Getting back into nail art: My Fourth of July Manicure!

Hello loves!! Happy 4th of July! I hope you are having a great holiday weekend if you are celebrating and if your not celebrating I hope you are having a lovely weekend!

So this past week I was in the mood to finally do some nail art, and had even more ambition to do a 4th of July manicure!

I have done any type of nail art in a very looonnnnggg time. So long that I have even forgot how to do a proper dotticure. Hopefully this manicure will inspire me to get back into doing some nail art in the future.

For this design all I knew was I wanted to have my thumb,fore finger, and middle finger, have red and white stripes and my ring and pinkie fingers to be blue with silver stars.

I suck at free hand striping, (even when I was doing nail art more frequently) so I instantly went for some chevron guides I had from a kit I bought at CVS a while back when I wanted to buy some guides for a french manicure I was doing.

So I painted the first three fingers with Wet 'n' Wild's Wild Shine polish in white. I used two coats to make it nice and opaque and even,  I don't think these have names just numbers, but I'm sure you all know the one I am talking about. I then used Julie G's polish in Cabana Boy, which is one of the best blue polishes I own, on my ring and pinkie fingers. It is literally a one coater, but I always go in for a second coat just out of habit.

After letting these colors dry for a good long while, I carefully placed my chevron guides and took China Glaze's Cranberry Splash to make the red stripes. Now Cranberry Splash is not the first red I would of picked, but I realized I actually don't have a red creme polish. If anyone has any recommendation's I would appreciate it greatly!

After successfully creating my chevrons and cleaning up I wanted to place some silver stars I had on my nails but they didn't sit right and looked bad ( at least to me), so I took them off and replaced it with some dots in Celeb City by Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear.

I'm not a huge fan on how the silver dots came out, I like I said I completely for got how to do placement for them!


I am really happy with it overall though. It was a lot of fun getting back into some nail art, and seeing the idea I had in my head actually translate to my nails!

And here is a complementary 'claw' hand photo so you can see all of the manicure.

I hope you guys enjoyed this post and finally seeing some nail art up in here!!
Have a great day guys! I'll talk to you soon!
<3 Nicole

Halloween Nail Art! Blood Splatter!

Gosh its been forever and a day since I have done nail art! Honestly I still love nail polish very much. I'm always looking at the newest colors and collections, but my love for nail art kind of fell out. I remember last doing nail art I believe for my birthday. Sadly between work and not being home much really squashed any time I had to sit to do nail art. It hurts my heart because its all I used to do back in the day! 

Did you know I haven't painted my nails in the last two weeks. I've been bare nail all this time. 

So the other night after seeing all the lovely Halloween nail art that all the other amazing Nail Bloggers were creating this season, it made me want get back into it. I decided on a blood splatter mani. I remember doing one I believe the first Halloween my little blog celebrated. It was Dexter inspired as well, white base with red blood splatter. I think even at that point I didn't know you could use a straw to get the splatter effect. 

This time around I wanted to make it more gruesome. I love horror movies and special effects makeup so it was only obvious. 

I started with a nude base color. I chose Cover Girl Forever Fawn which is fairly close to my skin tone. Without something on top of it, it definitely gives me mannequin hands! 

Once two coats of that was dry, I grabbed some plastic straws and cut them in half. Then I took Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby a nice blood red jelly and created a small puddle on a piece of paper. 

Now splatter manicures can be messy so I made sure that I had a few sheets of paper towels, or newspaper covering my work surface. I also had on hand some nail polish remover and Q-tips for clean up. You will get this all over your hands, especially if you miss your nail when doing the splatter part. 

Then I dipped one end of the straw into Ruby Ruby held it not super close over my nail but far enough away that it would create an awesome look. I then blew a short burst of air into the straw and prayed it hit my nail! 

Lets take a look at how I did! 

Here is my left hand. I absolutely love how this manicure turned out. It really looks like I messed up my nails in some sort of accident or that I brutally murdered someone! As you can see by my middle finger I was way too close to my nail when I blew into the straw and almost covered the whole nail. I think my index and pinkie fingers are my favorite because the splatter effects looks just right! 

Now here is my right hand. Trying to do any nail art with my non-dominant hand is insanely hard. I give major props to those who can do nail art on both hands and have it turn out amazing! The splatter effect is less but still looks pretty gruesome. 

And here we have an awkward thumb shot, out of both my thumbs my right one looked better and I was very happy with it. 

After the splatter was dry I used my all time favorite top coat Julie G Jet Set to seal everything in. 

If you liked this manicure, let me know in the comments below and also tell me what your favorite thing about Halloween is! Was it a costume? All the scary shows on TV? Let me know! 

I'll talk to you all tomorrow! <3 Nicole 

Fingr's Set In Rhine-stone.

Good morning! Its the middle of the week! Which means I get tomorrow off and I cannot wait!

About a week or so ago I had seen on the blog-o-sphere that the company Fingr's was putting out a whole new line of nail art supplies and polishes called Heart 2 Art. I for one was really excited because to find nail art supplies where I live it is literally impossible. The Fingr's Heart 2 Art line was going to be exclusive to Wal-mart, and wouldn't you know I practically live there!!! OK so that's not necessarily a good thing but at least I get good dibs on all the new stuff that comes out there.


Anyway I had went on a trip by myself, usually my visits to Wal-Mart consist of my parents too, but I like to go by myself sometimes to just get away. Sounds great doesn't it? When I came across the display it hadn't been completely stocked yet and there were parts that were missing. But I grabbed what I thought I wanted or needed, one of them being the polish I am going to show you today.

The Fingr's polish bottles actually look like nail art striping bottles but they aren't. I had to open one in the store just to make sure. At the time I chose this polish there weren't many, like I said the display was missing stuff. I still think its missing a whole line of nail polishes. Out of the few that were there this one caught my eye.

The name is called Set in Rhine-stone. It is most certainly not a summertime nail polish. Its in the fall/winter family but to be honest if I like it I could care less if I wear it out of season. This polish is a medium-dark grey base that is sheer but very build-able with tiny silver hex glitter running through out. The name fits the polish perfectly because it does look like wet cement with tiny rhinestones in it. You know it reminds me of the Forever 21 store's floor. The black tile that has all that glitter. I seriously would love to have a floor like that in my bathroom or something.

Lets take a look at the photos.

These photos consist of three coats I believe and top coat, all photos are taken in natural light.

These polishes I believe are priced at $1.68 each, which for the amount you get isn't horrible. The brush on this isn't too bad, its your standard brush, maybe slightly wider but the elongated handle makes maneuvering a little hard.

Set In Rhine-stone is thick but also  a little sheer on the first coat but by the second to third coat you won't see your VNL.  But be warned the more coats you add the thicker it will get. If you want to get these polishes or any of the nail art supplies (which I'll cover in a later post) then head to your local Wal-Mart to see if the display is there. I would check even if your Wal-Mart, is one of the last to get new products. Mine is like that and they even had the display a few days after I read about it!

Did you get any new products from the Fingr's Heart 2 Art Line?? Tell me in the comments below!!!

Until next time <3 Nicole

Summer Leopard Nails. Rawr!

Hi guys!

Hope you all are well as always!

I don't usually do a ton a free hand nail art. If you saw Monday's post you know that, that nail art has been by far my best and favorite. The reason why I don't usually do free hand nail art is because I'm not really to good at it. In the beginning when I started blogging and doing nail art I was loving it and learning everyday and then I fell out of doing it so I've lost some skill, but I am slowly bringing it back to the surface and I hope more free hand nail art is in my future!

Back almost two week ago I was getting ready to see my bestest of friends in the world. She was going to pick me up for a dinner date and some girl time. I suddenly felt the need to gussy myself up in the 85 degree weather we were having. So as I did a whole face of make up and tried not to sweat it all off as I put it on, I decided I needed to do my nails as well and I wanted something bright and fun.

I originally was going to stamp some pretty little images on my nails but the stamper didn't feel like picking up the image so I was stuck. What to do? Then I thought why not free hand some leopard spots. I have seen it done loads of times from tons of my blogger friends, I practically had the tutorial burned into my brain. So I went to work.

I started out with a base color on all my nails except my ring finger and thumb of Fresh Paint (which is sold at Five Below) in Coconut. Coconut is a creamy off white color that is opaque in two coats, but the best thing about it, is that it has a peachy undertone to it so it doesn't look stark on your hands, its blends with my skin tone nicely. On my ring and thumb fingers I painted two coats of Sally Hansen Coral Reef,  how come I have only just bought this color, I will never know. It is such a pretty bright corally pink.

Once my bases were dry I went to work on the spots. I took a toothpick and snipped off the end and filed it down to make a homemade dotting tool since mine had disappeared for the time being. I dipped it into Coconut and went about placing not too many random dots on my ring and thumb finger. Once that was done I took a fresh tooth pick and didn't snip the end off it and dipped it into some Wet 'n' Wild Black Crème polish and outlined my dots with some 'C' shapes and added a few tiny black dots to give it more dimension.

As you can see the second picture is of the famous "claw hand" so you can see my thumb.

All these photos were taken in natural light with no flash and yes there is a top coat on my nails. Coconut looks like it has more of a yellow undertone in the photos but I assure you in real life its more peachy. I am actually really proud of my nails here since it was the first time in months doing free hand. I got a few compliments on these nails and don't let the photo fool you these are nice and bright for the summer time.

If you want to get a hold of the Fresh Paint Polishes they are available at Five Below usually for 3/$5 or two bucks a piece I think. When I got Coconut they had quite a few bright pastel crèmes out, two of which will be on the blog later I am sure. You can get a hold of the Sally Hansen color Coral Reef wherever your Sally Hansen Polishes are sold. I got mine at Wal-Mart for I think $1.99.

I hope you enjoyed this nail art! What are some bright polishes or nail art you will be sporting this summer???

<3 Nicole

Dandelion nail art inspired by a tattoo.

Well hello there, and happy Monday! Hope your weekend was good, it was sort of rainy at the start here in NY but got better.

Today starts my much needed two week vacation from my overly frustrating and stressful job! I can't tell you how excited I am! Right now as you are reading this I am currently preparing to leave for Florida tomorrow morning! I will be gone for the whole week and plus some. I do have blog post planned for every other day until I get back. Plus I will be doing updates on my nails because I am going to be testing out some Sally Hansen Salon Effects  Real Nail Polish Strips! I am planning on putting them on today so the updates will start tomorrow!

I decided to wear the Sally Hansen Nail Strips because it would be much easier then trying to decide what type of design or stamp to do, only to have it ruined a few days into my trip. Since I am only bringing a carry on with me I don't plan on packing any polish. Also it will be a great way to see if these really work, I've used them in the past but never got to keep them on long enough to see if they lasted the 10 day claim on the package!

So on to today's post. Today my nail art is inspired by my best friends tattoo she got about a month ago. My best friend who I also consider my sister is a new mom to a gorgeous 9 month old baby girl and she was going through a rough patch and getting her tattoo was a way of getting through it. I won't go into any details about since its no ones business, but the tattoo itself is gorgeous.  It is a dandelion that has its seeds blowing away in the wind and turning into birds. It also has a saying on it but I'm more interested in the dandelion turning into birds. I too am actually considering getting a similar tattoo this year, no saying just the picture.

So since my amazing blogger friend Alaina over at The Little Canvas just happened to do a dandelion nail art post, I used her tutorial to get my dandelions perfect. If you haven't seen her picture by picture tutorials of some of the nail art she does you need to click the link above to check her out!


So I started with a base color from Colormates called Stormy Weather. Its the perfect blue-grey polish that has some shimmer to it, it was the perfect background for these dandelions.

Once the base was dry using my thin striper brush and Wet 'n' Wild's Black Crème I followed Alaina's steps to achieve the perfect dandelion stem, then with another nail art brush one that was more flat and shaped to a point I dipped that into Pure Ice Superstar a  white polish and dabbed off the excess just like Alaina says to and created my fluff ball dandelion and the seeds  that were drifting away.

Now to add in my own twist I went back to my black thin striper and dipped the tip into the black and created a few bird outlines for where the seeds turned into them and they were free to fly away!. Once they were all dry I added my top coat and I was done.

Please excuse the pink hue on my middle finger and on the end of my index, the polish I had on before was a very bright pink that stained a little.

Each picture has been taken in natural (cloudy) light with no flash. Out of all the free hand nail art I have done which  is a quite a bit this is my favorite of all time! I seriously love this manicure so much I kept this on all weekend until today! This is also the first free hand that I have done that I didn't mess up using my non-dominant hand! My right actually looks like my left its unbelievable!

I hope you guys enjoyed this post and this nail art! If you want to recreate blowing dandelions don't forget to check out Alaina's blog which is linked up towards the beginning of the post!

So until I have an update on the nail strips or Wednesday when the next scheduled post goes live,
have a great day!
<3 Nicole

Free For All Beauty Friday: Nail Art Tips!

Hello!!! 

Happy Friday! Who's ready for the weekend???? 

Did you know that this is also my 200th post??? That's crazy!!!  

So lets get this post started! 

Today's post is going to be nail art tips that I'm sure you've heard before, from other nail bloggers to nail YouTubers. But these are tips that are worth repeating because they are the ones that work! 

Tip # 1

No dotting tools? Easiest fix in the world! Do you own toothpicks? If you don't I suggest the next time your in the supermarket that you pick some up! They are the next best thing to having a real dotting tool. 

All you have to do is snip the tip of the toothpick off which I have mentioned several times in my posts and file down the end with a cheap nail file and you get the perfect surface to make perfect dots! 

Tip # 2 

Don't have the money to buy a fancy brush set? 

Even though on most days you can find a pretty decent brush set for not a lot of money on Amazon or eBay but  some of us still can't really afford to buy one especially with shipping now a days. My suggestion and one I have used is go to your local craft store like Michael's or  even Walmart or any of those big box retail stores and go to the craft section and get the doll detail paint brushes. They are pretty much the same as if you bought a professional set but cheaper. I got a set if five brushes for about $6 bucks! 

Tip #3 

Is your stamper not picking up the image from your image plate? 

I have had this happen on more than one occasions and it is super fustrating and probaby one of the most annoying things as well! Well here's what I do and I learned this tip from another blogger so it's not my own. Like I said above these tips work. 

Using a cheap nail file, even like the cardboard ones or evening the one you used to file down the toothpick just gently rub it across the silicone stamping pad on your stamper. It will roughen up the stamper and the image will stick better. 

Staying in the stamping corner of this blog post, do you ever have a polish that is too thin to use stamping? You may want to do this to a less expensive polish but if you leave the cap slightly open for a little while the polish will thicken and be better for stamping. Older polishes in your stash that have thickened overtime are also good to use for stamping if you done have the money  to buy the special polishes. 

Tip # 4

Removing glitter polish... It can be a nightmare. I'm sure you heard bloggers and YouTubers talk about this removal method but I'm just going to reiterate it. The tinfoil method. 

First you take a a cotton ball and put some polish remover on it , then place it on your finger and then wrap a peice of tinfoil over it and wait about five to ten minutes. Once the time has passed you can pull the tinfoil and cotton off and the glitter should come right off! 

Now once you have done this apply a cuticle oil or cream to rehydrate your cuticle, nail and surrounding skin, sadly polish remover sucks the moisture out if the skin. 

Tip # 5

Doing color block manicures with scotch tape. I have only done a few manicures like this but I've learned the only tape that works is scotch tape. This is an alternative if you don't have striping tape which is super affordable online but if your wary of ordering online this might be for you. 

When deciding to do a tape manicure be sure to get the good scotch tape using masking tape won't work because I found you can't wear the stickiness down like you can on scotch tape (and still get scotch tape to stick). Even using dollar store scotch tape can be sketchy. I like to take the tape I am going to use and press it against my hand a couple of times and then place it over the already dried polish. If you want to do smaller lines like striping tape does use cuticles sicssors and cut small stripes. 

Also make sure to leave a enough overlay on the skin so you can take the tape off easier! 

So I hoped those five tips helped you out in any way shape or form! I know we have all heard these tips before but they are so worth repeating! 

Take care and ill talk to you on Monday! 

<3 Nicole. 

Spring has Sprung!

Well hello again!

As promised in my last post here is my next post that is Spring nail oriented!

A while back before my two weeks of hell started I did some freehand nail art which I don't always get to do because I suck at it! I'm practicing when I can but nothing turns out the way I would like it to. I think that's why I stick to stamping so much.

Anyway enough pity party for one up there in that last paragraph lets get to it. Since Spring is FINALLY here, I cannot wait to start wearing bright clothes and spring dresses and not heavy sweaters and boots! Even though the temperatures are not Spring worthy yet, were still in the upper 30s to 40 degrees here in NY. A funny fact is that the weather guy the other day said that one year ago at this time we were actually having a heat wave, it was almost 80 degrees here last year! I wish we could have it back! We still have 3 inches of snow to get rid of!

Anyway one part of spring that I love is when all the pretty little butterflies come out, so that's what I decided to recreate was butterfly wings. I have seen so many nail artist recreate these I wanted to give it a shot. My favorite butterfly is the Monarch Butterfly as seen over on the left.



So to create my version I started off with three coats of China Glaze Orange You hot from the Summer Neon (2012) collection.

Here is a swatch photo of it on its own.

My photo makes it look more golden but its not it is very much orange! I couldn't get my editing program to color correct it :(.

Then I did a gradient of Love's a Beach on my tips, and then with a fine nail art brush from my Cheeky kit I got for Christmas I did the black out lines and then the white dots with a fine dotting tool also from the same kit.

All photos were taken with top coat and in natural light with the exception of the swatch of Orange You Hot that has no top coat.

 

 

For a first time take on butterfly wings I have to say I like them a lot and actually wore them for almost a whole week before changing the polish due to chips and pealing.

Since spring is here I hope I get inspired to do more spring nail art post and to work on my free hand more!

So until then I will talk to you all soon! <3 Nicole.


*Any and all nail polish mention in the above post was purchased by myself with my own money*

Recreating one of my favorite nail arts!

Hi!

So I hope if you live in the northeast your are done digging out from Nemo! We didn't get nearly as much as they said we were supposed to which was good, but what we did get was more than enough! I am SO ready for spring!

Today I bring another manicure that you can most definitely wear for Valentines Day on Thursday!

One of my favorite nail bloggers has to be The Nailasaurus! Sammy is an amazing nail art artist! I always see all her nail art on her Instagram and then go over to her blog to check out how she did it!

When I saw this nail art she did, I know I had seen it before and I think it actually goes along with a song but for me it was just something different for Valentines day!

On Sammy's version she painted her nails red and did the nail art with white. For my version I used Hard Candy Sky as a base color and Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby to create the design.

Here are the photos of my recreation! Here is a link to Sammy's Original post!

This was a lot of fun to do and to pay homage to one of my favorite bloggers! Of course when you see Sam's Original post hers is just simply perfect. I do have to say though this challenged me on keeping my hand steady with my nail art brushes! I can't wait to see another design that challenges me like this did. The actual heart on my middle finger was the easiest thing to do, the little heart bleeps where the toughest. You couldn't go too far down or to far up and you had to really picture a heart monitor. Repeating these steps on my right hand was even harder as it always is, but it wasn't terrible which is surprising for me!

I hope you guys like this post and I have two more valentines day inspired post for you!

Oh and if Sammy the Nailasaurus happens to see this... I just want you to know that you are an amazing blogger and nail art artist and hope one day that I can get my nail art anywhere near as good as yours! <3

Nicole

A lil bit of nail art and a story.

Good morning! I hope you all are well!

So this new year isn't starting out the best for me. About two weeks ago I got sick, which you guys know took me out of commission for a week. Now something else happened that took me out of commission this past weekend.

I had my cat Binx  since I was about 11 years old, she had been my constant companion. Back in May she got sick and had to have emergency surgery which was an hysterectomy , we never had her fixed because she was an indoor cat, she survived the surgery and I thought all was ok. After her surgery she had a major personality change, she became mean and would attack your feet if you crossed her and she lost the part of her that showed any affection. This made me sad and I always played the 'what if ' game, (its not good to do that b/c you just make yourself crazy). Binx had always had some sort of neuroses about her since she was a kitten but now it had just gotten worse, she started to pace all the time walking from one end of our apartment to the other, or just sleeping.

 On Thursday I noticed she was different, she was pacing a lot more than normal, she wasn't sleeping at all and her walk was off. My mom could even pet her and pick her up and there would be no fight from Binx. She was also trying to hide throughout the day, which I know is a signal from a cat saying that its almost their 'time'. Thursday night I laid Binx in her cat bed and she didn't move for a couple of hours, when I got up in the middle of the night I saw she wasn't anywhere to be found. At that point I came to terms that if it was her time to go it was okay and I would accept it. Friday morning when she still didn't make an appearance we found her stuck behind some boxes just standing there, its like she didn't know how to get out. I thought maybe she was going blind but her eyes were fine. When we got her out from behind the boxes her equilibrium was way off she could barely walk. We took her to the vet imeditetly. The vet told us that there was definitely something bothering her nervous system, but her one ear was clogged with wax and it could be an inner ear infection that was causing it all. Upon further check of her eyes, that's where we saw the problem and that maybe this wasn't going to be an easy fix. When the vet brought his hands close to her face she had no reaction and when they shined a light in them her pupils didn't dilate like they should when a bright light is shined in them.

The vet told us to give it 24 hours and see what would happen, they gave her an injection of steroids and antibiotics and some ear drops. I think that the vet was trying to give me some ray of hope that Binx would get better, because if there was no change then it was something with her brain or the brain stem. At that point there wouldn't be anything that we could do. So as Friday went on we watched Binx deteriorate, she started walking through her food and water and just never stopped walking around. We had to keep her in carrier just to get her to calm down. Friday night my family and I decided to bring her back to the vet Saturday morning. In doing so the vet saw how much worse Binx had gotten, at this point Binx was shaking and panting and not even responding to touch anymore. The cat I had grown up with was gone, and as much as it tore my heart apart we had to do what was right for her and end her suffering her suffering was tearing my heart apart even more. Sadly we had to put her to sleep. It was the hardest most heart wrenching thing I have ever had to do in my entire life. As I write this I am fighting back tears.

*** I APOLOGIZE TO ANYONE I JUST MADE CRY BY READING THAT STORY***

So that explains my absence from twitter and here on the blog this weekend. But I am back and ready to continue on.

Today's manicure was inspired by an outfit I bought my niece, I purchased a onesie for her that had a cupcake on it and said "I take the cake" because my niece is a little chunky monkey I so desperately wanted to write on it with fabric paint, "and eat it too".

So my nail art was inspired by that cupcake on the outfit.

I started off by doing a gradient on each nail with L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented and Nicole By OPI Selena. The L'Oreal polish is really good for sponging, the NOPI not so much, it didn't stick to my white base well and I had to go over it many times, and if I dabbed too much with the make up sponge it took the polish off. It was so friggen frustrating. Once I got the gradient the way I wanted it I started on the cupcake on my accent nail.

I used:

Sally Hansen Celeb City for the cupcake 'tin'

Pure Ice Superstar for the frosting

Pure Ice Stunning for the sprinkles

Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby for the cherry on top

Sinful Colors Black Striper for outlining the tin.

Once I finished the cupcake I did add Sephora Chaotic to the rest of my nails to help the gradient look better.

So I hope you guys liked today's post except for the beginning part. I will talk to you all soon with a brand new post. I'm thinking also about doing a post on my nail care routine!

Talk to you all soon!
<3 Nicole

Semi-Successful and yet to me Disasticures.

Wow! What a slacker I have become! I haven't posted a holiday manicure since the beginning of the month!!!

I was planning on posting a lot more but every time I sat down to do a manicure it would come out horrible and literally as I have heard my amazing nail blogger friends call a disasticure!!

I tried to do candy cane nails several times only to be disappointed in my stripe work. I can't draw lines free hand with polish for the life of me and at times this was even with a striper!

So in today's post I want to show you two manicures I did and how I felt they were disasticures. I feel I was way to quick with them, patience is not my forte.

First up we have Santa's coat. I saw on Facebook from China Gazes Official page some awesomely cute Christmas nail art and wanted to recreate some.

So I started out with my favorite red. Yeah you know the one... 100 points to the first person to name it!

                                                                          * * *
Ok s you guessed it China Glaze Cranberry Splash. I bought a back up of this color because it is that amazing!

Then I took some new nail art brushes that I got at Walmart and painted a black stripe across the nail for Santa's Belt. Once that was dry I took Sally Hansen Golden-I and made the belt buckle. I also added China Glaze Winter Holly on my ring finger and did some holly berries in the corner.
Now my friends loved it, thought it was cute and good. Me I could see the unevenness and where I missed spots and it just irked me. Needless to say I took it off a day or so later.

My next attempt for something Christmassy was candy canes with my new brushes....... Yeah no, it didn't work. The only nail that came out well was my pinkie. I tried every way, freehand, tape nothing made it look nice. I never took pictures of that manicure.

The next manicure was a semi success and I did like it but because of the nail art supplies I used and combined with my job it wouldn't last long.

It started out with me receiving a Christmas swap package from Adri from Mories Nail Art! She is truly an amazing friend and sent me my first Klean Colors and some awesome L.A. Girl polishes I never got my hands on! I also sent her a package but it hasn't reached her yet! Hopefully soon! If it doesn't get there Ill cry!

Anyway for this manicure I kept my pinkies as candy canes since they came out the best and painted the rest of my nails with Klean Color Winter wonderland! Winter wonderland is a beautiful sliver shimmer polish that is packed with small silver, red, and blue glitter. It really does make you think of snow and all the holidays and things that go with it.

It took about three coats to get opaque. Once it dried it painted tiny Christmas trees on my middle fingers with last years China Glaze Jolly Holly and amazing evergreen polish that is opaque in one coat. Once that dried I took some of the nail art supplies that Adri sent me in our swap packages , I got a pack of six mini glass jars of clear rhinestones, black rhinestones, two jars of fish egg supplies and these nifty tear drop-flower petal glitter. I used the blue tear drop glitter to decorate the trees and a clear rhinestone as the star. On my thumbs I dotted three red dots for holly berries and used the green tear drop glitters and the leaves. Once it all dried and was adhered I put on my top coat and was on my way.

I have to say I did actually like this last manicure. It wasn't too bad. For me working with nail art supplies like the tear drop sequins or rhinestones is new and i definitely need to learn to be a little neater with it. Although the manicure I'm rocking now I love and you will see that in tomorrows post!!

Until then!
Nicole

Ghostly Nails

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Hope you all are having a safe and awesome Halloween!

So as you know the east coast got devastated by Hurricane Sandy, up here in the Hudson Valley we were spared, not a lot of rain but it was pretty windy. My dad however who is on Long Island where my grandfather is was in the brunt of the storm. As of Monday night he had texted to say he was without power and would call us in the morning. Sadly there is very limited cell service right now as it went out with the power, we have had a few calls from him since then and he is fine. It worries me because he is my dad and I miss him. He has no way to get home right now since the train service is suspended until the fix everything which could take some time, and he maybe without power for 7-10 days. I know he wants to come home soon so I'm praying that the train service gets restored soon and he can come home.

Anyway on to today's post! Ghosties for Halloween!

If you have a last minute party to go to and have no idea what to do with your nails here is a quick little idea.

First off you want to paint your nails with a black polish.After you base coat your nails of course!  I used a little mini black polish from L.A. Girls. Let that dry completely!

Then with your dotting tool and a white polish make your ghosties! Let them dry. Then if you want as an optional step, you can go over the white polish with a glow in the dark polish and then let that dry as well.

Finally dot on black eyes and a mouth and once your design is completely dry, seal it in with your favorite top coat!

So here are my ghouls! And the last photo  is of them in the dark! I love how they glow! I was so surprised that my camera actually picked it up and I didn't need a special light or something!

Okay so I hope you enjoyed that! Can't wait until December to do Christmas Nail art! Hope you all have a safe and Happy Halloween!

<3 Nicole

Frankenstien Nails!

Happy Sunday!

Hello guys! Today I bring you another nail art post for the Halloween!

This post is inspired by yet another amazing beauty guru who does amazing YouTube videos. Every year I look forward to her Halloween tutorials. Not that I could ever recreate the perfection she does, but she does have some nail art tutorials that are super easy and fun to recreate!

Back in 2010 Youtuber GoldieStarling put out a tutorial on Frankenstein nails, this tutorial in particular made me want to do more nail art. Now at the time I didn't have a blog in 2010 but I still practiced it and attempted this tutorial and it was a big hit amongst my co-workers and friends. So in thinking of what to do for some Halloween post I thought I would re-do these amazing nails and show them to you.  Below is Goldiestarlings original video on how to do these amazing nails!

For my Frankie nails I used Orly Green Apple for his skin, my Sinful Colors Black Striper to create his hair, mouth and eyes and eye brows, and Pure Ice Superstar to make the whites of his eyes.

Here are my pictures of my Frankie Nails!

I think they came out pretty good! They are super simple, I think it took me about a half hour to do these nails and then about 10 mins to dry!

I hope you try out Goldiestarling's designs!
Until next time <3 Nicole

Halloween Nail Art! Spooky Googley Eyes!

Happy Friday! Hope you all are well today!

In this blog post I am going to give you step by step instructions on how to get these nails!


Spooky googley eyes, we always see them around this time of year, whether it be as awesome Halloween decorations in lights or on pumpkins, or even in the dark of the night when you see that pair of creepy eyes staring at you in the dark.

I have seen a few people on instagram do these types of nails mixed with other nail art, and I wanted to take a stab at it!

I have not been able to stop looking at my nails since I did this nail art! They remind me of these light that my aunt ( god rest her soul)  used to put in her trees at Halloween time. I remember helping her put them in the bushes and trees. I always loved decorating her house for Halloween, she had one of those big houses that you could go all out and do elaborate scenes with. She did this especially at Christmas time!

I debated on doing different color eyes, like red, pink, bright green, or neon yellow, but kept it original just using white. I did dab over the white with glow in the dark polish but I guess I didn't use enough because my eyes don't glow :(

 

 

 

Here is how to get these nifty nails!

 

Step 1: Apply base coat and let dry.

 

Step 2: Apply two coats of your favorite black polish. Mine is Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme. Let dry completely.

 

Step 3: Taking the bigger end of a dotting tool or a tooth pick you snipped the end off of and dip it in to your favorite white polish. I used Pure Ice Superstar, then dot two dots close together to create the whites of your eyes. Let Dry.

 

** Optional Step**  Once the white polish is dry taking the same end of the dotting tool you used for the white dip it into glow in the dark polish and go back over the white so you eyes glow!

 

Step 4: Taking the small end of the dotting too or the opposite end of the toothpick that isn't snipped off, and dip it into black polish then do the inside of the whites to create pupils for your eyes. Let dry.

 

Step 5: Once your design is dry use your favorite top coat to seal it all in!

 

okay so I hope that this design is something that you guys will try, especially if you are new to nail art. It is so simple, you can also do it as a last minute design for Halloween!

 

Okay guys till next time! <3 Nicole  

 



 

 

Easter Bunny Ahoy!

Hello again!

I just couldn't stay away today! I know I said that I would post my Easter Bunny manicure tomorrow on Easter itself, but I took off my water marble and did a different manicure I would like to post tomorrow, sooo ...

I wanted to do some sort of nail art for Easter.My lovely friend over at The Little Canvas, did some amazing Easter nail art. Four of them to be exact. So I definitely had lots of inspiration to draw from! Go on and click her blog name to check it out!


So For this Easter manicure I started with my background color of Wet 'n' Wilds " I Need a Refresh-mint". As I have heard it is an exact dupe of For Audrey!  After letting that dry I used a toothpick by snipping off the pointy bits to create a dotting tool and proceeded to create the bunny on my ring finger. To make his the pink of his nose and his ears I used Simply Sweets Pink creme I got from Marshalls.

Then using more toothpicks I snipped the ends off of, I dotted pink and yellow on the rest of the nails to make it seem like Easter eggs.!

The first two pictures are in the setting sunlight and the last one is with direct flash.

I hope you all enjoyed this! I will talk to you all soon!
Nicole

Valentines Day Nail Art !

Hey!

Happy Thursday! The weekend is almost here, not that I get much of a weekend because I practically work every weekend! Hopefully that will stop soon!

Today I have the first of what I hope to be 3 Valentines Day inspired nail art. I am hoping to have two more up next week!

Valentines day is not all pinks, reds, and whites, you've seen those candy hearts that have those messages on them? They are blue and green and orange and yellow as well! So For this I sort of took that idea and made it my own.