New Years Nails

I titled this "New Years Nails" because glitter is involved and glitter is perfect for New Years, but this manicure can be done for any time.

I started out with a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted two coats of  Essie Penny Talk on all my nails.  I then took Maybelline Gilded Rose (which is a gold polish with rose gold pieces of different sized glitter it in.  It is SO pretty!) and dabbed it straight from the brush onto the tips of my nails.  I then lightly stroked some polish up toward my cuticles to give the glitter a gradient effect.  It was quite easy and quick.

I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

I hope you all have a great New Year!!  I cannot believe how close 2015 is!

Techie Nails!

I am excited about this manicure! I knew I would get back into the mode soon enough! I have been wanting to use the binary code image from one of my stamping plates since I got them a while ago!

I used so many polishes for this manicure! I started out with a base coat of Essie Protein Base Coat. I used two coats of all of my base colors. On my thumbs I painted NYC High Line Green; on my pointers I did a gradient, but my base color was Revlon Dreamer; on my middle and ring fingers I painted Sally Hansen Black Out; and on my pinkies I painted Sally Hansen Celeb City. After that, I got ready to do a gradient on my pointers by applying a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly so I could avoid removing my base color with the sponge. I then got down to stamping on my other nails. On my pinkies I used Bundle Monster plate BM-422. The polish I stamped with was Sally Hansen Black Out. On my ring and middle fingers I used Bundle Monster plate BM-415. I stamped with Sally Hansen White On. On my thumbs I used plate BM415 again and used Essie Penny Talk. On those nails I then applied two coats of Dries Instantly.

For the pointers I created a gradient. I wanted it to be light in the centers and fade into darker blue at the tips and near my cuticles. So, I applied a stripe of Revlon Dreamer in the center of a makeup sponge, and then put stripes of Sinful Colors Rain Storm on either side of that line, and then put stripes of Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue on either sides of those lines. I then used a stippling motion to apply it to my pointer nails. When that was dry, I used Essie Borrowed & Blue and the same image I used on my pinkies (from BM-422). I finished those nails off with two coats of Dries Instantly, as well.

Copper and Blue Stripes

I decided that I will not do an Easter inspired manicure this year.  Holy Week and Easter are always super busy for me with all the church services and festivities.  I want my nails to match my dress on Easter, so I will just be painting them a solid color--very boring to post on a blog.  I have a bunch of manicures lined up to show you, though.

I started out with a base coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  Then I painted on a coat of Essie Penny Talk on my ring fingers and thumbs.  I painted on a coat of Rimmel Blue Eyed Girl on the rest of my nails.  These polishes are very opaque, so I didn't need more than one coat.  I then applied three pieces of striping tape diagonally on each nail where I wanted the base color to show through.  After that, I painted on a coat of the opposite color and immediately removed the tape with tweezers.  I finished off with two coats of Seche Vite.  Have a happy Easter!

Metallic Tricolor

I have been wanting to do this design for days now.  It is actually very easy and fast to do!  You won't need any tools besides the brushes already in the bottles of polish!

I started out by painting on one coat of Essie Penny Talk, one of my favorite polishes.  It is so opaque that I didn't bother doing two coats--especially because I was going to add more layers of other colors.  Once that was dry, I used Sally Hansen Celeb City (silver) to paint on the next stripe.  Instead of just striping this horizontally across my nail, I painted multiple vertical strokes from a third down my nail to the tip of my nails.  You can apply tape to get a straight line, but I didn't feel like waiting for everything to dry enough to apply tape.  So, I freehanded it.  I only needed one layer of that, too, because it is very opaque, especially if layered over another polish.  Once that was dry, I used Sally Hansen Golden-I to paint the next bottom third of my nails.  Again, I freehanded this the same way that I did the silver, just further down the nail.  I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.
This is a super easy and pretty design!  I also love how fast it takes, since all of these polishes are fine with just one coat and you don't need any extra tools to create it.  Also, with metallics like these, nobody can even tell if you don't have perfectly straight, clean lines.  The colors sort of blend into each other because of the shimmer.  
I am super excited because I ordered a Seche Vite top coat from Amazon.com!  I can't wait to try it!  I've never used that top coat before, but have heard a lot of good things about it.   I hope everybody had a nice week!

Computer Chip Nails!

I got my 2013 Bundle Monster plates!!  I love them!  There are so many great designs!  The pattern I was most excited about is this one:

I am a bit geeky, so this pattern really got me excited!  It took me a while to decide on the colors that I'd use.  I used two coats of Rimmel Hard Metal as my base color and then used stamping plate BM415.  My stamping color is Essie Penny Talk again.  That is my best stamping polish.  I would love to get more of Essie's chrome colors but they are a little expensive for me, a lowly college student.  ; )  I used two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to finish off the manicure.  

Barbed Wire

I am still impatiently waiting for my 2013 Bundle Monster plates to come, so I felt like stamping my nails today:

I used two coats of Sally Hansen Black Out as my base color.  When that was dry I used Sally Hansen Penny Talk to stamp on the barbed wire.  This image is from Bundle Monster's plate BM-323.  The best polishes to stamp with are highly pigmented and of a thick consistency.  Chromes work very well, too.  If you have any old polishes that are a little too thick to paint your nails with, consider saving them and trying to stamp with them.  Thicker polishes stamp beautifully.  I applied a thick coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to seal in the manicure.

Statue of Liberty

So, tomorrow I am super excited to visit the Statue of Liberty.  I got these multicultural nail stickers from Walmart a while ago and have been looking forward to wearing them.  I bought the bluey-green nail polish at Walmart today, specifically for this manicure.  I know it's not the exact color of the Statue of Liberty, but I am happy with it:

I painted my ring fingers and thumbs with Rimmel Mintilicious and the other nails with Essie Penny Talk.  I got the 2 mm rhinestones from Amazon.  They came in a set of 12 colors and were only a few dollars.  I stuck them on with Sally Hansen Dries Instantly and then painted that over top of all my nails.  I hope everyone has a great weekend!  If you ever have any suggestions for manicures, feel free to leave a comment!

Silver and Gold

I love incorporating tape into my manicures.  You can do super cool things with such a common item.  Today I used masking tape instead of scotch tape for my first time:

This manicure is based on a manicure that Bubzbeauty did one time.  The first picture was taken under fluorescent lighting and the second was under sunlight.  The silver is Sally Hansen Pumping Iron, the gold is Sally Hansen Golden-I, and the copper dots are Essie Penny Talk.  I used Sally Hansen Dries Instantly as my top coat.

I actually liked using masking tape better than scotch tape.  Masking tape is more flexible and can stick close to your cuticles, avoiding paint going under the tape and you having to clean up with polish remover to create a sharp line.  Scotch tape is just not flexible enough.  I will probably use masking tape from now on.

So, I cut squares of tape and applied a corner to the base of my nail.  my silver polish wasn't opaque enough with just one coat, so I waited around 30 seconds and applied a second coat before immediately removing the tape.  That worked really well and the lines still came out sharp.  I applied another layer of the gold after removing the tape.  One coat looked pretty good, though.  I used a toothpick to make the copper dots around the edges of the silver and gold polish at my cuticle.

Here's just a quick fact about my chevron manicure:  I applied at least 2 coats of topcoat to all my nails.  Some had 3 coats.  The day after I did the manicure, though, edges of the tape were sticking out and were very scratchy.  I had to take it off on the third day that I wore it.  It was a lot of fun to do and very cute, but mine didn't last long.  It was easy to remove, though.  The tape pretty much dissolved when I used nail polish remover.

Stamping Again!

Hi!  Today I had a great time stamping my nails!  The colors that I used worked super well and the images came out very clear:

I used Sally Hansen White On as my base color, the blue that I stamped with is Milani Sail Away and the copper is Essie Penny Talk.  The plates that I used were Bundle Monster BM-314, BM-315, and BM-319.  In the pictures I do not have a top coat on yet because I wanted to let the polish dry for a while longer.  I used Sally Hansen Dries Instantly after, though.

I am very happy with how the images came out.  I would highly recommend these polishes for stamping with.  I really like paisley and I decided to do multicolored paisley.  If I had not accidentally overlapped the copper on the blue, it would look even better.

Stamping is loads of fun, but it takes a lot of practice.  I still haven't mastered it.  A really great blog that got me into nail stamping is The Nailasaurus.  You should check her out!  She is a pro at stamping and nail art in general!