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….

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

owl water slide nail decalsAnd 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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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↓

black and green ivy and owl nails

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

black and green nails with a bird on a wire

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!  ♥

November NAIL Widget

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.

don't pretzel my buttons by OPI

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.  🙂

Thanks for reading and see ya soon!

Nail art that never made it to the blog!

Greetings from Oregon! I haven’t been doing much nail art since I’ve been on vacation. My nails are a hot mess right now! Is it just me… or are your nails hard to maintain when you are traveling? Any polish I put on chips in less than a day, and I’ve broken three nails too! What’s up with that? I brought all the essentials with me- nail file, buffer, cuticle butter and nail strengthener. I’m trying my best to always keep polish on them and to moisturize, but I’m getting chips and my nails feel weak. I filed them down quite a bit last nite but they grow like weeds in the summer… so luckily, no one will even notice. 🙂

In lieue of some new nail art, how about some old pics that never made it to the blog?? I wasn’t happy with them at the time….but they may be worth another look-see! Here we go….
halfmoon_black_teal

↑ Here we’ve got a cool halfmoon design I made with some nail guide/french mani stickers.  And it’s my rarely seen right hand!

metallic_nails

↑ Just messing around with my bronze nail striper.  I have a few of those special bottles of striping polishes… but I don’t use them much.  Some have gotten goopy, others have wonky brushes, and I’d rather just use regular polish and a nice nail striping brush.

owls_nail_art

↑ I tried out an owl tutorial but I think the colors I used didn’t highlight the design so well.  I ended up re-doing it here and I think the second try came out better.  But still, this one’s kinda cute!

rainbow_striping_tape↑ With this one I was going for a sheer rainbow design using striping tape and a sponged gradient on top.  But I didn’t use a base color- I applied the tape on my bare  nails.  It looked pretty, but when I removed the tape there was too much bare nail showing where the tape strips met on the right side of my nail.  So I tried covering it up with glitter stars.  But the stars were more transparent than I expected…so I kept adding more stars.  And then a flakie topcoat.  I tried too hard with this one, and it didn’t exactly pay off!  lol

I’m curious… how do your nails hold up when traveling?  Please tell me I’m not the only one with issues!

And hopefully soon I can post my SAND-themed mani for our Nail Art Ideas Linkup!  I think I have enough supplies with me to pull something off!  Til next time!