Fun Fan Brush

Happy Sunday Loves!!!

I hope you are all doing well and having a good weekend. Mine has been okay, uneventful as we are still in the stay at home orders so it's just another day home minus working from home since it is the weekend! I've been binge watching Melrose Place, the original, from the 90's on Hulu. I have not watched this since it was first on. I loved Melrose Place and used to watch it with my mom and am loving watching it again all over. I'm on season 2 right now :)

Nothing else much really to say, life is boring being home all the time. Miss Betty is completely back to herself again after her enemas and for that I am so thankful.

Two weeks ago I decided to cheer myself up and ordered some new polishes online from the Essie Valentine, Spring and Summer collections and a couple Orly's that I had on my polish wish list.

So for today's nails I decided to use all new shades that I just got. The only one not new is a really old Misa sparkle top coat I used. I went for a fan brush mani today since I had not done one of those in forever. I think these colors look super cute together and hope you like them too :)

My base is Essie "Worth the Tassle" (just got this one from 8ty8 Beauty Supply online). It's from the Summer Essie collection that just came out and I LOVE it, always love a good purple and this is definitely a good one! I then used a fan brush with Orly "Lips Like Sugar", Essie "Bustling Bazaar" (also from the Summer Collection) and Essie "Free to Roam" to do the fan brushed nails. These polishes were all from my recent order of polish so all new and from current collections. I put one coat of Misa "Candy Girl" from a really old collection. I think it's "Candy Girl" but not 100% sure as my label fell off long a ago.

Worth the Tassle on it's own. Love it!!!!

I have some links for the online retailers I regularly use to order polish. Check them out. Never had an issue with any of these sites and been buying from all three for years now. Here they are:
8ty8 Beauty Supply: http://8ty8beauty.com/
Head 2 Toe Beauty Supply: https://www.head2toebeauty.com/
Transdesign: https://www.transdesign.com/

Here's some sites I regularly use to purchase stamping plates and nail tools:
Lantern & Wren: https://www.lanternandwren.com/
Whats Up Nails: https://store.whatsupnails.com/
Maniology: https://maniology.com/

the above sites are located in the USA.

Below are two that I use on occasion out of the USA for plates and other nails tools:
Mundo de Unas (Mexico): https://www.mundodeunas.com/
Born Pretty Store (China): https://www.bornprettystore.com/

Locally I go to Sally Beauty Supply https://www.sallybeauty.com/ to get my acetone, nail files, polish thinner, base and top coats.

That's it for today. Have a great Sunday. I'm being lazy and will be binging more Melrose Place and hanging out with the kittes since it's rainy out and won't be spending any time in our back yard :)
I leave you with Mr. Kitty looking too cute in all his Mr. Kitty cuteness! He's a good cat. Talk to you next weekend! Have a great week! Be and stay healthy and safe!

Polish & Purrs,

Melly

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Happy Birthday Blog (a day late) :)

Happy Sunday My Loves,

Today's post is a post celebrating my blog's 5th birthday or blog-a-b-day/blogiversary. It was actually yesterday but I didn't have a chance to do my nails or a post yesterday so today it is a day late. Hard to believe that five years has gone by now since I started my little piece of the interwebs to showcase my nails and talk about stuff in my life and what I do :) Thank you to all my readers these many years. Here's to many more years of this little blog o' mine :)

I chose to do my two favorite colors together today, purple and pink, and kept it super simple with some easy peasy fan brushed nails. I think these are really pretty. Hope you like them too.

My base is Essie "Play Date". I fan brushed on Color Club "Hot-Hot-Hot Pants". The glitter is Alchemy Lacquers "KCl" and on my all the other nails I put a coat of Color Club "Bright Lights Big City".

Play Date on it's own. This is one of my favorite polishes I own, love this purple.

That's all for today. Yesterday we were at friends' house with friends having a rock painting party and it was fun fun. Last night my sister came to hang out. Today I am doing some stuff around home and pretty much chilling. We do leave to go to the mountains the end of this week for the weekend then next Sunday when we get home it's The Walking Dead Season 10 premiere and I can't wait. So ready for my beloved Walking Dead to be back on. Not sure what I'm doing with my nails just yet. I'll have a post then of my nails.

Have a great rest of weekend and good week. Talk soon. I leave you with my baby baby girl, Miss Betty, my heart, my love kitty :)

Polish & Purrs,

Melly

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Spring Fan Brush

Happy Tuesday Loves,

I hope you are well and that your week is going good so far. My week is okay so far. This past weekend was fun. I went out to my Mom's with a friend and she took her dog with and it was great for my Mom to have some dog therapy since she is still without one until we find the next one for her to adopt. We visited and brushed my horse and hung out with my sister. It was nice. Then Casey and I went to friends' for an oyster fest they have each year. I hate oysters but there was plenty of other good food there. It's always great hanging out with good people :)

Today I have my second Spring nails of this year. I just did some super simple fan brushed nails and I love these, think they turned out super pretty.

My bases are China Glaze "Dune Our Thing" (pink), China Glaze "Sweet Hook" (purple) and China Glaze "Highlight of My Summer" (mint). I then fan brushed "Dune Our Thing" and "Highlight of My Summer" on the brushed nails. The glitter is China Glaze "Let the Beat Drop" and I put a coat of China Glaze "Travel In Colour" on my pinkies and thumbs to finish.

China Glaze "Dune Our Thing" (pink), China Glaze "Sweet Hook" (purple) and China Glaze "Highlight of My Summer" (mint), love these together :) 

That's it for today. Have a lovely rest of the night. I'm just chilling the rest of tonight, it is only Tuesday after all, lol, and my allergies are kicking up into high gear so I kinda feel poopy, ugh.

I leave you with Miss Betty holding Mommy's hand, I love these and love when she does this to me when she sleeps, it makes my heart so warm!

Polish & Purrs,

Melly

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Fall Fan Brush

Happy Sunday Loves,

I just have a quick post today. I'm super tired today. Yesterday we were at a flea market and chicken BBQ all day selling stuff of Dad's.  We did pretty well getting rid of more "junk" of his. It was a long day though!

Today I have some more Fall nails. I decided on a Fall fan brush since I haven't done any fan brush nails in a long time, so here you go! I love these and think they turned out super pretty. Hope you like them too!

The red base is OPI "5 Apples Tall" and the yellow is OPI "I Just Can't Cope-acabana". I did the fan brushed nails with a fan brush using China Glaze "Give Me S'more" and OPI "Aloha From OPI". I then put a coat of BaronessX "Topacio" on all nails to finish.

 

5 Apples Tall (red) and I Just Can't Cope-acabana" (yellow) on their own.

Have a great rest of the weekend and I'll talk to you soon. I leave you with all the cats and the one rabbit outside living life one day this past Summer. We are down to only one bunny though now. We lost the old boy bunny back in early August and the one old girl about two weeks ago or so. They were pretty old. We are hoping the last girl is with us for a while yet but she is pretty old too so who knows how much time she has, but she is really healthy so we shall see.

Polish & Purrs,

Melly

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Sponged Fan Brush Nails & A Bit On Clean Up

Happy Thursday Loves,

Hello my friends, hope you well and are having a good week so far.  Mine is going pretty good and tomorrow is Friday already, yay :)

Today I have some really cool nails to show you and also some talk about clean up.  Many times I will say how clean up can be a bitch with certain manis and figured it was time to tell you about how I do my clean up of those manis that get messy while you are doing them.  I'll show you my mani first then do the clean up talk after that :) For today's nails I used some eye shadow applicators to sponge the colors on the nails, then used a fan brush to do the stripes on top of the sponged nails.  I LOVE the way these came out so much.  They are so fun and happy nails!

I did my base with OPI "Gelato On My Mind", then sponged the following polishes on: OPI "Purple Palazzo Pants", OPI "That's Hula-rious!", OPI "Got Myself Into A Jam-balaya", OPI "Can't Find My Czechbook" and OPI "That's Hot! Pink".  I then used a fan brush and brushed on OPI "Rich Girls & Po' Boys", then did one coat of China Glaze "Fairy Dust" on top of those.  I used Color Club "Daydream Believer" as the glitter accent.  Hope you like them, I sure do :)

Gelato On My Mind on it's own. I love this polish, it's so pretty.  I think this was from the Fall collection from last year.

Now, onto the clean up.  I'll show you the tools I use and tell you how I do it.

From left to right, paper plate I use for putting polish on when I do nail art, a fan brush (I didn't get a pic with the eye shadow apps in it tho', I just use any little cheapie ones I can find), a plastic cuticle pusher, tweezers and my two clean up brushes I use.  I use the plastic cuticle pusher flat end to wipe any polish off that gets on my cuticles and around the nail as I am painting them.  I do this as I go and that works really well for me. The tweezers I use to get the random cat hair that ALWAYS ends up on a nail or two, LOL.  The clean up brushes I use to neaten up my polish around the nail and to get any polish off my cuticles that the pusher may not have gotten.

In this picture is my little dappen dish that I put acetone in to use during clean up and my disposable eye shadow q-tip things.  When I do nail art that is super messy I put some lip balm on around my nails to help with clean up.  The lip balm seems to make it easier to get the polish cleaned off of the skin. I'll soak the flat ends of the q-tips in the acetone, then use that end for the majority of cleaning the polish off my skin, then dip the pointy end in acetone and use that end to get the skin/nails by my cuticles, then the small tan brush for any other final clean up.  This is my way that I clean up and it's what works for me.  You can get the little dappen dishes at Sally Beauty or pretty much any nail supply store you may find in your area, but, if you can't find one, a shot glass or the cap from your polish remover or acetone bottle will work too.  I always use straight acetone for both polish remover and for clean up.  I prefer straight acetone to other removers that have other stuff added to it.  Just remember that it is drying and you should make sure to moisturize really well after you are done with your mani.  There's also my latest new Walking Dead lighter Casey got me so of course I had to let that be in this pic :)

Here's my nails and the mess after I sponged them.

Here they are after the fan brush, see that mess, lol.

There you have my clean up process, hope this helps you with your own clean up if you need some clean up tips :)

That's it for today.  Have a great rest of the night and here's your feel good for today :)

"I will go anywhere as long as it's forward."

This one is pretty awesome.  I like it!

I leave you with Mr. Kitty and Buster.  Talk soon my loves!!!

Polish & Purrs,

Melly

Have you loved your cuticles today?

It's More Nails & Nails & Nails!

Happy Monday Loves,

Long time no talk!!!  It's been several weeks since I last posted.  Life's been pretty busy lately and I've just not had the time to sit down or I've been to tired to write up a blog post.  Been going out with my sisters and brother to Mom's a lot on the weekends to go thru Dad's stuff, he had so much stuff, it's pretty crazy.  Mom has been selling stuff here and there too since Dad passed, but, it's still so much that's it's going to take quite a while to get rid of it all.  It's so weird and just feels so wrong going thru his stuff, it just doesn't feel right and it's so sad too.  I did bring one of his deer antler racks and a hat of his home and hung those on my apartment wall and it's nice to see that as an honor to my Dad every day, but, I am still so sad, I miss him so much it's not funny.  I also got some other stuff that was his and it is nice to have stuff that was his, but, I'd just so rather have my Dad back, life just is not the same without him here, sigh, and I've been really sad lately missing him.  Yesterday would have been his 77th birthday so that was a bit sad too.  I did go to church with my Mom in the morning, then out to the house to hang out with her and to see my horse, then we went to Casey's for a cookout later in the day, so, it was still a nice day.

Mom has been doing pretty good, she's so strong and truly a rock, plus, she's a good Christian woman and I do believe her faith helps her too along with Gracie, the dog, who she's been taking to get her therapy dog certification and keeping herself busy which I think is helping too.  I try to get out to see her at least twice a week.  My younger sister does live at home still, glad Mom does have her there too now since Dad is gone.

Back in the middle of April Casey and I had our PA Dutch food themed potluck and that was so much fun, felt good to have good friends over and it was such good food too :)  We'll do another potluck around mid-summer, but, not sure what our food theme will be yet for that one.

The kitties are all doing good.  I do think that my old one, Buster, is getting a bit of kitty dementia, he'll start acting really weird and disoriented/confused and he'll pee and poop in inappropriate places which sucks, but, I'll do what I have to as long as his quality of life is still good and it is, he's simply become an old man.  I am getting tired of cleaning up cat pee a couple of time a week tho', it sucks. He's always been one that would on the rare occasion pee on something, but, now it's getting more regularly and it's so frustrating, but, what to do, that's a part of having animals sometimes. But, I do love him and he is my buddy.

We've also been starting to get ready for our Burning Man regional event in 2 1/2 weeks.  I am so ready for this event.  I need a vacation really badly, works been really busy and crazy, so I am so looking forward to getting away for 5 days, yay :)  Plus, it's all my weirdo burner family and I can't wait :)

Other than that, life has been uneventful, which is okay. I'm going to try to start posting more regularly going forward and I do have lots of fun manis and nail related posts in mind.  So, with that, onto the nails I've done in the last 3-4 weeks. Here you go, hope you enjoy them :)

The base I used here was OPI "Rich Girls & Po' Boys", then I used a fan brush and OPI "Suzi Nails New Orleans" and OPI "Planks A Lot" to create the look on my ring and index nails with a coat of China Glaze "Fairy Dust" on top of those.  My glitter accent is Nails, Inc. "Richmond Gardens".  I put a coat of Jesse's Girl "Confetti" on top of my pinky and thumb nails to finish this mani.

 

 

 

 

Rich Girls & Po' Boys on it's own.

I just did very simple glitter accents here.  The base was OPI "Suzi Nails New Orleans", the glitter was Icing "Party Confetti" and I used one coat of Zoya "Leia" on the non-glitter nails (this is from their spring Petals collection out now and I love this one, you should get it, it's a really pretty sparkle top coat).

 

Suzi Nails New Orleans on it's own

 Here the base is OPI "She's A Bad Muffuletta!" with the thumb glitter accent of Polish Me Silly" Clowning Around" and cat nail decals and a coat of China Glaze "Fairy Dust" on top of the decals and one coat of Sally Hansen Diamond Strength "Aisle Be There"on the other nails.

She's A Bad Muffuletta! by itself 

My base here is OPI "Rumples Wiggin'", then I used an eyeliner brush and dabbed/dotted on OPI "Planks A Lot", OPI "A Grape Fit" and Color Club "Diggin' the Dancing Queen" on my index and middle nails.  I stamped using Nail Craze NC02 plate with a purple no name mini Kleancolor, then I did an accent of glitter on my thumb with Sally Hansen Gem Crush "Be-Jeweled" and one coat of a Melly Mix on top of all my nails.

Rumples Wiggin' on it's lonesome 

 For these nails I decided to mix it up by using two polishes as my base.  I used China Glaze "Pop The Trunk" on my pointer and middle nails and Essie "Peach Side Babe" on the rest, then I used some mustache decals and a dotting tool for the eyes and noses with a coat of Orly "Prism Gloss Gold" on top.  I used Sonnetarium "Snowfall" as my glitter accent and then a coat of NYC Sparkle Top Coat on my thumb and pinky nails,

China Glaze "Pop The Trunk" on my index and middle fingers, Essie "Peach Side Babe" on the others

My base here was Essie "Suite Retreat" and stamping done with Apipila L15 plate and Bundle Monster BM-S160 plate and Konad white stamping polish and a coat of China Glaze "Fairy Dust" on top of the stamped nails.  I then did my glitter accent using NYC "Disco Inferno" and a coat of Athena & Aphrodite "Blue Dreams" on my pinky and thumb nails.

Suite Retreat on it's own, in real life it's a bit more purple.  My camera has purple issues.

Lastly, here are the nails I did for this past Saturday for The Kentucky Derby horse race.  My base is Essie "Bachelorette Bash", then I did some dab brushing with Color Club "Diggin' the Dancing Queen", China Glaze "Flip Flop Fantasy" and China Glaze "Lime After Lime".  I stamped using Finger Paints "Glitz & Glam" and Fig Tree Stamps plate FT08.  I then put one coat of ILNP "My Private Rainbow" on my brushed and stamped nails and one coat of Misa "Candy Girl" on my thumb and pinky. I like these, but, really need to find a more opaque silver for stamping.

Bachelorette Bash by herself, this is such a pretty creme and the formula A-OK!!!

There you have my slew of the last several weeks' manis, hope you enjoyed them.  I did 'cuz I LOVE nails and nail polish, yay.  I am going to be doing a weekly, well, going to try to post on Saturdays or Caturday as I prefer of cat nails and call it my Crazy Cat Lady Series :)  So, cat nails once a week, I will so take that and this gives me a bit of a nail challenge for myself too.

That's it for today.  I'll try to get another post up this week and show my blog the love it deserves more again, yay .

I leave you with my baby, my heart, Miss Betty.  Isn't she just the cutest ever!!! I love this little cat so much it makes my heart all but explode :)  Here she is cuddling with Mommy and a blanket on a cold night :)

Have a great rest of Monday, talk soon :)

Polish & Purrs,

Melly

Have you loved your cuticles today?