Monday, January 30, 2012

Striped Nail Art Inspired by New Striped Apron

I've had this brightly colored pink, black, and green fabric for a long time now and always thought about using it for an apron but never got around to it. I've been wanting a new full sizes apron as my other one is white and horribly stained. So I whipped this cute pink and black one up today and did a quick (albeit, sloppy!!) nail art to commemorate!

I used a hot pink Baby Cakes by Jessie's Girl, light pink Raise Awareness by Essie, lime green Green WIth Envy by Sally Hansen, and strippers in green, pink and black. I just followed the pattern on the fabric to make vertical stripes as carefully as possible and topped with lots of topcoat to smooth out the seams. :)

Sunday, January 29, 2012

ELF Matte Finisher Review (and some nail art)

I decided to try out this nail trend and I thought it best to buy a matte topcoat vs matte polish. That way I could make any of my polishes seem matte. I bought ELF Matte Finisher for just $2 on eyeslipsface.com and was pleasantly surprised at the quality. As I have read in reviews, it smells horrible!!!!! I couldn't handle it the first night I tried it out. In the picture that only shows 2 nails, I painted them all with Black Out by Sally Hansen. Then on my ring finger I did one coat of the Matte finisher then striped on regular glossy top coat in a zebra pattern. The difference between the matte and the glossy is subtle but very interesting to look at. Today, I painted my nails with Ash Wangsday, my franken, then did a black and white cheetah print leaving the ing finger solid as my accent. Then I layered a thick coat of the Matte Finisher and I'm not sure how I feel about matte over nail art. It smoothed the seams but not as well as with Seche Vite, so I just layered on Seche Vite on top, and it was like the matte never happened. All in all here's my review key points...
Pros:
Inexpensive
Does exactly what it says it does
Cons:
Horrible smell
Little streaky, unless you apply one thick coat

Hope this review helps you! Try it out if you haven't tried matte polishes or top costs because it's the best deal for its price.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Messy Cuticle Oil Bottle? I have the solution!

So I fell in love with this square glass bottle of cuticle oil because it has a glass dropper and makes cut glass tinking sounds when I use it. Only problem is, it gets really oily on the outside. I decided to crochet a super cute sweater around it to absorb the oil and protect my fingers from an unwanted oily mess!

Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday Dupe Franken

So I got a lil mad scientisty and tried to make a dupe franken of Deborahh Lippmann's Happy Birthday polish! I just dumped red,gold, silver, green, blue, pink, and purple metallic 1mm hexagon glitters and green, blue and purple fine glitters into a bottle of clear coat that I never use. I painted just one coat on top of Black Out by Sally Hansen. Its not perfect, as some of the green and blue color of the hex glitter washed away in the bottle; and my dupe franken has fine glitter and not tiny square glitter. Might fool the untrained eye, but hey, it's DIY or die!!!

Friday, January 20, 2012

Green Glitter Fishy Scales

Ya, it could be another kinda animal that has scales, but it's scales nonetheless. I used my bright neon green Franken as a base for my entire nails then slowly and painstakingly placed on iridescent neon green 1mm hexs down. Basically that's it. It's a fun and easy nail art to do that even looks good in the dark!

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Fimo Fruit Ninja Nails

Because I'm obsessed with Fruit Ninja on Kinect for Xbox 360, here is a set of my fimo fruit ninja nails and a creen shot, just in case you aren't familiar with arguably the best arcade game ever, and a shot of our house leader board ><.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Pastels and Kawaii Totoro Nail Art!!

Last night, my girlfriend and dear hand model Chrissy came over with yet another kawaii nail idea: Totoro nails!! Unfortunately my boyfriend was blocking my nail area while he played Kinect on Xbox so we had to make due with the polishes that were in my train case from the morning's out of the house gig I did on my friend Jessica. I laid down two coats of the creamy minty green "mint sorbet" by Sally Hansen. Followed by black spiky balls with white eyes, a white bunny, and a grey bunny- I will repost this with the names of the characters- sorry, Totoro fans!

My pink with flowers nail art is "Raise Awareness" by Essie. Laden with a rainbow glitter my dad gave me for Christmas and topped with "Mint Sorbet" and white flowers. The centers of the flowers are these pastel shiny dots that are actually the eyes that pop out of my playboy glitter! They were loose floating around the bag the glitter box came in and I saved them for a rainy day. Not so rainy was last night, but I was glad to find use for them!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

It's a BOY!!!

Had to do a nail design to celebrate one of my best friends Jessica's baby shower this Sunday! There's a baby carriage on my pointer that came out kinda blurry, a rattle with a bow on my middle, a baby onesie on my ring, and a footprint on my pinky! And of course a big It's a BOY on my thumb! I used a combo of the following colors: Wet N Wilds "NERDS need love 2", Sally Hansens "Blue Calypso", NYC "Skin Tight Denim", China Glaze "For Audrey", and Sinful Colors "Snow Me White". You can also see my post it of colors I mixed ;).
I had to take a break from working on her baby blanket to do nails, of course.
Wish I could paint her nails but she's opted against nail polish until after he's born. She's one of my closest friends and I can't wait to meet her fist son soon. So happy for you, Jessica and congrats!

Monday, January 2, 2012

First Mani of 2012!

I'm going to see how long I can keep my fake nails off so I can blog more! I painted on 2 coats of Essie's "Mink Muffs" as a base coat. A super creamy greyish brown creme that I love! On top of that I took a striped brush dipped in OPI "I Brake For Manicures" and made six lines in groups of threes coming from the edge of the nail in. I wanted to add a little bit of shimmer so I also drew on lines of OPI "Meet Me At The Star Ferry", a pinkish brown shimmer that looks really nice paired with Mink Muffs.