nails I’ve been wearing the last few days?

Recently I have renewed my love for Zentangle®.  Have you heard of it?  It’s a cool trademarked drawing/doodling technique that is easy to do and is supposed to be relaxing and mentally stimulating.  I just love it!

The Zentangle® Method was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas and is copyrighted. Zentangle® is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com or view their blog- http://zentangle.blogspot.com.

I have the Zentangle 5 book which I ordered on Amazon a while ago…and I’ve been reading through it a lot lately.  When I saw the accordian design in my book I thought I could simulate that on my nails with a Sally Hansen nail art pen.  So here’s what I came up with. ↓

zentangle_5_book

And here’s another shot of my zentangle-inspired nail art. ↓

accordian_zentangle_nail_art

Pretty cool, huh?  It’s sorta shaky looking, but not bad for my first try.  I like how my Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen doesn’t smudge under my topcoat. 🙂  The base color on this mani is gorgeous too!  It’s called Primrose by Funky Fingers.  It’s a pink shade with an amazing lilac duochrome effect.  Other swatches online don’t look as duochrome-y as mine.  Maybe I lucked out with this bottle?  I’m not sure, but my primrose is magical (it dried fast too)!   Here’s a swatch of Funky Fingers Primrose on its own. ↓

funky_fingers_primrose

Another design I’ve been excited to try is a 4th of July mani!  I had so many great ideas, none of which worked out for some reason.  I really wanted to try a watercolor design that looked like an American flag… but it turned out to be a fail.  So here’s a quick dotticure I threw together instead.  It wasn’t quite good enough to deserve its own Independence Day post… but if I mix it in with my zentangle pics maybe it will seem ok?  LOL!

4th_of_july

I also want to mention how happy I am to host The OMD Challenge with Brijit and Eeeek!  It’s going to be a blast.  Who’s joining in this July?  It’s almost time for DAY 1 (which is PINK) !

OMD NAIL ART CHALLENGE IN JULY