Late Halloween Fun

 These are some pictures that I wanted to share with you guys, but I I'll admit I was too lazy to get together since they were in different files. Well, I finally have them all together and thought I would share anyway. It's Friday, so yay, we need some fun to start out our day!

This was a quick mani I did in October. The accent nail is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed and the rest are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out.

This is a haunted gingerbread house that we made as a family, and by family I mean me and my husband. The kids were too busy watching Hocus Pocus for their first time and I'm glad to say they loved it as much as I did when I first saw it! At least they enjoyed eating the leftover candy.

The side of the house, I think my husband did a pretty good job with the spiderweb!

These are my kids. My son went as Bumble Bee and my daughter went as a princess, but this was actually her second costume of the day. She was dressed as Batgirl before this. She actually let me do her makeup and nails! I was pretty excited about that because she has some GREAT eyelashes. Yup, I'm jealous.

Here are her nails. She became pretty frustrated at the end and didn't let me do proper cleanup, but they were ok for one night of fun.

 Sorry, I was late with this post but hope you enjoyed anyways! ^_^

Cowboys Half Moon Mani

 The Cowboys lost. How did this happen?? They were winning and then they had to just be plain stupid and lose their first freaking game. Now they are 0-1. Grr... as Ni hao Kai-lan would say, "I'm so mad!" The only plus side to their loss last night is that I get to redo my nails, yay!

 Let's move on to today's post before I ramble some more about the Cowboy's suckage. Hehe. I used Sally Hansen's Celeb City for the half moon and for the background on my accent nail. The navy polish is Nina Ultra Pro in Sailor. I am not great at freehand, so I used some hole reinforcements as guides. This was the first time I attempted to do a half moon mani and I didn't plan on outlining the half moon, but due to my less than perfect outcome, it was necessary. The tattoo decal was purchased on Ebay from seller Lucky Star Style for $1.80 for 20 decals with free shipping. (No affiliation, just a great deal.)

 The application of the decals can be a little tricky, but here are some tips that helped me:

• Cut as closely as possible to the image, that way less of the "clear" portion of the tattoo will show.
• To get accurate placement, use tweezers rather than your fingers to position the decal on your nail.
• You want to leave the plastic backing on the tattoo when cutting out the image because the tattoo is sticky and it will adhere to your fingers and mess up the design.
• Since you are leaving the plastic backing on and cutting as closely as possible to the image, you will find it difficult to remove the plastic backing once you are done cutting. This is where the tweezers will come in handy. Actually, if you have to pairs of tweezers it would be much better. You can hold the tattoo with one pair of tweezers and with the other you can slide the tip in to start removing the backing. That way your fingers will have no contact with the tattoo, leaving the design intact.
• The last thing is you don't want to submerge the tattoo in water when applying. A cloth, cotton or felt with some water is the best way to apply tattoos. You want to just lightly dab on the tattoo until the paper falls off.

 In real life the tattoo isn't too noticeable as it seems in the first two pictures, that's just the macro doing it's job. The last two pictures are a better representation as to how they actually look in real life. Regardless of imperfections and *ahem Cowboys sucking ahem* I was pleased with the outcome, especially the accent nail!

I would love to get some feedback, so what are your thoughts? What colors would you use for your favorite sports team?

Friday's Nail Art: Modern Dots

   For my final design of nail art week, I decided to take a cue from Sinful Colors. A few months ago, they had a display with a how to on doing designs using a toothpick to create dots. The instructions weren't actually detailed except for telling you that dots can be created using a toothpick, and it pretty much advised you to use your imagination. Sinful Colors is a drugstore brand that is priced at 1.99 at most drugstores, but there's a Walgreens in one of the cities close to me that always has them on sale, two for three dollars. That's where I mainly obtained the few colors that I had, and one day I stopped in looking for a back up to Ocean Green, and saw that they had a HUGE sale on Sinful Colors pricing them at only .50 each. I picked up all the available colors and now my Sinful Colors collection ranges at about 30 in all.

   Perhaps, it was that I bought them at such a low price, but they don't ever seem to inspire me and most of them have remained untried, except for a lucky few. I've been trying to buy OPI's San-tan-tonio and still haven't been able to get ahold of it, so I decided to try out Sinful Colors Nirvana to calm my craving. After polishing my nails, even though I loved the color on it's own, it just made me want to add some color to it. Thinking back to the display I had spotted a few months earlier, I thought it would be a good idea to only utilize Sinful Colors polishes to create some modern dots.

   All colors are from Sinful Colors and those colors are, from left to right, Why Not, Hazard, Innocent, Pull Over and Nirvana.

   I used two coats of Nirvana. Even though this is not an expensive brand, the color payoff and application on all the ones I have tried so far is pretty good. It's not greatest brush, but it's close to it.

   In order to make the process easier, I grabbed a nail polish wheel and placed a bit of polish from all four colors on it. I had to do this for every nail. When I finished, the entire clear plastic was filled with dots of nail polish.

   Every nail had three dots going horizontally and four dots going vertically at the end of the design. There is no particular order in which I picked the colors. I just tried to make it as random as possible. I started with making three dots at the tip of my nail leaving some space in between.
 

   I then created a second line of dots perpendicular to the ones above and kept repeating this until my entire nail was covered.

   This is the finished nail. As you can see, there is no pattern as to what colors I used where, it was all random.

   There is a saying in Spanish which is loosely translated to "one more polka dot and you'll look crazy". That's how I felt with this manicure, so I decided to leave my thumb as an accent nail.

   This is a very busy manicure, which is why, IMO, think that an accent nail is necessary, but feel free to interpret this design as your own. I didn't get to sport this manicure very long because I was suddenly in the mood to attempt water marbling, but that was a big FAIL. That was my third time attempting it and only my second try was ever successful. I think that the reason for my failures have been my nail polish choices and/or the base color or lack thereof. I'm planning on a water marble week as well, but maybe in July, once I get a little more practice in. For this next week, I will just do random nail polish swatches, but look forward to more themed weeks, as I find themed weeks help me strive towards posting more often. Well, that's it for today. Hope you enjoyed!

Thursday's Nail Art: Teal Cross

   This is a design that I have used several times on myself and family members. The great thing about it is that it's so simple. It's literally two black lines outlined in silver over a solid background. I have only used it with Kleancolor's Beach Blue and Sinful Colors Let's Talk, but I'm sure it would look great with any color combination you can dream up.

   The only three products I used are L.A. Colors Art Deco polishes in black, silver and Kleancolor Beach Blue.

   I started with two coats of Kleancolor Beach Blue. I love, love this polish and it's not just because of the color, but because a very special, former co-worker gifted this to me after I told her how much I loved how it looked on her toes.

   I know sun pictures don't always depict the real life nail polish color, but I like to take sun pictures because I like how the sun makes the colors look more vibrant.

   After the polish dried, I took L.A. Color Art Deco nail art polish in black and drew a vertical line a little left from the halfway mark.

   Using the same black nail art polish, I drew a horizontal line, as if outlining a french manicure.

   As you can see, the lines are not perfect whatsoever, but they don't have to be since you will be outlining them in silver polish.

   Onc the black lines have dried you can commence on outlining the black lines on either side with the silver nail art polish.

   The next two pictures have a coat of clear top coat on.

   That's it for this nail art design! I always receive compliments when wearing this teal manicure and I hope whoever (if anyone) out there tries it, gets compliments as well. Enjoy!

Tuesday's Nail Art: Neon Flowers

   I was watching Food Network Challenge on Sunday and the cakes were supposed to be about the 80's time era. Pretty much everyone was using neon colors, since those were popular back in those days and it just made me crave neon on my nails. I have never worn neon colors on their own because I think they're really loud but lately I've been on a neon buying frenzy. I suppose I owe that to all those girls out there strutting around with their neon colors. I love they way they look on other people, but I still haven't tried the solid neon look on my nails. ( I hope my husband doesn't end up reading this, or else he'll be even more upset about my nail polish buying if he finds out I'm buying colors that I don't necessarily wear!)   

   I'm still not ready to do the solid neon but I did come up with this idea to incorporate neon without being too loud. These are the products I used: M.A.C. Vestral White, Orly Va Va Voom, Sinful Colors Irish Green, Sally Hansen Celeb City and Finger Paints Top Coat.

   I started off with M.A.C Vestral White. I have been searching for a good white color and I still haven't been able to find one. This actually took 4 thin layers to prevent the streaking from showing up. I don't like to apply so many layers but it does end up looking really nice if you just work with it. 

   I am going to be doing 4 flowers on each nail, two pink ones and two green ones. I alternated the position of the flowers to make them seem random. To make the flowers you just need to place four dots as if dotting the corners of an imaginary square. I did two fingers at a time because the "lines" on the flowers are formed better if the polish is a bit tacky. Once it's a little tacky, I used a dotting tool to make the "lines". I started from the middle of each dot and dragged the polish towards the center. This will give the flower a more realistic look.

   Here I did the same with Sinful Colors Irish Green.

   After all your flowers are done, using the same dotting tool, I placde silver dots using Celeb City in the middle of the flowers. I chose silver rather than yellow because I wanted to give the design a more blingy look.

   It's not visible in the pictures but once you add the top coat. OMG. It just makes the whole design that much better. The top coat fills in all the "lines" that were created and makes it look really flawless.

   Here is a sun picture. Even though the design is flowers, I feel that it has that summery look because of the neon colors. Hope you enjoyed!

Monday's Nail Art: Brushed Silver

   I really wanted to get this post up earlier in the day, but then I received a call from my aunt telling me that my dad was doing worse today. He has been in the hospital since last Sunday and seemed to be doing a lot better, until today when we found out he was in pain because of a bacteria in his blood. So, I was really not feeling inspired to write anything and just kept staring at my laptop and pictures of my nails. Anyways, I decided to take a trip to my "polish room" (it's really just a walk in closet) and I now feel in a better mood after spending some time surrounded by my lovelies.

   I actually did this manicure in the waiting room at the hospital where my dad is in. The only reason why I did that was because he's in the chemotherapy ward and most people who go to that floor are outpatient, so the waiting room is empty 95% of the time. Otherwise, I would not have even thought of doing my nails at a hospital. The inspiration for this manicure was actually our truck. Lol, yes, our truck. It's black and full of chrome stuff on it, and I love the way it looks in the sun, so I decided to do something to that effect on my nails.

   These are the products I used: Orly Liquid Vinyl, M.A.C. $$$$$ Yes, silver striping tape and black hexagonal glitter.

   I started off with two coats of Orly Liquid Vinyl. I love black so much that I almost left it as is!

   I then took M.A.C. $$$$$ Yes and created a diagonal french manicure. It took two coats to get it opaque. This is the first time I use this polish and I don't think I will ever wear by itself, since it left too many brush strokes. However, I liked how the brushed strokes showed on this particular manicure because to me it resembles brushed silver.

   After that I took L.A. Colors Art Deco nail art polish in black and just created some swervy lines from the lower left corner going upwards. I would reccommend making the lines longer than what I did to make them more visible after the next two steps.

   I then took L.A. Colors Art Deco nail art polish in silver and kind of went over and in between the black lines. This is why I should have made the black lines longer.

   This step is optional, but I decided it need a little more dimension to the design so I added black hexagonal glitter in random places.

   The last step was to cut pieces of the striping tape and place them where the black and silver polish meet to create a crisp line. I used the striping tape because it resembles the chrome I was going for and I really like the contrast of the striping tape next to the satin finish of M.A.C.'s $$$$$ Yes.

   Since, I was at the hospital I didn't have any clear polish to finish off the look so this last picture has no clear coat. To make the striping tape last longer a good top coat like Seche Vite is necessary or else the edges will begin to lift up. Overall, I was happy with the way it turned out an I think this would be a great manicure for a wedding or a prom since my husband said it looked to fancy for a regular day at work lol. Although, I pay no attention to him and wear what I want when I want, even if it's too "fancy". So, that's it for today's post. Enjoy!