Ulta - Fairy Dust nails

Every once in a while I get tired of my nails being gaudy, I know that is a shocking statement, but it is true. For the most part, I love when my nails are super distracting and crazy, but every now and then it is nice to have nails that don’t make strangers comment on them. Don’t get me wrong, strangers of the internet, I generally love it when you ask me where I got my nails done, in fact it brings me quite a bit of joy when that happens. Despite this, it came to pass that I got a free color of pretty tame polish at Ulta so I decided to paint my nails in a classy, non flashy kind of way.

These nails didn’t photograph very well, I actually really liked them in person, they were just pretty and simple. For this manicure I used my FREE Ulta Fairy Dust, and Zoya Maria Louisa and Louise. This is my first Ulta that is from their professional collection, to be honest, I didn’t notice much of a difference between the formula for this one and their regular ones. I used three coats for this manicure because I knew that I wasn’t going to put a bunch of art on top of it and I wanted to make sure the color was even. I don’t have any complaints about Ulta’s formula, they don’t have the best selection of colors but the price is amazing so that evens things out.

Ulta Fairy Dust nails

I think the two Zoya colors are from their fall collection, I got a total of three from that collection and I’m very happy with all of them. Zoya makes such nice colors, even if some of them are a bit of a pain to remove. I need to come up with other ways to use the gold color, it is so cool but it has to be layered on top of another color in order for it to look right, I’ll have to play around with it.

I had to add a little bit of bling J

I thought it was funny that these nails got attention at work simply because they were so much tamer than my normal nails. It was nice to take an ugly nail break but I’m sure it won’t last long 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.

Catching Fire nails

I’m a huge fan of young adult fantasy fiction, especially when it is in a series - I simply can’t resist them. I also love going to see their movie adaptations; I don’t expect them to be just like the books so I am able to enjoy them for what they are. I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for Catching Fire to come out but it finally did so we went to see it last Friday. We decided against going to the midnight show because, quite frankly, I’m too damn old to be going anywhere at midnight (getting back home after 11pm was pushing it for me). The movie was totally worth the wait and the late hour, my favorite part was when it was over and the guy in front of me said “that’s how it ends?” yes sir, that is how it ends.

As soon as I knew we were going to the movie I started thinking about what my nails should look like, obviously. For this manicure I used Ulta Sun-Sational and Orly Liquid Vinyl, as well as some stripers. I’m pretty happy with how these turned out, I thought the fire ended up looking pretty cool and you can tell what the bow and arrow are supposed to be, at least I think you can.

Catching Fire nails

To get the fire look I started with an orange striper and layered lines on my nail, I didn’t put the brush into the bottle very often so the lines ended up kinda wispy. I put red on top of the orange and did the same thing and then topped it off with gold glitter, because I thought fire should be sparkly, and really I’m going to add sparkle to my nails whenever I get the chance.

The tip wear vexes me

I’ve had a lot of trouble with tip wear lately and I’m not quite sure why. My best guess is that I’m going to bed before they are totally dry and then I’m messing the tips up by pulling up our incredibly heavy quilt. We have probably one of the heaviest blankets that has ever existed. A friend from college made it for our wedding and it is equal parts awesome and lead. I don’t think I’m going to be able to get myself to go to bed any later, so perhaps I need to just put up with the tip wear situation.

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.

Jack Skellington nails

I can’t believe it is so far into October and I haven’t posted any Halloween nails yet! I love Halloween nails so it feels like a waste that I haven’t done more this year. I’m hoping to end October with a bang and give you some good Halloween nails, so these will just be the first ones, unless I get lazy. . . . which is always a possibility.

I got the idea for these nails from my very best friend. She sent me a picture of them and I knew I had to try them, I mean it combines Halloween and Disney, how could I not do them? For this manicure I used Orly Liquid Vinyl and White Tips, which just seems like a somewhat fancy way to say that I used black and white.

Jack Skellington nails

These nails were really fun to have but I found that they were distracting to other people in a way my other nails haven’t been before. I interview people at work and while I had these nails I had like six different applicants comment on them during the course of the interview, I’m not sure why these were so much more distracting than my other nails, maybe it was because I had a big skull on my ring finger. I wish I would have been able to make his eye holes smoother on the edges, but other than that I’m actually pretty happy with the overall design.

Are you frightened?

Truth be told, I think I’ve only seen Nightmare Before Christmas once, perhaps I should look to see if it is on Netflix. . . but then again if I try to watch it on Netflix I might get sucked back into the lazy that only Netflix can cause. Hope my first Halloween nails were worth the wait!

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