Spring is here!

The weather is getting warmer! Time that your nails matched :)

Get out there and dance, dance, dance!

Mardi Gras Nails

I decided to get into the Mardi Gras spirit last week... if only with my nails. I realized I hadn't taken a picture yet, and they were starting to chip, but I didn't get a great picture. I put the yellow on first (mostly in the middle, but didn't mind if it spread) and then did the purple on the left and a gorgeous dark green that my friend had on the right. It still just looked a bit too boring for Mardi Gras, so I used a toothpick to add a line of gold between the yellow and green, and then my favorite dark purple sparkle to do a line between the purple and yellow. Could have been cleaner, but I think it worked out pretty well.

<3 Laura <3

Been so loooong

My nails have been empty for ages!! Time to get back in the game.

Triangles

Got some nail polish on sale after Christmas that was meant for stocking stuffers. Set of 4 L.A. Polish colors- on sale for $1.50... I'll take it!
Felt like doing something relatively simple, so here we are. Of course, I did this the Thursday before Valentines day, and didn't realize until today I should have taken advantage of the heart theme... Oh well, at least they've got some red? Not that it matters, I just enjoy themed nails. Can you tell I miss college with theme parties ever few weekends?  Anyway, here are my theme-less but nice nails:

 

My hand looks kind of funky in this picture... but I decided I wanted to get both hands in it. Which I did by balancing my phone on a pile of books to get it high enough, and using the 10 second timer mode to get my hands positioned. Which is why they're not arranged that perfectly, but are they ever, really? I need to figure out the best way to do this nail photography... that doesn't involve a light box, that just seems like too much work.

<3 Laura <3

P.S. Sophie's having some technical difficulties posting pictures, but I hear she's got a post coming soon!

Fun split

I was looking for ideas of what to do with my nails and found this tutorial:
Great tutorial!

As often is the case, it didn't go just the way I intended, (and certainly not the same as the tutorial) but I quite like how it turned out. More of a classy look than I sometimes have :)
I do have to ask... has anyone used "manicure stencils" succesfully? I find that they always peel pain off my nails. Maybe I need to really wait hours before the first coat is dry? Whatever it is, I just haven't mastered it-just did this by freehand (which is why it isn't nice and curvy like it's supposed to be...)

Two pictures, just so you can be sure to get a good view. 

<3 Laura <3

***Purple Sparkle***

My sister got me these awesome sparkly colors: Zoya pixie dust, in a purple, black, silver and blue. I've been wanting to do something fun with them, and this week I tried something. I only used 2 this time, but I'll do more. I started with a bright purple, knowing it wouldn't be that visible by the end. On the bottom third I used this polish I got ages ago, but haven't been that happy with until now. It's called Butter London, and the color is The Black Knight. It seemed so pretty and sparkly in the bottle, but on the nails it just has made a sorta brownish mess of glitter. Over the purple though (especially with the others to contrast) it worked really well- and it's definitely good stuff to paint with. Expensive, but I want to get more of the brand. Then came a bit of the light purple Zoya in the middle, and silver on the top. I liked that the silver had a bunch of big glitters in it. Unfortunately covered a bit of the middle when I did the silver (and I think the top coat smudged some too) but overall I thought it had a pretty effect. Not quite as creative as I usually go, but I think it ended up quite elegant.

Gave you two views, just so you could appreciate the colors and effect.

<3 Laura <3

"Dino" Nails? Ok, alien frogs...

Well I found this youtube video with a tutorial to paint these adorable dinosaur nails:

Dino nails!  I decided to try it for myself!

It seems it was a little harder than I thought. But these are pretty cute alien frogs...! 

If anyone else wants to give it a try, I'd love to see what you come up with!

<3 Laura <3

Happy Die Hard Christmas!

A very happy Die Hard Christmas to you all.  

Now I have a machine gun.

Not that you can see it, but I tried to use cotton to make the hat there cool and somewhat three dimensional.  You can sort of tell in person, but it doesn't really fit the Die Hard theme...

Mother *Russia*

<3Laura<3

Winter is coming!

I haven't seen or read the game of thrones, but I believe winter is coming is someone's house words? Regardless, winter is indeed coming to Delaware. As I get colder outside, and attend holiday parties... Always nice to have some fun winter nails. Light blue on all, with hand drawn snowflake on thumb, white and silver crackle, some cool fluffy white and blue stuff on the middle, and white and silver dots on pinky. Fun but simple. Did the same on my right hand, though slightly less well.

Happy winter!!

<3Laura<3

COMIC!

Well, my husband is running Dialogue Free Comic Day, so I made a quick comic out of some old nail pictures to be included.  Here it is:

Very silly, and rough, but I had fun.  To see a bunch of other Dialogue Free Comics (that are much better!) go to http://dialoguefreecomicsday.wordpress.com/

<3 Laura <3

Thanksgiving(ish) nails

Well, I guess they're not really that thanksgiving-y, but I guess I was going for autumnal, and I think they work... I used this method:
From a cool blog
Which is something I've heard about but never really tried.  It worked pretty well, I think I took off a little too much from some mails, and they are a little too bare or thin, but it's a fun effect.  It feels bad though, because it seems like it wastes a lot of polish!  I'll probably experiment with it more another time.

<3 Laura <3

Fall polka dots

Just a simple polka dot pattern over a shiny brown- tried to do autumn colors. Nothing too exciting, I just needed something new.

<3 Laura<3

starry shimmers

These super easy and fun nails are just a light pink base with gold sparkles on top. The star gems were applied by using clear nail polish as adhesive.

Something fun

I've been meaning to redo mine for a couple weeks and Sophie's inspired me. Just a simple design over a new tan I got. I tend to always want to do more and more when I do a design like this, but I think I managed to keep it fairly minimal. Fun! I've also been learning how to post pictures via email from my phone so exciting! :)
<3 Laura <3

Back in polka dots

I've been away for far too long, but this freezing weather should act as a great reason to get back into nail art.

Sorry for slacking!

Melting French Tips

These were fun but the didn't last long.  I always have such a hard time finding white nail polish and this new stuff I was trying just basically wouldn't dry-which kind of defeats the purpose of nail polish in the first place ammaright...

This is Halloween!

Alright I know I'm still a little early, but it's Halloween season anyway.  Halloween nail art is maybe my favorite.  Which is why I did the 'ol different design on every nail this week.

The thumb is supposed to be a haunted house... it's not great, and the photo doesn't capture it perfectly, but I tried.  On the pinky I tried a fun sorta drape lines of gooey polish over dry pain after poking at it a while to make it gooey method to make it look like drops of blood or something.  Didn't work that well, but it's a tough technique, I have to play around with it more.  

I've been wanting to try the whole putting pictures from the newspaper on your nails technique for a while... and when it was getting late and I was tired, I decided to give it a try on my right hand.  It called for rubbing alcohol, which I didn't have, but I kept googling till I found someone who said I could use white rum- I bought some ages ago and it's been sitting in the pantry over a year (I'm not actually much of a drinker...)   Here is a description of the technique

I was actually planning on doing it for all of the nails, but it didn't really work on a few- including the thumb (supposed to be a mummy of some sort) but I decided it was good enough and I was tired.  the Day of the dead mask, and jack-o-lantern print worked pretty well, and I did a quick witch and then a pretty sloppy crossbones on the pinky.  What can I say, out of 10 original nails, I only feel great about 7 or 8.  If you're upset, come by and I'll give you some candy.  Or maybe just some candy corn nails like I did last week.  

Happy Halloween!

<3 Laura <3

Sparkle and Shine

So its been a long time for me since my last post.  The summer working at a summer camp lead to me painting my nails very little because the little ones would just promptly mess 'em up, but now I'm getting back to the routine.  And with that I present these golden beauties.

Classic Halloween nails...

Well I've known this was coming for a while, such classic and easy Halloween nails... Had some trouble because I assumed the yellow could go over the orange no problem, so I had to go back and clean up the orange before adding yellow... But all in all it worked pretty well!

<3 Laura <3

Cheesetober fest

Went to a "cheesetober fest" last weekend.  It was a little disappointing due to some crazy dietary restrictions I have to be on for health reasons... But still had fun nails and a fun day!

<3 Laura <3