cookies and nail art go hand in hand

it's been a little quiet on the cookie front lately, although i've still managed to get a few fun designs done.  i can't remember if i showed you these - they're from that weekend we spent in huntington beach last month:

baby shower cookies are always, always fun to do.

and so are stick figure cheerleaders!  i love trotting this design out whenever possible.

the bean's kindergarten teacher hit me up to do some cookies for a birthday party during which they were going to be watching both the dodgers and USC football, so she got these:

and one of my friends is throwing a starbucks-themed party for her daughter.  i actually really like how these came out:

do you remember when i got my nails done for our hawaii trip?

i got to recreate them in cookie form!

and speaking of nails, i've been having some fun with nail art lately.  whenever it's time to freshen up my manicure, i look for cute designs online and make the poor nail tech recreate them for me.  heh.  but come on, aren't these fun?

i'm due for another manicure...i wonder what i'll come up with next.  

caviar for cheapskates

you can tell that i'm running out of topics to discuss when i start waxing poetic about things like nail art.

seriously, i feel rather blogstipated lately.  i'm still posting, and it looks like you're still reading, so i guess it's not for nothing.  but it seems like my posts are getting super lame-o.  oh, well.

aaaaanyway, i can't even remember who it was that pointed me in the direction of these newfangled manicures.  caviar manis, they're called.  there are even kits made especially for these cool-looking 3D nails...to the tune of $25.  yikes.

but i was intrigued.  and so i turned to my dear friend google for some assistance.  the very first link that popped up was exactly what i needed.  $4 on microbeads at michaels that i could even use a coupon to buy?  excellent.  and between the teen and me, we have enough colors of nail polish to last a busy salon for quite a while.  for serious.

so i read and re-read that tutorial a few times before taking the plunge and giving it a shot.  really, all you have to do is brush on a base coat, then a layer of whatever color nail polish you want.  let it dry, and then apply a fairly thick second coat of color.  wait a few seconds to let the polish get tacky (the good kind of tacky), then pour the microbeads over it.  press them into the polish, apply a top coat, and voila:

please forgive the uber dry and icky cuticles.  my hands are forever in need of moisturizing, and i even did a little retouching in that photo.  how sad.

now, you may be thinking "dude, those are kinda cool...but SO not practical.  especially for you."  and you'd be right.  i enjoyed one evening of fun 3D nails (and i confess, i spent a good amount of time admiring my handiwork - see what i did there), and then the next morning as i was doing the bean's braids, half of my beads popped right off.  damn.

so i thought maybe i'd give it another try.  and armed with another michaels coupon, i picked up a martha stewart microbead set that gave me a whole rainbow of possibilities for super cheap.  i decided to simplify it a bit and use the caviar mani for my accent nail, and ended up with this:

maybe it was the somewhat blah shade of polish i went with, but i didn't really love this.  or perhaps it's because caviar nails apparently require an all-or-nothing approach.  in any case, i've decided not to repeat the process again until i need my hands to look pretty for just one day.  just regular everyday life really isn't enough to warrant fun nails that leave little droppings behind everywhere i go.

my friend ssinca shared another fun nail art idea with me awhile ago that i tried out.  i can't even find the original site she sent me now, but i thought it turned out okay despite the rather goopy white nail polish.  kinda looks like i sat at my desk and used some liquid paper to paint my nails.

good gracious.  i've really got to do something about those dry ass cuticles.

and this concludes my super deep post for the day.  you're welcome.

nail art FAIL

i'd been intrigued by the idea of water marbling manicures for a few weeks.  basically, you take some room-temperature water, drop in different colors of nail polish, swirl it around with a toothpick, dip your nail in, and when you pull it out you end up with a pretty cool-looking tie-dye effect.

so when the cupcake nails had run their course (a whole week - not too bad, right?), i waited for the bean to take her nap before pulling out the stuff.

following the directions i'd read in countless tutorials like this one, i taped up my fingertips in an effort to keep the clean-up to a minimum.

i started dropping the bits of nail polish into the dixie cup i'd filled with tap water.  the teen and i watched it spread out, just like in the tutorials.

when i dip, you dip, we dip.

um, massive fail.  after i took the tape off, i had this hot ass mess.

after i perused the tutorials again, i see where i possibly went wrong.  if i'd painted my nails with a light base color, they probably would've turned out a lot better.  or included some white polish in the water.  oh, well.  so i removed that polish and went with another design i'd found on pinterest:

pretty deep post, huh?

sugar-free sweet tooth satisfaction

okay, so maybe the dabbling in nail art is getting a little out of control.  heh.  i find myself watching countless youtube videos featuring tutorials for all sorts of cute designs on a regular basis nowadays.

and when i came across an easy-looking one that showed how to do cupcake-esque nails - well, you know i had to give it a shot.  my love for cupcakes is pretty legendary, and besides, i liked this girl's make-up.  yup.

so when the bean dropped off for her nap, i busted out the necessary elements:

from left to right, just for reference:

* sally hansen base coat
* sinful colors in "snow me white" and "pink forever" - i found this at target under the pricier essie and OPI polishes, with a nice variety of colors for just $1.99 a bottle
* love & beauty in "mustard" - this is from forever 21
* essie "action" and "lapis of luxury"
* zoya "kendal"
* seche vite top coat

like in the video, i painted each nail a different color.  because i knew i was going to do the upper half in white, i didn't have to be super careful about achieving total perfection.

because i'm right-handed, i tend to do that hand first to get it over with.  a fun little challenge, one might say.  i attempted the stripes of white polish to create the bottom scalloped edge, but i wasn't exactly successful.  not wanting to start over, i just went with it and figured nobody would point and laugh.  except maybe you, now that you can see where i was trying to go with it.

the last part was pretty easy.  i dabbed drops of polish onto a piece of paper (actually, the kids' H&M catalog, since the coupon inside had expired already) and took out my dotting tool to finish off my calorie-free sweet treats.

while they're definitely not as good as the original, i think they're pretty cute.  and again, i received the stamp of approval from both the teen and the bean.  one of the moms at the bean's gymnastics class noticed them, too, and pointed them out to her daughter.

"mommy, where did she get those done?" i heard her ask.

maybe i've found a new fundraising tool!

a two-fer

i'm totally cramming two pinteractivities in this post, because they were super fun and i don't really want to pick just one for this week.  and because i can.  so there.

first up:  a replacement for that peeps wreath i took down a couple of weeks ago.  our front door has been naked since then, and well, i felt sorry for it.  one of you suggested doing one using those little umbrellas you usually get in fruity cocktails, and that was actually something i had pinned a while ago.  i took a trip to party city to pick up a box of the mini parasols - $5 for 144 of those things! - and with the bean's help, got to work.

as you can tell, she was mucho fascinated by the idea of these things, and after i warned her that the ends were pointy and sharp, she was good to go.  she took her job very seriously.

this was about 2.5 minutes after she'd woken up from her nap, so please don't judge me for the state of her hair.

it really didn't take very long to put this together, and in about 10 minutes we were done.

the method i'd used to hang the last wreath kinda sucked - i used a length of tulle from a roll i've had for ages and wound it around a wreath hanger in a somewhat complicated way.  but the clump of material jammed at the top made it a little difficult to open and close the front door for the first few days.  so this time, i waited until i had a chance to get out and pick up some flathead thumbtacks.  i found a nice wide ribbon and plucked a hammer from the hub's toolbox.  scary, huh?

i pounded the thumbtacks into the ribbon at the top of the door, realized the wreath wasn't centered, and had to pry them off and start over.  sheesh.  i never get shit done right the first time.  but i managed to accomplish my goal the second time around.

the bean was very proud of the wreath that she had helped make.  so maybe it's more summer-y than spring-y.  whatever.

so the other day, i showed you what my current manicure looks like.  but before that, i'd tried some different nail art that i liked a lot and was as easy to do as the tutorial promised.  here's the lineup of products:

i really love these new colors from essie.  the pink is "lights" and the orange, "action."

i used the orange as my base color.

then i took a makeup wedge and painted stripes on it using both colors.

dab, bounce, dab, bounce, and repeat a few more times.  a quick swipe of that magical seche vite topcoat, and we have this:

ombre nails!  at first, i compared them to a sunset.  or a tequila sunrise.  and then one of my twirlies said my nail polish was making her crave a big stick popsicle.  haha!  that's exactly what they look like.

my current obsession with nail polish is contagious.  i leave you with this:

fabulousness has no age limits, people.

nailed it

i realized that i'd fallen into the habit of hitting the nail salon for a gel manicure/spa pedicure combo on a pretty regular basis - like every other week.  yikes.  so in an effort to cut back on the spending, i figured it was time to relearn how to do my own nails.  i've never been really good at mani/pedis aside from simple cuticle cleanup and basic polish, so i thought maybe if i scaled it back to once a month and DIY touchups in between, that would work.

the teen and i went for pedicures together last week.  and since i knew i wouldn't be back for a while, i decided to step outta my box and try something a little different from my typical french tips or neutral polish color:

cute, right?  oh, and please excuse the crusty flip-flop.  heh.  anyway, as the nail tech labored over that adorable work of art, i paid very close attention.  i took note of what tools she used, how she used them, and filed it all away in my peabrain for later use.  one trip to sally's beauty supply yielded everything i needed, and in a fabulous budget-minded twist, it was all on sale.  score!

while the bean was napping and i was getting caught up on "general hospital" (which is getting really good lately, by the way, you should totally watch), i caught a glimpse of my fingernails and realized that they needed a bit of work.  the polish had chipped and peeled a little and was basically not up to my standards for being seen in public.  and with an evening at disneyland ahead of us, i was inspired to do a little experiment.

the tools of the trade:

i started with a base coat, and then a couple of layers of orly's "haute red."  i thought i was going to get all cutesy and did my ring fingers in a plain white - but either that polish was too thick or the brush was shitty, because they ended up looking like i'd gotten bored in homeroom and painted them with some liquid paper.  i guess it's appropriate, considering that shade is sally hansen's "white out."

in another episode of "wan isn't as clever as she thinks she is," i busted out a pencil to see if i could use the eraserhead to paint a perfect circle on those white nails.  i dabbed a bit of orly's "liquid vinyl" on the first piece of cardstock within arm's reach, dipped it in, and it was a complete FAIL.  d-oh!  oh, well.

so i ended up replacing that white polish with the red and refiguring the design in my head.  i'd bought a double-ended tool along with my supplies that featured a dotting tool on one side and a superfine brush on the other.  but i wasn't entirely satisfied with it at that point and went into my stash of cardmaking supplies.  weird, i know.  but i knew i had an embossing tool that would do the trick, and after i fished it out of a box and tested it out with the white polish, i totally congratulated myself on how brilliant i was.  ha!

you can see what i did already, right?  i worked on both hands, added a little bit of flair with a dot of essie's "loophole", and voila:

when she woke up, the bean was completely enchanted with the results.  and i was pretty proud of myself when the teen gave it her stamp of approval too.  she's not easy to impress.  whee!

between my nails and the awesome tee i wore, it was a pretty happy trip to disneyland.

how could it be anything but?