MSMD Monday: Kite Tails

Hey everyone

Today I have a design from Paulina's Passion. She did these amazing kite tail nails that I knew would be perfect for Bow Day. What is Bow Day you ask? I started a new challenge on Instagram. The Alphabet Challenge. Today is B for Bows. Yesterday was A for Aztec but it'll be featured tomorrow for YTT. You can view Paulina's design here! 

Polishes used:

1. Zoya's Kristen
2. Zoya's Wednesday
3. Zoya's Katy
4. Zoya's Mira
5. Zoya's Paz
6. Julep's Something Blue
7. China Glaze's Fairy Dust

So what do you think? I love them.They were easier than I was expecting which is certainly a plus after working on a Monday. :) Hope you guys enjoyed today's Monkey See Monkey Do Monday.

Youtube Tutorial Tuesday: Saran Wrap

Hey everyone

Today I have a new type of mani for you. Have you heard of a Saran Wrap mani? It's where you paint 2 different polishes and while the 2nd is wet you dab some off with Saran Wrap balls. Sound confusing? That's what YTT is all about. I'd never done one before, but it was the challenge for 6/10/13 on Instagram (I know I'm a day late). So I went to Youtube and found the video below from GetNailedd.

Sounds super easy right? Well, not if you forget to buy Saran Wrap. So I had to use a pleated sandwich bag. Which is not as sticky, but still got the job done. 

I used Zoya's Wednesday and China Glaze's Mahogany Magic. To be honest I should have used a darker brown. I was going for the look of a tuquoise stone, and I still think I nailed it. What do you think? Have you tried the Saran Wrap (Sandwich Bag) Mani? How did yours turn out?

MSMD Monday: Mosaic

Hey everyone

Today's MSMD Monday comes from a French Blogger named Pshiit. Art really is universal. I didn't realize her entire blog was in French until I actually opened it and read her blog (instead of just searching her on Google). I do not speak nor to I read French so I went to Google Translate. It can really be a hit or a miss. For example, here is a direct quote from her page after Google butchers it, "I propose today a nail art rather easy to achieve if you are a little careful, but first I present the precious which I used to carry you!" It was okay at first, but the last part had me scratching my head. Seriously Google, get it together! I ended up just skimmed through the actual writing and looked at the pictures. The best thing about Pshiiit? She has little GIFs at the end of her posts that show tutorials for her designs. I love it so much, I could not resist remaking her mosaic nails. Pshiiit did a bright spring design, I did a pastel design for Mother's Day. This design uses striping tape! I recently bought a ton of striping tape on Ebay and I'm completely in love. Every nail artist should get striping tape, there's so much you can do with it!

I love how it turned out. It's so pretty and girly. It's very Mother's Day appropriate if you ask me. 

Polish Used:

1. OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls
2. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's Lacey Lilac
3. China Glaze's Lemon Fizz
4. Sinful Colors' Star Fish
5. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's Mint Sorbet
6. Pure Ice's Beware

Here's a link to Pshiiit's blog post. I hope you guys enjoy my design and Pshiiit's as much as I have!

May the Fourth Be With You & Revenge of the Fifth

Hey everyone

Can you tell what today's theme is? Star Wars!!! Yesterday was Star Wars Day and today is a little special too. I could not think of anything to do for these nails. I almost went with a Lego Star Wars theme. Until I thought of my nephew. He's obsessed with Angry Birds. He's played since it first came out and he's so much better at it then me. If I can't beat a level I had my phone to him and he beats it with 3 stars. He's a true genius. He became obsessed with Star Wars once they released Angry Birds Star Wars so why not!

I love how they turned out! I used a lot of polish for this one. 

1. OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls
2. Zoya's Ibiza
3. Love & Beauty's Midnight
4. Zoya's Sooki
5. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's Blue Me Away
6. Pure Ice's Kiss Me Here
7. Art Deco Long Brush's Black
8. Art Deco Long Brush's White
9. Sinful Colors' Star Fish
10. Nail Art Long Brush's Cocoa
11. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's Sun Kissed
12. China Glaze's Trendsetter
13. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's Black Out
14. Zoya's Trixie

So many polishes. I ended up having to go onto Youtube to see how to draw out the birds. Took me quite a bit to finish, but I'm so happy with the results. My sister showed my nephew and he said, "Oh my god. I can't believe she can do that. She needs to make Minoauk Pig and Boba Fett." Totally felt like a rockstar. Hope you enjoyed the nails! 

February Haul

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I've never done a haul post before! I collected a lot of polish this month so I thought it would be quite appropriate. Plus my quasi-resolution was to be a better blogger. This is my attempt. :)

So that's the entire haul. 21 bottles of polish, 1 mini-bottle of cuticle oil, 2 sets of nail art designs, and 5 nail art pens. I also received my February Nail Art Society box too which is why I have an odd number of polishes, I included the polished I received in this haul. I will be doing an actual review on the box soon. Before I get my March box, I promise!!!

So you saw that I bought white flocking powder. I saw this set at Rite-Aid and bought it too. Now I have black and white. I'm so tempted to attempt a zebra design, just not sure how I'd go about that. 

I got this set at Rite-Aid as well. It looks to just transfer with water. There are 30 sheets with 4 different designs. I'm quite excited to try this out!

I'm thinking my local Sally's received their Cirque du Soleil set late, because they have been trying to get rid of it. They've had it marked down buy one get one free for a while now. So I bought Creative Fantasy and Get Carried Away by China Glaze.

A few days later I went back to Sally's and saw they had new Orly bottles. The old bottles made Orly unique, now they kind of look like everyone else. At the same time, I like the new black lids. So if you bought any of the new bottles you go one of the old bottles for free. They literally had 2 boxes full of these polishes. Plus they received a ton of the cuticle oil by accident. So they were giving that away too. I got Snowcone & Des Fleures in the new bottle and Plum in the old bottle.

Did I mention I have 2 Sally's in my town? Yeah, I'm lucky. Expressionist Red came in my Nail Art Society bag. But I went to the other Sally's and they had a promo where you bought a bottle of Fingerpaints and got a cute little black purse free. I bought Micheltangelo & 15 Minutes of Frame And if you renewed your Sally's card you received any of their Ion Hair Products $8 and under for free, so I got a can of hairpsray too. I almost always walk out of Sally's with free stuff, :)

I cannot stress enough how important it is to check the end caps when you go to a store. The best deals are always at the end caps. And Target and Walgreens always have beauty stuff in their end caps. Target had the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Co-Balt Blue marked down to $1.78! Walgreens had Loreal in Tweet Me and Revlon in Jaded Night.

Walmart still had their new Pure Ice display up so I picked through it and found more polish that I wanted, of course. We have Over You, Never Satisfied, It's Complicated, and Sheer Luck. I've bought 9 or 10 of the new collection, I need to swatch them soon and post them.

I was at Walmart the other day and happened to look through this pile of mixed up polish that doesn't have a place in the racks. Tucked in the very back was this package. Sally Hansen Nail Art Pens are about $8 a piece and this pack came with 5 for only $10. I could not pass it up. It was the only one of it's kind and I had to have it. It did come with a Red that I already have and 2 Chartreuses, but I think for $10 I can make do. :)

I fell in love with Jindie Nails over Instagram. The polishes are so pretty. Then I saw Candyland with it's neon glitter, I knew I had to have it. So I start looking all over and see it at Llarow, but they are doing a restock soon so I go to Jen's actual Instagram to see what to expect, turns out she made a Remix to Candyland named Candyland Remix. So I not so patiently waited and as soon as I got my email saying it was in stock I bought it! I love this polish so much. The picture doesn't do it justice and that's kind of on purpose because I want to have it's own special post. 

Lastly I got these little beauties. I blame Let Them Have Polish for this purchase. She posted swatches on her Instagram and I ran right to Milani's website and bought 5 out of 6. The only one I didn't buy was the dark purple because the "fuchsia" looked pretty purple to me. You guys are going to love these, I can't wait to show you the swatches. They come in Tainted in Red, Yellow Mark, Aqua Splash, Spoiled in Fuchsia, and Shady Gray. 

So there it is! My entire February Haul. I hope you enjoyed it and I cannot wait to show off all of these polishes to you!

Wizard of Oz

Hey everyone

I am super excited. In exactly a month the new Wizard of Oz movie comes out. I love Wizard of Oz. I'm currently trying to read all of the books in time for the movie. It's been stated that Oz is going to follow the books where Wizard of Oz really didn't all that well. So in honor of the movies I'm posting my Wizard of Oz nails. 

First we have the supplies. Look at all of that! It's crazy that all of those polishes get used in one design. It took forever too. 

1. Sinful Colors' Pandora
2. Finger Paints' Romanticism Ruby
3. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away & Deep Blue Sea
4. China Glaze in Trendsetter
5. Zoya in Veruschka, Jancyn, and Dree
6. OPI in My Boyfriend Scales Walls
7. Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in Red and Black
8. Nail Art Brush in Brown

We have the Yellow Brick Road, Dorthy's Dress, Scarecrow's shirt, Tin Man's Chest, and Cowardly Lion's Tail. This took forever to be honest. I had to wait for each little piece to dry. But the final product was well worth it. I love these nails. I totally didn't want to take them off. I even did little witch feet on the other hand which is where the Finger Paints and Nail Art Pens came in, but they were awful. 

Sugar Spins

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Today's mani is a technique that I like a lot, but would really like to figure out an easier way to do it. Sugar Spins! They take me forever. I'd done them before for my Ugly Christmas sweater nails and this time I wanted to try it a different way.

I started off painting my nails black with Wet & Wild's Ebony Hates Chris. Then I started with my neon colors. One at a time I dripped some onto a lid and started spinning with a small dotter. I occasionally blew on it as well so it would turn goopy faster. Then I draped the strings over the black.

As you can see some of it was pretty messy. I used China Glaze's Rose Among Thorns, Color Club's Yell-Oh, Feelin' Groovy, and Chelsea Girl, and Mrs. Robinson. I put a top coat on it so it wouldn't smug as bad, but going to bed with thick sugar spins was not a good idea. Needless to say this didn't last long. Sugar spins look better without the top coat though. 

ACNC Day 14: Glitter

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Day 14 is glitter. Everyone and their brother has been obsessed with China Glaze's new Cirque du Soleil Collection. Me not so much. The problem? One of their polishes looks almost identical to one of my polishes. It's A Trap-eze by China Glaze and I Killed The Teen Dream by Tara's Nail Polish are both nude jelly polishes with rainbow hex glitter in many sizes. The difference between the polishes would be the amount of glitter. Mine isn't a huge glitter bomb. China Glaze's is a temperamental glitter bomb. I say temperamental because with all of the glitter in It's A Trap-eze there is major dragging if you aren't careful. Below I have comparison swatches both 2 thin coats. And I applied both polishes like normal, no special techniques for glitter bombs. 

See all that dragging? Most of the glitter goes to the tips of your nails. It's also not very shiny which is due to the dense glitter.

Next we have I Killed the Teen Dream. It's obviously not as glittery. It's not as milky and takes a thicker coat to get a milky base.

This photo shows off how shiny the polish is. 

I then used a nail wheel and swatched 3 coats. The bases are pretty much identical. The glitters are even almost the same. I like to tell myself that I was just ahead of the curve. :)

I do actually like It's A Trap-eze once I apply it "correctly". To achieve complete coverage without dragging or patches I recommend the dabbing method. This is where you get polish on the brush and dab in on your nails and smooth around to get the coverage you need. The only issue with doing this is that it's very thick and can take a while to dry. I ended up smugging my right hand pretty bad and had to start over on 3 nails due to the drying time. Once you do the dabbing method however?

Beautiful. It's built up to a grayish base at this point. It does feel a little strange due to the amount of glitter, but it's nothing a good top coat can't solve. Now for glitter I couldn't just leave it like that. I had to add some flair to it. So I used Sinful Colors' Blue By You and made drips. 

I've never done the drip design before and was quite pleased with my first try. I was completely inspired by Chalkboard Nails! Her drip mani was adorable. Sidenote: What is it with bright blue polishes having a weird smell? This one and a China Glaze polish I have smell awful!  

If you would like to purchase I Killed the Teen Dream please visit my Etsy shop here. And be sure to use HAPPYHOLIDAYS to recieve 15% off your entire order!

ACNC Day 7: Ornaments

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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 3: GREEN

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I know I'm like super behind on posting. I'm going to make sure to get all these out today. So if you have me on an alert of some sort I do apologize ahead of time. :D

Anyway. On the 3rd the challenge was to do GREEN nails. I was going to do trees or wreths but pine is coming up so I didn't. Instead I pulled out one of my VHTF polishes. China Glaze's L8R G8R. I used 3 coats on all of my nails. And then I used another HTF polish, Sinful Colors' Green Ocean.

Look at that shiny halo goodness. I like that you could still see the halo on the ring finger as well. I also found it interesting how the base turned a yellow-green shade with Green Ocean on top. 

Monkey See Monkey Do: Pinterest

Hey everyone,

I'm terrible about keeping a set schedule for my blog. I have so many swatches left to still post. Bag blogger bad! Anyway, today is Monkey See, Monkey Do Monday! I found my favorite pin on Pinterest and recreated it. And it took forever to search for the original creator. It made me happy to read that the person who actually did these nails was an professional nail technician and I was able to recreate them without their training. Here's the link to the pin: <Click Me>

China Glaze's Flip Flop Fantasy has taken off on Pinterest. Everyone and their brother who likes summer neons has repinned a swatch. So when I bought it at my local Sally's Beauty Supply on sale for $4.99 I knew I'd have to use it in my design. And I'm not a fan of yellowish looking gold so I used silver gliter. Sinful Color's Queen of Beauty to be exact. The chevron nail I did freehand with an Art Deco striper and Claire's Snowball as the base. I love these nails so much!

Flip Flop Fantasy can be a little streaky. I found myself having to go over it with 3 coats and the spot checking with a very thin 4th coat. Queen of Beauty has full coverage with 2 thick coats. I was very pleased with the ease of this glitter polish. It is also smooth and not rough like Milani's One Coat Glitters. I topped all each nail off with a coat of Seche Vete to seal it in. So shiny!

All in all this is my most successful MSMD Monday yet! Can't wait to do something for next week!

Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

Hi everyone! I have been trying to decide how to I wanted to do these nails. These are based off of the bikini nails by Top Coat It! and the dotted gradient by Amber Did It.