Girly Geometric Nails

So school is finally underway and I'm back from camping with the family as well! Unfortunately, this past weekend, the baby was sick with the puking yucks so that wasn't any fun! I had my interview for my new position at work and I will hear back regarding that one by Friday at the latest!! It's a major opportunity and while it will definitely be more hours, it will be twice the money - GULP!

Enough of that though, let's get to the important stuff! I did these nails quite a while back and I absolutely love them! The colors used here are China Glaze - Sweet Hook and Dance Baby and Orly (can't find it right now - I'll get back to you on that one!) I used a TINY brush to paint the shapes and then I outlined them with black acrylic paint and an even tinier brush!

 

What do you think? I kinda liked these! I also was about halfway done with some really sweet neon nails before I left for camping. Needless to say, I didn't get those done and I'm pretty sad about that one! I hope to see you again very soon - love you all!

Purple Polkadot Nails

Helloski! How is everyone's Thursday so far? My week has been a bit of ups and downs but I'm still here and that's what counts, right?

 

I've got something simple for you today! I painted a base of 2 coats of Barry M - Berry Ice Cream and then slapped on some striping tape in a diagonal line across all 5 nails. This was a LOT harder than I thought it would be! You can see that in some places the strip of dots is thinner on some fingers but I think it turned out fairly well! The dots were made using the following colors, China Glaze - Gothic Lolita, a England - Avalon, Avon Nailwear Pro + - Decadence and NYC Long Wearing - French Tip White. I got this idea from a pin I saw on Pinterest but, unfortunately, the pin was not linked back to the source and there was no watermark. What do you think of this? I kinda think anything with dots is good!

 

 

 

Also, PLEASE help me make fabulous YouTube video tutorials by answering a couple of questions and giving me your opinions HERE! I appreciate you all so much!

 

Black, Purple and Yellow Gradient Nails

T.G.I.F!!!! I can't tell you how happy I am that it's finally Friday! This week has been super busy at work and I am really ready for a break, how about you? I wish I had something exciting, or even interesting to talk about but I can hear work calling me and it's not going to shut up until I take care of it! With that said, I hope, in the near future to begin posting more interesting reading for you as opposed to just listing the polishes used and poppin' in a few pictures! I also really want to do video tutorials! They take a lot of preparation though and one of those prep steps involves cleaning my room and I am totally dreading that!

 

I keep seeing these gorgeous gradients all over IG and they make me drool so I decided to do one of my own! It turned out pretty good, I like the color combo, I just hate that my white undies are showing! In hindsight, I could have used the yellow underneath but I hadn't picked out my gradient colors at that point! The white undies is OPI Alpine Snow and the gradient colors are Avon Sunshine, China Glaze Gothic Lolita and a England Camelot. Then I slapped a coat of LA Colors Sassy Sparkle on top. I really wished I had taken pics before I put the glitter on it because I liked it better without it. I really need to get CG Fairy Dust or INM Northern Lights so that I can have a TINY bit of sparkle without overwhelming the design!

 

Sorry it wasn't an enthralling read but at least you got what was important, right? Love you all - mwah!

Frosty Plum Mani

Hello Monday! I kinda really liked this mani! I have struggled with figuring out how to use these fancy little pearls and I was surprised that it turned out as well as it did! At least I think so - you might be sitting there, scratching your head and wondering about my sanity! Don't worry...most people that know me do that all the time!

 

The white is Break The Ice from the Wet 'n Wild Megalast line. I really love this line. For under $2, it has a fantastic formula, great colors and I love the big brush! This color is a lot frostier than I managed to capture and is really quite beautiful. The purple is Jordana Glitters - Purple Glam. This polish was a wonderful surprise for me, almost a jelly sandwich in a bottle and I really love the shade of purple. I was actually able to look past the "hairy" glitters as they were very small and the polish was so pretty!

Are you guys proud of me that I managed to blog again? I'm proud...I patted myself on the back and gave myself a hug! I will see you soon!

Purple Birthday Mani!

Happy Friday!! Sorry, once again for being MIA! I have had sick kids all week and my poor little baby has the flu so I've spent 4 days holding and snuggling her! I'm holding her as I'm typing this so it's going to be short and sweet!

 

This was my bday mani and I wore it for 4 days with barely any tip wear! I've never had a mani last over 24 hours before so I'm amazed!

 

All of these polishes were gifts I received recently and they all worked so beautifully together! The base is MUA Frozen Yoghurt then a England (sooooooo excited about this one!) Avalon and finally Color Club Harp On It which is my first holo ever!!



 

 

I'm really loving how this turned out and all of the polishes were so gorgeous! :) I hope to be back to blogging more as soon as my kiddos feel better!

The Lazy 15 Mani #11 - Fireworks/Bonfire Night

Helllloooooo Monday! I've got a good feeling about this week, how about you? My husbands birthday was yesterday and for a few weeks he is 9 years older than me - tee-hee! Then my oldest daughter's bday is on Wednesday and she is going to be 6! Then my bday is Dec 11th and then Christmas, whew! It's a crazy time for us with all of that and Thanksgiving as well. Neither my husband nor I get birthday or Christmas presents this year as we got ourselves iPhones and that was not cheap! :)

 

This was kind of a crazy mani and I used a ton of different polishes as well as my new nail art brushes I ordered from ebay - yay! It took a month to receive them from China but they finally got here safe and sound as well as some glequins, yay! Okay, without further ado, here is the mani! I'll list the polishes after the pics because there's so many! :)

Here's the list!! Lancome Noir, Revlon Royal, OPI Alpine Snow, Bettina Art Deco Yellow and Glamour Flame. LA Colors Sassy Sparkle and a teal glitter (no label). Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Pronto Purple, Pure Ice French Kiss, Sinful Colors Dream On, Nicole by OPI A Million Sparkles, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City. 8 of those were in my untrieds so yay for that! :)  See you all on Wednesday!

The Lazy 15 Mani #4 - Water Marble

This was easily one of my favorite challenges on the list, I really love water marbles! I'm not an expert by any means, I think this is only the third one I've done but I think they are so fun! For this one I wanted to try to do something that I've never done before and I started by painting each nail a different color of glitter and then I marbled over the top with black and clear polish.

 

I do NOT recommend this if you're just starting out marbling as it was quite frustrating! I had to try out about 6 different top coats before I found one that worked well in the water and didn't dry too fast but I managed it! I actually had to dip my index finger twice because the first time there was only a tiny bit of the black on the nail.

 

I think it turned out pretty sweet, don't you?

 

The polishes I used were:

Sally Hansen Hard As Nails - Black Heart

Wet 'n Wild Wild Shine - Clear Nail Protector

Finger Paints - Purple Palette

Finger Paints - Laugh My Art Off

China Glaze - Glistening Snow

Sephora by OPI - G-listen To Your Heart

Orly - Royal Navy

 

I was pretty proud that I used 4 untrieds on this mani, woo-hoo! Please be sure to check out the other wonderful artist in the Lazy 15 and have a fabulous weekend!!!

 



The Lazy 15 Challenge Mani #1 - Tape Mani

So I've seen a lot of argyle manis around and I'd had success with a tape mani once before so an argyle should be a piece of cake right? Wrong! It was much harder than I anticipated and I had to redo 4 out of 5 fingers on this hand - ugh! But it's done now and I really like it!! I used OPI Alpine Snow for the white and If You Moust You Moust for the pink. The other two were China Glaze For Audrey and Gothic Lolita (LOVE this!)

 I'm so excited for the rest of the manis on this challenge and to see what my friends have come up with!! We're only one mani in so feel free to join us!!!!

 

*****EDIT!! For the others taking part in this challenge, here is the code to put in your post to display the other blogs taking part! Just copy it and paste it at the very end of your HTML code!!

<!-- start InLinkz script -->
<script type="text/javascript">
                document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src=http://www.inlinkz.com/cs.php?id=206197&' + new Date().getTime() + '"><\/script>');</script>
<br />
<br />
<!-- end InLinkz script --><br />

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!

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!!

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! :)  

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!

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?