Naked Neon Nails - Funky French

On Saturday I realized I've been a failure at summer manis - I haven't used ANY neons this whole summer! So I decided - TODAY'S the day. But alas... I had my heart set on a mani with a nude polish. What was I do to?

A funky french of course! With NEON tips! The best of both worlds - nudes, and neons! Plus, this way, it wouldn't be SO obnoxiously neon that people would see me coming from 50 feet away.

I started with two coats of Essie Topless and Barefoot aka the best nude polish in my whole stash (thanks Mom!). It's not quite mannequin hands, but it's just the perfect subtle skin color. I love it, but the formula on it is atrocious (in my bottle at least..). I managed to make it work and figured it wouldn't be too big of a deal if it wasn't perfect since I'd be putting something over it.

Now - to go on my hunt for the neon polishes I wanted to use. I realize not all of these are neon per se, but I thought this combination of colors was the most flattering together. The neons are (from thumb to pinky) China Glaze Pink Voltage, China Glaze Style Wars, China Glaze Electric Pineapple, Funky Fingers 220 Volts, and Funky Fingers Riot.

I did the nude base on Saturday afternoon, then applied tape to the tips for the french on Sunday. This works better for me than waiting [im]patiently for my top coat to dry enough to do it all in one sitting -- that's how I always ruin them, so I wait a day in between. Seal with a coat of Revlon Quick Dry and you're done! Probably the easiest nail art mani I've done in a while and I actually am really digging this one!

Oh, and before I go, look what managed to play out when I was taking pictures of this mani...

I swear I did not realize the matchy matchy until I was outside taking the pictures! Maybe my subconscious grabbed inspiration from what I was wearing ;)

I-Don't-Know-What-This-Stamp-Even-Is Konad Gradient Nails

Hi ladies! Hope you all had a fabulous weekend. They go way too fast, don't they? :(

I wanted to try and see if I could do a more successful gradient, so this weekend I sat down and tried the Sammy technique and what do you know -- it actually worked!! I do have to say though, that I tried to do it with 3 colors at first and couldn't get it to look like an even, gradual gradient. So if anyone has any tips on that besides the usual just sponging two colors, one on top of the next method, let me know.

The two colors in the gradient are Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud and Essie Knockout Pout. I thought I got pictures of the plain gradient, but alas, I didn't. And I didn't realize until I'd already stamped and taken pictures of the final mani. Shucks.

I topped the gradient with a coat of Fairy Dust (my bottle is about as thick as Elmer's glue these days...) and stamped over with Sinful black polish and plate RA-112. I don't even KNOW what this pattern is supposed to be, so I don't know what to call these nails! Anyone have any ideas for what the pattern actually IS? Haha. Oh well, they turned out pretty well I think. Maybe I'm getting back into the groove of things!

Think I'm going to head over to Ulta today to pick up some CG On Safari polishes, so look out for some manis with those! Have a lovely day :)

Nautical Nails

Hello ladies!

I've wanted to do nautical nails for a long time, and when I had some free time on Sunday I sat down to do them!

I started with a base of Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud on my pinky, middle, and pointer fingers, and a base of China Glaze First Mate (how appropriate!) on my thumb and ring fingers. I put a coat of China Glaze Skyscraper on the ring fingers for a little BLING! I love Skyscraper and I think it works perfectly with this color scheme!

I freehanded the anchors with a small paintbrush and white acrylic paint and made the stripes with tinyyyy pieces of scotch tape (more on that below). Painted over the tape with First Mate and made little gold buttons with China Glaze Midnight Kiss!

The major difficulty I had with these was getting the nautical stripes to be the same width. It took me a while to cut the strips of tape and they all were varying widths. And I had some leaking under the tape, but I think I managed to paint over it pretty well! They could be a little crisper but I do still like it.

That's all for today, hope you guys have a great day!

China Glaze Electric Beat Chevron Mani

Hi ladies! Phew...what a relief that we're back up and running!

Today I have a chevron mani to show you guys! I've never done one of these before, but I saw this mani by Chalkboard Nails and decided I wanted to try it!

 Guys, let me tell you. NOT as easy as Sarah makes it look. Sarah, I bow down to you, you nail goddess, because that was way more difficult than I was expecting! My nails aren't very wide, so I found it difficult to get a good, even point on the chevrons, especially because those damn Sally Hansen brushes are SO wide! It does look cute though, it just ended up making the tips of my nails very thick.

The colors I used for this are China Glaze Electric Beat, Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud, and China Glaze Make Some Noise.

Do you ladies have any fun weekend plans? They're having a festival down at the park in my neighborhood this weekend so the bf and I are going to go to that :)

Hope you have a great weekend!

Revlon Facets of Fuchsia Funky French

Hi all.

Happy....Monday?

Guess what? I FINALLY have a mani to show you guys that I'm actually relatively happy with!! I took off that Zoya funky french about an hour after posting it because the layers of polish started to seriously bug me. You know how when you have like 8 coats of crap on your nails and they just feel thick and gross and gnarly? That was my dilemma. So I removed it all about 5 minutes before I made an hour drive to visit boyfriend for the weekend, and was stuck with nakey nails.

Nekkie nails are not fun for me. I hate the texture of them. They always feel like they're going to break at any second. That's why I like to always have them polished - they just FEEL stronger. So after D left for work on Saturday night, the very first thing I did was sit down and do my nails (yes.... I may have brought a bottle of polish and top coat with me....). Mind you, this is a house full of men. So I sat down on my knees and polished my nails on his end table. No clean up, no cuticle cream....nothing. But I sat down, and put on two coats of China Glaze Gothic Lolita. And it was grand - I didn't feel like every nail was going to splinter into a thousand pieces anymore! But.... it was just so....BORING!

So yesterday, after we celebrated Father's Day, I sat down and did another funky french. For this one, I cut pieces of tape on a diagonal and placed them in the center of my nails. I used a coat of Revlon Facets of Fuchsia over top of the tape, and boy do I love the way these two colors go together!

Can you believe I've never used this bottle of Revlon Facets of Fuchsia?! I mean....ever. I've used Mom's bottle of DL Bad Romance, but never used this one. What a mistake that was, because I love this! I thought it needed a little more pizazz, so I added some silver lines with a striper brush. But in retrospect, I wish I'd just left them off. It was much sharper before I put the striping polish on, and the Kiss striper I used was so old and think and glumpy that I couldn't get a crisp line. Le sigh. I still like the way it looks :)

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend, back to the grind today :(

Memorial Day Water Marble

Guys. GUYS.

It's an exciting day in the Brown household. Why, you ask? Wellll..... I FINALLY managed to do a half-way decent water marble. HUZZAH! AND...

Wait for it....

I got a BRAAAAND NEWWW CAAAAR!! (I hope you said that in a "Price is Right" voice....because I did...) I know right?! DOUBLE HUZZAH!! I'M SO FLIPPING EXCITED!!

I'd been driving an old 2001 Sunfire since high school, and well, suffice it to say... poor little Sunfire was on his dying bed. And since I just recently got a job with my degree, I figured now's as good a time as any. Pardon my excitement, I just had to share with someone :)

Look at that sweet pimp-mobile...

Ok, I suppose you guys came here for a mani. Right?

For whatever reason, I decided I really wanted to do a [successful] water marble. If you guys have been following this blog for some time, you'll know that we both SUCK at water marbling. It's just..... not something that comes easily to me. But this time... I was on a mission! I sat down with my colors and experimented. And guess what? It only took me....

TWO FREAKING HOURS TO DO. I kept having to redo fingers and the whole freaking process is just way too time consuming and WAY too messy. But it came out....decent...so I guess that's okay. Props to you guys who make awesome water marbles because... I just don't get it. It seemed like sometimes the polish dried WAY quicker than other times. And I couldn't get any decent designs carved into the polish and ugh..... it was so frustrating. The colors in this are Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud, Sinful Colors GoGo Girl, and China Glaze First Mate. Topped with China Glaze Fairy Dust. (DUH.)

/le sigh. I'm hopeless at water marbling.

Do you ladies in the States have any plans for Memorial Day? I do I do! I finally get a day off so we're having a little cookout with family :)

I hope you all have a safe and fun holiday!

Wet n Wild It's All In The Cut - Glitterbomb!

Hi all!

I don't have any nail art for you today, but I do have an awesomesauce glitterbomb to showcase! You may or may not know by now... that after I have nail art on for a while, I long for the days of simple (for me) manicures. It's like clockwork - after having a mani on with nail art, I do something simple for my next mani. This is simple....by my standards! I doubt most people would say an obnoxious holographic glitter is simple. But what kind of blogger would I be if I used things like NUDES and light pinks on a daily basis?! A boring one. That's what.

This is two coats of China Glaze Gothic Lolita. I totally could've worn this alone, it's so pretty! It's a medium purple with the slightest bit of shimmer. I topped with two coats of Wet n Wild It's All In The Cut, a light purpley pink holographic glitter - reminds me a lot of OPI Teenage Dream (one of my all time favorite glitters).

This is going to be quite the distraction in the coming days at work... I can't stop looking at my glittery nails! I wish I could showcase the holographic effect better, but when I took these pictures the sun was going down :( You'll just have to trust me when I say that it looks amazeballs.

Now I ask you this,

What's your favorite glitter polish? Let us know in the comments! Have a great day :)

Crystal and Stone

Hello everyone.  Last night as I sat trying to think of a color or design I hadn't done lately I settled on something silver.  Here we have OPI Your Royal Shine-ness (which I have showcased before) paired with OPI Servin' Up Sparkle.  I masked off the tips of my nails before applying the SUS - which is a clear base packed with small and large hex holographic glitter.

After the glitter was dry, I freehanded China Glaze Stone Cold to the tips.  Stone cold is a lovely charcoal colored matte polish from their Capital Colors collection.

The two colors together remind me of the fragility of crystal and the durability of stone.  Have a good weekend everyone!

Bright Flower Gradient Nails

Hello ladies, hope you've all been well :)

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been recovering from a brutal allergy season. I've had a terrible cough for the past two weeks.. BUT! I'm back in action with a pretty new mani to show you guys!

I started this one with two coats of China Glaze Papaya Punch, then created a gradient with China Glaze uh.....the fuchsia one from their spring collection, and China Glaze Spontaneous. And you know what? This freaking mani chipped in two hours! Yeah. I did these at about 6:30, got in the shower at 7:45, and when I got out they had chipped. WHAT! Lame.

I'm not sure what my camera's problem was when I took the pictures of the gradient, because that's DEFINITELY not how this looks in person. The final pictures are more color-accurate.

I Konaded over it with plate RA-112 - don't know what to call this pattern? But anyway. I think it came out so pretty! I've been out of practice lately with my nail art so I was pleasantly surprised with the way this one turned out.

That's all for today, have a fabulous day! Almost the weekend :)

Essie French Affair Accent Nail Mani

Hello ladies! Hope you all had a good weekend.

This mani is something I saw whilst perusing around on Pinterest. Sadly, I didn't repin the mani (because the iPhone app for Pinterest sucks) so I don't have the original source or picture of it. SO! If you've seen it floating around, lemme know and I'll add in credit where credit is do. 'Cause that's the cool thing to do, yo.

Edit: THIS is the original post!

This is 3 coats of Essie French Affair (do I even need to talk about me and my relationship with Essie or are you guys aware of that by now? You're probably aware... I mention it every time I use an Essie polish. But I digress...). The silver accent fingers are two coats of China Glaze Midnight Kiss topped with one coat of OPI DS Coronation and one coat of Sinful Queen of Beauty.

Blingy!

I just love the look of accent nail manis. They are so so simple to do, and I always get compliments on my nails when I do them. What do you guys think of the bling-tastic accent nail manis?

Have a great night!

China Glaze Fast Track - Taupey, Shimmery Goodness

*pant pant pant* Hello long-lost followers! It's been a bit. I've been a busy bee lately! Three birthdays in the last week, one next week, and a butt load of being exhausted every night :)

I just have something simple for you guys today. I picked up China Glaze Fast Track a few weeks ago along with Agro and Stone Cold (which I'll get into a rant about some other time...). I swatched it the day I got it, and was disappointed with how sheer it was showing up on my nails. So I threw it back on my rack (giggity) and forgot about it until today when I sat down to do my nails. So, I decided to do what nail bloggers do best -- layer it!

I used two coats of Sally Hansen Commander In Chic (which I'm actually a little bit sad that it got covered up because I love that color!) and one coat of Fast Track over top of CIC.

I'm really loving this! I love shimmery goodness....and I love taupey goodness! This is a match made in heaven!!

Hope you're all having a wonderful week, talk to you soon :)

Happy Birthday Sweetpeas!

On this day 23 years ago my life was forever changed with the birth of my darling daughter.  She is the light of my life and shares this blog with me.  I can think of no better day to tell the world  how special she is and how much I love her.  So Sweetpea, today's mani is just for you...

Today's birthday manicure is a base of China Glaze For Audrey with freehanded sweetpeas in pink, white and red acrylic paint.

Happy Birthday Amanda!

Dandelion Nail Art Tutorial

Hi!

I know this is long overdue, and it very may well be no longer relevant, but I figured since this mani is still floating around on Tumblr and Pinterest that I'd make a tutorial for those of you who are interested. It is our most popular blog post to date, so I figure some people must like it :) Better late than never, right?!

(I've added a short video at the end if you'd prefer that instead of pictures.) Without further ado, let's get started!

Here are the supplies you'll need...

A light polish, black striper polish, white and black acrylic paint, white nail art pen (optional), dotting tool (you can fashion a makeshift one out of a bobby pin or something similar), and a small nail art brush.

First, apply a base color. You can use whatever you'd like, just make sure it's light enough so you can still see the art that we're going to put over it. I used China Glaze Sea Spray.

Next, you want to to put a black dot on the nails you want the dandelions to be on. I just used black acrylic paint and a medium sized dotting tool.

Use a black striper polish to make stems on each of the dots.

This is the trickiest part of the entire design: Using the tiniest nail art brush that you have and some acrylic paint, make little petals coming off of the black dot. The trick to this is wiping almost ALL the polish off of the brush before you start painting. That will give the petals the delicate, translucent look. (See video below)

Using the same technique as above, paint little floating petals on the other fingers. I made little dashes and shapes that look like T's.

Seal your design with a top coat and you're all done! That really is all there is to it. It looks harder than it is, I promise :)

So there ya go, I hope that was helpful for some of you! Here is the video I mentioned: