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

Summer Neons with Stripes featuring a Whole Lotta Funky Fingers

Hello! Today I've got a fun summer look to share using a new product I bought on an impulse: Salon Perfect's Nail Art Pen in White (702). This was my first time using a nail art pen to draw a design and I wasn't sure what to do... so I went with stripes! 

Taken via cell phone in horrible office lighting...

It's so hard to photograph neons, is it not? The colors in this are horribly off... but just imagine more "pop!" The nail art pen was super easy to use and only took two coats to be completely opaque. The best part is that when you mess up, a bit of rubbing alcohol wipes the design right off! Very simple and opens up the door for all sorts of possibilities!

Polishes Used
Funky Fingers Like Clockwork
Funky Fingers Atomic Poppy
Funky Fingers Pop Artist
Funky Fingers Power Play
Salon Perfect Nail Art Pen White (702)

Summery Flower Water Marble

Howdy! Today I've got a fun water marble look to share with lots of neon orange and pink! I accented with white dots and some nail stickers I bought off of eBay.

Taken in daylight.

I think I need to find a better container for water marbeling... none of my designs are super complex. Then again, I usually only do one cycle of polishes before I mix them up and dip. And I am a sucker for the double-dipped look (as shown really well with the orange over the darker pinks!)... maybe I don't need a new container! :P

Polishes Used
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
Funky Fingers Atomic Poppy
Sally Hansen Racy Rouge
Funky Fingers Kiss the Girl
Fresh Paint High Voltage

Remix! Berry Princess

I inadvertently created a look that was similar to something I had previously created.... so welcome to my first remix post! This is a remixed look of my Berry Princess mani that I posted over the summer. 

Taken in natural daylight.

I kept the V half moons (gotta love tape manis!) then added small blue rhinestones and half pearls to alternating nails. I think I like the original look more, where I outlined the Vs... but I didn't want this to look too much like the original and I didn't feel like outlining by hand. :P

Polishes Used
Sinful Colors Snow Me White (as the base color)
Jindie Nails Burrrberry
Zoya Aurora

Valentine's Nails: Two Looks To Share!

Holy wow, it's been a while! I swear I'm here... I've just been lacking motivation to post. Yuck. To make up for that, I've got two looks to share for Valentine's Day!

Taken in indirect sunlight.

The first look is my 2nd foray into the world of textured polishes. I won another giveaway from Paint Those Piggies! and this gorgeous shade by Julie G was one of the prizes! I knew I had to highlight it, so I used it for the main nail color and as an accent for the hearts (they're upside down in this picture, by the way!). I accented with pink glitter and silver dots, then left the textured parts topcoat-free.

Taken at dusk with artificial light.

Let me tell you, winter around here makes in nearly impossible to take good pictures! This is the second Valentine's look I've got-- a mix of pastel-y colors with some stamping and rhinestones. I need to practice color combos before I actually stamp... and need to buy an actual pastel pink. But this turned out pretty cute, so I'm fine with it!

Polishes Used (Look 1)

Julie G Frosted Gumdrops Crushed Candy

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

OPI Your Royal Shineness

Polishes Used (Look 2)

L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented

Fresh Paint High Voltage

Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet

Pueen 2013 Plate 001

Influenster: My Shining Moment featuring Sally Hansen Triple Shine

Hello there! Today I wanted to share with you the story of my first solo road trip/ business trip!

I drove by myself down to Columbus for a 3 day business trip at The Ohio State University, which I was a bit nervous about. I've never taken a trip by myself, stayed at a hotel by myself, or spent time with my boss for so long! :P

For some reason, the color is really off here...

Luckily I had painted my nails with Sally Hansen's Triple Shine polish in Reef-Raff, which made me relax about my nails. This stuff goes on in one coat (this is two because I missed some areas on the sides of my nails) and doesn't even need a topcoat. Look how shiny it is!

I also didn't have to worry about chipping my tips, which gave me the confidence to tackle all the hands-on work I had to do for iTunes U. And since it was such a simple look, I didn't have to face the uncomfortableness that sometimes arises from too much attention focused on my nails. All-in-all, wearing this made my trip enjoyable and allowed me to shine around my colleagues!

I received this complimentary item for testing purposes from Influenster. Want to join? Send me a message for an invite!

Manicure Monday: Pink and Purple Glitter

Hello there! Today I have a gorgeous mani to look at!

Taken in direct sunlight.

I decided to pair-up Scandalous with purple (a look I took from a picture I saw years ago on Tumblr!), then accented with more glitter and black studs. This picture is horribly, horribly color inaccurate. My purple is impossible to photograph and is much darker in person. Strangely enough, the Roxy is darker here than it is in person. >_< Stupid camera...

Colors Used:

Zoya Roxy

Funky Fingers Riot

Revlon Scandalous

NOTD: Pink, Pink, and Pink Glitter Bomb

Hello all!

Here's a quick look I did a few weeks ago. Please forgive the shitastic image... this was a last minute picture after I already had one nail chipping badly. That area of my pinky I have cropped out? Completely not covered in polish. Oopsies. ^_^; I was also sitting in the middle of a huge field without any lotion, so my skin looks a bit dry. Double oopsies!

Photo taken under overcast skies.

Colors Used

Fresh Paint High Voltage

Ooh La Lacquer Pink Wednesday

Hit Polish Cheshire Cat

NOTD: Summer Neon

Holy Cheesus, I swear I'm still alive! I have all these posts to make and the pictures ready, and yet I never seem to actually get around to making the posts!

That being said, here's a bright and happy summer look that I wore recently!

Taken in the sun. 

Taken in the shade.

I painted half my nail in one color, then chose another to fill-in the rest of the nail. Then I repeated the same color on the closer half of the next nail. That doesn't make much sense with words... just take a look! ^_^; 1/2 pink, 1/2 orange, 1/2 orange, 1/2 magenta, 1/2 magenta, 1/2 pink, repeat. Then I finished everything off with a glitter topcoat. Fun! 

Colors Used
Funky Fingers Power Play
Funky Fingers Pop Artist
Funky Fingers Atomic Poppy
Sally Hansen Perky Pink (#401)

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

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

NOTD: My First Attempt at Sugar-Spun

... and I'm not sure I like the technique. :/

What I learned while attempting this:

• Getting nail polish to dry quickly when you actually want it to is impossible.
• Once goopy enough, the polish then dries WAY too quickly.
• Some polishes don't work for this technique... I wanted to do a nice purple and green, but my purple just wouldn't "spin."
• It's impossible to get nice, thin strands.
• It was hard to get strands to cover the entire nail instead of just half of it.

Anywhos... here's what I ended up with!

Colors Used:

Fresh Paint High Voltage

Funky Fingers Green (no polish label!)

Hot Topic Holographic Star Polish (no polish label!)

Springtime look!

Hello! This is my contest entry for Nails by Kayla Shevonne's Indie Nail Art Contest. This look uses a polish from Jindie Nails and just screams springtime, right?

I started off with a white base coat, then dabbed on Candy Land. From there I free-handed some pink tips and outlined them in purple. Beautiful!

Polishes Used:

Jindie Nails Candy Land

Sinful Colors Snow Me White
Milani Draw In Pink

Milani Purple Outline

Flip/Flop February: Day 26

Alrighty! Today's FFF choice was between my favorite polish or a missed challenge day. Umm... who can pick out just one favorite polish?! Not me, that's for sure! So I went with a missed challenge: a mani inspired by a YouTube tutorial. 

I went with CutePolish's OPI Spotted tutorial using black over Zoya's Aurora. I had one hell of a time getting this to work! The spray hand sanitizer I had sprayed way too hard (not a "fluff" of sanitizer, but a jet stream!), which just shot the polish into a clump. Then I tried other spray items around the house, including hairspray, leave-in conditioner, and body spray. No, no, and no. I finally opted to screw on one of the pumps to a different bottle of hand sanitizer we had around here. It worked... kinda... the polish was just floating around the water and refused to transfer without slipping away from my nail. Definitely a look that needs a bit more practice... and better sanitizer! :P

Colors Used:
Zoya Aurora
Sinful Colors Black on Black

Flip/Flop February: Day 22

First and foremost, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! YAY! 

With that out of the way... today's choices for FFF were between mustache and plaid. I just cannot get behind the mustache trend that's popped up... so plaid it was!

Just a basic grey-scale color selection with a pop! of neon pink thrown into the mix.

Colors Used:
Funky Fingers Pop Artist
Petites Twilight
Color Club Black
Color Club Fine Silver
It's So Easy Stripe Rite White

Flip/Flop February: Day 21

Hmm... dots or flames? I went with dots! Please enjoy this cruddy toe picture... this was one of those last-minute manicures (er... pedicures) I had to do to fit into this challenge.

I still have to figure out how to properly use my dotting tools. It never seems like my dots are perfect/ uniform enough. 

Colors Used:
Funky Fingers Pink/Gold Duochrome (no bottle information)
Funky Fingers Kiss the Girl
Zoya Ziv

Flip/Flop February: Day 17

Alright... today's choice was between newspaper or delicate print. I went with the thing I've never tried before, newspaper, and eh.... I do not like this look. 

I went with the rubbing alcohol method. I tried a Japanese newspaper I had been saving strictly for this reason but the ink wouldn't transfer. Poo. So I went with the solution to the crossword puzzle from our local paper. As you can see, I somehow got actual paper to stick on my pinkie and the ink was kinda smudged. Ick.

Color Used: Covergirl #260

Flip/Flop February: Day 16

Hi there! Today's challenge was between animal print and stripes. I went with some neon stripes I did over the summer. Wow, are they bright!!!

I got a lot of compliments on these nails... I loved wearing them! :D

Colors Used:
Funky Fingers Like Clockwork
Funky Fingers Atomic Poppy
Funky Fingers Pop Artist
Funky Fingers Power Play