Sometimes things truly are black and white.

I decided to do a manicure with contrasting colors and black and white seemed perfect. I grabbed my Orly Liquid Vinyl along with Sally Hansen White On and jumped in.

I knew I wanted to do both hands differently so I went black with white tips on the left and white with black tips on the right. It was good but I needed more oomph.

I grabbed a toothpick and decided to do polka dots once my top coat dried.

I really like the idea of this but, as it was my first polka dot attempt, my dots weren't very cohesive. Super cute mani if I can get that down for next time.

Not so formal French with a checkerboard.

I liked the Orly It's Up to Blue when I used it on the Liquid Vinyl for one of my previous manicures so I wanted to try it out full nail. I really love this teal and it's great coverage.

I started with a base coat, two coats of It's Up to Blue and a coat of Seche Vite. Since I didn't want to leave my manicure plain, I grabbed my OPI Honk If You Love OPI from the Roadies collection.

I wanted to test out the check pattern but didn't want to do all my nails so I opted just for an accent nail and tips on my other nails followed by a top coat.

I thought it turned out cute although I definitely need to work on taping straight. My squares are not even and that bothered me. I ended up taking the polish off and doing another manicure.

God bless Texas!

I'm heading to Houston for the weekend to visit two of my friends I met while we were living in Japan. In honor of going to the Lone Star State, I decided I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do a Texas themed manicure.

I started out with a base coat and two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme White On followed by a coat of Seche Vite.

I did all this manicure free handed so I didn't have to wait for dry nails to tape them off. After the white, I added OPI Blue My Mind on a little less than half of my nail.



After the blue, I took Sally Hansen No Chip in Resilient Red in the bottom half of the white. I added a coat of Seche Vite.

After that dried, I used Kiss Nail Art Paint in white for the stars. The Texas flag is fairly simple and I experimented with the star a few times before I found the easiest way to make it.

I couldn't take pictures while doing the stars because I didn't want the polish to dry too fast in case I needed to manipulate it so I did a how to on an envelope.

The brush in the white is long and skinny so I started with a small dash straight up and down. The made one to the upper right, upper left, lower right and lower left. When the paint is wet, it's much easier to fix any place you don't like.



Overall, I like the manicure. It turned out better than I hoped especially since I wasn't using tape. With the white base coat, it was easy to add any additional white to correct any mistakes with the nail art brush.

Seeing stars.

I bought this bottle of Sinful Color Let's Talk at Target because it looked to be a lovely shade of purple. When I painted my nails, it still appeared purple but when I took a picture, it kept looking blue. I even had Chris look at my nails and then the pictures to be sure I hadn't been inhaling too much acetone fumes lately.

I Googled it to see if anyone else had had the same problem and it seemed fairly common. One blogger suggested photographing the polish under bathroom light and it did seem to help. The first nail picture is in the kitchen and the second was in the bathroom.


I still liked the polish, regardless, but the blue looks very similar to the OPI blue I used in my last manicure and I don't need dupes in my inventory just yet.

After a base coat, two coats of the Sinful Color and a coat of Seche Vite, I added some sparkle with a coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Rock Star. After another coat of Seche Vite, I wanted to add something extra to my nails. So I grabbed some gold stars (just like the ones you got in kindergarten for taking a nap - I would SO ace that now!) and put them near the sides or bottom of my nails. Then I followed with a coat of Orly Liquid Vinyl and a top coat.

I liked this manicure but I didn't LIKE like it. We didn't stay together long but are definitely going to still be friends. The stars didn't stick as well as I had hoped and the end product wasn't as clean as I prefer but it was still fun to do and I will probably attempt something else with the stars in the future. Just because we broke up doesn't mean we can't still hang out!

Patchwork

I wanted to experiment a little more with taping so I attempted a patchwork manicure. I wanted neutral nails so I went with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On, OPI French Quarter for Your Thoughts and Orly Liquid Vinyl.

I started with a base coat, two coats of white and a coat of Seche Vite.

Then I taped off individual angles and painted one section with the French Quarter for Your Thoughts followed by Seche Vite.

Once that was dry, I taped again and used the Liquid Vinyl and a final coat of Seche Vite.

I must say, I loved this manicure. I got a lot of comments and "likes" for it on Facebook. I will definitely do this one again in lots of different colors. Next time, I'll try and remember to take a picture while taping.

And let me give a shout out to my first follower! Welcome Dom!

This definitely Blue My Mind!

For this manicure, I used the base color of OPI Blue My Mind and Orly Liquid Vinyl for the tips and V. I've really been drawn to blue lately which is completely out of the norm for me. Before the past few weeks you would have only found shades of reds, a few pinks and dark purples and white in my stash. But this blue was exactly what I hoped.

I started with a base coats, two coats of the OPI and then a coat of Seche Vite. I LOVE this blue. Love it. I can't say that enough. I'm definitely not into one color manicures right now but I would do one with this polish.

I taped off my tips and the V on my ring finger and painted a coat of the Orly on top. You can tell I didn't tape very well as I had some bleed through. I wasn't too concerned since I knew I was going to be highlighting with silver anyway.

I did like the finished manicure. I liked the colors together. I even kept this manicure on for a whole day. I would do it again and change up the colors a bit. It kind of reminds me of the Dallas Cowboys with the blue and silver. Some people may see that as a negative thing but I do not!

Party like a rock star!

For this manicure, I used OPI Significant Other Color and then topped it with Sally Hansen Xtreme wear in Rock Star.

I used a base coast and two coats of the OPI. The color is way too sheer for my taste. I'm not a fan of my nail tips showing through polish. Although this polish would be good for a quick mani that wouldn't noticeably chip because of the light color.

I topped the OPI with a coat of Seche vite and then a coat of the Sally Hansen for some texture. It's a pink-purple based glitter polish. Definitely see some blues and greens in there as well.

Overall, it was a decent manicure. Not my favorite and I definitely thought it was too light and pink to make me feel like a rock star. This was a manicure I removed immediately after the picture and started another one.

In the beginning...

These are some of my earlier manicures. I don't have the bottles to tell you the colors but the first is a deep maroon/red over silver and the second is a dark plum/purple over silver. I guess I can't really call them "French" since the French manicure is white with pink. They need a new name. Not so formal French? Formally French?


I'm not too excited about posting pictures of my toes because, well, they're toes.

This was my first try at a not so ordinary pedicure. I did it all by hand which would be why the halves aren't equal but I still liked it and was pretty proud. This is actually the same dark plum/purple from my fingers with the same silver and then the white highlight.

Not exactly my first time.

First of all, I have to say, I love black nail polish. Why I waited 36 years to buy my first bottle, I have no idea. I've had dark colors (I did a silver/purple French that I'll post that looks black) but I never bit the bullet on just straight black.

I got a bottle about 10 days ago. Orly Liquid Vinyl. I can't say enough good things about it. I've used it with almost every manicure since then.

I started off with a base coat (also an Orly brand but I'm not sure which one), two coats of the Liquid Vinyl and a coat of quick dry Seche Vite.

Then I taped off the sides of the black to make a V at the bottom of my nails and painted the V Orly It's Up to Blue. Before it completely dried, I removed the tape and painted on another coat of Seche Vite.

Once that dried, I used some nail art stickers I picked up at Sally's and adhered the flowers to my nails followed by, you guessed it, one last coast of Seche Vite.


I wore that to San Diego for the weekend and picked up some more polish from Ulta while we were there. In my haul, I grabbed a silver and a gold Orly skinny bottle of polish and used the silver to highlight just the V on my nails. By that time, it had been three days since I painted my nails and I took everything off when we got back to AZ.

If you're wondering about the title of this post, it's because this was actually my second attempt at using tape to do a manicure. My first attempt was only so-so. If you're a Facebook friend you've already seen it but I don't have the heart to include it on the blog yet. Maybe another day when I want to laugh at myself or see how far I've come.

*I have to point out that I took all my pictures without cleaning up my cuticles until the last one. That truly drives me crazy because my nails look so much better without polish everywhere. Told you I was a novice!

You are... my only obsession...

*Sung to the tune of 'The Only Exception'.

Only nails aren't my only obsession. They are just the most recent one.

I've always enjoyed a good mani/pedi but I've only recently realized that I can do a pretty good job at the polish portion without a professional. While I certainly can't relax and enjoy the foot or hand massage when I do it myself, I like seeing what designs I can copy or create. This blog is just to document that. I love looking up You Tube tutorials and nail blogs online.

I've already taken lots of pictures of manicures that I've been doing recently so I have a backlog of posts to do. Hopefully you'll enjoy the pictures and see something you'd like to try yourself!