Gold winter nails

I went to a wedding reception (for the same girl whose henna night I went to before) and did some gold nails for the occasion. Not much to say about these, just gold, stamp, tips, flower stamp.

What I used:

• The usual base and top coat
• Gold: Savvy Nail Lacquer in Golden Honey 627088
• Dots: Konad stamp plate m79 with Sally Girl "Poser 812051" (note to self-- I need a thicker black nail polish for my konad stamping)
• Tips: Nicole by OPI in "Razzle Dazzler" -- I used this instead of the Sally Girl black because I like the brush better for painting on tips.
• Sprinkles: Sally Girl 812070 (I love this stuff. I need to get some in silver)
• Flowers: Konad plate m4 with Konad white nail polish

Black tips, white hearts

Can I just say that I loved these nails? They were so frickin cute.

What I used:

• Top and Base Coats: The usual!
• Tips: Nicole by O.P.I. in "Razzle Dazzler" -- 2 coats by hand. 
• Hearts: Konad plate m56 with Konad white nail polish

Soooo cutie. I'm surprised at how good they came out... I'm getting better at painting on tips and my aim's improved as far as stamping goes. 

French Manicure

French Manicure, because I had a bottle of Revlon polish that I got from Big Lots a while ago, and wanted to see if it would make a good pink. :)

I like them. They're a little tame for what I'm used to, but it's nice to have something simple/elegant/normal.

What I used:

• Base Coat: Avon Nail Experts Smooth Beginnings Base Coat -- 1 coat
• Tips: Petites French White #417 -- 2 coats as needed
• Color: Revlon Post Trauma Nail Treatment Step 3 -- 2 coats, applied over the nail and tip
• Top Coat: Avon Nail Experts UV Gloss Guard: Top Coat -- 2 coats
• Drying Agent: Drip Dry by OPI -- 2 drops on each nail
  

Christmas Nails!

Yaaaay Christmas Nails! I love Christmas. I love the corny songs, getting the same presents every year, even the Christmas junk that I used to hate when I was little and now would love as a Christmas present.
 
These are my favorite nails yet! They look like wrapping paper. Sooooo cutie. I hope they last a LONG time because I'm not gonna wanna get rid of them anytime soon. The idea is thanks to a youtube tutorial and a suggestion from my sister to put snowflakes on red instead of blue. The snowflakes and larger white dots (snowballs) are stickers, the little white flecks are painted on with white nail polish.

Note to self: I need green nail polish. I don't have any green!

What I Used:

• Base Coat: Avon Nail Experts Smooth Beginnings: Base Coat --1 coat? I can't remember if I did a second.
  
• Red: Wet n Wild Rock Solid Nail Lacquer:  #227 "Rockin in Rubies" -- 2 coats plus touch-ups
  
• White specks: OPI Nail Lacquer: "Alpine Snow" -- applied with a #306 Winning Nails by WorldWide Nail Art brush
  
• Stickers: Professional Nail Sticker, Sinyemei Nagel-Kunst from eBay.
  
• Top Coat: Avon Nail Experts UV Gloss Guard: Top Coat -- 2 coats
  
• Drying Agent: Drip Dry by OPI -- 2 drops on each nail
  

What I learned?

My left hand is INCREDIBLE shaky right when it matters, when the brush has white polish on it and it's about to touch my right hand fingernail. I'm steady up until 1 cm away and then BAM shaky shaky shaky. It's kind of nerve-wracking, actually.

October Week 2 -- spider webs!

Shoutout to my cat ZETA who unintentionally makes her debut today!

Inspired by a tutorial I found on Youtube here:

 Halloween Nails Tutorial - by fumsmusings

I really liked the spiderweb design she made, so I added it to what I thought were already finished nails. I had ordered some halloween nail stickers off eBay, and, being upset that they hadn't arrived yet, my original plan was to do some plain orange with black tips. I dunno, some sort of spite fit because the stickers weren't here yet. Wouldn't have proven anything to anyone, wouldn't have done anything, really.

But anyway, I got done with the orange, then I put on some yellow to make it an "ooooo shimmery!" kind of look, and then my black tips came out okay. So... I felt like adding more.

Then I looked online for halloween nail tutorials, and t's amazing how many tutorials out there and it's even MORE amazing how IMPOSSIBLE it would be for my non-dominant hand to even TRY anything these tutorials suggest. Plus, a lot of them are tutorials on how to draw on a fake nail that's not attached to anything. And sure, anyone can do that. But when they're your own nails and they're attached to your hands already, you can't exactly follow a "Learn how to draw a Frankenstein" tutorial 10 times in a row.

Anyway, the youtube link again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTGVp2YOYQ4 See for yourself!

I like my nails now. No more spiteful plain nails!

What I used:

• Base Coat: Avon Nail Experts Smooth Beginnings Base Coat -- 1 coat
• First color: OPI Nail Lacquer in "In My Back Pocket" -- 3 coats
• Shimmer: Sephora by OPI Nail Colour in "Cab Fare" -- 1 thin coat
• Tips: Sally Girl Nail Color in "Poser" -- 2 coats
• Spider webs: Petites in "French White 417" -
• Applied with Nail Brush: Winning Nails by Worldwide #306 Nail Art
• Top Coat: Nailene Acrylic Strong Topcoat -- 1 coat
• Drying Aid: Sephora by OPI Nail Colour Drying Drops

What I Noticed:
I'm pretty sure you can use any kind of thin brush to paint designs. No need to shell out the money for an official nail brush, since it just gets coated with nail polish anyway.

This was my first time freehand drawing on my own nails. I know 1) for SURE I am right-handed and 2) thin lines are hard to make with frickin' nail polish and 3) I feel like I oughta try this more often!

Pink hotness, yep!

But first an update on the nails that I posted in my last blog:

They held up surprisingly well! My family went to Reno for a 4 night vacation at Harrah's and I was so sure that they would end up chipping by the end of the week. At the base of the nails I could see the color lightening a little, which meant (or at least I thought...) that they would start peeling and chipping. I'm used to lighter color meaning that the nail polish is separating from my nail surface and only hanging on because it's connected to the rest of the polish that's still attached. But hey, it lasted well until I got home.

Removing the nails was interesting. The last time I used stickers I had applied them to fake nails, so it was simply a matter of peeling off the nails and putting something on something new. Since then I've graduated to using my natural nails. When you wipe your nails with nail polish remover, you take off the nail color and the design on the sticker but the plastic stays on your nail, leaving a sticker-outline of the color you had underneath it. Then you have peel off the sticker and remove the polish leftovers and THEN you're done. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's about two more steps than I'm used to dealing with, which is a bummer but not SO bad, I guess.

Okay the new set:

What I used:

• Base coat: Avon Nail Experts Smooth Beginnings -- 1 coat
• Color: Sephora by OPI Nail Colour in "Lost Without My GPS"-- 2 coats
• Tips: Sally Girl Nail Color in "Poser" -- 1 coat
• Accent Color: Savvy Nail Lacquer in "Golden Honey" -- 1 coat (little stripe on the black tips)
• Stickers: Broadway Nails Fashion Diva Nail Art "Find Me" -- applied with my pocket knife tweezers
• Top Coat: Nailene Acrylic Strong Topcoat -- 1 coat

Stuff I noticed:

1. The stickers are difficult to get off the sheet. I had at least 4 stickers go flying when I picked them off.
2. The stickers have examples on the back of how awesome your nails would look if you put more than 2 stickers on them. In real life, they just look ridiculous, like you couldn't decide which stickers to use and just kept going and going. Plus it's impossible to get them in a straight line with my left hand, which adds to the ridiculousness.
3. I'm getting better at painting on tips. Even my sister says so. :)