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

Valentines Day Balloons!

Good Morning! How is everyone today? If your in the northeast then you know we are being slammed by a winter storm called Nemo! To think I was just getting used to the whole brown grass thing and now this!

Today I bring you the first of my Valentines Day inspired manicures. I'm usually not a proponent of Valentines Day, the whole holiday just always seems so hyped up more than it is. I guess that's what working in retail does to you, it makes you bitter. My store had Valentines candy and stuff out in January, like literally the week after New Years. Its sort of sickening, I apologize to those of you whole love the holiday, its just my take on it.

But alas I still like doing holiday themed manicures and Valentines day doesn't get an exception. Today I have some balloons to show you. I initially wanted to do something along the line of the conversation hearts that we see all the time, sadly my nails are too small to do them on and be able to write all the little sayings on them. Taking the colorful heart part of the idea I made some balloons. There kind of cartoonish but that's the whole point of it really.

I started off with three coats of OPI I Think In Pink from the 2012 BCA duo. Its kind of a perfect pale pastel pink. The only thing I have a problem with is how any coats you need to make it opaque, the polish is a crème/jelly so its a little tricky.

Once my three coats were dry I grabbed China Glaze Wicked Style, Hard Candy Sky, and Hard Candy Splendid. Basically a darker pink, a sky blue and a yellow. I drew hearts free hand with my nail art brush; alternating colors on each fingers. Once they were dry I went around with a smaller nail art brush and my black nail polish (Wet 'n' Wild Black Crème) and outlined the hearts and drew on their strings.

I let it all dry and finished it off with my top coat.

The lighting is a bit different with these photos. My dad had purchased a mini fluorescent lamp to help replace the one that stopped working in the kitchen above our sink, but it didn't work so I took it and now it helps me do manicures in the living room when I want to sit and used the coffee table.

So these photos have the fluorescent light shining at them and I have to say it helped make the photos come out nicely on my iPhone camera. I only have one other complaint about this manicure, hearts are super hard to do on the opposite hand! I didn't have this manicure on for long since my left hand looked so bad.

If you are more adventurous in nail art and are more skilled at recreating it on your opposite hand then by all means rock this manicure!

I hope you enjoyed this and I'll talk to you guys on Sunday with another Valentines manicure!
<3 Nicole.

From the Swatch Vault Hard Candy Sky.

Good afternoon polish friends! Hope you all are well!

Today I have a post for you that was sitting in a folder on my USB drive that I took FOREVER ago and never posted here. I think I never posted it here because I wasn't happy with the outcome of the photos but I'm going to show you anyway since the brand this polish is, is being discontinued!

 How sad is that???

If you remember when The Hard Candy Cosmetic Company launched at Wal-Mart sometime ago, they put out a line of polishes with it. It took me forever to buy any of them, and I don't think it was the price point. They retail for $5 each and my Wal-Mart had maybe six different colors to choose from.

The first time I bought one of the Hard Candy polishes, it turned out to be their matte top coat called Mattely In Love. Mattely In Love was the first drugstore/affordable matte top coat I found, considering Essie at the time was $8 and NY Color hadn't released theirs yet.

Later on I wound up purchasing Splendid a bright yellow crème that is not the best by any means and what I am showing you today, Sky.

Sky is a lovely sky blue with hidden blue shimmer that's a tad bit darker. From what I can remember about the formula it takes about three coats to reach opacity and its very thin and watery too. It will definitely flood your cuticles if not careful.


*All photos taken in natural light, three coats and a top coat.

Now here comes the sad news. While reading the drugstore beauty blogs, I found out that Hard Candy is discontinuing quite a few products, including the Just Nails line. So the polish I am showing above will eventually no longer be available. Hopefully though Hard Candy will be putting out a new line of polish and maybe a color similar or better, we can all cross our perfectly manicured hands!

So if your Wal-Mart sells Hard Candy and you have never purchased any of their polishes I would go an take a look because there are a few gems out there.

Do you already own any Hard Candy Polishes?

Nicole. <3