The Nail Polish Tag

1. Answer the 10 questions.
2. Pass this tag to 5 other bloggers.
3. Make sure the bloggers that you tagged, knows that you tagged them, by sending them a comment on their blog.

Now, here are the questions:

How many nail polishes do you have? I have 77 nail polishes, which includes top coats, base coats, etc. I don't have very many compared to a lot of polish addicts, do I?
What is your favorite brand of nail polish? My favorite brand is probably Color Club. I don't spend a lot of money on polish and Color Club is inexpensive, has a great formula and some awesome colors!
Do you like crackle polish, or do you hate it? Oh man, are you ready for this? I have never used a crackle. Not even the oldschool crackles from the late 1990s. I like how they look but I prefer nail art to cracks!
What is your first nail polish brand? Surely it was Wet N' Wild. I'm cheap now and I was cheap when I started!
If you're going to have a nail polish line, what are you gonna name it? I will probably never have a nail polish line and if I did it would probably have the least creative name of all time like "Nevorpurify's Nail Polish." I'd rather let the girls who have an eye for color make the polishes and I'll just use them!
What nail polish color does not compliment you? I don't like light colors on my skin, they make me look washed out. Specifically like lavenders and light pinks. I also just am not a huge fan of pink, ever.
And what color does compliment you? Dark colors. I love blacks and deep reds. I also think that most green's look nice on me.
Name two of your best nail art friends? I would love to claim that Leslie from Polish Art Addition is my best nail art friend. She inspires me and is always super fun and makes me smile! I don't know if you could really call us "best nail art friends" right now, but I hope that over time our friendship grows stronger! That said, I don't really have nail art friends, but if I could say who I *want* my two best nail art friends to be it would probably be Michelle from Sonoma Nail Art (because hopefully she'd give me some pointers plus she likes great movies!) and Alexis from Je T'aime Lacquer  (because I think we have like 1 million things in common plus she's totally a nail art idol of mine).
What was the best nail polish gift you have ever received? I have two. The first one came from (the finance) Ron's sister Brittany last year. She knew I loved polish and she got me some nail art pens. I had always wanted to try nail art pens, but I'm always too cheap to buy them so it was like the perfect present for me! The second one was from Ron's mom who gave me a few beautiful polishes that I absolutely love!
Make a speech about thanking the blogger who gave you this tag. Leslie, without you would be a lot less nail art in the world. Not only because of the beautiful nails you paint on yourself, but because you have inspired so many individuals. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be this good at nail art; I wouldn't have a blog; and I wouldn't be so proud of myself. And I am sure that I'm not the only person who can say that! I hope that you continue loving what you do, always inspire others, and live a beautiful life! Thank you for what you have given me, and thank you for giving that same thing to countless others!

Pass it on to 5 bloggers:
Amber Did It!
Nail Reflections
Nails in Nippon
Je T'aime Lacquer
Sonoma Nail Art

Another Blogger Problem

Okay, I'm coming to you all with another problem! First I was struggling with figuring out who my new followers were but now I'm having trouble with following other people!!

So this is essentially what happens:
I follow someone new. The window tells me, "You are following this person" (or whatever it says). A few days later I'm not following that person!!!

I've noticed this problem with two people in particular and I've been tracking what's going on with them. The first is Amber from Amber Did It. I have attempted to follow her three times now and each time a few days pass and I'm not following her anymore! The second person that I've really be noticing this trend with is Nail Reflections where essentially the same thing has happened.  I just noticed this with several other people too! I know that I'm following them correctly but it just keeps goings away. I haven't noticed this problem before the last week or so.

What is going on? I need to follow these people! They are posting awesome nail art that I want to see!!!

Top Ten Award

Kelly from Basecoat-Topcoat was awesome enough to award me with The Top Ten Award! If you haven't ever checked her out before, you definitely should! She's amazing. She's currently doing a 24 Days of Christmas Challenge that is one of the best out there!

I also received this award from Claws Up who writes some awesome posts and paints some beautiful nails! She is great and I'm glad to have recently discovered her!

So the rules for this award are to do the following:
1. Thank the person for whom you have received the award and link to their blog
2. Set the top 10 award image on your blog
3. Make a list of your top 10 cosmetics
A thing that you should know about me is that I'm not really into cosmetics. So here's my best attempt
1. Nail polish
2. Hair ties
3. Healthy Hoof Protein Treatment/Cuticle Cream
4. Healthy Hoof Hoof Lacquer
5. Blush
6. Conditioner
7. Mascara
8. Blue Maybelline eye shadow that I use as eyeliner
9. Lotion
10. Soap
Oh man, that was horrible... I feel like I just named random toiletries. You'll notice I didn't really say a lot of brands either, that's because I change brands a lot.
4. Tag 10 other bloggers:
I'm still trying to award people that I've never awarded before, so here goes:
The Crumpet

Spellbinding Nails
Red Hair and Black Nail Polish
Tip Top Nails
TornadoCalli
Vettelicious
A Day in the Life of Dollface
Bookworm Nails
Frippery Digits
Improbable Dreamer
NailSide

The Versatile Blogger Award

Whoo Hoo!! An award! Do you know what my favorite part of awards is? It's coming up with fun facts to share with you all! You can see more facts about me here from when Liz (from Nail Files from the Basement) awarded me the One Lovely Blog Award. This time I was awarded The Versatile Blogger award by two people: First from Alexis of Je T'aime Lacquer and then from Jenni of Gold Speck Nails. You girls are awesome! Thank you!

The terms of the award are that I have to tell you 7 things about myself and pass the award along to 15 other versatile bloggers!

Here are 7 (more) facts about me:
1. My real name is Cayley! Nev is a handle that I have used for ages that came from a song by the band Nevermore. My real name comes from the mathematician Arthur Cayley (yup, I'm named after a boy). Cayley (the mathematician) worked largely in modern algebra and if you've studied any linear algebra, you probably recognize the name from the Cayley-Hamilton Theorem!

2. I am recently engaged, which if you read my blog, you already know. Might I recommend checking out the video of Ron's proposal (but I warn you, it is a bit gory). What you probably don't know is that I am writing our pre-nup. When you enter into a contract, you usually dictate the terms of it (you know... I'll pay you $X for you to do Y), but a marriage contract is one of the only contracts that the state dictates the terms of. Ron and I don't want the government to tell us what our marriage is supposed to be!

3. I'm about to start nail school! That's right - I have enrolled in cosmetology school in a nail specialty program! I start in January and I will be blogging about my experience. It should be... interesting...

4. I have had a lot of hairstyles: I have dyed my hair every color under the sun, I've had dreadlocks, I've essentially shaved my head (surprisingly this was not after the dreadlocks), I've had insanely long hair. Yet, I have no idea how to style my hair.

5. This is sort of tied in with #2, but I have no idea what I want my wedding to be like. I don't care too much about colors, venue, style, what my dress looks like! This is particularly weird because I've been dreaming about getting married since I was a kid, I just never had a vision of what it would be like. If you have ideas for me, I would LOVE them... please... someone... help me...

6. Ron and I are currently watching every episode and movie (chronologically) of Star Trek. It turns out that I really hate Captain Kirk. A lot. Why doesn't anyone like him? Spock is so obviously superior. Kirk is susceptible to everything, and let's be honest, you could just put a woman in a room and Kirk would be rendered useless.

7. I'm really interested in serial killers. I've read probably 200 books about true crime, watched countless documentaries, and am always perusing the internet for more information. I think my interest stems from the fact that I find it so unimaginable that anyone could ever take another person's life.

And now for 15 other beautiful, versatile, amazing, bloggers. I am not repeating any bloggers that I have already awarded a different award because I feel like there are so many awesome bloggers out that that I need to share the wealth! But let's be honest, I don't know anyone who isn't deserving of this award!

Copy That, Copy Cat
Sakura Kiss Nails
Emily's Nail Files
Rebecca Likes Nails
That Leanne
Deez-Nailz
KK Nails
Blue Tape and Nails
D_Nails
Kawaii Nail Art
Hverdagsnegler by Thea
Arts of Archu
Nail Polish Addict
Nail Art World
Sandra at My World
Nail Loopy

Darn it, I always go one over. That was 16, but I was never one for making cuts.

Lacey Lace

I'm swooning over the events of the last few days still, so please excuse me if I randomly just start going off on a happiness tangent.

These are some lace nails. Or, kind of lace, I don't know, what are they? I painted them when Ron and I went with a few friends to go see the band 40 Watt Sun in Philadelphia. 40 Watt Sun has the same front man as Warning, who are one of Ron and I's bands (That's right, we have a band, not a song) so we were really excited to see them! Lalalala I'm trailing off now... Too much excitement to be blogging about nails.....

Iron Maiden and THE BEST SURPRISE EVER

Well, if this isn't the best day ever to be posting Iron Maiden nails, I don't know what is!

Iron Maiden, an amazing heavy metal band, is Ron's favorite band. He has seen them many times and he would probably go far and wide (and possibly spend all of our money) to see them many more times. But the reason that these nails could not have come at a better time is because....

Ron proposed to me last night (I said yes)! So instead of telling you about Iron Maiden, I think I'll tell you about that!

Ron and I both love metal music, and last night we went to a concert where the bands Exhumed and Goatwhore played (I'm sorry for the faint of heart, there is sometimes profanity in metal). Well, Exhumed is probably one of my favorite death metal bands, so during their set, all of a sudden the front-man says, "Alright, where's Ron? Get up here, Ron" and then he points to me and says, "You too!" Before this moment, I hadn't suspected anything, but as soon as I was forced up on stage, I knew what was going on.

Ron's proposal was probably the best thing ever. He said to me, "Ever since I met you, I knew I wanted to be with you... And I want to give you my heart for the rest of my life." He proceeded to rip his shirt open and fake blood started spewing everywhere! Then he pulled out a fake heart and handed it to me. I'm pretty sure that at some point he was down on one knee, but honestly, I was so in shock that I'm not totally sure. At the very bottom I posted some video. There is swearing and blood, but it is adorable.

We spent the evening attempting to not get my beautiful engagement ring bloody and now our skin is stained red. I joked with him, "Well, you may have fake blood stain on you for a few days, but now you're stuck with me for a lifetime!"

Here is my beautiful White Topaz and Black Diamond ring (plus Ron's heart... duh...)

The Exhumed nails that I wore to the show... There will be better pictures of the nails soon!

And again!

Nail Tech-ness

The other day I posted that I was going for a meeting at the local cosmetology school to get information about becoming a nail tech and Alexisaurus from Je T'aime Lacquer asked me if I'd post an update as to what happened. (Also, go check her out, she is amazing and she's doing 31 days of Halloween nails, which are totally incredible!)  So here goes:

I know that getting a nail tech license is something that will be in my future. Sadly, there are a lot of aspects of manicuring that I have zero interest in. If I could only paint nail art and not do any shaping or cuticle care or whatever the hell else you get done at a manicure (I've only had 2 manicures in my life), I would. But if you want to make money doing something, there will always be aspects you do not like about it. So I figure, I love doing nail art so much that I should probably turn this hobby into somewhat of a career.

I went in to the school and sat in a lobby for a few minutes, and one of my main anxieties about cosmetology school was realized: There were tons of vapid yet beautiful men and women who were WAY more materialistic and... dare I say... unintelligent than I'll ever be (NOTE: this is a huge over simplification. I, by no means, think that everyone in cosmetology school is stupid). There was a bookshelf labeled "Beauty School Library" that had about 35 books... I'll be going to cosmetology school immediately after attending a university with multiple libraries, one of which has over 3 million books. But I digress, after a few moments of waiting a wonderful woman came to give me a tour of the school and some information.

Luckily the nail area was much more calm than the lobby area. I got to see a "class" that didn't really seem to be doing anything, but everyone seemed really nice. I found out that if I go full time (essentially Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm) it will only take me 8 weeks (that's only 2 months, people!) to get fully licensed in the state of New York. It's a 250 hour program. But here's the bad news, Ron and I plan to move sometime soon, and if we move to another state I might have to go BACK to school if the state we move to requires more than 250 hours. So I did some research and like almost every state requires more than 250 hours... Lots of states require 600! (Here's a list of requirements by state if you're interested)

I was also surprised at how inexpensive it is to become a nail tech: less than $2500 in NY, which includes all the supplies (AND a "practice hand").

So, here is my conclusion:
Nail art = awesome
Licensure = stupid
Manicures = ?
Nail Tech School = yes, please. I'll be starting January 9th

If you have more specific questions about what the process is, please feel free to ask!

Irony?

So I'm about to leave the house to go to an appointment with the local cosmetology school to inquire about... *gasp* becoming a nail tech, and I dawdle a bit by checking some of my favorite humor websites. What comes up first but this photograph of a really awful tattoo that I totally associate with. Thought I'd share it with you all:

Blog Awards

I go MIA for the weekend and I come back to some amazing comments and more amazingly, my first ever blog award from Liz at Nail Files From the Basement. She is wonderful at stamping, has a great eye for color, and always has great nail care tips!

The rules for the award are that I have to: tell you seven facts about myself, link back to the person's blogger who awarded me, and share this award with ten others.


Since I've never done blog awards before, I'm going to try to give you the seven most awesome facts ever. But also since I've never done blog awards I don't know the etiquette when it comes to awarding someone who's already been awarded. But I've decided that the girls I want to give this award to deserve one million awards, so I am ignoring it if they've already won. So here goes:


1. I have a severe phobia of sharks... So severe that if you were to draw a shark and I saw it, I'd be likely to run away. I regularly have my boyfriend check under the bed for sharks before I'm willing to get out of the bed (of course I warn him to stand back when he does, I wouldn't want him to get eaten).


2. My two biggest pet peeves are wet socks and thick straws. Wet socks are so annoying to me that I NEVER wear socks in the winter for fear of wetness. If I get so much as one drop of water on my socks I have to stop everything I'm doing and take off my socks. Thick straws are just stupid. When you drink you just get too much liquid in each sip. I don't understand why anyone thought they were a good idea.


3. You probably know this one if you read my blog regularly, but I love Taco Bell. It is by far my favorite food. I eat it about 2-3 times a week, which is a lot less that I used to (when I lived in Pittsburgh, I ate it about 4-5 times a week). I'm completely addicted.


4. I wish that I could be considered an economist. I love the field and I like to think I'm good at it. I often wish I could sit down everyone in the world and explain basic economics to them because I think the world would be a better place.


5. I'm an aerialist. Or, I was... but I will be again soon. I do aerial silks (like in Cirque Du Soleil when the long fabric hangs from the ceiling and they climb up it and do acrobatics). I'm on hiatus right now because I don't feel that there are people I can train with in Rochester (where I live). I'll be moving in the next year or so probably and one of the main ways I'll be choosing where to move is by answering the question, "Are there good aerialists here?"


6. I have dyslexia, which prevented me from learning to read until I was about seven or eight. Luckily it hasn't held me back as an adult, except for the fact that I sometimes mix up loose and lose; b's and d's, and other similar combinations.


7. Two of my favorite things are music and movies. I listen to metal, mostly death metal, black metal, and doom metal. I regularly travel out of town to see concerts, which I love to do. I think people look at me weird when they see a metal head with beautifully painted nails, haha. Movies are the best way to live vicariously. I'm a huge 1980's slasher film nerd (you'd be surprised how many 1980's slasher films exist), but I love pretty much every genre.


Here are the amazing ladies of nail art that I love a lot, I wish I could have put every single nail artist on the list, but that would take forever!


Sonoma Bento - Who does some of the best freehand I've ever seen
Robin Moses - Whose videos have taught me and the masses that freehand-ing is attainable
Tara from For Your Nails Only - Whose creativity reminds me to try new things
Leslie from Polish Art Addiction - Who taught me new techniques and inspired me to start blogging my nails
Alexisaurus from Je T'aime Lacquer  -  Who is creative, and cute, and fun, and responsive, and ALWAYS makes me smile
Ellie from ER-Nails - Who has style!
Rina from Simply Rins - Who loves cartoons and paints them beautifully on her nails
Selene and Theia from Aphrodite's Notebook - Who are newer to blogging, but are knocking it out of the park
Melissa from The Daily Nail - The first nail blog I checked daily and still one of the most unique blogs around
Jacki from Adventures in Acetone - Whose 31 day challenge rocked my socks (luckily they didn't get wet though)
Sarah from Chalkboard Nails - Because she actually made me semi-interested in swatches and her nail art is beautiful


Okay, so that's eleven. But how can you ask me to erase one person when they're all so great! I hope I didn't disappoint with my first blog award and I hope to receive another one some day, I had tons of fun doing this!