Provoking Memories of my Childhood...Product Review

So, I thought about putting these pictures into two separate posts...but I don't want to. I took to pictures today at school and now I want the rest of the world to partake in their horrible cell phone quality.

I seriously need to find my camera that is buried somewhere under mounds of headbands that I've been working on in my spare time. This is my life.

As it is, though, I have my very first product review! How do you like THEM apples? :D

So, while I'm naively scouring my local stores in hopes of finding a rogue Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure, I happened to find an entirely different kind of hidden treasure. Wilmington is so huge that it found the need for two different Wal-Marts. Let me tell you, as a child born and raised in the coal mountains of Virginia, I'm not used to the concept of having more than one Wal-Mart in the same city. It just boggles the mind. We have two in our county, yes. But that's county wide! This is city wide. I'm amazed at the doubles we have here, to be honest. But I digress.

When I lived back in Virginia, it was an inside joke with my family that all of my money went to Wal-Mart. Which, wasn't so much a joke as it was...well, completely and totally the truth. So, you would think I would be excited to move to a place that had two Wal-Marts. Well, I'm not! Because the Wal-Mart with the best selection in crafts, electronics, beauty, and pharmacy is also the same once that makes me irrationally angry just thinking about it as I suppress the almost uncontrollable urge to jab my rat tail comb from class into someone's eyeball. I'm a ball of sunshine and daisies, really.

That being said, I ended up going to this Wal-Mart with my roommate last weekend and that's when I spotted this little gem.



Yes, A Crayola brand nail art pen. Don't worry, I laughed too. I even made fun of it as I stood in the isle. I just couldn't understand the concept of a crayola nail art pen! I mean, really? Who saw this one coming? Well, once I got done making fun of the poor pens, I started doing that shifty eye thing. You know, that one we all do when we are trying to do something without someone seeing for fear of being made fun of. And then I snatched the white pen.



And I have to say, this nail art pen is pretty impressive! I know I'm still new to the scene and all, but of the nail art pens that I have used. I'm pretty smitten with this one. The hold is so easy and its almost like drawing on your nails with a marker.



The packaging called this an ultra fine point and it really is. Look how nice that tip is! I seriously loved the tip of this marker. It was much more sharp than Sally Hansen's nail art pens and was easy to hold onto. I really enjoyed playing around with it.

I found that the actual medium that came from the marker was not as watery or thin as most white nail art pens that I've tried in the past. Plus, you didn't have the urge to continue to push in the tip and you worked. In fact, the medium just almost flowed off of the tip. It was really nice. AND it dried fast!



Honestly, I loved this thing. And not just because the whole idea of it just provoked memories from my childhood to ran around in my mind. My favorite part about it, though, is that it came with a little page of fingers with nails on them for you to be able to deisgn ideas on. Seriously, you guys! This is the first time I have EVER found a nail design template! Of course, it doesn't really help that the nails are tiny and that there isn't really a lot of room to get overly detailed.

so what do I think? I think we have a winner on out hands.

Totally Pwned Me

You guuuuuuuys! Stamping your nails is haaaard!

I just got beaten by shiny metal disks and rubber tipped stampers! How his this POSSIBLE?!

Well, I'll tell you how it's possible...This whole stamping process is REALLY going to take some getting used to.


The main reason I even got the stamps was because its ridonkulously hard for me to paint my right hand. Even applying nail polish sometimes is questionable. Basically, every time I even put a brush of any kind in my left hand, it turns me into that guy from Scary Movie 2 and the entire time I'm working I can't help but go "Its my STRONG hand" over and over again in my head. So, yeah. I got some stamps.

I ordered the bundle monster stamps and the designs on them are awesome. My ability to use them, not so much. BUT I'm working on it! Because the plates don't come with a stamper, I purchased the Konad double sided stamper and scraper from amazon, which I thought was a good deal. I then proceeded to play with them for about an hour and half or longer before finally working on my own nails.

Please excuse the bad quality. My nails were wet and I didn't want to mess them up looking for my camera. But, yeah, here's my plates on the table along with my base coat, four bottles of China Glaze, and used cotton rounds in a plastic bag on the ground.

Finally, I decided to used one of my favorite colors, China Glaze For Audrey. Which, I have to say, I'm concerned for this color. Last time I was at Sally's, I didn't see a spot for this color anymore in their China Glaze display. I'm gonna have to check Cosmo Prof asap and get another bottle, just in case. The top is China Glaze Jitterbug, from their vintage vixen collection. I then top coated it with Seche Vite.



Yeah, the picture is bad and you can't hardly see the image. Its one of the issues that I'm having, actually. Its almost like my images aren't as noticeable as I would like. Maybe I'm still having issues with color choices, I don't really know. I think I just need to do more research on using these plates. Anyone out there have some suggestions or links to blogs that focus on Konad and other nail stamping plates that I might have missed?

Believe me, it will be greatly appreciated!

Getting off on the right foot...er....hand.

So, I figured it would be a good idea to get this blog started with a quick shot of something I did last week. I'm not so good at doing things on my own hands due to the fact that I'm totally a righty, so my left hand looks great and my right...looks like a kindergarten art project after the macaroni fell off in the transit home on the school bus. How many times have we all had THAT happen, eh?

So, after spending my Tuesday giving one of my best friends at school a simple french tip manicure with pineapples on her ring finger, I decided that it was time for me to do something on my own nails. It was nice to look down and see these cuties while giving a facial to a client that came right before our front desk closed shop for the day. But whatevs, I got my final facial credit and I'm good to go with the bottom half of my service sheet.




I apologize for the horrible quality of this photo. I took it with my cell phone and then uploaded it to blogger...which almost always murks up photos, I've notice. Anyhoo, let's focus on the cute. Cookies and Milk! :D I tried to make it look like my thumb and ring finger were bitten into. I think I succeeded. Seriously, you guys. These are the cutest nails I've ever sported myself.

Base Coat - Color Club Stuck on You
Base Color - China Glaze - For Audrey
Cookies - China Glaze - Classic Camel
Chocolate Chips and outline - China Glaze - Ingrid
Milk - Sally Hansen Salon - All the White Stuff
Glass - OPI - Breathe Life
Glass Outline - China Glaze - Recycle

As you can tell, I rather enjoy China Glaze. I'm not ashamed to admit that.

I feel the need to add that when I made the glasses of milk, I painted the milk first, then did a layer of OPI over it and a little above the line left from the white. That way it really looked like the liquid was inside. I really am sorry that the picture isn't all too good. I have a few people at the school that want me to do this on them sometime in the near future, so maybe I can get a better picture then.

Anyways, thanks for looking! There will be more tomorrow, I'm sure.

I Totally Nailed it...Did You?

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. I know all about how I have a crafting blog that is few and far between in the ways of actually posting. But I think that's because its hard for me to really focus on something to post about. There's too much going on that I want to do with that blog that I just...I get overwhelmed.

BUT, this blog is one that I've had a few people ask me to do and seeing as how I'm a people pleaser? DONE and DONE!

So, here we have it, my loves. Sayra has started up a nail blog. And let me tell you, coming up with a name for a nail blog when there are already a ridonkulous amount out there is HARD. I never really expected there to be so many nail blogs! But, sure enough, there they be. Thankfully, with the help of one of my best friends, Rachel, we came up with Totally Nailed It, which was soooo me. Mostly because that's something that I yell out from time to time. Plus, there's the fact that abbreviated, it is TNI which is close to TMI and it makes me giggle a little.

Now, I hear some of you asking out there "What makes YOUR nail blog different from any other nail blog out there?" Well...not much if it is dealing with nails. Mostly it is something I really want to do and showcase some of the work that I've been doing lately. But then there is the fact that I've really gotten into nail art more than anything else. Will there be swatches on this site? Yup. But its not just about what the colors look like. I wanna also focus on what you can do with those colors. And I'm going to take a bit of a trip into the world of Frankenpolishing as well. Not to mention product reviews here and there.

But the biggest things about this blog will also be sharing with others as I learn myself.

You see, for those of you out there that don't know me, I'm in cosmetology school. I'm just about to finish this semester, which is pretty exciting. But this summer, during my third of four semesters, I discovered that my mother was right and I should have listened to her in High School (man, its sometimes hard to admit when your mother is right. Sigh.). Yeah, I should have taken the nail tech classes at our Vo-Tech school. But I didn't and now I find out, 8 years later that I friggin love nails. I love painting them, doing manicures with the massages, Heck, Even pedicures aren't that bad! I love doing anything with brush work, so right now, all of my nail designs are entirely hand painted. And those will definitely be shared on here.

But I don't feel well rounded until I truly learn how to apply fake nails properly, which is a place that I am lacking in skill. So, I figured that while I was learning, I could share my knowledge and maybe teach someone else out there.

That's my plan, Stan. A blog that informs, maybe teaches a bit, and inspires. And, I'm pretty excited about this.