Pastel Galaxy

I wanted to try something a different today, I got the idea to try out pastel galaxy nails.  I am not sure how much I like this one though.  I think I should have done a different color combo or a different base for them.

I used Orly Pure Porcelain for the base, and sponged on Orly Skinny Dip, Color Club Electro Candy, Finger Paints Lemon Sour, Finger Paints 15 Minutes of Frame, Wet N Wild Buffy the Violet Slayer and topped it all with Cover Girl City Lights.

Sparklicious Gradient

I did this reverse gradient with L'Oreal Sparklicious, a gorgeous glitter from their holiday collection.  This glitter is serious perfection, it is such a light gold it is almost silver but is still appears gold. Haha sorry that is a weird description of it, really this polish is a cooler toned version of China Glaze Blonde Bombshell, which is probably one of my favorite glitters ever, except for there are no tiny bar glitters in this one.  I wanted to try it with a gradient first but it would look really good over a bunch of different polishes and is a perfect accent nail color.

I used Color Club High Society and L'Oreal Sparklicious

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also on a side note I am working on the way I take my pictures and the lighting, so I will appoligize in advance if my pictures are cropped differently or the lighting is different than usual.  I am just working on improving my photo quality!

 

 

 

 

Galaxy Drip Nails

I have seen a few different creations of these galaxy drip nails floating around Pinterest lately and I really wanted to try them.  I thought they would be a lot easier than they were!  The hardest part was trying to keep the drips crisp looking while attempting to make the galaxy pattern.  I started with a pastel blue polish from Cosmetic Arts that I don't have a name for.  I then painted the drips with Orly After Party and sponged on Orly Meet Me Under the Mistletoe, Sweet Peacock and Essie Mojito Madness.  After that I applied a coat of Wet N Wild's Hallucinate over the entire nail and added a few glitters from China Glaze Snowglobe to the galaxies. 

 

 

 

 

 

Candy Cane Cupcakes

I wanted to try a cupcake mani and ever since I got China Glaze Make Some Noise it has been begging for me to try a cupcake mani w/ it.  I didn't intentionally make them look like candy canes but that is what it ended up looking like to me.

I used China Glaze Make Some Noise, LA Colors Art Deco Red Glitter and an Amuse white nail art pen.  Oh and the little heart is from a nail art set I got at Dollar Tree.

 

 

 

 

Graphic Lines

I tried out another tape mani, I got this idea from Pshiiit she has done a tutorial on her blog for them. Her blog is all in french but she does picture tutorials for some of her mani's and she is awesome I love all of her mani's!  I started with 2 coats of China Glaze White Cap then I did two coats of Orly Winter Wonderland.  I was going to leave it but I really wasn't feeling this mani so I experimented.  I used small triangular strips of tape and applied them to both sides of my nails to get a random pattern.  I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Jumpin' Jade.  I also wanted to mattify this one to see how it would look.  I got a different matte top coat the other day by NYC and I am not liking it very much, it doesn't look matte enough for me, I like my Hard Candy one way better.  Now for the pics....

 

China Glaze White Cap w/ Orly Winter Wonderland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So much better with the added stripes

 

 

 

this matte top coat gives a more rubbery looking finish that I don't really care for

 

Hope you enjoyed, sorry this was a long rambling post!

 

 

Some Exciting News

Hey guys just something fun and exciting to share with you all.  My Poison Ivy nails were featured in an article on Beautylish about Holiday manicure ideas!  You can find the post here, they used the matte version that I showed in my original post. 

Christmas Glitter Gradient

Can I go ahead and start doing Christmas nail art now?  I having been itching to do some holiday themed nails and I think since Thanksgiving has passed it is appropriate.  My base is China Glaze Make Some Noise and the glitter is a franken.  I used an Wet N Wild mini from a few holidays ago it is a red glitter with large hexagon and small round glitter pieces, then I used the silver hexagon glitter from Sally's Girl and Sinful Colors Call You Later which is a green and gold glitter mixture.  I was going for a China Glaze Party Hearty esque franken (man I regret never getting this one!), it is not an exact dupe but it will do!

Make Some Noise

I grabbed this the other day, it came out with China Glaze's spring 2012 collection.  It's a red/coral color that leans more red than coral.  I love it, really nice formula and super shiny, almost jelly like shine but with full coverage.

Lively Lilac

It has been a crazy week, wish I had been able to post a little more but I just couldn't.  I did this mani earlier this week, I thought it was really cute.  I love pastels!

I used Sally Hansen Lively Lilac and Revlon Whimsical

 

 

 

 

Poison Ivy

Oh goodness this mani is frickin awesome!  I can't even stand it, it looks so glowy and gorgeous.  I wanted to try Wet N Wild's Poison Ivy again because the first time I wore it I did a horrible job of applying it and I couldn't get any good pics of it.  So this time around I super nubbinized my nails and slapped it on being extra careful to not flood my cuticles, this one is really hard to clean up if you get it on your skin.  I felt like it needed a little something else so I applied a couple of coats of Pure Ice Heart Breaker over it.  Heart Breaker made this polish look insane.  After looking at it I wanted to try it with a matte top coat so I did that as well haha.  Hope you enjoy!



I used Wet N Wild Poison Ivy, Pure Ice Heart Breaker and in the last two pics Hard Candy Matte-Ly In Love

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blurry so you can see how glowy it is

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pink Friday

I have been really obsessed with glitter lately, I am trying to stop myself from buying more!  This combo is so cute, it reminds me of childhood kind of.

I used OPI Pink Friday and Lush Lacquer Mr. Bubble

Duo-Chrome Gradient

I have wanted to try this mani out for a while now.  I like how it turned out, however I hate using a black base and then not being able to cover up some of the black that is at the base of the nails!  Anyways, for these I started with a black base of Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris and then used my gradient technique to sponge on China Glaze Want My Bawdy, Deviantly Daring and Rare and Radiant.  I struggled to get good pics of this one, I have been having issues taking photos lately haha.  I can't seem to get them right, but hopefully these are ok.

 

indoors w/ flash

 

 

 

direct sunlight

 

 

 

under water w/ flash

 

 

 

natural light, overcast

 

 

 

Tiffany Imposter

I think I have an addiction to Tiffany blue colored polishes.  I grabbed this one by Finger Paints the other day and I got it home and realized I had at least two others that were almost exactly the same!  In my defense this one is more blue toned than the other two but still...

I used Finger Paints Tiffany Imposter, Nina Ultra Pro Holographic Top Coat, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Set The Stage and Cover Girl Gold Rush

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ugh I hate how glitter photographs w/ flash it makes it look really sparse which is not how it appears in real life at all!

 

 

Monster High Series: Draculaura

I have another addition to add to my Monster High series today.  Draculaura is the daughter of Dracula and she loves pink.  This doll is my daughters favorite and it was the first one that I bought for her so I was excited to do this one.  My daughter actually made me do her nails similar after she saw me do mine haha.

I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Twisted Pink and Bubblegum Pink and a black nail art striper

 

 

 

 

 

and a pic of Draculaura

image from http://monsterhigh.wikia.com/wiki/Draculaura

 

 

 

 

 

 

Torrid Mattified

Ok so I said in my post yesterday that I wanted to put a matte top coat on Orly Torrid and I went ahead and tried it today.  It looks even prettier with the matte top coat over it.  Colors like this always seem to look so good mattified.

 

Indoors with flash

 

 

 

Direct sunlight

 

 

 

Natural light, shade

 

 

 

Torrid

I picked this polish up the other day at Sally's.  It's from Orly's Naught or Nice Holiday collection.  I was hoping it will squash my lemming for Orly Smolder since I have not gotten my hands on it just yet.  This is insanely gorgeous, it is shimmery red that has super tiny red shimmer flecks in it.  It's appears darker indoors and way brighter and shinier outside in the sun.  The formula was really thin and I used 3 thinnish coats to get to the opacity that I like.  I really want to try putting a matte top coat over this one I think it would look awesome.


Sorry I took a million pics of it haha

Orly Torrid

 

Indoor with flash

 

 

 

Direct sunlight

 

 

 

Direct sunlight

 

 

 

Indirect sunlight

 

 

 

 

 

Stone Cold

I have a super blingy mani today.  I saw someone of MakeupAlley do this combo and I have wanted to try it since.  Lucky me I had both of the polishes she used!  The pics for this one seriously do not do it justice at all.  It is gorgeous in real life.

I used Orly Stonecold and Mermaid Tale