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

 

Snowfetti Sandwich

I distinctly remember trying to make a wintery jelly sandwich this same time last year. It was right after the holidays, early 2013, and I tried probably 4 different white jelly sandwiches (all of which were complete fails and they never made it to the blog)!  But in the last year I’ve accumulated a few (ahem) new polishes… so let’s try it again!

I wanted my jelly sandwich to be white, shimmery, and with some slight multi-colored glitter effect to look like snowflakes.  Let’s see what I came up with…

It has many layers (8 layers to be exact), but I love it!  I will call this my snowfetti sandwich.  It also pairs perfectly with the winter weather advisory that we’re having in upstate NY right now!

Here’s what I’m wearing…

♥ Sally Hansen Maximum Strength (one coat) as my base coat

♥ OPI Alpine Snow (one coat) as my white base color

♥ Funky Fingers Jawbreaker (one coat) for some colored glitter w/a creamy base

♥ Wet n Wild Megalast Break The Ice as a sheer white topper (three coats)

♥ OPI Lights of Emerald City (one coat) for some fun square glitter on top

♥ Seche Vite topcoat (one coat)

I just love Lights of Emerald City by OPI!  It’s probably my favorite glitter topper ever!  My boyfriend’s mom got it for me for my birthday over the summer and I’ve worn it three times so far on the blog.  The square glitters in there are so unique, and the fact they’re white helps soften them so they blend perfectly into your manis.  I hope OPI keeps making glitters like this one!

A quick FYI… the January Nail Art Ideas Linkup themes are coming out real soon!  So keep your eyes peeled for the announcement!  The January N.A.I.L. linkup will start Jan 5th 2014.   

Nail Art Ideas Linkup- Astrology Theme

I’m excited for Nail Art ideas Linkup.  First off, I’ve got a fun cancer astrology manicure for the last week of september.  And second, we’ve got some great themes coming up for October so stay tuned for those!

I’m pretty into astrology, you?  My sign is cancer and I really identify with it.  I feel like many of my traits and cancerous.  Wait, that doesn’t sound so good, but you know what I mean.  Cancer is a water sign and is closely associated with the moon.  Good colors for cancers are sea green and silver so that’s what I went with for today’s NAIL manicure.  Cancer is also associated with opals, pearls and moonstones… so I incorporated some pearl-like studs in my mani too.

I’m wearing two coats of Orly Jealous, Much?  My middle finger has pearl studs and silver sponging.  My ring finger has a hand-painted brown cancer symbol and some silver sponging as well.  But I really like how my thumb, pointer and pinky fingers came out.  I dabbed on some white square-shaped glitter called OPI Lights of Emerald City.  Then I sponged some teal Sinful Colors glitter over top which hid the squares a bit and it gives a really neat layered appearance.  The Sinful Colors glitter is called Nail Junkie and I was super impressed with how glimmery it was!  I got it back in July for my birthday (from my mommy!) but I haven’t tried it til now.  It reminds me of mermaids- I’ll have to reach for it again soon!

I’d love to see more astrology manis for NAIL.  You have til Sept 29 to submit one.  Here are the links!

Day 15 of OMD Challenge- Heart Nail Art!

I can’t believe we are half-way through the July Nail Art Challenge!  It’s a lot of work to consistently put out original nail art designs every day- but so worth it, right?  Day 15 is all about HEARTS and I have a cute purple design for you today!

I started with two coats of Butter London Scoundrel which is a nice dusky purple.  A few of my nails I topped with two coats of an OPI glitter called Lights of Emerald City.  Since that OPI glitter is white I decided to make some white hearts on my other nails to pull the design together.  FOR THE HEARTS: I started with my Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in black.  I am loving this pen and just ordered two silver ones (do I see a giveaway in Crafty’s future? Yes, yes I do!)  I drew the hearts on with the black pen and then dotted inside the hearts with NYC white nail polish. Since I used my skinniest/smallest dotting tool it was easy to position the white inside the black heart shapes.  I like the way that they have a nice black outline around them now.

Do any of you guys have a white textured polish, like maybe OPI Solitaire?  If you use that to fill in the black heart outline then I bet they’d look like cute little PUFFY HEARTS!  Wish I had a white textured polish like that!

Do you use nail art pens?  They’re handy to have!  Mine is from Sally Hansen but I wonder how the other brands work….

You can view the other heart designs here:

15. Hearts :