Avengers, Assemble!

Hi there! I'm a huge geek, so when Walmart had Avengers temporary tattoos for sale last year I had to buy them. I knew exactly what I was going to do with them, and last week's Age of Ultron premiere was exactly what I was waiting for!

Taken in mediocre office light via cell phone.

Bam! Awesome & easy Avengers nail art! The only thing that bothered me about this was the the Avenger's A was backwards... but what do you expect from cheap temporary tattoos? :P

Polishes Used
Jade Holográfico Psicodélica

Nail Fail for the Fourth!*

*Technically the Fifth. :P Happy (belated) Independence Day! I've got a wonderful nail fail to share featuring Salon Perfect's Starred & Striped.

Taken in direct sunlight... YAY Summer!

Starred & Striped is a matte glitter topper with red and white bar glitter and blue stars. I wanted to love this, I really did. I grabbed the bottle and internally debated about buying it... but the glitter looked so dense in the bottle I figured it's look great on the nail. Eh. This is three "coats" using the dab method. The stars came out of the bottle with some difficulty, but the killer is the inconsistency with the edges sticking up. Even with two thick coats of topcoat, I still had some star corners poking out. Disappointing!

Polishes Used
Salon Perfect Starred & Striped
OPI Your Royal Shineness

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

New Year's Glitter and Stamping: Featuring China Glaze Concrete Catwalk and Pueen Stamping Plates

Hi there! Long time, huh? I've been super busy at work lately and haven't had time to get around to blogging... but here I am! I'm back and I've got my New Year's nails to show you!

For Christmas my boyfriend gave me the 2013 Pueen stamping plates and my first ever China Glaze nail polish (along with a gorgeous OPI shade)! So I decided to highlight them both in my New Year's look. I stamped this design using plate #5, then added some glitter and mattified half the look. Kinda reminds me of fireworks or something!

Polishes Used
Sinful Colors Black on Black
OPI Your Royal Shineness
China Glaze Concrete Catwalk
Lush Lacquer Lite Brite
Color Club Black Striper

Glittery Halloween Skittle Skulls

Happy Halloween! Today I've got my third Halloween look that I wore this year-- glitter bomb skulls!

This was a bunch of free-handing... free-hand skulls, free-hand glitter placement, free-hand dots... free-hand! I used my dotting tools to glob out a general skull shape, dotted on some eyes and a nose, then used my black striper to add in teeth grooves. From there, I added silver dots to my other fingers, dipped my entire pinky into hex glequins, then hand placed random glenquins around the skulls. Very sparkly with just a touch of spooky! :)

Polishes Used
Sinful Colors Black on Black
OPI Your Royal Shineness
Sweet Heart Polish Scare-o-Lantern (as a base for all that glitter!)

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

Flip/Flop February: Day 23

Hello! Today for FFF we had lightning versus bows! I went with lightning and eh. I had an idea for this look that didn't turn out well in execution. But here it is anyways!

I started off with a black base with silver glass specks, then taped my bolts off and did a coat of silver magnetic polish, then finished with silver glitter. The variance looks a bit cool, but I think it's too monotone.

Colors Used:
Sinful Colors Secret Admirer
Layla Magneffect Silver Galaxy
Color Club Fine Silver

Flip/Flop February: Day 14

Happy Valentine's Day! Today's FFF choice was between French tips or Valentine's nails. I kinda did a combination of both... but if I had to categorize them, I'd pick Valentine's nails. Please, please ignore the shitty pictures. One was taken with an iPod and another was taken with my webcam. I loaned my camera to my parents for their trip to Florida and they don't get back until tonight. Anywhos... to the pictures!

The second picture has the accurate color for this manicure. I began with a shimmery nude color and a top coat of duochrome gold/purple flakies.  Then I did a basic silver tip with a bit of glitter over the top, then pink dots covered with purple dots, then purple hearts on my ring/pointer fingers. I finally finished the hearts with some spectraflair topcoat. I'm not sure I like them... but they'll do for now! ^_^;

Colors Used:
Sinful Colors Cotton Candy
Funky Fingers Riot
Funky Fingers Kiss the Girl
Hit Polish Cheshire Cat
Starlight Polish Starlight

Flip/Flop February: Day 13

Water color or sponging? That was today's decision! I'm not a huge fan of sponged looks so I went with watercolor. Lucky for me, Mom happened to pick up a bottle of acetone a bit ago so I was able to create this look quite easily. (Ignore the tip wear and dry skin... I took this after washing dishes!)

I chose a combination of greens and blues, with a little purple thrown in (it ended up looking blue anyways!). I then made the unfortunate decision of adding in a silver foil polish. Eh. It looked WAY better before I did that. Oops! 

Colors Used:
Blackheart Bright Night
Zoya Natty
Piggy Polish Ivy Leaf in Santa Claus
Funky Fingers Green (no bottle information)
Funky Fingers Riot
OPI Your Royal Shineness

Flip/Flop February: Day 10

Today's manicure is a special one! The choice was between fish tail braid or half-moons. I've wanted to try the braiding method for a while, but I didn't have the time to in this challenge. Therefore, here are some half-moons!

This manicure is dedicated to my Grandpa, who passed away last year. He commented once on a half-moon mani I was wearing, so I wore this look to celebrate that moment we had. <3

Colors User:
Sinful Colors Bleeding Heart
OPI Your Royal Shineness
Color Club Black

Flip/Flop February: Day 2

Alright! Time for Day 2 of Flip/Flop February! Today's options were stained glass or an accent nail. I took a look other stained glass manis on the web and I decided they were not my thing... therefore, today I selected to do an accent nail!

This is a simple design I did way back in the summer (see the green grass?!) with a sparkly silver accent nail. I really like this look and think I'll try this again soon with another glitter combo. 

Colors Used Include:
Petites Twilight
Glitter from eBay