Nail Polish Blogger Challenge - Day 7

Hi guys! Look, I'm posting before 11:30 at night! What an accomplishment this week. Haha.

Today is day 7 of the challenge I'm currently doing. The last day!
I wanted to do something a little crazy just to go out with a bit of a bang, I guess!

Skittles it is!
(However I can't take credit for this design - I saw it on WAH Nails. If you're looking for some fun, trendy ideas, that's the place to start.)

Here's what I used:
Color Club - Peppermint Twist.
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Brisk Blue
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Whirlwind White
Wet N Wild - Black Creme

I used a mixture of brushes, dotting tools, and a nail art pen to create all the designs.

Why is it SO hard for me to take a focused picture of my right hand? Holding my big heavy camera is just sort of difficult with my left hand...

Putting a camera in your lap to take a photo ain't easy either. I manage.

I'm really pleased with this mani and now that the challenge is over, I can wear it for a few days!
I have a midterm on Thursday so I will probably be leaving this on until then.

Of course, check out the other ladies' posts today:

Caroline from Good Lack Nail

Leslie from Polish Art Addiction 

Inge from Polish Sis
Ulmiel from Did someone say nail polish?
Sidrah from beauteous blog
Sarah from Lucky Lacquers
Maestra from parokeets

Gejba from  parokeets 

 

I hope you guys enjoyed seeing this challenge all week! I'm glad it's over, though. Challenges can be stressful! How did I manage the 31 Day Challenge? I don't know!

More about → Nail Polish Blogger Challenge - Day 7

Nail Polish Blogger Challenge - Day 3

Hi everyone! Time for day three of the challenge - and this one is cute overload. I'll get right to it.

Hearts!!
I've been wanting to do another polka-heart mani for a long time - you might remember the first one I did ages ago which you can see here. It's been one of my most popular posts since I posted it!
(Coincidentally it was featured yesterday on Babble.com's 25 Fun & Flirty Nail Trends to Try! Good timing then, for me to post another!)

Of course - the base is Color Club Peppermint Twist for the challenge.

I did the hearts freehand with a white 2-way nail art pen. Surprisingly it didn't take all that long to draw all the hearts!

I thought they sort of matched my Hello Kitty calendar... So here's a pic!
And while we're on the subject of HK...

Look at this great new Hello Kitty stamping plate I got!
I got this baby on eBay from this listing. The seller has quite a few adorable plates! And at a decent price. I might have to buy another one or two! (Especially the one with the bows... And Transformer logos...)

As always, don't forget to check out the posts today by the other lovely ladies in the challenge!

Caroline from Good Lack Nail

Deniz from Emerald Sparkled 

Leslie from Polish Art Addiction 

Inge from Polish Sis
Ulmiel from Did someone say nail polish?
Sidrah from beauteous blog
Sarah from Lucky Lacquers
Maestra from parokeets

Gejba from  parokeets 

More about → Nail Polish Blogger Challenge - Day 3

31 Day Challenge: Day 13

Good morning everyone! Today is day number 13, lucky 13 for my birthday.
I think it is pretty fitting that today's theme is Animal Print! You all know how I feel about animal print.
Perfect for my birthday.

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do for this theme, so again I stared at my polishes until something jumped out at me - and today, it was Color Club Poptastic and Twiggie.

So of course I went for leopard print!
This is 2 coats of each color, alternating dots with a dotting tool, and then black detailing with a 2-way nail art pen.
I've shown a step-by-step of leopard print here.

Here I am showing off my nails and one of my new obsessions - EOS lip balms. I got one when I was in Buffalo and at first I wasn't sure what the hype was, but now I love them! My mom bought me this one (Sweet Mint) last night at the mall as a part of my birthday gift!
(And I also ordered 2 more online. Now I have 4/6! Hahaha.)
They are organic and really moisturizing. Big fan.

I alternated the colors on each hand for this mani.

And now I will show you a funny picture.
When I do nails that are different on each hand, I like to take a picture of both hands at once. But when you are home alone, this is a difficult task.
Sometimes I'll ask my mom to help me out, but alas I had to try and do it myself.
10 pictures later... This is the best one:

I sorta like the picture! But it is a funny angle. Picture me with my huge camera in my lap, trying to position my hands in front of it, waiting for the timer to count down and take the picture.
It was an ordeal. But I got a decent (and silly) photo. Mission accomplished.

That's all for my birthday mani!
Unfortunately, I'll be spending much of my birthday at school. 12-5 and 7-9:30. Boo!

More about → 31 Day Challenge: Day 13

China Glaze - Custom Kicks + nail art!

Hi guys!
I just spent some time editing and watermarking my pictures of Color Club's Wicked Sweet collection when I realized... I think one of my colors is wrong. Damn those sets for not having names on the bottom of the bottles!
So I'm going to wait to post that until I figure it out.

So I also happened to have these photos watermarked and ready to go!

This is 2 coats of China Glaze - Custom Kicks.
This polish was on my wishlist, and then Caroline of Shadow's Nail Art sent it to me! (I was going to post all the things she sent me at once, but now you're seeing this alone because of my Wicked Sweet fail.)

See the pretty gold shimmer?
This polish is really opaque and you can actually get away with one coat - I did that on my right hand. But most times, it is best to do 2, because your mani will last longer.
You get chips way faster when you just use one coat.

I thought it would be very similar to all my other teals but there is no exact match.

The closest I could find was Orly's Bailamos. I think Milani Fresh Teal might be closer but I forgot about that when I was dupe-hunting!

However, I did find a dupe in Walmart. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's The Real Teal is virtually identical. I was wearing Custom Kicks when I went to Walmart and of course I looked at the nail polish, and discovered the dupe!
I wanted The Real Teal for a while so now I'm glad I know I have a dupe. :)

I wore this color for a few days with some nail art!

Leopard and half moon, oh my!

I did the leopard with my black 2-way nail art pen, and for the half moon I used a hole reinforcement sticker and Wet N Wild Black Creme.
You just lay the sticker at the cuticle, and paint the top half. Sometime soon I'll show a photo tutorial for this in case you don't quite understand!

I loved this manicure - animal print just does it for me every time!
Tomorrow you can look out for Wicked Sweet - but maybe without The Lime Starts Here. :(

Oh - I meant to say this a few days ago. You should all go see Horrible Bosses! I saw it a few nights ago with a friend and it was hilarious.
That's all!

More about → China Glaze - Custom Kicks + nail art!

glitter bomb!

Good morning!
I know I said yesterday that I would be posting my Teeez holographics today, but I forgot that this is Monday. And Monday means Monday Nail Art Challenge on Polish-Aholics Anonymous!

Before I get to that, however, I want to share a link with you.
Recently I came across this blog - Loodie Loodie Loodie.
This lovely lady shares all her knowledge about nails, and I have learned SO much from reading all her posts. I read them all in 2 hours because I was so interested. I know so much more about my nails now!
Go read her posts. Your nails will thank you! She also has some YouTube videos!
(Have you noticed this happening to you? I have, and this post saved me some worrying! I thought there was something wrong with my nails!)

Okay, back to my own nails!
This week's theme was glitter bomb.
I have a lot of glitter. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do.

I decided I wanted to try a glitter gradient, using the colors from my peacock mani as inspiration!
It turned out pretty nice! But it had to come off right after taking the pictures. You'll see why.

Glitterrrrrr! The gradient effect was much smoother in person.

For these blinged-out nails I used:
Color Club - Object of Envy (green)
Milani One Coat Glitter - Blue Flash
Milani One Coat Glitter - Purple Gleam
Icing - Runaway (pinky purple)
I also used several glitters from the 2 way nail art pen set. (Shades of green and blue to help smooth out the gradient.

This was so pretty and glittery and I would have liked to keep it on... But...

Look how thick it was! It would never dry.
I took the easy way out and wiped it all off with a tissue.

More about → glitter bomb!

inspired by... my undies. + leopard tutorial

Here is the nail art I promised you!
And yes, you read the title right. I did some nails inspired by my undies.
I had to! When I was putting away my laundry I looked at them and just knew I needed to have it on my nails.

Yep. Those are my undies.
Aren't these nails cute? I really loved them.

I love leopard print in any color.

I took step-by-step photos in case any of my followers are wondering how leopard print is done.

You start with your base color. I used China Glaze - Recycle. This is 3 coats, but you can do 2 if you're more careful than I was. This was my very first China Glaze so it is special to me. :P

Then, you add random, oddly-shaped dots.

They don't have to be neat or uniform, just plop 'em on wherever. And it's better if they aren't round.
I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Trouble Maker.

Using a nail art pen, striper brush, or toothpick/small dotting tool, outline the dots. You want to make C and O shapes, and I like doing ones where you cover 2 sides of the dot.
This should also be messy and not uniform, then it looks more natural.

Then you add small dots and C shapes in between your big dots. Just wherever seems empty.

Topcoat to smooth it all out and you're done!

Last Sunday was when I declared my almost-no-buy.
And I have been doing so well that it is shocking.
I have only bought one bottle that was really for me - Revlon Wind Swept. And it was half off. And it is like seriously the best formula ever holy crap I will post it tomorrow. You need this polish in your life.

I have bought a few other things - a second bottle of Party of Five Glitters as well as 2 of the tiny Sally Girl ones for future bottles of Rebecca Likes Cupcakes, and I bought some things for a swap.
But I have displayed great willpower! I even resisted buying a really pretty L'Oreal polish last night that was like teal/green with pink/purple duochrome in the bottle. And when I got home I looked up swatches and it turns out the purple and pink do not show up on the nail. So then I did not regret resisting it!
Yay for me.

Also I have to mention that I am loving my stash/swatch page project because it is really encouraging me to use all my polishes! Good idea, that was. Check it out if you haven't already!
(My recent giveaway win has excited me so much that I even added those polishes to my stash list. :P)

More about → inspired by... my undies. + leopard tutorial

late st. patrick's day

Two days late, but here is what I wore for St. Patrick's day!
I hadn't planned on doing a green mani specifically for it, but then when I was changing my nails I saw my new bottle of Four Leaf Clover, and thought it was too cute to not wear that shade for St. Paddy's day.
It's not a typical St. Patrick's theme though - it's leopard print!

(click to enlarge)

For this "lucky" manicure I used, as I mentioned, China Glaze Four Leaf Clover for the base.
Using one of my new dotting tools, I dotted on random blobs of OPI Jade Is The New Black.
Then, using my black nail art pen I outlined those dots in all different C and O shapes.
There you have it! Easy leopard print!
Maybe next time I do leopard I'll do a photo tutorial.

(click to enlarge)

So, I have my giveway things all ready, I just need to photograph them and get the post ready.
You should be seeing that before the day is out.
I hope you guys will be as excited as I am about it!

More about → late st. patrick's day

blushing bud

I'm having a boring night, so I'm going to take this free time to do a second post today!

This isn't much of an art post, but more just to show off this lovely polish.

(click to enlarge)

This is Orly's Blushing Bud.
This was another Winners find, and I am glad I decided to pick it up!
I also got Bilamos there, and was going to leave this behind where I have a lot of pinks, but I went for it anyway because they were cheaper than they are at Sally's.
And it is a beauty!
This is one coat! Don't you love one-coaters?
I did the dots with my black nail art pen.

Really lovely color, and my photo is really accurate.
Pick this one up if you see it!

More about → blushing bud

nails boss/cake boss

Second post today, with Barbie cake pictures as promised.
First of all I'll show some nails!

(click for bigger)

I love me some leopard!

This is an unnamed pink polish I got at a dollar store, and the purple is Claire's Tahiti Purple.

I used a black nail art pen for the detail.  The nail art pens are perfect for this kind of stuff!

And now for Barbie.

(click for bigger!)

I'm so pleased with it, and I hope it makes a little girl very happy today!

I'm delivering it in a half hour... wish me luck!

More about → nails boss/cake boss

...bieber nail polish?

I now have two followers! Haha, what an accomplishment.

Today I did something unthinkable.
I bought something that somehow relates to Justin Bieber.
I got "One Less Lonely Glitter" from his Nicole by OPI collection.
It is glitter. And purple. Both of my weaknesses. I couldn't resist.
Sigh. I hope he doesn't actually get any of the profits!

I took the Bieber tag off mine before I went to check out so the cashier wouldn't see, heh.

I was originally going to post some more of my favorite nails tonight but I decided to space those posts out a little more.
So here are some simple but still cute nails!

(click to enlarge)

Lava lamp inspired nails!
This is Color Club "Pucci-licious" from the Poptastic collection. It is a really opaque light neon (if that is possible) green. 2 coats!
The magenta is an unnamed nail art pen from ebay, I have the full set of 60. Coming soon I'll review them!

That's all for tonight. School in the morning :(

More about → ...bieber nail polish?