Fox nails

I know I’ve been posting Disney nails while I’ve been gone, but I ran out of Disney nails to post so now you are finally going to see the nails I had for Thanksgiving. I loved these nails and I got a ton of compliments on them. Some of my favorite questions I got about these nails were “so how do you put those on, cause I mean there is no way you painted all those lines?” and “that’s a sticker, right?”. Oh, the joy I find when people think my nails are fake or that I used a nail sticker, I’m such an odd duck. Needless to say, these nails were a pretty big hit at Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Like many of my nail art choices, these nails got a terrible song stuck in my head for the duration I had them on. If you haven’t seen What Does the Fox Say? I highly recommend you leave my blog for a few minutes and bask in the strange glory that only YouTube can bring. Finished watching it? Great, for this manicure I used Zoya Channing, Orly Liquid Vinyl, OPI Alpine Snow, and Maybelline Dotty. For those of you keeping track, this is the first time I’ve used Maybelline, and yes, that does make me sound pretentious.

Fox nails

I’m pretty sure this fox is saying “I’m super cute”. I was worried at first that the fox looked too much like a cat but when my 2 ½ year old nephew looked at them and said “fox” I knew that they must have turned out pretty well. (Yes I squealed like a small child when he was able to correctly guess the animal without prompting). I did a fox on my thumb too but none of the pictures turned out very well.

Ringa-ding-ding-ding-doo

I had a few people tell me these were their favorite nails yet, and I totally agree that these are some of my favorites. They were so cute but not so cartoony that I felt weird having them on. One of my good friends from high school and college married a Mr. Fox so now whenever I see a fox I think of her, hopefully she approves of his foxiness J

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

Disney's Tangled nails

I’m not a fan of kids but I love many of the things that they love, Disney is no exception. I first went to Disney World when I was a senior in college and my super amazing coach took me to the Magic Kingdom when we were in Florida for a tournament. I was hooked from my very first glimpse of Cinderella’s castle. Thad’s first trip was on our honeymoon, aka the best honeymoon destination ever. This December marks our third trip together and also our third trip in just over five years, we can’t stay away! So while I’m enjoying the sights and sounds of the most magical place on Earth, I decided to have a couple of blog posts for you to entertain you with Disney nails while I’m at Disney.  

Tangled is such a great movie, if you haven’t seen it I highly recommend that you put it on your list to watch. Also, if you haven’t seen it, these nails won’t be as fantastic for you. For this manicure I used Sally Hansen CSM Anenome of Mine, OPI You’re Such a Budapest, I Saw. . .U Saw. . .We Saw. . .Warsaw, Alpine Snow, and Pussy Galore, Ulta Sun-Sational, and Orly Liquid Vinyl. These nails turned out even better than I had imagined, they are quite possibly some of my favorites I have done.

Disney’s Tangled nails

If you have seen the movie the nails are pretty self explanatory. In case you missed the instant Disney classic, my pinkie and ring finger are parts of her dress, middle finger is her hair (she is Rapunzel after all), my index finger is for the lanterns they light for her birthday every year, and my thumb is the royal symbol. I’m impressed with how well the thumb turned out, I figured I’d try to do something like the sun symbol and it would fail miserably so I would just hide my thumb, I guess when you set your expectations so low you are more likely to impress yourself.  

Seriously, watch the movie

I got Tangled for my birthday from a friend at work and I totally watched it while I was painting these. Hope these nails brought you some Disney joy 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

Fall Leaf nails

At the end of September I got to go to a beautiful wedding. Two friends from work got married at their lake house, it was very rainy day but they didn’t let the foul weather spoil anything. Everything about their wedding reflected them as a couple, I had never been to a wedding in someone’s home before and it was so much fun. I love weddings; I don’t think there is anything better than getting to be a part of the best day in someone’s life. J

I really wanted to do beautiful fall nails for the fall wedding and although they turned out nice, they didn’t turn out how I pictured them in my head. For this manicure I used OPI DS Indulgence and Deutsch You Want Me Baby? and Sally Hansen CSM Gilty Pleasure. DS Indulgence has to be one of the coolest colors I own, it is so rich and fiery, I really need to find reasons to use it more.

Fall Leaf nails

To create these nails I did two coats of DS Indulgence and then sponged the other colors on top (both on my ring finger and only Deutsch on the others). I then used a striper to create the fall leaf design. To make them a little sparkly I put a little gold glitter on top of the black on my ring finger.

It appears I didn’t do a very good job cleaning up the excess polish

I love how the base color turned out but I’m not sold on the leaf design, I feel like it ended up too thick so it doesn’t look quite right. I love fall leaves and I hate that I keep getting them wrong in my nail designs. I will try them again before this fall is over, perhaps third time will be the charm here. Even though it’s about a month late, congratulations on your wedding Joe and Anika, now all you need is a puppy J

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

Minnie Mouse nails

My goddaughter just turned one and she had a polka dot themed birthday party. As soon as I got the invite I started thinking of all the possible polka dot nails I could do. I think that dots are my favorite nail design, they were certainly my first. When my niece was first born my brother and his wife told me that I could paint her nails when she was three, so I only have two more years to go. I really hope she likes having her nails painted; I want her to think I’m cool and not some crazy woman hell bent on painting her nails.

After looking at many dot possibilities I decided to do Minnie Mouse nails, that way I could do dots and Disney. I got to say, I love these nails. I love them so much that I’ve decided that this is the design I’m going to put on my toes for Disney. For this manicure I used Sally Hansen CSM Frutti Petutie, OPI DS Radiance, Orly Liquid Vinyl and White Tips.

Minnie Mouse nails

How freakin cute are these nails? That’s a rhetorical question; I know how cute they are. The mouse design is so simple but it looks so cute, I was in love with these nails from the first Minnie head. I’m bummed only two pictures turned out of these nails, I don’t remember being drunk when I took them but based on how blurry they all were I must have been wasted, or a bad photographer, one of those.

Not sure why this one is so dark

If I were to do them again I would make the bow bigger and more rounded on the edges, I’m going to leave the bow out all together when I do this design on my toes but that is mostly because it’s almost impossible to do nail art on any toe that isn’t your big toe and I want as many Minnie heads as possible. This design would make a wonderful first nail  art design for my niece when she turns three, perhaps planning the design now would be a little too early though J

OPI - Minnie Style nails

Wow, there really isn’t much I can say to explain the fact that it has been pretty much forever since I last blogged. I caught a nasty case of lazy and Netflix. I know, I blame Netflix too often and I should just take ownership of my own lazy, but it is so much easier to blame Netflix and as previously stated, I’m lazy. To make matter worse, it is my favorite nail time of the year and I’ve only painted my nails three times in the last three weeks, pause for effect, its bananas. Hopefully you forgive me for my long lapse in writing and will find it in your heart to agree with me that it is all Netflix’s fault.

The good part of taking a long break is that I have a ton of nails to blog about. For this manicure I used Sally Hansen CSM All Fired Up and OPI Minnie Style. Not surprisingly the OPI is from the Minnie Mouse collection. I’ve had my eyes on this polish for a long time and finally got it with my last birthday gift card (I went a little crazy at Ulta that day and actually haven’t bought any polish in over a month as a result).

OPI Minnie Style nails

This is the perfect glitter top coat, I absolutely love it, and not just because it is Disney themed. I put on two coats of red and then two separate coats of the glitter on top of it. Two thin coats worked out way better than my previous method of just gooping it all over and hoping for the best. Strange that a method that using the word ‘gooping’ isn’t the best course of action (Word is telling me ‘gooping’ isn’t a word. . .).

They are just fun

I think one of the reason I love this polish so much is because it’s like a glitter mated with a confetti and had a super fun polish baby. It isn’t too sparkly (as if that is possible) but it is still shiny enough to be fun. I love it over red but I think it would also be fun over pink, white, or black. I bet it would even work as a Christmas color if you put it over the right green.

My manicure was almost a week old when I took pictures, hence the tip wear

So overall: love the color, love the collection, love Disney. I’m pretty sure this color is going to be my Valentine’s Day go to color J

OPI - Pompeii Purple nails

Every once and a while you stumble on a nail color that from the first time you wear it, you know it will be one of your favorites forever. When I was a kid we had a L’Oreal color that was called Sea Violet, I still remember that color because I loved it so much. We much have bought ten bottles of that color, if I ever saw it in the store I would buy it in a heartbeat. While spending one of my super sweet Ulta gift cards I bought OPI Pompeii Purple and I fell in love. It is such an amazing color, I’m pretty sure I love everything about it. I’m also pretty sure that this whole post is going to be an ode to Pompeii Purple.

I kept these nails on for almost a full week, pause for shock and awe, almost a whole week. For this manicure I used OPI Pompeii Purple and Sally Hansen CSM Gilty Pleasure. I had no idea what kind of art I wanted to do until I had already started painting. As soon as I saw how amazing the OPI is I knew that I didn’t want to cover much of it up with a design so I ended up doing my first chevron!

Pompeii Purple nails

Can we take a minute and talk about how amazing this color is? I didn’t realize how popular this color is until I had these nails at work and two different ladies guessed the name of the color correctly. It doesn’t happen very often that someone knows the name of the color that I’m wearing, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I’m far from the first person to discover how amazing this color is.

Pictures can’t do this color justice

My chevrons are a bit of a miss. I didn’t center my guide dots very well so the whole design is very much off center. I also didn’t have my brushes so I did the design with a dotting tool so the lines aren’t super smooth (yes I’m blaming the tool and not the painter).

Lumpy chevrons

If you like pink/purple nail polish I highly recommend this color, it looks so awesome on that I was tempted to paint them this color again after I took these nails off. Now, if only I could find Sea Violet.

OPI - I Saw...U Saw...We Saw...Warsaw nails

I went to an awesome bachelorette party last weekend. We drove up north and she had her party on a pontoon boat on a big, beautiful lake. I hadn’t been on a boat all summer and it was just the perfect way to end the season. I was also super proud of myself that I didn’t let myself burn at all, that is a pretty big win when you are pale and you spend a whole day on a boat. I think that last weekend was the official end to my string of weekend plans; I have nothing that I have to go to this weekend, which sounds pretty good.

I really liked these nails even though they were a pain. For some reason I think that blue nail polish is the hardest to work with. It was super difficult to get all the blue off from around my nails and when I took the polish off my fingers were stained blue. For this manicure I used OPI I Saw…U Saw…We Saw…Warsaw, Sally Hansen CSM Gilty Pleasure, Sally Girl Matte Top Coat, and Orly Liquid Vinyl.  

 

OPI - I Saw…U Saw…We Saw…Warsaw nails

This is my first true navy and I really like how it looks, I especially like it as a matte, but I’m a sucker for matte so that is expected. I love using new polish, I got this one (and three others) with birthday gift cards at Ulta. I still have more birthday Ulta money and now I also have a coupon, I’m pretty sure this weekend is going to include staring at nail polish (shocking).

Please disregard the ugly hangnail

The formula for the blue was consistent with other OPI polish; I’m wearing two coats and had full coverage. Unfortunately I decided I needed to finish off my last pitcher of beer-garitas by myself before starting this manicure so I had quite a bit of clean up afterwards. The blue just didn’t want to leave my fingers once it made contact, I really feel like blue is the worst for that.

I should do animal print more often

When someone at work saw these they asked if they were moons and stars, now I really want to use this blue as a base for cute moons and stars. My post it list isn’t getting any shorter, there are just so many fun things you can paint on your nails!

Grumpy Cat nails

I’m sorry for the long wait to see my birthday nails, but I hope they are worth the wait J. I was thinking for a long time about what nails I wanted to do to commemorate my 30^th birthday and it wasn’t until a few days before the big day that I finally settled on the design. My fellow nail lover friend Patty is the one who suggested I do Grumpy Cat nails, and I can’t think of better nails to have when turning 30.

I surprised myself with how little flash these nails had but I ended up liking the solid brown next to the designed nails. For this manicure I used Sally Hansen CSM Barracuda, OPI Brisbane Bronze, Aphrodite’s Pink Nightie, and Pompeii Purple, and Orly Liquid Vinyl and White Tips.

Grumpy Cat nails

To create the adorable yet grumpy kitty on my middle finger I used a corner piece of makeup sponge and sponged on the white first. The triangular shape of the sponge helped define her ears. I did two layers of the white before I sponged on the brown; I always forget how much I love this brown!

Nothing says turning 30 like a disgruntled kitty on your middle finger

To get her tiny angry mouth I used my smallest dotting tool and used a stippling method to tap the color on. My original idea was to put a party hat on her but she took so long to do that I didn’t want to risk messing her up. To make it a little more birthday themed I put balloons on my thumb and pinkie. My right hand has balloons on the pinkie, middle, and thumb.

 

I can’t believe I missed her at the state fair

I had this manicure when I went to get a facial after my birthday and I got asked one of my favorite nail questions by the salon lady. She asked if I paint them before I put them on, I’m sure a loser that I love being able to say ‘no, actually they are real’. I hope my birthday nails were worth the wait and that you love Grumpy Cat as much as I do J

Pink Argyle Stripe nails

I’m not usually one to complain about my phone unless it really pisses me off, perhaps this comes from the fact that I work for a cell phone company. I have an iPhone, it’s not the fanciest phone available but it works for what I need it to, that is except for the horrible maps. As you could probably guess, I had to use the GPS recently and it didn’t go so well. I had a baby shower to go to in the cities last weekend, I don’t like diving in the cities to begin with and I like it even less when I’m alone and totally reliant on my phone for guidance. Stupid Apple maps took me to the wrong place and I drove around for 45 minutes before I finally found the place I needed to be at. That, coupled with the inevitable Minnesota road constructed, resulted in me needing to take a few minutes in my car to calm down so that I didn’t show up to a baby shower as a rage monster (rage monsters are not welcome at baby showers).

I had two baby showers to go to in August, one for a boy and one for a girl. My original plan was that I was going to do the same design for both showers and just change the colors (pinks for the baby girl shower and blues for the baby boy shower). I am so underwhelmed by these nails though that there is nothing about them that I want to revisit for the baby boy shower at the end of the month. For this manicure I used OPI Aphrodite’s Pink Nightie and Alpine Snow and a pink striper polish.

Pink Argyle Stripe nails

I wanted the accent nail to look like argyle and I think they fell just short. It’s not that they are bad; they just aren’t quite what they could have been. At first I just had solid pink nails with the one accent but I thought they looked so boring I wanted to add something to the other nails. I think in the end the dots are my favorite part of this manicure.

Nails that say ‘meh’

I can’t believe these nails are my 100^th post nails! I started blogging a year ago this month, crazy I know. I hope everyone enjoys reading my blog as much as I enjoy it. I love having an excuse to paint my nails far too often J

Nail Striper Overload nails

One side effect of having a nail blog is that people love to send me pictures of nails they find online that they want me to try. Quite often the nails they show me are so far beyond anything I could ever hope to do, but sometimes I’m able to try the design. I never like to do nails just like in the picture; it just doesn’t seem as much fun to do them exactly the same. I got the idea for these nails from a picture my sister in law found on Pinterest. I have a Pinterest account but I don’t allow myself to use it, I feel like as soon as I started it would suck hours of my life and I already have enough activities that keep me lazy and on the couch.

I love these nails, I kept them on for far longer than I normally do, I just didn’t want to take them off! For this manicure I used OPI You’re Such a Budapest, essie Matte About You, and a crap ton of stripers. At first I was just going to do my ring finger as an accent nail but I ended up loving the design so much I wanted it on all my nails.

Nail Striper Overload nails

I had no idea what to call these nails; I almost think they look like feathers. These were so easy to do, it’s the type of nail art that you just can’t mess up. I used about 10 different stripers and just randomly put lines in, to make the design look fuller, I used all the stripers twice each so the end result was very layered.

Love the matte on You’re Such a Budapest

My planed Vegas nails are similar to these and after I saw how much I loved these, it makes me even more excited to Vegas my nails up. I can’t get over how much I love matte finish manicures combined with glossy elements, it’s like nail heaven.

Of course you get three pictures of these!

I hope you like these nails as much as I do. I don’t have the source picture anymore to post it, but it is from nailsaurus (who is amazing by the way). My trip to Vegas is coming so quickly, I hope my nails live up to all the hype 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

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!!!

Gold Wedding nails

My Disney vacation is in 157 short days. I’m super excited to go, as any rational human should be. To pass the time until December I decided it would be fun to watch the Disney movies that I either have never seen or haven’t seen since I was super little. Netflix has a bunch of Disney movies on their watch instant now so today I watched Dumbo. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dumbo before and it wasn’t what I expected. The movie is super short (just over an hour) and pretty dark for a cartoon. I was so sad when they took Dumbo’s mom away (I feel ok about that spoiler since the move came out in the 40s so if you really wanted to watch it you have had plenty of time to do so). My next movie will be the Aristo-Cats, I feel more in the Disney mood already J

Not everyone is into pink/white wedding nails so I thought I would do gold wedding nails. I have mixed feelings about them but for this manicure I used China Glaze Fast Track, OPI Goldeneye, and e.l.f. 20417. I was going for messy glitter layered tips but they just didn’t turn out quite right.

Gold Wedding nails

I actually like these nails more in pictures then I did in real life which doesn’t happen very often at all. I feel like they are just missing something. If I were to do them again I would also make the tips smaller and try to make the transition less abrupt. I also think they would look better on shorter nails.

I do like nails that sparkle

Overall these nails were ok, with a few changes they would totally work for a beachy kind of wedding, or on a very tan bride (I always think gold nails look better on tan people). I only have one set of wedding nails left, hope you have enjoyed them so far J

Classic Wedding nails

I can’t believe June is almost over, everyone is seriously running out of shopping days until my birthday. Don’t worry though, you do still have plenty of time to pick out the perfect birthday gift for me J. It has been miserably hot and stormy recently, I used to love thunderstorms but Millie is so scared of them that they are no longer fun. Fireworks are also no longer fun. I’m thinking about buying one of those thunder shirts that they sell in the pet store, I’m sure wrestling her into it would be less than fun, but it if kept her from waking us up that would be awesome and totally worth the glory rolling basset hound.

I went to a wedding this weekend and wanted very traditional wedding nails for the big day. For this manicure I used OPI Rosy Future and Orly White Tips. I was really pleased with how the design turned out (I used a couple of my many stripers) and I got the excuse to use my rhinestones again which always makes me happy.

Classic French Wedding nails

These nails are super simple but overall I’m very pleased with how they turned out. I painted them Thursday night and didn’t take pictures of them until Sunday though so they have a little road wear. There is something about drinking that really messes my nails up; I’m going to guess it is the general loss of motor control.

French Tips always make my nails look so long

These nails were perfect for the wedding; I wore purple so they coordinated without being too matchy. I also didn’t want them to be too flashy (they couldn’t be fancier than the Bride’s nails after all). I’m having fun with these bridal nails but I haven’t decided how many I’m going to do yet. . . I’m going to keep you at the edge of your seat I guess J

Orly - Mayhem Mentality nails

I think Millie has learned how to count. This isn’t as dangerous as her growing wings or thumbs, but it is rather problematic. I first started to notice her counting skills when I tried to sneak her sister an extra treat and she calmly said in basset hound “excuse me mom, but I feel like you only gave me one when my sister got two” (basset hounds can say a lot with one look). Her counting skills moved into full fledged mathematician status we started going for walks more frequently. No matter how many bags I bring, she finds a way to poop more than I’m prepared for. I’m not sure where she learned how to count, but I’m finding it very inconvenient.

For this manicure I used Orly Mayhem Mentality and OPI Alpine Snow. I got the Orly a few weeks ago but couldn’t come up with any designs to use it with. The design I ended up doing (on the ring and thumb) is called cartoon nails. They are supposed to look like a nail would if you drew it on a cartoon character, the idea is kind of farfetched but I think they ended up kind of fun.

Mayhem Mentality nails

These nails might be the most distracting nails I have ever done. They were so bright I thought that they were going to glow in the dark. The neon went on so much easier than most neons I have used. Usually I use a white base coat so the neon is more saturated but I didn’t need to with this one, it only took two coats and was as bright on my nails as it was in the bottle.

Nails so bright you could read by them

The more I use Orly polish the more I like it, it’s a great deal and the formula rarely disappoints me. If you are looking for a crazy bright orange then look no further. Now I just need to come up with other reasons to use it J

Rubber Duckie nails

When I moved into my first apartment I really wanted to have a rubber duckie bathroom, nothing says independent adult like a bathroom fully of yellow ducks. I got rubber duckie everything, shower curtain, trash can, soap dispenser, even wall art, that bathroom was so full of ducks you couldn’t walk into it without having hundreds of beady black duck eyes watching your every move. I feel like I’m somehow making my bathroom sound sinister but it was quite cute actually. I finally ditched the ducks when I moved into my house, although I do still have bride and groom ducks hidden in the closet.

I would say I did these nails to celebrate my duck bathroom of apartments past, but I really just did them because they were cute. J For this manicure I used China Glaze For Audrey and Sea Spray, Orly Skinny Dip and Liquid Vinyl, OPI Alpine Snow, Ulta Sun-Sational, and Sally Hansen Strobe Light. I’m very happy with how these nails turned out, I especially like the marbleized soap bubbles.  

Rubber Duckie nails

To do the bubbles I dipped my dotter in three different colors, the dotter made the color mix in some places but also have separate colors in one dot. This is similar to the technique used in water color nails and it really makes me want to try that (what don’t I want to try though?). I was surprised with how easy the ducks were to do, the ducks on my right hand aren’t bad but the left ring finger duck is definitely the best one.

Rubber Duckie you’re the one

These nails were really fun to do and they didn’t take long at all, start to finish I had these done in less than an hour (which is pretty good for me). They do cause me to sing the rubber duckie song from Sesame Street but that is a price I’m willing to pay J