MSMD Monday: Basketball

Hey everyone

How are you this wonderful Monday morning? Hating the world? Not me! I'm on vacation for the next week! Yes! So I'm super excited. Today's nails are from the vault. I did these originally for Selection Sunday, but history was made today so I had to bring them out. 

Today NBA star Jason Collins came out as gay. He is the first active NBA star to come out. This is such a huge deal to me. Usually a gay sports star doesn't come out for fear of losing his fan base or even locker room issues. To see Jason Collins come out gives me hope that others will stand up for themselves and come out, regardless of their professional statuses. 

Now on to the nails. Leslie over at Polish Art Addiction did these nails first and I totally copied. I couldn't resist, they are so cute. 

I'm going to be honest, I'm not for certain which polishes I used. I know the brown is Pure Ice's Magic and I think the stamp was from a Bundle Monster plate, but that's pretty much all I remember. Leslie's wonderful post is HERE. I hope you guys enjoyed her design as much as I did. 

Inspired by Pinterest

Hey everyone

I love surfing Pinterest. I spend way too much time on that website. Every once in a while I find inspiration on a board other than nail art. This time it came from a dress. 

http://pinterest.com/pin/172262754469200741/

This dress to be precise. I love the colors and the rose pattern. Sadly I have yet to purchase the 2012 Bundle Monster Set so I had to pick a different flower type. But I think I made it work. I started off with Love and Beauty's Camel. Then I used alternated stripes with Zoya's Ali & Wet N Wild's Blazed. I then grabbed OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls and tried it for stamping purposes. It turned out great. Which just means that I'm extra happy that I bought a 2nd bottle of MBSW. I used Bundle Monster's BM-205 for my flower design.

How cute were these? I think they turned out great. My favorite nail is my thumb. I love the way the colors are lining up and the stamp was perfect!

Feathers

Hey everyone

Today I have a gradient stamped mani for you. I was looking for a delicate design and when I think delicate I think of soft colors. I used OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls as the base. Then I sponged on Zoya's Dove followed by Zoya's Caitlin. At the time I wasn't sure if I was going to stamp it or not, but feather manis also scream delicate to me. So I used Bundle Monster's BM-214 with my favorite silver stamping polish, Pure Ice's Silver Mercedes. 

It wasn't a perfect gradient as you can see on my ring finger, but I like the imperfect gradients. The feathers stamped perfectly. I really liked this manicure. 

SWAK: Sealed With A Kiss

Hey everyone

I'm trying to catch up on all of my February posts. I didn't do a lot of nail art and even less posting. But I'm working on playing catch up. And I'm even doing a Stamped Sunday! Progress!

This was for a February Nail Art Challenge on Instagram and it was kisses. I knew I was going to do a SWAK design. I started off with 2 coats of my favorite white, OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls. Then I grabbed Wet N Wild's Ebony Hates Chris and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri's Wined Up. I grabbed Bundle Monster plates BM-201 for the chevron print & BM-02 for the lips. 

I loved these nails so much. They were so cute. I love combining stamps and colors together. The 2nd edition of the Bundle Monster plates still didn't agree with my thumb size so I had to turn it sideways. But it still works. :)

Tattoos like Rebecca

Hey everyone

It's not really a secret that Rebecca from Rebecca Likes Nails is my favorite nail blogger. I've followed her for a few years now. I only wish I was as talented as she is. A while back Rebecca did this design featuring tattoos. I didn't have all of the same stamps that she did, but I made due with what I had.

I started off with Love & Beauty in Camel. 

It's a perfect nude for me. I'm fairly certain they have discontinued this color, so when I run out I will be heartbroken. I have a hard time with nudes because I'm so pale that I practically reflect. Yet my hands are typically red around my fingers so I have to watch out for lobster claws. 

To achieve this look I used Wet N Wild's Black Cream and a few Stamping Plates:

• BM 05: Stars on Thumb
• BM 21: Smaller stars on Index
• BM 08: Anchor on Index
• RA 116: Rose on Middle
• SE 19: Butterflies on Middle
• RA 115: Wings on Ring
• BM 13: Cross on Pinky

The wings and cross are a little strange looking to me. But I really enjoy the other fingers. I finished of the design with a few extra stars and some dots all over. I hope you guys like this design. Check out Rebecca's fantastic work as well!

ACNC Day 18: Classic

Hey everyone

Today is a day 18 and it's Classic. This really took me a second to figure out what I wanted to do. Then I decided I wanted to do a half moon, but what kind? I didn't want to just do a plain one. So I looked through a folder of my favorite nails I've seen on the web. I then found The Nailasaurus' half moon she did for the Tadashi Shoji Nail Art Challenge. I knew I had to try them. It's very rare for me to see a stamped design and actually have the stamp these days. I still need the 2012 Bundle Monster collection. This mani features Bundle Monster Plate BM21 from their 2010 collection. Today I'm going to also show you step by step how to do this mani. I'm quite excited and I hope you are too!

Start off with your base coat. Then cut hole reinforcers in half. Put them on your fingers one at a time right above your cuticle line. I used OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls to cover anything that wasn't covered by the hole reinforcers. 

I then used Pure Ice's Celestial along with BM21 to stamp the design on my nails. Pure Ice is the go to polish when it comes to water marbling and stamping. I'm not sure what makes them so different from the bigger brands, but they are perfect for these techniques. I couldn't recommend them enough. And they are so cheap too! 

Once they stamp is done remove the hole reinforcers. This will give you a clean line. If you have any leakage from under the tape use a little bit of acetone and just wipe it away with a Q-Tip or brush.

Now you can leave it like this if you want. If you have longer nails you could even do this as a french manicure instead of a half moon mani. But I wanted to smooth everything out. So I then used a nail brush from my Bundle Monster nail brush collection and traced the line of the half moon with Celestial.

I'm quite in love with these nails. I know I've said that a bunch throughout this challenge, but I'm quite happy with myself. I haven't really done my nails a whole lot since I had my son, so I was worried I'd lost my touch. I think I'm only getting better. I hope I've done Sam justice and you guys like these! If you attempt this mani using my tutorial please send me the link to your nails, I'd love to see them! 

ACNC Day 10: Lights

Hey everyone

Day 10 was a fun nail night for me. I ended up using 2 different brushes and a ton of nail polish to completely this design. Day 10 was lights. Sounds simple right? Not quite. I thought I'd complicate it by drawing the Grinch as well. I haven't really done a lot of drawing simply because I'm a terrible drawer. When I was a kid I wanted to be an artist, I just didn't realize that you had to have an artistic ability. I guess I have fulfilled my childhood dream of being an artist though, just on teeny tiny canvases. :)

So I started out by drawing my grinch out on my nail, I had to redo it twice. So after that I decided to use PackAPunchPolish's Nail Art Doodle Sheets. If you haven't check them out please do so here. She created these sheets for drawing up to 55 nail designs a page on. My printer went haywire and blew them up so I had a bit of a hard time drawing on them, but to no fault of PackAPunchPolish. It was all my damn printer's fault. Anyway here's my drawing:

I don't know if you can tell but I totally drew it out with a pink pen first and then colored it in with nail polish. I'm not sure why I thought that would translate well, but in the end it worked. My nails are quite tiny so I ended up not making the hat, plus it looked a little lame. 

Here's the final product! I loved my nails, I thought they were adorable. Took me forever to do them, but it was totally worth it. 

Here's a lovely instagram photo of all of my supplies I used. 

1. Wet & Wild Megalast In Wet Cement
2. OPI in My Boyfriend Scales Walls (it's under)
3. Julep in Leah
4. Essence Colour & Go in Be Your Sunshine
5. Essense Colour & Go in Glamorous Life
6. Art Deco Long Brush in Black
7. Pure Ice in Silver Mercedes
8. Pure Ice in Hot Tamale
9. Essence Colour & Go in Trust in Fashion
10. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away
11. 2 Bundle Monster Nail Art Brushes
12. Bundle Monster Dotter
13. Chip Ahoy Cookie Lid
14. Paper Towels 
15. Onyx Profession 100% Pure Acetone (not pictured)
16. Q-Tip Precision Tip Q-Tips (not pictured) 

Wow! That was a lot for a manicure that I only wore for 1 day. Makes me sad thinking about it. But this won't be the last you see of the Grinch. I have plans to use him again in a mani coming up. Also feel free to follow me on Instagram @Tara825c. Be aware though, I post a lot of pictures of my son as well. He's too cute not to. :D

ACNC Day 7: Ornaments

Hey everyone

I've gotta say I miss color coding all of the days. Now we get to the fun parts, actual nail art! Day 7 was Ornaments. I was inspired by a design I saw on Tumblr. I can't remember the exact design now, I should have bookmarked it so I could credit them. It was ornament balls but the balls were at the tips. I have little nubbins right now so I decided to turn them into half moon manis!

I started off with taping my nails with hole reenforcers. Then I did 2 coats of Julie G's Chic Cipro which I have featured here.Then I went back in and carefully filled in the nude area with different colors. The above picture shows Zoya's Trixie, I will be going back and doing a complete mani of this design, I adore it so much! 

On my thumb I used Zoya's America. On my index I used Zoya's Ibiza. On my middle I used China Glaze's Lemon Fizz. On my ring I used Zoya's Trixie, and on my pinky I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri's Jumpin Jade. I love how half moon and french manicures always make my little nubbins look longer. 

I then used a long brush from my Bundle Monster nail brush set (that you can purchase here. It comes in a fantastic carrying case and has dotters!) with OPI's MBSW and made the top of the ornament. Lastly using a black striper I made the tread. Slap on a top coat and you are done! I loved how these turned out and I got quite a few complements as well.

ACNC Day 4: SILVER

Hey everyone

Day 4 for the Advent Calendar Nail Challenge was SILVER. I painted my nails with a base of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Wined Up. Then using Sinful Colors Silver Mercedes. I did a stamp design. Seriously Silver Mercedes is probably the best stamp polish I've used. I don't actually own polish made specifically for stamping.

This is probably one of my favorite stamps. I use it often with lighter colors for a subtle stamp. This is Bundle Monster Plate BM19 from their 2010 line of stamping plates. As you can see the plate is a little small for my thumbs but worked on all the other nails. 

Holy Glitter Batman!!!

Hey everyone!

The Dark Knight Rises comes out today! My husband is a huge Batman fan. So huge in fact that had I been asleep when they came in for the birth certificate, my son might have been named Bruce Wayne. Hubby is still trying to talk me into the name Robin if we have a girl later on. Anyway, I decided to decorate my nails for the movie, but before that I had to create polish of course!

Meet Holy Glitter Batman! This polish can be for sale if you'd like, but it will be limited edition at a first come first served basis. If you are interested than leave me a comment below and I can create a custom listing. 

4th of July 2012

Hey everyone!

I have a 4th of July mani just for you guys. I'm super excited. It's a variation of what I did last year. I'm really happy with it.

I love it! I started off with 2 coats of Claire's Snowball. Then with Pure Ice's Celestial and Bundle Monster Plate BM20 I made the blue stars. Then I took Pure Ice's Siren and Bundle Monster Plate BM20 to make the stripes. Lastly I took both Pure Ice polishes and Bundle Monster plate BM 201 to do the abstract firework design. Add in a coat of Wet N Wild's Kaleidoscope and top it all off with Seche Vite and you have this completed mani! A quick and easy mani for the 4th of July.

Hope you all enjoy it!