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!

Sunny half moons!

Today's mani is my interpretation of Pantone's "Color of the Year".  I started with a base of Zoya Jancyn, which is a soft orange creme which applies and levels like a dream and dries fast.  I did use two coats for full coverage and opacity.  I let my base thoroughly dry, then applied a coat of SV to protect it before I applied the half moons.

The half moons here feature Wet N Wild's 9 0 2 1 Orange - which is just the most gorgeous shade of orange glass fleck I've ever seen.  It's nice and smooth and just radiates sunlight :)  It might be overcast and dreary outside but my nails are full of warmth and light!

Hope you enjoy!

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 :)

Color Club Blue-ming

Good Morning everyone, I have so much to tell you today.  Of course our top news can be seen over there >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

We just hit 1000 followers and wanted to let you all know how blessed and humbled we are that you are enjoying our blog.  It is you, our readers, who have put us where we are today and for that we are thankful!

If you didn't know yet, Rite-Aid is now carrying the Color Club polish line.  This color is part of their spring Blossoming collection and I saw this on the shelf today and fell in love with it.  I don't know why they call it Blue-Ming because it is definately not blue, but a lovely pastel mint color.  The pictures you are seeing are from day 3 after I have slept twice and soaked in a luscious bubble bath (more on that later) so obviously it has some staying power.

First the good.   I'm a big Color Club fan.  I've had really good luck with all their polishes.  And did I mention I love this color?  It reminds me of China Glaze Refreshmint (which is one of my all time favorite polish colors).

Chipped my middle finger, darnit!

If you have good you have to have bad - right?  Unfortunately - the formula on this was AWFUL.  The first coat was draggy and patchy.  The second coat covered up the dragging, but as it dried it began to bubble.  Badly.  I can still see the bubbles through the third coat.  Since it's late and I don't feel like removing it, I'm going to throw a top coat on it and see if I can disguise the bubbling.

Is the color worth the application issues?   As much as I'd like to say yes - I'm going to have to say no.  Go with Refreshmint instead.  This one is definately a 'miss' for me.

Also a couple quick product reviews today -

I just picked this up at Rite-Aid as well and wanted to share my thoughts.

Its EOS brand shave cream in pomegranate raspberry scent.  The bottle says "ultra moisturizing paraben-free with natural aloe and shea butter".  The creamy consistency reminds me a lot of Lush's Turkish Delight.  It does not foam, but rather is a creamy lotion that conditions your legs while you shave.  It also comes in a plastic bottle so you don't have that annoying rust on the bottom of your shaving cream can.  LOVE!  This pic is from their website.

Are you a Lush fan?  If not you should drop into a store or check them out online.  They have all natural and organic bath and beauty products that are just fabulous and both Amanda and myself are completely in love with them.  Today I used The Comforter bubble bar which not only gave me mounds of bubbles with a sweet Black Currant fragrance, but also turned my bath water a girly pink color.  So relaxing!  Picture is from their website.  I love Lush's bubble bars and bath bombs.

Have a great day and Happy Patriot's Day!

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:

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

Electric Beat Funky French

Hello out there! I'm still alive :)

I went to visit the BF this past weekend at his parents' house, and his mom had a super cute mani on that I just HAD to recreate. Hers was a gel mani (she gets them done at a salon), but I didn't see why I couldn't do the same thing with regular polishes! It was so simple but I just really loved the way it looked for some reason.

The base here is two coats of China Glaze Electric Beat. The french tips are China Glaze First Mate, and the silver is just a regular old silver striping polish.

I really like the way this came out, I just wish those stupid striping polishes were easier for me to use. The lines turned out gloopy and not as straight as I would've liked. And I pulled up the base color on my thumb, and my polish had been dry for a few hours. *tear* I rarely do funky french manis because I usually don't have the patience to sit down and do them. And I always get polish leaking underneath the tape, but I was mildly successful today! Snaps for Amanda!

When BF's mom was showing me her nails on Friday, she goes "Look at my nails! Are they too much?!" to which I laughed and thought, "girl have you SEEN what I put on my nails? Nothing's over the top for me...I put freaking neon pink zebra stripes on my nails!". I thought you guys would appreciate that :)

Aaaand I'm going to wrap this up because my Blogger changed to the new format and I HATE it and can't find anything!

Hope you all have a fantastic week. And question: Would any of you be interested in a "Nail Art for Beginners" blog series? Let us know in the comments!