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

Glitter Wedding nails

I love weddings; I guess you could say I’m a romantic. I just think it is awesome to be part of someone’s best day. I had an amazing wedding, it wasn’t fancy but it was the best day of my life. For my wedding I got my first French manicure, my nails looked wonderful and for the first time I had a bunch of people ask me if they were fake (for some strange reason I love when people think my nails are fake). I did a very classic (read boring) French manicure for my wedding, but really there are a bunch of different options for classy wedding day nails. Since wedding season is in full swing I thought it would be fun to do some wedding nails. Hope you enjoy J

For my first wedding manicure I decided to do a twist on the classic French, let me just say right now that I love these nails. This manicure used Sally Hansen CSM Shell We Dance?, essie Matte About You,  Butter Fairy Cake, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Strobe Light, and China Glaze Luxe and Lush and Glitter Goblin. Holy sparkles Batman, that’s a lot of glitter!

These nails say “I do”

I love how the matte looks on the light pink and how well it goes with all the glitter, it created such a cool texture and overall feeling. If I were to do these nail again I wouldn’t use the glitter that has the orange in it (Glitter Goblin) it doesn’t look bad but I think it takes away from all the other sparkly glitter.

Perhaps they are too fancy for work

I love doing glitter gradients, they look so cool and they don’t require the same precision that a regular French does. I also really like having the glitter on the back ends instead of the tips; it makes these nails very different while also looking very pretty. So, what do you think? Do you think these nails are good enough for a wedding?

Christmas nails

It’s Christmas Eve! I hope everyone is having a super delightful Christmas. I wasn’t feeling well yesterday so Thad let me open my gifts from the girls. Jules got me a nerdy Deathly Hallows keychain and Millie got me a Harry Potter 20 questions game. It is crazy how well it can guess what I’m thinking, it must be magic. I guess this means my dogs know I’m a bit of a dork, oh well; they seem to still love me.

Recently I’ve noticed that my nails are getting out of control long, I have a fear of using nail clippers so I decided to try to just file them shorter. This process takes way longer, but as I have a job that requires me to sit on the phones all day, I tend to have the time necessary to file. An unexpected side effect of all this nail filing (aside from the nail shrapnel that I’m covered with daily) is that my nails are like little razor blades now. They are so sharp that I’ve managed to cut myself and draw blood (the cuts are just like paper cuts in size and level of annoyance). I think they are still a little too long but I’m not going to risk anymore filing, my nails are too dangerous as it is.

Unless I paint my nails tomorrow (and as I work tomorrow I don’t think that is very likely) these nails will be my Christmas nails. Since I’m going over to my in-law’s house tonight I wanted them to look classy. For this manicure I used OPI Alpine Snow and Last Minute Shopper, China Glaze Running in Circles, and Butter Fairy Cake.

It looks like I was a little messy with my top coat on my middle finger

On my ring finger I used holographic dots that I put on individually and on my thumb I did dots of Fairy Cake. The holographic dots are part of the gift I wrote about a few blogs ago, they are super cool but most of them were stuck together so getting individual dots was too hard for me to do on both fingers.

The snowflake on my thumb looks straight crazy

The white design is supposed to look like snowflakes, like classy minimal snowflakes, I will admit that a few of them look like deformed flowers instead. But hey, every snowflake is different, right? Overall these nails turned out the way I wanted them. They are festive without being over the top cutesy (like my reindeer). I usually regret my last minute adds but I’m happy with the black lines to make the overall look more mature (if you can call rhinestone nails mature).

Harry Potter 20 Questions, thanks Millie!

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope everyone had as much painting their Christmas nails as I did.  

Christmas Light nails

Some days require drinks after work, today was one of those days. There is something about the Christmas season that makes some people completely unreasonable. Any unpleasantness at work quickly fades away with the appearance of vodka. Tonight I spent my after work hours watching Coming to America and drinking Kinky and Sierra Mist. Kinky is this bright pink, super girly vodka that is flavored with grapefruit. It’s one of those drinks that you regret right away because you just know it’s too sweet. Coming to America on the other hand is hilarious and I forgot what funny Eddie Murphy was like. With that kind of excitement it is surprising I managed to blog.

For this manicure I tried to do Christmas lights, tried is a good word for how these nails turned out. It’s a shame nail blog pictures are taken so up close, these nails actually look pretty cool when you see them from a distance, but alas, their up close shots are not all that I would want them to be.

It was a solid attempt

As you can see I used quite a few colors here, Ulta Sun-Sational, China Glaze Splish Splash and Running in Circles, OPI Last Minute Shopper and Alpine Snow, and Butter Fairy Cake. Oh yes, you read that right, I now own Butter. I got a set of three super fun glitters for an early Christmas gift from a friend. The application with the manicure didn’t turn out so hot though, I wanted the glitter to be a light layer on top (to cover up the insane number of bubbles I had) but it ended up being too dense of a glitter so my pinkie just looks crazy instead.

The glitter is cool, but this was a bad use for it

This manicure had issues from the start, but the worst of it was air bubbles, damn you air bubbles. Air bubbles have a few major causes, shaking polish before you use it, and too think of layers are the biggest culprits. In my case I got so many bubbles because I’m almost out of base coat and the process of getting it out put way too much air in the polish. I’m going to take this as a really good reason to buy new base coat, any suggestions?

I want to be able to take pictures outside again

I wouldn’t say I hate these nails but I would say that I’m really looking forward to repainting them. They seem like a waste since I don’t have much Christmas nail time left.