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!

Nubbies :(

I took off the skittles mani to every artist's nightmare: nasty nails. The tips of my nails were chipped, peeling, yellow, and just plain nasty. Three of my nails had fixes that were peeling on the edges.

So I gave them a trim.

All of them.

I HATE having nubbies! They feel weird when I type, or pick things up, and I can't scratch, grab tiny things, or peel off stickers.... I hate it.

But hopefully, it's for the best!

Anyways, I did a simple design, another glitter gradient. I LOVE them, and I'm sorry if you're getting tired of them :(

Sunlight

Flash, inside

Two coats of Sinful Colors' Lavander, gradient with Queen of Beauty. On the accent nail I did a coat of L.A. Colors' BCC 655? I can't find a name for it...
You can best see the color in the sunlight picture, but honestly it's less blue and more grey.

3k Views!!!

OMGOMGOMG! I've hit 3k views! Thank you guys!!!!

One of the trends I've noticed on pinterest is almost-bare nails. I've been shunning it for a while, because I don't like the look of my naked nails.

But I tried it anyways.

I don't regret it, that sh*t was GORGEOUS.

Frustrated Mani

So last night my little booger just would NOT go to bed, and I got frustrated. So once he finally did go bed, I decided to do my nails to calm down.

It did not work.

I just got more and more frustrated, because my nails and my brain just weren't working with me.

First, there was a design change. I had originally thought of doing something simple, then I saw something on Pinterest and decided to try that. Which lead to a color change. Which meant I had to completely undo everything I had already done. Then, I didn't let the nail polish dry long enough before adding the nail glue, and the foil stuck to the wet nail, and I had to restart that nail.

It took me two hours to do a mani that I was completely unsatisfied with.

And then, once I woke up, I found that I had chipped a few of them in my sleep. WHO DOES THAT?!

Me, apparently. Ugh.

So this is what I woke up to this morning:

Basically on the pointer, pinkie, and thumb nails, I dotted some adhesive and then used a fanTABULOUS foil called "Fiber Optics" from the Dollar Nail Art store. On the middle finger, I just did a stripe of the adhesive, and on my ring finger, I covered my entire nail, and the did the rim of black. 

I used an NYC topcoat. I've been noticing that it chips fairly easily. Thankfully, I rarely wear a mani more than a couple of days, but still... I'm not putting keys on keychains in my sleep...

On my right hand, the foil rubbed completely off my pointer. I'm wondering if I even remembered to put the topcoat on it....

So yeah... Mani Therapy did NOT help last night. :/

Hopefully tonight's mani is a whole lot better, and hopefully kiddo goes to bed early enough that I can *do* a mani... I didn't get to bed until 4 a.m. this morning :(

Have you ever had a mani end up like this?

Happy New Year's!

And auld acquainted be forgot! Something-something hang sign!

...Yeah I dunno the words.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Ah a fresh, new, clean slate! ...Or another day, whatever.

I've been planning these nails for a while now. It's funny, I get so excited about doing my nails for a holiday and then I never actually do the designs I had planned... Okay not so funny I guess. More kinda pathetic, really....

ANYWAYS!

Silver and Gold

I couldn't get a good pic for the life of me :( But this is a great pic of the color in the light, so yay?

These were really cute and really fun to wear :)

Hope you had a great New Year's Eve, and that your New Year's Day wasn't too hungover! I got the best New Year's Kiss ever from the sweetest little boy in the world ♥

May your new year be full of luck, health, and happiness!

Bubble Nails

Looking around the blogosphere I came across bubble nails. She (I can't find the post, and I don't know who the poster was *sob*) used different sized straws to create bubbly-looking nails. I went on the hunt for straws, and here are my results :)

I added quite a few layers of different glitters and added a couple of dots here and there to make it look like different-sized bubbles. I really, really liked this one :)

With the glitter topcoats.

Without the glitter topcoats.

These were HORRIBLE to get off, even with the tin foil method, I waited five minutes, and still had to scrub a little. It was sooo worth it, though.

What do you think? Do you have any suggestions? What would you do with this technique?