Day 11: Polka Spots!

I have *so* much updating to do. I have like 5 (or 6 maybe?) manis to upload. Time to get to it!!

This was a dotted French manicure. White and green. I love green. :)

Here you go!

 Started off with 2 coats of essie Mademoiselle.

 Next I added French tip guides.

NOTE: Make sure to stick them to your skin a few times!!!
If you don't do this, they can stick too hard and peel of the polish underneath! Yikes!!

 The result after 1 coat of essie Blanc.

 The result after 1 coat of essie Blanc on the right hand. Unfortunately,

on my right pinky and ring fingers, I forgot to stick the nail guide to my

skin before applying to the nail. The distortion you see in the photo (hard

to see) is due to the polish underneath being stripped off the nail.

 First row of dots with essie Pretty Edgy.

 Second row with China Glaze In the Lime Light (Neon).

 The third row of dots using Sinful Colors Olympia.

This row is hard to see because, well, my nails weren't really wide

enough for five rows of dots. Oops!

 Finally, pictures with a real camera! :D

 Unfortunately, this mani didn't last long because I was chipping and

peeling like CRAZY. :(

 ...Yuck...

BASE COAT

essie Ridge Filling Base Coat

COLORS

essie Mademoiselle

essie Blanc

essie Pretty Edgy

China Glaze In the Lime Light (Neon)

Sinful Colors Olympia

TOP COAT

Sally Hansen Dries Instantly

I know stripes is next, so that will probably be my Easter mani. I'm thinking Easter egg like. Hmm...

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 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! :-/

Day 2 - Orange Nails

Okay, so, I may have cheated a bit. I used this "orange" day for Thanksgiving. It's seasonal and appropriate, I thought. But, I also think I'm a bit of a cop out... I DESPISE the color orange, haha.

Here we are though...

BASE

Sally Hansen - Double Duty

COLORS

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - White On (base color for all nails)

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Wined Up (Leaves & Polka Dots)

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Snappy Sorbet (Leaves)

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Lightening (Leaves & Polka Dots)

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Mint Sprint (Polka Dots)

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Crushed (Polka Dots)

Essie - Sexy Divide (Polka Dots)

TOP COAT

Seche Vite Fast Dry Top Coat

Feaux-Nad

Plate 47

Next up: Yellow! ...Yikes! haha.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! :)

Halloween!!!

This manicure is minutes from going away, haha. It was okay to wear today I think, but it'll be a little out-of-date tomorrow (and I've gotten aggravated with it and peeled some of it off in class... eek again). Oh, and these pictures are FINALLY with my REAL camera! Be excited!!! XD

So, this is with Nfu Oh GS 14. I really got annoyed with applying it. So I've decided that next time, it's going over a black base with just 1 layer of GS 14. It was seriously grainy and took 2 to 4 top coat layers to get it smooth. NOT AWESOME. But, at the same time, this polish was totally worth it! It's absolutely stunning. My pictures don't do it justice at all.

As a base, I used Sinful Colors 902 base coat (I noticed one of their polishes, Unicorn, bled a lot on my nail so I use it now when I think my nail has the chance of being tinted by a polish. It's done an awesome job!). Nfu Oh GS 14 on all nails but my ring fingers. On my ring fingers, I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Crushed. I also used a few accent stickers by the company Joby (found them on Amazon).

Here are the pictures!

Camera on auto with flash. You can see a few sparkles of Nfu Oh. 

Macro setting with flash. This is probably the most realistic of how you'd see it in indoor settings. 

Macro setting without flash. In indoor light. 

Right hand - Macro setting; no flash. 

 Right hand - Macro setting; with flash.

Outside trying to capture shiny! 

Outside still trying to catch some holo action! Haha.

So, this was my Halloween mani that's coming off in 5... 4... 3... 

How was y'all's Halloween? Did y'all do anything crazy with your nails?