Party On My Nails

Bean is back with a glitter gradient! If you haven't noticed, or this is your first time reading my blog, I'm aiming to update once every three days. Check back every third day for a new manicure!

For this manicure I used polishes from Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails Extreme Wear line. I used a cotton swab to dab Red Carpet (a marbled red with some very tiny glitter) on half of my nail, making the tips darker for the gradient effect. I added a white heart on the thumb (using White On) and then brushed on Disco Ball (a multi-colored glitter polish). For the glitter layer, I did one quick thin coat over the whole nail, waited for that to dry, then added extra glitter at the tips to finish the gradient look.

I remember thinking something along the lines of "party on my nails" after finishing this one...a very glittery party.

On a different note...guess what I got in the mail!!!

I'm so excited! My first image plates! I got the second set of Mash plates, the 2012 ones, I believe. I'm waiting for the stamper to be delivered, but once I get that, imma go crazy trying these out! I mean, just look at those smiley faces. They're just begging to be put on your nails.

Thanks for reading! Comments encouraged, feel free to leave me a message! Next time...more water marbling.

School Pride

I've got two manicures to show you today!

So my school's mascot is the tiger (which means I have an extremely bright set of orange clothes now). What better way to show off some school spirit than with nail art?

This manicure was my first attempt at a french manicure. I have to admit, french manicures had never really interested me, but I decided to give it a try. I freehanded the orange using Sinful Colors: Cloud 9 and used a paint brush to freehand the wave designs with black acrylic paint. Pretty nice, for a first attempt!

I used Cloud 9 again as a base color for this manicure. Again with black acrylic, I freehanded the tiger stripes and Chinese character on my thumb. I used a bobby pin to do the paw prints. And if I remember correctly, the character is for harmony (someone correct me if I'm wrong!). I'm not really sure since I was just looking for something to fill up my thumbnail. ;)

Tiger stripes are kind of a staple for me. After a year of experimenting, I have four or five different ways to do them now...let me know if you have any ideas for tiger-related manicures! 

Thanks for reading! Next time, glitter!

Red, White?...and Blue

As I was going through my pictures, I looked at this one and was wondering if I had intended to do this for the 4th of July...turns out I got too excited and read the date wrong :( 4th of July is not in June...anyways...

Another water marble from 2012, this one really surprised me! Because the polishes I used were on the thicker side, the overall marbling effect was darker than I expected, but it turned out better than I thought it would, too! My favorite parts on this mani are the loops on the ring finger and arrow shape on the pointer finger.

As a base, I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme Wear: Celeb City (silver) and for the marble another Sally Hansen: Red Carpet and Love and Beauty: Royal Blue (from Forever 21). The interesting thing about the blue polish is that it looks more turquoise in the bottle, but in the marble, it mixed nicely with the red, producing a few areas of fuchsia.

Thanks for reading!

Freehand Flower

Hi, again! Bean is back with another manicure from 2012:

It's a little bit hard to see but I freehanded a flower on my thumb and ring finger. I used NYC: Cashmere Creme as a base (one of my favorites!) and both Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme Wear: Ivy League and Sinful Colors: Purple Diamond for the flower. I don't own any nail brushes (yet!) so I used a tooth pick and a bobby pin to draw these designs. The bobby pin is actually a pretty useful tool if you don't want to spend money on a dotting tool, but after a while the paint on the bobby pin head begins to wear away...good thing they come in packs of sixty or so.

If you're interested, more about the individual polishes:
Ivy League is marble, translucent green that needs at least two coats for a nice finish. It's a nice shade, but I usually don't wear it by itself. Purple Diamond is a very shimmery, almost transparent lavender. I wouldn't use it by itself, but I've used it to top another polish to make it extra shimmery. Cashmere Creme (what a nice, alliterative name) is a lot more than I expected! It's a smooth, creamy light blue that needs one good coat for full coverage or two thin coats. Now that I'm close to finishing that bottle, I'm thinking of buying another; that particular line of NYC is only $0.99 at Target.

Thanks for reading! Next time: more water marbling!

Hunger Games Inspired Water Marble

Hey, it's my first *real* post!

I did this water marbling technique for the premier of the Hunger Games movie in March, 2012. If you want to know more about marbling, try searching "water marble nail art" on youtube for ideas and tutorials (my favorites are by simplelittlepleasues). 

For this manicure, I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme Wear: Celeb City (silver) as a base and both Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme Wear: Red Carpet (an opaque, marbled red) with Sinful Colors: Cloud 9 (a sheer, shimmery orange) for the marbling. This is one of my favorites, because the polishes I used for this were so reliable, I've done this water marble several times since! I've also used gold polish as a base (also Sally Hansen) and found it works just as well as the silver. 

Here's just a single nail from a later manicure (not painted at the same time as the first picture). I really loved how I got more of the flower pattern on this one. Trial and error! 

I'll probably be going through the pictures I have from last year in chronological order, so stay tuned for more! In the mean time, feel free to comment below with anything you'd like to see! Next time: floral. Thanks for reading! 

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