Bye, Bye, Birdie

My hand model, Oddrey came over with an idea for these swallow or birds flying silhouettes. I looked up a couple pictures of bird silhouettes and decided on this design. Just two coats of a white creme, and painted these on with this dark teal color my gf Megan brought me from China. It doesn't have a name but I will swatch and post a picture of the bottle in another post! Enjoi.

Americana Nails <3

Ya, I know I'm a lil early, but the 4th of July is my favorite holiday do I'm going to start doing my red, white, and blues now!

Just a simple stars and striped funky French. Blue tips with white stars stamped from the 1st Konad plate on the thumb and index; white tips with shakily painted red stripes on the pinky, ring and middle. All detailed with a delicate outline of silver glitter to hide the imperfect smile lines. More USA nails to come!

Christmas / Winter Mani #2

So this is basically a redo of my Xmas mani #1 from yesterday. I just did the same design in different colors because my nail polish fell off in whole pieces!

I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White as a base, sponged on China Glaze For Audrey in the middle and Wet N Wild NERDS Need Love Too on the tips. Dotted on some silver and blue hex glitter, a coat of Sally Hansen Diamonds, a coat of Sally Hansen Strobelight glitter, and Seche Vite on top.

Christmas Mani #1

I'm back you guys! Temporarily taking pictures with my iphone until I can find my computer-camera cord!

So I used Wet N Wild's Red Red for the base, the sponged on Snow Me White by Sinful Colors. I coated it once over the whole nail with Diamonds by Sally Hansen. Then used a dotting tool to add random 1mm red hexagons, and sprinkled Sterling fine glitter by Martha Stewart on top. Then 2 coats of Seche Vite to encase the gritty glitter feel!

I'm going to try to upload 2 more Christmas manis before Christmas so wish me luck!! 

Missed you guys!!

Basic Pink and White French Manicure

Ahh the tried and true pink and white acrylics... I can't believe I only lasted 2 days without my fake nails! >< I wrote on my to-do list "Swatch Zoya Envy for blog" and when I sat down to do it, this happened! Jeez... what is wrong with me?

On the upside, I've been meaning to try these new white tips I got for a few months now, and I've never actually done a real pink and white manicure before, and I've never gotten one done!! Can you believe it?

I tried to make them super thin as practice for doing other people's nails. Most people don't like them too thick, so I tried to do them as thin as possible. I'm pretty happy with this result, I just hope that they don't chip while I craft or do dishes!

I used my Pinky Promise acrylic mix that I made for the nail beds, but I can't see it in the pictures too well. Maybe I will upload a daytime/sunlight pic tomorrow! (And hopefully the sun will come out for it!)

Pink Flowers, Rhinestones, and Pink Striping Tape

So I've been meaning to upload this, I couldn't find my camera USB cable thing for a few days. These are Chrissy's nails, my lovely hand model. She thankfully gets her nails done for my blog when I don't want to do mine or when I have poop nails that need to be filled. :) I painted her nails white (she's always trying to paint them white and I always talk her out of it!). I then used a medium dotting tool to make drag-petal flowers with Essie Raise Awareness (light baby pink) and OPI Elepthantastic Pink. I put tiny purple and blue rhinestones onto the middle of the flowers. For her accent nail, I left the base white, and when dried, I used my new pink metallic striping tape to make a lil fishnet-esque grid. I laid down the striping tape where I wanted it and then used clippers to cut the tape off where the nail ended. I topped with top coat and was pleased with the design. I only put one layer of top coat on, as she had somewhere to go and she did not upkeep with more top coat at her house. She later told me that the pink striping tape had shed it's color! She sent me a picture on my phone of her stripes still intact, but the pink had rubbed off to a dull grey/silver!~!! I would post this picture, but it was on my phone and I am lazy. I will retry this design with more top coat to see if I have the same problem, and also add this to my earlier review of my nail haul post.

  I have 10 colors to try, so far, this is the only one I've used, and I'm very worried that it won't hold, because it's soo cute! Has anyone used striping tape like this? Or how would you use it?

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 28 - Inspired by a Flag

I know, I know, my hand painted stars are poop. But I haven't acquired every color of star glitter yet and my "white" is basically just clear. I love the American Flag! It's my favorite, but I do it quite often, (also red white and blue). My boyfriend Kevin suggested I do the Confederate flag, and I thought it would be a great idea but since I didn't want to paint the same flag on every nail so I incorporated the orange and blue "01" to mimic the side of the Dukes of Hazzard car! Smart, huh? That orange ^^^ is Sunny Side Up by Wet N Wild. I've bought it so many times because I think it looks nice with my skin color... I haven't used it in months, but brought it back to life with some nail polish thinner.

If anyone is wondering why I'm posting 1-3 challenge posts a day... it's because I was sick of the challenge like 3 days after I started it and I'm trying to finish it as soon as possible! I haven't even had time to do any awesome Halloween nails-- It's almost Halloween..!

Also, follow me on my Twitter I'm still trying to figure out how to use it!

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 24 - Inspired by Fashion

Thanks, to my hand model Oddrey, I was able to do posts for my challenge without taking off my current nail design. I searched the word "fashion" on Google Images and found this trio of Gucci dresses that I picked as my inspiration for fashion nails. I used black, white, and Mellow Yellow by Sally Hansen, with a darker golden yellow (that is unnamed) on top to match the yellow in the dresses. I'm pretty happy with this design, too bad it's not on my hands!

30 Day Nail Challenge - Days 14 & 15 - Flowers and Delicate Print

I'm so behind! Here is Day 14: Flowers, I used Jesse's Girl "Baby Cakes" to sponge on the tips and then white a blue flowers just like in my purple post.

And here's my delicate print - I was on the phone so I got this idea from Erin but did a poop job- and I used Mink Muffs by Essie to load on a thick basecoat and while it was still wet, I pressed on little lace pieces I cut out. It probably would have looked better with topcoat, but I was kinda in a rush - just like I am right now because I'm still on the phone! Peace!

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 12 - Stripes + Pink Wednesday

I've been neglecting my pink wednesdays but I'm back on track! I used Wet N Wild Dream Poppy to make a base French tip and striped on these weird intersecting lines in white and black for my challenge for today which is "Stripes" 

It took me 4 tries to even figure out a design for today, so I don't have too much energy to write anything else. Oh yeah I'll say this: I'm so over the 30 day challenge. Who knew it would take like...a whole month? Sheesh!

Playboy Glitter! Mail's here!

Got my 12-color Playboy bunny head shaped glitter in the mail just now~ Had to post a pick for you guys-

I ordered it from an independent seller from a Chinese version of ebay sorta... It was about $9US but free shipping! I first found out these existed when watching a video on YouTube of a chick sorting through her nail storage boxes and explaining the products she used. When she pulled out some Playboy shaped glitter, I freaked out and went on a 2-day non-stop internet search to find these. The only other place I could find them was on a Chinese wholesale site that was selling them for about $5/set but you had to buy 100 sets. Finally I found this guy and was happy to pay $9 for them.

It looks like there's about 100+ of each color, so should last me... a lifetime.

The box is very durable and came in this bag. This was the "spillage" that had leaked out. Just a few pink and reds fell out into the bottom of the bag, but only took me about 3 minutes to sort them out and put them back in there place on the set. Then all the eyes that had been punched out had fallen into the bag as well (which is weird because all the containers were closed and they are very hard to open...) I saved all the eye punches in a small clear container for use in maybe a franken or some other nail art that calls for tiny holo dots.

Here is the size of one of the bunnies. It's about .5cm. They are small enough to be encased in acrylic-

I did this on my ONE white French nail that's on my left thumb. Y'all haven't seen the white tip because I've been painting over it this whole time during my challenge. I just filed it thinner to add more acrylic, added some holo white glitter from Martha Stewarts irridecent collection, then added some black stars and a blue bunny. Cased in clear acrylic. Filed, shaped, buffed, and glossed with Beauty Secrets Hardening top coat. Sweet! :) Can't wait to do a full set of these after this long 30 day challenge!

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 11 - Polka Dots

I don't know if this counts as polka dots, but there certainly are a lot of dots here. I used Chrissy and my Franken "Ashy Wang" to make clean French tips, then added large dots of black, white, and Jessie's Girl "Baby Cakes" (hot pink). Then a couple of tiny dots coming off the cluster. I super enjoyed this design and will def be trying it again in different colors!

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 7 - Black and White

Black and white... such a challenging challenge. I've been meaning to try to paint brass knuckles so I thought this would be a good time to try it. It didn't come out perfect, but for the first try, I'm happy with it. Also it seemed kinda plain so I junked it up with chunky circle and square rhinestones (for Chrissy who loves azn junk nails). I had tons of fun doing this mani and it will be a shame to take it off for tomorrow's rainbow challenge (grumble)......

White to Mint Fade + Grey Zeebz

I just recently got a package of makeup sponges (which I LOVE to use, but NEVER remember to buy, as I use makeup brushes), so I'm back on a sponging kick. This interesting color combo is a result of my recent house-cleaning day in which I moved ALL of my nail polish/implements under the bathroom sink, and these colors happened to miss the move as they were hiding on my coffee table. But I was pleasantly surprised on how it turned out! From far away, they seemed like a subtle pale green, but up close you can really see the details. I painted on two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White, then gently sponged on the Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Mint Sorbet. I then busted out Chrissy and my franken "Ash Wangsday" (ashy grey) and painted on some zebras. The end result was awesomely subtle. But unfortunately didn't last long on my hands; I ended up messing every finger up making dinner soon after I took these pictures.

This is a remix on the mint-white design, I wanted to try darker colors and black zebra stripes for a bolder effect. I don't know which I like better. But I love having different colors on all my nails.

Also, I haven't been able to comment on anyone or my own blogs. I try to comment on y'all's blog posts and it takes me in a loop where it keeps asking me to sign in, write my comment, sign it, write my comment again, etc. This is why I haven't been giving yous guys props for your beautiful nail designs in the last two months! :( If anyone knows how to help, it would be greatly appreciated!

Minnie Mouse

AGAIN I tried to do something for Xmas, see I started out ok... I painted on Wet N Wild Red Red tips, then white polka dots and then I couldnt help but draw on black bows like Minnie! I'm doomed! I can't get into the Xmas spirit for my nails!!!

So behind... nails from last week!

This picture with my hand on rocks is actually my hand in a creek that was near when my boyfriend, my mom and I went on a hike in Truckee last Wednesday. Just thought it was a cool shot.

The white french tips are actually the first time I'd painted my nails white since I started doing my acrylics. I wanted to do them white because my whites are all getting too thick, so before they died I gave them one last hoorah as a base color before they retired to use only in designs. I used my dotting tool to make pink flowers and leaves, and actually at this time last week, I didn't have an opaque green, so I had to make this green out of a yellow and a bue to make the leaves around the flowers.