Snow White nails

Right after we booked our Disney vacation I decided I wanted to try to see all the Disney animated movies that I had either only seen once or I hadn’t ever seen. This ended up being a much harder task than I originally thought. I’m still about 10 movies shy of seeing all of them (and by all of them I mean the main theatrical releases). Some of them are so obscure and no one seem to have them; however, this is a quest I will finish, you will not best me Disney animated classics. I really want to see the newest movie Frozen, it looks so cute and I just know after I watch it I will think of fun Frozen nails to do.

For this manicure I’m going to focus on the first Disney princess. I haven’t seen Snow White since I was a kid, but I remember it being kinda scary, especially when the wicked queen dresses as the old lady, sorry for the spoiler. For this manicure I used China Glaze Splish Splash, Sally Hansen CSM All Fired Up, and Orly Liquid Vinyl.

Snow White nails

These nails looked way cooler in my head and I think part of the problem was that my red sucks. I really need to invest in a more saturated red, the Sally Hansen is a great color but it is very thin so it doesn’t work the way I want it to for nail art. The same can be said of my yellow striper but I don’t use yellow stripers enough for it to bother me like the red situation does. My problem is whenever I go to the store to buy a new solid red I end up buying some glittery fun red, and although that color is fun, it doesn’t replace the solid red like I need it to. Maybe I should put that on my Christmas list.

I keep finding myself singing to woodland creatures with these nails

This is the first time I’ve tried to do a French manicure with the curved line instead of a line that goes straight across, I used hole punch reinforcements as my guide instead of regular scotch tape. The reinforcements worked fine except they didn’t go all the way across on a few of my nails so I had to free hand the edges. Doing the curved line makes them look more feminine I think, I’m going to have to play around with these reinforcements more.

Disney Princess nails

Every once in a while I do nails that I simultaneously love and hate; these are some of those nails. As soon as I did them I thought they were so cute and I was very happy with how they turned out. A day later, however, I started to think that they were staring at me, and by the day after that I had to take them off because they were creeping me out too much. They kept staring at me while I was typing at work, like ten creepy little kids, always watching, always judging. For some reason, I’m don’t like it when my nails could be the subject of a scary movie.

General creepiness aside, these nails are super cute and they really turned out just like I pictured them. For this manicure I used a ton of different polishes: Orly Prelude to a Kiss and Liquid Vinyl, OPI Alpine Snow, Ulta Sun-Sational, Sally Hansen CSM All Fired Up, China Glaze Turned up Turquoise, Zoya Louise, and various stripers.

Disney Princess nails

I think these nails would be better on shorter nails; some of my princess (especially on my right hand) didn’t have the right face proportions because my nails are so long. To be honest, my right hand looked like a bunch of jacked up step sisters and not the real princess at all. I always seem to have issues getting my edges right when I use that Orly, it isn’t a forgiving color at all.

Let’s just pretend there aren’t a bunch of technical issues with these nails

These are definitely the kind of nails that look better from far away; the closer you get to them the creepier they are. I think Jasmine turned out the best and I bet that is partly because she is the smallest one. I want to try this art out on someone with shorter nails and nail beds, perhaps in two years when I can paint my god daughter’s nails I will try it out on her, but perhaps it is way too early to be planning such things. Hope you are enjoying my Disney nails while I’m enjoying Disney J

China Glaze - Creative Fantasy nails

I can’t believe how close it is till our Vacation! We leave in just a few days and I’ve been running around like a crazy person these last couple of weeks trying to get everything ready for our trip. Today on my list of things to do: wash all the blankets in the living room, vacuum the couch and chair, and give the dogs a bath. I didn’t think everything through and definitely didn’t do these tasks in the right order. I had two wet dog just rub their wet puppy fur all over the furniture that had been thoroughly vacuumed and just cleaned blankets. Oh well, at least everything ended up a bit cleaner than it was to start the day.

Also on my list of things to do is getting caught up on my nails that need to be blogged. I did these nails for the Vikings game we went to in October; they just kept slipping through the cracks. For this manicure I used China Glaze Creative Fantasy, Sally Girl Matte Top Coat, Ulta Sun-Sational, and OPI Alpine Snow. I decided to do the matte finish tips because the Vikings have a matte finish on their helmets this year.

China Glaze Creative Fantasy nails

This China Glaze is just about the perfect Vikings purple ever. If you are a Vikings fan and want to paint your nails, you really just need to buy this color. It worked perfect with the matte topcoat and ended up looking just like their helmets, the color did anyway.

Skol!

I did the pink line because this was for a game in October and the NFL has their Crucial Catch campaign in October for breast cancer. These nails weren’t super football-ly but I liked the way they turned out. I feel like I’m running out of ideas for Vikings nails, but since we only go to about one game a year I have plenty of time to plan out my next nails J

Day of the Dead nails

I’m so ashamed that I’m posting my Halloween day nails almost a month after I painted them, I’m hoping that all of my dedicated readers will forgive me, I am lazy after all. We are going on vacation soon and I feel like I’m being swallowed by my endless lists of things I need to get done. We planned this trip about 10 months ago so you would think that I would have had all sorts of time to get everything done, but for some reason it feels like I crammed everything into the last few weeks. I still haven’t decided what nails I’m going to do for the trip, that’s how busy I’ve been!

But I digress; I hope these nails are worth the wait, they were pretty cool. For this manicure I used Orly Liquid Vinyl, Skinny Dip, and White Tips, China Glaze Pool Party and Turned Up Turquoise, Sally Hansen CSM All Fired Up, and Ulta Sun-Sational. These nails were more appropriate for the day after Halloween than for Halloween itself, but it was still fun to have little skulls on my nails for Halloween.

Day of the Dead nails

The best part of these nails was when I took pictures of them and my camera put boxes around each nail as if they were faces, the worst part of these nails was that it was like ten creepy little skulls were staring at me while I was trying to do things like type. It is a general rule of thumb that being a little creeped out by your nails isn’t a good thing.

Cute and Creepy

I truly hate painting my nails white, I don’t know what it is with me but the cuticles always look terrible when I use a white base color. It’s like I’m incapable of painting them correctly as soon as white is added to the equation. Or perhaps I always paint them wrong but the white is just more unforgiving than other colors. Either way, I’m staying away from white for a while.

Candy Corn nails

I hate scary movies, I hate being scare in general and try to avoid it at all costs (that’s why I like the little baby roller coasters at Disney). Thad on the other hand, loves to be scared. I decided to be nice the other day and agreed to watch a scary movie with him. He waited until it was totally dark outside and turned off all the lights so we could watch The Conjuring, holy freaking balls that movie is scary. For me, the scariest kind of movies are the ones that are based on a true story and/or demon possession, spoiler alert, this movie is terrifying. To make the whole movie watching experience even worse we were streaming the movie and it decided to freeze during a super scary scene so the TV was frozen and I screamed like a little girl.

Perhaps because I was subject to a scary part of Halloween I decided to do a manicure that is pretty much the opposite of scary.  For this manicure I used China Glaze Riveting, Orly White Tips, and Ulta Sun-Sational. I wasn’t a huge fan of these nails but I got so many compliments on them that I’ve started to like them more.

Candy Corn nails

I decided to sponge on the colors instead of doing color blocking, I like that they aren’t so harsh like they would be if I did the hard lines but that you can still totally tell what it is supposed to be. If I did them again I would leave more white at the top so the colors were move even, my pinkie barely has any white left on it. Doing these reminded me of my pride nails and my butterfly nails, I need to do more gradients, they are just pretty.

I look like I have very wrinkly fingers

After my last two fairly low key Halloween designs I’m thinking I need to go out with a bang for my actual Halloween nails. Since Mom’s birthday is on Halloween you may have to wait till November first to see them, but if they turn out anywhere near as cool as they look in my head they will be worth the wait

Spider and Web nails

The McRib is back. Since I found out three days ago I have been thinking about that delicious meat-like-substance nonstop. I have a complicated relationship with the McRib, as soon as it comes out every year I essentially drool over the thought of shoving it in my face until I finally break down and actually buy it. After I get to live out the ‘shove it in my face’ fantasy I immediately regret my decision and feel like I’m going to vomit McRib bits everywhere. Even though I know how this adventure will end, I’m desperate to get a McRib and taste the sweet mechanically formed meat. It’s like a question mark wrapped in barbeque sauce.

The McRib has nothing to do with this manicure, but I’m pretty sure a McRib manicure would be awesome. For this manicure I used Sally Hansen CSM Anenome Of Mine, Orly Liquid Vinyl and White Tips, and China Glaze Riveting. Riveting has to be the best Halloween orange ever, it is so sparkly and fun, I almost forgot how much I liked it!

Spider and Web nails

I know I did a similar design last Halloween but I liked it so much I really wanted to do them again. At least this year I got more legs on my spider, still not the correct number, but I’m two legs closer. I decided to put black rhinestones on the webs and really like how it ended up looking, almost like there are little spiders on the web.

Sunlight is this orange’s friend

I really like how these nails turned out, just simple Halloween fun. It’s kind of funny how much I like spider nail art when I hate real spiders, but then again spiders are evil creatures, hell bent on my destruction, so it makes sense that I don’t like them in person.

OPI - Pussy Galore nails

I’m a wuss. By that I mean I have a very low threshold for pain. By that I mean I cry like a little girl when I stub my toe. By that I mean I sometimes cry when I think about stubbing my toe. I’m fully aware of my limits but for some reason I really like tattoos, it’s a bad combination. It’s been about four years since I got my last tattoo, just long enough for me to forget how much it sucks, and I’d been toying with the idea of getting another for about a year so I finally took the plunge and got one a couple weeks ago. I’m not going to include a picture because right now it looks like a hot hairy mess, perhaps when he gets pretty again I’ll post one. I say ‘he’ because I got a pretty owl on my calf and all pretty birds are boys. It took four hours to finish, making this my biggest tattoo by about an hour. I would like to say I stoically took the pain but that would be a huge lie. By about the three and a half hour mark I started cursing like a sailor, but I didn’t cry, so at least there is that.

While I was getting my bad ass tattoo I had on some of the most girly nails imaginable, I like to be a dichotomy (I had to call my mom to spell that, I’m not sure what that makes me). For this manicure I used China Glaze Rich & Famous and OPI Pussy Galore. The OPI is my first liquid sand polish, yes, I fell victim to textured polish again.

OPI Pussy Galore nails

I pretty much hate most of the textured polish I’ve used so far, but I actually liked the liquid sand, it’s very faintly textured so it isn’t super annoying like all the other ones I’ve tried before. I also love how the texture looks compared to the shiny part of my nails (and let’s face it Rich & Famous is one of my favorite polishes).

There is nothing about these nails that says ‘it’s fall’

As soon as I got the OPI I wanted to use it right away, even though it’s about as far from fall as possible on the color wheel. Pink is my favorite color though, so I don’t really mind having pink nails any time of the year J

Little Mermaid nails

It is getting to be my favorite nail time of the year but I’m starting to think I may not have enough time to do all the nails that I want to do. Between Halloween, fall, and Disney nails, I have a lot of plans and I’m simply running out of time (68 days till Disney!). Oh, so many plans, so little time. I guess I just need to paint my nails more J

I want to do different nails for all the Disney Princesses, so I figured I should start with my favorite. I have always loved The Little Mermaid; I had a huge poster of it on the back of my bedroom door when I was a little kid. For this manicure I used Orly Prelude to a Kiss, Liquid Vinyl, and White Tips, China Glaze Gothic Lolita, Turned Up Turquoise, and Mahogany Magic, and Sally Hansen CSM All Fired Up and Mermaid’s Tale. I didn’t realize how many colors I used until I just wrote them all out, wow.

Little Mermaid nails

I found some loose glitter pieces that worked perfect as a mermaid tail on my pinky, they were super annoying to have on though, my hair got all caught up in it while I was washing my hair, not a pleasant experience. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do for all my nails and after I did the shell bra it occurred to me that it was a little weird that I focused on Ariel’s chest, I’m sure she will forgive me.

I’m not even sure how I bent my thumb like that

My favorite nail is the Ariel on my thumb, I think she turned out really cute and it makes me want to do a nail like that for all the princesses. I’m going to have to come up with other things to add to them to make them all look different; otherwise all the blondes will look pretty similar.

Not only is today 68 days till Disney, it’s also my 5^th anniversary. I’m super lucky to be married to Thad, he is an awesome husband, and I’m pretty sure I could be married to him forever J Happy anniversary honey!

Tuxedo nail step by step

Netflix is evil. They recently changed how they play TV shows so that the next one starts 20 seconds after the last one ended. I have watched a shameful amount of How I Met Your Mother over the last few weeks but there are so many freakin episodes that I’m pretty sure I’m going to be watching this show for the next few months. Oh how TV helps me to be so lazy.

I had a first today! I was asked to do a step by step for my tuxedo nails that I did in June (as part of my wedding nails). I’ve never done a step by step before, but I hope this helps you to recreate my tuxedo nails. For this manicure I used Orly White Tips and Liquid Vinyl, Sally Hansen CSM Wine Not, and China Glaze Rich & Famous. A few disclaimers about my step by step: 1. I didn’t actually want to have tuxedo nails so I only painted two nails 2. I’m a really messy painter so please disregard all the paint that appears to not be on my nails and 3. I don’t actually have a third disclaimer, but it felt like I couldn’t just have two.

I start these nails like I start all nails, with a coat of OPI Nail Envy and SV base coat. On top of that I did two coats of Orly.

To start my tuxedos I painted a V with a black striper and then filled in the bottom of my nail with the Orly brush. To get in the ‘tight’ places I used a dotting tool. Try to get the V as centered on your nail as possible; I didn’t do so well on that front.

Ok, it looks like I did a lot in this step, but I really didn’t. To create the bow tie I did one smallish center dot and then used a dotting tool to create two small triangles off of it. I then put buttons on my tux and the dots on my black nail (I think they sorta look like buttons too). I put one larger white dot on the black tux so I could create the boutonniere.

To make the boutonniere I put a pink dot on top of the white dot and then took my wine color and made small c shapes in the pink with it. It’s ok when you are doing this if the pink swirls with the other color a little, it just makes it look more like a rose.

That’s how I did these nails! If you don’t have a striper you can use any small brush dipped in polish. If you don’t have a dotting tool that’s ok too, you can use the pointed end of a toothpick for the small stuff (like the detail on the flower) or cut the toothpick in half and file it smooth to use for a larger dot (like for the bow tie or buttons). For even larger dots you can use the end of a quilting pin, although you may want to put the pointy end in an eraser or something so you don’t injure yourself.

Hope this step by step was helpful, if you do these nails I would love to know how they turned out, be sure to let me know in the comments J

China Glaze - Whirled Away nails

I get way too excited about some things, like way too excited. I would like to think this trait could be considered cute and not crazy, but I guess that is up to interpretation. I generally get excited about really small things; based on this start I bet you can guess I got excited about something small recently. I got an invitation to be part of the Nielson TV group and I’m way too excited. They sent me a postcard last week that said the survey would arrive shortly; I actually checked the mail with unbridled enthusiasm each day until the survey packet came. I thought this meant that I was in like Flyn, but apparently getting into the Nielson TV family takes more work than that. I have to fill out the survey and send it in and then they decide if I’m going to be accepted into the group. Oh! This additional anticipation is going to kill me! Want to know the best part? They paid me $2 for doing the survey! What?!?! This thing that I’ve been ridiculously excited about for days is also going to provide me crisp $1 bills? What an amazing week it has been, now fingers crossed I get in.

I’m not as excited about these nails as I am about the survey I got. Don’t get me wrong, there are some aspects of the manicure that I really like, but the overall errors are just too big for me to happily gaze upon these nails. For this manicure I used Sally Hansen CSM Butterscotch and China Glaze Whirled Away. The China Glaze is like nothing I have ever owned before, to me it looks like white and black confetti floating in a clear coat, if it was shiny at all I would call it glitter.

China Glaze – Whirled Away nails

The polish is super cool and I love the overall look of it, I just had some trouble applying it which caused a million air bubbles to straight run these nails. Lesson learned, when applying this polish use thin coats and just do a bunch of them until you get the coverage you want, if you put on thick coats in order to put all the pieces you want on your nails, you are going to end up with a crap ton of ugly bubbles.

There are so many bubbles they almost look like they were on purpose

I think these nails look like modern art and from far away I loved how they looked. I have to give this polish another try and do thin coats to see if it behaves better. These nails also make me want to do more black designs on that putrid yellow color too, for some reason I like how it looks with black.

Blue Gradient nails

It’s my birthday! But these are not my birthday nails, I know it’s confusing. I write blogs ahead of time and at the time of writing this I haven’t actually even painted my birthday nails, it’s a crazy world we live in and I hope this revelation doesn’t make your mind explode. These are actually the nails I had for my friend’s baby shower, she is having a boy so I figured that blue nails were appropriate. I get so nervous at baby showers, everyone was super nice but I feel like I’m wearing a giant neon sign that says “I don’t like children”. Babies can sense fear, this is a well established fact, and there are always babies at baby showers, they just glare at me with a knowing look. Well, at least my nails looked cute.

This manicure slightly redeemed the sponging disaster that was my last sponging attempt. For this manicure I used Sally Hansen CSM Barracuda, Orly Skinny Dip, and China Glaze Splish Splash. I did a base of the lightest blue (Barracuda) and then sponged the two darker blues on top of that.

Blue Gradient nails

I’m not sure what the mysterious black dots on my index finger are from, if I were forced to guess I would say it is probably mascara. I guess that’s how I roll. I really liked how these turned out, doing a base coat of the lightest color worked out really well, it made the other blues stand out and made it so I had more overall nail coverage than I usually do with gradients.

In case you were wondering this is my favorite hoodie

I’m kinda surprised with how well the pictures turned out, while I was taking them I thought they would be too shiny and not show the color change but I guess camera magic helped me out.

It’s a boy!

These nails ended up being great for the baby shower, much better than the last ones. Congrats on your future baby boy Gayle J

Interview nails

I generally don’t talk too much about my job, but this time it relates to my nails so I’m going to go for it. I really like my job, that isn’t something I thought I would be able to say a year ago. I’ve been filling in at work as an administrative assistant and I found that being an admin is something I truly enjoy, and not just because we have a whole day dedicated to us. There is something about the controlled chaos of being an admin that makes me happy to go to work, believe it or not, Monday is my favorite day of the work week, how freakin ridiculous is that?

I mention my job because in the last couple of weeks I was able to apply and interview to make my job a permanent position, of course, as soon as the job posted I started thinking about interview nails. This blog has two different designs because I had two different interviews. For the first manicure I used Orly White Tips. They are perhaps the most boring (read professional) nails I’ve ever done.

Interview nails

I was really nervous about my first interview and wanted to make sure my nails were really professional and not too flashy. These turned out just how I wanted, in person the line was a nice dark gray and I wore a dark gray skirt so they coordinated well. For my second set of interview nails I used Orly Liquid Vinyl and White Tips and China Glaze Rich & Famous. These nails are a bit bolder J

These nails say ‘hire me’

After the first interview I realized my nails didn’t really show at all, so I decided to have super fun nails that matched my outfit and made me feel fancy. This is only the second time I’ve tried a half moon manicure and I love how they turned out. To cover up the rough edge between the two base colors I put in the dots and I must say I really like how that turned out.

I guess they could have been more professional

I really liked both of my interview manicures; they gave me that little extra confidence that I needed going into the interviews. The best part about the manicures is that they were part of successful interviews; there really isn’t anything more I could have asked from them J

China Glaze Light as a Feather nails

Today is Thad’s birthday! Our birthdays are only 8 days apart and since I’m so into my birthday his day sometimes gets a bit lost so I really try to do everything to make his birthday awesome. I’m not a very good cook so we are going out to dinner with friends tonight to celebrate and I’ve showered him with gifts for the last two days. I’ve also been on dog duty for the whole weekend; we generally take turns getting up at night to let Millie out. I don’t know if I would ever be able to do enough for Thad to show him just how much he means to me but I certainly like to try. I’m super lucky to have a husband who is so much fun to be with. Happy birthday Thad, I love you so much.

Now to my nails, these nails were super annoying to have on, I’m probably going to say that a lot in this blog, but that is only because these nails were super annoying to have on. For this manicure I used China Glaze Fast Track and Light as a Feather. I don’t know why I keep buying textured nail polish; I have a dysfunctional relationship with them.

Light as a Feather nails

These nails got better the longer I had them on but right away they were so freakin annoying. The Light as a Feather was really sharp, like super crazy sharp, if I wore contacts I wouldn’t have been able to put them in with these razor sharp talons I had created. If you love having really sharp, dangerous nails that get caught on everything and are a pain to wash your hair with, you would love this polish.

I hate how much I like them

All the annoying aspects aside, I actually liked how these nails looked, especially after a couple of days when they toned down a little (the pieces that were sticking up at odd angles fell off after a couple days). If I were going to do them again I would use a light orange as the base to play up the orange in the confetti polish. It’s going to take a long time for me to forget how annoying these nails were before I attempt to use this polish again, at least they are cute J

Sponged Disaster nails

I’m pretty sure I watch seasons of TV shows like every other rational person does, I compulsively watch the entire season as fast as physically possible and allow the show to affect most aspects of my life, normal right? I just consumed the seventh season of Dexter, and although I didn’t even really like the season I still felt the need to get through the season in a manner of days, it would have gone even faster if we didn’t have jobs. Between watching Dexter and hanging out with friends in Vegas, it has been very hard for me to keep my language clean at work, stupid peer pressure J

You know how when I do a sponged manicure I always say how much I love it and how I should sponge more often? Well these nails are sponged and they didn’t need to happen. For this manicure I used Orly Prelude to a Kiss, Sally Hansen CSM Gilty Pleasure, and China Glaze Fast Track and Rich & Famous.

Sponged disaster nails

These nails were so blah that I forgot to take pictures of them until after I started taking the polish off, which is why you get rare right handed pictures. The application of the polish had so many issues that it would have been impossible to have nails that I liked in the end. Somehow (I’m going to guess because I never dust) my sponges (and everything else) got covered in dog hair so I ended up sponging the dog hair right into the design. It was really fun to find the hairs days later and have to pull them out, it made me feel really pretty.

Yes, these pictures suck

So, yeah, these nails aren’t very good. They were a poor design that was poorly executed. I guess these nails are proof that sponging isn’t nail magic. On a completely unrelated topic, while I was at work Thad DVRed The Man with a 132 Pound Scrotum, he must love me J

Vegas nails

I have such a good excuse for not blogging recently, I was in Vegas!! (and I was lazy after I got back) I got to go to Vegas with my sister-in-law for my best friend’s wedding. It was such a beautiful wedding, Jackie looked amazing and the whole trip was a blast. I’m so happy my sister was able to come with me too, we have never been on a trip together so it could have turned out very poorly but we ended up being really compatible travel partners. At least I think we did, maybe she is telling everyone how annoying I am. I burned my back so bad in Vegas, I have never burned myself that bad before, it was horrible. My back still looks like a lizard L

I’m going to skip one manicure because I really want to post my Vegas nails; I had these all planned out for weeks before we left and they turned out almost exactly how I wanted. For this manicure I used Color Club Status Update, essie Matte About You, China Glaze Prism and Luxe and Lush, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Strobe Light, and Butter Fairy Cake and The Black Knight. So much glitter! These nails were crazy sparkly under the bar lights in Vegas and I loved them.

 

Vegas nails

I took these pictures after I got back from my trip, which means that they were on their 6^th day when I took them. I’m really impressed with how well they held up, I did do a little touch ups on the tips while in Vegas but really not that much. By the end of our trip I was so tired of these nails I couldn’t wait to take them off. I can’t remember the last time I had my nails painted one way for this long!

So sparkly!

To get the glitter bomb effect I did thin layers of a bunch of different glitters. I started with the Butter glitters because they had the finest and densest glitter and ended with the polish that had the largest glitter pieces. I’m really happy with the overall look of the glitter but I think if I were going to do it again I would have made it come down a little bit further on my nails.

 

I’m pleased with how these photographed

I think these nails were perfect for Vegas; they were just the glitter bombs I needed to have while paying too much for booze. J

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