08/09/12 - Roses and Cream Nails

Hello all!
True to my last post, I cut my nails and finally painted a new design.

I wanted something kind of delicate and simple in appearances. Something fairly soft. Something that would work well on my nails now that they're a bit shorter. so I decided to finally do a rose design, but I thought it might look cuter as an accent nail design. So voila!

The pink is Tip Toe - Preppy Pink. It's such a cute pink - a perfect bubble gum cheery pink with a bit if shimmer. :) The green is Love & Beauty - Mint Green. The white is Pure Ice - Super Star. And the sparkles (dotted in between the lines) are Sally Hansen - Diamonds.

This last picture is in natural light and shows the sparkles best.

I think these are fun and exactly what I was looking for.
Also, I love that I finally cut my nails. I've never tried to cut them to be the same length - usually I just let them brake and reshape them individually, sometimes cutting the ring or pinkie because those ones always grow pretty long. But this length is great. I love that they're all the same length, and this is long enough to still be useful, but short enough that they feel sturdy and don't gross me out. xP

But yup! By the way, if you have any ideas for designs you'd like me to try, please let me know!

08/06/12 - Miscellaneous Post

Hello! So these are just a few things I wanted to comment on but couldn't quite fit into other posts.

First, this is a sketch I drew before I did my Sea Life Nails with some coloured pencils on cheap terrible quality paper. xD I just wanted to practice drawing some marine life in an easier format before putting it on my nails. It was fun! I need to sketch more often.

Second, I got some henna done while on vacation. I loved it, but it's pretty much gone already. Bummer.  But see, isn't it pretty? I'll have to try to get some of my own henna and try it myself. That sounds so much fun!

Lastly, I'm going to post about my nail growth. I still have the sea life design on my nails. It's been over three weeks! I think that's the longest I've left a design on. Suprisingly, the design itself is holding up really well. However, the nail growth I've gotten is ridiculous! They don't feel that much longer, but there's like a quarter inch from the nail polish to the cuticle.
[ETA: Here's a picture I meant to include when I posted this:

 It astounds me that I managed to go three weeks with this nail growth making my nails look ridiculous, but with only minimal tip wear. Of course, my right hand is a different story - two nails broke and one nail chipped, but overall, this manicure held on surprisingly well.]
 Yeesh! I keep meaning to redo them, but I've been super busy. Only a couple days after I came back from vacation I flew off to college orientation. I'm just recently back from that, and this weekend I'll be off again for a friend's party. Busy! But I'm really looking forward to redoing my nails. I think I have an idea - but first, I think I'm going to cut them all shorter.

Swatch Post: Santee - Sky Blue

Here's a brief swatch post for you. (Sorry, I was out of town again. Should back for a while, though!)
This is two coats of Santee - Sky Blue. It's a lovely frosty sky blue.

I probably could have gone for three, but for what I wanted from it it was fine. To get rid of the slight streakiness, I could have sponged on the last coat. But really, it looks fine. With nail art and top coat over it, it looks just lovely.

See? Pretty!
I've used this before in my Sea Life nails, my Halloween nails, my Peace Sign Jacket nails, and my I Love Neil nails. :)

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.!