Another gradient

Another glitter gradient!

Sorry for the awful lighting. This one used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri 230 - Silver Sweep as the base with the same glitter as before, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in 140 - Rockstar Pink and 200 - Strobe Light.

I didn't like this one as much, maybe it would have looked better with a lighter base color.

New tools

For Christmas I got an awesome set of nail art brushes (thanks, Mom!!). So of course, I had to try them out right away!

This is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in 230 - Silver Sweep, and 20 - Pronto Purple. I used what's called a striping brush for this, and it was actually really easy! The Insta-Dri aren't the greatest for nail art since they dry so quickly, but they are also very opaque which means you can easily make designs without having to go over it multiple times. I haven't used the Insta-Dri in a long time because they chip really badly for me. And, now that I know you can use a quick-dry top coat on top of anything, I don't have to wait around for my nails to dry anymore!

Christmas nails

This was my first venture into doing something more complicated. I remember I tried to do something with red and green at first, which is why my hands look a little green in the picture. It was NOT successful.

Instead I went with this:

I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in 350- Wined Up, and Nicole by OPI Glitter in my Stocking.

I love this glitter. It's mainly gold with a tiny bit of silver and some red glitter thrown in as well. It applies really nicely with pretty good coverage!

GLITTER

Up next is a glitter gradient. I LOVE doing these, even though it's a pain to remove all the glitter. Totally worth it.

For this one I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in 140 - Rockstar Pink and 200 - Strobe Light. I do this one fairly often, but I think next time I'll use a regular polish on the tips to make the gradient more obvious.

Nails, nails, nails

I've been REALLY into painting my nails lately. I've painted my nails for as long as I can remember, but now I'm getting into more fancy stuff! I probably look for new nail polish every few days or so, and have gotten a stamping set, nail brushes, and a nail art set. I always send pictures to my mom, and she suggested I start putting them on pinterest. I'm not really sure how (or if) I can just post a picture directly to pinterest, so I thought, why not blog about it?! Woo.

I'm going back to when I first started getting into nail art, so here's one of my first attempts!

A French manicure, I think I used Essie Marshmallow for the white, and found some old nail stickers for the accent nail!

Happy month-iversary...now get out!

So Honeyham and I have been married just over a month! I was thinking it might be fun to do something special for our 1 month anniversary, just for fun, but boy was I in for a surprise.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned our apartment on here before, although anyone who knows me has probably heard me complain about it. Basically, the building is not maintained well, the landlords are not very helpful, and best of all our neighbors are terrible, terrible people. You probably think I'm exaggerating, but seriously not a day goes by where we don't hear them shouting at the top of their lungs multiple times - either at their dogs or each other.

But anyway, the day before our anniversary, we got a "nice" surprise. I was home eating dinner while Honeyham was at a meeting. I had heard and seen some construction going on in the complex, but figured they were just fixing something. While eating, someone came to our door. It was someone from the city with a notice that we were to vacate the premises immediately. Um....what?

City guy: "So, I'm sure you heard about the walkway collapsing."
Me: "Umm..."
City guy: "We need you to vacate immediately, here is the notice."

Ok, so clearly it was not just construction going on - a walkway in the complex had actually collapsed and the landlord didn't even think to notify anyone? I had even seen her earlier that day showing people an apartment! The city guy didn't really know how long we would be out for, but suggested we leave ASAP.

Obviously I didn't want to just get out, I had to call Honeyham, get the cats ready, find somewhere to stay, etc. We ended up staying at a friend's house the first night, then going to a hotel until we were able to move back in three or four days later. Thank goodness HH is in law school, as he had a good idea what our best course of action would be. Since we were out for less than a week, we are hoping to negotiate a free months rent as well as some extra money for our increased mileage to/from work and school, hotel costs, etc.

Needless to say, that was not how I pictured spending our one month-iversary, but at least we are back home, and counting down the days until we can move to a MUCH nicer apartment.

I.can't.wait.