Conversation Hearts Nails

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm a sappy romantic so I love the holiday. I love celebrating love; not just romantic love. I bought a gift for my bestie, too, because I love her to bits. 

For my Valentine's Day nails, I thought I'd recreate the most iconic V-Day candy. Conversation hearts! I can't be the only person who thinks that they're disgusting, though, right?

31DC2016 Day 30 - Inspired by a Tutorial

I got super sick yesterday and have fallen a day behind on the challenge. It's all good though. I have day 30 for you today and I'll post the last day's tomorrow. Finishing one day behind isn't all that bad. 

The prompt for day 30 is inspired by a tutorial. There are so many amazing tutorials out there from so many talented nail artists; it took me a while to choose one. I narrowed it down by choosing an artist first. That helped.

31DC2015 Day 22 - Inspired by a Song

I spent the week before the challenge started AND the duration of the challenge up to this point with the exact song inspiration I wanted to use in mind. Then, today, the time came to do my nails and I changed my mind. Who know why my brain works the way that it works. Anyway, I chose a new song. I picked Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple. This song popped into my head and I instantly thought of this tutorial by Sarah at Chalkboard Nails. I have tried this tutorial so many times and have never gotten it to work for me. I was determined to get it working this time around. 

Studded Cling Wrap Marble

One polish I received with my Julep Mystery Box a couple weeks ago was Tyra. Tyra is one of Julep's LE Metamorphic topcoats and I was very excited about it. There were three of them and each one leaned in a different color direction. Tyra was the pink-ish shade. It wasn't my first choice but being that it was a mystery box, I didn't know which one I was getting. Regardless of which one I was getting, I was excited. Well, I thought I'd finally give Tyra a try and see if it was as amazing as I hoped.

Textured Christmas Nails

I don't have a whole lot of textured nail polishes (maybe seven or eight) but I love them so much. I forget about them for a while here and there but eventually I remember and then all I want to do is wear textured polish for days. I knew I wanted to do at least one textured Christmas manicure and, when I decided what to do, I knew exactly which color I wanted to use. 

31dc2014 Day 29 - Inspired by the Supernatural

I've been really excited about this prompt for a while now because I had decided quite early on what I was going to do. When I was brainstorming, I thought of all of the usual supernatural suspects (ghosts, vampires, werewolves, unicorns, mermaids, etc.). But I wanted to do something different. So, I chose a "supernatural" being from one of my (and hubby's) favorite shows, Game of Thrones. I picked White Walkers to base my design on. For those of you who aren't familiar with the show, they look like this...,

31dc2014 Day 12 - Stripes (Just a Quickie)

Base Color - OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons
Marbled Colors - Zoya Kelly, OPI Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow, OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons, Sally Hansen Pat on the Black

Just a Quickie: Fan Brush Nails

Base Color: Zoya Kelly

Pink: ORLY Fancy Fuchsia 

I live in a menagerie...

...Well, not quite but it sure feels that way. I am cat-sitting for a friend for a couple of days. Her two kitties, my three kitties, and the puppy make for a fur-baby filled house! I love it, though. It is tough, though, to make sure that everyone gets the love and attention that they deserve. 

Anyway, this manicure started at one point and then went WAY in another direction. So, I was wearing this teal and dark gray striped shirt. It's one of my favorites. I just so happen to have two nail polishes that match it perfectly. I grabbed them and was going to do a striped mani to match the shirt. At the last second, I decided I wanted to match my nails to my work outfit for tomorrow which will be green. I really wanted to use the gray, though (Zoya Kelly) because it's probably my favorite gray nail polish in the whole world. So I perused my green polishes until I found the perfect match!

Dry Marble Waterfall

I have been in love with waterfall manis ever since I saw Sammy over at The Nailasaurus do them. I've tried my hand at it a few times (here and here) but they have never looked as good as here. No matter how thin of a nail art brush I use, I can never get the lines thin enough. I guess I just don't have a light enough touch.

Well, I thought I would do some dry marbling but I wanted to do something other than just swirling a few colors together. Thus, I have come up with the perfect solution to my waterfall woes!

Pretty Stripes

Have you ever had one of those days that just goes so poorly that you know the rest of the week is just going to suck? So have I. But today was not one of those days. Today was a great day. As a matter of fact, yesterday was great, too! I know this is going to be a good week!

I've recently decided to stop letting unimportant people in my life dictate my mood and feelings. Since then, I've been much happier. When I'm not worried about those people, I can focus more on the things that really matter!

My two good days in a row put me in the mood for a fun, girly, sparkly manicure. I couldn't decide on just one girly polish, so I chose three!

Just a Quickie: Invader Zim

Thumb: Sally Hansen Black Out, Sally Hansen White On
Index: (GIR) Zoya Kelly, SH Black Out, Julep Amy
Middle: (Zim) Essie Mojito Madness, SH Black Out, Julep Rose, Wet n Wild Candy-licious
Ring: (Dib) OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons, SH Black Out, SH White On
Pinky: (Pig) Julep Carrie, SH Black Out, SH White On, Wet n Wild Candy-licious
Top Coat: China Glaze Matte Magic

What a week!

This last week has been...something else. Honestly, it's been pretty rough. I had an allergic reaction last weekend to an unknown something. Then, at work I had a reaction to a chemical at work. I also had some car trouble that ended in unexpected expenses. I burned my left thumb at work. It wasn't the WORST burn I could have gotten. Just a minor second degree burn...ON MY CUTICLE! It's hideous. Luckily, it's just out of sight in my photos. Lastly, I had a major break which meant that I had to chop all of my nails down. :/

Today's mani is something quick and simple that I had to throw together out of necessity. Basically, my nails were naked and I was pressed for time. Ha ha!

Magic: The Gathering Nails

A few weeks ago, I had a coworker request that I do a nail art design based on Magic: The Gathering. Now, I know next to nothing about Magic. And what I do know, I only know because hubby used to play it. All I know is that is a fantasy style trading card game. That's it. 

When I was asked to create this design, I was asked to use the five "elements" as inspiration. I did a tiny bit of research and found out that the spells in Magic are classified into five colors. White (which, oddly, is usually represented in yellow), blue, red, black, and green. Each color represents different things and has a sort of symbol. I used those symbols for my design.

V-Day #7

Today's Valentine's Day design is another non-traditional color combination for the holiday. I wanted to create something for those girls who don't necessarily love pink or red all that much. I love the way this design turned out and I adore the colors I used!

Wintery Waterfall

I love snow! And it is snowing! It's been snowing since yesterday. If you live near the Great Lakes or in the Northeast, you know. Some of you have gotten a couple inches and some of you have gotten a few inches. If you're lucky, like us, you're getting inches in the teens! 

Yay!

This morning, hubby and I spent some time outside. At first, it was just to shovel the walk and driveway but we ended up playing in the snow. This included hubby throwing me into the snow; I took him down with me, though, so it was fine. I wanted to make a snowman (which hubby thinks is silly) but the snow was just too powdery. Maybe later this week! 

On to my nails...
I wanted to do something frosty looking in honor of all this snowfall and I love what I came up with!

Playing with PixieDust

I stopped by Ulta last night and played around in the clearance section for a while. You can't beat the finds in a good clearance section sometimes and Ulta is no exception. I found a few Zoya polishes marked way down and snatched them up!

Two of those polishes are Zoya PixieDust textured polishes. And I love them. I have a bit of a love affair with textured polishes, though I only had three. I am so glad I could add these to my collection.

Backed Up Halloween

I have been such a bad blogger this month! Ugh! I have been so busy. I have been doing my nails, though, and today I have three Halloween manicures to show you!

31DC2013 Day 1 - Red Nails

Here we go with my very first 31 Day Challenge. Yay! 

Day one is red nails:

My darling dotting tools.

Seriously, guys, I love my dotting tools. I would say that they are, without a doubt, one of my favorite tools in my nail art-senal. (See what I did there? Arsenal? Ha ha ha!) Whenever I'm stumped or feeling uninspired, my dotting tools always come to the rescue. They are so quick and easy to use and, come on, who doesn't love polka dots?