Sunset Over the Skylines

Hello luvvies! Hope you are excited for this weekend, I sure am!

At my Dollar Store, we've been getting some really awesome steals lately. Particularly in the makeup section, so I've been keeping an eye there, and very recently, I scored! I found some Maybelline New York COLORSHOW Nail Tattoos in style 30, called "Skylines" and I immediately knew what I was doing with them! Sunsets!

I absolutely love these, so I took WAY too many pics! Sorry-not-sorry lol

This one is my personal favorite

For the sunset, I started with a dot of Sally Hansen's Mellow Yellow, then put a ring of Salon Perfect's Haute Pink (which is really an orange, if you ask me), followed by a ring of Zoya's Charisma, followed by a ring of Pure Ice's Last Chance, and then the rest of the sponge was Sinful Colors' Endless Blue (I thought it was going to be darker, but the sponging lightened it up considerably).  Over the Last Chance and the Endless Blue, I dabbed some unnamed LAC glitter.

Doing a round gradient opposed to a linear gradient was actually much harder than I was anticipating. Anyone have any tips?

I have had an AMAZING amount of strangers and friends commenting on how much they love them. I love them too!

I hope you guys have an awesome Friday and an even better start to your weekend!

Christmas Lights

Nails are did, tree is up! Happy holidays, everyone!

I grunged with all of my greens, painted a white squiggle, and then used Glow-In-The-Dark paint to paste the bulbs on to get a "glow-ey" look. I got the bulbs at the Dollar Tree a while ago in a jewel wheel. 

I also got the garland at the Dollar Tree. Aren't they the best?

And finally, a picture of my tree, which is currently uncompleted... Needs a tree skirt and a topper, but those'll show up eventually.

Oops

The Dollar Tree has some new scissors! Zigzags! So I thought I'd do some chevrons.

...yeah.

Hall of Shame today!

The zig-zag was too big, except for on my thumb. AND THEN I brushed my hair back and destroyed my pointer and middle fingers :/

My right hand was much, much worse...

Minimalist Frankenstein

My best friend REALLY LIKES Frankenstein's Monster. So, in the spirit of the season, I give you: minimalism?

Hahaha wasn't expecting that, were you?

I REALLY wanted to do Watermarble Mummy nails tonight, but then I realized that I can't be spending that kind of time on them because tomorrow night I have to take them off and do something for a couple of weddings that the boyfriend-thingy (it's complicated in the most adult sense) and I are attending this weekend. So, I K.I.S.S.ed it tonight.

The smudging was intentional. Monsters!

To get the color I got (not pictured very well), I used my Rue Beaute Mint, and the did a coat of Sinful Colors Irish Green. I got the studs at The Dollar Tree! You can't really see, but I also have a layer of Pure Ice's Oh Baby! where my nail beds show through, and then on my tips, I have a Franken (apropos, right?) of Oh Baby!, Petite's Daze, and NYC's Matte Me Crazy. 

Marble Nails and a Foiled Success

I really should come up with my own designs, I know. But pinterest is so inspiring, and there are so many things all right there... yeah. I'm sure I'll get tired of it soon enough.

Anyways, I fell in love at first sight at this mani and had to have them!

So here's my take:

 I LOVE these!

Here's how:
Prep nails.
Apply light blue/periwinkle. I used a light blue by Rue21 that I picked up a few months ago.
Get a cup of lukewarm water, and drip one (it's all you need!) drip of silver nail polish. I used Pure Ice's Silver Mercedes. It tends to shred instead of spot, which is what I wanted.
Spray hand sanitizer on the spread out drip. (You can get the spray kind at Dollar Tree)

Dip your fingers in. You can get up to three, depending on how far it spreads!
Topcoat.

Easy peasy!

For my accent nails, I tried a foil from Dollar Nail Art, then waterspotted over it with the blue.
It came out kinda funky, so I did the corner in the solid blue, and a stripe of the Silver Mercedes.

I would like to take a moment here to be excited. This was the first time I've EVER gotten a smooth cover in foil the first time. Guess it was just that I needed practice, which this blog is all about, I guess :)

On this mani, I tried a new topcoat (new for me) by NYC. It's a speed-dry topcoat. I've worn these nails ONE DAY and they've chipped. And I haven't been typing all day and being hard on them, so I'm a little disappointed. It did REALLY well on sealing everything, and it did it fast, so there's a plus, but I might go over it with another layer of something more reliable.

I would also like to say that this topcoat worked REALLY well with the foil's adhesive, but I'm wondering if that's because of the waterspotting on top of it. If that is the case, maybe it's possible to use water to keep the adhesive from wrinkling... I'll have to look into this!

What other colors do you think would work well with this method? I like the two colors that I used because they're so similar and you kinda can't tell at first glance :)

Have a wonderful week, luvvies!

Grunge Rainbow Foils

So another Pinterest find has inspired me, and now I can't find it to show you the original (don't you hate that?). Grr.

How to achieve this look:

Paint nails black (I used Sinful Colors' Black on Black)

Apply foil adhesive on the top 3/4 of the nail.

Apply the foil (it's okay if it's not perfect, holes will make it look better)

Take a fan brush, and brush upwards, creating rough edges along the sharp line created by the edge of the foil.

For the rainbow, I used two separate foils from Dollar Nail Art: Citrus Flash and Wildberry Flash to create the rainbow effect. 

The adhesive reacts to certain topcoats, so don't use anything that's fast drying. I used Revlon's Extra Life No Chip Topcoat and it doesn't seem to react like the others.

Dancing In the Dark

Heaven decided to let me do her nails again! YAY for best friends! lol

She let me try to do acrylics again (last time they were HORRIBLE, the tips I used melted (WTF)), and these turned out really well (after going to Sally's Beauty Supply and buying more tips... Two decided to not work, though. *sigh*).

At my trip to Rue 21, I got a Glow-In-The-Dark hot pink that is suuuuuper cute, even with the lights off!!! I just can't figure out how to take pics of it in the dark....

So it took me... 6.5 hours to do her nails, from start to finish. There were several breaks, including dinner, and I had to go get Era from my mom's at one point.

I FINALLY figured out how to use the Macro on my camera!

The accent nail has glitter dots, pink is from the Dollar Tree, black is from Target. They've appeared in a couple of other posts. We decided to not use a top coat on these to keep the texture.

A mix of styles

I really like how these turned out!!! I just wish we weren't so tired, 'cause I'm not happy with the edges. 

OPI's Black Spotted Released in US!

LOL just kidding! Sorry to get you all excited there :(

I do have some amazing news, however! SOMEONE HAS FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO SPOTTED MANI'S!!! And I was able to replicate it using dollar-store items (nail polish bought at Target)!!!!

Youtuber CutePolish came up with this tutorial that I found on pinterest. I already have toothpicks and plastic shot glasses from the dollar store, and all I needed was the hand sanitizer, so I went to the Dollar Tree and grabbed one. Finding the sanitizer was more difficult than I imagined, because the spray kind isn't with the normal hand sanitizer, it's in the cosmetics, buried amongst the chapsticks.

 I then invited Heaven back over to test it out (I'm still wearing my Saran Wrap nails) and we came up with this. I really hope you like, this is so cheap and sooo easy!!!

For the accent nail, we used a crackle.

The top coat messed up her middle finger :( She still loved it, though!

Up close and personal with her favorite. Darn I missed this nail with the acetone. Oops :/

For these, we did pink, purple, and white stripes with a black spot. In hindsight, it might have been really cute to do white with pink and purple spots. I'll have to try that next!

All you do is drip the polish on the surface of water-just as if you were doing a watermarble. Then spray it with hand sanitizer. The spots will appear and then you dip your finger in it just like you would for a watermarble.

What does this inspire in you?

Good Vs. Evil and The Most Expensive Internet Ever.

So now that I'm all settled in to my brother's place for the next 10 days or so, I figured I should make a post to make up for yesterday's absence.

There was on-flight internet, but I seriously was NOT going to pay $10 for the 6 hours I was on a plane. Sorry. On a budget and all.
ON TO THE MANI!
This has to be one of my more awesome ones to date. My friend texted me after a very troubling event knowing I needed to do my nails (it makes me feel better!) with this: "I have an idea for your nails! You could do a naughty and nice type deal, like, do a hot color on all your nails except your accent nail, where you can do a pretty neutral. Also you could do the shiny topcoat on the 'naughty nails' and the matte topcoat on the 'nice' ones. Just a suggestion. I won't be offended if you think the idea sucks."

I took the suggestion and ran with it. It mutated in my mind into "Good vs. Evil" and here ya go!

This was an "Evil" accent nail. Devil horns made out of caviar beads. The beads were almost impossible to see without looking :(

 

This was the other "Evil" accent nail. Devil tail made out of caviar beads.

This was a "Good" accent nail. A halo made out of  caviar beads. Oddly, this was much easier to see  in normal light, but the camera hated it.

This was my "Evil" hand, with the "Good" accents. My middle and pinkie fingers are wings.
(My pinkie sucked, IMHO. I wish the halo was visible, but I promise it's there)

The "Good" hand. This picture turned out much better lol

So what do you guys think? I personally really enjoyed wearing this, though that was mostly because I couldn't stop playing with the beads >.<

So, I don't have my polishes with me, and I didn't think to write down what colors and brands I used, so I'll do my best to remember.
The base white and base red are from Sinful Colors. The white had a Pure Ice glitter over it, and then the silver, which I THINK is L.A.C. The red had an N.Y.C. glitter over it, with a black/silver combo from... Hrm. It's either Color Workshop or L.A.C. I can't remember. Sorry. The caviar beads all came from the Dollar Tree and are a brand I can't make out in the picture.

I would like to say that I HATE working with white polishes. They get gloopy and hard to use waaaay too fast, and even my polish thinner doesn't seem to help :( If anyone has a favorite brand of white or a suggestion on how to keep the whites from thickening up super quick, leave it in the comments please!

On a side note, am I terribly vain or are there others who totally feel let down when no one comments on your nails? No one said anything about them :(