4th of July Manicure

Happy 4th of July everyone!!!

So it's been a while since I've uploaded anything and even looonger since I've done a tutorial. So why not do one dedicated to the United States of America? Look at what manicure I'm sporting today! :)

Ok, first star off with a clear base coat of polish and paint your nails red.

Next, use either a toothpick, a striping brush, or thin paintbrush and paint white vertical stripes. If you're really careful, you can use the nail polish brush itself, it's just much more difficult.

*Optional* Paint your nails white with red stripes. :)

Next, you're basically going to paint blue french tips. Just use your blue polish and paint a smooth curved line at the tips of your nails.

Now to finish it all up, add some stars! Just make small white dots along the blue area. I did five stars on each finger, so there are 50 stars in total!

And it's that easy! Just finish up with a clear top coat to protect your patriotic manicure. I think this manicure looks great on short nails, but I'm sure it'll be fabulous on long nails too! :)

Tiny Hearts Manicure

Hey guys! Just a couple more days until Valentine's! This is a cute little design I cooked up a week or two ago. They were inspired by French manicures, but I used red for the base and cute little hearts for the tips!

These were super easy to do. All you need is a dotting tool or a toothpick.

Make two little dots next to each and use the toothpick to drag the polish down, connecting them into hearts!

I think this would look pretty cute if you used a light pink instead of a red. Perfect for pretty princesses or lolitas! :D

Christmas Tree Inspired Manicure

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas! I have a very nice quite day with my family. :)

Anyway, this is what I prepared for today. I decided to go with a stylistic Christmas tree look. It looked really good, all the nail polish was shimmery!

If you didn't see from the last post, my nails broke super short. Bummer! I have one more manicure to post this month, maybe I can eek out two. Either way, I hope you all enjoy the rest of the year! Merry Christmas again, and Happy Holidays!

Christmas Present Manicure

Well, Santa's getting ready to stop by in a few hours, and I just finished wrapping all my presents. So why not celebrate with some Christmas present nails!

I was originally going to do red with green ribbon, but I didn't want to get too matchy-matchy. So I changed my mind and went with gold ribbons instead, and glad I did! I also think this is ideal for short nails, especially if their on the broad side. :)

Only bad thing is that before they were completely dry, I mushed my nails up against my clothes. And to top it off, the gold didn't photograph very weel. :(

Oh well, you get the idea. :)

Merry Christmas!

P.S. Between the last post and this one, one of my nails broke and it's super painful. It got cut off really short, so my finger is really sore because of it. My nails have been really brittle lately, even with everything I do to keep them strong. So I think I'm going to go back to short nails for a while until I can strengthen them up. So no more long nails for a long while. :(

Holly Pedicure

Hey guys! I'm so sorry it's been so long since I last posted. I've had two Christmas designs all ready and set to go, but somehow time just snuck up on me. I meant to post them sometime within the last week or two, but seeing that Christmas is tomorrow, today's going to be a double post! Plus, I have a third manicure which I'll be rockin' tomorrow!

So this is the pedicure I've been wearing all month. It's so simple and clean, but still festive!

Basically, this is a simple french pedicure with two sprigs of holly that I painted, myself. Sorry about the low image quality on this one, but you get the idea. :(

Look for the other half later today! :D

***EDIT***

Oh no! It seems this image is broken. Thanks Kat S for pointing it out! I'll try to find the original as soon as possible. :(

Candy Canes Manicure

CHRISTMAS TIME!!!

Ok, so it's December now and that means Christmas is right around the corner! Christmas time is my favorite time of year, so expect a lot of themed manicures coming up this month. :D

I decided to start off with something pretty simple. So I wore these candy canes last week. I think they'd look better on long nails, but short nails can pull this off pretty well.

All you have to do is paint you nails white and stripe them with red. And to make them more realistic, alternate between thick and thin stripes.

I used a red, glittery Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen. I don't know if it was just my pen, but I found the red to be SUPER thin. This brand of nail art pens are pretty thin to begin with, but this one was even more watery than my other colors. So it was really hard to make nice clean lines. :(

There are lots of different kinds of candy canes, so experiment around with different designs and colors! :D

TWLOHA Manicure

Today is the To Write Lover On Her Arms day on Facebook! This organization does wonderful work, so to show my support, today's manicure is dedicated to TWLOHA! I decided to paint awareness ribbons in the four colors they represent.

I also made a quick little video, so take a look!

Vertical Stripes (Manicure & Pedicures)

So for this post, I decided to feature some striped manicures and pedicures I've done recently. They are a super easy design to do. You can use sharpie, nail art pens, brushes, toothpicks and even the nail polish's brush. It's great for everyday wear and there are so many color possibilities! Also, one of the best things about vertical stripes is that they are great for short, broad nails. They give the illusion that your nails are longer and slimmer than they actually are! This also makes stripes great for pedicures, too. :)

I love black paired with bright colors. So for this manicure I used a black base coat with bright green, pink and yellow stripes. With the contrast against the black, the stripes really popped! They almost looked neon. :)

(sorry about the sideways picture! I couldn't orient it right for some reason...)

For this pedicure, I decided to go monochromatic. I think this was my favorite and most successful striped design. I used a light, medium and dark blue to do the stripes.



And then of course you can never go wrong with a good old fashioned rainbow! It looked great, and was very colorful!

I got a whole bunch of odds and ends to post this month, so look forward to a random November!

Hospital Manicure

Well guys, I'm heading off to the hospital soon. Wednesday I'm going into surgery for a biopsy of my pituitary gland. I figured I'd do my nails all nice so I can look at least somewhat decent while I'm recovering in the hospital... but then I found out I can't wear any nail polish. DRAT! >.< I'll be gone all this week, so I'll try to update once I'm feeling better. For now, I'll leave you folks with an appropriately themed manicure. :)

P.S. A new poll is up, please vote! You have until 10/10/10! :D

Sinful Colors Haul

I'm real tired, but I wanted to do something. So just a quick post:


My mom was out and about and wherever she was, there was a huge nail polish sale! So she came home with a pretty nice Sinful Colors haul! Super super cheap, and the colors are great! We've tried them all so far except the white, purple and opal colored ones.

The blue is peacock blueish, but in some lights, it turns a teal green. It's also pretty shear, along with the opal. The purple is really hard to photograph but it's a nice mid-toned purple. The hot pink and fuchsia are super super bright and pop very nicely. The dark red is perfect for a Christmas red and has a bit of a shimmer to it, but not too much. Then the black and white are just like any other black and white. :P

Patriotic Pedicure

Happy 4th of July everyone! Sorry this post is a little late in the day, but here is the pedicure I've been sporting for the holiday! I invented this last year and I just love it!

It's very easy to do. I started by painting my big toes blue and all the others red.




After that, I just put white dots on the blue to represent the field of stars, and white strips on the red for the rest of the flag.




I chose to paint vertical stripes because they make your nails look longer and thinner. This is especially important for your toes because they are already broad and short for most people.

That is it! Easy and quick patriotic design that looks great! I got a ton of compliments on these and my cousin even asked to come over to paint her nails sometime! Happy 4th everyone! :D

Checkerboard Manicure

(Excuse the note I wrote on my hand!)

This was my first nail art design since I decided to create this blog, back at the end of October 2009. Just a simple checkerboard pattern. Unfortunately, this is the only photo I have of this design. To create it, I used a red nail polish for the base coat. I then drew the checkerboard pattern out with a black Salley Hanson Nail Art Pen that my mom gave me for the upcoming Halloween.

Questions? Leave me a comment! I would love to see you guys do different color variations of this!