Mermaid-esque

I started off with a new polish, layered on another new polish, and was inspired! So this look was born.

I started off with this new color that I picked up at Walgreens during their 99¢ sale last week. It's Sinful Colors Rise and Shine.  It's the beautiful sort of neon green with hints of blue to tame it and lots of shimmer.

This picture was taken at night so I had to use a flash, but it's pretty true to color.  I needed to use 2 coats of polish.

Next I layered on 2 coats of Sinful Colors Nail Junkie. At this point, I was really reminded of mermaid nails. The sheer base of Nail Junkie turned Rise and Shine into this beautiful teal color and all of the glitter reminded me of mermaid scales.

So I added on some Milani Jewel FX Gold onto just the tips. I sort of blobbed it on to get the look that I wanted.  All told I used 9 coats of polish  for this mani! (2 of OPI Nail Envy, 2 of Rise and Shine, 1 coat of Seche Vite, 2 coats of Nail Junkie, 1 blobbed coat of Gold, and 1 more coat of Seche Vite) Yowza!

Also, you may notice that my nails are shorter. Well, I've been having tons of breakage so I spent a good amount of time taking off length and filing down my nails. I've been using OPI Nail Envy for about a month now. I do notice that my nails grow longer and stronger, but I still have about 3 more months of damage to grow out.  I don't mine my shorties though. I think this color combo looks really good on them!

Stamping Sunday: Only Blue

Over at Adventures in Stamping, we chose Only Blue as our theme for Stamping Sunday.

I'm kinda excited about how this turned about. I tried a new stamping technique than what I was doing before. This time I pressed the stamper onto the plate and rolled the image onto the nail instead of rolling onto the plate and on the nail. It worked so much better!!!

The base coat is 2 coats of Revlon Blue Lagoon.  I love this color but have such a hard time with its dry time, even when using Seche Vite.

Next I stamped using Bundle Monster 206 and Sinful Colors Why Not. My Sinful Colors is thick now so it works great for stamping.

Finally I added some blue rhinestones. I'm not sure I like them though. I wish I would have used the light blue ones or none at all.

What do you think? Better with the rhinestones or without?

24 Days of Christmas, Day 3: Icicles

I was having a hard time trying to figure out what I wanted to do for this since I really didn't think I could draw them very well.  Well, I decided to try this idea done by Practice with Polish. I think I did a really good job!

First, I used a base of Finger Paints Sparkle Top Coat to add shimmer and cover up my nail bed a bit. Then I used Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner to free hand some french tips. It was really easy with this!

To do the actual icicles, I used a dotting tool, but you could also used a toothpick or a bobby pin. I placed a small dot on the end of the white and pulled it down toward my cuticle. I swiggled some to make sure they were imperfect.

Next, I used a small brush to put glitter over the icicles to add some shine like when the sun shines on them. The color is Sinful Colors Queen of Beauty. I followed it up with Seche Vite.

It's not my favorite design, but I think I pulled it off!

Plus, here's some other bloggers doing the challenge.

Kristyn at Paint That Nail

Kaki at Obsessed With Glitter

Shannara at Nails and Stuff

Theodora R. at Red Hair and Black Nail Polish

Kelly at Base Coat Top Coat

Krishten at KK Nails

Steffi at Me, Myself, and Nail Polish

Sabine at My Polish Stash

24 Days of Christmas, Day 2: Snowflakes

I really love the way this manicure turned out!  My right hand, of course, is not as nice but still looks pretty good. My husband said I should hide that hand. Jerk.

After my base coat, I used two coats of China Glaze Sea Spray. I really like the color, but my bottle is pretty thin so it's fairly easy to flood the cuticles.

Then I used a coat of Finger Paints Sparkle Top Coat to add some nice subtle shininess.

Then I used my white Migi nail art pen to draw on the snowflakes. You can put them all in the middle of your nail, but I choose to make them off center.

I added small dots of clear coat on the nail and put light blue rhinestones on there.

Finally, I topped it all off with 2 thick coats of Seche Vite.

Here's some others who are also participating:

Kristyn at Paint That Nail

Kaki at Obsessed With Glitter

Shannara at Nails and Stuff

Theodora R. at Red Hair and Black Nail Polish

Kelly at Base Coat Top Coat

Krishten at KK Nails

Steffi at Me, Myself, and Nail Polish

Sabine at My Polish Stash

I love nail art, but I wanted to do something a little less time intensive today and play with some new polishes that I've gotten recently but haven't had a chance to use.

I started off with a base coat then used 3 coats of Savvy Deja Blue. The polish seemed a bit thin and definitely need the full three coats. Perhaps you could get away with 2 thick coats.

Ugh, I apologize for the clean up. It looked better last night. Also, blue is so hard to clean-up, any tips?

I love the look of this bottle.

To have a little fun, I put on two thick coats of Sally Girl Chunky Silver Glitter.  I followed everything up with 1 coat of Seche Vite.

Taken with flash. It's so cloudy outside that it's hard to get a photo of anything without a flash. This photo also shows the true color and the tiny bit of shimmer the color has.

Has anyone else tried the Savvy brand of polish? I found it at Sally's and also got a glittery red (Ruby Pumps) for my mom, but I'm thinking about getting one for myself too.

Haul plus all my nail supplies

This is my last post of the day. I went to Sally Beauty Supply and was able to get quite a bit of stuff (with permission of the husband of course, lol!) Here's what I got:

Sally Girl Minis (L - R): Chunky Pink Glitter, Way 2 Disco, Chunky Silver Glitter, Chunky Gold Glitter

 Nina Ultra Pro (L - R) : Ink-ling, Mossy Britches, Purple-xing

Misc : Rimmel London Wild Orchid (which I actually got at Walmart), Savvy Deja Blue (love the bottle), Seche Vite, and So Easy Stripe Rite in Midnight Blue (which I got for free with the Seche Vite).

And finally, pictures of all my nail supplies.

All of my polish

All of my other supplies including clear coats, Migi nail art pens, striping/nail art brushes, glitter, and stickers/french tips