Another Quick Mani: OPI and Nicole by OPI

Hello! Here's another quick mani that I love because of the colors. Enjoy!

COLORS:

OPI Light My Sapphire

Nicole by OPI Kendall on the Katwalk

Slytherin Nails!

Haha. So, like I've been saying, I love green. Has anyone ever taken one of those "What house would you be in at Hogwarts?" quizzes? Most of my friends get the "good" houses - Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Gryffindor. Well, I get Slytherin. Sure, there are bad people in Slytherin, but, lemme just say, I'd love to be a Slytherin. With the likes of Regulus A. Black and Severus Snape - two people critical in bringing down Voldemort, why would I be ashamed? Green and silver all the way!! :)

...Ahem, now that my inner Potter freak has been unleashed, here's the mani!

BASE COAT

OPI Nail Envy

COLORS

Revlon Emerald City (Matte finish)

TOP COAT

OPI Silver Shatter

Seche Vite

As you can see, I got a weird pattern going with the shatter. What I did was just paint different ways on each nail rather straight than from base to tip. I painted base to tip with a wavy pattern, with a diagonal pattern, across the nail from left to right (or right to left)... Use your imagination! :)

Day 8: Metallic

Hello! I revamped the blog for spring time and I hope to be a posting queen tonight. I need some time to myself, and I've decided to devote it to the blog.

This is Day 8: Metallic. I did this mani Valentine's Day. I also added a little "how to" on how I did my gradient to make this mani legitimately metallic.

Here we go!

These first two pictures are of OPI's Excuse Moi! 

Pictured above are the tools I used for the gradient.

As you can see, I used polish, cardboard, tweezers, and a makeup sponge (the wedge-shaped kind).

 Unfortunately, I got a little carried away, and forgot to take pictures. So I will explain my steps:

1.  Put drops of polish on the cardboard. I've found cardboard isn't that absorbent.

2.  Grab your tweezers and pick up the sponge.

3.  Dip the sponge into the polish.

4.  Sponge your nails. Heavily sponge the areas you want thickly covered. Lightly sponge the areas you want to be sparsely covered.

The final product after the gradient sponging! 

Then, I went a little Konad crazy. I added a netting type pattern and hearts. The netting is courtesy of YouMix Cosmetics XL Stamping Plate A and MASH 19. I stamped using the Konad Black and Konad White polish.

BASE COAT

OPI Nail Envy

COLORS

OPI Excuse Moi!

Konad Black

Konad White

TOP COAT

Seche Vite (Excuse Moi! top coat)

Sally Hansen Insta-Dry (gradient and stamping top coat)

STAMPING PLATES

YouMix Cosmetics XL Stamping Plate "A"

MASH 19

Well, there we have it! Hope y'all enjoyed it! :)

Day 7: Black & White

Hello! So, first off... I apologize. In my Day 6 post I said pictures should be "up soon". Here we are... 3 weeks later. :( I can assure you, that was not my intention. I have been a very busy lady, but, no fear... I have had quite a few manis these past few weeks and I hope to get them posted this weekend.

This black and white one was, fun, frustrating, and awesome. I *really* did not want to take this one off!! It was fun to design. However, I also learned that stamping using my non-dominant hand is a bit... Challenging (hence my frustrations). Pictures now to illustrate the "awesome"! :)

 The MASH plates - 13 and 23 - that were used in this mani.

 The thumbs were mirror images of each other.

NOTE: All the pictures were taken inside under florescent lighting.

BASE COATS:

China Glaze Strong Adhesion

OPI Nail Envy

COLORS:

Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl

Nicole by OPI Follow Me on Glitter (accent nail - ring finger)

Sinful Colors Black on Black

Konad White

Konad Black

TOP COAT:

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

Up next, I believe, is rainbow nails. Stay tuned! :)

I'm back!

Hello readers!

I've decided it was a good time for me to update the ol' blog before I got too far behind. School has started and, while having time every now and then to paint my nails and take pictures, it's a different thing entirely to be able to crop, edit, etc. pictures. Also, the weather has just been terrible, and there has been ZERO sunshine to bring out the "pretty" in my pretties! :(

Without much introduction for this one, it was my 2011 National Championship mani for football. The University of Alabama Crimson Tide was hosted by the Louisiana State University Tigers. Well, my significant other is an avid Alabama fan (I myself am a Florida State University Seminole fan). I went for the Tide on his behalf, and, okay, they are kind of my 2nd favorite team; I must say though, they are 2nd favorite waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind my 'Noles. :)

So much for "without much introduction"... Haha. I have one picture of this mani and one picture of the "ingredients". Alabama's colors are crimson and white. They're also known for their hounds-tooth pattern. Enjoy!

BASE COATS

For some reason, I used two. Most likely an experiment, but I fail to remember the results. Oops!

nails inc Kensington Caviar

essie Fill the Gap

COLORS

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Wined Up

OPI DS Radiance

Wet 'n Wild Ebony Hates Chris

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On

TOP COAT

nails inc Kensington Caviar

Feaux-nad Plate: 63

Day 3: Yellow!

Day 3 was the day for Yellow!

I took yellow and gave it a more "golden" spin for the autumnal season. I hope y'all like it!

And, unfortunately, the time when these photos were taken, it was during a 4 day rainy period, so I have no good pictures with sunshine.
:(

The final mani!

I'm trying to capture the awesomeness that's in this bottle!!!! 

 When you click on the photo for a larger image, you can see the multi-colored glitter that's in this gold!

And, because I can't leave well enough alone, giraffe spots and polka dots!!! 

Products used:

BASE

China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat

COLORS

Sinful Colors - Pull Over (true yellow; first coat)

Sinful Colors - This Is It (shimmery gold; second coat)

FIRST TOP COAT

Sinful Colors - Quick Dry

KONAD COLOR

OPI - DS Radiance

POLKA DOTS

OPI - DS Original

Sally Hansen - Lightening

SECOND TOP COAT

Sally Hansen - Dries Instantly

FEAUX-NAD PLATE

M61

Coming up next is green!! It'll be a few days before I post it... But I know what I plan on doing. I just finished finals so I have a lot of "minor" things to do (for example, laundry, cleaning my room, re-potting plants, other things that take a back seat when graduate school is in full force). I plan on this design being very Christmas-y. I'm going to visit family this Thursday, so I need pretty nails! Right now, my nails are sittin' pretty with just OPI Nail Envy.

I plan to "bring on the green" with some China Glaze Near Dark. I picked up some small acrylic paints to test with, so be prepared for Christmas trees! I might try a little sponging too to make Near Dark more Christmas-tree like. It will be fun!!! I can't wait to paint and post pictures! Let's hope I don't do too terribly! :-/

Disney Mani!!

So, let me tell you, I was super excited to do a Disney mani. I LOVE Disney. From Snow White to Pirates, love, love, Love, Love, LOVE!!!

I'll get the boring stuff done with first... Nails, colors, and bases... But first, the pattern is the patchwork mani! (If y'all haven't been to the Chloe's Nails blog before, beware! Haha. Some great designs and colors going on and you'll be spending like crazy!)

So here we go with boring-ness...
Thumb (no theme, just purple):
Base - OPI Nail Envy
OPI Planks A Lot (Love this color!!)
OPI DS Original
Essie Sexy Divide

Pointer (Cinderella):
Base - Essie's Fill the Gap
Essie Coat Azure
Essie Loophole
Sinful Colors Midnight Blue

Middle (Belle):
Base: Sinful Colors Basecoat 902
Sinful Colors Unicorn
Essie After Sex
Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl

Ring (Jasmine, but Tiana works too):
Base: Sinful Colors 902
Sinful Colors This Is It (this is a beautiful color, btw! It has little holos in it!!)
Sinful Colors Rise and Shine
Essie Blanc

Pinky (Aurora)
Base: Essie Fill the Gap
Essie French Affair
Sinful Colors 24/7
Essie Watermelon

So, voila! There we have it! The first picture is the Friday following the day I did the mani - I was bored in the airport. The next ones are also in the airport 4 days later!!! I didn't do ANYTHING to my nails to maintain them. There was slight tip wear, but I didn't reapply a topcoat or anything! No babying at all on vacation. Of course, I didn't do dishes or anything on vacation either. This manicure stayed awesome!... Until I bumped one of my nails on my luggage. Then I peeled it off (eek). So, there we have it!

Anyone have any other themed manis that are their favorites?? Have a good week!

My latest color, and water marbling attempt!

Hello all! The time for my new update has arrived.

This is the color I wore from last Friday, Sept 30th til today (er, yesterday) Tuesday, Oct 4th.

It's Nicole By OPI Iceburg Lotus. The first few pictures are 2 coats. I definitely suggest 3. Some of the later pictures have 3 coats. And some of my nails have evidence of my attempts at Konad also. You can ignore that, haha.

Here we go, here's Iceburg Lotus!

As you can see, it's a nice green/blue/teal. It also has some purple shimmer when you see it in the bottle. It definitely does in real life also, but it's harder to capture on camera, unfortunately.

The picture above shows what it looks like in normal indoor light... More green than blue.

This is where it gets weird... In lower light, indoors this color is a deep teal type blue. I was shocked when I noticed this. But shocked in a good way! It's beautiful!

This was inside, low light after 3 coats. And attempted Konad-ing on the ring finger.

3 coats in the daylight. Green with a little bit of blue shimmer. So pretty!!

More daylight!

For my base, I used Essie's "Fill the Gap", and as topcoat, I used Seche Vite. Every other day I used OPI Nail Envy as a topcoat.

And now, my water marbling attempts. I used different colors and brands, so I don't quite remember them all, but I shall try!!! :)

I'm staring at my hand now trying to remember what I did where. This was an experiment, so it's *very* temporary. I'll probably remove it tomorrow.

Thumb: Essie French Affair, Nails Inc Electric Lane, Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl, Sinful Colors 24/7
Pointer: Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl, Essie Going Incognito, Sinful Colors Black on Black, Sinful Colors Call You Later
Middle: Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl, Essie Garnet, Sinful Colors Pull Over, Sinful Colors Black on Black
Ring: Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl, Milani Breezy, Essie Pretty Edgy
Pinky: Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl, Sinful Colors Black on Black, OPI DS Original

Now, I can't guarantee all those are perfectly correct, but I they are as close as possible.

Hope y'all enjoyed! There will probably be a new post soon due to me only having my left nails painted, haha. Stay tuned! :)