Metallic Clouds

I've seen the cloud mani pop up on almost every nail blog out there. It's cute and simple, it doesn't ever require any nail art tools! How much easier could it be?

Regardless, I had never actually done one for myself. I just admired them from across my glassy computer screen. Well no more!

Orly in Sweet Peacock

Barry M in Foil Effects 319

Kleancolors in Metallic Fuschia

That wasn't so hard was it? so why did it take me so long to do it? Well, I'm going to have to say that it's probably because I have been a lazy slacker. Haha!

Regardless, there it is, and I love it! You'll probably be seeing a few interpretations of this design in different colors in the future. Just because it is so pretty....

Have you ever slacked off on an otherwise easy peasy project?

Until next time ^_^

Barbie Princess Nails

Hi gang!

today I have a mani that is a little bit out of my comfort zone. I like cute girly stuff but I usually try to keep it simple. Not today!

I call these my Barbie Princess nails :)
I didn't want to go too much over the top so I "toned it down" by making the rest a glittery french tip.

Gosh in Wild Lilac

SinfulColors in Pink Forever

Essence in Space Queen

Pearly hearts from the Born Pretty Store

1mm Rhinestones from Ebay

Here is a picture of the little kit from the Born Pretty Store that the pearly hearts came in. As you can see, it also has a little bow decal and some larger round pearls. 

These ended up being a little bigger than I anticipated. I knew the shapes would stick off a bit but I wasn't expecting the little heart and round pearls to be quite so large. I ended up having to add some extra topcoat under my white heart to give it a more stable base. Maybe it's because I have very curved nails. Perhaps someone with a flatter nail would not have any issues with this.
Regardless, I was pleasantly surprised at how well they stayed on! I used Seche Vite to stick them on and they lasted through 2 bedtimes and a shower before one finally snapped off (after running my hands through my hair...) I didn't think they would make it more than 12 hours so that was pretty nice!

If you want to get yourself one of these little kits, you can find them at the Born Pretty Store for under $5 with free shipping! Just click the picture to be taken directly to the product page.
As always, you can use my coupon code to get 10% off your order :)

Have you ever received an online order, only to be surprised by what the item *actually* looks like?

Until next time ^_^


*The product in this post was provided to me for honest review. Please see my disclosure policy for more information*

Funky Feather French

Today I have for you a funky french and feather mani!

I had just purchased a little bag of colored craft feathers and really wanted to try it out. Since it was my first time working with the material (feathers!) I decided to only use 1 per hand so that if it looked horrible, I would only have to worry about fixing 2 fingers :)

To my surprise, these things were super easy to work with. The hardest part is trimming the feather to fit your nail. Once that's done, the rest is easy peasy!

Franken (made by myself) in Lady Finger

Blue glitter that I seriously cannot remember the name of...

Craft feathers from Hobby Lobby

 I used a green and a blue feather, just to test out different shades. I liked how the green feather matched my funky french but preferred the coverage with the blue feather.

Here's how I did my feather mani:

1. select a feather large enough to cover your who nail

2. trim the bottom into a rounded shape to match and fit your nail shape

3. paint your nail a nude color (if you have a very dense feather, you can probably skip this)

4. wait for the nude polish to dry and then apply a thick layer of topcoat

5. quickly place your feather and apply LIGHT pressure. Too much and you risk your nude polish seeping through the feather

6. trim the tip so that you don't have extra feathery bits hanging from your nail

7. apply another thick later of topcoat!

there may be an easier way to do this, but this method worked well for me. The feathers stayed on as long as the rest of my polish. After a couple of days, I did find myself peeling little feather strips but by then, my tips were starting to show signs of wear...

What do you think of feather accent nails?

Until next time ^_^

American Manicure with bows!

This is my mani for week 2 of the Year of Polish challenge

Week 2- French tip mani

I'm actually not too big a fan of the traditional French tip. It's just too bright to look natural, and isn't that the point of the French manicure? to make it look like you  have naturally beautiful white nails? It's the natural make-up of nails.To me though, it's like natural make-up with too much blush. It just doesn't look right. So whenever I go get my nails done (twice a year with my best friend!) I always ask for the American manicure. It's exactly the same as the French, only using ivory instead of white. Tadah! (Don't get me wrong, some people can really pull of the white French tip. I'm just not one of those people)


Then last week, while at Sally's, I browsed the clearance section and found an American manicure set for $3.99!

I just had to use it for this challenge. It was fated that way.

Then I spiffed it up with some acrylic bows and some dots :)

I actually added lines before I put on the bows...
I didn't thing they would be so big to cover everything up. Eh well..

American Manicure Ivory Tip and Nail Bed polish

China Glaze in Secret Peri-Wink-le

Milani in HD

So there it is. My week 2 mani and it is still currently week 2! However, this means that I was unable to get a "sunshine" picture of Alpha Rainbow in Silver for you guys. One day, though, I will get you a picture! one day...

anywho, check out my Year of Polish page to see what's going on next week and to check out some other bloggers who are undertaking this massive challenge :D

Until next time ^_^

Sinful Colors Holiday Edition- Swatches and Nail Art

I have for you today the Sinful Colors Holiday 2011- WISH collection. 

As far as I am aware, all of these are part of the core collection and so are readily available to almost everyone!

SinfulColors Holiday Nail Wheel

Here are the polishes Ill be showing:

Picture from SinfulColors news release

3 coats

Out of this World- A cool silver loaded with shimmer. This one is a little bit on the sheer side... It's great layered over almost anything. Keep reading and Ill show some examples :)

2 Coats

Midnight Blue- A nice bright navy with metallic finish

2 Coats

Sugar Sugar- Shimmery bright red. A  little streaky on the first coat but beautiful on the second

3 Coats

Daddy's Girl- A violet jelly with a lot of shimmers and micro glitter. It takes a little work to get it opaque but this color is amazing and totally worth it!

2 Coats

Last Chance- A very opaque dark green creme. Perfect for nail art but, compared to all the other holiday colors, a little lacking in oomph.

2 Coats each

Fashionista- A simple silver glitter liner. Reminds me a lot of the quality of ArtDeco stripers: Not the greatest but does the job. It's great for half-moon or french manis!

Flower Girl- a warm metallic gold liner. This shade is much better, it's opaque after one stroke, something I favor strongly in stripers.

*********************************

Since these are from the holiday collection, I thought I could show a holiday/winter nail art you can achieve using only these polishes and a basic white creme.

1- (present/gift) Last Chance striped with Flower Girl

2- (snowy french) Midnight blue tipped with Out of this World and Fashionista and outlined with Sugar Sugar

3- (purple stripes) Daddy's Girl striped with Out of this World and Fashionista

4- (Christmas tree) Sugar Sugar with Last Chance tree and Flower Girl star

1- (mistletoe) Out of this World layered over white, stamped with Last Chance and dotted with Sugar Sugar

2- (holiday half moon) Last Chance with Sugar Sugar half moon outlined in Flower Girl

3- (Christmas lights) Midnight blue with Last Chance cord and Flower Girl, Sugar Sugar, and Out of this World lights

4- (wreath)- Sugar Sugar with Last Chance wreath accented with Flower girl and Sugar Sugar

1- (snow drift) Midnight Blue with Out of this World sponged and dotted snow and Fashionista accent

2- (tree ornaments) Last Chance with Flower Girl, Sugar Sugar, and Midnight Blue ornaments

3- (snowflakes) Daddy's Girl stamped with white (purple pigments bled into it...)

4- (candy cane) Sugar Sugar striped with white (red bled too!) and Fashionista

There you have it! You dont need expensive polish to make pretty nail art. SinfulColors retail for about $1.99 and are available at Walgreens (online and in store) and  Cherry Culture as well as many other retailers.

Until next time ^_^

*these were sent to me for review*

Snowman French

The weather has been usually warm here in Ohio. We've had snow a couple of times but it always melts by the end of the day... It's very odd. 

I've been doing some winter/Christmas manis to keep me in the holiday spirit since the weather hasn't been helping out with that. 

Today I have a Snowman French mani over a very shiny blue

China Glaze in Dorothy Who?

SinfulColors in Hottie

Art Club in White

Pure Ice in Silver Mercedes

*Snowman*

Sally Hansen in Whirlwind White

Milani in Black Magic

Finger Paints in  Sketchy Character

SinfulColors in Cloud 9

I love the way Hottie makes Dorothy Who? sparkle. DW is gorgeous to begin with, but Hottie adds those holo flecks that I am sucker for :D

Until next time ^_^

"Lace" Pastels Skittle nails

sorry for not posting in such a long time. 

Free time has been lacking for a while...

Until things settle down (AKA when I am done with graduate school...) my posts might be more sporadic and  shorter but I will try and continue posting up my nail creations. 

Choose base colors 

Add diagonal french of a slightly darker shade. You could also do a different finish- matte, glitter, shimmer....

Using white liner brush, paint dividing line. then add semi-circles using a small dotter or paint pen.

Oz nails

My econ professor was talking about the wizard of Oz a couple of weeks ago. He mentioned that there are some who believe the book was an allegory about the debate over monetary policy of the 1900's. I won't bore you with all the details of our discussion (im quite of fan of economics but I know most people arent...) so here are few of the nifty symbolism that was brought up!
the yellow brick road represent the gold standard (the method used to back up our currency back then)
the silver slippers (red in the movie) is the people wanting silver to be used as well as gold for the currency
they go to OZ - oz=ounces, you measure gold in ounces!
Each of the friends (lion, tin man, ect) were meant to represent important leaders of the time.

anyhow! This was just my ramble of the day I suppose, but after we talked about the movie, I came up with this little mani

gold and green!

NYX in Las Vegas

China Glaze in Medallion

I dont have an awesome silver glitter or I would totally have made the tips silver :D

Also! I made my friend be the guinea pig for Hard Candy's beetle. I have seen that it is a dupe for Orly's Space Cadet but since I dont have that polish, I cannot confirm nor deny. I just know that this is a wonderful polish!

Thumb is just beetle and index is layered over black. Not the greatest photo but you can always click on it to make it bigger!

Until next time

Mystery OPI

I really wanted to try out this new OPI polish I got. It is such a pretty fall color. Unfortunately it is nameless. Well, the label with the name fell off. Im sure it has a name, I just have no idea what it is!

If you know what this color might be, please let me know. It is a burgundy color with a purple base...
here is it with a brown and a red for comparison:

now on to the mani!

Again, sorry about the lack of cleanup. I am a slacker.

OPI polish

LA Girl Metal in Gold Plated

Art Deco in Black

I had some trouble making the swirl because I don't really have the appropriate brush yet but that is something I am working on getting! Other than that, I just added some stars mostly because I had them.

I hope you like it! and again, if you have any idea what the OPI  might be, let me know. I will be investigating this further :)

sometimes it just doesn't work...

Browsing on Fuck Yeah Nail Art always inspires me. I found a cute mani with houndstooth (which I am a big fan of) so I pulled out my Fauxnad and happily discovered that I did indeed have a houndstooth pattern. woo! 

so what happened?? I was having a bad night I suppose because it would not work! the stamper wouldn't line up. The polish kept smudging. The nail art bullions kept sliding around... I did my best to clean things up, and from a distance, these puppies looked pretty good. But a closer look reveals the sloppiness. Oh well. Sometimes it just doesn't work.

I ended up wearing these for only a day :( 

Sally Hansen in White on

Sally Hansen in Black out

Sinful colors in Gogo Girl

Black nail art bullions from Bundle Monster

Shiny French Mani

I got the idea for this manicure from Linda165 on Youtube (you can view her tutorial Here)

Sally Hansen xtreme wear in celeb city

China glaze in turned up turquoise (neon)

Art deco in black

green rhinestones from Sally's