Last two holiday manicures.

I'm so behind on blogging! Lots going on here. We are moving to a new house in the next couple weeks so I won't be doing manicures with all the packing! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and happy new year!

It's been a week since I blogged?

Oops! I better post these last few Christmas nails before Christmas is over!

Let it snow!

Happy Holly-days!

I wanted to use some more Christmas stamps from my Konad and I loved the holly berries. In my head, I saw a light green base with dark green holly and red berries so that's what I tried. The green on green didn't show up well and the berries looked black. Without removing that, I painted a white base so I could try a light green holly and that turned out so much better. Even the berries looked healthier!

Candy cane tips.

Still feeling in the Christmas spirit, I did these candy cane inspired tips for the weekend. They were cute and really easy to do free hand.

Tis the season!

For holiday nails!

I had gotten this red glitter polish, Finger Paints Santa Kisses, awhile back at Sally's. It's a great glitter but it took a lot to get a thick coat because I didn't use a base coat.

Then, using a toothpick that I had cut to make a flat end, I dotted on some white polish to make the puffy cotton parts and voila! A Santa hat. Very festive.

My first leopard print.

I've been wanting to try doing leopard print on my nails for awhile but I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. At first, I didn't like it at all. It was hard for my perfectionist personality to let go on this one. I didn't want the dots to be perfectly round and the black around the dots isn't supposed to be even. After I finished, though, I decided I really liked it. I will definitely be doing this again with different polishes.

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!

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!

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.

Black and white dots

I do so much with tape and straight lines that I decided I needed to change it up a bit. I really enjoy the idea of the polish changing on each nail so I incorporated that idea as well.


This manicure was fun and I actually ended up wearing it for an entire weekend. Mainly because I was invited to a last minute trip to Scottsdale with a friend but I probably would have left it as is anyway.

I needed to update my pedicure as well so I went ahead and followed the same color scheme with a different pattern.

My first Konad.

In honor of the cooler weather here in the desert (which is still in the 80s and 90s so far) I decided to do a fall inspired mani. I had finally received my Konad stamper and first Monster Bundle so I used a leaf pattern.

I did think it turned out pretty neat. I liked that it worked even with using more than one color. I will have to spend some time figuring out the best polishes to stamp with since some don't show well.

The downside of using this method, to me, is that I felt like I was cheating. I feel silly saying it, really, but it just seemed too easy. Doing tape manicures definitely takes more time and the only time I really put into this was waiting for my polish to dry. I actually haven't even used the Konad or Monster Bundles since this manicure but I haven't voted it out. I just need to do some more work with it and be happy for an "easy to use but looks complicated" manicure.

Halloween idea #3. Last one!

I love candy corn! So, to celebrate Halloween along with my love of the tri-colored candy, I did a candy corn manicure.


It was surprisingly easy. I started with two coats of orange with a top coat and waited until that was dry.

Then I cut Scotch tape into three equal pieces (as equal as I could get!) and placed the tape across the middle of my nail.

Then I painted two coats of yellow near my nail bed and two coats of white on the tip.

I pulled off the tape and topped with a top coat and ta-da! Candy corn nails!

Happy Halloween!

Stripes!

I wanted a quick and easy manicure to wear for a couple days. I started with OPI Blue My Mind (still my favorite blue so far!) and then free handed some white diagonal stripes. Topped with some Seche Vite and off I went!

Breast Cancer Awareness month

Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and pink is it's signature color, I decided to go with a pink/zebra stripe mani. I used Sinful Color Snow Me White, Sally Hansen HD Byte, Kiss Nail Art silver glitter and a black nail pen.


I was worried the pink would be too pale so I did white as the base coat. I did not tape this manicure, just did a strip of pink diagonally down the middle of the white. I lined the pink with the silver glitter and then topped it all with Seche Vite.

After that dried, I used the black nail pen to draw random Vs and lines to make the zebra pattern.

I think this manicure turned out really cute. I need to work some more on the actual zebra print but it's not bad for my first time. I will definitely repeat this in different colors.

On another note, I finally received my first order of Konad along with my Monster bundle pack. I did a couple manis with the stamps today. Some I liked, some I didn't. I really need to see what polishes are best for the design. But I know I'll have fun practicing!

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.

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.