Dreamcatcher Decals

Today I’m wearing some more Moon Sugar Decals!  These are a cute dreamcatcher design that come 33 to a sheet as shown here.  BTW, did you see that I’m having an international GIVEAWAY where one lucky winner will get a $20 gift certificate for moonsugardecals.com ? Get on it!

Here’s how to enter my giveaway: a Rafflecopter giveaway

For this look I painted my nails with OPI My Vampire is Buff and I did a wood grain accent nail using my MoYou London nail stamping plate.  Then I put dream catcher water slide decals on the other nails.  Don’t know how to use water slide decals?  Here’s a step-by-step that I put together: DECAL TUTORIAL.  I followed the same application process for these dream catcher nails, except I also applied a very light layer of clear nail polish before sticking the decals on.  You don’t need to do that though.  They stick well enough from the clearcoat that you put on afterwards, but I just felt like trying it a different way.

I also used a dotting tool and some Wet n Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint to make some simple turquoise dots.  It only took a minute to place the dots, but they really transformed the manicure.  It gives a Native American feel I think.

I hope you like my nails and good luck in the giveaway! With a $20 gift certificate you could probably buy about 5 full sheets of decals!  If you win…. which designs would you pick from their catalog???  I really like their sugar skulls, but I also have some of their lotus flowers that I haven’t tried yet.  I got the lotus flowers from Julie at Short & Sweet in Texas.  We purchase different decals online and then mail each other little samples.  Julie and I are like an after-school-commercial… COLLECT THEM ALL, TRADE THEM WITH YOUR FRIENDS!  LOL

♥ If you place an order on moonsugardecals.com make sure to use my crafty coupon code 20OFFCN to save 20% off your order!!!  Code 20OFFCN is good til Feb 21, 2014. 

Holo Feather Motif (inspired by pinterest) for #NAILLINKUP

I love the N.A.I.L. theme this week : INSPIRED BY PINTEREST!  I have over 1600 pins (most of which are nails) so I had no problem finding a nail art pin that inspired me.  When I pin pics I always think “Oooooh I love this nail art design,  I’m pinning it so I remember to try it later!”  But do I ever try it?  NO.  See, this is why I love this week’s theme!

I tried one manicure and it was an epic fail, but my second one came out great!  Let’s see….

This handpainted feather motif was inspired by just1nail’s pin of her instagram pic posted here.  Something about her design really stood out to me!  I love how the opaque pastel feather stands out against the dark holo background!  So pretty and sorta retro. Thanks for the inspiration Paola!

I didn’t have the same polishes as Paola so I changed it up a bit. Here’s what I’m wearing…

♥ Duri Rejuvacote – one coat as my basecoat

♥ Zoya Payton – two coats as the maroon holo base color

♥ Wet n wild I Need a Refresh-Mint – blue accents painted with a skinny brush

♥ Seche Vite – topcoat

 

13 – 19 January – Inspired by Pinterest :

Thanksgiving feather nails for #NAILLINKUP

Today I’m sharing my last mani for the November NAIL Linkup. That means the announcement for the December themes is right around the corner! If you are getting in the spirit for holiday manis then you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled to the blog! Brijit and Jemma and I will be posting the themes real soon! And if you’re not into the whole ‘santa thing’ don’t worry – because we’ve got some non-denominational fun for you. That way you can make your nails as Christmas-y or Non-Christmasy as you’d like!

Here’s my week 4 mani for N.A.I.L. Linkup.  The theme is FEATHERS:

My two middle fingers are painted a deep brown shimmer called Sunrise by Kardashian Beauty.  This is my first time trying a Kardashian nail polish.  Not impressed.  At all.  The end of the brush bristles were cut at a slant so I couldn’t get a clean curved paint line around my cuticles.  I think the brush was defective.  Also, the bottle was sealed with a little bar code sticker that left an icky glue-y reside on the outside of the bottle.  I probably won’t wear this polish again.  Which is a shame since it’s a really nice dark color, but the brush really turned me off. UPDATE ON THIS DEFECTIVE BRUSH!

I painted some thanksgiving-colored turkey feathers over top of my dark brown Kardashian color.  My feathers were done in orange, yellow and green polish using what I like to call my ‘splash design’.   Then I painted little black lines inside the splashes to transform them into feathers.  I like doing splashes- they’re really easy for me to do and I like their retro feel.  You can see my other splash manis here and here.

The Kardashian polish was a pain so I painted my other nails with an OPI liquid sand called What Wizardry is This?  I think Liquid Sand applies so easily and has such a lovely texture.  That’s a good enough excuse for me to throw some texture in my manicure. 🙂  At first I was turned off by texture since you couldn’t use topcoat with it.  I am super impatient so I always wanna use quick-dry seche on top of my manicures.  But, textured polishes seem to dry very fast and also do not show dings and marks… so I’m cool with it now.

There’s still some time left for November though- so please feel free to add your manis to the inlinkz below.  Did you do a Movember moustache mani yet?  If not, I hope you jump on the bandwagon!  Or else you may have to wait a whole ‘nother year to do some seasonally-appropriate moustache nails. LOL!

Solar Eclipse :

Movember Moustaches :

Animals & Pets :

Feathers :

Silver Feather Fowl Play

Day 17 of Julie’s April nail art challenge is dedicated to 3D nail art!  I love that this nail art challenge makes me try new things. I don’t have a lot of nail embellishments in my stash so my best bet was to think outside the box!  I have a lot of jewelry findings and beads so surely I’d be able to find something to decorate my nails with.  When sifting through my beads I came cross these lovely silver-plated feather charms from Fire Mountain Gems.  I used to love these things!  I don’t make myself a lot jewelry- usually I give it to family and friends…but I made myself these aqua chandelier earrings with the silver feathers and they turned out to be my absolute faves!  I wore them all the time!  Until I lost them 😦   Here’s a pic of them on the left.  I really should make myself another pair… but first, lemme put these feathers on my nails!  I cut them with my wire cutting tool and secured them to my painted nails with a clear top coat.  They looked really awesome, but I kept scratching myself with them!  So I didn’t get to wear them too long lol.

If you are wondering about my purple base color… it’s called Fowl Play by Orly and it’s part of their Birds of a Feather Collection from 2011 maybe.  It has a dark purple jelly base with a thick suspension type formula… and it’s got all kinds of crazy shimmer, micro glitter and small flakies.  Lotsa colors in here!  I like deep complex colors like this.  In fact, the whole Birds of a feather Collection is beautiful- check out Orly’s promo shot for the collection.  Don’t you love this bright metallic peacock blue polish that the model is wearing?  I know this collection is old news… but this blue is so pretty!  And so is my purple Fowl Play- I hope you like it too!