May Weekly Nail Art Challenge: Week 5, May 29

Welcome back!

Theme: Neon

Prompt: Watermarble

I finally completed this challenge!! I'm so happy with myself for sticking with it and finishing another challenge!!

White: White on White

Pink: Glow With the Flow

Yellow: Daisy Know My Name?

Orange: Home Sweet House Music

I'm terrible at watermarble. I really only had one nail that I liked, and that's my middle finger. I'm proud of myself for trying again, though! This was my 5th attempt at it. It does get better every time, do there's the positive!

I used Glisten & Glow CTRL-ALT-DEL latex barrier again instead of tape!!

Thanks for reading <3

Spring Galaxy Nails

Welcome back!

Today I wanted to share my most recent galaxy nails that I did! These were some spring ones, so I stuck with flowers and pastels. I know spring is almost over, especially since most people are out of school now, but we've still had a lot of typical spring weather lately, so I didn't think they were too late yet!

Black: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Night Fright
Pink: Salon Perfect Put A Ring On It
Purple: Salon Perfect Lilacking Control
Blue: Salon Perfect Cold As Ice
Green: Salon Perfect Mint Julep
Yellow: Salon Perfect Mellow Yellow
Glitter: China Glaze Fairy Dust
Silver Flowers: Nicole by OPI Party Bus
Blue Flowers: Nails Inc. Floral Richmond Gardens
White: Nicole by OPI Yoga-Then-Yogurt

So many colors! I did these like all galaxies, starting with a black base, then sponging on the pink, purple, blue, green and yellow polishes. I painted the glitter on, and then fished the silver and blue flower glitters out of the correct polishes. The blue flowers gave it a different look, and took away from the galaxy look a little bit, but I still liked it.

To get the white flowers and rose, I used some new stamping plates I just got! I used Winstonia plates 104 for the rose and 110 for the flower.

Thanks for reading <3

Memorial Day: Chevron Flag

Welcome back!

Today I did some nails for Memorial Day! I love doing patriotic nails, and starting now, that'll be the majority of the nails I do until the end of the summer.

Red: OPI What's Your Point-setta?

White: Essie Private Weekend

Blue: Wet 'n Wild Megalast Coast to Coast

Silver: Glam Chick (no name)

Stars: Sinful Colors Star Blast Off

For the star nails, I simply painted them blue, and then fished for the star glitter in Star Blast Off and placed them where I wanted.

The chevron nails were painted white first, then top coated with HK Girl fast drying top coat. Once it dried, I placed mini chevron vinyls on it, painted it red, and took the vinyls off immediately.

To get the silver glitter opaque, I sponged it on. I used Glisten & Glow CTRL-ALT-DEL as a barrier for easier clean up.

Thanks for reading <3

May Weekly Nail Art Challenge: Week 4, May 22

Welcome back!

Theme: Neon
Prompt: Gradient

Today I have my gradient nails that I did for this week! This week, I again used all China Glaze, and the colors were all from the Electric Nights collection.

Green: Treble Maker
Blue: DJ Blue My Mind
Purple: Plur-ple
White: White on White

I started by painting my nails a white base. Then I put down CTRL-ALT-DEL latex barrier by Glisten & Glow around my nail to avoid getting polish on my nail when doing the gradient.

I next painted the colors in order on a latex free sponge, and then sponged it on to my nail. I repeated this process until it was opaque and dark enough and blended well. It was usually perfect in just two coats.

Once I was done with that, I just peeled it off, and cleaned up everything else that was left over!

Thanks for reading <3

Mix & Match Spring Nails

Welcome back!

Today I wanted to do something fun, so I did a mix and match with some spring colors! The Essie colors are from their spring collection.

Purple: Essie Flowerista

Nude: Essie Picked Perfect

Glitter: OPI Snow Globetrotter

I used a dotting tool for my thumb and pointer, and Nail Vinyls for the chevron nails.

Thanks for reading <3

China Glaze Fall 2014: All Aboard Collection

Welcome back!

Today I wanted to go ahead and post my thoughts about the China Glaze All Aboard collection from the Fall 2014.

What Are You A-Freight Of?
Coats: 2
Formula: Cream
Color Family: Brown
This was a beautiful dark brown polish. I wore this at Thanksgiving with my turkey manicure! At first, I didn't think I would like it. It's just not something that I usually am into or would go for. I really liked it, though! It almost had a purple tint to it in certain lighting.

Stop That Train!
Coats: 2
Formula: Metallic
Color Family: Red
This polish had a surprisingly great formula. Since it did have a chrome tendency to the formula, it could be streaky if you aren't careful. It was a perfect shade for the fall, and I got a lot of compliments when I wore this alone even! It has shimmer to it, so that's a pain when removing it, but it made it gorgeous.

One Track Mind
Coats: 1
Formula: Cream
Color Family: Blue
This polish was beautiful. The formula was great, it looked smooth and it was a gorgeous color. This is a dupe, almost exactly, for Essie's Style Cartel, so if you have one, you don't need the other. The only thing frustrating about that to me was that they came out the same season.

All Aboard
Coats: 2
Formula: Cream
Color Family: Purple
This shade of purple had some gray tones to it, almost a little ashy. To me, it felt very professional. This would be a great way to wear purple to the office if you have to be more subdued and restrained. It's subtle, instead of in-your-face the way some purples can be.

Nice Caboose!
Coats: 2
Formula: Shimmer
Color Family: Purple
Another purple in the group, but I loved it. It was more of a pinky purple than a straight purple. The way it looked was that it was purple with pink shimmer. This color needed no nail art to make it beautiful. It had an amazing formula, and looked totally different mattified.

Conduct Yourself 
Coats: 1
Formula: Cream
Color Family: Purple
The formula was fantastic on this, and the color was gorgeous. It was a cream polish, but it had the tiniest hint of shimmer to it. It was really hard to see though, so you can't see it in the picture.

Well Trained
Coats: 1
Formula: Cream
Color Family: Gray
The formula on this polish was good, and it was a pretty color. It was typical fall color though, and I wasn't extremely overwhelmed by it.

Lug Your Designer Baggage
Coats: 2
Formula: Cream/Glitter
Color Family: Brown
This was a really interesting polish. It had a great formula, and was an interesting twist on a dark brown. It had small gold colored flakes in it, which is why I say it was a cream/glitter. It was almost a one-coater, but there were a couple of patches, so it needed a second coat.

Don't Get Derailed
Coats: 1
Formula: Cream
Color Family: Green
This was an army green shade, with an amazing formula. It was very opaque, and I was amazed that I only needed one coat for it.

Choo-choo Choose You
Coats: 2
Formula: Shimmer/Duochrome
Color Family: Blue
This was a very different kind of polish. It was a little sheer, but not awful, considering it looked good in just two coats. The polish was absolutely gorgeous, and almost holographic. It looked completely different at different angles.

Mind the Gap
Coats: 2
Formula: Shimmer
Color Family: Yellow
Personally, I didn't really like this color. It was kind of ugly, but the shimmer made it much pretty and something I might actually wear. The formula was very similar to Choo-choo Choose You.

Loco-Motive
Coats: 1
Formula: Glitter Topper
Color Family: Black & Orange
I painted one coat of this glitter on top of two coats of White on White by China Glaze. It was pretty and very unique. It was smoky looking, with some orange glitter in it, too.

May Weekly Nail Art Challenge: Week 3, May 15

Welcome back!

Theme: Neon

Prompt: Fishtail

I've never done a fishtail, so this was actually my second attempt at this, because it looked awul the first time! I really like the outcome though once I got the hang of it and figured out what to do better.

I used all China Glaze polishes for this and all but the white were from the new Electric Nights collection!

White: White on White

Yellow: Daisy Know My Name?

Orange: Home Sweet House Music

Blue: DJ Blue My Mind

I have several tips that I learned while doing this that really helped while trying to do it, especially when doing it with neons.

1. Start with a white base. It's a pain to have to do more than one coat, so this avoids that problem.

2. Add a white stripe first. This keeps the colors true, avoids bleeding, and avoids additional coats, too. Especially when doing a color that is lighter than the one it's going on top of. If it's darker, I didn't do it, like for the blue. But when I did the yellow and orange I did. It avoided having lines underneath one line from the other colors.

3. Don't make your lines too thin. Thin lines means a lot of lines. It not only looks better, but it's less work, too!

Thanks for reading <3

Mani By Annie: St. Louis Cardinals Nails

Welcome back!

Today I wanted to share some nails that I did on my sister a few days ago! She requested some festive baseball nails based on several pictures she had seen on Pinterest.

White: OPI Alpine Snow

Red: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Rapid Red

Silver: Pure Ice

I used Nail Vinyls for the chevrons that can be found here. The STL decal was bought from @lashesfordaysblog on Instagram. Her website is here.

Thanks for reading <3

Mother's Day Nails

Welcome back!

Today I did some nails in honor of Mother's Day!

Pink: Finger Paints Paint Me Happy

White: OPI Alpine Snow

Peach: Essie Brides to Be

All other details are the Sally Hansen I Heart Nail Art pens.

Thanks for reading <3

May Weekly Nail Art Challenge: Week 2, May 8th

Welcome back!

Theme: Neon

Prompt: Tribal

These are the nails that I did the other night for the weekly nail art challenge!! I used all China Glaze polishes.

White: White on White

Pink: Glow With the Flow

Purple: Violet-Vibes

Blue: UV Meant to Be

Green: Treble Maker

I used striping tape and dotting tools for all of the designs. It was so much fun!

Thanks for reading <3

Cinco de Mayo: Fierce Fiesta

Welcome back!

Today I wanted to share the nails that I did yesterday for Cinco de Mayo! I really wanted to do something simple, because I needed a break! I did something similar to what I did for Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day! I had a glitter topper from Sinful Colors, so I made that the feature!

Glitter: Sinful Colors Fierce Fiesta
Nude: Essie Brides to Be
White: Nicole by OPI Yoga-Then-Yogurt

I did the french tips by using the french tip nail vinyls from nailvinyls.com, and then I just sponged on the glitter topper to accent!

I love how simple this is, yet it has the twist since there is the accent nail! It is super easy and the only time it takes is how long it takes for your layers of polish to dry!

Thanks for reading <3

Baseball Nails 2015 #3: OPI Girls Love Diamonds

Welcome back!

Yesterday I went to another baseball game! I tried out a new OPI from the MLB collection from last year. It's called Girls Love Diamonds.

I definitely thought this polish was going to be more white. Instead, it was much more silver, but the more coats I did, the whiter it looked. I did have to do 4 coats of this in order for it to be opaque. It still never looked like it did in the bottle.

This polish is full of micro shimmer, so taking it off was miserable, because I got the shimmer everywhere. The formula was pretty sheer, but not hard to work with. It wasn't super thin or thick, so that was nice.

I like this polish, but its probably better as just an accent nail or for nail art.

Thanks for reading <3

May Weekly Nail Art Challenge: Week 1

Welcome back!

I've decided to do the Weekly Nail Art Challenge on Instagram this month! There are only 5 prompts, one for each Friday of the month, so I still get to do whatever I want the rest of the time!

This month's theme: Neons

This week's prompt: half moon

Since I'm not super huge into neons, I wanted to do this challenge to make me expand my polish use. I want to find a wearable ways to wear neon!

This week, I did my half moons by putting the neon underneath, and then putting white on top. That way the whole nail isn't too bright, but it makes a cool pop of color up by the cuticle!

Green: China Glaze Treble Maker

White: China Glaze White on White

Thanks for reading <3