Orly's Smart Gels

Hi all, Did this year go fast or what? I was determined that before the year was over I would finally try my home Orly Smart Gel System. I only bought it 2 1/2 years ago! Is that procrastination or what? 

I have the the starter kit. This includes:

Cleanser
1.7 Fl Oz / 50 mL
Nail Tip Primer
.18 Fl Oz / 5.3 mL
Base + Top
.18 Fl Oz / 5.3 mL
Cuticle Oil
.18 Fl Oz / 5.3 mL
Remover
1.7 Fl Oz / 50 mL
Pocket Removers
20 pk
Lint Free Nail Wipes
20 pk
Pusher & Remover Mini File/Buffer
Step-by-Step Instruction Guide (which includes a DVD)

The polish I picked was Crawford's Wine, which was a very good holiday shade. I followed the instructions and was amazed by the shine and once I finished the surface was durable. 

I put this polish through some pretty hard paces in that I did not use gloves ( on purpose) to do some pretty heavy pre-Christmas cleaning. They lasted a full week before anything even chipped. Under normal circumstances, I think they would have lasted two weeks. 

Removal is the down side of gels. I think it is a bit rough on the nails. I had a hard time not picking, even though I knew it would be bad for my nails.

My only wish is that the Gellie Bean LED does not have a timer. I believe the Orly LED light does have one. 

 
 One thing I learned from the DVD was you can put your lacquers over your gel and use a non-acetone remover to remove the lacquer and the gel polish will be safe and sound. I used Beauty Secret's Non-Acetone from Sally's Beauty.

I did a carved design with Revlon's Golden. I painted a coat on my gels and then with a brush and the non-acetone polish remover carved swirls out for a Baroque look. I added some red dots for some interest. 

A shot of Revlon's Golden.

 

That's it for today. Take care-Terri

Putting Down Lines-Nail Art Nation's September Challenge

For September, Nail Art Nation challenged us to make a mani emphasizing lines. We could make lines anyway we wanted, free hand, tape or vinyls. I decided this was a chance for me to try some of my rarely used nail vinyls. I have plenty, but up to this point, have not had the patience to use them.

After the wide lines that were created by the vinyls I went back to what I really love which is making as thin line as I can with my Stripe Gold.

I also wanted to get in a fall mood and decided to go with taupe, brown and bronze for this mani. I added a bit of glitter with Cult Nail's Blaze because I love Blaze and try to find all the reason's I can use it as possible.

I first started out with a base coat of Orly's Nite Owl. This one has been around since 2011, I picked it up last fall and this is the first time I have gotten around to using it. Nite Owl is a taupe packed with silver shimmer.

Nite Owl

I picked some simple curves from Nail Vinyls. I used three on each nail after I top coated my Nite Owl (Seche Vite).

After putting the nail vinyls where I wanted them, sort of at angles to each other. I sponged a gradient of Zoya's Codie and Cult Nail's Swanbourne. You really can't see the Zoya but it's there. 

Mentioned earlier, I added one of my favorite glitters Cult Nail's Blaze.

There were to many to hold so I did a group shot.

That's it for this round. Hope you enjoyed my post and design. Do you use vinyls?  

So until next time, Take Care and Shine On<3.

Terri

Starry Night Sky-July's HPB's Nail Link Up

Welcome to July's Hobby Polish Blogger's Nail Challenge Link UP. This months theme is Starry Night Sky. Rather than do something realistic, I tried to go with an abstract feeling of a night sky. 

It ended up being a tad more complicated that I originally intended. I used six different colors and kept doing different combos on a nail wheel, until I found something that I thought really worked. And I made sure I used my two polishes that were named Starry Night. 

The first three photos are just poses with a few of the polishes I used. After that, there are step by steps.

The Steps

Step 1-Not wanting a purely black sky, I first put on a couple of coats of CrowsToes' Minion.

Step 2-Next came on coat of Sinful Color's Starry Night.

Step 3-I had seen were people had painted areas when doing a Galaxy mani (although I wasn't really after that) and with a brush added a few wispy lines with Orly's Platinum.

Step 4-I decided to punch up the sparkle and added one think coat of Wet N' Wild's Hallucinate.

Step 5-Using a large dotting tool I used Starry Night by Glitzology. Glitzology is no longer in existence but she made heavy duty glitter bombs when she was. There's star glitter in here and some got on my nails, which was O.K. by me.

Step 6-Using a smaller dotting tool I made lots of small dots using Zoya's Tomoko, a Pixie Dust.

And there you have it. Here's my Nailie that I took.  

Well, that's it for me this time around. But as I mentioned earlier, I am taking part in The Hobby Polish Blogger's group link-up. This is a great group of bloggers on Facebook that are very supportive and always are willing to give help to other bloggers. So check some of their art out below.

So until next time, take care and shine on!

Terri


 

An InLinkz Link-up

PLL's Coffee On The Stoop And A Change Up

A few week ago, Ester of Philly Loves Lacquer offered a polish to her Facebook group Philly Loves Lacquer Collective. Coffee On The Stoop was created to celebrate her new job as a Starbucks barrista.

Like millions of others, we are addicted to Starbucks and are regular visitors. I even have my, "gimme my discount cup".

And it is dead on Starbucks green with  a lot of extra visual interest going on.

A macro better explains the polish makeup. It includes black stars, black and white glitter of various sizes and shapes, smaller blue holo glitter and and very fine (macro) silver glitter. Or at least I think it's silver.

But the beauty of Coffee On The Stoop is that it works amazing with other polishes. Here is a change up that I wore for Six days. I loved it that much and it wore that long. 

I first put on Orly's Hook Up, then my Coffee and finally topped it of with Nfu Oh's 42. I love greens and this was a Summer green dream polish for me.

Here's my Nailie

And finally a Pic-Monkey collage covering it all.

Slice And Dot-Black And White

Hello Everyone,

Today's post is a quick one. The Nail Polish Queen's has a challenge this week that I just couldn't resist. NPQs is my favorite community on Google+. It has four very active and involved moderators. One of the highlights is the weekly challenge. This week's challenge was for a black and white design and I couldn't resist.

This was a very easy design. The steps were:

1. painted nails white
2. place straight nail vinyls at opposing angles.
3. Took my largest dotting tool and made large black
   dots on the white areas but
    made sure they touched the black.
4. Made the white dots sightly set back from the 
    black, making sure they cross over to the black.

I used Orly's Black Vinyl, China Glaze's White On White. The nail vinyl's were by Nail Vinyls.

Short and sweet, that's it. Take care until next time.

Terri

 This is what you see from me on Instagram. 

Pick N Mix #15-Pink, Aqua and Dotting Tools

 Hello Everyone, 

Week 15 of The Pick N Mix Challenge is here with pink, aqua and dotting tools.

  

 I used two pinks, two aquas, a inky blue base with a special matte/glitter topper.I love projects where I can use a bunch of colors and brands. This was certainly one of those.

I started out with a big dot of East Austin at the top of my nail and then went from there with contour dotted lines. This is a very straight forward design, just follow the dots!

From Left To Right: Orly's Fancy Fuchsia, Mineral Fusion's Lagoon, Milani's Ink Spot, Color Club's East Austin, My-Stash's Shaken Not Stirred, and Jenna Hipp's Freshmaker.

That's what I did for this round. this link up is a dual one. There are two challenges with this code. So doubly enjoy! Until we meet again, take care.
                                                                                            

 Terri

And here is my IG photo, if you follow me there. I really like rectangles, but squares are the thing over there.

An InLinkz Link-up

PICK-N-MIX #6-THE POODLES

Hi again. Here is my contribution to this weeks challenge. The promps were domestic animals and or three shades of blue.

I belong to a Facebook group called MPS, that is short for Multiple Poodle Syndrome. This is for us who can't seem to be happy with just one Poodle. I have three. So my pick of subject matter was pretty much a no brainer. 

My base coat polish is Orly's Purple Poodle from their Fall '13 Surreal collection. I bet you can't imagine why I had to have that polish. 

Purple Poodle is a magenta jelly type of polish (rather sheer-I have on three coats) with blue and magenta shimmer and glitter. It has always been very unique to anything else I have owned. 

The Poodles were done in Orly's White Platinum which is a white pearl shimmer. 

I hand painted my Poodles and am not going to say I am totally happy with them. 

Well, talking about Poodles, heres some pictures of those who inspired these nails. The first is of Sophia. I adopted her about five years ago. This is a poster that I did to celebrate her First Year Forever home celebration. 

Next we have Niko. I was lucky and got to adopt him when he was just three months old. As you can see, he likes his big chews!

And lastly, there is Millie. I started fostering Millie last November. She has been with us almost a year now. I don't think she is going anywhere. She's a senior with a few physical problems but is one of the happiest dogs I know. And her ears are just so beautiful. I tried to take some "glamor shots" of her last month, I don't know if they turned out that good, but here is one of them.

Well, that finishes out this Poodle nail tale. So until the next visit, take care.................Terri

And I did do my thumb. I put a S on it for Sophia. She's the one that started all of this.

This is a nail hop so click on some of the talented artists below and see what they have done. There seems to be some problems with the code this week. So click HERE to see some other designs. 

P.S. If you notice a different watermark on these photos it's because they are from my other blog, Time For Poodles And Friends. 

 

An Orly Duo

I have a problem. I can't go into Sally's Beauty Store without high tailing it  to the clearance table to  look through the  polishes and other stuff. I let my membership lapse for a few month in an attempt to correct this. Now I admit, I have the same problem at Ulta, Marshalls and TJ Maxx. 

But Sally gave me a good deal if I renewed the membership and first trip back, what did I find? I found this beautiful duo that just worked to create an elegant look.

First up: Is Orly's Plum Noir

I knew Orly's Plum Noir had been around for awhile (since 2007) and was probably discontinued. But no, it is still going strong on Orly's site with a full size, mini and gel polish available. 

Plum Noir has probably been reviewed hundreds of times and I understand why. It is just a gorgeous deep darkened purple cream. It's consistency is perfect and you can dress it up or dress it down. I wore it by itself to the symphony and later topped it with the other part of this duo. 

Orly's Intergalactic Space 

Intergalactic Space is part of the Galaxy FX collection. And that collection that just came out this past Spring. 

Intergalactic Space has purple, bronze, blue and very large white glitter suspended in a black base. 

To be truthful, I left the white glitter out this time around. 

I think, if you wanted a certain look, the white glitter could be placed for design purposes.

A Little Extra

As I mentioned earlier, I wore Plum Noir by itself to the Kansas City Symphony. The Symphony alliance has a little shop to raise money. This ring was just what I was hunting for and just went my nails.

Well, that wraps it up this time. I know these two are old but they are so perfect with each other I just had to show them. 

So take care until we see each other again.............Terri

Pick-N-Mix #4-Yves Saint Laurent's Russian Collection-Fall 1976

We are are at week four of the "52 Week Pick And Mix" nail challenge. The prompts this time around were The 70's and/or grey with color. I only went with one of the prompts and chose "The 70's".

Yves Saint Laurent's 1976 Fall Russian collection was my inspiration. My design is taken from a beautiful paisley shawl/scarf from that collection.

A close view of my YSL inspiration

The Polish Lineup

My bright and neon polishes tend to be very economical. L.A Color Crazes run $.99 and Wet N Wild is usually $1.88.

From Left to Right:

•  L.A. Color Craze's Reckless
• Wet N Wild's Black Light Party
• Wet N Wild's Tulip Time
• Pritti NYC's Empress Tree
• Wet N Wild's Limelight
• China Glaze's Be More Pacific
• Wet N Wild's Club Havana
• L.A. Color's  Splat!
• Orly's Fancy Fuchsia   

To find specific designs, I used a simplified nail shaped view finder.

A model grouping of the Russian collection

Close up of the skirt and belt that was shown with the paisley shawl/scarf

Well  that is it for this nail adventure. And until the next one, take care..............Terri

An InLinkz Link-up

There Was A Wedding

 Well, the wedding has come and gone. My baby is married. We worked on nail ideas earlier this summer and this is what she decided on.

 I am sharing two nails from the wedding. The first is Rachelle's, the bride. And I am proud to say she did them herself.  I can't show you the polishes because, although mine, they are at their apartment and they are in the Dominican Republic for their honeymoon. 

Golden Oldie Thursday-Darling Diva's CHANNELING COCO

I am pretty happy! This is my first Golden Oldie Thursday post ever.  I am using Darling Diva's Channeling Coco. It is a fairy sheer base with a limited amount (on purpose) of pink and smaller black glitter.