Spring Flowers

    Now that we are officially out of winter (the season and the weather!), be prepared to see a lot flowers from me. Probably every other week... :D

   This was inspired by babynail_nagoya on Instagram. I loved the look!

    I didn't really have a base color. I painted one layer of Essie Mademoiselle to give it a very slight tint so that any lines or imperfections on my nail bed were evened out.

   The flowers were painted using thinned out white polish. I added a slight pink tint to the centers to make it a little more interesting. The pink was a very thinned out Revlon Colorstay Card Shark. Then I ended with a bit of gold glitter, concentrating it in the center, but spreading it out a tiny bit.

   I have my first client photo for you next! I had my first nail art client today; it was so exciting.


  I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Turning Leaves

  I bought a pretty new fall glitter two weeks ago, and I am super excited to show it to you guys! It's called Turning Leaves by Liquid Sky Lacquer. It's so pretty!

   I painted it over top Essie Bahama Mama. It's such a pretty fall glitter, so I just had to paint some leaves over top of it, especially with a name like 'Turning Leaves.'

   To make the leaves, I used a combination of yellow (Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Butterscotch), green (L'Oreal New Money), and orange (L'Oreal He Red My Mind). I started with either a yellow or green, and added in the second color while the first is still wet. That way it blends better.

  Then I finished the leaves by adding in the stems with thinned brown polish (Sally Hansen Compete Salon Manicure Branch Out). Then I topped it off with a gel top coat so that the polish would last through numerous manicures and pedicures and lots and lots of acetone.

   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Blue Leaves

   It's been awhile again, I know. School has kept me busy, and when I'm home I feel like all I do is sleep... My cousin is also leaving for the army tomorrow, so I've been trying to spend as much time with him as I can before he ships off, too. I do have quite a few updates for you all though!

   First, let me say I love school! It is so much fun and the people are great. It's so exciting to be able to do what I love all day. It's just a great atmosphere at school; everyone loves what they are doing, and all of the teachers really want you to succeed (as do the clients that come into the school). I just love it!

   (Sorry for the less-than-stellar photos; I took these at school with my phone because I kept forgetting to take pictures when I was at home!)
   One of my fellow students had this pretty blue gel - part of the Gelish Cinderella collection. It has a subtle glitter in it that is just so pretty! While searching for what to paint on top of it, I came across this pattern. I loved the leaf design and knew that was what I wanted, with a few modifications. :) I painted the design with acrylic paint and my thinnest brush.

   We all use gel (or at least a gel top coat on top of regular polish) on our nails, so that the acetone doesn't take off our manicure every time we have a client. It makes compete sense, but it was definitely something that I had never thought of. I'm learning a lot of new techniques and it is great! I'm so excited to graduate and start doing what I love.

   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Geometric Gels

   I'll start out by saying: school is awesome! For those of you that don't know, I started school to become a nail technician this month. We spent the whole first week giving each other manicures, so I never had polish on long enough to bother with. We started working with acrylics today. ...I think I'm in love! There is so much you can do with them.

   We ended the week with gels, so I'll have a pretty pink on for the next few weeks. This week I painted a geometric design on top of the gel.

   The gel polish used was OPI Pink Flamingo, I think. Something about flamingos, anyway! To make the geometric design, I used China Glaze Princess Grace and my favorite thin striping brush from Born Pretty. To make the dots, I used my smallest dotter.

   I'm not sure when I 'll have something new, but it shouldn't be too long now that we're not changing our polish every day. Maybe I'll have some acryilcs soon once I get more practice!


   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Review: Starfish Studs

   As you know, I was at my best friend's wedding last weekend! It was a destination wedding - Myrtle Beach - and it was tons of fun. We got our nails done, which was a new experience for me; I never can justify paying for it when I can do it (and more) on my own! But she wanted it, and it was fun. It was nice letting someone do all the work!
   Anyways, it was weird having just one solid color on my nails. And since it was a beach wedding, I added some bling to my nails and the other bridesmaid's to spice it up. In my last package from Born Pretty, I received some pretty starfish studs. Once again, I forgot to take a picture before I used them... Oops!

   I really like how the studs look, they are perfect for the beach or a beachy design! I have tiny fingers, so it does look large-ish on me, but they really aren't that big. They stayed on me much longer than I anticipated. I am notorious for catching 3D decorations on everything and picking at them, so they hardly ever last me more than 3 days. But these were on for a week! I guess I was extra careful or something, I don't know.
   My only complaint is that they didn't form to my fingers perfectly. The starfish are curved, but my ring fingers are extra curved, for some reason. Because of this, the stuck out a little on the edges. It wasn't a huge deal, and probably because of my extra curved fingers.
   Overall, I really liked them! They turned out to be the perfect addition to some beach wedding bridesmaids.

   I'm going on vacation again (I guess I'm making up for not traveling much the past few years!), so I won't have too many new designs the next two or three weeks. But I will have some more posts, I've been working on updating a lot of my listings in my shop.

   I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Retro Ornaments

   I was really torn this week on what design to paint for Christmas. I have seen some really cute Christmas/wintery bird fabrics, cards, and the like. But then I found some old ornaments that I really liked too! I got a free gel manicure a few days ago so I really wanted to choose something I really liked since it would last a lot longer than my own manicures do. I finally decided on the ornaments because I really really liked them and I could always paint the birds later as just a winter design instead of a Christmas one. So you'll probably see some birds in a few weeks!

    I really liked the shapes and potentially detailed designs I found in a lot of the 60's ornaments. I was inspired by this pin and this one, as well as somewhat by this fabric.

   I used a lot of acrylic paints this time. I bought a bunch of new paints and I wanted to see how much easier it would be than regular polish. And let me tell you, for the most part, it is infinitely easier! It doesn't dry up half so quickly as it set on my paint plate. It's not half so gloppy either. I'm not sure how often I'll use the acrylic paints, but they are nice and easy when I do use them!
   I have mostly Apple Barrel acrylic paints pretty much because they're the cheapest at JoAnn Fabric. There's nothing like convenience to get you to by one product over another! The colors I used were Regency Blue and Cardinal Crimson in the Apple Barrel brand and Rose Layette and Blanc d'Osier in the Folk Art brand. My base color was an OPI gel; maybe Did You 'ear About Van Gogh? I'm not 100% sure what color I picked... I also used my white Stripe Rite striper as well as Loreal New Money, Royally Reinvented, and Club Prive.

   I hope you all have an awesome Christmas!