‘Tis the season… for prom nails.

Tis the season for Prom. I’m long past my prom years, but my old neighbour I used to babysit is attending her grade 9 grad this year, which is pretty much a mini prom for those graduating to high school. It’s also a very big deal to them, almost as much as prom is to high school seniors. So when she asked me to do her nails for the big dance, I was more than honored. Her dress was lime green with sparkles, so I went with that theme.

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I did a glitter gradient at the bottom of her nails, with an accent nail of pure sparkle. (I also did her toes to match with a glitter gradient.) Her dress has a whole lot of glitter and sparkle going on, so we wanted to do something that would match. These are going to look awesome when the lights at the dance hit them! Just like a disco ball!

The polishes I used for her nails were:

  • Pure Ice Wild Thing
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Ice Pop
  • NOPI Inner Sparkle.
  • Color Club Platinum Record.
  • OPI I Snow You Love Me.
  • Essie Good to Go Top Coat.

Continue reading “‘Tis the season… for prom nails.”

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?

Freehand, and sort of abstract, chevrons/zigzags.

After my successful chevron moon manicure last week, I wanted to try another chevron manicure as I haven’t done very many in the past. I was inspired by this pin on Pinterest, and figured with my new small detail nail art brush, I could make a good attempt at freehand chevrons.

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Left hand.

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Right hand.

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.
  • ACO by Ardene Neon Pink.
  • Maybelline Sapphire Siren.
  • Sinful Colors Be Happy.
  • China Glaze What a Pansy.
  • Nutra Nail Speed Dry Top Coat.

I’m calling these abstract because… well… they’re not the cleanest lines. Surprisingly, my right hand turned out better than my left, which is funny because it was done using my none dominant hand! Never the less, I’m proud of how they look! When I first started doing nail art, I never would have been able to create something like this without it turning into a big blobby mess. It’s nice to remember that on days when I see others nail art and feel envious that I’m not that good… all it takes is lots practice.

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Seeing these, I feel so proud of being able to create these freehand. For real first attempt, I think I did pretty good. And the colors just look so great together! This is also giving me an urge to do a “then and now” nail art post, just to show myself how far I’ve come from my first days of doing my nails, to now. It would be fun to recreate my first nail art attempts, just for a personal comparison. Maybe that’s what I’ll dedicate next week to. =)

 

A Peek into My Stash — Part Two.

Today I have for you the second part of my stash posts. After this, I’ll only have one more drawer of my five to photograph. Even though it’s been a bit of work taking pictures of everything, and writing them down, I’m really glad that I have. Now, whenever I’m feeling nail art, I’ll know exactly what polishes I have to work with!
And now onto the polishes…

Continue reading “A Peek into My Stash — Part Two.”

Nail tragedy. =(

With the sun shining, I decided to pull out one of my OPI beach sandies–I’m Brazil Nuts Over You–which is a super gorgeous almost neon pink textured polish that was released as part of the OPI Brazil Collection. I really wanted to wear something that would pop on my nails, and I’m Brazil Nuts Over You was the perfect choice! Since I hadn’t done outline nails in a while, and decided to pull out my Black Stripe Rite Striping polish, went to work. The finished product turned out exactly how I hoped, and it was the perfect contrast to my green and blue dress I decided to wear to work.

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Aren’t they pretty? Oh man, I couldn’t stop looking at how they turned out. Unfortunately,  it appears as though I’m not having a very good-luck nail week. When I got to work I was busying organizing some stuff, and accidentally hit my hand off a table, hard. And the end result almost made me cry.

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I was so happy, because my nails were finally growing out after a horrible break a couple months ago–on the same hand! Now I’ll be growing this break out again. =( Even worse, I had to file all my nails down short so my nails don’t look ridiculous. Short nails just make me so sad–some people can rock them, but for me I like my nails long, and always have.  I was doing so well avoiding any breaks, and now this. So freaking frustrating! At this rate, I’m never going to have the long beautiful nails I covet so much.