china glaze border mani

Here’s my last mani for the January N.A.I.L. linkup!  The week 4 theme is BORDER MANI.

I’m wearing a couple polishes from the China Glaze Happy Holiglaze 2013 collection.  It’s actually a three-pack from that collection called Dash of Dazzle.  I chose the two metallics of the bunch because OMG I love metallics lately!  But also, because the other one called Bells Will Be Blinging has bar glitter, and well, I’m not a huge fan.  Maybe some other time!

First I applied one coat of So Blue Without You.  It’s so bright and vibrant!  Then I applied the gold polish called Mingle With Kringle.  So much gold foil goodness!  When I applied the gold I made sure never to touch the base or sides of my nail.  But I did pull the gold polish all the way to the tips of my nails (which makes the border look like a horseshoe), which isn’t a biggie… because then I just hand paint little strips of blue onto my tips to make the blue border reach all the way around my nails.  It’s actually done in no time at all- with no special tools required.  Just the bottle brushes. 

This manicure is a little crazy-looking, huh?  It didn’t come out quite as expected.  I think the metallic finish blurs it so my border isn’t very crisp.  But it was super quick and it’s very eye-catching, so I can’t complain!

Since January is almost over that means the February Linkup themes will be coming out soon!  Keep your eyes peeled this weekend for the announcement!

In the meantime, here are the galleries of January nails…

6 – 12 January – Health and Wellness :

13 – 19 January – Inspired by Pinterest :

20 – 26 January – Opposite Day :

27 January – 2nd February – Border Manis :

Abstract Fall Leaves based on a tutorial

First I wanna say that there’s only about two hours left to enter my giveaway!  Get your free entries in right here!  Sometime tomorrow I will announce the winners via email, and I’ll put out a blog post too.  Can’t wait to pick the winners!  Good luck everyone!

The prompt for week 2 of October’s Nail Art Ideas Linkup is Autumn Trees.  I’ve had so many great ideas for this theme and decided on an abstract leaf design that MrCandiipants came up with.  You can see her youtube tutorial here.  Someone commented on the vid and said that the design looks a little weird on square nails- so I wasn’t sure how I would pull this one off!  Then yesterday, I had a major nail snafu on my thumb!  I had to file the side of my thumb nail way down after a section of it cracked off.  😦  I was being a scaredy-pants but I managed to file my nail to a semi-stilletto shape to disguise the break.  It came out great!  I loved the way my pointy nail looked!  So I did my other thumb too just for spits and giggles.  I’m really contemplating making all my nails stilletto.  But get real Jac…. who am I kidding?  I won’t have the guts!  But my new thumbnail shape is a great reason for me to try out MrCandiipant tutorial now.  Well, on two nails at least.  So here we go!

I used a variety of colors for the leaf design…and it was a little hit and miss.  I changed my mind a few times and in the end I wound up using similar shades to what Candiipants used.  Here’s a list of my colors:

dark orange ♥ Art Orange from AVON

light orange ♥ Orange Creamsicle from AVON

yellow ♥ Inspire from AVON

green ♥ Limelight from Ulta

teal ♥ Read my Palm from Sephora by OPI

black ♥ Liquid Leather China Glaze

Is it okay that I only did my thumbs?  I really didn’t know how to make the design look nice on my other square nails… so the others are painted nice and simple with Kalahari Kiss.  I’ve been dreaming of getting Kalahari Kiss for a while now…. and when I recently placed an order on Cherry Culture I had to add this one to my cart.  That site sells China Glaze real cheap!  I think it was $3.99 and I had a discount code so I made out like a bandit!  Kalahari Kiss is one of those fugly kinda colors… but I’m so glad I got it.  It’s versatile, smooth and opaque and will be very handy for nail art I think.   Believe it or not, I only needed one coat for this mani.

Here are the other prompts for October.  Join in whenevs!

30th Sept – 6th Oct Breast Cancer Awareness :

7th-13th Oct Autumn Trees :

14th-20th Oct Things That Go Bump in the Night :

21st-27th Oct Treats and Sweets :

28th Oct – 3rd Nov Hallow E’en :

DIY Glequins… sorta!

I’ve seen so many cute nail designs online lately using glequins.  (A glequin is a big piece of glitter that’s kinda like a sequin.)  For some reason I haven’t purchased any yet!  I don’t have a lot of beauty supply stores near me so I’d hafta order them online.  Since that hasn’t happened yet- I decided to make my own!  You can too if you have a polish with kinda big glitter pieces in it!

All you do is simply dab some of your glitter polish onto your work surface (glossy paper works great for this technique).  No- I didn’t dab it on my kitteh’s face- this is a cut up piece of a kitty wall calendar (repurposed work surface post). Then grab a toothpick or dotting tool and fish out some of the big pieces of glitter.  It’s as easy as that!  Sure, you waste a few drops of polish… but now you have a bunch of glequins set aside for your cool nail art ideas!

Check out my glequin creation below!  For this design I painted my nails with 2 coats of China Glaze Westside Warrior which is a nice funky army green.  Then I painted two coats of glitter polish on top called Get Carried Away! by China Glaze (but I kept my ring finger plain in preparation of my glequins!)  Then I painted some clear polish on top of my green nail (to make a sticky surface) and I strategically placed my glequins on top using my dotting tool.  Quick, easy and fun! 

What a creative way to make good use of your glitter polishes!  Check out your glitter polish stash- you may have a bottle that would be perfect for DIY glequins!  (When Monkeys Fly by OPI comes to mind!)

Neon Nails

Day 22 of Julie’s Nail Art Challenge is all about neon nails!

For this mani I used 3 of my absolute brightest polishes:

China Glaze ♥ Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

China Glaze ♥ Sun Worshiper

Cynthia Rowley ♥ Un-named Pink

I also sponged some of the colors over each other – just to blend it a little bit.  Maybe that’s why the french tips look more coral than pink.  I can’t believe how bright this is… plus, it was super-quick and easy.  What great no-fuss look for the summer!  I think I’m ready for my vacay now please! 😀

If you recognize this nail polish then maybe you’ve seen my water marble nails from last week!

Yellow Sponged Tape Mani

Day 3 of the Nail Challenge is today… and the theme is yellow.  I had to brainstorm a lot for this design, mostly because the majority of my yellow polishes suck!!  They are not very opaque and do not work well for nail art.  Why does yellow always have to be like that??

I decided on a white base coat of NYC Nail Enamel in French White Tip.  Then I taped some random criss crosses onto my nails using striping tape.  Then I sponged some different shades of yellow on top using little pieces of a cut-up makeup sponge.  I like cutting my makeup sponges into much smaller pieces because it’s less messy and easier to apply that way.  After I peeled the tape off I was left with this cool white and yellow cross hatch design.

I was inspired to do this mani by viewing this: Wacky Laki- Striping Tape and Gradient.   If you are into tutorials then you will love this page of hers… it’s chock-full of pretty stuff!

Here’s the yellow polishes I used:

China Glaze ♥ Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

Wet n wild ♥ The Wonder Yellows

Sally Hansen ♥ Mellow Yellow

Nicole by OPI ♥ My Favorite Gold

View the other participants designs here! 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I finally attempted my first water marble!  I’ve watched so many youtube videos on water marbling that I thought I might ace the technique on my first try.  Well, that was a good theory.  I did have some issues… mostly because of water temperature I think.  I used filtered water as everyone suggests, but my water may have been too cold because the polish didn’t spread out over the surface well.  Also, I found that not all polishes behave the same way in water.  I had to eliminate my white wet n wild polish because it was being a huge P.I.T.A. !  After 4 or 5 tries with different temps and polishes-  this is what I came up with.  Not too bad for a first timer I suppose.  I love all the Irish colors!  Oh, and if anyone has any marbling tips- please leave me a comment!

Hope everyone has a fantastic St. Patrick’s Day!  I will be cooking a turkey.  It’s not traditional at all, but I felt the need to cook this weekend and that’s what I had in the freezer !  My boyfriend is busy painting so I will occupy myself in the kitchen.  No St. Patty’s pub crawl for this girl!

Sally Hansen ♣ Golden-I

Sally Hansen ♣ Emerald City

China Glaze ♣ Westside Warrior

AVON ♣ Orange Creamsicle

Morning Burst

I’m calling this manicure Morning Burst because it was inspired by my Clean & Clear facial wash that I use every morning.  How corny is that lol?  Sometimes we find inspiration in the strangest places.  My orange and yellow pump bottle of Morning Burst has a cute dotted sunburst design on it and I wanted to simulate that.  I changed up the color combo a bit as you can see- I wanted an excuse to use a bunch of my favorite polishes all at once!

I enjoy dotting designs because they seem less intimidating than free-hand painting.  I’m always afraid that my free-hand work will come out like crap.  Keep in mind that I live with a man that could arguably be one of the most talented painters in the US today…  so I might have a slight inferiority complex or something.  I stuck to dotting tools for this design and I think it came out cute!  I will probably take it off before I head back to work tomorrow though.  It is a little crazy- and there’s just so many colors in here that I doubt I will find a coordinating outfit lol!  Here’s a list of the polishes I used …

GREEN ♥ China Glaze Westside Warrior

YELLOW ♥ Sally Hansen Yellow Kitty

PINK ♥ China Glaze Dance Baby

NAVY ♥ China Glaze First Mate