04/24/12 - Neon Pink and Gold Swirls aka Vaguely Indian

Hello everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in a while.
To begin with, I am totally struggling with how Blogger has revamped how you post. I can't get things to line up like I used to. So I'm trying, but please forgive me..

Here it is! First picture in sunlight, second picture in indoor lighting with flash.
I got this idea to do opposing swirl lines on my nails, after my boyfriend, in my desperate plea for ideas, said, "something swirly" in his list. And for whatever reason, I thought that this must happen in pink and gold.

Here are some close ups of the design and colours.
For my thumb and ring finger: The base is my lovely unlabeled cat shaped gold polish. This is so thick and loaded with glitter, I actually only needed one coat. The pink lines are this neon nail art brush pen from Cina - Shocking Pink. For my other fingers: The pink base is two coats of this neon pink from Love & Beauty called Hot Pink. I couldn't get super colour accurate pictures, but what you see is pretty close. The gold lines are one of my Migi Nail Art Pens - actually, it's one I got for free for participating in their holiday contest. :) These colours are very odd for me, because I'm not a huge fan of gold and I'm not a huge fan of pink. Every time I look at my nails I think, "Wait, why did I choose these colours again?" I don't know, but that's just what colours the design told me to paint with. I have gotten a few compliments on them, though. :)
Like I said, the idea was just opposing swirls. Start at the top on the left, end on the bottom on the right. Then start at the bottom on the left, end at the top on the right. Repeat. It kinda made heart shapes in some cases.
My dad and my boyfriend thought that the end design with the gold and everything looked vaguely Indian, kinda like a sari or something. A quick Google search for "pink and gold sari" later... [1] [2] [3]

I conclude with a picture of my nails with my lovely cat-shaped bottle. It just really amuses me, and the fact that it's so opaque in one coat (I didn't know that before) is particularly pleasing. It's otherwise completely unlabelled, so that's it's one identifying trait. :)


Anyway, so these are fun and bright and sparkly and not too hard to do. They're totally not my colour, but I'm enjoying them anyway. I'll probably change on Saturday or Sunday to something even brighter and more colourful. ;)
By the way, if you have any suggestions, any at all, I'll be very happy to hear them!

04/12/12 - Senior Prom Nails!

So the 13th was my senior prom, and I painted my nails the day before. I managed to get them to actually perfectly match my dress, so I really like how they came out. Okay, so there's a lot of pictures for this post!

So it's kind of a "funky French." I got the idea
and crossed my fingers that it would still look good, because the idea of a funky French is kind of hit-and-miss with me. But I love it! The colours exactly match my dress, it looks simple and classy but just flows so well with the hole look. I am so pleased.
I used the Sally Hansen French nail guides for this. I hadn't used nail guides before, but I'm really glad I used them and I'll definitely use them again. (Though I'd need to get more..) I was a little skeptical, but wanted to give them a try. It was so much easier than tried to hand cut tape or free-hand it (both of which made for a very mediocre French before.) Plus with spunging on different colours, I could get the colours in more places without fear of getting it on the rest of the nail.
The colours are: a random teal shade from Ross, with sponges from a blue from Icing and a purple from Santee (which I picked up because it matched my dress), then the lining is my favourite Glitter Gal - Silver 3D Holo, and the design is my white Migi Nail Art Pen. And of course a little gemmie for my thumbs. :)
Close up of the thumb. The idea what just to do a white flower, I didn't have a specific flower in mind. The dress just kind of has ambiguous white lines that make flower shapes.






See! It really really matched my dress. I was thrilled.










Here are two pictures of the night itself. The first is the best I have for a full length shot so far, and the second is just a picture my friend Brooke took that I absolutely love.




I had a really nice evening. The prom was at the California Academy of Sciences, which was a great location for it. My boyfriend had a great time as well, and of course he looked very handsome. It was overall a really good night. :)

03/30/12 - Butterfly Wings

Okay, I know this has been done a million and one times, but I've wanted to try it out and I was desperate ideas, so I went ahead and did it.
Yup, butterfly wing nails. I think they came out pretty well, and my boyfriend things they're some of the best designs I've done yet. They're bright and spring-y, so I like them for that. :)


Here's a picture of just the gradient before I added the design. The design was Migi Nail Art Pens - black and white. The colours are: Icing - red mini, Milani - Awesome Orange, Simply Sweet - yellow, Nabi - yellow-green, Klean Color - Neon Aqua, and Ultra Pro - Punki Purple. Fun and bright!





I conclude with a picture of my nails in their "natural environment." xD

Also, I'm running desperately low on ideas. If you have any at all, I'll be more than pleased to listen! Thanks!

Swatch: Tip Toe - Shamrock

Hello! As promised, I have a swatch post for Tip Toe - Shamrock.
This was a bit of a surprise to me. They sold this little two pack at Old Navy, and I picked it up on a whim. I wasn't sure what kind of quality Old Navy polish would be, but I actually really like it.

Here is the little pack it came in - kinda cute. :)

Here are some shots with the bottle. It was hard to get colour-accurate pictures, so you'll see a couple different lighting situations in these pictures.

Here's a full hand shot. You can start to see here what I like about it. Three main things:
1) It's a really nice, green green. Not puke green or grass green or neon green, but green green. I don't actually have any of those.
2) It feels pretty nice quality on. It went on easy, and this is only one coat. Nice!
3) The shimmer in there is actually green shimmer. I have some colours with shimmer where the shimmer is actually just gold or silver, which is fine, but I like that this is green-green with green shimmer. :) Especially nice for St. Patrick's Day.

Here I am trying to capture the shimmer (on my thumb). Hard to see in the pictures, but I promise that it's there...
So far I've only used it for my St. Patrick's Day mani.
But yeah! Over all I rate this a nice polish, that I am very likely to use again. Nice colour, nice coverage, looks nice. :)

03/16/12 - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hello all! Here's what I did for St. Patrick's day. :)
Unfortunately, it's totally not original. I saw Adventures in Acetone do it, and thought it looked fun. :)
I have gotten several compliments, so I'd take it that my friends/family agree. Good enough for me!
The background is Tip Toe - Shamrock, the rainbow, clovers, pot, and gold are all Migi Nail Art Pens, and the stripe on the pinkie and thumb are Glitter Gal - Silver 3d Holo. :)







This last picture is in the sun a couple days later. I'll talk more about the base colour later. :)

Hope you like it! Hope everyone had a good St. Patrick's day!

03/09/12 - Cheater Tie-dye Nails

Okay! Here are my newest nails.
Of course it's the cheater's way of doing tie-dye. I just painted my base colour of Claire's - Snow Ball, then I did the design on top with Sharpies. ^^; Sealed with top-coat and done!
Quick, easy, looks good. I feel like a cheater, but what game am I really playing? :p
Here's a picture of my left hand before top coat. In some ways I like the crisper lines better, in some ways I like how the top coat kinda smudged them to blend more.




And in case you're wondering - what I just did to my hair is my major inspiration for going colourful with these nails. :)

02/28/12 - Stash Update

So, I took some stash update pictures a while ago. And never did anything with them. So I took some new ones and here they are.

Here are my polishes in their little drawer, and my two "nail wheels."













Here's a closer-up picture of just the polishes. Gettin' pretty full already. I could probably use advice on better ways to store my nail polish.











And here are my two "nail wheels." I finally just recently completed the second one, a new neon orange being my most recent purchase.
I should probably count how many polishes I have, just so I have a number. Haven't done that yet..