Doodle nails

I’m not a very social person, as evident by the fact that I’m in my PJs writing this blog on a Friday night. Despite my non social nature, I have somehow managed to make plan for every weekend between now and labor day. This is unchartered territory for me; generally my weekends are filled with Netflix, not people. Truth be told some of my plans are more exciting than others; I can’t believe I get to go to Vegas in two weeks! All these plans mean that I have a lot of nail designs to plan out J

I love these nails the longer they are on my hands. They are so cute and fun! For this manicure I used Orly Liquid Vinyl, Lemonade, and White Tips, Sally Hansen CSM Barracuda, and China Glaze Rich & Famous. I have used Barracuda so much since I got it; I think it is officially one of my favorite summer colors.

Doodle nails

It took me a few tries before I got the black lines the right thickness, that is why the yellow flower on my ring finger is a bit wonky. I ended up using the smallest dotting tool I had, I think the end of a toothpick would work well too if you didn’t have dotting tools.

They are just so much fun!

Sponging these made me remember how much I love the look of sponged nails; I really need to come up with more ideas so I get to sponge more. I’ll have to get on the interwebs and do some searching J Even though these nails are really colorful, I feel like they aren’t as gaudy as some of the other designs I’ve done.

I love them so much you get three pictures

I broke a thumb nail a couple of days after I painted these and ended up having to cut all my nails. As much as I liked this design on my long nails, I think I liked it even better on my little stumpy nails, so I guess there is a silver lining to the break.

Peacock Feather nails

I had ever intention to blog the other night but my DVR had other plans. Without me knowing, my beautiful DVR quietly recorded three episodes of I Used to be Fat, don’t worry, I feel the appropriate amount of shame for being excited about a show on MTV. I love bad TV and this show is right up my alley, if you are unfamiliar with the show, it is about teens during the summer between high school and college. For the most part they have always been fat and this is their one chance to not be fat when they go off to college, I get way too into this show. I find myself cheering them on and when they try to give up I yell at them for squandering this amazing opportunity. So, yeah, basically what I’m saying is I watched three straight hours of a teenage-weight-loss-docudrama; I’m a very exciting lady.

My plan was for these nails to look like peacock nails, and I feel like I should mention that they looked way more like feathers in person than in pictures. For this manicure I used China Glaze Splish Splash and Turned up Turquoise, Sally Hansen CSM Gilty Pleasure, and Zoya Ray. Overall I think these turned out ok, but they certainly are far from my favorite.

Peacock Feather nails

I almost feel like the dark green was too shiny and that’s why the pictures didn’t turn out right, it’s super dark and shiny in person. This design would be way better on shorter nails and if I would have added a purple to it.

More exciting than peahen nails

I think it’s kinda funny that I don’t really like birds but I love bird motifs. I guess I think their looks are the best part of them. As soon as I painted these I wanted to repaint, it was only sheer laziness that caused them to not be changed immediately. Oh well, can’t win them all J

Wizard of Oz nails

I don’t have a fun way to start this blog so I’m just going to talk about my nails. I have a post it that I keep a list of nail ideas on and chose this one off the list to do. Without thinking about it I ended up doing two movie themed nails in a row, perhaps I can think of more and do a whole series of them. I feel like I should mention that I don’t actually like the movie Wizard of Oz, the monkeys scared me as a kid (that’s a lie the monkeys still scare the shit out of me). Despite the terrifying monkeys I thought the movie would make for a good muse for my nails and I was right.

These nails are distractingly gaudy, they may even be ugly. For this manicure I used quite a few colors, Orly Skinny Dip, Liquid Vinyl, and White Tips, Sally Hansen CSM All Fired UP, Gilty Pleasure, and Butterscotch, China Glaze Ruby Pumps and Paper Chasing, and OPI DS Radiance.

Wizard of Oz nails

My pinkie is supposed to be the Emerald City but I think it looks more like a pineapple, I guess this means if I ever do Spongebob nails I know how to make his pineapple under the sea. The red nail is supposed to be for Dorothy’s ruby red slippers, I was so happy when I found the red for it and then saw the name was Ruby Pumps so I’m pretty sure that was meant to be.

I’m not sure where the tiny divots on my Tin Man came from

My other nails are for the Tin Man, Dorothy’s dress, and the yellow brick road. I bought Butterscotch for Winnie the Pooh nails, but I thought it made for a good road.I was really happy with how the Tin Man nails turned out, since he was my favorite I had to include something for him.

I liked three pictures, so you get three pictures of these

These nails are fun but not very flattering; they are a bit too bold even for me. I think if I were going to do them again I would choose just two designs and not five different ones (I’d keep the pineapple of course). Now let’s see if I can come up with another movie theme, perhaps one that doesn’t distract me so much J

 

Disney's Up nails

It isn’t very often that my family all gets together. We had the opportunity to all get together this weekend though to celebrate my parents’ 35^th anniversary and had a blast. In good Minnesota fashion there was way too much food, including an entire table of desserts. I parked myself right next to that table of deliciousness with my beer in hand and had myself a grand time. I have seven nieces and nephews on that side of the family; they are almost their own baseball team, although I’m not sure how well a 3 month old would be able to handle a baseball. It’s awesome to see all my brothers as dads, growing up they had the unspoken rule that they could tease me all they wanted but no one else better try it, and it is just cool to see them protecting their kids now.

I thought it would be cool to do nails for a love story since these were the nails I had at the anniversary party. I love the movie Up, it has such a cute love story (and yes it always makes me cry). For this manicure I used a crap ton of colors, Orly Lemonade, Mayhem Mentality, White Tips, and Skinny Dip, OPI You’re Such a Budapest, China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise, Mahogany Magic, and Pool Party, and Sally Hansen CSM Barracuda.

Disney's Up nails

I was very pleased with how these nails turned out. I wish I would have made the balloon strings a little darker, but besides that I’m very happy. These are the first nails I’ve ever done that I modified the design for my right hand, I just put clouds on my right thumb since the house was so hard to do in the first place.

The house is far from perfect but still pretty cute

I was really bummed when people didn’t immediately recognize what the design was supposed to be, but it was pretty cool when someone did. The nails were a big hit at the party and I got a lot of “you do that yourself?!?!” which I love. Overall I would say these were a success J

Starfish nails

My best friend Jackie is getting married next month, which means I get to go to Vegas with my sister. I don’t think I’ve been so excited for a wedding since my wedding. I just booked the hotel and it is finally feeling close. I’ve only been to Vegas once before (also with Jackie) and we had a blast. I think it is kinda funny that the two trips I’m taking this year are to Vegas and Disney World, I’m a diverse lady J. I don’t know what nails I’ll do for Vegas but I’m sure they need to be very sparkly and super gaudy; I shouldn’t have a problem with that.

For some reason I decided I needed beachy nails and I got to say, I’m loving these nails. For this manicure I used Sally Hansen CSM Barracuda, China Glaze Itty, Bitty & Gritty, and Orly Prelude to a Kiss. When I used the China Glaze last time I hated it but it for this manicure it worked so well for my starfish. I love the different textures on my nails!

Starfish nails

These nails are just fun, they are bright and beachy and I really love them. I can’t get over how great the starfish turned out. They were a little tricky to do but only because as the paint dried it was really hard to put on so I had to work fast. My shells are just ok, I did the shape of them pretty well but the lines just look weird. I think I should have made the lines thinner and made the shells bigger so I could do more lines.

Now I want to do Patrick the starfish nails

I originally got the light blue for Cinderella nails but after using it for these nails I’m super happy I got it. It’s such a pretty blue! I love the Sally Hansen CSM brush too; it’s very wide which works great for my nails since I have quite a bit of surface to cover. I don’t think it would be a good brand/brush if you had small nails unless you really like getting messy. Hope you enjoyed my starfish nails as much as I do J

Firework nails

I knew before the fourth of July that Millie was scared of fireworks; I didn’t truly appreciate how scared she was though. The evening of the fourth was easily the hardest night I have ever had; I think that I got a small taste of what it is like to be a parent of an infant. Millie was beside herself with fear from the fireworks; she kept pacing and drooling like one of those sad polar bears at the zoo. At about midnight I went to Wall-Greens to get some Benadryl, after checking the interwebs to make sure she could have some but the drugs did nothing to stop her pacing. In total, I got a little less than three hours of sleep that night, stupid fireworks at four am. The next day at work I was straight up stupid, I’m not saying that normally I’m a Rhodes Scholar, but I was dumb on Friday. To give you an example, I accidently dumped half a box of Cheerios on the floor because I didn’t realize the box was upside down.  

Despite how horrible fireworks make my home, I actually really like fireworks (as long as they are not shot off after 2am when I have to work the next day). For this manicure I used Sally Hansen CSM All Fired Up, Zoya Nidhi, and OPI Alpine Snow. I also used stripers in white, blue, silver glitter, and blue glitter. These nails were really fun to do; the fireworks were made up of just a bunch of layered lines so you don’t have to worry about being super precise.

Firework nails

I don’t use the Zoya very much because the color is very thin and transparent, it worked great on top of the other red though to make it a nice glittery red. The red totally stained my nails even though I used two base coats, red can be tricky like that. The red was also pretty hard to clean off my fingers, I’m a messy painter and I always clean up my nails in the shower the next day, it took two showers to get these cleaned up enough.

Ugh, these totally got Katy Perry in my head

I have a bit of a hangnail by my pointer finger right now, it annoys me so much but I need to be an adult and not fuss with it and make it worse. At least these fireworks didn’t scare Millie like the real ones did J. I hope you had an awesome fourth and happy Ringo Starr’s birthday!!!

Tuxedo Wedding nails

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but whipped vodka is delicious. My brilliant friend Jackie introduced this delicious beverage to me last year and I’ve taken care of my fair share of bottle of it since then. Recently Jackie came through with another dazzling idea and suggested I mix my whipped vodka with cranberry juice. It tastes just like cheesecake! I don’t know how the combination of cranberries and whipped cream make cheesecake but it does and it is amazing. This might be my new favorite drink and I have Jackie to thank for it, thank you Jackie!!!

I wanted to end my wedding themed nails with a fun design and I think I accomplished that goal. For this manicure I used Orly White Tips and Liquid Vinyl, and Sally Hansen CSM All Fired Up and Wine Not. I think these nails would be perfect if you were the best lady in a wedding (as in a lady best man). They are super cute aren’t they?

Tuxedo Wedding nails

When I was starting these nails Jackie suggested that I do boutonnieres and I’m very happy she suggested that because they really set off the overall look. Not surprisingly, the tuxedos took quite a while to do so I’m happy I decided to only do them as accent nails. The other nails also make the overall look a little classier than they would be with all little tuxes.

And of course there is a dog hair, sigh

These nails are just fun, they are not technically the best nails I have done (I made a lot of mistakes) but they are some of the most fun. I had these nails on when I went to Ulta today and I had two different sales ladies grab my hand to look at them closer. One of the ladies actually recognized me when I came in and asked to see my nails right away because she knew ‘they would be cool’. I’m starting to feel like a celebrity there J