Springtime Stained Glass

Fun stuff to share today! I bought a random plate off of eBay a bit ago that looked like it would have patterns (finally) big enough to cover my entire nail surface. And boy, was I right!

 Taken in direct sunlight with cell phone.

A full size design means that I finally had the opportunity to try out a stained glass design! For anyone unfamilar, you stamp your design like normal then use dotting tools to fill in the blanks. Add a coat of topcoat to connect everything, let it dry, then peel it off and ta-da! You have a awesomely colored decal that can be attached with a bit of top coat. 

Polishes Used 

Funky Fingers Riot

Fresh Paint Dragon Lady

Fresh Paint High Voltage

Pure Ice Free Spirit

OPI Fly

L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented

Windians 2015!

A day late for the home opener, but this is the ridiculously awesome look I've been rocking this week!

Taken in natural daylight via cell phone.

I've done two past looks for opening week-- here's what I had for 2014 and here is 2013. I've got a good feeling about this year. New talent, an awesome bullpen, and a shiny new stadium redesign. As for our batting game... eh...

Polishes Used
Funky Fingers Gesso
Julie G Cherry on Top
Pure Ice All Night Long

Surprise! My Wedding Nails!

Yeah... so remember like a month and a half ago a bit ago when I mentioned I had one more Halloween manicure left to share and also had a big surprise? Well it's finally here!

Both taken in natural daylight.

I got married! YAY! This is the manicure I rocked for our Halloween wedding. I've got the something blue, ghosties to keep in the Halloween spirit, glitter, and romantic text... it's the perfect package! :D

I used the "make your own decals" method for this, which entails painting topcoat on a plastic baggie, tracing your design in polish (in this case, I did all the letters), cutting out the design, then adhering with topcoat. I added the hearts and ghosties using my dotting tools then added small smiles with a detail brush.

The wedding itself was performed at the local courthouse with just our families present. Sean & I have been dating since high school (7 years!), so it was just a matter of time before we actually got married. :P And we did it! The craziest part is that the next day we moved out into our own apartment, which explains the delay in posting. We've only just got officially settled into our routine and I finally found the motivation to post. Woohoo! So it'll be back to nails for a bit... up next is Thanksgiving!

Polishes Used 
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
Salon Perfect Baby Blues
Daring Digits Holyfire

Swatch: Salon Perfect's Silver Sparkler

Hello! I've got a swatch I wanted to share of a fantastic top coat from Salon Perfect (which actually lives up to its name!). 

Taken in natural daylight.

Look at all that glittery goodness! This is Salon Perfect's Silver Sparkler from their 4th of July collection and it's fantastic! Application was easy and just one coat delivers a gorgeous mix of holographic silver glitters in two sizes. The be honest, my picture doesn't do this justice... it was so much more sparkly in-person. I added one and a half coats over Dragon Lady and it was lovely! 

Polishes Used 
Salon Perfect Silver Sparkler
Fresh Paint Dragon Lady

Bold Vs Featuring Zoya Phoebe and Jancyn

Hi there! Today I've got a bright and bold design to share, featuring two Zoya shades and some stamping.

Taken with cell phone in natural light (in my car!)

I started this off with Jancyn (which always looks streaky, even after three coats!) then stamped an arrow design on top using Atomic Poppy and my Pueen stamping plates. Then I used some striping tape to create super sharp Vs with Phoebe. I love the matte/shiny/neon/contrasting colors going on here! Woo!

Polishes Used

Zoya Phoebe

Zoya Jancyn

Funky Fingers Atomic Poppy

Dark and Moody Modern Dots

Hey there! Today I've got a look to share that I did over winter, featuring YouPolish's STARdust. STARdust is a deep purple jelly-ish polish with teal, magenta, and darker blue glitters thrown in the mix. There's also larger star and circle glitters that I had trouble getting on the nail, but I love the look without them just as much as with them!

Both pictures taken in artificial light.

I accented with some colorful dots to pull out the glitter shades. Definitely a modern look with beautiful deep colors!

Polishes Used

YouPolish STARdust

Zoya Neve

Sally Hansen Plum Power

Sally Hansen Marine Scene

Gold & Glittery with Zoya and Glitterfied Nails

Today I've got a glittery look to share with you! Despite being a silver person, I can't get enough gold nail polish!

This look features Neve with my go-to gold, Ziv, providing an accent. I topped everything with a coat of 24 ct. Gold and ta-da! Sparkly and definitely gold!

Polishes Used
Zoya Neve
Zoya Ziv
Glitterfied Nails 24 kt Gold

Cloudy Fingers?

Hi there! I've wanted to do a cloud mani for a while, so here's my attempt! I definitely learned a few things with this...

Taken in indirect natural light.

1. LET THE POLISH DRY - My tips were gooey for a while. I should have let them dry more between coats.
2. Don't use a frosty polish... it shows bumps too easily.
3. Make sure that the brushes are actually shaped for this. The Sally Hansen brush was too flat for doing this easily.

Polishes Used
Broadway Nails O!Jessica 
Sally Hansen Plum Power
Zoya Neve

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Manicure

Hey there! Today I've got a look the celebrates the new Captain America movie, which Sean and I saw on Thursday night at the first showing. I won't give away any spoilers, but let's just say it was awesome and makes me wonder about the future landscape of the Avengers and Captain America's future. Anywhos... on the nails!

Taken near dusk in natural light... check out all that reflection! :D

We've got the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo, Cap's shield, the Winter Soldier's arm, and Hydra's logo. Not gonna lie... my thumb is completely naked because I couldn't decided what deserved the final spot as a fair representation of the movie (I was leaning toward a heart, because woe is my shipper's heart). Still, this was super fun to do and let me try out the make-your-own "nail sticker" technique. It's a cool concept but a bit difficult to execute. But it does give me something to do with my horrible (maybe fake) Essie topcoat! Woo!

Polishes Used

LynBDesigns Sacré Blurple

Zoya Dakota

OPI Your Royal Shineness

Sinful Colors Bleeding Heart

Sinful Colors Black on Black

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Play Ball! 2014 Cleveland Indians Nails

It's about time! Baseball season is back! YAY!!! Just like last year I did a mani featuring my team, the Cleveland Indians.

Taken via cell phone in natural light.

This year I skipped the water marble in favor of a bold color-block look. Recently I switched top coats to Essie's Good to Go top coat. I'm not sure if I got a bad batch or if I bought a dupe off of eBay but I am not impressed. It smudged the shit out of my colors even though they were all dry and my tip wear is ridiculous. Blech... we'll see.

Products Used
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
Sinful Colors Bleeding Heart
Pure Ice All Night Long
Chief Wahoo temporary tattoos

Blue and Purple Glitter Bomb, Featuring Broadway Nails Seduction Night

Hey there! Today I've got a look that was super difficult to photograph, but was ridiculously stunning in-person! It also features my first Broadway Nails polish, which I received as a gift from my aunt.

Taken in artificial light.

I started off with a coat of Mirror, Mirror which is a gorgeous blue shimmer with a purple duochrome (which unfortunately didn't translate to the nail that well). I then topped it with 1 1/2 coats of Seduction Night and painted some freeform triangles with an outline.  

Taken in natural light.

This looks was so sparkly! The first photo shows the design a bit better, but the bottom one is more color-accurate. Unfortunately, neither pick-up all the sparkle!

Polishes Used
Funky Fingers Mirror, Mirror
Broadway Nails Seduction Night (#4)
Milani Purple Outline

NOTD: Blue Mix-n-Match Featuring Zoya Polishes

Hello there!

Today I've got a quick look for you that I freehanded using some of the blue shades I have. I didn't realize it, but I actually have a lot of Blue Zoya polishes (which is strange, since I only have about 8 of their polishes!). In addition to the three below, I also have Zoya Natty, which I used as a base in this swatch post.

Taken in natural, overcast light.

I kinda mixed glitters and matte in this mani, and went with a silver & blue scheme. I heard that a lot of others were having staining issues with Liberty, so I was super careful to layer it over other polishes. This was my first experience with textured polish and I'm kinda "eh" about it.

Polishes Used

Thumb- 2 coats Zoya Twila over Color Club Chelsea Girl + topcoat

Pointer- Chelsea Girl over Zoya Phoebe with silver glittter accent of Color Club Fine Silver

Middle- Zoya Liberty over Phoebe with Fine Silver accent

Ring- Liberty on the very tip over Twila over Chelsea Girl + topcoat

Pinky- Liberty over Chelsea Girl, just to prevent staining + topcoat

NOTD: Blue Watercolor (and a New Nail Shape!)

Hello all!

I've been really intrigued by the stilleto/ pointed nail shape recently and decided to give it a shot. I carefully filed my normally round nails into semi-points and tried them out for a week.

Here they are! Nothing too crazy, but definitely something different. My verdict? Not the shape for me. It felt weird to have a different place of pressure on my nails and fingertips. I have to do a lot of typing for my job and it didn't feel that great to type with these. 

In direct sunlight.

That being said, I couldn't stop looking at this mani! The cool shape was intriguing and the watercolor pattern I chose was beyond gorgeous in person.

In the shade.

Colors Used

Funky Fingers Blue Duochrome (No name on the bottle!), 2 coats for the base (it flashes blue/green)

Funky Fingers Venom

Pure Ice All Night Long

Funky Fingers Riot

Funky Fingers Mirror Mirror

Starlight Polish Starlight

1/2 Pearls from Born Pretty Store

Nail Fail: Dragon Glitter

Introducing a new segment! Nail fails!

Because everyone's put something on their nails and gone, "Ew. This looks horrible!" Here we go!

In the sun!

In the shade!

So here we have a combo that I thought would look awesome! But I forgot how sheer this glitter is. And the base color, Dragon Lady, had a purple shimmer in the bottle that did not show up on the nail. Boo! I just didn't like the way this turned out. Oh well!

Polishes Used

Fresh Paint Dragon Lady

OPI Divine Swine

Happy 4th!

Happy Fourth of July! Here's a quick mani I did for the 4th!

I started with a white base, then free-handed the blue tips. I added some striping tape to outline the red Vs, then painted on the red. Once everything was dry, I stamped on the stars & arrows, added some top coat, and boom! Fourth of July nails!

Colors Used
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
Sinful Colors Bleeding Heart
Pure Ice All Night Long
Bundle Monster Stamping Plates- the crappy first set of them with ridiculously small patterns

It's that time of the year- NEONS!

Happy first day of summer everyone!

I've got a special set of swatches today... these are (80% at least) colors I won from Possibly Polished's giveaway! I won a set of Color Club minis from the Poptastic collection as well as green apple ChapStick and some great product samples. I seriously love the nail blogger community... there's always a giveaway somewhere that you might win! Anywhos- on to the polish!

Ugh. I clearly forgot to moisturize before snapping this pic. Ick. Before I go and label each of these shades, I would like to note that I can't find the polish names that were included in the 4-pack of polish. The bottles are unlabeled and from what I can tell, the packages contained a random sampling of 4 shades. That being said, I've made my best guess based off of other swatches floating around the internet. From pink to blue, we have:

Color Club Jackie Oh!
Color Club Koo Koo Cachoo
Funky Fingers Highlighter
Color Club Feelin' Groovy
Color Club Chelsea Girl

These were swatched without a white base and, with the exception of Highlighter, took about 3 coats to even out (Highlighter took at least 6!). Like most neons they were streaky for the first 2 coats and dried to that strange almost-matte-but-not-quite finish. Picture is with topcoat in the sun.

NOTD: Berry Princess

Hello there! Today I've got a girly look to share... a beautiful array of berry-colored glitters in a milky white base, with a tri-colored V half moon, finished with a heart rhinestone! Whew!

Basically, I started with a coat of white polish to make the Burrrberry pop then waited for it to dry. Then I did a basic tape manicure to mark off the V on my nail, painted it blue, waited for it to dry, then outlined in pink and purple. Finally I added some topcoat, a rhinestone, then more topcoat to finish the design.

See now? This is what happens when I have a lot of free time to do a manicure. We get more complex designs that take some time to do (waiting around for the polish to dry takes For. Ev. Er!) Looking at my pictures, it looks like my flash brought out the larger glitter in Burrrberry underneath the Vs... but they weren't noticeable in person. Weird!

Polishes Used
Sinful Colors Snow Me White (as a base coat)
Jindie Nails Burrrberry
Funky Fingers Guitar Solo
Milani Draw in Pink
Milani Purple Outline
And heart rhinestones from Born Pretty Store!

NOTD: Rich and Royal Split

There's just something that speaks to me about these two colors... a rich fuchsia and a beautiful royal blue. I split my nail with both colors then finished off the look with a purple glitter line.

This look is a probably better suited for Fall, but too late! I wore it in spring. Muahaha!

Polishes Used
LynBDesigns Sacré Blurple
Funky Fingers Power Play
And loose glitter bought off of eBay

Swatch: Glitterfied Nails Diamond Ring

So I recently bought a few minis from Glitterfied Nails and decided to swatch them for you here! This is the first of the polishes, Diamond Ring. It's a gorgeous combo of iridescent glitters that shine all sorts of colors in a clear base. Below is one coat of Diamond Ring over Zoya's Natty.

Formula wise, this was super easy to work with and required no dabbing. The base is rather thin and manageable (especially for a glitter polish!). You can really see the shift of colors in the 2nd picture; there's green, blue, orange, and gold from what I can mostly see. I plan on wearing this over pink for a delicate, girly look... but I can't wait to wear it over some black too!

Manicure Monday: GO INDIANS!

I am a HUGE baseball fan, and my team of choice is the Cleveland Indians! Today marks their home opener against the *glare* New York Yankees. In celebration of another year of baseball I went with an Indians manicure.... water marble and dots, with Chief Wahoo and glequin accent nails.

Polishes Used:

Sinful Colors Bleeding Heart

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Pure Ice All Night Long

Chief Wahoo temporary tattoos [x]