Sugar spun nails

I've been seeing sugar spun nails around a lot, so I decided to try them out. I'm still job hunting (yay...) so my nails need to be subtle and professional so I can be ready for a job interview any time, just in case. I stuck to more neutral colours and I liked how it turned out!

Painting these nails was a bit of a nightmare though. Not because it was hard, this actually was super easy and quick to do. The issue was I was impatient and didn't wait for my polish to totally dry before I added more layers. I went to cook dinner and ruined three nails in the process. When I went to fix them I realized that on two other nails the polish had either come off the tip or pulled away from it. I was just about ready to give up and take them all off, but thankfully another layer of top coat managed to hid the missing tips and painting the other three took no time at all.

I took a picture with the flash on to try and show the colours a little bit better, it's not the picture but hopefully it'll do.

The colours I used were Sally Hansen's "Gray-T Escape" and "White-On", L'Oreal's "Eiffel For You", and Sephora's "Queen Of Everything".

Solid glitter half moons

I love solid glitter. It is one of my favourite looks to put on my nails, just sparkly and fun. Of course, my love quickly turns to hate when it comes time to take it off, but it's definitely worth it. I'm going to a Jack and Jill party this weekend and couldn't think of anything more appropriate than glittering nails. I wanted to do something a little different though, so I decided to try half moon nails using solid glitter for the half moon. It turned out even better than I expected. Can someone remind me how much I love these when I have to take them off?

Trying to get a good picture of these nails was a nightmare. This is the only picture that really shows all the colours in the glitter. Two of the nails are out of focus, but.....well, the colours show. I've got a few more pictures below, they don't show the colours as well but they're a little better quality.

The base colour is "Morrocan" by LA Colors, and the glitter is "Gemstones" by Jordana which I actually got from a dollar store! It reminds me of birthday confetti. I have a few other glitters I got from the same dollar store, I'm looking forward to trying them out. Maybe when I get over taking this off.

Chesire Valentine's Nails

With Valentine's coming up, I wanted to make use of some holographic hearts I got a while back but haven't really found a use for. I've seen a lot of manicures that put a heart over some stripes and I love the look, so pink stripes seemed like an appropriate choice.

The lighter pink is "Moroccan" by LA Colors, the darker pink is "Save The Date" By Sally Hansen Diamond Strength, and the heart is from a set of nail decorations I got at Claire's. As much as I like the look of the heart, it's too big and too flat to sit on my nail right and I had to put 4 layers of top coat on to stop them from sticking out. Caused a few problems. I still like how they look though! They kind of remind me of something though...

Yup. That's the one.

Pink and gold snake skin

I have to say, I think this is going to be my new go-to manicure when I'm completely out of ideas. I got so many compliments on them, even when they started chipping and breaking off. Lots of people asked how I did them, or if they were stickers. Because I used stamps to do them, they took minimal effort. Not to mention that they still looked good even when all my nails started breaking off and I had to cut them super short. So bonus!

The pink I used is "Save The Date" by Sally Hansen Diamond Strength, the gold is "Golden-I" by Sally Hansen XtremeWear, and the plate I used was BM 215. The pink is a little bit brighten than it looks in this picture, but not a whole lot. It's a nice, rich colour and the gold really compliments it. If/when I redo these nails though I'm not sure I'll do the gold accent nail, it just doesn't look as good as the others. When all is said and done, this is definitely going to become my manicure to fall back on!

Day 10: Gradient Nails

I had quite a few ideas for gradient nails, but eventually I settled on this one!

I apologize for the terrible picture, I had a lot of trouble with this entire manicure. Just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong, so when it finally got to the point that I was ready to photograph it I didn't have any patience left. Anyway, the colours are, in order from lightest to darkest, "Summertime", "Exotic Pink", "Pink Chiffon", and "Morrocan", all by LA Colors.

On another note, I finally bought a new nail strengthener. Hopefully this one won't cause so many bubbles!

Watermelon nails!

I have been dying to do this design for weeks. The last time I planned to do it, I broke one nail completely off and had to cut the other ones short to match, and I think this design really needs a little bit of a longer nail to really look good. It took a while to get it right, but here's the final result!

The base colour is Exotic Pink by LA Colors, and the tips are done with Palm Tree and Voodoo by LA Colors as well as white by Tivoli, and the black is a nail polish I got in a pack from Claire's. I had a lot of trouble getting a good photo of the pink colour, it's actually slightly more intense than it comes out in this picture. I wish I'd a slightly more reddish pink to do the base with, but this doesn't look bad either.

On a side note, I'm having a lot of trouble using the brushes I bought. The nail polish clumps up on it, and it doesn't go on with a nice even coat like I'd like. The white I ended up just using the brush in the bottle, and the greens I had to do a couple layers to get them looking good. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, or if it's because I'm using polish instead of acrylics, or if the polish I'm using is poor quality, but in any case I get the feeling that this is much harder than it needs to be.

Next week I have to do more tame nails for a couple reasons, but the week after I'm going to start the 31 "day" challenge! I'm really excited, I'm already starting to make plans. If you haven't seen it before, this is what I'm talking about: