Nails & Cocktails!
I had a little Nails & Cocktails gathering at my house on Saturday evening with a few girlfriends. It was a lot of fun, and I hope it becomes a regular thing. :) Everyone came over around 7pm and we sat around my dining room table eating, drinking, talking and listening to music for about 2 hours before we finally headed upstairs to do nails and paraffin wax hand treatments.
All of the girls know of my blog and my polish collection, but some of them hadn’t seen it yet. I realize it may seem a little excessive to some people, but I think they all know me well enough to know what to expect. :) Below is a picture of the chalkboard in my office/nail salon that I prepared before everyone came over just in case. LOL I don’t normally do nails for anyone else except my mom, so this was a new experience. Since I’m not a nail tech, I didn’t file their nails or do any of the cuticle work… I just prepped and polished. I asked the girls if they wanted to be hand models for the blog, and they all let me take pictures to share with you. Yay!
Suzy was first, and she selected Couture Tiffany’s Secret as her color. I applied three coats of this color on her nails, and then we did a little stamping. Stamping was also new to everyone, so they browsed through my plate collection and selected some designs to add to their nails. Suzy wanted a black crown on her pinky, a white heart with wings on her ring finger and some stars on her thumb. The small accent stamps were from Cheeky Jumbo Plate #8 (Princess Charming). The stars are from my DRK-A plate.
Carrie was up next and she wanted a peachy/coral color, so I suggested Gelish Sweet Morning Dew. This is three coats of Sweet Morning Dew, and then we stamped some hibiscus flowers on her nails using Cheeky Jumbo plate #2 (Tropical Holiday).
I didn’t get a picture that shows her fingers and thumbs, so here’s a separate shot of her thumbs with the full nail hibiscus pattern.
Tina selected one of the colors that I just swatched from the TruGel Ringleader collection, Hoop of Flames. Another coral color, but this one is a little more reddish. She saw me with this on my nails a few days earlier and really liked it. She selected two small accent stamps, a heart from the Cheeky Jumbo Plate #8 (Princess Charming) and butterflies (I can’t find which plate this is from!!).
Here’s are a couple of pictures that Diane took of me working on Tina’s nails. Also, while I was doing nails all of the girls were doing paraffin wax treatments on their hands. I was hoping to get a picture of someone sitting in the mitts, but I was too busy doing nails. LOL One of my friends gave me this awesome deluxe Remington paraffin bath a while ago, and I just cleaned it out and put fresh new wax in it. It took about 6 pounds of wax to fill it up! I went with this lavender scented wax… ahhh. It’s so soothing!
You can see a few drinks in the pic below. Everyone was drinking something different. I think all of the girls were drinking different kinds of wine, and I was drinking raspberry lemonade with a twist. Yummy! And yes, I still have my sunglasses on my head at night… they double as a headband sometimes. :)
Diane waited patiently and went last since she knew her nails would take a while. She’s going off to Comic-Con soon so she wanted some really fun themed nails. She picked a different color and stamp for each nail and she wanted flowers on her pinkies. I’m not even going to try to list all of the color names and stamping plates, though I did get to use one of my MoYou plates that I’ve been wanting to try… it’s the Pro Collection #10 which has a bunch of comic book themed designs including the words POW, BANG and WHAM!
From left to right, here’s a quick explanation of what’s on each nail; yellow with flowers, sparkly green with a turtle, red with a spider web, orange with the word “POW”, white with a blue comic book girl, purple with the word “WHAM”, green with the word “BANG”, yellow with bats, red with a yellow lightning bolt, and blue with flowers.
And by the time we were done it was already 1am!! I slowed down on my drinking much earlier so that I didn’t mess anyone’s nails up too badly. LOL Below is a pic that I took of my raspberry lemonade with a twist and my Gelish 18G lamp. <3
I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into our Nails & Cocktails night, and maybe it’ll inspire some of you to have similar gatherings! :)
looks really nice :D i loved the commics! what stamping polishes did u use on that mani?
Thanks. I used the Konad black and white for stamping :)
Brilliant! I so wish I lived nearer to you! I would supply some lovely Cocktails, and you could do my nails!, haha… Looked like you had a cracking time…if I did a girlie night, nobodys nails would get done if there was Alcohol on the Menu!! Lol…..
I love your nails and cocktails idea! I’ve been wanting to do something like that for very long time this has just inspired me to take action and do it. =) I have a collection of over 100 Nail Harmony Gelish colors and can definitely say that my fetish has turned into an obsession! I think it’s amazing that you created this website and blog for everybody. I’m dying to get myself a Gelish UV/LED lamp as well. I’m trying hard to complete my Gelish colors collection but it is definitely an expensive hobby. Lol. My friends and family always tell me that my gel and polish collection is excessive as well so we definitely have that in common! But I TOTALLY take pride in my “excessive collection”. Thank you for your blog, I love it and always look forward to your new posts.
Chandra
Thank you for sharing your fun night. All the nails look great and i bet the girls loved it. I would also like to thank you for keeping the integrety of the professional nail tech alive. As a professional, i appreciate that you chose not to clip cuticles and such but kept it complete fun. Although with the respect you show for the industry, we’d be lucky to have you. Thank you for all your great work. Oh, and i’d be happy to bring a dish to your next girls night if invited!
Thanks, Shannon. I am considering getting my license, but am still undecided at this point. :)
You do beautiful work. I vote YES! Get your license, the industry needs you.
Wow thanks for pointing out this brand! They have some really fun looking stuff!! Have you had any trouble getting a crisp image compared w/other brands?
*MoYou that is..
I only have 2 MoYou plates. They work as well as any other I’ve tried. The images on this particular plate were kind of small.
I have fun looking at these pictures. Love every mani and design. I always dream of having the talent to do different nail arts.
I do something similar with my girlfriends and love it. We spend so much time eating and gossiping that we never get the nails finished until 1am either :)) xx
I’m just getting into stamping, but I can’t seem to get a crisp image on my nails. I know there’s polish specifically made for this that tends to be thicker, but I’ve seen plenty of people use regular polish too. Any tips for how to get the images on my nails without smudging? Do I need to buy special polish?
It’s all about the polish that you use. Some work better than others. Generally metallics work better and there are specific stamping polishes that work best.