Full Sets At School :)

OMG you guys, I've been such a bad blogger!!!! Ironically, it's because I've been super busy with school- I've been taking the manicuring course at Paris Beauty College in Concord, CA and I haven't been able to finish my fall challenge or blog at all! Here are a couple of pictures of the acrylic full sets I've been doing at school the last few weeks. I don't know if I'll have a chance to blog again before school is over but I'm trying to continue to snap pictures if I can! 

This set is my hand model Chrissy's hands. She gets almond shaped nails because she's a vet tech and she wears gloves and has to pick up kitties by their necks and such. She loves 3D nail art of course and got tiny white bows on a few of her nails and clusters of multi colored half pearls on the rest. 

These are DUCK FEET nails. My first set of duck feet actually on someone else. In the beginning of school, I did a full set of duck feet on myself, but these were much better. Also, the girl that got these nails was going to homecoming that weekend so it made it super fun for me to do. I used forms instead of glue on nail tips to get this flared out look.

These are just fun two toned funky french acrylics with cut out stars embedded in the acrylic. I finally had to bring my drill to school because I think I'm getting RSI from hand filing. Sad, but it's so much fun doing acrylics at school. 

That's all for now, you guys, so hope I can get back to blogging once my busy busy schedule dies down a bit! 

Fall Nail Art Challenge Day 1: Metallic

First day of TinRoofNails Fall Nail Art Challenge Week is Metallics. I used The One That Got Away from OPI's Katy Perry Mini Set. It's a really bright purply red pink metallic with micro shimmer. I really like it but it was kinda streaky to apply. Was opaque in just three coats and dried fairly fast. This is my first published stamping attempt. I got a 2 stamping sets as a birthday present to myself. One being the first Bundle Monster set and the other was the 2012 BM Collection. I used the paisley design from BM-315 to do this design in a silver polish. I wanted to do black, but I didn't know if it would show up as bright on top of this red. The One That Got Away looked MUCH darker in the bottle and this was the first time I've swatched it; that's why I thought it'd be good for this 7-day Fall Nail Art Challenge. But hey, it's fall enough for me. Especially since it still feels like summer outside.See? It does look darker in the bottle than on my nails. ;)

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 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!!

Red and Black Bunny Set - RIGHT Hand

Yay! I finally got to do a set of bunny nails!! I decided it was time to do my right hand over because they were empty for a few weeks! And I'm so glad I did because they turned out pretty snazzy for applying with my left (non-dominant) hand!!

On my middle finger, I put a bunch of 1.5 mm red rhinestones on because my black stars were not encased deep enough in clear acrylic and when I was filing my nails, I shaved off half of the large cutout star :-/

Here's all the stuff I used in this set ^^

My glitter mix was clear acrylic, red hexagons, silver tinsel glitter by Martha Steward in Sterling, and black fine glitter also by Martha Stewart in Onyx.

(My NYE 2010/11 nails were this mix minus red hexagons.)

Aaaand here's my bunny heads and stars in the cap waiting to be placed on my nail. :)

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 20 - Water Marbled

Ahhhh the dreaded water marble. When I saw this was on the challenge list, I knew I wouldn't be marbling my long acrylics! I can't imagine cleaning under the nails, even with the protective tape, I make a huge mess. Luckily, my good friend Audrey volunteered. I painted a single coat of white to make the colors pop and into the water I dropped red, yellow, and green (of course) for a swirly marbled Rasta design. We did the thumb soooo many times, I can't tell you how many times we messed it up before, during or after dipping.

30 Day Nail Challenge - Day 1 - Red + 2 Quick Reviews

I've started the 30 Day Nail Challenge and day 1's category is RED. That's all it says. I actually hate red nail polish because it's my least favorite color, and even if I use a basecoat it stains my acrylics. I only have like 2 reds anyways and THIS ONE I actually bought for 4th of July 2010! (Wet N Wild - "Red Red") It was super thick but with a few drops of Beauty Secrets Nail Polish Thinner, I brought it back to life.

Quick Review on B.S. Polish Thinner: Works great, smells awful (duh), you get a lot for a few bucks, comes with a spout on the cap but you really need an eyedropper to be precise. Also I (stupidly) stored it on it's side inside my drawer and it leaked out and melted the rubber no-slip mat!!!

OK so what I've done here was a quick swipe across the tip in Red Red not completing a French smile line on one side. I completed the smile line with 3 black glittery stripes that intersect at the other side of the nail. Then I placed black holographic cut out stars and the punched out centers around the nails randomly and topped with a few coats of Beauty Secrets Hardening Top Coat.

My Quick Review on B.S. Hardening Top Coat: high gloss but needs at least 2 coats, takes a while to dry (at least 10 minutes for each coat), super fun huge ball-like bottle and about $2 cheaper than Seche Vite Dry Fast + it's a bigger bottle. I would buy this again if I when run out Seche Vite is not on sale. (This is why I decided to try it in the first place.)

And one more thing, readers: I still cannot comment on anyone's posts! When I write my comment it asks me to sign in again and repeats this over and over. If anyone knows what's going on, please help me! I really want to tell you all how much I love all your posts!!

Henna Inspired (NATURAL) Design!

For those of you TV junkies like myself, you know that the season finale of the first season of Outsourced was last week; Rajiv got married and they had a big long Indian wedding episode with a segment where all the women did henna on their hands and arms for a day! I was so inspired I almost started drawing all over my hand with a brown marker.

I started with Sinful Colors "This Is It" gold nail polish with two coats, then painted swirlies, leaves, flowers, paisleys, and dots all over the gold leaving enough room to see the background color.

If you can't already tell, I have pulled off my acrylics and posted my natural nails for the first time...prolly ever on my blog. If you see natural nails on here, they are probably Chrissy or Oddrey's hands.
The most recent set of acrylics I had put on during Mardi Gras, so they had grown out quite a bit. When I pulled the acrylic (carefully) off my nails, they were perfectly squared tips , so they look just like they did with the acrylics on, only thinner!

As you can see in the bottom picture, I angled my nails to show you how thin they are after pulling the acrylic off. I just painted on one coat of white for ultra original French tips for the photo, and 2 coats of Seche Vite Dry-Fast top coat!

Let's see how long I can go before applying a full set again.

Nautical Awesome-ness

I was at Forever21 and saw so much blue-and-white and red-and-white striped tops and dresses, all decked out with gold chains and anchors because, to no surprise to anyone, nautical stuff is still in.

I decided to a nautical nail design because I hope this will be the last summer that it's poppin because I don't look good in horizontal stripes. (hence, the V-tips)

Enjoy! I mean Ahoy!

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!!!

Candy Cane Tips

Holiday design #1: Candy cane nails! They really look good enough to eat (aside from the layer of glitter on top). They really looked like candy before I put the glitter topcoat on. I just painted on white French tips, and used a red Art Deco striping brush (a gift from Harmony for my birthday). I originally did thick white and red stripes but then a looked at actual candy canes I had in my room and realized they have many thin red stripes as well so I just did really thin lines in the middle of the white. Voila!

Ode to Valencia's Shoes

Experimenting with my NEW really thin striping brush to make these white cross patterns. I painted my tips with Wet N Wild "Red Red" inspired by my friend's signature red heels. Nice.

99 cent Wet N Wild tips

French tips with wet n wilds red red and blazed.



Wet n wilds black creme



Both of these have wet n wilds hallucinate glitter top coat on the tips and clear top coat over the nail bed. A large chunk of my polish collection is wet n wild, obviously because it's cheap!