happy belated holidays!

And we're back!

The Man and I got back home yesterday from visiting my family in Portland.  I meant to post many things over Christmas, like my nails, and our holiday decorations, but when you're having fun with family and friends it's hard to break away and stare at a computer screen for a few hours.

This Christmas I painted a pink tree (because I've always wanted one, but The Man would never approve) and some festive ornaments on my nails.

And of course, the second we got on the plane and I was no longer near my nail supplies they started to chip like crazy.  Sometimes they'll last a little over a week, but this time they were gone before we opened our stockings on Christmas morning.

We had a wonderful time in Portland, we tried to see all our friends, but as usual the days went too quickly and we missed a few.  But on our last day we did manage to take our favorite drive up the Columbia River Gorge.

I hope you all had a lovely holiday week 

christmas pattern nails

I know I've said this before, but It's So Dark Out All The Time!!!!

I painted these nails last weekend and it was impossible to take good photos of them, so after a little tweaking these are the few photos I could manage.

I was just going to do a whole set of the criss-cross pattern, but after painting a couple of them I got bored and decided to do random christmasy patterns.

Holly! Candy Canes!
I love the holidays!!!

turkey day mani

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

The Man and I are in California for Turkey Day, we're enjoying the sun and trying not to let our colds put a damper on our vacation.

This year I got some inspiration for my thanksgiving nails from @mllrdesign's argyle nail design.

I used single chevron NailVinyls (which are basically pre-cut tape for doing lines) for the initial diamond shapes and then went free-hand from there.  The NailVinyls make things go so much faster, I ordered a few different ones (i.e. circles, straight lines and zigzags) so I'm looking forward to incorporating them into future designs.

I wasn't sure what to do with the pinky nail, and I wish I had just covered the whole nail in pink glitter polish, but once I realized I wanted to change them we were already on the plane to LA.

Have a wonderful day with your family and friends!
Gobble Gobble!

fall "floral" nails

This weeks nails are sort of a fall bouquet.  Cotton, seed pods, and whatever you wish to call the yellow wheat/stick thingys.  It's so hard to take good pictures of my nails now that it's so dark outside all the time.  I took these at night and tried my hardest to correct the color using pixlr (free fake photoshop) but there's nothing that compares to natural light.

These were fun and simple to do, but while I was painting them all I could think about was what I should do for my Thanksgiving nails.  Can you believe that Turkey Day is less than a week away???

Stay warm and stay healthy! (The Man and I are feeling a cold coming on so we're going to spend the weekend drinking fluids and taking naps)

Have a wonderful weekend!

babies babies babies

Everybody is having babies!

How did this happen?

The wedding invites are starting to dwindle and they've been replaced with baby announcements!

My mom has always been an amazing home-made gift-giver.  Every newborn has received a baby quilt and sometimes a little something extra (like an awesome stuffed dinosaur). Now that I’m an “adult” I can no longer sign my name to my mom’s beautiful gifts, so it’s time to start contributing something of my own.  

Back in the beginning of the summer a family friend of ours had a little baby boy.  So when my mom told me she was working on her quit I kicked it into high gear and made the little peanut a hooded towel.  I always loved mine when I was little, and babies look so darn cute in them.

When I was searching the World Wide Web for inspiration all I could really find were solid colors and a few ducks, so I pulled out some post-its and drew up some ideas.

The idea that got me most excited was the hippo so I headed over to The Needle Shop and bought some blue gingham and got to work making the bias tape.

cut, sew, iron, cut, sew, iron, cut, sew, iron, cut, sew, iron

I did one more drawing to figure out the details of the hippo's face and then got to work putting all the pieces together

Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures of it before I sent it out, but here are a few slightly blurry ones of the final product.

I LOVE the way it turned out!

And now that there are a few more little babes in my life it’s time to get crackin’.

p.s. here's that little peanut in the towel. 

Oh geez! What a cutie!

halloween mani ~ it's the great pumpkin, charlie brown

I'm super super proud of these ones!

I was wracking my brain trying to come up with an idea for Halloween nails that I haven't done in the past. Then my mom commented "Holly Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" on the photo of me sitting on that gigantic pumpkin and I thought "Yes! Of Course! I'll paint 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown' nails. Genius!!!"

So thanks ma!

My favorites are Snoopy on the pumpkin and the Linus nail.  Lucy as a witch gave me the most trouble and I'm still not completely satisfied with it, but there's only so much fixin' you can do before it's just time to move on.

I'm usually not one to toot my own horn, but these turned out so good! So TOOOT TOOOOOOOT!

 Happy Halloween Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

halloween mani {week one}

It's Halloween Nails time!!!

Here's week one,
Skeletons and Cobwebs, spooky spooky spooky!!!

This past weekend we went to a pumpkin patch, it's probably my favorite part of living in the mid-west.  We've gone for the past three years and each year we pick a different location.

It's always a bit of a drive (all the good ones are at least an hour away) but it's totally worth it.  This year we went to Bengston's, I was a little disappointed when I realized they didn't have an actual pumpkin patch (last year we went to Siegel's where you take a hayride out to a pumpkin field and the pumpkins are still attached to the ground!) but they did have pig races, a Fun Slide and camel rides… so I guess that made up for it.

 I even climbed up on a pumpkin that weighed 1692.5 pounds!!! (with a little help from The Man)

(Doesn't this look like a stock photo?)

Sorry for the picture overload, I really like these ones :)

polka dots and roses mani

I know it's October and it's time for Halloween nails, but I'm not quite ready to admit defeat and give in to these cold blustery fall days.  So here are some yellow polka dots and roses!

Have a great weekend everyone!
The Man and I are going pumpkin patching on Saturday and I can't wait!
Corn mazes, Hayrides, and Apple cider donuts! Bucket loads of Midwest fun!

doodle day

Today's doodle is a pencil/pixlr combo:

This doodle is based off a photo from Keiko Lynn's instagram.  She is one of my favorite people to doodle (see here and here).  She has a blog with great make up tutorials and outfit posts, and I just love her style.

When I use pixlr I save my doodle as I go (since it's online if the site crashes everything you've done is gone), so I decided to put together a little gif....

squiggle mani

This weeks mani was inspired by the Memphis Group.  Specifically Ettore Sottsass' lively squiggle pattern (most commonly seen on laminate which is still in production at Abet Laminati).
I know you've seen it....

Was I right? I feel like this style and pattern are having a bit of a comeback right now too.  Not so much in furniture (like it was in the 70's and 80's), but in art prints and patterns on clothing.

I'm totally on board for the comeback.

We're heading to Cincinnati this weekend to visit some friends,
so, have a great weekend everyone!!