Y is for ...

I am so sad to see the ABC Challenge end. Especially since I am running behind. Still, I'm looking forward to the start of the new nail art challenge: Inspired by Time Periods. This challenge will be hosted in the same group as the ABC Challenge so don't think you're in the wrong place when you click the link! Still, until then, I have Y and Z left to do. Thankfully, this post takes care of Y.

Y is for ... Cracked Eggs and Dripping Yolk.

I really wanted to finish this challenge the way I started ... by doing the unusual and being different. So I went with yolk.

I started with two coats of L.A. Colors Energy Source and put a coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy over it to give it a very awesome smoothly matte look. I think this alone would be a totally wearable look!

Still, we all know eggs aren't really smooth. They're kind of speckled and dimpled if you look close enough. So I took a piece of makeup sponge and dabbed on a bit more white. I know! So much different from my usual eyeshadow applicator.

After that, I drew on the egg yolk drips with Sally Hansen Lightening and outlined them with a mix of Lightening and Sally Hansen Sun Kissed. I kinda wish I had added a bit of fake light reflection with this mixture too, but I really like the finished look. To make the yolk really shiny and keep the matte look of the egg I actually used a nail art brush to put Seche Vite on just the drips.

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Rainbow Gradient

Today is supposed to be my X nail art for the ABC Challenge, but I'm stumped on what to do for this letter. I'll think of something by next challenge ... hopefully. For now, check out the rainbow gradient I wore last weekend.

I hate the claw, but it's pretty much the only position in nails that need to include the thumb. Some of you may remember the sideways rainbow gradient from my NOH8 nails. I wanted to try something different this time so I did them as a normal gradient. I found the lightest rainbow colors from my collection to use for this.

Here are my nails before clean-up. So messy!!! I usually tape around my nails before doing something this messy, but I forget. Isn't that the way things usually go? You only forget something that would speed things up when you're in a hurry!

I took this picture in the car. It was snowing so hard and then a little bit of sunlight peeked through, and I couldn't resist snapping a few pics. It's not up to my usual standard, but there's something I really like about this picture.

I couldn't resist getting a picture of my cotton ball after I removed the gradient. I'm reminded of a clown's wig, lol.

Colors Used: Rimmel English Rose, Sinful Colors Hazard, Sally Hansen Lightening, Sally Hansen Green with Envy, Wet n Wild I Need A Refresh-Mint, Wet n Wild On a Trip

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P is for ...

Hello everyone. Welcome to 2013!! :) Today's post was supposed to be for the letter Q in the ABC Challenge but, after the Christmas rush, I felt like doing nothing, so I'm a little behind in my posts. I don't feel right moving onto Q before posting P so ...

P is for ... Phoenix.

I cringe a little looking at this design. I was cleaning my usual nail art brush and the bristles came out. I was stunned because I was cleaning it like I always clean my brushes. I wasn't any more or less rough/gentle or pulling on the bristles excessively. I'm really not pleased because I pay an outrageous price for these brushes�4 brushes for about $15! I think I'll be ordering my brushes online from now on; for my usual price I can probably get a full set.

So, all brush rants aside, this design is a little messier than my usual since I had to use a thicker brush for the line work. Still, I felt very Harry Potter creating this phoenix ... though it's not as stunning as Fawkes. :)

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K is for ...

Another day, another ABC Challenge post. With K words like ketchup and kazoo to choose from what was I going to do?? It actually took me a few days and much dictionary browsing to find something worthy of a mani. I bring you:

K is for ... Koi.

I confess that when I started these nails I still had no idea how I was going to accomplish them. I knew I wanted to do koi and use Wet n Wild Club Havana and white to make a splotchy pattern but that was about it. After using two coats of Club Havana I decided to use saran wrap to dab on the white. This gave the koi a very unique swirling watery pattern. I also used the saran wrap to dab on some Pure Ice Poker Face, a sheer shimmery golden orange polish, in an attempt to create the glittery metallic looking scales of a koi.

I'm sure you know by now how much I love my accent nails. So, no matter how unique these nails looked alone, I just had to add an open-mouthed, barbel-whiskered koi like fish face.

I will not be posting tomorrow as I will be spending the day with family. To those who celebrate, Happy Thanksgiving. To those who don't, have a great day anyway. Spend time with family and be thankful for all you have. :)

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I Wanna Be A Mermaid

I've been calling this mani 'I Wanna Be A Mermaid' in my head from the moment I thought of doing this and after it was finished I found it a perfect fit.

The sequin glitter I used was one from my birthday haul; thinking the glitter was bigger I was going to line it up and overlap it like scales. With how small the glitter turned out to be once removed from the bottle, I decided to simply sprinkle some of it over a wet nail to create a mermaid inspired accent nail. Wet n Wild Club Havana is my base color. Using orange seems like an odd choice since most mermaids of legend are green or teal, but using orange felt right to me. I made up for my odd choice of base color by using teal iridescent glitter for the 'scales'.

I will note that this glitter wanted to stick to everything! And I kept knocking over the tiny bottle holding said glitter, spilling more and more. I really didn't really sprinkle the glitter over the nail since it refused to unstick from my finger. I had to gently dab my glittered finger over the nail to get it to stick. By the end, I had glitter all over me and all over my desk. I was very lucky not to have glitter stuck to any of the other nails besides the accent nail. The true horror came with putting the glitter back in the bottle when I was done. I tried using my Pickerr Uperr, a nail art brush, etc to sweep the glitter up. I finally, after much trial and error (and knocking over the bottle of glitter again and again), used a tissue and a folded piece of paper to sweep the glitter back into the bottle.

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Neon Sunbeams

I'M BAAACK!!! Well, I've been back for a week but I needed time to mourn the loss of the beach. I missed it horribly this week. Gasp, I didn't even want to do my nails this week! However, that's over with, and I'm ready to get back into my usual posting schedule. I have a few nail designs saved up for you but I want to share my beach nails in this post. The design for this post was inspired by Neon Rays by Chloe's Nails. I thought they were the perfect nails to arrive at the beach with. And these nails are amazingly easy to do. The hardest part was actually cutting the tape since I don't own any striping tape.

I'm not sure where the idea came from, I remember reading it on a blog somewhere, but the easiest way to cut the tape is to take a strip of the tape and place it on a sheet of wax paper. That way the tape doesn't stick to your scissors and you can get nearly perfect 'beams' every time. Simply peel them off once your base polishes are dry and create the beam pattern. I used the fairly standard beam pattern but you could turn the beams around, do different beam patterns on different nails or even do something else like zigzags.

Speaking of the base polishes, you gals should know by now that I always use two (or more) coats of white to make the neons pop. This time I used two coats of China Glaze White on White. The neon polishes are China Glaze Sun Worshiper, Color Club Yell-Oh! (which looks slightly green to me and these pictures agree), and Funky Fingers Kingston. I didn't do or use anything special to get the polishes lined up on my nails. I tried using a nail art brush but they were simply too small to work with so I used the polish brush and carefully painted stripes on either side of my nail and finished with a stripe down the middle. These colors took two coats and I was extra careful with the final coat to touch up any mistakes I made with the first. It may sound daunting and there is a moment of panic before you begin (how could such a large brush make three lines without overlapping horribly?) but it's really not once you start! Trust me! You will want to be careful with the wider brushes such as some of the Sally Hansen brushes and the Wet n Wild Pro brushes. If you just have to use one of these brushes try tipping the brush in it's side. That will give you a slimmer brush to work with.

Let your base polishes dry. You can add a top coat before taping for extra protection against chips and bleed through and also to give a smoother finish if you like. After your polishes are dry simply tape your pattern. Make sure the tape lays flat and remember to fold the ends of the tape over your nail tips and work it into the creases of your fingers. Coat your nail (and the tips of your nail between the tape) in your top polish. I chose black but again it doesn't have to be black. Once you have your top polish on immediately remove your tape. I use a pair of tweezers to grasp the tape (less messy and a smaller chance of smudging already completed nails) and get best results when I pull the tape slowly and smoothly back over my nail from the tip ... much like waxing in slow motion. :)

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On Safari: Jungle Queen

Hello girlies! Another post, another day closer to my vacation. This just leaves one more post (Friday's post which will be set for auto-post) until I get back. I may post a few beach pictures to my Facebook page if anyone is interested.

This is Jungle Queen from the China Glaze On Safari collection. I love purple nail polish so it really goes without saying that I love this color. It looks stunning in the sun, doesn't it?

It left me a bit wanting indoors. The color is still pretty, a greyish purple, but it lost all it's brightness and shimmer. It was ... dull. With this in mind, I just had to do something to brighten it up.

After painting my fingernails, I moved onto painting my toenails with the standard summer neon - Sun Worshiper. Well, some of that awesome neon orange speckled onto Jungle Queen. It was certainly eye-catching and just wouldn't come off. I had an idea. I thought was barmy at first and tried to resist the urge.

However, the urge to do Jungle Queen's tribal design in Sun Worshiper proved to be too strong. There was no resisting, and I'm really glad I didn't because this looks amazing in my opinion. It adds just the right touch of summer to this fall color.

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On Safari: Desert Sun

Hello again lovelies! Another day, another On Safari polish swatch.

This one is Desert Sun. I am amazed at the pictures I managed to get with my new camera. I'm sure my old camera would have turned this lovely shade some vastly different color, but I am beyond happy to say that my new camera managed to capture the shade nearly perfectly.

The color of Desert Sun is hard to categorize. It's a very muddy orange color, not unlike sun-baked clay. I think the closest shade I've found through Wikipedia is one of the many tawny shades. 

I decided to keep with the tribal theme. I'm thinking of carrying this theme through almost the entire collection seeing as these colors are just so perfect for tribal art. The exceptions would of course be those colors I don't have (yet) and the glitters.

Desert Sun was so much better than I expected and it looked wonderful with this tribal design; I didn't want to take it off! When I first showed interest in this color it was simply as a base for the glitters of this collection, but I see now that it can be so much more!

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Neon Splatter

If there's one thing I love it's neon nail polish. I really don't think there's much better ... except maybe neon splatter nails!!!

Splatter nails create such a unique look for your nails. You'll never get the same design twice even if you use the same polishes. And, all told, they're really not that hard to do. All you need is polish, a piece of paper, some tape (for easier cleanup), and a straw. Tape around your nails, drop some polish onto a piece of paper, dip your straw into the polish and blow in one hard puff over your nail. Be sure to keep the piece of paper under your hand so you don't ruin your workstation. This may not always get a splatter but just keep trying until your straw picks up enough polish.

My problem with splatter nails? I don't know when to quit! I just keep adding more and more splatters until my base polish is practically covered and the splatters are everywhere. I think I managed to reign myself in more than usual with this splatter, but there's still a lot of them.

My right hand is less covered with splatter, but I did have a major drip on my middle finger and couldn't manage to get very many on my ring finger. Also, I somehow managed to smudge the polish on my index nail. I have no idea how. One moment it was fine and then next it was bunched. There was simply no fixing it.

And here you can see the thumb of my right hand. It has a good splatter pattern and managed to get a good splatter of each color.

Overall, I think this turned out really great. I definitely want to do more neon splatter nails. I'm thinking Sun Worshiper would make an amazing base color.

Polishes Used

Color Club - Yell-Oh!

Color Club - Mrs. Robinson

Funky Fingers - Kingston

China Glaze - Sun Worshiper

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Sun Worshiper

Hello girlies! I hope everyone is having a great day. I know I am. I'm so excited to share this polish with you today.

Today's post is a China Glaze color swatch for Sun Worshiper. I'm not sure how I missed Sun Worshiper or the Poolside collection the first time around but Sun Worshiper was recently posted for sale on Sally Beauty. I've been longing for this polish for weeks, even ordered it at the end of April but it was cancelled due to sell out. I was so, so disappointed when I got the email that my order had shipped without Sun Worshiper. However, I saw it was back in stock last week and hurriedly tossed a few things into my cart and placed another order. Well, it arrived last Monday and I couldn't be happier!

I was stunned speechless when I saw Sun Worshiper in person. It was even more amazing in person than any of the blog pictures I found could ever show!

The first thing I noticed is that it is so bright! I knew it was neon but this is beyond amazing. It's like some kind of radioactive material contained in a polish bottle. Sun Worshiper is a stunning neon orange. It has a tint of yellow to it though like the bright yellow orange of a marigold.

I found this picture on Flickr and I think it just captures the color beautifully.

I'll say again, neons are always brighter over white. My pictures of Sun Worshiper are over two coats of China Glaze White on White. And I still needed three coats of Sun Worshiper.

Sun Worshiper is very sheer! I know I read this on many blogs before I purchased the polish, however I didn't understand just how sheer. Most bloggers aren't like me. When they do a swatch they use just the featured polish on their nails. I never use a neon until I have two to three coats of white down first, so I thought it would work a bit better. And it did ... with two coats of white as a base I didn't get a VNL. However, it still took three fairly thick coats of Sun Worshiper to cover the white. I couldn't be happier though. Over white Sun Worshiper is ten times brighter!! I didn't get a bad picture of these nails. It took forever to choose which ones I wanted to use.

Another thing to remember is that neons usually dry fairly matte. Sun Worshiper is no exception, so you'll want to have a high shine top coat on hand when using this polish. Remember to add a coat of top coat every other day to keep your nails shiny and chip resistant.


Will Sun Worshiper be on your list of must have neons for this summer?

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The Dalek Rule This Galaxy

The Dalek Rule This Galaxy

I mentioned on my Facebook page last week that I was doing my first galaxy nail. I also mentioned that I had to put my own spin on them. I left you all in the dark on just what kind of spin. Well, it's a Doctor Who spin. Most of you probably won't recognize the Doctor Who reference, but I hope you enjoy the nails anway. I thought of using the Tardis but I decided to go the road less traveled and do a Dalek ... or maybe just Dalek inspired since it's not a perfect replica.

What galaxy is complete without a Dalek or two? None, I tell you, none! The Dalek nails aren't something just anyone would recognize, but it's a nice in-joke among fans. I'm just curious, how many of you recognized the nail right away or got excited when you read the title?

Some of you may recognize this gold nail from last post's Golden Twilight nails. Not only is the color Bold Gold ... it's the same nail! I took off the Twilight Rays color but kept Bold Gold. It has held up very nicely, hasn't it? I just added the Born Pretty gold nail studs and a few layers of top coat to keep them in place. The nail studs are a great match in color for Bold Gold and make for a near perfect Dalek!

I was utterly terrified of doing galaxy nails after hearing all the horror stories, but I think these turned out really well being my first try and all.

I decided to use a creme black for space but stuck to shimmer polishes for the galaxies. The stars dotted on are a white creme. I also used this white for the galaxy base. The galaxies are made up of shimmer yellow, orange, and peach for the lighter shades and a deep shimmer metallic purple and a shimmer blue for the darker shades. I used a purple glitter, a blue holo glitter, a silver holo glitter, and a simple fine glitter for the stars not dotted on. It was all very shiny and glittery!

I couldn't resist bringing out my blue/white light and seeing what they looked like under that. I think it was one of my better ideas to use only shimmer and glitter polishes.

Image from Alibaba.com

For those looking for simpler solution to using a sponge, whether for galaxy nails or gradients or any other nail where a sponge would come in handy, use an eyeshadow applicator. I found this worked so much better for me than any kind of sponge. Not only did I pick up a pack of 12 (60mm) applicators for cheap at my local dollar store, I had better control while using them. They are made to fit in your hand so they keep a wet mani intact while you do the opposite hand and are small enough to move around your entire nail easily. I can also use and reuse these. For these nails, I only used one side of an applicator! Not even the front and back of one side, just one side.


So, what do you guys think of galaxy nails? I know I will definitely be doing these again! 


Polish Used
LA Colors - Black
Sally Hansen - White On
Pure Ice - Unzip Me
Pure Ice - Twinkle
Revlon - Tangerine
Funky Fingers - Power Chord
China Glaze - Blue Year's Eve
L.A Girl Glitter Addict - Eutopia
Funky Fingers - Flashing Lights
Wet n Wild - Kaleidoscope
LA Colors - Glitter

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A Parliament of Owls

Hello girlies! I don't know about you but I've been seeing owl nails everywhere. Sometimes just colorful owls like SuPa Nails Oh Oh Owls! Sometimes not so colorful like JawsOfKita-LoveHim's Owl Nails. There's also those with one owl like cutepolish's Cute Nail Art tutorial. Or those with designs that incorporate all nails like Chalkboard Nails Valentine's Owl Nail Art or Unhas da *micktuti*'s owl nails.

With all these awesome owl nails I wanted to try some of my own. I saw this design on Pinterest first and just had to recreate it. It's originally from Chalkboard Nails and was then recreated by Let them have Polish as part of a challenge�inspired by a tutorial.

I couldn't have chosen a worse time to do this design though. It was very hot and humid; the kind of heat that nail polish doesn't dry well in. I also had very little time to do my nails before I had to start getting ready for my niece's dance recital. I thought I could do it though. How hard could they be? Well, I'll admit they weren't that hard. I didn't think out the color choices very well. I mostly just reached into my nail drawer and grabbed the closest colors.

The base colors worked well together but once I started lightening it for the chest, dotting on the chest spots, and adding the beak everything just kind of blended together.

The spots and beak look nearly perfect on the mint and purple, shows up slightly less on the pink and red, but really just blends completely on the orange. If I had more time I'm sure I would have tested each color on paper before using them, but I was in a rush.

How much of a rush you ask? So much of a rush that I didn't realize I had scraped the eye off my thumb owl and dented the tip of the middle finger owl until I was in the car and far away from my nail supplies. I told my nieces that the orange owl was evil and attacked the pink owl. *giggle* I'm so mean. :)

I'm actually pretty proud of how well my right hand turned out all told. I'm right handed but through much practice I've gotten my left hand able to do much of the fine detail work. Still, it's never as good as doing nail art with my right hand. However, besides the googly eyes on the red owl I think everything came together very well.


For those who are wondering ... a groups of owls is called a parliament, hence the title. Yeah ... I had to look it up too. ;)


Polish Used

• Revlon - Base Coat
• Wet n Wild - I Red a Good Book
• Wet n Wild - I Need a Refresh-Mint
• Wet n Wild - Club Havana
• Wet n Wild - Bite the Bullet
• Wet n Wild - Tropicalia
• Sally Hansen - Mellow Yellow
• Sally Hansen - Sun Kissed
• LA Colors - Black
• LA Colors - White

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Kickin' Converse

I am so sick of my broken nail. It has been years since I've had a nail this short, but I've decided to make the most of it by doing designs that can be worn on nails that are long as well as short. I'm hoping to let those with short nails, by choice or not, know that you don't need long or squared nails to still have pretty nails! With this in mind I bring you pictures of Saturday's Converse mani worn to a niece's birthday party � my short nail is uncovered in these pics so look away if this bothers you.

I decided to start with a partial Skittles mani, my thumb is done in red, done with the help of tape. Two coats of each color before I added two coats of white to the tips.

After that it was fairly simple to use my dotting tool to add small dots of silver for the lace holes and my smallest nail art brush to add the black half circle and laces.

With this design, I think the short rounded nail somehow works better. It gives a more realistic 'shoe' look. So if you have short nails don't be afraid to give this mani a try!!


Also, if you're as easily amused as I am ... I got a kick out of 'kicking' people while wearing these nails or doing the finger walk. It looked so weird with little shoes on my fingers!

Polish Used
Red: Borghese 'Che Bella Red C'
Orange: Wet n Wild 'Club Havana'
Pink: Wet n Wild 'Tropicalia'
Blue/Green: Wet n Wild 'I Need a Refresh-Mint'
Purple: Wet n Wild 'Bite the Bullet'
Black & White: LA Colors
Silver: Sally Hansen 'Celeb City'

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