Al the Owl

Today one of my girlfriends came over afterwork; my sister had given away some clothes over the weekend and I was letting her take a look through them before I dropped them off at Goodwill. We also went to the mall and of course, she wanted me to do her nails. Super Girly for aftwork on a Monday. She recently joined Pinterest and saw these nails. The owls are very cute but her nails were short and it was my first time trying this design so bear with me....

My owl looks nothing like the ones from Cristina at Let Them Have Polish but it's not horrible... I'm pretending it would have been better if her nails were longer, but my nails aren't too long so I'm not sure I can use that as an excuse. The main color I used was Essie's Bobbing for Baubles, also used Funky Fingers' Mad Hatter, OPI's On Collins Ave, and Kiss Nail Art White and Black. It was the first time she had ever used SV and was amazed how quickly it dries, but who wasn't amazed the first time they tried SV....

Sunday Sunday Sunday

I have been sick for the last week so I haven't had time to do any posts. No worries though, my nails were polished (just in plain though). So now that I'm back and in action I decided to do something for Valentines Day. I know, I know... it's not even February yet, but I'm in the mood! I love romantic holidays and there is none better than Valentine's Day.

Since it's not Valentine's Day yet, I didn't want to go all out with hearts, so we ended up with stripes.

Started with a my old white base coat, NYC White, then used my Essie's for the stripes (in order from tip to cuticle, First Dance, Size Matters, Super Bosa Nova, and Your Hut or Mine)

As always, I am trying to get my nails stronger and to grow and I read online that LA Nail Calcium Nail Builder has worked for some so I thought I would give it a try.

Also, got some new Konad plates over the weekend so I will be able to some fun stuff for Valentine's coming up... :-)

Funky Clouds

I have been wanting to try a cool french design lately and yesterday while looking through some older posts from Nailside I found "Funky Cloud" as she calls it. Love her designs and she posts step by step tutorials for some of the designs so it's easy for me to be inspired! So, today I tried "Funky Cloud" for myself with some of my new polishes.

The colors are definately a little off in the photo and I REALLY need to start using our "nice" camera instead of my iphone to take my pictures...maybe someday when I feel like I have more time. The blueish/purple color has a little shimmer to it and is nice own its own (thank goodness because my right hand usually ends up in a plain color), it's Essie's "Smooth Sailing". The white is a really old polish of mine and is NYC's "French Tip White", and the pink/fushia is Essie's "Jamaica Me Crazy". This mani will probably stay on a couple of days since I had to put on a lot of layers (base coat, two coats of Smooth Sailing, a coat of SV, the white, then the pink, and another coat of SV....)

Busy Saturday

Today was one of the busier Saturday's that we have had in a while, which isn't saying much. Since I got so many new polishes for Christmas, and have plans later tonight to grab drinks for a friends birthday, I needed to do something simple and easy. So here it is, just some pretty, plain, polish.

It's sort of hard to tell, which is why I tried taking photos at different angles, but the color is purple with a really nice gold shine to it. (What looks like reflection is the first photo is actually just half reflection, half gold shimmer). This color was given to me by one of my girlfriends, and it's ORLY, OUI.

I really like this polish because I only needed to put two coats on but with the gold sheen/shine/shimmer it has it in, it comes out to something really fun! I actually threw this one up on Pinterest earlier and already got some re-pins (thanks ladies!!)



Preppy Dotted Line

Happy Sunday!

I am never too busy on Sunday's so I usually have time to freshen up my nails with new designs. Today I decided to try these pretty preppy dotted lines.

The lighting wasn't the greatest when I took the photo but I believe you get the idea. First, I applied two coats of my basecoat, Salon Sciences Instant Artificials. It is supposed to make your nails healthy and strong and since I'm trying to grow them out we will see how it goes...Next, I applied two coats of Essie's Da Bush as my all over color. Once that was completely dry I added the white lines and white dots using Kiss Nail Art Paint in White. Next, I added the pink dots with a nail dotting tool. The polish color I chose for that was Essie's Your Hut or Mine. Finally, I topped it all off with Seche Vite. (Sidenote: I use a coat of Seche Vite between each color change; just don't write it every time)

*Sigh* Back to a full week of work tomorrow, at least I will have cute nails ;-)

Previous Designs

Wanted to showcase some of my previous designs. Unfortunately I don't have the polish information for them since they are older :-( Hope you enjoy looking through these!!!

With this design I used a red/maroon base coat with a pink/silver sparkle for the tips / top half. The colors aren't really represented in the photo so the sparkle looks plain silver.

Here I have on a clear base coat, I was originally going to just do grey tips with a single black glitter line to separate but decided to try a grey ombre with numerous stripes instead.

I was seeing a lot of Leopard print nails online and wanted to try this for myself. The pattern looks complicated but it's actually super easy to do. I watched a video on YouTube and got some helpful tips. I'll try to explain it to you really quick. (Just a note - my mom let me use her as a Guinea Pig so the first photo with the brown leopard is of her nails and the second with the pink are mine) I started with a base coat in any color (brown for my mom, very light pink for me), next just put random spots of the inside leopard color (tan for my mom, hot pink for me) all over your nail. Once that is dry, outline the spots, some of the spots I outlined with a "C" and some were outlined with parathesis "( )". Finally, put a few extra tiny spots on any open spaces with the outline color, apply a top coat (Seche Vite) and you're finished :-) These were two of my favorite designs and both my mom and I got a lot of compliments on them.



Here I was just trying out a couple different colors. I probably should have cleaned this up a little around my nails before I took the picture.

I tried this design out after Thanksgiving. Wanted to do something simple but trendy. I used a mint green color and just threw on some random white polka dots. I got a lot of compliments on this design, it's very easy and anyone can do it!



Christmas Time!! Once again my mom offered to let me try out a Christmas design on her!! She picked out this cute reindeer. I had seen designs online with a reindeer on each nail, with one having a red nose for Rudolph but that was a little too flashy for my mom so we decided to go with one accent nail and a nice shimmery maroonish-red for the rest of the nails.

My mom was so happy with her nails that she offered to do mine ;-) (THANKS MOM!) We did Santa nails for me, and she did a great job. We both got lots of compliments on our Christmas designs and felt fun and festive.

Hope you enjoyed this blast from the past (2011 - lol)!!!



Half Moons!

I got tons of new nail polish this year for Christmas, my sister bought me some, my parents bought me some, my in-laws got me some and so did one of my girlfriends, so I have been dying to switch up my polish for a couple days now.

One of the cute trends I have been seeing is the half moon design. Instead of doing it freehand I ended up using the hole punch reinforcement stickers to get the curve right. They look a little sloppy in the photo and sort of hard to see since I used similar colors but overall I like the look and I think next time I do them they will be cleaner & crisper.

The colors I used were Essie's Plumberry and OPI's On Collin's Ave (and of course, my quick dry top coat, Seche Vite). Enjoy!

Welcome!

Welcome all!! This is my first post. I have been using Facebook to share some of my latest nail designs but wanted to be able to share my love of nail polish and nail art with everyone. A couple things about me. I am currently trying to grow my nails out longer but they are fairly brittle from having acrylics and they just don't seem to be getting any stronger but hopefully they will grow soon! (Much easier to do designs on longer nails!) I do my nails 2-3 times per week so hopefully I will be able to post that much too. Also, I have been using my iPhone to take my photos but have a nice camera so might try to switch to that as well. Most of the designs that I do are replications of other designs or styles that I find online or my favorite *Pinterest* so I can't take credit for everything.

For today's New Years Day nails I used OPI's Chicago Champagne Toast for my all over color. I used Konad Black Polish and stamp M24 for the leopard print, and got the rhinestones from Konad as well and OF COURSE, my most favorite top cover every, Seche Vite. Enjoy!