Stripes on stripes

I've seen variations of this manicure several time and I always find it so cute so I had to try it out. It would really work with any color polishes and any striping pattern that you wanted. So fun!

Nails for the Marine Corps ball

I experimented a few times with some fancy looking nails for the ball but, ultimately, I ended up pretty simple. I knew I wanted to go with silver to match my shoes and dress. My shoes were silver glitter and my dress had silver stones on it.

I had grabbed this silver glitter polish when we were in San Diego last time. It's OPI Crown Me Already and it's great for glittery manicures.

I also did my friend's nails. Her dress was chocolate brown with gold detailing so she decided on this pretty bronze color and a gold accent nail with a tiny gold rhinestone.

Glitter tips.

I had to run to Target for something the other day and I wanted to check out eye shadow while I was there. This Milani brand polish was on the bottom of the aisle but it truly spoke to me. Especially for $2.99! I've been looking for a true big glitter in gold and silver and this fit the bill nicely. I was disappointed to not be able to find silver.

I thought this manicure was awesome. I loved the uniqueness of the big gold glittery pieces as a French in lieu of polish. I didn't end up keeping this on as I was working on something specific but it will definitely be in the rotation in the future!

More dots.

Chris and I went to have some family pictures made last week and I wanted my nails to match my outfit. I was wearing a grey sweater over a white tank top so that was my inspiration.

I did a grey base with white polka dots and I love the way this turned out. I got several compliments on it, too. I love when that happens!

Nail Inc.

I ordered this combo from Sephora a couple weeks ago when I needed to get some makeup. It was expensive so I was wary of wasting money on it. Imagine my surprise when the polish turned out awesome! I absolutely love this polish. I don't know how the top polish will look on any other brand polish but I will be trying it out.

Ulta brand.

First off, here is a shot of my current polish collection. Well, current as of the day I took that picture. I know I've bought at least two more polishes since then. I really need to figure out a good way to organize them.

I accidentally posted these two pictures backwards. Sorry about that.

I picked up the Ulta denim collection while we were in San Diego. Mainly I wanted the light blue to do a specific manicure but I couldn't pass up the five small bottles for $9.95 versus $6.00 or $7.00 for one bottle of that one color. And since I can never leave anything alone, I added a bright royal blue on top.

These are great polishes. I wasn't sure about them since I'd never tried them out before but I was very pleased. I picked up these five bottles and then four others. The regular polishes were buy one get one free. I love a good sale!

A couple of stars from the OPI Muppets Collection.

When we were in San Diego, my friend Trish asked me to paint her nails for her ball. We headed to Ulta to find some polish and they had the new OPI Muppets Collection at the front of the store. Trish and I both fell in love with the glitter!

I picked up Divine Swine which is the manicure that looks pink/purple and Trish grabbed Rainbow Connection which is a mix of glitter colors. Both polishes were awesome and I layered them both over a silver base.

Blue and white half moons.

I did this manicure before heading to San Diego for Veteran's Day weekend. I really like this blue and wanted to do something "wintery". For some reason, the blue and white together remind me of winter. Maybe next time I'll put a snowflake in the design. Even though I don't like cold at all.

Dot, dots and more dots!

After I did the owl on my nails, I decided that I liked the brown I used and wanted to do a manicure with that as the base. I'm a huge fan of polka dots (as you can tell, I'm sure) and I wanted to do a little more than just plain dots. I decided that dots in dots was just the ticket!

I loved this finished manicure. It was fun and I liked the smaller gold dots inside the larger white ones. Funny thing is, a few days after I saw this I saw a similar manicure on Pinterest except using a light blue. It looked good, too!

Konad - red and gold.

Orly Luxe is a great gold for a Konad manicure. I went back and grabbed the similar silver Orly but I haven't tried it out yet. Maybe I'll do that tonight.

I liked this manicure although I'm not so good with stamping with my left hand. Too much pressure and the pattern smears and all runs together which is not a good look at all. Guess that just means I need to practice more!

Starry nights.

I received an order of nail art - stars, words, butterflies... everything you can think of! - and wanted to use some of it. I decided on a black French manicure with stars.

Since I like an accent nail, I used some striping tape to add stripes to my ring fingers. The tape was pink and it bled through onto my nail after I used the black polish. I still liked the manicure, though.

Who?

I really wanted to use my new yellow polish again so after browsing Pinterest and some random nail blogs, I decided on this owl design with polka dots.

The end design was a little wonky since I messed up one of his eyes. I need to get acrylic paint, I think, to be able to make better, cleaner designs. Sometimes it's hard to paint with regular nail polish. It tends to have a mind of it's own.

Konad!

While in Sally's the other day, I found China Glaze Lemon Fizz in the clearance bin for $1.99. Even though it's most definitely out of season, I felt I had to grab it at that price.

It's a gorgeous yellow and is going to be awesome come springtime.

I went ahead and decided to experiment with it so I painted two coats of it and then topped it with a teal polish on one of my Monster plates.

This is a great manicure! I love the color combo and the pattern. This manicure actually helped me to start liking the idea of the Konad better.

Purple and gold half moon.

I grabbed Orly Luxe from Sally's the other day because I've been looking for a good gold polish. I love it! It's got great coverage and shine and is perfect for using with the Konad.


I wanted to use it in a manicure so I decided I on a half moon with stripes.


I liked the outcome but I really wanted a little extra. So I added a few purple rhinestones.

Overall, it was a fun manicure and I was excited to use some of my nail art I'd ordered from eBay. I have another manicure with rhinestones and some Konads coming up. Also, went to Ulta this weekend and received an order from Sephora which equals lots of new manicures!

For the ball?

The Marine Corps ball is coming up and I have been trying to decide what to do with my nails for the night. My dress is royal purple (although it looks blue in pictures!) and silver so I'm thinking some sort of silver polish and design. I did this one night, just messing around. I wanted the glitter to look more curved but it's still a decent mani. But I'm thinking maybe it's a little too subtle. I'm just not sure.

I ♥ dogs!

I have several posts to do but I just did this manicure and I wanted to go ahead and share it. I really wanted to do a tribute to Zeus and Apollo but I didn't have the right polish. Of course, I could have just stuck with paw prints and their initials, but I really wanted to see if I could work out something that at least looked like a dog!


I started with a French manicure and added the paw prints with a toothpick. I really need to spend the $5.00 and get some dotting tools from eBay. I think they would be a lot easier to work with!

On my ring finger, I made a half oval of white, two coats. Then, using the toothpick, I made the ears and eyes and followed that up with a top coat.


Let me first say that I branched out from my love, Seche Vite, and tried Orly Sec'n Dry. So not impressed. You can see the drag lines on my nails. Especially on that right ring finger. I used the SV on the rest once I realized how the Orly was completely messing up the designs. That will be used only for single color polishes from now on.

I finished up the dog with a glimmer in his eyes, a nose, mouth and little pink tongue. Rather than trying to recreate this on my right hand, I just doubled up on the paw prints, as you can see from the picture before this one.

I love this manicure! It's fun and it's something close to my heart. If it wasn't for the Orly mishap, I would consider this an A+. But at least now I know for next time.

Color swatch.

I did a plain manicure with the Sally Hansen bronze polish I picked up recently. It's not really my favorite color on although the coverage is great and this line of polishes is one of my favorites for durability.


There's nothing wrong with the polish, it just wasn't a color on that I liked a lot. I'll definitely use it in future manicures but I can't see it being the base very often.

I painted my nails at night so there are no natural light pictures to show you. Instead, I took a picture with and one without flash.