Girly Sailor Nails

I've been slacking on my posts lately. Pretty much on everything going on in my life, actually. Must be all that Thanksgiving food still getting digested!

I've done this manicure before (kind of), but didn't have any good quality pictures of it.

Plus I love anything nautical. And girly things. So this manicure was perfect.

Alright, so let me just tell you how disappointed I am that this manicure streaked when I put topcoat on! That's seriously one of my biggest big peeves, but I digress.

I started out this nautical manicure with two coats of Love & Beauty Royal.

So far, this has been my favorite navy polish that I've found. And I bought it at Forever 21 for $1.50! Can't beat that.

I then freehanded the white stripes with Sally Hansen French Manicure Natural White.

This manicure is cute left here. And I almost decided to (as you can probably tell from the horrible topcoat streaks!) but then I wanted to add my little girly touch.

I added the anchor with So Easy Stripe Rite Hot Pink.

And there you have it nautical, fun, easy, and cute! 

My Thanksgiving Nails!

Tomorrow's the big day. I can't wait to eat and eat and eat. And watch the Macy's Day Parade!

I decided to go with some simple nails for Thanksgiving.

Pilgrim Hat Nails. I know what you're thinking: How on earth are those hats? 

Well, they're not. They're just the brims of the hats with the gold buckles!

These are pretty self explanatory, but I'll still walk you through them. I started out painting the tips on my nails with Sinful Colors Time Off.

I've never done a black tip french manicure before, so it was interesting to see how it looked on me! (I kind of like it)

After the black dried, I grabbed a nail art brush and painted on the buckles using Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Golden.

Then I just slapped some Seche Vite topcoat on and went on my way.

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and don't eat too much!

Actually... this is a holiday where it's okay to eat too much, go for it! ;)

Turkey Nails

3 more days until Thanksgiving! 3 more days until I get to stuff my face with Tofurky and mashed potatoes and all that good stuff!

Nothing says Thanksgiving like turkeys, so I did some turkey nails.

Alright, so a few of them look like they're wearing those judge wigs, or maybe Native American headdresses, but they're mostly adorable!

These were pretty easy. I just painted on the bodies with Julep Boris & Nicole using a nailart brush. Then I painted on the beaks and legs/feet with Julep Blake. The eyes and feathers were done with dotting tools using Sally Hansen French Manicure Natural White, Sinful Colors Time Off (for the eyes) and Rimmel London Stiletto Red, Milani Awesome Orange, and Julep Blake.

This guy's definitely my favorite, even though there wasn't enough room to do the whites of his eyes.

I think his feather's turned out the best! They weren't cramped on my thumb like they were on my other fingers.

I took the lazy route for my right hand and made the turkey my accent nail and added some dots to make up for my laziness!

I'm working on ideas for other festive nails to do for Thanksgiving week, so stay tuned.

Down to Earth Nails

After doing my first saran wrap nails the other day, I was inspired to do some more nails with blue and green polish.

They turned out just like I wanted, little planet Earths!

These nails were super easy and would be perfect for Earth day, or really just any time, because who doesn't love the Earth? (The answer is losers).

I started out with two coats of Nina Ulta Pro Blu Blaze.

I was so surprised when I put this polish on, I had no idea it was matte! I've used it for nail art before, but never as a base.

Anyways, after applying the blue, I put on Revlon Posh and did the saran wrap manicure technique.

Finished these guys off with Seche Vite and viola.  

Keep it down to earth ;)

Gettin' Crafty with Microbeads

The first time I ever saw caviar nails, I fell in love. Hard.

When I looked them up I saw that a tiny bottle of beads and polish was $25 and I thought no way. I knew there had to be a cheaper way.

A quick google search told me I could buy some microbeads from Michael's for about $6. So I went and bought the beads and did my beautiful, lovely caviar nails. And boy oh boy, I hated them.

Sure, they looked beautiful, but they were the biggest pain ever! They were getting caught in everything and pulling at my hair and popping off all over the place. What a mess.

Then the idea for these nails came along:

Less beads means less getting caught in things and less hair pulling.

Unfortunately, these suckers still pop off like it's nobody's business. But that's probably because I didn't use topcoat on them. In my previous experience, putting topcoat on the microbeads made their color run and the beads themselves kind of melted. Not a good look.

I'm so pleased with how these turned out! They took a bit of time, but weren't too time consuming, I thought.

I started out with just one coat of Sinful Colors Easy Going.

I only used one coat because my second coat was thick in order for my nail to stay sticky enough for me to get all the beads on before the polish dried.

I poured the microbeads into a shallow dish and using a dotting tool dipped in base coat stuck them on one by one. It did take me a bit, but not too outrageously long.

When putting on the beads, I did a straight line down the middle and then staggered the rest of the lines. I think that gave me the best results!

Since I was too lazy to do my right hand (as always) I decided to do one full caviar nail to show you all how those look.

It looks sooo nice, but I just can't handle the annoyance of a full nail! I ended up taking the full nail off about an hour after I took this picture.

I need to find more nailart uses for my microbeads! I still have 7 whole bottles full of them. 

Back to the drawing board!

Pink Plaid (With Tutorial)

I always find it so much easier to copy a pattern rather than to try and imitate other people's nailart, I don't know why! I feel like it usually turns out better too.

I wanted to do plaid, but not just any old regular plaid, I wanted pink plaid.

These were actually really easy to do and I think they're super cute!

I started out with two coats of Rimmel London Stiletto Red.

Then using So Easy Stripe Rite Hot Pink, I made two vertical lines right next to each other.

Then two horizontal pink lines right next to each other too.

I got out my Sinful Colors Time Off and put two black vertical lines.

And then to finish it off, two black horizontal lines.

And viola! You can do the lines anywhere you want on the nail, really. Variety is good.

Thanks for reading!

Saran Wrap Manciure

I've been wanting to try this technique for a while, and I'm so glad I did! It's super easy and it looks awesome.

All you have to do is paint your nails a base coat, wait for it to dry, then paint over the first color with another one. Then take a piece of wadded up saran wrap and dab it while it's still wet.

I used this as my base coat. It's Sephora Casanova Is So Into Me. I love this polish, it has such a nice rosey color.

For the other color I used Julep Lynn. I think these two pinks blended very nicely together.

The main thing you have to make sure not to do when giving yourself a saran wrap manicure is not to over dab your nails, then you won't be left with enough of your second polish.

I'm really happy with how these turned out!

I've got another idea for saran wrap nails brewing, so stay tuned :)

Pocahontas Nails

It was my friend's 21st birthday a few weeks ago but she was so busy running off to New Orleans and having a good time that she didn't get to have the Disney Princess Waltz she had been wanting.

But that didn't stop her, she still had it on Friday. I dressed up like Pocahontas and of course my outfit wouldn't be complete without Pocahontas nails!

I'm sporting Pocahontas's necklace on my ring finger. The other nails are supposed to be fringe, but I think they just turned out more like a creative french manicure, which is fine with m 

For this manicure, I started out with two coats of Revlon Gray Suede. For the necklace I used Nina Ultra Pro Blu Blaze, Sally Hansen French Manicure Natural White, and Love & Beauty Light Blue for the highlights.

The 'fringe' nails were done with Julep Boris & Nicole and Sally Hansen French Manicure Natural White.

It's a simple manicure, but I'm happy with how it turned out!

There's a close-up of the necklace. Not gonna lie, I was pretty proud of myself!

Oh, and the waltz was fun too :)