Monday, August 13, 2012

31 Day Nail Art Challenge, Day 13, Animal Print

Since I have been doing a lot of muted polishes lately, I decided that I should do a brighter color that was out of my comfort zone on this challenge. For my base I used two coats of my Migi Nail Art Pen's pink and then did leopard spots using Migi's black and Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear Celeb City. I did the leopard nails using this wonderful tutorial by Chalkboard Nails. Her nails are seriously so amazing, I highly recommend you check her out and follow her, she's one of my biggest inspirations. For added flair, I topped the manicure with Pure Ice's Don't You Wish. I love this glitter polish because the pieces are so tiny, it's a subtle glitter polish that really shines with the light. Overall, I really liked this manicure, and it definitely brought me out of my comfort zone. I love leopard print, and I think I'll venture out and use brighter polishes with it more often!

Sunday, August 12, 2012

31 Day Nail Art Challenge, Day 12, Stripes

I'm not very good at doing stripes and I keep meaning to look into buying striping tape, but I almost never buy things online, so I have been reluctant to do so. However, all the manicures look so beautiful with striping tape I should really give Amazon a chance! Anyway, for my base I used Wet n Wild's Wet Cement. In the bottle it looks more like a purplish, grey brown, but on my hand it resembles more of a dark grey/brown without the purple hue. Then I used my Migi Nail Art Pens to add stripes. Overall I think these nails turned out okay, but I think I am going to pick up some striping tape because it gives precision and a look I just cannot do freehand! Do you use striping tape, if so, do you recommend a certain place to get it?


Saturday, August 11, 2012

Liebster Award


I was nominated by Osiris and Loki for the Liebster Award and I am very honored to receive it. It is meant to spread the word about smaller blogs (with 200 or less followers). First you have to share eleven things about yourself, answer eleven questions by the person who nominated you, then you have to nominate eleven bloggers, and finally, create eleven questions for them. I had a hard time nominating bloggers just because this great award has already been given to so many great bloggers and I wanted to share the award with some people who may have not been nominated yet. I'm not exactly sure if all the people I nominated have been nominated before, but they are all such great blogs I am very happy to nominate them anyway.
First are the eleven facts about myself:
1. I have taken Chinese class/lessons for about three and a half years.
2. I am majoring in Business Administration and minoring in English.
3. I love to bake and decorate cookies. SweetSugarBelle is my cookie idol!
4. My favorite superhero is Batman
5. I listen to/love Korean Pop Music
6. I love to draw/doodle on pretty much everything!
7. I love to craft and do "diy" projects (even though I'm not very good at them!)
8. I have a sister ten years younger than me
9. I absolutely love Tiffany & Co. jewelry. 
10. I am a nerdfighter. (youtube vlogbrothers)
11. Consequently my favorite book is Paper Towns by John Green.

Here are my answers from Osiris and Loki:
1. When did you start collection polish?? For as long as I can remember, I've always had a makeup bag full of polish, and when I was around thirteen I received a Konad Nail Art kit and that kind of solidified my love for polish. However, it wasn't until around this year that I saw all the great things you could do with polish, and the types of polishes out there!
2. What is your favorite TV show? Necessary Roughness!
3. What country are you from? USA
4. If you have to pick the worst possible colour to paint your nails..what would it be?? Probably that tie-dye nail polish they sell at Icing, I heard it doesn't come out tie-dyed, but instead a mixed up, yuckish, brown color.
5. Do you have any pets? what are they? I have two cats that I've had since I was four or five, Sassy and Peanut :)
6. What is your favourite polish collection of all time? Umm, I'm not sure, I don't really own/buy any polishes in their collection, but OPI's New York City Ballet is beautiful!!
7. What did you dance to at your wedding/prom? At my prom, like the only slow song they played is Two Is Better Than One by We the Kings and Taylor Swift, so at both my Junior and Senior proms that is what I danced to.
8. Glitter or holo? I have never tried a holo polish! But I love glitter polish :)
9. What is your favourite flower? Old English Roses
10. Where would you like to visit in the world? Does everywhere count ;), but especially Ireland
11. Name one famous event in history that you would have liked to been at? The launching of Apollo 11!

The eleven questions I have for them are:
1. What is one piece of technology you absolutely cannot live without?
2. What song are you loving right now?
3. What's your biggest source of nail art inspiration?
4. What is your favorite thing about running a blog?
5. What is your least favorite thing about running a blog?
6. What is your dream job?
7. What is your favorite design/pattern?
8. Do you have any quirky habits?
9. What is your favorite season?
10. If you could spend all day with a celebrity who would it be with and why?
11. What's one thing about the world you wish you could change?

The eleven bloggers I nominated are:

So go check them out!! And thanks again for the nomination!!!


31 Day Nail Art Challenge, Day 11, Polka Dots

Since I've done two polka dot-esque manicures already, I decided to do a simple manicure that has polka dots, but not as much as my rainbow one. I saw this over at The Beauty Department and decided to do an even quicker version of it on my nails today. (Instead of adding one and a half rows of dots, I just did the one row underneath.) I really like this version of the french because it is still classy and easy, but has enough flair to be unique. I just put a coat of Sally Hansen hardener on my nails then used Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear White on for the tips and dots. I hope you enjoy! xx

Friday, August 10, 2012

31 Day Nail Art Challenge, Day 10, Gradient Nails

So today I decided to do a simple two color gradient on all of my nails using the gradient tutorial by the wonderful Nailasaurus! Her picture tutorial completely helped me out when I first tried doing a gradient, and like water marbling, I eventually got the hang of it to the point I liked. I used Wet n Wild's I Need a Refresh-Mint as my base and Wet n Wild's On a trip as my other gradient. I used some cheap applicator sponges that I bought at Walmart but I think I'll need to check out some other variety's because little bits of the sponge ended up on my nails. Other than that I really loved this manicure and the colors I used!


Thursday, August 9, 2012

31 Day Nail Art Challenge, Day 9, Rainbow Nails

For today, I was sorta stumped on how to do today's challenge, because I don't really like just painting each one of my nails a completely different color unless it is in like a gradient or has a visible pattern (like red, white, and blue). But then I cam up with an easy idea that I really enjoyed wearing! Today's manicure creates a very cute look but is super easy to do! It doesn't even take a lot of time, just a steady hand and quite a few polishes. For my base color I used two coats of Foreverr 21's Taupe polish. I then added dots with a dotting tool . The colors from bottom to top were Wet n Wild's I Red a Good Book, NYC's Times Square, Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow, Maybelline's Color Show Go Go Green, Wet n Wild's I Need a Refresh-mint, and finally Wet n Wild's On a Trip. I love how it almost has a mosiac look to it when my hand is farther away. I was actually surprised at how well it turned out in such a short amount of time. I think I will end up trying it with just using warm colors (reds, oranges, yellows) or cool colors (greens, blues, purples) to see the effect it has. How do you feel about rainbow nails? Do you like having a lot of different colors on your hand?

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

31 Day Nail Art Challenge, Day 8, Metallic Nails

I was really excited to do today's post because for my birthday about a month ago my boyfriend bought me a bunch of cute polishes, including Sally Hansen's Xtreme wear Celeb City. I love how much this polish shines, it's exactly like foil. The only downside to this polish is that its shimmer makes it a little streaky. For this manicure I used three coats of Celeb City for an even base coat then added tips with Forever 21's light grey. I like this particular polish because it is just a nice, flat grey and is a perfect neutral polish for the work place. Its formula is nice too, even coverage can be obtained in about three coats also. There is also some minor streaking with this polish, but it settles pretty well. Overall, I enjoyed doing this manicure, and it makes for a cute twist on the regular french nails.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

31 Day Nail Art Challenge, Day 7, Black and White Nails

For today's post I did perhaps one of the easiest nail art designs I've ever done, the plastic wrap technique. Basically, it's where you scrunch up a piece of plastic wrap, put nail polish on the plastic, then dab it onto your computer. A good, short video of it can be found here. For my white base I used Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear White On, which is a pure white and goes on evenly and has full coverage in two-three coats. All of the polishes in Xtreme Wear seem to have a nice, thick formula in my opinion. For the black I used my Migi Nail Art Black because I felt that it would be better to have a thick formula to put on the plastic wrap so it wouldn't smear as much when I dabbed it on. Overall I like how it turned out, almost abstract in my opinion. To make the manicure a little more interesting I put on Sephora's matte coat to finish it.
I like how my ring finger, pink, and thumb turned out more than my pointer and middle finger. On those two, I think I used to much polish and should have scrunched up the plastic into a smaller ball. I think anybody can get some really awesome designs just playing with the shape and amount of plastic.
Overall I think this is one of the easiest manicures to do and I definitely will be doing this again!

Monday, August 6, 2012

31 Day Nail Art Challenge, Day 6, Violet Nails

Purple is my favorite color so I was really excited to do today's challenge! Unfortunately some things came up, (my laptop broke so I have to post from my parents' desktop and I had to go to campus to pick up some things) so by the time I got some free time to paint my nails I had to kind of keep it simple. I used two coats of Wet n Wild's On a Trip as my base coat, then with an old pda stylus I found laying around I did dots along the middle of my finger with NYC's Plaza Plumberry. On a Trip to me is a true violet, not too dark or too light. As with the other in the collection I received, it went on beautifully, and the brush is just amazing! Plaza Plumberry is very dark, and has a slight shimmer when it is put on. It goes on a little bit sheer, sort of like the polish is a little bit water-like, but it has a good wear. I love the color, but it may be too dark for some people. However, it still makes for a great polish to use for accenting and such. (As I said, I was rushed, so please excuse my horrible placement of the dots with my mock dotting tool lol).
Even though this manicure was rushed, I actually liked it and I would like to recreate it when I have more time (and can pay closer attention to my dot placement :D)

**Also, sorry if sometimes these posts fall into the next day! Sometimes I don't have time to post until late at night, (especially since it's summer) and so sometimes I don't publish the post until after twelve, when they're meant for the day before. I'll try to be better, promise!!)

Sunday, August 5, 2012

31 Day Nail Art Challenge, Day 5, Blue Nails

I wanted to keep it simple with today's nails because I believe the nail polish I used was so beautiful that it would stand on its own well. I used Wet n Wild's I Need a Refresh-Mint and two coats made the polish completely opaque. I absolutely love this color.I know that this color may be considered green, especially in the bottle, but when I put it on I felt like it was more blue with green, than green with blue (if that makes ANY sense). Either way, I love this color, and with the great ManiCurve brush, I would definitely recommend it.
 As not to make this manicure completely boring I decided to also do an accent nail with Pure Ice's Once Again. This glitter polish is a great topcoat for any blue because it contains beautiful microscopic silver and light blue glitters suspended in a baby blue tinted base.
I really love how today's maniucre turned out, because it is simple, yet still eye catching. I believe this will now be my go to blue color. What's yours?

Saturday, August 4, 2012

31 Days Nail Art Challenge, Day Four, Green Nails


For today's nails I decided to do striping with thick strips I had laying around my nail polish bin. I started off with two coats of Maybelline's Go Go Green and used Wet n Wild's Sage in the City over it. Like I have said before, I love Go Go Green (I used it in my water marbling post here) and Sage in the City, like the others in the collection, has a great shimmer and bold color. I think the two colors compliment each other really well and I liked how it turned out. 






After I had let that dry, I decided to use Sephora by O.P.I's Matte Top Coat. Personally, I think it is a great investment because it makes any nail polish more unique, and as an added plus, it dries quickly! I think the matte coat made it more interesting for me and I enjoyed wearing it throughout the day! How do you feel about matte nail colors? Do you like them enough to invest in a top coat yourself?


Friday, August 3, 2012

31 Day Nail Art Challenge, Day Three, Yellow Nails

So I originally planned on doing my nails with tips that resembled lemons, like the manicure shown in this video by the super talented cute polish!
However, I kinda wasn't paying attention when painting my tips yellow and made a straight line with my yellow polish instead of a curved one and decided to just go with the flow and continue to do the same with the white lines, (with my Migi Nail Art pen of course.) For my base I used Revlon's Top Speed  Sheer Cotton color and the yellow tips are Wet n Wild's The Wonder Yellows. Sheer Cotton is very, very sheer and I have to put on several coats to get the coverage I like and it never really seems to dry all that well. However, I love the color, so I always seem to come back to it. The Wonder Yellows is a shimmery, bright yellow and I used only one coat because it was over Sheer Cotton, but if it is anything like the other polishes in the collection, it should have great coverage.  
After I had painted them I decided there wasn't quite enough yellow for a yellow nail day and decided to use my yellow Migi Nail Art pen to add dots to the bottom of the  tips. The yellow from the nail art pen is more of a darker, truer yellow than that of Wet n Wild's. I think it would be too bright for my personal taste to use as a base color (that may always change lol), but I think The Wonder Yellows is a perfect (and beautifully shimmery) yellow for any occasion
Overall I liked how this manicure turned out, but I don't think it will be my favorite in the challenge. I don't wear the color yellow very often, on my nails or otherwise, do you?

Thursday, August 2, 2012

31 Day Nail Art Challenge, Day Two, Orange Nails

So for the second day I decided to use the Wet n Wild 9.0.2.1. Orange. It is a very light, shimmery polish that was completely opaque after three or four coats.I love how it looks in the light and it did dry fairly quickly. On the tips of the nails I wanted to do a "paint drip" effect and used my Migi Nail Art white pen to free hand the design.   
I had kind of wanted a "creamsicle" look and I am pleased with how it turned out. I believe this is a cute summer manicure. What do you think?




Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Polish Haul && 31 Day Nail Art Challenge, Day One, Red Nails

So today is going to be a rather long blog post...
To start off, I am going to show you a rather good deal I received from Walgreens on eight nail polishes that came in a cute, clear case for only ten dollars! 
The case is rather large, and could be used for storing various things. I think I will start storing my acetone, cotton balls, and other larger items in there because they take up space in my current nail polish container. (It is kind of cheap though because it is all plastic.)
There are two types of nail polishes in the package. The cube like polishes are Wet n Wild's megalast "salon nail color". The cylindrical polishes are Wet n Wild's fast dry nail color.
From left to right: Megalast polishes; I Red a Good Book, I Need a Refresh-Mint, Wet Cement, On a Trip. Fast Dry polishes; 9.0.2.1. Orange, The Wonder Yellows, Sage in the City, FuchsiaRama

*btw: How cute are the fast dry polish names?! All versions of t.v. shows :)
The top of the megalast colors s have a sticker that says the polish has a "manicurve pro brush". The brush is a lot thicker than I'm used to, but I believe it did a great job at coverage and was easy to use.
For the second half of my blog post, is the start of a 31 Day Nail Polish Challenge I found over at Galactic Lacquer (who is a fantastic blogger btw!).
For the first day of red nails, I decided to try out the I Red a Good Book polish i got in my case. The coverage was fantastic with the "manicurve" brush and was completely opaque in two coats. I then decided to do an accent nail in the design of a ladybug using my Migi Nail Art Pens. I think this was a cute, simple way to start this long challenge!! 
I am definitely looking forward to expanding my horizons over the course of this challenge. xx.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Water Marbling

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a long time! Today I have my first full attempt at water marbling. I used instructions and tips that I remembered from various blogs and Pinterest. I started off trying NYC Long Wearing colors Fuchsia Shock and Times Square Tangerine but it didn't spread exactly the way I wanted to. So instead I used two coats of Maybelline's Color Show Go Go Green as a base and used both the green and Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear White On to do the marbling. Overall I think this was a really good first attempt, but it did take a long time.

By far the one I think turned out the best was my middle finger on my right hand. The white was completely opaque and the design was interesting. 
As for my left hand, the designs weren't as intricate, and the white was a lot more transparent than I would have liked, but I think it still made for a pretty nail design.
Sorry for the polish staining along the cuticles!
Tips I learned while researching and doing water marbling are:
1. WORK FAST! The polishes I used at least seemed to dry quickly and then it becomes much harder to marble the colors together.
2. Use filtered water. I read this somewhere on another blog (I can't think of it at the moment) and it seemed to help the colors spread easier.
3. Don't get too complicated, at least at first. When I tried using the NYC colors I had originally planned to use the green, orange, and pink, and do multiple patterns. Between the lack of spreading and time it took for me to add the colors, I just created a disaster. I think if you master two colors first with simpler designs, then you can build up to those crazy, beautiful designs we all see on the internet. Practice IS perfect.

Tomorrow I think I am going to start a 31 day Nail Art Challenge I found over at http://www.galacticlacquer.com/ and show you a great deal on 8 nail polishes I got from Walgreens!


Thursday, July 19, 2012

Batman Nails

So in honor of seeing the Batman movie Friday night, I decided to use some Batman temporary tattoos laying around to do my manicure! I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow as my base on all my nails. On my thumb, pinky, and middle finger I applied temporary tattoos I got from the kid party section at Walmart. On my ring and pointer finger I did striping with some thick nail tape I had lying around with Migi Nail Art Black polish. 

 After one of my nails chipped while I was moving some things around, I decided to try a little water marbling with yellow and black Migi Nail Art polish. Needless to say it didn't turn out that well, but I don't think it was too bad for my first attempt. 
Are you going to go see the new Batman movie?

Monday, July 16, 2012

Pink/Taupe Forever21 NOTD



Today I wanted to properly try out two new-ish polishes I picked up at the mall at Forever 21. I layered their "Crystal Pink Polish" over "A Touch of Taupe". 
picture from forever21.com
I work at a place that requires "muted" nail polish so when I saw this creamy nude I just had to have it! I was pleasantly surprised that the nail polish went on pretty opaque on the first coat. I used a second coat just to even some parts out (I'm still not perfect at application D:) but I think it's a good, muted polish to have in any nail collection.
picture from forever21.com
I am fairly new and unexperienced with larger glitter polishes so I got sort of frustrated when I was trying to deal with Crystal Pink. It has various sizes of what I would call shards of pink, metallic glitter. I had to do some working to get it on the nail without going over the sides and I had to work around with the brush to get it to spread easier, (I feel the base may have been a little thick, but that's just personal opinion), but once it was on, I felt it was worth it.
Here is a blurred picture to properly show the shine Crystal Pink gives off when it's on. I personally feel this is a great duo, and at only $2.80 a bottle, I can't complain. Forever 21 has a ridiculous amount of cute nail polishes and I highly suggest you go check them out :).

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Pink Love Mani (My FIRST post!)

I totally meant to start working on my first blog post MUCH earlier but I got distracted by some really wonderful giveaways on Facebook! Better late than never! Well to start off, here is a little bit about my nail adventures. I started slightly dabbling in nail art a few years ago when I received a Konad Nail Art Stamping Kit. Throughout the years I have enjoyed doing my nails, but never really tried advanced nail art, and I certainly never thought about the different types of nail polishes out there. Recently, however, I discovered some beautiful nail art blogs and I have been inspired to try my hand, (no pun intended :p), at nail art and swatching different polish brands I try out :). So, for my very first post, is perhaps the manicure I have been most proud of! A cute, extremely simple manicure using probably the neatest trick I've learned. 

I used a shimmery, metallic pink nail polish I received from a kit at Walmart (the brand is named The Color Workshop, there is no specific name for the color) on all my fingers except my accent nail. On the accent nail I used Revlon Top Speed Sheer Cotton. Then, for the heart, I used a neat trick I once saw on Tumblr. I used a cheap ($1.00 pack for four assorted sheets) temporary tattoo to apply the heart to my nail. You apply it the exact same way you would to your skin! (Just cut out the tattoo you want, remove the clear plastic, carefully place face first on nail, wet the back paper with a damp cloth, remove the backing, and voilĂ  !) See! How easy was that? :D
On a scale of one to ten I would give both of these polishes about a 5. The pink is not very opaque (you can see the line on my thumb in the picture), but applies very well and has a pretty metallic shimmer. For the Revlon polish, it was semi-opaque and applied okay, but I do not think it dried at "top speed" as it claims.
I sincerely hope you enjoyed my first blog post and I look forward to sharing my nail adventures with everyone who visits Stars Over Diamonds!