Friday, November 2, 2012

I'm moving! But, all my friends live here!

Don't worry, you can come with me :)  As you can see, I rarely post.  I have good intentions, but, they never come to fruition. So I was thinking about it, why don't I post here? What's holding me back?  I decided that it's kinda lonely. I like the back and forth that a conversation has.  I don't just want to share my polish and nail art, I want to talk about it with people. So in comes Facebook.  Everyone has a Facebook account (well most everyone) and I'm on there way too much as it is, so the answer was clear.  I shall "blog" on Facebook!  Please come and follow me at www.facebook.com/CoatOfManiColors  I still may come by here now and then when I want to do a long post, and if I do I will let ya know on my FB page.  I look forward to many more posts and actually being able to talk to you guys. Hope to see you there and tell your friends ;)

Saturday, September 22, 2012

I stole your crayons!

Hiya! So, recently I have been having a major creativity block. I couldn't think of anything to do with my nails and when I thought of something I was just blah about it. Now, you all know that my momma lives with me right? Yeah, so she can be pretty awesome sometimes and during one of her manic episodes she wrote out a list of ideas and one of them was crayons. I love crayons and coloring.  I still color sometimes as a way to de-stress and clear my head. And who doesn't love crayons? They're colorful, they smell good, they bring you back to your childhood and OH the endless creative possibilities crayons have! So yeah, crayons are good.


I used a mix of polish and acrylic paint for this.  The base yellow is Nina Pro- Like Butta topped with Julep Daisy because Like Butta was a tad too mustard-y looking. The dark green for the crayon box details is Finger Paints-Tough Art to Follow. The rest is acrylics, because I thought polish would be too thick for the little crayons but, now I think if you thinned it out a little it would work and using polish would have better color crayon possibilities :)


I also didn't want to make the mani "too perfect" I wanted it to look cute and whimsical and sort of sketched in, which is a good thing because I can't do "perfect" so this is a fun one to do if you feel like you can't do nail art.

So that's about it.  My mom did a cool thing and I'm feeling more inspired. Good stuff Maynard!
'till next time!
-EJ

Monday, September 17, 2012

Just a thought, and quick review of sorts.

Hey guys! Today I read a post from the fabulous Man Polish which you can find here http://manpolish.blogspot.com/2012/09/show-me-polish-economics-of-packaging.html#comment-form

I found this very enlightening! I have a Julep account and while I find their polishes to be mediocre at best, I am in love with their other products. The Best Pedi Creme Ever, really is. Their Reveal Nail Growth Serum is outstanding, but their polishes really kind of suck and their half gone after one mani. I've only gotten 3 shipments and one of them was because I didn't "skip a month" in time. Luckily that was a good thing because that one contained a truly unique color. I can't find it right now, but it was a seemingly standard black in the bottle, wtf? I can't believe I just paid premium price for a standard black when I love my .99 WnW black cream so much. But hold the phone! I swatched it out on a nail wheel and ooooh! What an unusual color! It's not black, it's not dark charcoal gray it's the color of a black cotton sweater that has been washed a few times. It's a faded black. It's truly unique (to my collection anyway) and dare I say, worth the money. But, except for this fluke, I have found the rest of their colors sheer and needing 3+ coats and therefore using up half the bottle. I will be cancelling my subscription after reading this post from Man Polish because it is right on. Simple math. I would rather have some A Englands or Zoyas any day. But I will still fork over the cash for their beauty products. Have you seen the ingredients on the foot creme and prep? I'll say it again, outstanding! So in a nutshell, in my humble opinion, Julep polishes = $$$ and meh quality. Their beauty products= $$$ WOW! But I'm still going to cancel, or try to remember to skip all months except when they include products. This is just my opinion and reaction to Man Polishes post. Nothing more. No one asked me for this opinion. The opinion is free and you get what you pay for ;)

I will post pics of the black polish as soon as I can find it...
I found it! This is Julep Brandt. The photos are a little Q&D but you get the idea of the color which is pretty dead on in the pics. One more for good measure?
So there ya go, I hope no one was terribly offended my post today, everything I said was just my opinion and I wrote it on my blog. You may take it or leave it. That's just one of the good things about being an adult, you don't have to live by others opinions and ways of living. If you can think of any more reasons it's good to be an adult, please, let me know.  I can't think of any others!
Thanks for stopping by-
EJ

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Where the hell have you been?

I've been sitting here for over 3 months waiting for you!  Wait, what?  Oh.  Yep, that's my bad.  I don't know why I haven't posted.  I really don't.  It's something psychological I'm sure though.  I've wanted to post.  And I've felt so guilty because during the PCFC (Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge) I will go and check out others blogs and see my name listed at the bottom of everyones post with a link to my blog.  Sending poor unsuspecting nail junkies over here only to slapped in the face with two or three sorry posts.  I just cringe every time.  So why haven't I been posting if it's causing so much turmoil?  Well, I'm here now ain't I :D

Ok, what's been going on with everyone since I've been hiding away?  Please tell! I have been busy with the Summer Challenges over at PCFC I've done a fair number of them and will probably post some of the ones that actually turned out well.  I've also been trying my hand at stamping.  Trying it is. Indeed.  After a good 2 weeks of beating myself up and sweating and swearing and going through loads of polish I found out my plates were bad.  HA! It's funny now, but I was pretty pissed off at the time. I was starting to think that I was unable to do it.  If you have been having trouble stamping, here is a sort of a check list that some very kind ladies around the web helped me with.
1. Turn off any fans in the room. (fer realz)
2.  Use stamping polish or a thick one coater polish. (foils and metallics work great)
3.  Your stamper needs to be decent.  I do not recommend Salon Express's stamper.
4.  Maybe your plates suck.  Are you able to stamp some images but not others?  It's not you, it's the image! Phew! Try to call or email the company and get a refund.  Unless it's Red Angel and then good luck with that.  Still love their images, I just wish I could use them.

Did you notice I changed the name of the blog?  Do you like it?  My friend thought it up and I love it almost as much as I love her. Anyway, on to the Manicures shall we?  Um, I don't know which to post.  I've done a lot while I've been gone. I know, I will post the one that I was super proud of and bragged all over the PCFC wall until people started barfing on me and punching me in the throat to shut me up.  Ok, that didn't really happen, but, perhaps it should have ;)  Here are my sunflowers:

I also got a new (used) camera while I was hiding.  Much better pictures.  Sometimes too much better, I can see every single flaw with it, so you'll just have to ignore the flaws ok?  Want to see another picture? Ok you twisted my arm.



I used China Glaze in Secret Periwinkle then I used the cellophane dabbing thing with CG Tree Hugger and put a thin coat of Essie As Gold As It Gets.  I did all of this except for on my middle finger.  And you can't even tell! LOL The sunflowers are with acrylic paints.


I take most of my pictures in the window as that seems to get the best light.  Direct sunlight seems to glare too much.  There is probably something on my camera to prevent that, but I wouldn't know.  Well, there it is.  I finally did it.  I made a blog post.  See ya in another few months!  Kidding! (I hope)

-Jane

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

But soft! What light through yonder yellow velvet curtain breaks.

Yep, so the other day on PCFC was a mani representing light.  I desperately wanted to try out the fuzzy nails I saw in xoJane http://www.xojane.com/diy/flocking-cookie-monster-manicure  Did any of  you ever read Jane magazine when it was in publication?  I was such a fan, it changed quite a bit when Brandon took over, but it was still pretty good especially compared to other women's magazines.  Then one day the mags just stopped coming.  I went online and saw that they had cancelled the publication.  WHAT!?!  Oh, such a sad day.  I still have the last issue, and will probably cherish it forever.  But I digress.  Where were we? Oh, fuzzy nails.  Yes, it is a fairly simple technique and the flocking powder (which I called flucking powder because of the mess) is fairly cheap at the craft store.  I did them in yellow to represent light for the challenge.



Hey, looky there!  Anyone notice how my photo is better?  I used the camera on my phone.  I never thought to do it before because I have a crappy phone.  There is nothing smart about it.  I use it for texts and phone calls, that's it.  But it takes a decent picture, so there ya go.  Sorry about all the rambling.  On to the nails!  I used Sinful Colors unicorn and flocking powder in goldenrod.  I used the Recollections brand.  I followed the directions according to the Jane article above and it was pretty simple.  My bottle of flucking powder was a little clumpy though and I had to dump a little out and cut it up cocaine style ala the movies.  Of course I don't know that from experience.  Moving on, I dumped powder and pressed on it and repeat as necessary.  Sorry again for the long winded and off subject post.  Take care and may your life be filled with little glass bottles of color.
-EJ

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Hey there!  Today on the Purple Fairy Crumpet Challenge is a Dark and/or Twisted mani.  I posted early as I am having a girls night out tonight and intend on being hungover tomorrow.  I chose a very loose interpretation of this by doing water marble on my middle fingers for the twisted part.



Since I am going out tonight (something I rarely do lately) I wanted a sort of dressed up look.  I used Wet and Wild Fast Dry in Silvivor on all my nails and did the tips and marble with China Glaze Liquid Leather and Champagne Bubbles.  All of them work for marbling by the way.  BUT, you have to do them in a certain order-silver, then black, then gold, and repeat.  I tried doing it in a different order and it didn't work.  Such a fussy headache of a technique, eh?


I apologize for the quality of the pictures.  I don't have a camera, so I use the webcam on my laptop.  Not a great choice, but we work with what we got, right?
Well, I'm off to take a quick nap and get ready for tonight.  Send positive thoughts that a tall, fair and redheaded fella hits on me.  Bonus if he's a fireman.  Have a good weekend!

Friday, March 30, 2012

First!

Ok.  Enough dicking around.  I created this blog about a month ago and have yet to do anything with it.  My excuses being: I don't get how it works; I don't know how to make it pretty; I don't have a decent camera for swatches; I still don't know what Google Friend Connect is and how it relates to blogs; Apparently GFC is no longer, so do I still need to learn about it?; Who the hell wants to peak inside my head and see what I have to say?; and last but not least, I am far too busy looking at other fabulous blogs to be bothered with my own.

But enough with the excuses.  I was going to start this blog with the fabulous Hunger Games collection from CG (China Glaze) but the above excuses has prevented me from doing so.  I also wanted this blog to be mainly about indie nail companies, but alas I am but a poor girl with a relatively small polish budget, which I go over with too much frequency.  For my first post I will give you a little background on myself (I know that I always wish that more people would reveal more about themselves on their blog)so I will try to do that here.


I am 36 years old and live in Fargo North Dakota by way of Minneapolis MN.  My name is Erica, or Jane, or Erica Jane, or Eej.  You can call me anything you want.  I moved to Fargo because of a boy, with emphasis on the word boy, almost 4 years ago and while we are no longer together, thank god, we are still good friends and I am too lazy to move.  1 1/2 years ago my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and I moved her here to Fargo to be near me. To make a long story somewhat shorter, we ended up living together.  I love my momma, but I do not like her living with me. She is now cancer free (yay!) but she won't leave. *sigh*


I have always had a crush on nail polish, and ALWAYS have my toes painted.  I don't think I have had bare toes in 20 years.  But I never really did my finger nails for whatever reason.  A few months ago an online friend of mine who I have known for about 5 years but have never met face to face with as she lives in England started posting pictures of her fabulous nails.  I was recovering from a spinal surgery at the time and thought "hey, what a cool way to pass the time".   Three months later, and 35 bottles of polish and way too much money spent and here I am.  I so wish I lived near my friend who was my inspiration/ corrupter because I think it would be loads of fun to have a polish loving friend nearby.  So I will just have to admire her from afar and drool on her blog, as you should too.  Her name is Helen and her blog is Nail Newbie.  I will post a link as soon as I figure out how.


I think that's enough for now, I probably left out things I wanted to talk about, but I tend to be a little long winded and so I think it's best to quit while I'm ahead.(too late!)  I take part in The Purple Fairy Crumpet challenges part time and will post some of those in the near future.  If you have read this far, wow thanks! and I will try to keep future posts a little shorter and to the point.  Please note the word 'try'.  
Thanks and may your life always be filled with little glass bottles of color.