07/14/12 - Sea Life Nails

Hi all! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been on vacation! And I knew since I'd be gone for two weeks I wanted something awesome on my nails, since I wouldn't be able to redo it. I've been wanting to try this for a while, and I love how it came out.

Please please love it, I spent so long on it!

Sea life nails! I'd been wanting to try something more detailed, and after I saw Chalkboard Nail's Ocean Scene, I wanted to try doing some sea life. Note that I wasn't trying to do the same thing as her, though I think we used the same picture of a clownfish as inspiration. xD
Obviously, a lot of nail polish went into this. (It's all nail polish.) Let's try to remember what I used...
For the ocean background, I did two coats of Santee - Sky Blue with a little bit of an Icing blue mini sponged on.
For the sand, it's a sponged combination of Claire's - Snowball, Love & Beauty - Taupe, and Loreal - Bronze.
The octopus is mainly Pure Ice - Envy, with accents of China Glaze - Seduce Me, and the eyes are a Simply Sweet yellow with black pupils from Wet 'n' Wild - Ebony Hates Chris.
The clownfish is Milani - Awesome Orange, with accents of Claire's - Snowball and Wet 'n' Wild - Ebony Hates Chris.
The school of fish are Wet 'n' Wild - Metallica.
The jellyfish is Tip Toe - Preppy Pink, Simply Sweet pink, and China Glaze - Seduce Me.
The seaweed is Love & Beauty - Green and Sinful Colors - Last Chance.
The crab is Julie G - Cherry on Top, and the eyes are a Simply Sweet yellow with black pupils from Wet 'n' Wild - Ebony Hates Chris.
The anonymous fish are Sally Hansen - Wet Cement, with accents of Wet 'n' Wild - Ebony Hates Chris and Wet 'n' Wild - Rain Check.
The turtle is Love & Beauty - Green, Nabi yellow green, and Sinful Colors - Last Chance.
And the sea star is Sinful Colors - Timbleberry. Woo!
My favourite is the octopus. :)

Anyway, I love these nails and I don't really want to take the design off. But two of my nails did break while on vacation, so I guess I will. I think I'll cut my nails a bit shorter, too.

But yup! I loooove these nails, so please love them too! I did get some compliments while on vacation. :D

Swatch Post: Claire's - Snowball and Pure Ice - French Kiss

I've been hoping to swatch Snowball for a while, as it's been my go-to white for a long time. It's one of the first polishes I bought after I started doing my nails more regularly. I was looking for a plain, white-is-white polish, and this has served me well for a while now.

Here's one coat, which is how I've most often worn it. However, for the particular mani I used this for, I did go on to do two coats.

Now, we're getting to the end of the bottle, and this polish is definitely past its prime. It's been getting gloppy and hard to work with, and this is probably the last time I'll use it. I keep adding thinner, and it helps, but.. Well, I have a new white to try.

Left is flash, right is no flash.

Here's my index finger (flash/no flash). See, it does have a nice consistency. It just had a nicer one at the beginning of the bottle. I also found it kinda cool that the flash used too close really just reflected back as all white.

And obviously, I've used this a lot. Let's see.. In my 4th of July nails, under my Bright and Colourful nails, my Graduation toe nails, my Beautiful Day nails, my cheating Tie-dye nails, my Sock Pattern nails, my Rainbow Gradient Dots nails, my Happy Holidays nails, my Musical Notes nails, my Rainbow Streaks and Flowers nails, my Neon Ice nails, my Failed Hearts nails, my Back to School nails, my Pastel Plaid nails, my Failed Text nails, my Smiley nails, my Teddy Bear nails, my French nails, and my Crayon Scribble nails.

And just a mini-swatch of French Kiss. I hope to expand this later, but I just painted it on my thumbs, so..

 I'd been looking for a blue is blue is blue polish. Not periwinkle, not shimmery, not glittery, not navy, not indigo, not sky blue, not.. You get the point. I wanted #0000FF blue. My LHC friend mandybeth was so kind as to send me this one, and it's exactly what I wanted. This is just one coat. :)
I've used this in my 4th of July nails. :)

P.S. The little bumps on some of my finger nails are blemishes from my nail/the base coat, not the polish I'm swatching.

07/04/12 - Happy Fourth of July!

Hello all! Happy Independence Day, or, you know, 4th of July as they call it anywhere else. :p

Now, I'm not a super patriotic person. I love the opportunities I have, but I don't have any delusions of the greatness of the USA. Last year I didn't even do my nails for the holiday. But I got this idea a couple weeks ago, so I thought I'd go ahead and do it.

The idea was to do 25 "stars" on each thumb, and then the thirteen strips on the remaining fingers. As you can see, I messed up a little - I did too many stripes on my left hand. Oh well. There's still 50 stars, and approximately 13 stripes on each hand.

The white is Claire's - Snowball, the red and white dots are Migi Nail Art Pens, the blue is Pure Ice - French Kiss, and the sparkles are Orly - Twilight. The blue and the sparkles were a gift from my friend at LHC, mandybeth. I'm super excited to have them!

Close up of the thumb.

But yup! There're my nails! I'll be celebrating the day by watching fireworks this evening with my family and boyfriend, hopefully rocking a cute outfit. :D

06/28/12 - Stash Update

Haven't done one of these in a while!

I counted for the first time, and not including my nail art pens, I think I'm at 97. I now have four that done fit in my storage. I'm looking for something like a tackle box to store stuff in, because before I go to college I want it to be transportable. I really liked this one, but the drawers are just a bit too short. Any suggestions?
Anyway, back to the nail polish!

As you can see, I've added a third plate.

Here are my newest. (Though this is kinda a terrible picture.)

But yup! Overflowing drawer, three plates, etc.!

06/26/12 - Holographic Toes

As I did my Bright and Colourful finger nails, I did something completely different with my toes.

I recently bought Claire's - Night Sky, which seems to be this fantastic polish of blue, silver, and holographic glitter. I knew I wanted to pair it with my Glitter Gal - Silver 3D Holo. So I alternated toes, with a taped lightning bolt on the big toes.
Here it is in the sun with no flash (previous picture is inside with flash):

So pretty! The blue lightning bolt is one of my Migi Nail Art Pens.
I also put Nabi - Silver underneath Night Sky and Sally Hansen - Wet Cement under Silver 3D Holo.
Close ups of the big toes in the sun:

These are absolutely lovely in the sun (great for summer!) but still pretty and fun inside.
:)