Liebster award!

I've been nominated for a Liebster Award by the lovely Thithi over at Pretty Tough Nails!  I'm so excited and honored that someone would take the time to recognize my little blog.  I feel like The Old Man in A Christmas Story - 'It's a major award!'.  Gosh I love that movie.

So, the rules of the Liebster Award are:

• You have to state 11 random facts about yourself
• You have to answer 11 questions asked by the person who nominated you
• You have to tag 11 new blogs that have less than 200 followers and ask 11 of your own questions

With that being said, here are the 11 random facts about me:

1. I am a huge beer geek and have been considering blogging about my adventures in beer as well as nails.
2. I am a huge comic book geek with a collection that numbers in the thousands.
3. I am a huge video game geek and used to play a certain MMORPG like it was a full-time job (without the pay of a job).
4. Twin Peaks is my favorite TV show of all time with Buffy the Vampire Slayer a close second.
5. I love Star Wars (IV, V and VI) but not Star Trek.
6. I started college when I was 16 and still haven't finished because I still can't decide what I want to be when I grow up.
7. I have an Autistic son and a son with Asperger's.
8. I used to play roller derby and even co-founded a league in the city I live in.
9. I buy action figures...for myself.
10. I think Carl Sagan was a sexy beast.
11. I think a virus-induced zombie apocalypse is totally plausible.

Here are my answers to Thithi's questions

1. What was the last movie you saw?  The last movie I saw in the theatre was 'Skyfall'.
2. What is your signature cooking dish?  I'd have to say meatballs or lasagna - I had a lovely Italian grandmother who taught me to cook.
3. Do you speak any other languages?  I can read Spanish, French, Italian and Latin but the only one I can come close to being conversational in is Latin.  Now, programming languages are a different story - I am fluent in many.  Did I mention I'm kind of a geek?
4. What color is on your nails now?  Uh, I'm in between manicures at the moment and have a number of polishes on my nails trying to decide what to do with what.  I have Cult Nails Coveted on some fingers, Cult Nails Disciplined on some, Orly Angel Eyes on some and Fingerpaints Purple Palette on others.
5. What is your favorite clothing brand?  Do shoes count?  I'm a sucker for Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo.
6. Would you rock stiletto nails?  No, not now - maybe when I was younger and full of gothy angst.
7. What is your favorite book series?  I can't give an all-time favorite, I read too much for that.  But, I'm currently really into The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher and The Hollows series by Kim Harrison.
8. Where did you vacation last?  Vegas, baby.  It's been years since I've had a real vacation.
9. What did you buy this week?  I went on an indie polish spree the other night, my form of massive stress relief.  I bought some KBShimmer, Darling Diva Polish, Black Cat Lacquer, Cult Nails and a mini haul from Color Club and China Glaze via Head2ToeBeauty...oh, a some fun stuff from Dollar Nail Art.  I think I may need a 12-step program. ;)
10. What current trend will you never wear? (clothing or beauty)  Duck feet nails - I just don't get it, especially when it's done to toenails.  Really?  How do you wear shoes?
11. Did you check out my blog and follow it?  Of course! 

My 11 questions for my nominees:

1. If you could be any supernatural being what would you be?
2. Are you a dog or cat person?
3. What's your favorite nail art technique?
4. If you were another person would you be friend with you?
5. What are some of your other hobbies?
6. What is the last movie that really moved/disturbed/thrilled you and why?
7. Do you have secret guilty pleasure music, if so what?
8. What's one piece of advice you didn't follow but wish you had?
9. If you could have lunch with anyone living who would it be?
10. When was the last time you climbed a tree?
11. What's your favorite childhood book?

Aaannnddd....My 11 nominees:

1. Nailhilism
2. A Ginger's Nail...
3. Simple Joy of Polish
4. Shanny's Manis and Every Day Shenanigans!
5. Fancy Schmancy Nails
6. Lacqsofluv
7. Fairytale Charm
8. Lacky Nails
9. Bene Belle
10. Geelpface
11. Polished Peripherals

Thanks again to Thithi for the nomination!

No More Nubbins!! Plus Cult Nails Coveted.

What's this?  3 posts in one day...holy cow.

Hooray, I no longer have a mutant nail. :D  In my earlier post today about Seduction I mentioned I was thinking of doing Gellish nails over tips to deal with my broken nail...I couldn't stand it anymore so off to Sally I went this afternoon and I'm so, so glad I did!  Again, thanks to The Polished Mommy for the awesome tutorial that gave me the courage to try it.  Who knows, maybe one day I'll work up the courage to try doing inverted molds as well.

Over my gel nails I used a most awesome, gorgeous green jelly with glitter from Cult Nails called Coveted.  It's so, so pretty.  I suck though because in my excitement I may have dented and smudged it (the lacquer not the gel).  Oh well, I'm just glad to have normal looking nails again and to be wearing something so very pretty on them.

Cult Nails Convert Pack #4

Cult Nails currently has what they're calling 'Convert Packs' for sale.  They consist of 2 polishes meant to be layered together and Wicked Fast top coat.  I purchased #4 a few weeks ago and am blown away by the beauty of Seduction layered over Time Traveler.

These photos show 1 coat of Time Traveler, a rich dark navy cream - a perfect blue in my opinion - with 2 coats of Seduction.

On a slightly related note I am thinking of attempting to fix my broken nail with tips and gel polish as seen in a tutorial on The Polished Mommy.  Has anyone else used this or a similar technique and if so what were your results?

12 Days of Christmas, Day 5

Ever have one of those days where nothing you do comes out right and you change your polish 8 times and you curse your hands for not doing what your brain sees?  For today's challenge I had a definite idea of what I wanted to do but polish gods conspired against me - I couldn't even get stamping right today. :P

I ended up doing 2 coats of Fingerpaints Merry Mistletoe followed by a reverse glitter gradient using Julep Colbie.  In my frustration I slapped on some Cina holly decals that don't even really look like holly but by the end of the night I had ceased caring lol.

Am I happy with it?  No, it's already gone and replaced by some lovely Cult Nails polish which I will show later. :)

Be sure to check out the other bloggers taking part in Iced Lacquer's Challenge!

XOXO Alexis Leigh

Purple Castle

It's All About the Polish

A Ginger's Nail

The Polished Mommy

Teen Polish Junkie

Fancy Schmancy Nails

Mari552

Fairytale Charm

nailzbyroro

12 Days of Christmas, Day 4 - Candy Canes

Hello everyone!  I am back after a very, very hectic week and am sooo glad that all seems to be getting back to normal so I can focus on the more fun things in life...like my nails. :)

Today's nails are inspired by the ever yummy candy canes.  I have to admit, though, I prefer the cherry canes to the minty ones but really it's all good.

For today's nails I used a base of 2 coats of China Glaze Glistening Snow - this is so pretty with it's holographic glitters.  One day I will learn to take a blurry photo so I can show that off.  I then did freehand stripes using China Glaze Ruby Pumps for the red and a green glitter from Stripe Rite.  I usually don't do stripes freehand but I just got a huge set of nail art brushes in the mail and wanted to put them to good use.  On my stubby nail (which is growing!) I did stripes in rhinestones.  I picked up a cool tool at Sally Beauty the other day that makes placing rhinestones so, so easy.

I love these nails and they really shine and sparkle in a blinding way in the right light.  I just wish I would have been able to get my camera to pick it up.

Be sure to check out the other bloggers taking part in Iced Lacquer's Challenge!

XOXO Alexis Leigh

Purple Castle

It's All About the Polish

A Ginger's Nail

The Polished Mommy

Teen Polish Junkie

Fancy Schmancy Nails

Mari552

Fairytale Charm

nailzbyroro

What a Week!

Oh my, what a week it has been.  My big Dane girl got sick and spent time in the hospital (we still don't know exactly what she has) and today is her first full day home, I started a new job that is soul-sucking and horrible (already looking for something else), I missed my youngest son's school evaluation (he is Autistic, we do twice-yearly evaluations), and a host of other life annoyances.  You can tell it's been hectic and stressful because a)I haven't been blogging as much as usual and b)I am actually wearing the same polish I was 3 days ago. :P

All seems to be calming down around here though so I will be back with new nails for tomorrow's challenge prompt - Candycanes...and I have something sparkly for that one!

Check out Tia's challenge if you haven't already.  I'm having a great time with it!

50th Post! Elegant Snowflakes for Day 3 of the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge

Hello everyone!  Wow, I can't believe I'm already at 50 posts.  How did that happen?  Oh yeah, I obsessively do my nails almost every day. ;)

For today's challenge the prompt was Snowflakes.  Since I did blue/white/silver snowflakes last month I wanted to do something a little different with sort of non-traditional colors.  So I started with a base of 2 coats of OPI DS Mystery which is a pretty black cherry with super fine gold glitter.  I stamped over that with Zoya Ziv and plate BM-323.  Over that I put a very, very light coat of Orly Shining Star.

I really like the way this turned out.