Nail Crazies Unite: Watercolor floral

Hello Readers!


This is my second attempt at the "watercolor" prompt for the Nail Crazies Unite group on Facebook. At first, I tried to use the acetone-and-nail polish trick to do some watercolor painting on my nails. It ended in failure, but I had an idea that I wanted to try out combining stamping and water decals.

I also had some really cute watercolor style decals that I wanted to try out.

This post kind of is an echo of a post I did a while ago, where I combined stamping with some hand-made decal sheets for a geometric galaxy look. I wanted to try it again, but with an improved method and with water decals.

I started off with a white base for my middle nails, and painted my pointer/pinky with the lovely Sinful Colors "Tealing Power" from the Stoned Crystal Shimmer collection that was released this spring.

BB-8 Standing By for Star Wars Day!

Hello Readers, and Happy Star Wars Day!


I've always been into the Star Wars franchise, ever since I was a little girl. My Dad introduced my siblings and I to the original trilogy, and I remember watching it with my brothers and being awed by the exciting adventures and bizarre characters. When I was in High School, the prequels came out and even though  they were terrible, everyone was excited about it and me and my geek friends ;) had viewing parties and everything.

So I couldn't let Star Wars Day pass (as I'm sure everyone has heard a million times, "May the 4th... be with you) without giving it a nod.

I decided to base my mani off one of the newer characters to the franchise, BB-8, mostly because he is cute and I like his color scheme. Also, I've already done R2-D2 nail art.

So, I started off with base of my favorite white, and used this sparkly black on my pinky/pointer, partly because it's called "faraway galaxy" and partly because, just like its name suggests, it reminds me of stars.

Simple Sunday 4/30/17- Musical Mani ft. Born Pretty and MoYou London Rockstar

Hello Readers!


Today's Simple Sunday features some adorable musical images! I fell in love with one of the new Born Pretty Store releases that features some super cute music themes, so I figured now was a good time to play with it!

Mani Re-do: Jungle Animals with Bundle Monster "Fuzzy and Ferocious"

Hello Readers!


Today's prompt at the #clairestelle8challenge over on Instagram is "re-do and old mani". This was an interesting prompt for me, because it's probably not something I would ever choose to do on my own. I decided to re-do one of my very first (actually my second) attempts at reverse stamping. Click this link if you'd like to see the original, but I'm warning you, it ain't pretty. You may need to scrub your eyes with bleach after viewing these nail fails. (I'm redoing the second mani on this link, not the first one.) I'm happy to say, however, that since that post almost a year ago I have learned so much and grown so much as a nail artist.

What I didn't know at that time, is that Sinful Colors "Call Me" is a terrible polish to try to stamp over. It eats whatever color you put on top of it. I also was in dire need of some lotion. ;)

So, I decided to re-do the mani with some of the same colors and themes, but more like how I would approach it now.

I really liked the monkey and flower images, so I decided to use those and then do some tropical foliage as a frame.

My base purple color is Sinful Colors "Lie-lac", which I applied two coats of even though it was looking pretty awesome at one coat and I probably could have left it there. I also decided to try stamping with the Sinful Colors/Kandee Johnson "Mint Chip" polish, and was pretty pleased with how it stamped.

26 Great Nail Art Ideas: Work-Appropriate Nail Art

Hello Readers!


Today's post is for the Crumpet's Nail Art/26 Great Nail Art Ideas Challenge, and the prompt is "Work Appropriate Nail Art." I debated a little bit about what I thought this meant; after all, I'm a stay-at-home Mom so really anything is appropriate for my job, but I thought I'd go with something classic for this look. I figured, what's more classic with red? Although all jobs will have different rules about fingernails, most wouldn't complain about a classic red polish.

I decided to pair my red with some black for a grown-up look, and stick with classic designs like lace and florals.

I started off with two coats of this Essie polish "Altitude Attitude", which was part of a Christmas collection and is in the mini size. I was pretty satisfied with the formula of this polish and I am liking how this color pops with the black stamping over it. For my ring finger I decided to go with a shimmery black instead of straight black; I used two coats of the Revlon polish.

My floral image on the ring finger comes from this newer Born Pretty Store plate; it's from their newest release. I find myself reaching for fillable florals a *lot*, so I figured it would come in handy.

My lace image comes from this MoYou London "Trend Hunter" collection plate. Now, you may notice that this is the smaller image plate, and my nails are getting a little bit longer right now. These images are currently too small for my middle finger nail, though they will still cover the pointer/pinky fingers, and possibly the ring finger. That's part of the reason I decided to do a french tip-esque look for this mani; you don't want full coverage anyway. however, I still could get away with using these smaller plates on longer nails by stamping the image twice to cover any missed portions. I've done this before with the lacy images and it's really hard to see where the two parts come together. It doesn't always work, but it does with most types of images.

And the finishing touch for this mani was the bands from this classic MoYou London "Frenchy" collection plate. I love this plate; it's really useful, but once again I find it difficult to use. It took me several tries to get good pick-up with these images and they are difficult to apply to the nail without messing up; just fair warning. I would still recommend it, with the advisory that it takes some extra patience.

I hope you enjoyed this look! After a week straight of wearing this mani during my vacation,  I was so ready for a change and I'm happy to have a fresh coat of polish on! Be sure to check out the other challenge entries in the link-up below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Obligitory "back from vacation" post :D

Hello Readers!


I just got back yesterday from a week-long vacation to celebrate my husband's and my 10-year wedding anniversary... which isn't technically until August but this was when my parents could come down and take care of our kids so he could whisk me away to a romantic getaway to our favorite place.... Disney World of course, because we have the tastes of small children. ;)

I did a lot of manis in advance to post while I was gone but I haven't been very active on social media for the last week because I was busy doing this...

(Seven Dwarves Mine Train)

And meeting him...

And having our marriage sprinkled with a little bit of magic...

...and having my man stolen by Daisy Duck.

We had an awesome trip but now I'm fresh out of pre-prepared posts so I'm a little off my regular schedule, but I'll be back with more nail art on Friday. Thanks for hanging in there with me and I hope you are having a wonderful week!

Simple Sunday: Carousel (ft. MoYou London Circus)

Hello Readers!


I'm here today with a Simple Sunday post that is actually quite simple this time. :) It's been a while since I've pulled out the lovely "Pinksicle" polish from the Kandee Johnson/Sinful Colors collection, so I decided to play with that a little bit and just add some simple stamping over it.

I kind of feel like that carousel horse on my ring finger it hard to recognize.... Maybe it's just me, though.

So Pinksicle is one of those polishes that, if you really want to, you CAN build up to opacity in approximately eleventy billion coats. I didn't feel like doing that today, so instead I used a very pale pink for a base and swiped a coat of Pinksicle over the top of it.

My images come from this MoYou London "Circus" collection plate. I love all the delicate carousel images on this plate- I think they are lovely and adorable. I'm still not 100% sold on that horse head profile, though- I thought it would be so lovely and delicate, but maybe it's a bit too detailed because to me it's hard to recognize.