so far behind..

Okay it's been almost a year since I've posted so I'll drop all of the photos of nails I've done in the next post or so. I'll just have to see how this goes :D

April 3, 2011: Coral Crackle


July 3, 2011: Patriotic Mani


August 3, 2011: Red Tigers


October 3, 2011: Graphite and Gold


October 11, 2011: Carnival Accent



December 15, 2011: Another set Disneyland nails

Lindsay's Nails

Painted my 16 yr old niece's fingernails when she and her family came to visit.

two-toned blue/teal french

Painted these before going to Monterey with all my nieces and nephews :D

polish:
+ China Glaze For Audrey
+ China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise
+ Kiss White Striper

fresh and springy 2

fresh and springy

backlog: Mar 2009

I should do another set like these :D Although I've rarely every repeated a set, if ever...



polish:
+ OPI - I Only Drink Champagne
+ OPI - Bride's Bouquet

extras:
+ striper: Kiss - Black
+ pink rhinestones

a bit out of my comfort zone

I'm actually not hugely into pastels for polish unless it's yellow or pink. Pretty normal (boring) sounding, right?

I'd read a bunch of reviews about this color and I finally gave in and got it.
China Glaze's For Audrey

I don't think I'll be doing full nails in this color any time soon but I do really like this color for tips. ^_^





polish:
+ China Glaze - For Audrey

extras:
+ Pa Nail Collective Lace sticker (brown)

feeling spring-y!

Great weather lately! Pretty mild and sunny. Love it!



polish:
+ Teal polish: FingerPaints - Art Dealer Teal-er
+ Green polish: China Glaze - Tree Hugger
+ Teal glitter: Sinful Colors - Nail Junkie (how appropriate!)
+ Iridescent glitter: Sinful Colors - Pearl Harbor

ruffle-y and orange-y

I like this one a lot. I don't use the color so often, but it's a nice orange.


color: OPI Don't Be Koi With Me
other: white ruffle/ribbon nail seal purchased off of rakuten.co.jp

playa del carmen 2009

Just as a reference to my playa del carmen 2010 post. This is last year's vacation nails.





Color: OPI's Banana Bandana
Striper: Gold Glitter from Kiss
acrylic paint for flowers

playa del carmen 2010

Couldn't think of what to paint for my vacation coming up this weekend. gonna be with family and it'll be craziness! 17 of us in 3 villas at the Royal Haciendas! woohooo!
Wanted something that would be easy to manage (ex. no gems to fall off). This polish design started with metallic lime green and the same pastel yellow... but then it looked too Carnival-ish. So I went with the pink as it was a generally softer color. I actually chose to wear yellow nails for my last trip to Playa del Carmen with my family too. lol.

Man... I need a tan. :P



Base Color: a nude color from Orly... not sure what it's called. Might be "Sheer Nude"

Tip Color: OPI's Italian Love Affair, OPI's Banana Bandana
Striper: Gold glitter from Art Club (b/c the glitter was finer than Kiss's version of the gold glitter striper.

cherry pink plaid

A variation of Coral Plaid but with OPI's DC Cherry Blossom.

I still like this one a lot and get a lot of compliments on it.

I think my hand is pretty steady, but if you take your time, the lines will look fine. It doesn't have to be perfect.

And despite how busy the pattern seems, I didn't feel like it necessarily clashed with the things I was wearing.

This one lasted decently long. I wore it for a full week before changing it and wasn't that it was chipping either... I just wanted to change it up. ^_^

♥ duration: 40 mins

♥ colors/steps:
▪ Orly Bonder
▪ base color: Orly ... forgot what it's called. I'll check it later. Something neutral.
▪ tip color: OPI's DC Cherry Blossom
▪ Art Club's black striper first
▪ Art Club's white striper 2nd
▪ Kiss silver glitter striper vertically placed somewhere in between the spaced white lines
▪ Art Club's irridescent glitter striper under the french manicure tip.
▪ Corner accents: tiny plastic stars, randomly picked sets of 3 swarovski crystals (fuchsia, lt rose, rose, crystal ab, jet, crystal moonlight)
▪ top coat: Seche Vite

straight-line french

[ backlog 12.25.08 ]

Another backlog one~ 2 in one night! Gooooo me :D

Really simple design but I like simple. Good for work and good for going out. Best of both worlds, right? I'm not normally a big fan of this type of polish color on my fingers because it makes me think my skin looks sickly pale or something. I'm sure it's all in my mind ^_- I'd done this style before but I just wanted a chance to play with a new nail color :D It's one I picked up at an H&M in Lisbon (I was on an 11 day cruise on RCCL's Independence of the Seas to parts of Europe and the Canary Islands! It was a fantastic trip. Plus I met my honey while on this one ^_-). The color is H&M's Velvet Touch. The price was something like 2 euros so I figured why not, right? ^_^

♥ duration: 30 mins + a few minutes to pick the colors to use

♥ notes:
▪ So simple, I'd say anyone can do this one.
▪ The gems didn't last long for me for this set b/c again, I didn't put a top coat! Get off my case, people... :P I just didn't know better, at the time! ^_-
▪ If I want my french manicures to look really clean I use sheer & pale colors so that my real nail color doesn't distract from whatever shade I'm using on the tips. (e.g. Orly's Sheer Nude)

♥ colors/steps:
▪ 1 coat Orly Bonder
▪ 1 coat of something sheer by Orly. The label fell off already. >.< but it might actually have been Orly's Sheer Nude.
▪ 1 coat diagonally on the tips from one side to slightly past center of my nail OPI's Sephora polish in "And Then He Said..."
▪ 1 coat diagonally on the tips from the other side to slightly past center of my nail which overlays the other diagonal side in H&M's Velvet Touch
▪ criss-cross Kiss's white striper following the angle of the diagonal layers just painted
▪ 1 dab of Orly Bonder just below where the 2 tip colors meet
▪ 1 7ss Golden Shadow Swarovski rhinestone where you put a dab of Bonder.

white lace

[ backlog 06.15.08 ]

Need to catch up on backlogged nails! So here's another oldie~

Someone at my old ballroom studio had commented that this set would be a great wedding nail set :) This was the first and only time I've done a hand painted lace design. It was quite a bit of work and it still looked a bit messy.




♥ duration: 40 mins - the lace took a while

♥ notes:
▪ really simple in design but manually painting lace is a bit tedious. -_-
▪ I didn't use a good top coat on this one so it didn't last long. :/
▪ I don't think I even own this nail polish color anymore (Colorama Chill The Champagne)

♥ colors/steps:
▪ 1 coat Orly Bonder
▪ 2 coats Maybelline Colorama Chill The Champagne
▪ 1 coat in a diagonal line across the nail (french manicure style) in OPI's Bride's Bouquet
▪ used a small thin brush (this is the one I used prior to getting a thin brush with shorter bristles) dipped in OPI's Bride's Bouquet to make half circles next to the french manicure line
▪ used a bobby pin end (because it has the rubber protective end that's rounded) dipped in OPI's Bride's Bouquet to make the dots for the lace. I have since bought a dotting tool that works just fine and I've gone back to using bobby pins strictly for my hair ^_-

black lace wedding nails

Since I saw Josh and Maris today (for some decoden fun!) I decided I'm going to be a rebel and post WAY out of order. These are the nails I did for their wedding which I attended on a TUESDAY down in the OC (June 30, 2009). haha~ It was going to be a fun wedding, so I wanted to make fun nails. But of course they'd have to be sophisticated since it was a wedding n all ^_^ I wasn't sure if black would be scary for the wedding.. but I went with it anyway and I thought it actually turned out great. I'm not a fan of ALL black just yet, but I'm okay with the tips ^_^ I like OPI's I Only Drink Champagne b/c it's a really soft but pretty pearly shade of cream. It's one of my more.. neutral and "mature" colors. lol.

♥ duration: 45 mins (15 mins for touch up the night before the wedding)

♥ notes:
▪ I cut the lace in half the long way (which I purchased from Orange Lighthouse). That's just the bottom half with the draped part.
▪ Dark colors are difficult with tips b/c the tips of your nails are the first to chip so it looks really obvious when a black part chips off. -_-
▪ Also, dunno if you'll notice that my index fingers might have some orange-y stains in the detailed pictures.. I went to a crawdad place for dinner the night I arrived in Irvine with friends I stayed with.. as a result, my skin was a tad bit stained. >.<
▪ This set matched the ring my dragi gave me. （*´▽｀*）

♥ colors/steps:
▪ Orly Bonder base coat
▪ 2 coats of OPI's I Only Drink Champagne
▪ Orly's Liquid Vinyl for the tips
▪ Measured (roughly), applied, & trimmed PA Collective Nail Stickers in black lace. I trimmed the lace with nail clippers b/c i can get closer to the edge of my nails than with scissors.
▪ Applied a thin layer of Orly Bonder as a tacky glue for the gems following the line of lace.
▪ Set a row of 5ss Crystal AB Swarovski rhinestones on each of my ring fingers after applying Orly Bonder
▪ 1 coat of Orly's Won't Chip (before I had Seche Vite... also a note about Orly's Won't Chip.. it makes lots of bubbles when being applied-esp around anything raised like gems and stickers so I stopped using it).

Hoorah~ 2nd post down.. 30 something more to go. lol. （￣□￣；）