Owl Always Love You

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I was in the mood for playful nails so I dug into my stash of nail decals for something cutesy. A while ago I had a giveaway that went bad because the company that sponsored it (moon sugar decals) never mailed my winner their prize. But since then, the company got a new guy running the show and he made it right by sending the winner her goodies months after the fact. He also sent me a bunch of decals to sample. Some of which are these cute owl designs. I paired them underneath a variety of nail polish colors to get this cool mix n match look….

I did the other hand a little different just for fun. I think the yellow nails are my faves.

And on each hand I added a polka dotted heart accent nail using Incoco brand’s ‘Perfect Accents‘ in BE MINE. Perfect Accents are small and inexpensive packs that contain only a few nail appliques so you can achieve a quick and easy accent nail!

I’m glad I did these nails when I did because the very next day I had my surprise bridal shower. I had no idea! I never saw it coming. I’m thankful I wasn’t wearing bare nails for that, especially since I was just coming from the gym and had no makeup on. At least my nails looked good! I’ll be walking down the aisle very soon (11 days to be exact), that’s why I’m calling this design OWL ALWAYS LOVE YOU. Til death do us part, my love! xoxo

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Pastel Peacock Nail Art using OPI Sheer Tints

Here’s another great way to use your OPI Sheer Tints…

Start with a white or light neutral base color.  Then do some nail stamping over top.   When that’s dry, light sweep some OPI Sheer Tints over top of your stamps to get this awesome effect!  One of the cool things about Sheer Tints is that they are so translucent you really don’t need to be neat or accurate when you apply them.  Yet the finished product makes people go “hmmmm how did you do that?”

Bird cage nails for #NAILLINKUP

Hey ladies!!  Here are my BIRD themed nails for our April Nail Art Ideas Linkup!

It took me around two hrs just to get the pics ready to post.  Ughh- I have been having mega computer problems with the new desktop I bought.  I purposely got windows 7 on it, even though at the time win8 was brand new.  Well, that pc would not connect to the internet.  It was so frustrating!!!  We tried every troubleshooting thing possible, and even shipped the pc back to HP twice, yup, TWICE, and they kept sending it back unfixed.  WTF!  After arguing with them for months we finally got a newer desktop the other day, which works!!!!!!!!!  Holy crap.  The internet. Thank God.  I feel bad, because I know they will probably re-furbish it and sell it to some other poor soul who will never be able to get it connected to the web either.  Regardless, I’m glad that lemon is out of our hands.  But now, I’m having a hell of a time adjusting to windows 8 on the new machine.   Navigation is weird and I hate the whole app thing.  Many programs try to open as apps and the functionality is limited and sucky.  I know what I want to do, but don’t know what to click to make it happen.  I had to watch a damn youtube video the other nite just to figure out how to shut the desktop down!  Hopefully I can get the hang of it.  If you have any windows 8 tips, please let me know!

Back to the nail art….I’m wearing a grey holo as my base color.  It’s called Weng Weng from Bobbie brand- I will have to post swatches soon since it really deserves it’s own 5 minutes of fame.  Then I made some diy birdcage decals using white konad polish and BM-407 stamping plate. I usually make my decals on plastic baggies, but this time I left the stamp right on my MoYou stamper, then colored the white birdcage in with a detail brush and Essie Butler Please.  Then I covered the stamp with seche vite.  It dried pretty quick, then I peeled it off the stamper and applied it to my grey nail.  Awesome.  I will definitely be doing this again.  I feel a tutorial coming on.  Some of my other nails are decorated with some blue rhinestones and one of my favorite glitter toppers- Lights Of Emerald City by OPI.

You should try a bird themed manicure too!  Here are the other nails from the april linkup–

7th – 13th April : Birds

 

what I’ve been up to….

1) This week’s N.A.I.L. theme is animals/pets.  I did these black and green nails a few days ago and although they look cool….  I decided not to submit them to the inlinkz for our nail art challenge.  I did stamping for these nails but for the NAIL Linkup I think I’d rather do some nail art.

On the left hand I did an owl accent nail using MoYou Pro 07 stamping plate↓

On the right hand I tried a ‘bird on a wire’ accent nail using that same MoYou Pro 7 plate ↓

The black that I used is China Glaze Liquid Leather and the green is AVON Garden Green.  The ivy on all the nails was stamped using MoYou Mother Nature 03 plate.  These are cute, but I’ll do something more original for the linkup.

Stay tuned to the blog !  I’m hoping to tackle some kitty cat nails for the ANIMALS/PETS theme!  ♥

2) This time last year I posted my Financial Aid Fingernails that I wore to the big federal aid conference.  Well, it’s almost time to do that again.  See, I’m a financial aid counselor so I have to keep up on the ever-changing federal aid regulations.  They change constantly, so my college sends me to a conference every year so I’m on top of it all.

last year’s Fin Aid fingernails

In fact, right now I’m working on editing non-disbursed direct loans to include the new increased origination fee that kicked in because of the sequestration.  This is a change that’s occurring in the middle of the aid year (mid-year changes are the worst)!   The new fees will only be a few pennies different, and since computers always round off the dollar amounts- most borrowers won’t even see a difference.  But the amount of work it takes for me to update all that in our system is quite a rigmarole!  The U.S. Dep’t of Ed keeps us aid administrators on our toes- I might as well be a ballerina!  Anywhooo, the big conference is right around the corner so I will be traveling out of town soon.   I painted my nails for last year’s conference using OPI Don’t Pretzel My Buttons (see pic on the left) but unfortunately, they chipped so fast!  I had to buy an extremely over-priced bottle of nail polish remover in the hotel gift shop, and then I proceeded to drag my boss all over God’s creation to find stores that carry nail polish.  She must’ve thought I was ridiculous, but she went along with it!  I’ll try not to push my luck this year, and I want to avoid all that hassle too.  So hopefully I can find some extremely long-lasting nail polish to wear.  I might go with textured!  I have a bottle of Pixie Dust in my untried’s stash so I should definitely try that, right?

3) I’m trying to get into better shape and I joined a month-long fitness challenge at work.  I’ve been hitting up the gym after work each day and I’ll continue to exercise like a fiend for a few more weeks still!  That means I don’t have as much time in the evening to blog.  So you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting as much during M-F.  But… I’m still painting my nails, and I will be able to catch up on blogging during the weekends!  I’m still in the groove, I’m just adjusting my blog schedule a bit I suppose.  🙂

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/14496030024134267/

Thanks for reading and see ya soon!

Nail Art Ideas Linkup (NAIL)- A GREAT READ

 

The final week of August’s Nail Art Ideas Linkup (NAIL) challenge is A GREAT READ.  If you’d like to do a manicure for this theme here’s more info and you can submit your design up until Sept. 1st!  Oh, and did you vote for last week’s NAIL Genius yet?  Everyone gets three votes!  Cast yours now!  

A Great Read?  Well, my most recent favorite book is from the Hunger Games trilogy.  It’s book #2 called Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.  It usually takes me a few months to finish a book.  But not this one- I whipped right through it (just like with the Hunger Games)!  After I finished book 2 I started book 3, but I stopped. Duh, right?!  I dunno, sometimes I like to wait to read a book ’til RIGHT before I see the movie.  It’s fun to have it fresh in my head when I go to the theater.  But that’s kinda dumb- I should go read Mockingjay like right now!!!!

I started this manicure the night before by preparing DIY nail stickers.  I’ve never made my own decals before- but I’ve been itching to try them and they’re perfect for a night when you wanna play with nail art but don’t wanna do an entire manicure from start to finish!  It turns out that these DIY nail decals were a lot of fun and they applied so much better than I expected!  Here’s how I did it…

I taped a plastic snack baggie to a heavy piece of cardstock so the bag wouldn’t move around too much.  Then I painted some mockingjay emblems on the baggie using a detail brush and cheap black nail polish.  I also tried gold, but that didn’t work well as you can see (there’s wiped-up gold smudges in the above picture).  Anyway, when I was done painting my mockingjay symbols, then I painted over top of them with enough clear topcoat to cover the design and maybe a little extra around the corners.  I let it dry overnight.  The next day I was afraid they’d stick… but instead, my stickers lifted right off the baggy.  They peeled right off without a hitch!  Then I cut them with scissors a little bit ’til they looked like they’d fit my nails well.

Once I had my nails all clean and bare, I was ready to paint them and test out my diy stickers.  I used one coat of Nail Envy and then three coats of L.A. Girl 3D Effects Nail Polish in Electric Coral.  When my thumbs were still tacky I placed my stickers on top of my orange polish.  Because my stickers were big they felt kinda wrinkly when I tried to wrap them around my large curved thumbnails.  But after a couple minutes they seemed smoother somehow.  Go figure?!  Then I covered them with a coat of seche vite and they looked so nice & shiny.  WIN!  For my other 8 nails- I stamped a flame design using Cheeky 52 plate (it only seemed right given the name of the book- Catching Fire).  I think they look wicked.

I can’t wait to try my own DIY stickers again! Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Check out the other manis for this theme here:

A Great Read- links open ’til Sept 1

Peacock Nail Art

I recently picked up some more Orly colors from their old Birds of a Feather Collection.  I loved this collection from 2011… but more importantly, I felt the need to hoard a few more of these old Orly bottles.  Have you seen the design of their new bottles?  They look so weird and different to me that I want to get my hands on as many of the oldies as possible! For posterity or something! 

One of my faves from the Birds of a Feather collection is the blue base I’m wearing here called Sweet Peacock.  Isn’t it gorgeous?  It’s the most electric aqua blue foil that I’ve ever seen!  I’m so glad I added it to my stash!

It seemed fitting to pair this polish with a peacock design. I did 2 coats of Sweet Peacock as my base color. Then I applied some chevron nail guide stickers and painted my tips with another Birds of a Feather Orly called Lucky Duck.  The rest of the gold, black, blue and purple accents were done with a dotting tool.  It was actually pretty simple! Here’s the colors I used:

blue ♥ Sweet Peacock by Orly

green ♥ Lucky Duck by Orly

gold ♥ Because You’re Worth It by L’Oreal

purple ♥ Eggplant Frost by wet n wild

black ♥ Black Lace Cream by NYC

These peacock nails are fun to wear!  I just love colors inspired by nature!  Do you own any of these polishes from the Birds of a Feather collection?

Owl Nails

I can’t believe the nail art challenge is coming to an end!  For me it felt like nail art boot camp (minus the calorie burn)!  It has been a ton of fun and I’ve tried so many new designs!   I hope I don’t lose my inspiration once it’s over!  For day 27 I must come up with some nail art inspired by a tutorial.  Sounds easy enough, but there are so many great tutorials- it’s so hard to choose!!!  I’ve been dying to try some OWLS on my nails so I was at least able to narrow my choices down a little!  The tutorial I picked is this great YouTube vid by Renierainyday.  She has such a cute accent- I’ve watched this vid a zillion times now- and she still makes me smile.  Her tutorial is great and all you need is a dotting tool and three polishes.

If you have tried owls before- please share your link in my comments.  They’re such a cute nail art design and I wanna see some more!