"Sherlock" Nails

Hi!  I have been wanting to do this for a long time and I finally just went for it!  I love the BBC show "Sherlock" because it is super clever and fun!  So, the design I attempted didn't come out as nicely as I was hoping, but from a distance it looks better.  Anyway, here's what I was going for:

This is what my final product was:

Obviously, I had issues creating the design from the wallpaper.  I needed to make it simpler, but it looks messy up close.  I did get a compliment on the nails, though, so I guess I am just scrutinizing them too closely and thinking like a perfectionist.  From a distance they look a bit better.  So, anyway, on to how I created these:

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat.  I then painted on two coats of Revlon Pale Cashmere.  This is a GORGEOUS polish!  It is a semi-sheer, light beige polish and it looks so elegant, feminine, and clean.  I would love to wear it alone.  After that dried I took a small detail brush and attempted the wallpaper design with Sally Hansen Black Out.  I used a toothpick to make the little details inside the curved lines.  After all that (which took a maddeningly long time) I used the same detail brush in Avon Sunshine to draw on the spray paint smiley face.  I finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  

If you ever want to create a Sherlock wallpaper design, it would be cool to put a matte top coat on top of everything!  To be honest, I was planning on that, but I really wanted to be done with this manicure, especially since it was not coming out the way I wanted it to.  In the end, though, I am happy with it because it does remind me of "Sherlock" and it looks better when I am not scrutinizing all the details.  

Peachy Triangles

I am back!  I got home from Florida yesterday.  I had a great time!  So, I have been planning this manicure since I was still in Florida and have been super excited to get to do my nails again.  I finally got the chance and I am super happy that my bare nails grew out nicely while I was in Florida.

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted on two coats of Essie Haute as Hello.  That polish takes a long time to dry, for some reason.  I then applied one coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so the tape wouldn't pull up my base color.  

Before starting the manicure I had cut ten squares of scotch tape.  I applied a corner of one to each of my nails so I would be left with peach triangles at the tips after applying my next color.  The polish that I painted over top of everything is Sinful Colors Cool Gray.  This is a very opaque color, so it completely hid the peach.  After painting the gray on each nail I removed the tape.  

After that was all dry I used a silver striper (Salon Perfect Silver Plated) to line the place where the two colors met.  I was planning on doing that all along, but after taping I actually needed to do that to make the manicure look cleaner.  Not all the lines were completely clean, but the silver polish over that hid the messy bits perfectly.  

I finished off with two coats of Dries Instantly.

About Me!

Hi guys! I am so sorry I haven't been posting! I honestly have not gotten around to doing another manicure after my last and I haven't been doing my nails enough to have a collection of manicures to use as back-up posts. So, I decided to do something a bit different. I will tell you a bit about me.  (If you want to see a manicure, just skip over reading this post!)  On the side of my blog there is a little "about me" link that brings you to my Google page. That doesn't have much information on it, though.  So, here is a bit about me:

My name is Maggie.  I was born in New York and I am going to be 20 years old next month.  I live at home with my dad, my mom, and my younger sister.  I was home schooled from 6th-12th grade and now I am a college student majoring in childhood education.  I had changed my major, so I am taking three full years to get my associate's degree.  I have six more classes until I can graduate with an associate's!  I plan on going on to get my bachelor's degree in childhood education and then, eventually, my master's degree in special education.

When I was younger I was not into nail art at all.  I never even painted my nails.  It has just been within the past few years that I have enjoyed nail art.  Cutepolish (on Youtube) was who originally inspired me to do more with my nails.  Then I found The Nailasaurus.  She is an AMAZING nail artist and she got me in to doing more with studs and stamping and striping and glitter.  

The things I enjoy doing most are cross stitching (though it takes me years to finish projects), doing my nails, hanging out with my younger sister and my best friend, reading (though I have to say I read a lot more before starting college.  One of my all time favorite books is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer), exercising with Blogilates (I follow her workout calendar), listening to music on my iPod (I like a little of everything, except for rap and country), and watching fun TV shows and movies with my family.  I got into Star Trek The Original Series when I was 16 and now I love all Star Trek (except for The Original Series movies, which I only watch for a good laugh, and "Enterprise," which I can't stand.)  I watched all of "Voyager" by myself and now I am rewatching it with my mom.  I love Captain Janeway!  

The people whom I spend the most time with are my sister, my best friend (whom my sister and I have been best friends with since we were toddlers when we met at our church), my mom, and my dad.

I have always been an animal lover and have had many pets over the years.  I have had guinea pigs (my profile picture is of King Tut, who, sadly, isn't around any more), hamsters, and a gerbil.  My family has a ball python named Socci, who could be 30 years old at this point.  We also have an adorable Australian Shepherd-Black Lab mix named Digby, and a rabbit named Duffle.

This year I got my first tattoo!  I never thought I'd get one, but my best friend, my sister, and I all decided to get friendship tattoos!  We have always thought of ourselves as the Three Musketeers and have decided that I am Aramis, my sister is Porthos, and my friend is Athos.  So, my tattoo says "Un pour tous," which means "one for all" in French; my friend's says "Tous pour un," which means "all for one" in French; and my sister's is a fleur de lis, the symbol of the Musketeers.  I absolutely love my tattoo and I doubt I will ever get another one, though my sister and friend now have other tattoos, as well.

Tomorrow I am leaving for Florida for a week to visit my grandpa and step grandma!  I am super excited!  I have never been there before.  So, I won't be posting another manicure until after August 24th.  Sorry about that!  I will get back into doing manicures soon, hopefully!  

Here is a picture of me that was taken this past Easter at our church, where my sister and I met our best friend:

 I am the one on the left, my best friend is in the center, and my sister is on the right.

Summery Hearts

I have finally had some inspiration for nail art. I was in a bit of a rut when it came to thinking of ideas for nail art, but today I was really in the mood and ideas were coming to me! Yay! Before I show you what I have done, I want to tell you a teeny bit about nail files again. A few posts ago I told you about my nail care routine and I showed you that "Ruby Stone" crystal nail file. Well, that thing turned out to not be so great. It was so "gentle" on my nails that it didn't really do anything and the texture just gave me chills. So, I got a super nice crystal nail file from Amazon! It is by OPI and it was only a little over $5. It works wonderfully! All the nail art girls online rave about these types of crystal or glass files and I really know why now! It is gentle on the nails, but it also files very quickly! It doesn't leave other layers of nail sticking out where you just filed and it leaves your nails nice and smooth at the edges, instead of sharp.

Okay! On with the manicure!

I started with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted on two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White, which is the best white polish I have used. I then applied one coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to all my nails because I was going to be taping and sponging. Before I even started the manicure, I took masking tape and cut out hearts to stick to my nails. Here is what I used to create the hearts:

So, when the top coat had dried, I applied two small hearts made out of masking tape to my ring fingers and one large heart to my thumbs. I chose to use masking tape because it is thick and I figured it would be easy to grab with tweezers when I needed to remove it from my nails. I used a square of tape with a heart shape cut out of it on both my pointers so I could achieve a small colorful heart on those nails. Here is what my gradient sponge looked like:

The teal is Sally Hansen Jazzy Jade; the tan is Rimmel Caramel Cupcake; and the coral is Sally Hansen Coral Reef. On my middles and pinkies I did plain gradients. After I sponged over the other nails, though, I used my tweezers to remove the masking tape hearts. This was very easy because they didn't completely adhere to my nails, so the edges were easy to grip with tweezers. It didn't matter that they were not totally stuck to my nails because you do not use a sweeping motion when sponging; you use a stippling, dabbing motion. Also, the paint is contained in the sponge and is not runny, so nothing could seep underneath the tape. After removing all the tape, I applied two coats of Dries Instantly to finish off the manicure.

One Whole Year!

I had not realized that I have been writing this blog for a whole year until today! I suddenly remembered that I had started in August last year so I checked the date of my first post. Wow! I haven't gotten around to doing many manicures, so I will post a bunch of pictures that I took of manicures that I did before starting my blog. I took them with a cruddy phone camera, so sorry about the quality. Enjoy! I have greatly improved the neatness of my manicures. That is all due to practice and learning all about nail art online! Many people have told me they can't do their own nails, but the only reason I can do mine is through so much practice! I enjoy nail art, so it has been fun for me the whole time! If you are disappointed by your nail art skills, remember that you will keep improving with practice! Also, if you are having fun, then who cares how neat it is? If nail art makes you happy, keep doing it!

 Oh! And check out my Facebook page! I post all my nail art pictures there and leave links to each blog post I write! The Storm Trooper and rainbow polka dot nails are inspired by Cutepolish, and the blue and red negative space with little dots is inspired by Bubzbeauty!

Glitter Gradient

Wow! I have not posted or done a manicure in a long time! I have actually had bare nails for over a week! I am still growing them and I am really enjoying having longer nails. So, here is the manicure that I FINALLY got around to doing:

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat. I then painted on three coats of Pure Ice Love. When that was dry I took a silver glitter (Sinful Colors Queen of Beauty) and made sure that the brush didn't have very much polish on it. I then stroked that coming down from my cuticles. I didn't have much glitter on my nails because this was just the base so I could build up the gradient. (I am not great with glitter gradients. This was my first real try on a complete glitter gradient manicure.) When that was mostly dry I took the same glitter polish and did not remove too much glitter from the brush. I then concentrated that more near my cuticles.

I also took Salon Perfect Cosmic Dust (a fine, holographic glitter) and brushed some of that from the middle of my nails to the tips to help with the fading effect. Lastly, I took my Sinful Colors glitter again and went over spots that could use more glitter. I then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly. I definitely have room for improvement, but I am pretty satisfied with the final product.