Harlequin Hardware manicure

You may or may not have seen this mani floating around the internet a lot lately - its a mani first introduced by CND at the Diego Binetti show during NYFW.  Ivana did a lovely version of it HERE

So here's my version of it using 2 coats of Sally Hansen Shell We Dance as the base then lightly sponging on Orly Oh Cabana Boy around the cuticles.   I suggest you protect the skin around your nails with tape ala water marbling or be  prepared for extensive cleanup.  You WILL have pink fingers! ;-)

To finish off I freehanded a french tip with Essie Good as Gold.  Lemmetellya - this polish wears like IRON!  I wore this mani for 5 days and still had no tip wear on the Essie metallic.  Good stuff!

Have a lovely week!

Fairy butterfly wings

I have been wanting to do a manicure inspired by my tattoo for a few weeks now, but never really had enough time to implement the design.  This is my interpretation of fairy butterly wings.

I started with a 2 coats of Sally Hansen Green Tea, which is a dusty light mint color.  Green Tea is a finicky polish and doesn't like to be overworked, or it can become patchy and streaky.  Then I lightly sponged Sally Hansen Insta-Dri  Blue Away and Orly Charged Up over the top of Green Tea and let that dry thoroughly.  I then finished the design off with a black striping polish, Wet N Wild black creme and a small paintbrush; and Zoya Purity and some dotting tools.  Purity is my favorite white polish because it is so opaque.  I'm about half way through my bottle and had to thin it down a little today with some Nail Polish Thinner.  When everything was dry I top coated with SV, because I wanted it to dry super fast so I didn't ding it.  It would be a shame to do all that work and have to redo it because of a dent! 

What do you think of my take on fairy wings?

And just for fun here's a pic of my inspiration - this is the tattoo I got about 3 years ago and is my first and only tattoo.  (I'd like to get another tho!)  I wanted to incorporate my love of fairies (I collect them!) with a more mature tattoo.

Hope you're having a lovely weekend!

Vampy gradient

I saw this gradient on Pinterest a couple weeks ago and absolutely fell in love with it.  I loved the dark vampy look of the black tips against the blood red.  The pin originated from http://www.lovevarnish.com/2012/06/vampy-gradient.html so credit goes to her for this awesomesauce mani.

This is 2 coats of Sally Hansen Right Said Red sponged with a combination of Sally Hansen Wine Not and Wet N Wild Black Creme.  Then I added just a teeny bit of sponging on the black tips with Orly Androgynie. 

This is a mani I can sink my teeth into.  I'd stake my life on it.

Hope you have a great day!

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 :)

White ink tattoo

I don't know why, but lately I've been a little obsessed with white ink tattoos.  I like how they are so very subtle and almost look like your skin is made of lace.  So I wanted to try to recreate that look on my nails.

This is two coats of Sally Hansen Without a Stitch stamped with white konad special polish and plate m73, which I thought looked most like an intricate filigree type pattern that a tattoo would have.  Without a Stitch can have a tendency to drag, so you will need to apply smooth coats and let them dry thoroughly in between.   I'm quite pleased with how it turned out and I think it has the sublte look I was striving for.

I also just got back from the beach where I saw a sand sculpting festival.  Here are a few pics!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!



Cherry Gingham Nails

Hi girls, I saw this design and just HAD to recreate it on my nails!

For this mani, I started with a base of Essie French Affair. I might need to repurchase this soon, I use it so often...

I then stamped over it with Konad plate m64 and a pink chrome Sally Hansen pen. The only bad thing about these pens is they give me all these little stamping wispies that I have to flatten out on my nail. I don't really know what else to call them, so I hope you know what I'm talking about. Hahah.

I made the cherries with acrylic paint and a small paintbrush. I think they turned out nicely, I only wish I had stamped with a lighter background color because I think it makes the cherries a bit difficult to see. But oh well! I'm a little out of practice, so hopefully these weekly nail nights with Mama will get me back into the routine :)

Just a brief post tonight because I'm on my way to visit the manfriend. And I am a little buzzed. Ok Bye!

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!

Gradient tiger

Hello readers!  Did you think that Amanda and I fell off the planet?  Well I'm back today with a fierce tiger mani for you.

You have probably noticed our lack of posts.  Both Amanda and I are struggling right now with a little blogger burnout, but trying to post at least once a week to keep things going.  We had a death in the family last week.  A cousin of ours who has been very sick for about a year died at age 47 to brain cancer.  We were both devestated and will miss her very much. 

Amanda is working a full time job during the week and has a long-distance boyfriend that keeps her traveling on the weekends.  I'm also working a 30 hour week, but try to do my nails in the mornings before work.  The last 2 manicures I've done I hated, and removed right away without taking pictures.  Plus, I admit that Diablo 3 is taking up quite a bit of my free time.  Grr it's so addicting!  If you play - look me up (Zoya#1115)!

So enough with personal stuff and on to the mani.  I actually really like this one.  I've been trying to master the art of the gradient mani, but apparently am a slow learner :)  Here we have a base coat of Sally Hansen Kook-A-Mango with Zoya Jancyn and Sinful Colors Pull Over to make the grade-IENT.  (haha).  Then I stamped it with Konad black polish and plate m57.  Please forgive the tiny bit of streaking as I was rushing out the door to make it to work in time! 

Hope you enjoy!

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!

Summer ladybugs

Good morning happy people

I have wanted to do ladybug nail art for a while now but never really quite got around to it until now.  It's such a simple design and what could be a better herald of warmer temps?

My mani is a base of Sally Hansen Insta Dri Rapid Red which did not dry well at all.  The color went on nicely enough but dried with bubbles.  Since I was planning on doing nail art over it anyway, I went ahead and left it; and hopefully it doesn't show too much in these photos.

I let my base dry overnight then this morning I used a black ulta thin sharpie to draw the vertical lines, WnW Black Creme for the french tips and the dots (which I used a dotting tool for).   I let it dry for about a half hour before I top coated it - which apparently was not enough because I still had some smearing of my dots.  I tried to just very lightly glide the brush over my nail without coming in contact with the actual surface of my nail.

Hope you enjoy!

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 :)

Beginner Nail Art - using your dotting tool

Perhaps the easiest nail art there is, is to use your dotting tool for flowers.  Dotting tools can be purchased at nail art, craft supply stores and online; and come in a variety of sizes.  Mine are actually embossing styluses that I bought years ago in the scrapbooking section of Michaels.

Start out with a thoroughly dry base color. Dot a small amount of your color on a scrap of paper. Using your dotting tool, dip it into your color then gently dot it on your nail. Be careful not to press too hard or you can leave a little dimple in the middle of your dot. Another tip - use just a small dot of polish on your scrap of paper because as the polish air dries, it will get tacky and sticky. This will cause stringing of your dots and you don't want that.  Here you can see I've applied the center of my daisies to my nail with a large dotting tool.  The base is Zoya Lolly.

Repeat the above step with a medium sized dotting tool for the petals.  If you want to add topcoat to seal in your design, let it dry thoroughly first.  I have foregone topcoat on this mani because I want to keep the matte finish.

Really easy.  I actually did this design this morning before work - which is why my cuticles aren't conditioned and I forgot to clean up my pinky.   Running late for work, still need to do my hair and makeup!  Have a fabulous day!
x

China Glaze Agro

This manicure started out as the lovely golden olive Agro from China Glaze's Capital Colors line. The formula on Agro is smooth and extremely well pigmented and dries fast- what else did you expect from China Glaze?  It's a very similar color to Butter London Wallis I think.  Wallis might be just a tad more goldish.

I wore it alone for a day then stamped over it on day 2 with a design from Bundlemonster plate M73 with my Sally Hansen Color Quick pen in Gold chrome.

Have you seen The Hunger Games yet?  I was able to catch it Saturday afternoon and thought it was awesome!