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! 

Liquid Sand Nail Polish Review

I happened to be at Ulta today (BTW it was my first time in there, and OMG! I love this place! How have I not been here before?) Anyway, I saw the O.P.I. Liquid Sand Nail Polish. They had a little fake fingernail display and it looked neat. So I decided to purchase the mini sampler pack because I couldn't decide which color I wanted. Also, Mariah Carey was on the box looking all hott and I thought maybe if I get this nail polish I can look hott like Mariah (fat chance!).

Mini bottles of O.P.I Liquid Sand

I decided that since it's so close to Valentines day that I would try "The Impossible" which is the pink/reddish color.

The directions say to use a base coat and then apply two coats of the color. Do not use a top coat. Sweet! Even better - I don't have to wait for a top coat to dry. SOLD!

O.P.I. Liquids Sand in "The Impossible"

I was so impressed! The color didn't take long to try and it looked as cool as it looked on the fake fingernail thingy in the store. That rarely happens!

The color is really pretty, it's a pink with some red undertones. There is a lot of glitter in it, but it's not super sparkly. The coolest thing about the liquid sand polish is that it really looks like sand. It's matte, not shiny like other glitters. It has a cool texture and looks awesome in natural light. I am hoping the color lasts longer than regular polish.

My recommendation is to try it. Get the mini pack - it seems like a little bit of this polish will go a long way. Also the large bottles were $8 a piece at Ulta and the mini pack was only $12. I am cheap.. and I wanted to try multiple colors. Mini pack it is!

I can't wait to try some fun designs with the sand texture using regular polish and this polish! I will have to do another post when I have time to play.

Until next time.. ta ta my nail art addicts :)




Am I all sexy like Mariah Carey now?
Oh yeah, still rocking the sling from
my surgery.. that's hot!

OK fine, here's another more serious pic of what the polish looks like

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

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.

Easy Holiday Nail

I've been absent for a few weeks. The holidays have been coming and I've been busy. That's not an excuse not to post at least a nail idea.

So here is my easy holiday nail tutorial.

Step 1. Paint all over green.

Step 2. Use scotch tape (nail must be completely dry) and create a diagonal design.

Step 4. Paint red over exposed nail.

Make sure underneath color is completely dry before you put
tape on or it will ruin the effect.

Step 5: Remove tape and paint over with top coat.

I told you it was easy! Happy Holidays!

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 

Criss Cross Nails

Really easy and really cute!

OK did a manicure on a friend last night with the gel polish and decided to add a little bling to it. We did a silver ribbon and randomly criss crossed the ribbon on her different nails.

Do your normal color first. then before the top coat add the ribbons. Then top coat and you've got a little extra bling to you manicure!

Thanks Tiffany for being my hand model :)
We left the pinkies plain and crossed the rest. 

Bella's Vampire

For all you gel nail fanatics out there, I had to post my most recent gel manicure. This color was perfect because it's a deep blood red/purplish color and it's almost Halloween! The color is called Bella's Vampire. I have to admit I am a huge Twilight fan, but that's not why I bought the color. I bought it because it's a beautiful color.

It looks almost black in non-natural light. But when you go into the sun, or rooms with lots of natural light you can see the purple color start to come through.

I topped my ring fingers with a gold glitter for accent. If you are wanting instructions on how to do the gel manicure, go here.

Anyway, wanted to post my review on this color. Please excuse my messy cuticles. I was doing this manicure in room that was not well lit, thus I got color on the cuticles which I always try to avoid.

Enjoy!

Gel nail polish, Bella's Vampire topped with Vegas Nights -
Gelish Harmony brand

Easy Candy Corn Nails

In festive fashion, I have decided to post my candy corn nail tutorial. The one thing I don't like about most candy corn nail tutorials is the fact that the tip can get really thick. So I tried this one last October and it worked great. I also added a layer of gold glitter to give this some pizzazz!

This can be done with regular polish or the gel polish. I did mine with the gels. I had a bunch of neon colors, so I used my neon yellow and orange to make it stand out even more.

First things first; prep your nails as needed. (file, cuticle pusher, clip, etc)

Now, start with your base color. Some people like the white by the cuticle, I decided to have white tips to play off the French manicure.

Don't paint all the way up. Just 3/4 the way. I should have left more nail showing than I did. Because I didn't, it caused the white to show the yellow through just a tad. So don't go as far as as I show here.

The reason why I went 3/4 of the way up is so I don't have to do multiple layers of the orange.  This makes it faster and so it's not so thick.

Next stripe your orange. If you paint a stripe horizontal across your nails, it's much easier to get a straight line. It's OK if you get color on your fingertip. Use an orange stick to get anything that runs. Also make sure you don't have too much polish on your brush.



Now, repeat the above step with your last color.

If you want, top with a glitter.

Lastly, paint your top coat.

As you can see, they are not thick at all and super cute! You can do the same thing for the 4th of July with red, white, and blue!

Candy Corn nails with glitter. Easy and festive!