Nintendo Love

Sosososo apparently it's year of the Luigi! Yeah, I don't know either. Click on the Luigi if you want to figure it out for me.

Anyway, what better way to celebrate Nintendo than some Luigi nails? Yes, yes? I love the Mario Bros. franchise. Love the games. Mario Kart? Yes. Old school Mario? Yes. Super Mario? Yes. Yoshi? Definitely. Daisy? Kicks @$$.

Anyway...above is the finished product, and below I'll share a few work in progress shots. 

Colorful Trees with Birds

This was such a fun manicure and probably my favorite of the summer! I got the idea for this manicure here. Check it out! Lots of pictures here so don't forget to click the read more button!

I made a few changes to the look as compared to the link above. Instead of a gradient across all ten nails, I did the gradient the same across each hand.

The polishes used in this manicure from pinky finger to thumb are: Sinful Colors: Purple Diamond (light purple), Essie: Sexy Divide (dark purple), NYC: Cashmere Creme (light blue), Sinful Colors: Love Nails (medium blue), Zoya: Holly (dark green), Sally Hansen: Ivy League (light green), Sally Hansen: Golden-I, Zoya: Penny (bronze-y orange), NYC: Burgundy Broadway Creme (red), and Sally Hansen: Posh Plum. For the birds and branches, I used Sinful Colors: Rich in Heart (dark brown).

Minions Galore!

Ba-na-na! 

Minions! Have you seen Despicable Me 2? This was my manicure when I went to see it! I thought the movie was pretty cute, though not as good as the first one. 

Below is a work in progress picture. I did a lot of layering work on this. (By layering I mean: paint a coat, let it dry, paint another coat, let it dry...kind of tedious.) I also did these nails outdoors, which caused some of my polishes to dry fast (which is nice for the base coats, but makes it difficult to do finer details). 

The polishes used are: Zoya: Darcy (yellow), Rocky (blue), Storm (sparkly black); Sally Hansen: White Out, Black Out, and a combination of the white and black to make grey. 

Minions-to-be

Not my cleanest manicure, but definitely one of the most fun to create. There are lots of different minion manicures online, so if you like what you see, search for more! 

Thanks for reading! Next time, colorful trees! 

Po-ta-to-nahhhh...

Apples and Earthworms

An apple a day keeps the doctor away! 

Not my hands again, this is a mani for my friend who likes books. (Are you a bookworm?) I did a light tip gradient with Sally Hansen: Golden-I and stamped the worms with Sally Hansen: Ivy League. The apples on the thumbs and ring fingers are free-handed. For the body of the apples I used NYC: Broadway Burgundy Frost. The stem, leaf, and shiny spot are Zoya: Holly, Sinful Colors: Rich in Heart, and Sally Hansen: White Out, respectively. 

The apple on this ring finger came out the best, in my opinion. 

This was such a fun manicure! I loved this design, and it lasted a long time. I usually don't wear my manicures longer than 5-7 days, but I think this one lasted for a good two weeks with normal tip wear. 

Thanks for reading! See you next time! 

ALL the nail polish!

Here's a conglomeration of the manicures I've done for others this summer! None of these hands are mine, but the nail art is! I'll try to be brief in the descriptions. Lotsa pictures, make sure you click the "read more" button! 

This first mani is made using a base color and adding several different colored dots using a bobby pin. You can also use dotting tools of different sizes, but I'm cheap and make do with bobby pins, haha. The second picture below is the same style with slightly different colors (and a different person's hand). I also added an accent nail of contrasting color on the second manicure. Have you seen my original design?

Experimenting with Matte Polish

Brown and blue gradient for today!

To create this look, I used a makeup sponge to apply Sinful Colors: Rich in Heart (brown) and Love Nails (blue) as a gradient. I then used NYC: Matte Me Crazy to matte-ify the nail polish. Lastly, I added dots of clear polish (Sally Hansen: Invisible) as decorations on the outer edges of the nails. 

The second picture was taken using flash, so it's a little funky looking, but I think the dots are a little more visible. Matte Me Crazy is the cheapest matte top coat I've seen (I think it was under $5) and though the matte isn't extreme, it still does a pretty good job of flattening the color. I've also heard/read than adding cornstarch to a clear polish (or any other polish of your choice) can mimic the matte effect! 

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for some birds and...mushrooms? in the next few posts.

Zoya: Anastasia

Hello! I'm back from my short trip. Actually I'm back from recovering from my trip, haha. Just a quick manicure today.

This is Anastasia by Zoya. I used two coats in this manicure, three coats would be best for a fully opaque look. This is a really interesting color because it looks so pretty but once I put in on my nails I start doubting myself...and I end up taking it off because it doesn't quite look right on my nails. Maybe I have the wrong skin tone for this color? But the holographic sparkles in this polish are delightful. Perhaps someday I'll figure out how to wear this particular color...

The second photo is my attempt at color correcting; the actual color of this polish is closer to mauve and purple, though in the bright sunlight it looks more reddish brown. This second picture should look a bit more purple-y than the previous, but on my computer screen for some reason it looks really really similar....(need a level up in skill on photoshop!)

That's all for now! Back to regularly scheduled posting (hopefully). See you next time!