Candy Cane Nails

So here I was, actually planning on doing another nail challenge. During one of the busiest months of the year, too. Isn't that funny?

My challenge of choice was #nailartchallengedec made by @redkoletz and @glamournailart on Instagram.

It started on the 4th day of December with Candy Cane as the theme, so I happily did it and then got happily too busy to continue, ha.

For the candy cane nails I used:

Salon Perfect - He's With Me
Snowman Polish - Green
Kiss White Striper

On my middle fingers I used:

Snowman Polish - Red & Green Glitter

And on the rest of my nails I wanted to try doing a pond mani so I used:

Santee - Peacock Green Glitter
Santee - Fuchsia Glitter
Kiss White Striper with a dotting tool

I used my Sony a5100 for this picture but I gotta admit when it comes to nails, I think I prefer my iPhone 6. I need to get more practice using it and then maybe I'll like it better but so far the iPhone is easier to hold and focuses on more. It's gotta be all in the settings.

#31DC2014 - Day 24: Inspired By A Book

I had a conundrum with today's nails: what book to use? Truth be told, most of my favorite books don't translate to nail art very well. I mean, what could I do for Catcher In The Rye nails? And I already did nails inspired by The Hunger Games a few years ago.

So can you guess which book I used?

If you guessed Twilight, you're correct! Breaking Dawn to be exact. I did a version of the chessboard on the cover and then painted the rest of my nails sparkling silver with blood drips.

I used Sinful Colors - Snow Me White and Wet N' Wild Wild Shine - Black Creme for the chessboard. For the other nails I used Santee - Twinkle Silver and Silver Glitter, then did the blood drips with Sinful Colors - Ruby Ruby.

I dedicate these to my cousin, who's the biggest Twilight fan I know.

I dig these and think they'll be perfect for Halloween. Without the silver sparkles of course.

An InLinkz Link-up

#31DC2014 - Day 10: Gradient Nails

Today's nails are the first time I'm trying out a cotton candy gradient. These came out so cute and kawaii, they remind me to My Little Pony.

I used Love & Beauty - Ivory as a base, then did the gradient with Wet N' Wild Wild Shine - Tickled Pink and Kleancolor - Pastel Blue. I topped it all off with Santee - Moon Light Glitter and placed a few stars from it on my pointer and ring fingers.

Of course this made me crave actual cotton candy.

Look at how delicious it looks, I wanna grab it right out of my laptop monitor. Now I need to go find some.

An InLinkz Link-up

LDTTWC - Day 5: "We Can Do It!"

Dang man, are we really over the halfway point of this challenge already? Today is Day 5: "We Can Do It!" and this theme's nails are inspired by an influential woman in history.

I decided to continue with my nostalgic comedy route and go with Lucille Ball. As far as female comedians go, she paved the way for many. When it comes to physical comedy? She's the best hands down.

I was inspired by some nails I saw on Instagram, a design where the ring finger had a top lip painted on it and the thumb had the bottom lip. I don't know now who did it cause I saw it on my follower's activity tab and when I went back to look for it, it wasn't there anymore. But let's be real: it's Instagram, it was probably a repost anyways!

So I went with that and then did eyes and hair, red of course. CLEARLY this is meant to be a cartoony interpretation of Lucille Ball. ;]

I used:
Santee - Light Nude
Love & Beauty - Red
L.A. Colors Art Deco Striper -Red
L.A. Colors Art Deco Striper - Black
L.A. Colors Art Deco Striper - White
Wet N' Wild Wild Shine - Black Creme
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Mango Motion

I was going to pair the faces with some old fashioned half moons but I decided to add a lil sumptin sumptin by painting inside the hole reinforcement sticker.

Anyone got any recommendations for a good nail polish thinner? I think I'm gonna go get the Orly one, but I'm gonna be honest, it's the only brand of thinner that I've seen in stores. Any good recs or tips would be appreciated!

Far Out Galaxy Nails

Ready for some really cool nails? I dunno what made me do galaxy nails, I've never done them and decided to try. For some reason I always thought these were really complicated and took a lot of time to do. Dude, totally the opposite.

I followed THIS post by Rebecca. I think anytime I link to a tutorial on here, it's been by Rebecca, but I love her blog and her tutorials are easy to follow. Funny thing is, it's not even a tutorial, but she did post step-by-step pictures.

I only had a few of the polishes she used, so I used substitutions and made a few changes to them too. I shoulda watched the video she linked to, but guess what? Yea, it was late and I was going somewhere the next day. Story of my blog right?

These are easy to do but use a lottttt of polishes. I used:
Wet N' Wild Wild Shine - Black Creme
Wet N' Wild Wild Shine - French White Creme
Wet N' Wild Chrome - Precious Petals
Hard Candy - Beetle
Klean Color - Pastel Blue
Santee - Opal Speckle
Klean Color - Chunky Holo Fuschia
Sally Hansen - Hidden Treasure

Bonus outfit pic time:

If my dear cousin Becca is reading this, I only have two words for you: SPICY LIME! :p
Good pizza spot + family time + actin a fool at Walmart with the cousin = a good day indeed.

Mannequin Nails With Santee

Here's a palette cleanser for you guys after those candy coated Sanrio inspired nails.

I originally planned on doing an Ikat pattern over this, but liked how it looked. I think this Santee polish is a good match to do the Mannequin look. Added the glitter just for some extra flair.

As you can see, this was taken indoors. At Target. :]

I used:
Santee - Light Nude
Santee - Opal Speckle

I think these kinds of nails are called palette cleansers, right? Stuck these in between two wild looks, because my next nails will be the return of cool awesome nail art!

Little Twin Stars Twins

Hey guys! I tried out my first jelly sandwich, inspired by Nouveau Cheap's My Little Twin Stars manicure. I fell in love with her nails when I first saw that post and knew I wanted to recreate it except I didn't have any of her polishes, or even any that came close.

Until last week, I was at Walmart and lo and behold they have a big new Sinful Colors display up. AND IT HAD CINDERELLA IN IT! I've looked for it since it came out. Along with Cinderella, I picked up Glass Pink, which looks like her pink sister, and Gorgeous. You guys coulda guessed that I wouldn't have just bought 1 right? ;]

I used:
Sinful Colors - Cinderella
Sinful Colors - Glass Pink
Santee - Moon Light Glitter
Love & Beauty - Bubblegum

TIP: If you're using a shape glitter with stars or hearts or something, here's a trick I learned doing these nails. Use the polish brush to grab the stars and a toothpick to fish it out and apply on your nail. If you need more stars, close your bottle of polish and shake it, then turn it upside down and shake it again. When you open it up, there should be more stars on the brush to fish out.

TRUST ME. This way is easier. It was taking me so long to get stars, I thought by the time I'd be done the iPhone 10s would be out and dinosaurs would somehow have come back. Just be careful to not let go of the bottle when you're shaking it, cause it will fly out of your hands. And if you're like me, you will do these at 2am and your mom will comment that it was so loud it sounded like a bomb. Indeed.

Have any of you ever tried out a jelly sandwich? I'm excited to try more!

Happy 4th Of July!

Happy 4th of July guys! How was your 4th? Mine was pretty awesome! First off, I'm excited to say I was featured as Tuesday's Newbie over at *Tanesha Marie* ! Check it out and check out her other posts while you're at it, you won't be disappointed.

Secondly, I got to spend the day with my cousin aka one of my favorite people ever. I found out she's interested in photography so we had a mini photo shoot in my aunt's yard and um yea, I was totally impressed! I will have those pics up soon but for now here's my mani that I wore for the 4th.

I decided to do some red, white, and blue skittles. This is another mani that I really really liked. And by that I mean you get picspam. My cousin told me my blog needs more pictures because people like pictures sooo this post will be very likeable haha.

I used:
Wet N' Wild Wild Shine - French White Creme
Revlon - Royal
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Brisk Blue
Sinful Colors - Ruby Ruby
Sinful Colors - Hottie
Sally Hansen Crackle - Snow Blast
Santee - Moon Light Glitter

Hope you like it as much as I did. I realize it isn't the 4th anymore but every good 4th of July goes on into the 5th of July, right? Right!

Happy Hunger Games! Part 1.

Hey guys! On Friday I went to go see The Hunger Games with my cousin. Earlier this month I read the first book, gave it to my cousin, got her into it and she decided we needed to go see the movie lol. By the time the movie opened, both of us had already read all 3 books. It was so much fun! I'm glad she made plans for us to see it. I've never gone to see a movie on opening day before, and it was funny hearing all the hardcore fans screaming, ooh-ing, ahh-ing, and aww-ing throughout it.

For my mani that day, I had to go with the stand-by: flames. The book even says Katniss has flames painted on her nails. If it's good enough for Katniss & Cinna, who am I to disagree?

I added red, orange and gold glitter to make it look like sparks flying. High five if you're now singing that Taylor Swift song in your head. There's a lot of pictures, with flash and without, and even some blurred to show off the sparkles. I just loved this manicure!

I used:
Wet N' Wild - Black Creme
For the base flames: L.A. Girl  Disco Brites - Psychedelic
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Mango Motion
Sinful Colors - Ruby Ruby
For the glitter: Love and Beauty - Red
Pumpkin Polishes Orange Glitter
Santee - Copper Kiss Glitter

Part 2 coming right up! I've got a FOTD, OOTD, andddd a Hunger Games rap video? Stay tuned!

Pink & Blue

How do you save a mani when you can't do a full new mani but you want to cover your nails anyways? Oh and you don't wanna use your original color and just cover with that because it's too sheer and will take too many coats? You pick other colors and cover whatever isn't covered! AND THEN ADD GLITTER!

These kinda reminded me to Red Bull cans.

For the original mani I used:
Sinful Colors - Bianca
Santee - Pink Speckle

Then covered with:
Revlon - Royal
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Brisk Blue
Pure Ice - Strapless

Go Shawty, It's Your Birthday!

Hey guys! My birthday was last week so I decided to try painting cupcakes on my nails. I really liked how these turned out.

Blurred so you can see how shiny it is!

Santee - Light Nude
Santee - Base Coat
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Mint Sprint (cupcake cup)
Claire's - Snowball (cupcake frosting)
Love & Beauty - Red (cherry)
Santee - Pink Speckle (used over nude nail and white frosting)

I love how Pink Speckle toned down how stark the white looked. It's this pretty pink base with both small round and bar silver glitter. The bars looked like sprinkles! <3 it!

This is the first bday mani. I've got plans to celebrate with my cousins soon, so I might try to do some other fun nail art. Hey I'm happy Slaughterhouse officially signed with Shady Records last week too. I told ya, I'm into hip hop, good lyrical hip hop. That plus all the nice texts and messages I got from friends and family made my week!

Merry Christmas!

Here is the long overdue Christmas mani. I call this one "the little mani that could" because I think I rocked the red and green tips for most of December, then added Milani Gems on the thumbs to try it out, then finally put red & green glitter polish from Santee on Christmas morning.





Love & Beauty - Red (red tips)
Love & Beauty - Teal (green tips)
Milani - Gems (thumbs)
Santee - Peacock Green Glitter (above red tips)
Santee - Fuchsia Glitter (above green tips)

These Love & Beauty polishes have no names on the bottle but there's a name on the price tag. Red is more of a sheer red jelly with red glitter in it. Teal is more of a dark green with shimmer.

This Christmas was really fun, but the night before was hectic. Waiting till Christmas Eve to start your wrapping ain't a good idea. Then I baked cookies too, but didn't get any pics of them. Oh well, at least everything worth it cause we all had fun!