Category: NOTD

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Leopard Print Day Two–changing things up a bit.

So technically this isn’t new nail art. I was so in love with my leopard print nails from yesterday, I couldn’t take them off. However, my purple color chipped badly at work so I needed to change them up somewhat to pull off day 2 nails. I don’t often wear my manicures for more than a day, mostly because I chip them so badly at work on a regular basis. But I just couldn’t take off the leopard print–I am so proud of how great they look, I had to give them at least another day of work. So what could I do to chance this manicure up a little bit?

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After grabbing my blue Kosmic Colours nail polish, and painting on the color I still wanted to do something fun. I picked up OPI’s I Snow You Love Me at Chatters for a sweet deal a couple weeks ago, and read online about how awesome it was for a glitter placement manicure. I’ve never done glitter placement on my nails, but I really wanted to try.

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It really wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. All it took was a steady hand and my dotting tool. The blue wasn’t completely dry when I started so the glitters kind of sunk into the color a little bit, but it still turned out neat. Like little diamonds on my nails. I’ve been really wanted to try out studs and such on my nails as I see them on so many awesome manicures on my favorite nail art blogs, but I haven’t had a chance yet. These little glitters definitely gave me a taste of how pretty it can look though!

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So how do you save a manicure you really love? How long do you tend to keep your manicures on your nails?

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Then and Now: Multi-colored Leopard print.

Finally! Some nail art.

I’ve been feeling so uninspired with my nails lately. I will start something, get half way through, and then hate it and give up and have to start over. It’s so frustrating. =( I turned to my previous manicures for this one. One of the very first manicures I did when I got a dotting tool was a multi colored leopard print manicure. I remember being so proud of this, especially when I got a “Did you do those yourself?” Comment.

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So I decided I wanted to recreate that manicure. (Although, I used different colors for this one haha.)

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Sinful Colors Dream On — purple.
  • Sinful Colors Easy Going — off white.
  • Kozmic Colours — blue.
  • China Glaze Metro Pollen-tin — yellow.
  • Pure Ice Wild Thing — green.
  • Sinful Colors Island Coral — coral.
  • Cherimoya Black
  • Nutra Nail Speed Dry Top Coat.

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Can I use say proud I am of how these turned out! I haven’t done a leopard print in quite a while, but after a lot of practice I’ve realized smaller spots look much better than bigger blobs. And I think these nails turned out perfectly. Also I tried to take a picture doing that awkward claw hand pose (how did I think that looked good?) but It was the most awkward position ever! Also check out the state of my nails! They look so much better now! Not just because my technique has improved, but they are just such a better shape!

 

So what do you think of these multi-colored leopard print nails?

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An evolution of (my own) nail art.

I’m still working on getting some new nail art to post–I’ve been feeling both exhausted, and uninspired lately. I’m still painting my nails just I haven’t come up with anything I truly love in a little while. So while I’m trying to create something fabulous, I thought it would be fun to post an evolution of my nail art. Honestly, I’m posting this mostly for myself. I’m extremely proud of how my skills have improved in just a few short years. =)

And I’ll apologize in advance for the poor quality pictures. They’ve improved (somewhat) over the years too. 😉

Continue reading “An evolution of (my own) nail art.”

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ACO by Ardene Sugar Rush.

First, I want to apologize for the lack of nail art lately. I’ve been a little busy at work with the Summer rush starting, so by the time I get home I’m exhausted and creating something complex is a little daunting. I’m going to try and get back into the swing of things though.

Today, I have another swatch for you.

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This is Sugar Rush by ACO by Ardene, a “sugar effect” nail polish that was released as part of their new collection of nail polish. When they were first released, I was super excited because I’m kind of in love with textured nail polish–I bought almost all the colors immediately. This was the last of the collection I needed to buy to complete my collection.

Sugar Rush is a cornflower blue polish, with tiny white matte micro glitters scattered through out. Unfortunately, of all the sugar effect polishes I have from Ardene (all four) this one dried the least textured. I ended up applying top coat over it (as you can see above) because it just looked uneven and bad when it dried. I’m not sure if it was the bottle I got, since all the other ACO sugar effect polishes have tried immaculately.

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My camera was not having photographing this polish, as you can see–it created almost a glow around the polish. Regardless of the fact it was being a pain, I love this color so much. And I have a cute summer dress that it would go with so perfectly.

I hope I’m not the only one who buys certain colors because of how well they match certain outfits?

ACO by Ardene polishes retail for $3.50 at stores–although they usually are on promotion for 3/$10. As you probably saw from my stash, I own a lot of their polishes (perk of working there haha.) If you have a chance to check their polishes out, you definitely should.

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True Blue and Chevrons.

I’ve got some simple nail art to share with you today. I meant to post these yesterday, but by the time I got home from work I was pretty much a zombie.

For this NOTD, I was trying to recreate the pattern of my favorite mug. I don’t it’s perfect yet, but for something I did real quick before bed I do really like how they turned out. Plus all my lines were straight which yey!

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The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • ACO by Ardene True Blue — the blue/teal base color.
  • Stripe Rite Striping Polish in White — white chevron pattern.
  • Nutra Nail Speed Dry Top Coat.

This polish was very frustrating to try and capture a picture of. On my nail, it’s a deep teal color but the second I started photographing it appeared much more blue than it actually is in person. Didn’t matter if it was inside or outside. These pictures are the closest I could get to the actual color, but still come across more blue than the polish truly is.

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