Thursday, November 21, 2013

Part Time School, Full Time Work and Gum Past Flowers,,,

Okie dokie, so I started my new job on Monday and it is just after midnight on Friday morning and yes, I really need to go to sleep but I'm finding I need some time to unwind after I get home.  Thank God for Farmville, eh?

Orientation is from 12:30 pm to 9 pm, M - F for five weeks and I have to say that even though I'm a night owl this takes some getting used to, wow!  I have to say though, Citi is off to a great start as far as impressing the heck out of me with their employee benefits.  As someone who has been a receptionist for most of the last 20 plus years I have to say that Citi recognizes the fact that the "little" people who answer their phones ARE the face of the company to the general public - and they are treating us accordingly.  This is a great place to be, seriously!

School has slowed way down to accommodate orientation and while I know it has to be this way I'm both kind of sad about it and relieved - I'm so weary by the time I get home from part-time school and full-time work, I can't imagine how those young whippersnappers can manage full-time work, full-time school and some of them even have families on the side!  Not for me, I think my heart would burst from being overwhelmed after about two days of that, lol!  I went in to school late on Wednesday and not at all on Thursday (yesterday) just to sleep a little longer...  I have to go today (Friday) because it is test day and because I've already missed four school hours out of the possible fifteen this week, ugh!

Now I know this is totally off subject but just for fun and because I like having pictures in my blog I'm going to back up to a week ago and share what April taught me.  I figure it's only fair, she lets me practice my nail stuff on her so I went to her house and she taught me how to make flowers out of gum paste.  It was tons of fun and I wound up with two calla lilies, two carnations and two roses, whoo hoo!  Here are the pictures - enjoy!









...and for some reason I didn't take a picture of the calla lilies - oops!  I'll try to add those later...  Have a fabulous weekend everyone!


Thursday, November 14, 2013

April Gets Gel Polish and I Get Re-Browed!

Monday my friend April came in and I was going to get a fill on her acrylic nails... except that I didn't do a very good job <ooops!> when I applied them so we wound up taking them off completely.  :(  But that's OK because I also need practice removing "nail enhancements", as the book calls them.

We started by soaking off the acrylic nails in acetone but then my teacher, Ana, showed me a quicker way which I will describe once I've done it a few more times and know more what I'm talking about, lol!  It worked pretty good though and April said it wasn't pleasant but it wasn't really painful either so yay, right?!

To give you a little bit of background I should say that April has never in her life had any sort of artificial nails (and doesn't need them, honestly,) yet she has wholeheartedly thrown herself into supporting my schooling by being my guinea pig whenever I need one - God bless her!  It's been mostly fun and games for April, free mani-pedis every week for six weeks or so but it was time to pay her dues, so to speak, when the acrylic nails came out...  On Halloween for 3 1/2 very long hours <I was so embarrassed it took that long...> she endured having the superglue I used to apply the tips sticking the entire end of her finger to the plastic tips for days until the glue wore off, the seemingly endless filing by hand that was uncomfortable and harsh on her cuticles and I even drew blood twice (yes, it was on accident!) at different points in the whole process.  Everybody give April a hand!  <loud, thunderous applause - can you hear it April?> 

And back to the present... April came in Monday and we wound up taking off the acrylics and applying just gel polish to her fingers and toes, which will help strengthen them from the (minor) damage caused by removing the acrylics and I think she will like a lot better :P  We used a different brand of gel polish than the Gelish I had bought previously, it belongs to the school and the brand name is Cuccio - I have no idea how to pronounce it...  Coo-chee-oh?  All the colors the school has seem to be very sheer so it takes a minimum of two coats and I've done up to four coats to get the color right but other than that the Cuccio seems to be a pretty decent product.  Once I've used them both a little more I'll do a post about Gelish versus Cuccio and decide which one I like best.  At any rate, I did a translucent, pearly polish on the entire nail and then what was supposed to be a vibrant medium-deep purple line on the tips.  On the toes we tried some nail art with the Cuccio polish and it was OK to work with but again, the colors were very sheer so I didn't feel like the nail art was as vibrant as it should have/could have been but check it out!




Tuesday/yesterday the esthetics students shaped my brows by giving them an arch.  I feel like I look more interesting now... or maybe it's that I look more interested in what I'm looking at now... and today they tinted (dyed) them again!  I love my "new look" and am sooooo excited!  Here's photos of the journey my eyebrows took:

The eyebrows I was born with...

Shaped Eyebrows

Shaped and Tinted Eyebrows.

It's kind of hard to tell the differences between the tinted eyebrows and the un-tinted ones but when I look in the mirror I can see they're darker now :)   Fun, fun, fun!



Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Nail Art for Cathy!

Today was a fun day, I received a pedicure from Cathy, one of my fellow students, and gave her a polish change.  She found a picture on Pinterest that she wanted her nails to look like and so we gave it a shot, and yes, they're random on purpose!  Here's what we wound up with:




The picture of the light pink-ish nails aren't very good but we used a skin-toned glitter polish as a base and then used a clear top-coat to stick multiple layers of tiny bits of a clear, holographic plastic on the nail.  It came out really neat but apparently those nails were shy and not very photogenic, lol!


You can kind of see it a little better here but trust me, it's waaaay cooler in person!

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Getting Ready to Work Again, My First Fill and Third Full Set

Wednesday of this week I went to Citi to get fingerprinted and get my badge for employment.  I arrived on time, walked into the building and introduced myself to Tony, the security guard.

Me:  "Hi, is this the building I need to come to for fingerprinting?"
Tony:  "I don't know where they do the fingerprinting."
Me:  "Are you serious?  There wasn't a location on the email, I don't know where else to go!"
Tony:  "Don't know what to tell you, I have no idea where you should be."
Me:  <shocked look on face>
Tony:  "I'm just kidding, you're in the right place, sign in here."

The man just about gave me a heart attack!  I think we're going to get along just fine, lol.  So after the adrenaline rush I go sit in a chair in the lobby, set my purse on a table next to me and the Very Important Paperwork I was required to bring with me I set on the table next to my purse.

A short time later I hear my name called so I stand up, grab my purse and walk towards the security officer who called my name.  Yep, we get alllllll the way back to his office where he asks me for my Very Important Paperwork and I realize that I left it in the lobby.  I am so not starting off on the right foot here, phooey!  This very nice young man goes back to the lobby to retrieve my paperwork, comes back with it and we continue as if nothing happened, bless his heart!  I get my picture taken, spell and re-spell my name, address, etc. and even get close-up shots of my eyeballs taken several times to be stored in my system because that is, after all, how I will enter the building in this highly advanced technological age.  Badge swiping is for getting past locked doors on the inside of the building, eyeball identification is required to enter the building itself... I'm impressed!  Besides that, the close-up pictures of my eyes were really quite pretty, I wonder if I could get a copy?  <giggle>

Friday I filled Stefani's nails as it had been two weeks since I applied her full set.  We used the Pink Powder #2 and Stefani wanted only the tips of her nails painted in a french tip style using gel nail polish.  The ring fingers were a beautiful, metallic red color with red rhinestones arching from the smile line to her cuticle and the rest of her fingertips were black, I thought it came out very classy, check it out!  I personally wouldn't have done those particular rhinestones because they weren't the same red as the polish but she seemed pleased with them and that's what matters.  Also, we tried a new brand of gel polish, Coucci(?) so I'm looking forward to seeing her nails again on Monday and see how they handled a busy weekend.

Stefani also filled my nails, since she had given me a full set two weeks ago and she did a good job.








I also chose a gel polish but we tried something new, putting glitter on the tips of my fingers and then covering it with the top coat.  I should have taken a picture but I didn't do it at school and in between school and home the part of the polish with the glitter in it peeled off :(  So later Friday evening I filed my nails until all of the polish was off and then I put fresh gel polish on my nails in a different color.  Since I was doing it all by myself I decided to go simple - I probably could have pulled something fun off on my left hand but having my left hand polishing my right hand was enough of a challenge that I didn't want to try and match anything cool I might have managed on my left hand, ha, ha.  Here's what I came up with as far as polishing my own nails.



By the way, I am really loving gel polish, especially the Gelish brand.  It goes on just like regular polish except you cure it with a UV light between every layer.  Base coat, cure in the light.  First color coat, cure in the light.  Second color coat, cure in the light.  Top coat, cure in the light.  Wipe nails with rubbing alcohol and brush cuticles with oil, done!  At this point your nails are touchable, you can even bang them into the wall, tie your shoes or reach into your purse and get your keys without damaging your polish!  It's amazing and comes in all kinds of colors now, yay!


Today, Saturday, I gave my eldest daughter, Rachel, another full set of acrylic nails and she also chose a gel polish.  After the first round of acrylic powder on the plastic tips I filed her nails with the Dremel and the acrylic layer was too thin so I did another round of acrylic and then hand-filed her nails with four different grits until they were silky smooth.  Here's what they look like with the polish she chose:

...and that picture is not horribly flattering, either of her hands or the nails I put on her.  Hmmm...  Maybe it's the color?  It's much prettier in real life, honest!

At any rate, it was a fun, productive week but I'm glad it's over.  I did a lot of relaxing today and to be honest I'm a little nervous about my upcoming full-time job AND going to school before I go to work so I'm trying to rest as much as possible.  I'm afraid I'm going to burn out and have to quit school, but I love school and would rather quit work.  But work pays the bills and let's me stay in school...  Oh the circles life is made of!  One thing I know for sure, everything is going to be OK.  God brought me here and He will bring me through it, all of it!


Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Friday's Wild Ride

OK, so I totally forgot that I had started this post and then never finished it so here's a run-down of  my crazy day last Friday:

9 am:  Heather comes in and gets a full set of acrylic nails.  She chooses a French Tip polish with a sheer pink glitter over the top - love it!  I'm going to paint a demo nail tip with the same color combination and call it the "Heather's French Tip Special"  I took pictures of her nails with her phone because I left mine in my car and she was going to send them to me but hasn't yet - I'll update this with the pics when I get them.

12:15 pm:  Go to lunch with hubby at the Great Wall of China Chinese Buffet - yummy!

1:30 pm:  Give hubby his first ever mani-pedi.  Again, he took a picture with his phone because mine was in my car and I don't have it...

4 pm:  Seven teen-aged girls came in for gel polishes as part of a birthday party.  I worked on 5 out of the 7 girls.  We had four UV light boxes for curing the gel polish going at one time and I was using three of them!  Put a coat on one girl, hand in the box to cure and then move on to the next one while the first one was waiting for her light to go out (it has a self-timer), repeat for a third girl and then go back and do the next coat on the first girl.  That was seriously  insane, wow!  I took a group photo of the girls and another one of all their hands with my teacher's phone and don't have that one yet either, lol!

5:30 pm:  Done with birthday party girls!  Clean up station.

6 pm:  Go home.

Friday wore me out, what a busy, crazy day!  It was lots of fun though and gave me a little taste of what it might be like to work in a beauty salon after I graduate - can't wait!  Also I learned a lesson - Stop Leaving My Phone In The Car!

A Miracle!

Yesterday I had a 2nd interview at Citi Bank for a Customer Service position.  I met with a really nice guy named Mark and had a delightful time answering his crazy questions.  I walked out of there feeling really good about my chances and good about the company.  Today they called with a job offer and it's a total answer to prayer - I start on November 18th, benefits start on Day One, I can still go to school in the mornings and the wage isn't far off from the job I left... I'm relieved, excited and overwhelmed all at the same time because once again I have proof that God sees me where I'm at, He heard my prayers and cares about me enough to provide for my every need!

I just wanted you to know because He loves you just as much as He loves me :)

Today at school was actually kind of boring.  I did book-work in the morning and went to visit a beauty supply store with the other students (but I was a good girl and didn't buy anything because payday is tomorrow!) and after lunch I organized and numbered all of the school's nail polishes.  Uh huh, party time, right?

Tomorrow at school I will give an acrylic fill to Stefani and she will give me an acrylic fill, hopefully I can get some pictures to post throughout the process.  I didn't take any pictures of when I gave her the full set of acrylic nails last week because I was disgusted with the quality of the job that I did, although comparing the nails she gave me after a week to the nails I gave her after the same amount of time, well, let's just say that I don't think I did so bad after all and I regret not taking pictures before <sigh>.  But such is life, eh? 

Unfortunately, once I start this new job I will only be able to go to school for 3 - 4 hours a day so it will take me a lot longer to work up to the 600 hours I need to graduate and I'm only at 180-ish hours so far... but that's OK.  I'm very interested to see where this journey will take me and who I will meet along the way - it's going to be fun!

Speaking of which, if you're in the Boise area you should come by Murano Beauty Academy and let me give you a mani-pedi.  I have one more week of being at school full-time and then mornings will be the only time you can catch me there so come on down!

Friday, November 1, 2013

Mommy-Daughter Pedicure and Sticker Polish

My friend April was looking at My Nail Fairy Tale blog and said something to the effect of "How come I'm not in your blog?" (her most recent trip to see me at school) so I looked in my phone and lo and behold, there are several pictures in there of April and her daughter's fingers and toes that I never blogged about!  Uh oh!  The busy life of a Nail Tech, I guess...  :P

Hannah's Nail Art from their Mommy-Daughter Pedicure

April after her Mommy-Daughter Pedicure

 Next are pictures of my first experience applying, for lack of a more imaginative designation, Sticker Polish.

The Pro:  They are beautiful!  Amazing Nail Art with no design experience necessary and there are soooo many designs to choose from - when April picked out these pink ones she found me some fantastic butterfly ones (but I want longer acrylic nails before I try them on myself).  We got these at Cosmo-Prof Beauty Supply store but they're available at nearly all box stores now and it a clever, relatively simple idea.  Peel the sticker off and stick it to the natural nail - how hard can it be, right?

And that was the Con:  I had a hard time getting it to look as great as the pictures, lol!  The Sticker Polish is thin and flexible and I think my biggest problem was that the sizes were not exactly the same size as their finger and toe nails and the only way to trim the Sticker Polish was while it was till on the plastic sheet it comes on in the box.  You could hold the stickers over the nail to estimate the size but it was difficult to get the sticker just the right size.  Another Con is that you have to be really careful about filing the extra sticker off the end of the nail.  I ruined the very first one because I tried to file it off at an angle, which cut the sticker shorter than the nail, grrr...  I wound up having to try and file it off at an angle going under the nail to be sure that the entire end of the nail was covered and the toes were especially tricky along the edge of the cuticle and sidewalls. Oh look - one more Con, the stickers are flat in the box and the natural nail is curved so two of April's fingernails were left with most unattractive creases in the Sticker Polish  :(

All in all I don't think that Sticker Polishes are a product I will be encouraging anyone to buy, it took a lot of time and I don't think either April or I were sure it was worth the effort, which is sad because there are so many beautiful designs out there and it looks like it should be super easy.  Not!

My first experience with Stick-On Nail Polish
April and Hannah after Sticker Polish


Close up of Sticker Polish