Glitter for #NAILLINKUP

Just in the nick of time!  Here’s my GLITTER themed manicure for the February N.A.I.L. Linkup.

I re-sized my pics in a different program and they look a little blurry.  Buuuut I’m happy to say that I was able to take these photos outside in natural light this time!  Some of our snow has melted and I’m venturing outside again.  I emphasize the word SOME when speaking about the snow melting.  There’s still a lot on the ground! Oh, and we’re supposed to get another snowstorm on sunday nite.  Sweeeeet.  Cuz it hasn’t snowed in like what?  At least 5 days now ?

• I’m wearing one coat of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails as my basecoat.
• I used one coat of Seche Chic as my nude transparent base color.
• I applied blue painters tape to section off my tips.
• Painted my tips a dark brown shimmery color from the Kardashian Cabana Collection called Sunrise.
• Then I applied three coats of my sparse glitter topper from wet n wild called Stick it to the Man.
• One coat of seche vite topcoat to smooth it all out.
• Then I realized it needed something to pull it all together so I added blue dots of Nicole by Opi Pros & Confidence.  Much better!

The last time I wore this brown Kardashian color I was disappointed.  The brush was all weird and defective and application was difficult.  I wrote to the Kardashians and Kim promptly mailed me a new one!  Ok, I didn’t write to THE Kardashians… I wrote to their company.  And the ACTUAL Kim didn’t mail me a new product, instead some girl in their customer care department named Kim did.  But still… it was pretty cool, and I appreciate their good customer service.  Here’s the other time I wore this brown: Feathers for Oct NAILLINKUP

February N.A.I.L. is almost over but tomorrow we’ll announce the March themes.  Can’t wait!  And here are all the awesome nail art entries from February.  Talk soon…

Red :

Valentines Day :

Gradient :

Glitter :

Black Roses

The theme of Day 29 of the nail art challenge is ‘inspired by a song’.  The song I have chosen is a reggae song by Barrington Levy called BLACK ROSES.  Here’s the song on youtube.   I love this song!  It’s part of my reggae playlist and iTunes says that I’ve played it 42 times… but I know it has to be way more than that!  I love how he says Oh Ay!  at the end of the verses.  It totally gets stuck in my head!

I used the Konad M53 stamping plate along with my Konad special polish in black.  And my lovely pastel pink polish is my new Wet N Wild Megalast called Sugar Coat.  I got it at Walgreens and made out like a bandit.  I got 5 polishes all for the low price of $7.22 total!  And one of them was an Essie flakie topcoat from the luxeffects collection that was on sale for $2.00!  Thank you Walgreens!    I am enjoying this mani- sometimes it’s nice to go with a simple stamp design.  It’s quick and easy and the color combo came out so delicate and feminine.  Oh Ay!

Ruffian Manicure

Day 13 of the Nail Challenge is Ruffian !  I freakin love Ruffian manis!    I also love that it makes me wanna speak with a Jamaican accent.  Not sure why… maybe because it reminds me of the word Ragamuffin which makes me think of Reggae music and stuff IDK?  RRRUFFIAN MON! 

This mani was pretty simple- here’s what I did:  I started with a black base of Ebony Hates Chris by wet n wild.  Then I taped my nails off with some french manicure nail guide stickers and applied my contrasting 2nd polish called Sweet Pea Dream by AVON.  I peeled the nail guide stickers off slowly to reveal the ruffian.  A topcoat smoothed it all out and bam-  a sexy ruffian!

Even though the technique is pretty simple- I actually did this mani over the course of two days.  See, I’ll admit that I’m very impatient when it comes to waiting for nails to dry.  When I start painting, I wanna paint all the way through to the end without stopping.  And since I planned to do my ruffian with tape, that means that my black base needs to be completely dry before I apply the nail guide stickers.  The thought of waiting for my black to dry and hoping I don’t mess up my tape job due to still-tacky paint causes me undue stress.  So to avoid all the anxiety and sitting around waiting….I painted my nails black, slapped some quick-drying seche vite on top and called it a day.  I rocked the black nail polish by itself for a day and got some compliments on it so that’s cool!  The next day I applied my nail guide stickers and then painted my 2nd color to finish my ruffian.  This process worked well for me since it eliminated the risk of screwing up my tape job and it allowed me to wear two different manis over the course of two days.  Win, win!

This look is so fresh- it’s like a rebellious french mani!  Classy and wild all at the same time.  I’m in love.

Butterfly Wings

I had a lot of free time last night and sat down with my box of very old polishes that I never use.  I rummaged through them and tried out all my spring-iest colors.  The AVON Retro Rose floored me!  In the bottle it looked matronly, but once applied it morphed into this stunning peachy pink with gold shimmer!  I sponged on some Sinful Colors Lagoon which is a sheer orange shimmer.  This polish must be very old- check out the retro bottle in my bottom pic!  The peach and orange looked great together and then it hit me- MONARCH WINGS!  Yes!  Time for me to try out butterfly nails!

Butterfly wing nails have been one of my favorite looks ever since I got interested in nail art.  They’re breathtaking and have been on my to-do list for a while.  I’m so glad I finally tackled this project last nite.  I guess I just needed the perfect base color to inspire me!

I used some black wet n wild polish and a sephora nail art brush to freehand the black wing outline.  The design was very forgiving… I didn’t even have to wipe it off and start all over again –  you girls know what I’m talking about, right?  Here’s the list of polishes and tools that I used….

I love it.  It will break my heart to have to take it off once it starts chipping!  And in case you are wondering… yes, that IS snow in the background of my pics.  We got another bad storm last night in NY.  Will it ever be spring?  Probably not.

Ruffle Nail Art

I’m so excited about this nail art technique called Ruffle Nails! Every nail fanatic needs to try this- it’s easy and has lots of wow factor.  All you need to do is grab your favorite polish shades and a dotting tool (or bobby pins) to make some over-lapping rows of dots (it helps to use the largest tool you can find so the dots aren’t too small).  If you’d like to see a step-by step tutorial here’s a great one by Chalkboard Nails.  Now that I’ve discovered ruffles- I’ve got all these ideas swimming around in my head- neon ruffles, rainbow ruffles, black n white ruffles…  I want to try them all!

My first attempt came out much so better than I expected!  I casually worked on this design while sitting on the couch and I honestly didn’t try too hard.   I figured I’d end up taking it off with polish remover and then give it a real go later.  Well, I couldn’t believe how cute my test mani came out so I took some pics!  I used some of my favorite green and purple polishes here… and I think the matte topcoat really pulled it together nicely.  The variety of colors and the satin finish made my fingertips look like fimo clay! ↓

I went with a cool color combo of blue, pink and grey for my second design. ↓

One thing I like about the ruffle technique is that it’s so easy, you can even do a great job on your ‘other’ hand!  I’m right-handed so my left hand nail art usually looks good, and my right-hand comes out how should I say… non-photogenic? LOL.   Well, not with ruffles!    Try it out for yourself and let me know your results!

♥ Mood struck polish as my base (teal)

♥ Wet n wild I Need a Refresh-Mint (light green)

♥ Revlon Charming (light purple)

♥ OPI Dutch ‘Ya Just Love OPI (dark purple)

♥ Orly Gumdrop (light teal)

♥ MASH Matte Topcoat

♥ Orly Faint Of Heart as my base (grey)

♥ China Glaze First Mate (navy blue)

♥ Revlon Blue Slate (medium grey/blue)

♥ China Glaze Dance Baby (pink)

♥ Orly Kiss The Bride (light pink)

♥ Seche Vite Topcoat

Paw Print Nail Art

Winter Storm Nemo just swept through New England!  The snow started falling here in NY on Friday afternoon… and by Saturday morning we accumulated at least 12 inches of the white stuff!  Other states like Connecticut and Massachusetts got hit even worse.  The news reported that some people were even stuck in their vehicles on highways overnight until the roads became passable!  Luckily, we’re just fine here in the Hudson Valley.  It’s like a beautiful snowscape outside ….. and I kinda love it!

My kitty cat Fergie got curious about the snow too.  She ventured out onto the front porch and left behind the cutest little paw prints ever!  When I saw those little tootsie marks I realized that I’ve never tried paw print nail art before!  So I decided to test out some techniques today and I wound up with two different designs….

♥Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Platinum as a base color ↑

♥Wet n wild Fast Dry in Ebony Hates Chris for the paws

♥Sally Hansen French Manicure Pen in Pure White Tip ↑

♥Wet n wild Wild Shine sparkle topcoat in Kaleidoscope

♥Wet n wild Megalast Through The Grapevine for the paws

purple dream giveaway entry

I’m entering a polish giveaway that Luchessa is offering!  Her blog post entitled New Purple Dream Giveaway explains it all.  Basically to enter the contest I must post a purple nail design … and on Jan 21st the random winner will be announced.  Thank you to Luchessa for the chance to win!  Here’s the purple design I came up with….

I enjoyed using all purple polishes!  Who doesn’t love purple?  In real life this mani sorta has a 70’s free-love hippie feel.  Here’s the colors I used along with a makeup sponge and a dotting tool:

♥ OPI- Dutch ‘Ya Just Love OPI? as the base

♥ Sephora by OPI- It’s Hippo To Be Square for the sponged area

♥ Wet n Wild Megalast- Through the Grapevine as the flower petals

♥ Sephora by OPI- I Don’t Bite as the center of the flower

Good luck to all the other entrants!