Sophisticated...ME?

 Today's mani was inspired two-fold! Firstly, the design came from the talented Pshiiit blog. Normally I don't bother checking out blogs that aren't in English because the translation tools are terrible but you really should check this one out - her designs are sublime and her photos have a very ethereal feel to them!

My second inspiration comes from the lovely Marta from over at Chit Chat Nails! She has such a sophisticated aesthetic that I find very beautiful but I tend to lean towards bright and whimsical! Be as that may, this felt very "Marta," to me!

The polishes are Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in Black Heart and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Celeb City! I'm very much in love with this one, what do you think, is it me?

 

I'm soooo excited for The Lazy 15 challenge to start, I hope you join in too1

CUPCAKES!!!!

Hey dolls! Happy It's Not Monday Anymore!!!! When you read the title of this post, you're required to say it in the same voice as Agnes from Despicable Me says this:

 

 It's been a while since I was able to type a post with both hands! I've usually got one arm occupied with a sleeping, squishy, fabulous-smelling baby! So I apologize if I'm a little extra chatty!

 

People that know me fairly well know that I have a serious obsession with all things cupcake! All of the baby clothes and blankets that I got for my baby shower was cupcake-themed and people text me cupcake related stuff and, oh, yeah - I LOVE eating cupcakes too! For some reason they taste better than cake? I think it has something to do with the cake-to-frosting ratio! :) My mom always gets me things like cupcake candles and bath bombs and my husband got me this awesome pair of cupcake jammy pants that I haven't been able to wear because it seems like I'm always roasting hot!

Every time I see cupcake nails I drool, literally. It's gross and messy and I really need to stop. XD I'm so hilarious today! I finally gave them a try and I'm fairly pleased with how they turned out for being so new to freehand art and nail art in general! I actually used acrylic paint this time around rather than polish and it was MUCH easier! It didn't get "goopy" as quickly and if you mess up you can just wash it off and start over without having to re-polish the whole nail!

I started off with a base color of Julep Olivia and an accent finger of OPI If You Moust You Moust and a couple of coats of NYC Big City Dazzle to add some schparkle! (yes, I realize that isn't how it's spelled, I like to make up words!) Then I painted on the cuppy-cakes and once that was dry I added a healthy dollop of topcoat!

Also, PLEASE, enter our contest, The Lazy 15 beginning Nov 2nd, it's going to be a lot of fun! For more deets, check HERE!

Calling All Lazy Nail Bloggers!!



Have you ever been tempted to join a challenge but said to yourself, "Ugh, posting every day for 30/31 days? I just don't think I could do that!" Well, never fear, The Lazy 15 is here! Starting Nov 2nd we will be starting a challenge that only includes 15 manis and is only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday! If you often feel intimidated by the art of others this will be perfect for you as well because most of us haven't tried at least a few of these! We still welcome the experienced artists as well, the more the merrier!

If you're interested, just grab this inlinkz code and paste it into your blog or you can also wait and grab the inlinkz code on the first challenge day! I really hope you all give it a try and join us, it's going to be a blast!!!

Grey and Magenta Glitter Gradient

 HAPPY FRIDAY!!!! Finally, it's here!! I heart today's mani so much!! I've been wanting to do a glitter gradient for a loooong time and here it is! The base is two coats of China Glaze Concrete Catwalk. On top of that I painted a gradient of G-listen To Your Heart from Sephora by OPI.

 

Now, some of you may be saying, wow, that looks a little thick! It is! The whole time I was putting this on I was saying to myself, "I KNOW there's a better way to do this!" but, for the life of me, I could not remember!! It wasn't until after I was done that I asked my Tweeps for advice and, of course, they came through! You're supposed to sponge the glitter on so that the sponge soaks up most of the clear coat and only glitter is applied to the nail - DUH! Oh well, I still think it looks pretty stinkin' sweet! The other weird thing was that even though it was really thick, this stuff would NOT chip or peel - it was literally like concrete on my fingers!!

 



Vampy Stampin' Mani

Hello peeps! Gonna keep this short and sweet 'cause I'm running a bit late this morning! The base for this mani is Color Club By Design which I mattified with Givre Magique by Lancome. Then I stamped on top of that with Noir from Lancome using Mash plate 46

 

Then I just had to check out the whole thing matte and I like it!! I was then planning on using a shiny topcoat and adding some studs but the baby thought mom had already spent enough time on her nails! By morning it was chipped - boooo! That's what I hate about matte top coats, they chip and dent so easily!!

That's all for today!!

Tape 'N Dots Fall Mani

Happy Hump Day!!! For those of you that work a M-F this is music to your ears!! We're almost there dolls, just hold on a little longer! After yesterday's mani I decided to keep this one clean and simple. I saw these two polishes next to each other in the display and they go together perfectly!! The green is called The Temptress' Touch and the orange is The Muse's Inspiration, both from L'Oreal. Neither one of these are colors that I would normally wear and I can't say that I'm in love with them but they certainly fit the bill for a Fall mani.

 

I used two coats of The Temptress' Touch then used scotch tape to form the angle and added one thick coat of The Muse's Inspiration. Then I busted out my dotting tools and did dots in alternating colors all the way around the nail. I'm kind of digging how it turned out but I didn't leave it on for long because it's just not my bag, baby!

 

So do you tend to follow the color seasons or do you gravitate towards one or the other? I'm partial to either the super-bright Summer shades or the jewel tones that come with Winter! See you all next time, mwah!

Inspiration Vomit Mani

 So, today's mani didn't end up as I had it pictured in my head! I think it's because I spend too much time looking at a bunch of other sweet nail art that my brain gets filled up with so many fantastic ideas at once and this is what you get...inspiration barf! For vomit I think it looks pretty good!

I really don't have my own aesthetic figured out yet. I gravitate towards really bright, loud colors but the manis I find prettiest are on the soft, subtle side and the two don't mix. I think that's why I've had success with paint splatter and water marble manis!

This beauty is 3 coats ( I think!) of China Glaze Flying Dragon then a pointless stripe of CG Jungle Queen somewhere under that sparkle. Why you ask? That's all part of not having a clear idea of what I wanted to do before I started! First I was going to add a couple studs, then carefully placed loose glitter then that turned into me painting a big glob of top coat on my nail and then dipping it in a big pile of glitter and voila!

It's pretty for vomit though, right? Do you guys ever have troubles with too many ideas? That's why I really like the idea of a challenge. In fact, I like the idea so much that some other awesome bloggers and I will be doing a challenge in November called The Lazy 15. It's named that because we didn't want to do a whole 30/31 day challenge because...well, we're lazy! Also, we're not doing daily posting but on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. You are ALL welcome to join in, we will be setting up an inLinkz for the challenge. The more the merrier, so join us!!!

 

Here's the lineup for the challenge and the dates! Start doing these now so you can get ahead!!

Friday Nov 2nd      1)Tape mani

Monday Nov 5       2) Gradient

Wed Nov 7             3) Dots

Fri Nov 9                4) Water Marble

Mon Nov 12           5) Galaxy Nails

Wed Nov 14           6) Favorite Color

Fri Nov 16              7) Feminine Nails

Mon Nov 19           8) Dessert

Wed Nov 21           9) Disney movies/characters
Fri Nov 23            10) Underwater Creatures inc. Water Mythical Creatures
Mon Nov 26         11) Fireworks/Bonfire night

Wed Nov 28         12) Fairy Tale

Fri Nov 30            13) Guilty Pleasure

Mon Dec 3            14) Where I'm from (a mani inspired by where you live!)

Wed Dec 5            15) Inspired by another blogger's mani

 

If you have questions or want details, ask in the comments or find me on Twitter! :)  

Polish Us Pink Watermarble!

Hello beautiful and lovely readers!! Today is Monday and that means another Breast Cancer Awareness mani! I initially tried to do a fanbrush mani but it ended up looking like bloody mummy fingers! If you're on Instagram you can take a look, I go by Nails4Dummies! So I decided to go with another watermarble since they're so freakin' cool! I started with a base coat of OPI If You Moust You Moust then marbled with China Glaze Strawberry Fields, Under The Boardwalk and Traffic Jam.

 

This marble actually turned out subtler than I was aiming for but I still really like it!

And here is something that you've NEVER seen before and may never see again - my LEFT hand!!! The reason I'm showing so much more skin is that I actually prefer the way that this hand turned out. That never happens, especially since I did this one first! So here it is -

I feel so exposed! Alright, enough weirdness from me, I'll see you crazy cats later!

Floating Butterfly Mani

Hello sweet little muffin tins! Sorry, that's one of the nicknames I call my daughters! Today's mani is my first attempt at freehand nail art. It's not awesome but I hope it's not terrible either! It was inspired by a similar version that you may have seen with a bumblebee but I like flutterbys much better!

 

The base of this bit of loveliness is Sinful Colors Cinderella. It's a gorgeous light blue with a pink shimmer that's even better in person! The colors on the butterfly include Wet 'n Wild Black Creme and Sunny Side Up, Pure Ice Free Spirit and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Frutti Petutie and Good to Grape.

 The butterfly was so cute and delicate in my mind's eye but came out more like a giant bug on my finger! I didn't think it was enough of a fail to warrant never trying again though so beware, you'll be seeing more freehand from me! Hopefully I'll improve a little!

 

 

As you can see, I also added some cute little rhinestones because I couldn't just leave the poor thing alone! So did I fail miserably or is it passable for a first try? 

Hidden Rainbow Mani

Can you believe it? I'm posting again, yayyyy! I had so much fun with this mani. I finally got my striping tape and had to try it out. I also used a cool rainbow effect I found that gives you 6 of the 7 colors of the rainbow (poor, poor indigo!) by only using 3 polishes! WHAT? That's right, if you want to know the secret, check out Simple Little Pleasure's YouTube video. I could seriously lose hours watching this girl do nail art! One of the reasons I love her so much is that she actually talks during her video. I can't stand videos with no talking and awful muzak playing *shudders*!

The polishes I used are Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Frutti Petutie, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightening, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Freeze! and Wet 'n Wild Black Creme. after sponging on the rainbow with a tiny piece of makeup sponge (I used a tiny corner for each color), I put down a top coat and let everything dry COMPLETELY! Then I put on some striping tape and put down one thick coat of Black Creme and once I removed the tape I had a gorgeous rainbow! A couple of must-know tips for working with striping tape are to remove the tape immediately after you're done polishing that finger!! Also, it really helped me to have all of my little strips of tape cut and hanging off of the edge of the table ready to go.

I was so ticked off that I fudged up my index finger by bumping it on the table and then my topcoat issues ruined the whole dang thing. I tried to use my gloopy one first and it left big dents and wouldn't spread so I tried my el cheapo Wet 'n Wild topcoat that I got for free to smooth it out, big mistake. That topcoat sucks. It never dries and it isn't very shiny so I was left with a bubbly dull mess, *SIGH*. Oh well, you live and you learn, now I only use that topcoat for applying rhinestones and fimo cane!

Citrus Punch Mani

Hello everyone! I am so sorry for not posting for 3 days, life has been cray cray! Between work, the baby and everything else, there just wasn't enough time in the day to get everything done but I missed you guys so much!!

I'm very excited about this mani, it's my favorite that I've done so far. I ordered a whole bunch of nail bling off of ebay and part of it was some adorable fimo cane. This stuff intrigued me to no end so I had to get some. Then when I found this sweet shade of yellow from Sally Hansen Hard As Nails called Hard Lemonade, it wasn't too much of a jump to come up with this mani. I added on some tips with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Frutti Petutie which is a very bright, beautiful pink. What do you guys think?

Please forgive the awful bubbles, I'm having topcoat woes! I really love Sally Hansen InstaDry but it gets all gloopy before the bottle is half gone and for $5.99 a bottle I don't want to be buying a new bottle each week so I need to do some research. I've heard excellent things about Seche Vite and a blogger friend just uses some restore-stuff (technical term there...aherm) when it gets thick so I may give that a go!

I think I love fimo cane! I also gave my 5 yr old daughter a fimo mani with little animals and it looked so sweet on her tiny little fingers!

Wet 'n Wild Fergie Dutchess Swatches and Review

It's been so long since I've seen you all, how have you been! Okay, so I only took one day off but it felt weird! The truth is that I don't have any posts in my back pocket so I'm posting as I paint and the baby didn't let me paint my nails on Thursday night but I managed to squeeze one in for you today, aren't you lucky?

When I saw Dutchess from the Wet 'n Wild Fergie collection, I just had to have it! Who doesn't love a bright blue and purple glitter? As I was putting on the first coat I got worried. It was uneven, thin and very sheer. Imagine my surprise when upon the second coat it was like a totally different polish! But there was still something weird about it...just take a look!
  

See what I mean? The glitters are a mix between matte and shimmery! It was almost like a suede glitter! There was a main base of matte navy glitter with some sparkly purple and blue glitters mixed in. It looked pretty cool but how do you top coat something like that? Do you mattify it...

Or do you use a shiny top coat...

What do you think? I was really looking forward to the matte topcoat but it ended up just looking really dull. The shiny, on the other hand, was AH-mazing! I swear, this glitter seemed to "dance" in the sunlight - I just kept checkin' myself out!

The weird part is that when I finally got a chip in it, I picked at it, as I am wont to do and the whole shebang just came right off! Then of course I had to finish what I started and the polish peeled completely off each finger with no tearing or crumbling. I didn't even have to work at it! That was fine with me because I wasn't really looking forward to removing such a heavy glitter polish anyway. I'm not sure if it would be like that with all base coats or if it was just my combo of the polish with the Sally Hansen Miracle Cure base coat.

I really did like this polish, it's fun and different than anything I've seen! Plus, for $3.49 it was a good buy!

Dots and Waves Mani

Hey pretties! This mani was a lot of fun to do! I used craft scissors and tape for the waves and my trusty dotting tools for the dots - imagine that! I'm not feeling very witty so let's get right to it!

The gorgeous purple is a new color from the Wet 'n Wild Megalast line. This one is called Disturbia. I couldn't quite capture the shimmer in the photos but this is a gorgeous polish! The green is Avon Speed Dry+ in Don't Be Jaded. I love this green, it's minty-colored and awesome!

Here are some pics of just the purple:

 

Here's the whole mani, what do you think?

My First Indie - Different Dimension

Hello my sweets! How are you this fine Wed morning/afternoon/evening or whatever time it is in your part of the world?? I am doing fantastic! Today is another first for me - imagine that! I think it's fun that you guys get to be here when I experience each of these firsts...I swear I didn't mean that to sound weird!

One day I was minding my own business, tweeting away when Sara over at Chalkboard Nails just had to mention that Different Dimensions on Etsy was having a polish sale for just $5 a bottle! So of course I had to look and of course I had to buy one...or 5. She has some seriously cool polishes in there! I was a little worried because a lot of indies seem to be glitter toppers with not a whole lot of substance. Then I met Warm Fuzzies and it was love at first sight! I know it's weird but brown is my second favorite nail polish color and this one was a stunner! It's got such shimmer and color and it's such a smooth texture and goes on like a dream and just settles herself right down! This mani only took two coats for perfection. On the accent nail I added one coat of Honesty Feels A Lot Like Mean which is an awesome copper and pink glitter that goes on perfectly! Here's what you came to see...

Bonus macros for you because I love you! Do you SEE all that lovely shimmer? This polish looks like velvet, I love it!!

I would have to say that the only negative I have is that this polish dries slower than what I'm used to. Now that's not necessarily taking away from the polish - I'm just insanely impatient! I put on the second coat before the first was completely dry and then proceeded to put on a thick top coat before those were dry as well because that's how I roll! All in all, I certainly will be ordering from Different Dimensions again, the polish is fantastical!

My First Watermarble!

So, I've been wanting to do a water marble for a long time but to be honest, it's managed to intimidate me up until now! It was this big pink elephant in the room that nobody talked about but it still loomed! Okay, so I'm being dramatic! Just so I didn't disappoint myself, I started this project expecting this to be a learning experience but a complete fail as well. Imagine my surprise when it tuned out!! I did still make mistakes and had a few redos but if I can do this then you shouldn't be afraid to give it a try!

I used all China Glaze polishes and I highly recommend them for water marbling!! I painted a base coat of Traffic Jam which is quickly becoming one of my favorite polishes - its great for stamping too! Then for the marble I also used Man Hunt and Custom Kicks which has a gorgeous shimmer to it! One of the coolest things was that where Man Hunt and Traffic Jam met I ended up with purple!! Here are the pics!

What do you think? My thumb is my favorite! I also have a couple of tips for you that I learned the hard way:

* Marble your dominant hand first because once you marble your non-dominant hand you won't want to chance screwing it up marbling the other!

* Be patient and let the first hand dry COMPLETELY before starting on the second hand. It may take a little longer but it's still faster than redoing the nails you messed up by being impatient!

*Use very light strokes when drawing the designs in the polish! Just barely touch the surface of the polish or you will drag it all over and make a mess!

*Don't be afraid to redo a finger if it didn't turn out the way you want it!

Okay, I'm done for now! Have you done a water marble? What was your experience? Do you have any tips to share? If you haven't done one what's stopping you?

Polish Us Pink #2 Ombre Dotticure!

Good morning lovelies! We are back for another Breast Cancer Awareness manicure! I finally got to play with my dotting tools and it turned out pretty good if you ask me! After I looked at the photos of this I realized that the colors on the index and middle finger should have been switched so that's what I'll apologize for today because I have no sense of color!

Before I show you the mani, I want to say a HUGE thank you to Missy over at Gnarly Gnails for the sweet new blog layout! Not only is she an incredibly talented nail artist and sweet person but she is also a graphic designer! Did you see the little social media icons in the sidebar? They're little polish bottles! She freakin' made those :o ! So go follow her blog if you don't already because she's a bowl of awesome with a double scoop of awesome sauce on top!

The base polish is one coat of Julep Olivia. I. Love. Julep. It was beautiful and easy to apply! On the thumb is China Glaze Traffic Jam, index finger is Lancome Rose Boudoir (another amazing formula!), middle finger is China Glaze 108 Degrees, ring finger is Wet 'n Wild Lavender Pearlescent and pinky is Wet 'n Wild Tickled Pink.

 

I will certainly be breaking out my dotting tools again soon. They were easy to use and I love the polka dots!