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

Shooting Star nails

I have a new niece! After so many nephews (and one niece) the last three babies born have been girls, so many nieces! I have not met my new niece but my mom checked out her nail beds and assured me that they were nice and long. I’m hoping to buy my nieces’ love when they get older by painting their nails but as I struck out with the eight year old on Easter, I’m not sure how much they would actually like crazy aunt Rosie coming after them with nail polish. Perhaps instead of going for ‘beloved aunt’ I should aim for ‘what the hell is wrong with her aunt’. I’m not really ‘beloved aunt’ material, but I can do up crazy in high style.

For this manicure I wanted to have classy nails, that was my thought when I started anyway, so of course they ended up having rhinestones, because for some reason for me classy equals rhinestones (I’m like the Gypsies in that show on TLC). To create this *classy* look, I used China Glaze Gothic Lolita and Color Club Status Update. This is my go to Vikings purple, but I haven’t really used it on its own like this before.

Shooting Star nails

I actually got the idea for these nails from a tattoo I saw, I guess that also means that for me classy equals tattoos, I really have this classy thing down. This manicure really sealed that I freakin love dots on my nails. I especially love tiny dots like I did here; I foresee many little dots in my future. I’m sorry these pictures didn’t turn out very well; I was too lazy to get off the couch and get closer to the light source (the window).

Laziness is my Kryptonite

Thad and I love watching TV, it is our main entertainment (TV and talking about our dogs). We have been watching a lot of Big Bang Theory lately and it is making me want to do superhero nails, I can’t decide on what five to do since I need for them to have pretty simple designs (like Green Lantern). So if you have any suggestions, let me know J.

Shany stamping plates

Amazon is an amazing thing, it is also very dangerous. Right after Christmas I was tempted by the Amazon gods and spent $40 on nail stuff (including shipping, for some reason saying ‘including shipping’ makes me feel better about the expense). On January 2^nd I got home from work only to discover a mini Christmas in my mail box, I had four packages waiting for my arrival. I gleefully opened them up and I am now the proud owner of my very own stamping set. I got two different polishes (Konad black and white), a double ended stamper, scraper, plate holder, and a set of 25 Shany plates (numbered 1-25). Needless to say I was super crazy excited to paint my nails.

This post is going to include my first and second attempt at stamping my nails; I feel it necessary to admit at this point that stamping is way harder than I thought. I learned many lessons with my first attempt, spoiler alert: my first try turned out terribly. The plates came in a little box to keep them organized (which I loved) and they all had a blue film over the engraved side to prevent scratching during shipping. The blue film was really hard to remove and I actually have only managed to get it off about 10 of the plates. So far I’ve found one plate that was scratched under the film, it did ruin one of the designs but the design it ruined is the word ‘sexy’ so I’m not too distraught at losing that one. For the first manicure I used Sally Hansen CSM Shell we Dance?, and Color Club Status Update.

Starting with my thumb: SH22, SH13, SH13, SH03, SH24

Starting with my pinkie: SH22, SH10, SH03, SH24, SH18

 As you can see from the pictures, I ran into a lot of trouble with the scrapping step of nail stamping. I found that I couldn’t get the scrapper to have even pressure so it left some extra paint in some areas. Speed is very important when doing stamping and I’m not a speedy nail artist, so I had paint drying all over the place. If you are thinking of trying nail stamping I would suggest having a lot of Q-tips handy and remover for cleanup of your tools. I would also warn against putting on your topcoat too soon, I figured I could put it on soon than normal nail art and ended up smearing a few of them pretty bad. As soon as I was done with these I wanted to try stamping again, but as I wasn’t feeling well, it took me a couple of days before I had the chance to repaint (yes I had these jacked up nails for more than one day). For my second attempt I used OPI Rosy Future and Goldeneye.

I used plate SH18 for this hand

It was hard to get the whole nail covered

The adorable squirrel lives on plate SH10

Practice makes a huge difference. For my second attempt I took my time while working quickly (if that makes sense). If I didn’t like how the stamp looked on my stamper, I took it off and started over instead of trying to make it work. I think nail stamping is a lot like everything else in nail art in that the more you do it the better it turns out. I really like the finished product of these nails, the white on Rosy Future turned out so feminine and pretty. Each plate averages 6 designs and the whole plate set was only around $12. I’m really looking forward to using at the heart designs for Valentine’s day J