"Delicate" Nails

First, I have some good news. Well, good for me anyway. I won the 400 follower giveaway over at The Phalanges Files! How awesome! I have never won a giveaway before, and I am beyond excited. I can't wait to try out all the goodies.

I'm halfway through the 31 Day Challenge! Number 15 is delicate print. Uhhh what does that even mean?! I had a tough time with this one. I spent a lot of time pouring over blogs and searching the nail art tag on Tumblr. Eventually I stumbled across this photo, and thought, Well I guess that kinda looks delicate?

First I applied a couple coats of Peony by Love & Beauty. Under the fluorescent lights of Forever 21, this looked like a shimmery champagne, which I thought was pretty chic. As it turns out, it leans way more pink than I anticipated. I still like it though, so I guess it turned out okay. Application was a pain. It's kinda thick, and hard to control. It also bubbled a lot. The second photo is soft, I know, but I think it shows the shimmery quality of it nicely.

I used OPI's Thanks So Muchness! as the secondary color for this. Mad as a Hatter and Absolutely Alice grabbed all the attention from the Alice collection (rightfully so), but I think the reds of the collection are gorgeous! This is a really lovely shimmery red, that is a one coat-er! I used hole reinforcements to create the curve for the larger half moon look. The polka dots are Mayo by Man Glaze, and the gold studs were sent to me from Nicole at Top to Toe.

This look didn't turn out perfectly, but I'm pretty pleased with it. One thing I enjoy about this challenge is that I force myself to do things I normally wouldn't. I would have never created a look like this, without the prompt of the challenge. It's not a very "me" look, but it is nice to break away from routine and challenge myself. I'm not sure that I'd ever look at a mani like this and think, Oh look how delicate that looks! But at least it's cute?

I do want to apologize for posting photos with my cuticles in such horrid condition! This is the worst they've looked in a while. I promise I just globbed moisturizer on, so hopefully they'll be looking better shortly.

Vintage Floral Nails

I'm on day 14 of The Challenge, which is floral print. I've always thought the vintage flower print that has become popular is so cute, and that is what I tried today! I based my nails on this YouTube tutorial.

For the base color, I used OPI's Fiercely Fiona. As we all know, this is from the Shrek collection. This is a yellow that leans more to the green side. Maybe it would be more apparent compared to a true yellow, but on me, this just looks like a normal yellow. Which is sorta disappointing, because it looks so unique when the green is more visible. As you can imagine, application was a pain in the ass. There was no way I was gonna get away with anything less than three coats for this pastel yellow.

These are the three polishes I used for the flowers: Zoya Shawn, Revlon Peachy, and Omega Labs Nail Art Striper Brush #175 (sent to my by Nail de Royale).

It took me a couple nails to get the hang of the striper brush, but I think they turned out pretty decent for my first try. It's hard to not dissect the different parts of creating this look so up close - ah, the drawbacks of having a nail blog - so squint and back away from your monitors, people! Don't they look like cute little roses now? They reminded me of this dress I own:

Nothin' quite like a dorky PhotoBooth image to really get the point across.

I do want to mention that I used my Point & Shoot for this, not my usual DSLR (I forgot to charge the batteries after I used it last). I like the macro setting on the P&S, but the quality is clearly inferior. Plus, it kinda distorts the shape of my fingers and makes them look... well, like someone else's fingers. And it made Peachy look more orange than it is. I'll be back to the DSLR next post, promise.

While painting these vintage-y nails last night, I watched The Notebook for the first time. How embarrassing. I have been avoiding it all these years. My sister really loves it, and if she loves it, there's a 98% chance I'm gonna hate it. I mean, I love my sister, but we have very different tastes. She reads Nicholas Sparks (hence her love for the movie) and Jodi Picoult, and I read Kurt Vonnegut and Sylvia Plath. I remember talking to her once about Kurt Cobain, and she was all, WHO?! And I'm like, you know, dude from Nirvana, married Courtney, killed himself? She stares at my blankly. I mean, this girl doesn't even know who Nirvana is! How has she gone this long and never heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit"!?!?!? I'm digressing. The point is, throughout the movie I was doing two things. One, I frequently shouted, "THIS IS SO UNREALISTIC!" And the second thing I did was cry. A lot. Like, not just some tears rolling down the face, like full on ugly cry sobbing. I gave myself a headache. I can't believe it sucked me in like that! I mean, I still think it was pretty stupid, but I cried throughout like half of the movie. Ugh! In my defense, I only watched it because I will watch Ryan Gosling do anything. A five hour movie of him making macaroni and cheese in slow motion? Count me in! Have you guys seen The Notebook? What's your take? Did you cry as much as I did?

Leopard Print!

It's been like a week since I've posted! I'm sorry. I've just been so into the nail art lately, that I've been wearing it longer than usual.

Day 13 of the 31 Day Challenge is animal print. I chose leopard print. I can't even put into words how much I love leopard print. I love wearing a leopard print blouse with a pencil skirt. I have a leopard print fleece blanket that I love snuggling up with in the winter. If it has leopard print on it, I want it. But, I've never done a leopard print mani before. I was always so intimidated by them. As it turns out, they're much faster, and much easier then I expected. The nice thing is, even if you don't have a steady hand, it can still turn out nicely.

The base color I used is Barefoot by Bonita. This is a really lovely nude color. The first coat is pretty transparent, but it evens out really nicely with the second. It's also really shiny - it reminded me of a jelly because of the shine. Maybe it's one of those creme-jellies. At any rate, it applies really smoothly, and I loved this color against my skintone.

You guys, I'm so happy with how these turned out! For the spots, I used Cappuchino by Santee and NYC's Black Lace Creme. Basically I just painted random blobs, and outlined those blobs in black. Like I said, I was so pleased with how easy it was. My BFF said they looked like printed nail polish strips, not something hand painted, so that made me happy. I'm more into natural leopard print colors, but I can't wait to play around with other colors on my nails. What's your favorite color combo for leopard print?

Recently, I ordered a plethora of things online to send to Nicole in an upcoming swap. I also got a few things for myself, because I have no self control.

I ordered a bunch of mini candles from B&BW. 3 for $5!

Sorry for the blurry photo. New B&BW scent, Kleencolor Winter Wonderland, NYX Carnical, Kleancolor Chunky Black Holo.

Hope your week is going well!

Stripes!

Today has been one of those days where anything that can go wrong, has gone wrong. Murphy's Law at it's finest, folks.

It started when I woke up, and went to the Ulta website to partake in the fabulous Butter London buy one get one free deal. By nine o'clock this morning, they were completely sold out! Like, not a damn nail polish available. Not even a couple lonely reds. NOTHING. Okay, fine, probably better for my wallet - I moved on.

Then, since a friend's birthday is coming up, I decide to make cupcakes. I have one box of cake mix left, which had expired about a year ago. I figure, you know, it's just powder, no biggie. So I start mixing ingredients. It calls for three eggs. I crack the first egg, and as it's falling into the bowl, I notice the egg is bad. I've never had this happen before, but I could tell it was not like a normal egg. It was a weird consistency, and it smelled BAD. So that batch goes in the garbage. I'm feeling okay, because I can just make cake batter from scratch! That seemed to go well, but the cupcakes NEVER BAKED. Like, I had them in the oven for over a half hour, and they just baked halfway, and then got lazy and didn't want to bake anymore. UGH. No cupcakes for my friend. And no cupcakes for me. Lots of cupcake batter for the trash can.

Now we move on to the nail polish related shit. It's Day 12 of The Challenge, and that means stripes! I do a Google search for some inspiration (see below), put some Ghost Hunters on, and get to work. I decide to use a white base, and blue stripes. Well, my white has officially gone to shit. It needed three coats, which is pretty typical for whites, but it just would not dry. I think I smudged half of my nails! Then I added the stripes, which just did not go well. I quickly took it off. Then I decide to go with a soft pink instead of the shit-tacular white. And things went slightly better.

The pink I chose is the cleverly named Pastel Pink from Models Own, sent to me by Nicole at Top to Toe. This polish actually applies really well for a pastel. It's on the thicker side, but not oh my god so thick! It just takes two coats, and then it's nice and smooth! It's so cute! I wouldn't typically consider myself a pastel pink kinda gal, but there's something I love about this color against my skin.

After the pink base, I added blue stripes. I chose Ski Teal We Drop from OPI, one of my favorite polishes! It's not quite as stark of a contrast as it was against the white, but it still works. I then added cute heart decals, also sent by Nicole. You can see that the color smeared off the hearts because of the top coat. Bit of a bummer, but not as noticeable in real life. I do wish I had a steadier hand, but I suppose if I did stuff like this on a regular basis, I would. I did have to do a couple nails over - Murphy at it again! - but overall I'm pretty happy.

 

This is what I based my mani on. Pretty cute, right! Do you think those are striper decals, or does this person just have an insanely steady hand?! Or maybe they're those nail polish strips or whatever?

I was going to end this post with a video from the Brendan Leonard Show (which I'm sure none of you remember) about Murphys Law, but I couldn't find that. So, here's a different one!

Brown & Blue Polka Dots

I'm on to the patterns portion of the 31 Day Challenge. Day 11 is polka dots. I chose Seafoam by Love & Beauty and Miss Mole by Gosh.

Seafoam is a frosty light blue. It's very late 90s/early 2000s. It seems like something Buffy or the cast of Popular would wear. I found it at Forever 21 recently, and it called out to me from under the flourescent lights. I love it. Even though it's kinda dated, and the nail blogging world pretty much collectively hates frosts, I love them because they're dated. They remind me of middle school and Lip Smackers and choker necklaces. Seafoam applies pretty easily. With two coats it's lookin' good. Except for my index finger, I know. I bumped it and it smudged, and since I was gonna put dots on top, I said fuck it. $2.80 well spent.

Miss Mole is, as of now, one of my favorite polishes!  The wonderful Nicole at Top to Toe sent this to me. This gal is a one coater! She also applies so smoothly. Plus, she reminds me of delicious warm drinks like coffee and hot cocoa. It's a very chic autumn color, and I imagine myself reaching for it a lot this season.

I love the way these colors interact with each other, but... I don't know... I'm just not feelin' it. It doesn't look so bad in the photos, but I'm just not in love with it. I think I'd like it more if the dots were smaller. It was my first time using the dotting tool Lindsay at Nailtopia sent me, and I must say, it went pretty well, despite they're size. I'll have to experiment more, as I do love polka dot nails in general.

And on that note, in honor of the greatest show ever created, I present some screen caps of Popular. If you haven't seen this show, do yourself a favor, and see it! Most people have no idea what I'm talking about when I bring the show up (perhaps it was cancelled after only two seasons because I was the only viewer!), but seriously, people, one of my favorite shows of all time!

Good night!

Red & Gold Gradient

I'm up to Day 10 for The 31 Day Challenge! And Day 10 is gradient nails. For this look, I was inspired by Rebecca's gradient nails, which can be seen here.

Here we go. So, first I started with a base of Burgundy by Santee.

At my previous job, we sold Santee polishes for a buck. I got 50% off, and really should have purchased more. Burgundy is an appropriate, albeit not very creative name for this polish. My favorite color - a deep, berry red. The application process was not great. The polish was pretty thick, and I kept smudging it. It also seems to want to hang out in my cuticles, no matter how much acetone I use in clean up attempts. My apologies for that. I used two coats for opacity.

Next, I sponged on a light coat of Sea How Far You Go from Nicole by OPI.

It's hard to give an accurate description of how applying it went, considering I only sponged one coat on. But it did sponge on easily! I love the antique-y feel this polish has. So pretty!

Next, I sponged a coat of Sally Hansen's Set the Stage over Sea How Far You Go.

The glitter pieces were a bit hard to pick up, but with the sponge it was easier. I imagine it is sort of a pain using the brush to apply this.

Overall, I'm really pleased with how this turned out. It's sorta regal and Elizabethan-y meets gore and goth meets glitz and glam. For a while I thought it seemed too Holiday-like, but today it reminds me of Gryffindor, so I guess it depends on my mood. A friend of mine really loved them, and said they need a matching fancy party dress. What do you guys think? I can't wait to try more gradient manis like this!

You might have noticed my nails are shorter than they were last post. A couple nails broke on my right hand, so I took that as an excuse to chop 'em all down. While I like how they look when they are longer, especially for the blog, I do feel much better with them shorter. They're so much more comfortable at this length. When they're longer, I feel like they're in the way, and I never really get used to them. I know that my "longer" is pretty short for a lot of nail bloggin' ladies - I have no idea how you guys do it! But, I am glad this mani looks good even on shorter nails, because I worried it would look odd.

Today I had my interview with that gallery. I think it went okay. It was pretty short, and not very discussion-based, but hopefully I make the cut.

Also I think I'm developing a dairy allergy. Bleh!

What have you guys been up to?

Rainbow Nails!

Now The Challenge is getting to the fun stuff! Post 9 is rainbow nails!

 

So, for my rainbow manicure, I decided get a lil' skittle on you guys. I think it turned out pretty darned cute, and the colors work really well together. Given that I'm doing this Challenge to use more of my untrieds/unphotographeds, they're all colors I haven't shown before. I somehow managed to get dust all over my nails between painting and photographing them, so do me a solid and ignore that!

Here's what I used:

ELF Mango Madness - A lovely coral color! I used three coats, as this seemed to have some jelly qualities. It's so pretty, and it's begging me to use it as a full manicure.

Nicole by OPI One Voice - A shimmery yellow. I was going with a creme theme, but I realized I'd chosen a shimmer too late! This was sort of streaky and thin, so I used three coats, but it wasn't impossible to work with. It's a very pretty color, and I love that it leans a little mustard.

OPI Who the Shrek Are You? - Lime, but not neon, colored creme. Surprisingly easy to work with. This was two easy coats.

Essence My Boyfriend's Jeans - What a stupid freaking name. But what a pretty color! The first coat seemed a little gloopy, but it all evened out with the second.

OPI Done Out in Deco - LOVE this polish! A really lovely lilac creme. Super duper easy to work with. Absolute perfection in two coats.

What do you guys think?

Today is the last day of my long "weekend," and I am so not looking forward to going back to work. This weekend has been a nice combination of productive and lazy.

I got myself a caffeinated lil treat today, and sat my butt down to work on more grad school stuff. I also found out I am a finalist for a Solo Exhibition Program at a local gallery here, so I have been working on stuff for that, too. Crossing my fingers I make the cut!