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).

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.

Ocean Nails

Tada! Another of my favorite water marble designs! This is a (realllllyyyyy) long post, so make sure to click the read more button to read the rest! 

The picture above was taken by my roommate because she has nice camera...pretty. I'll take a little bit more time to describe this, since it's one of my favorites. This manicure is a combination of two techniques: gradients and water marbling. 

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.