St Patty's Day Clover Manicure

Ayyy mi lads and lassies! It's that time of yer again....

Green beer, corned beef and cabbage, awful Irish accents, and lots of green! Whatever you do to celebrate  be safe and have fun!

In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day, I've added a special Clover Manicure just for you. Yes you! If you've seen or attempted my hearts manicures in the past, you will find this super easy as its just a few hearts connected.

Start by painting your nails as normal. I painted my nails green and left my ring finger a glittery gold color. This is the finger I will add my clover accent.

Once you've got your nails painted, on a piece of foil, put a small dollop of green polish.

Put small amount of polish on foil

Using a dotting tool (i got mine on amazon), create three sets of two dots next to each other. This will be the start of your leaves for the clover. I am doing three leaf clover. If you want to make a four leaf clover just make sure you have enough room.

You will want to use a medium sized dotting tool. If it's too big, the dots will run together. If the dotting tool is too small, you will not get the right size you need for the leafs.

Small dots next to each other to start the leaves

Now, put a large dot in the middle of your smaller sets of two dots.

Add large dot in middle

Start to blend all the circles together using the smaller end of your dotting tool. You don't necessarily need to add any polish, just blend the dots to look like a clover.

Blend circles together

Lastly, add a stem at the bottom of the clover. I did this with the small end of the dotting tool. 

Last step: add stem

Here is the finished product. It's pretty easy try it a few times on the foil if you want to practice before you try it on your nails. Add more accents or add some dots around the clover for something a little different. If you have black polish and a thin nail brush, feel free to outline the clover with black polish!

Now go out there and drink lots of beer, eat lots of food, and show off your new manicure! 

Pink Zebra Nail

Make sure to let each coat dry before moving onto the
next step

Tried one on my own this time. It was actually pretty easy, just a little time consuming. I haven't tried this with the gel polish yet, this is with regular polish.

~ Start by painting a base coat
~ Paint nail with a bright pink
~ Using a light pink, paint a diagonal tip
~ Using black polish, paint zebra lines (use a really thin nail brush and paint little squiggles)
~ Paint a silver accent across the nail where the light pink and dark pink meet
~ Paint top coat

Use a thin nail brush for zebra stripes and silver stripes

Ladybug Nails

I have seen these cute little bugs all over Pinterest and nail blogs for awhile. So today I finally decided to paint these gals on my fingers. I used the instructions found in the DIY Nail Art book by Catherine Rodgers as a baseline, but added my own things here and there.

I started by painting my nails red.

Next drew a line down the center of each nail with black polish.

Then drew a small half circle kind of shape at the base of each nail.

Then, I filled in each half circle with black polish.

I used a dotting tool and dotted the spots on the lady bugs.

Lastly, I used the same dotting tool to add the eyes.

I love the way they turned out! I will be doing these again.

Lady bug nail art

New Book = New Nails!

I got a book for Christmas and I love it! It's called DIY Nail Art. The next day I tried one of the ideas in the book, and I loved it.

I am going to try a lot of the ideas and post them on here. I first want to give credit to the book and the author. 'DIY Nail Art' by Catherine Rodgers. I am not creative enough to come up with some of these on my own so check out her book. You can find it on amazon here.

Here is the first one I tried. It looked like it was going to be super complicated but it was actually very easy. Like the author states in the book, the biggest thing is to ensure you make sure each coat completely dries.

Turned out great! I was having a little trouble with the stripes, but I think that will come with time. I will be trying another one very soon.

Pink Cheetah nails with silver Zebra stripes over black.

Ho Ho Holiday Nails #2

This one was easy. Most of my nail posts are... because I am not too good at this yet and anything super fancy doesn't seem to turn out!

I did red then topped it with gold. Then I did a green tip.

Easy and cute!

I did the red and gold with gel nail polish
then a few days later added the green tips with
regular polish so I could take it off
if I got bored of it.

Cute Wedding Gel Nail Idea

Simple, cute, and elegant. If you want something a little different than french tips, this is a cute idea. Try doing a gel polish for your wedding nail instead of acrylic. That way you won't have to get used to the longer nails, and this can give you a more natural look but give you the lasting chip free protection!

Gelish Harmony color - Princess Tiara with waterfiled on ring finger 

Wall Paint - Staggered Squares

Have some fun with rooms that you want to decorate but don't have a lot of money.

Paint is an easy way to spruce up a room without having to figure out decor etc. I am not the best with decorations as I find clutter to be annoying so I tend to stick with simple designs. But I was tired of just doing a one color accent wall. I decided to try something a little different. Because I used multiple colors, I did not need a full gallon of each paint. I went with the smaller cans to save money.

Start with a stencil. I used a piece of cardboard. Mark your squares back to back. Then start with your first staggered color (for the design you see below I used 4 colors) and use painters tape to mark those boxes. Paint color 1. Once you are done with all coats for color 1, repeat the next steps for color 2 and so on.

The most important part of this is the color set up. To make it easier for me, I marked each square with what the color was supposed to be to help keep the pattern.

Line 1 (starting at ceiling):  white, grey, purple, blue, white, grey, purple, blue...
Line 2 (next line down from ceiling): grey, purple, blue, white, grey, purple, blue, white...
Line 3: purple, blue, white, grey, purple, blue, white, grey....
Line 4: blue, white, grey, purple, blue, white, grey, purple...

This is how you get the staggering color design. Super easy and cheap. Just takes some time and you'll get something a bit different than the normal accent wall. Try different colors and use a larger square or smaller square depending on the space.

Staggered Squares Wall design