Little Ghostie Nails

Hi all! Here's my first Halloween design for this year. It's subtle and requires absolutely no work other than painting a base color and putting a sticker on. :)

I thought this sticker was absolutely adorable and it looked really great over a dark color! I thought the sticker was white, but it turned out to be slightly translucent. A fantastic surprise!

My base color is China Glaze Howl You Doin', which came out in their 2013 Halloween collection. It's a beautiful, deep plum base with orange and purple glitters in it. It definitely looks almost-black indoors, but you can see the glitter once you go outside and it's stunning. I decided it was just witchy enough to put the sticker over. :) The nail sticker came in a small Halloween pack that I got from Five Below. I don't have the packaging any more (my bad), but here's what they look like:

Surprisingly the sticker lasted for several days until I was ready to take that design off! Anyway, I hope you like it! There are more designs to come, and they are much more complex. Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

Story time!

Hey there! Yes, it's story time again. So, I had planned on keeping this blog updated and whatnot, blah blah blah. But right after I said that, I found out that my SD card slot on my computer decided to stop working. After many fights and home remedies with the SD card slot, I have decided that it's never going to work again ever. So. That means that I can't get the pictures off my camera, because there's no way for me to plug it directly into my computer. And yes, I'm planning on getting a card adapter, since my USB ports work just fine. Unfortunately in the meantime, that meant that I just couldn't post since there was no way for me to get my pictures. I had accepted this fact up until now, because it's October. And you know how much I love my Halloween nails. Plus, my birthday is in a week, and I just need to start posting again!

My solution for this problem is that I will be posting several Halloween designs, but the only other camera I have is my iPhone 5S. Sigh. So the pictures won't be the best, but they're better than no pictures? I hope? I've already worn a few Halloween designs, so I'm going to be posting them tonight and in the next few days. Since my birthday is in a week, hopefully I'll get some money for a card adapter and we can return to our regularly scheduled blogging. :)

Thanks so much for reading and keep an eye out for the Halloween designs! Have a great day and happy painting! :)

- Faith

Struck By Lightning Nails

Hi there! I have a really cool design for you today! It's one of my favorites that I've ever done! :) It's based on the movie/book Struck by Lightning by Chris Colfer. If you haven't seen the movie, it's incredible. Do yourself a favor and watch it. It's a lovely film, and the book is just as amazing. Chris Colfer is probably one of the most talented men of our time, and I'm always eager to support him. So I painted my nails, inspired by his wonderful book!

Woo! I love these so much. I think I did a pretty good job of getting the images from the book and the movie right. :) Dare I even say they're pretty cute as a back to school design? Ha!

Thumb: Sinful Colors Snow Me White (base color), Sinful Colors Soul Mate (pink stripe on the side), China Glaze Secret Peri-Wink-le (blue horizontal stripes), Sally Hansen Mello Yellow (lightning), and black acrylic paint for the words.

Index: Sally Hansen Mello Yellow (base), Sally Hansen Celeb City (silver stripe), Sinful Colors Soul Mate (eraser tip), and black acrylic paint.

Middle: China Glaze Starboard (base), and white acrylic paint.

Ring: China Glaze Bahamian Escape (base), Sally Hansen Mello Yellow (lightning), and white acrylic paint.

Pinky: China Glaze Secret Peri-Wink-le (base) and black acrylic paint.

Topcoats: Seche Vite (glossy) and Essie Matte About You (matte)

I hope you like them as much as I do! I also hope you check out Struck By Lightning and the book that goes with it, because Chris Colfer deserves it and his work truly is incredible. Thanks so much for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

Back again... and Mermaid nails! :)

Hello everyone! It's been a looooooooooong time. An indecent amount of time. And for that, I am so sorry. Really, I tried to keep up with it, but I've had some mental health problems over the summer (after the crazy semester from hell at school), and I just kind of... stopped caring about my nails. I did still keep them mostly painted, but I've neglected my cuticles and I didn't do any nail art whatsoever. This is something that I never wanted to happen, ever. I love painting my nails and blogging with you guys, and I was always afraid that I would just stop one day and not start back up again. Well, after a long summer and some time to get back up on the metaphorical horse, I'm back! Another semester in college is going to be starting for me next week, and I decided it was time to nip this little mood in the bud and get back into the groove of things. :) So. I have a few more things to say and then I'll show you some mermaid nails! :)

1) If you have been keeping track of my 31 Day Nail Art Challenge posts, I am sorry to say that I'm not going to be continuing that. It honestly was a mistake of me to try and take that on, because I just wasn't that dedicated to it from the get-go. That being said, I have a few designs in a folder on my computer that I did complete for the challenge, but never posted. So I'll post those, but they won't be part of the challenge, because maaaaan. Forget that challenge *z-snap*.
2) And this brings me to my next point. I have several designs that I never posted from back in March-May. I will probably post some of those, because I like them and they're still nice designs... they're just a few months old, haha. So you will probably see those for the next few posts before any actually recent designs.
3) And finally, as you all know, I obviously have a problem with how long my posts are. I talk too much. As such, I'm going to try and keep them AS CONDENSED AS POSSIBLE in the future. For real. For designs, I might just say what polishes/stamps/paints I use and maybe elaborate a teeny tiny bit (an example will be below for the mermaid design). For reviews of polishes (such as indie polishes and swatches and things like that), those will be longer. But I honestly have to get a grip on the length of my posts, it's ridiculous.

With that, I just want to thank all of you for being patient with me, and for being amazing in general. :) You're wonderful and I am excited to come back to blogging because you all make it fun! And now, on to the nail art~~~~~~~~~ WOOOSH

Meeeermaaaaiiidssssss! I love mermaids, I think they're great. And they're the perfect summer manicure!

Base color: China Glaze Keep Calm, Paint On

Stamp colors: (gradient - from cuticle to nail tip) China Glaze Fancy Pants, Spontaneous, and Tart-y for the Party

Stamp: Mash Stamp Plate 39

Glitter: Orly Mermaid Tale

I really like for the scales to stand out, so I picked Keep Calm, Paint On as my base color because it's very pale and accepts other colors well. And the scales are all colors that look great together. The whole look is very shimmery and the glitter (only painted around the edges) gives a lovely rainbow pop on your nails. It's a subtle design but it's very eye catching! :) I hope you like it as much as I do!

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns, and let me know what you think of the new way of doing these posts. As in, do you prefer me to type everything out and keep my posts longer, or would you prefer me to list my supplies and keep it simple? I'd love to here from you about this. I just want to thank you again so much for reading, it absolutely means the world to me! Have a great day, and happy painting! :)

Belated Valentine's Day 2014 Nails - Gold Heart Studs

Hey everyone! So, I think the title of this post says it all, right? No need to explain? No...? Well, basically this week has been my "homework from hell" week. Coupled with last week, which was ANOTHER snow week here in Georgia. It's kind of scary, to be honest. It was below freezing every day last week and now it's 70 degrees out. The weather is doing weird things. So, because of the crazy weeks, I did not get to paint my nails for Valentine's Day (or as I fondly refer to it, Singles Awareness Day) until the 14th! And then I went out with my friends and my mom and watched Winter's Tale in theaters (can you say best holiday ever? Colin Farrell and Russell Crowe in the same movie? Mmmmm yes indeed) and then I haven't been able to post my manicure all week because of the homework from hell. But they're here now, so don't worry. I'm afraid they might not have been worth the wait, haha.

So for my base color, I used China Glaze Ahoy!, which is one of my absolute favorite CG polishes ever. You may not be able to tell in my photos (taken sans light box because I was in a hurry), but I think it's extremely flattering on my skin tone and it's just such a rich, glistening pink. I love it more than any other pink in my collection, hands down. I then paired it with some big (well, they were big on my teeny tiny baby nails, but they're probably medium sized for other people) gold heart studs that I got from Five Below. I had to bend the studs so they would sit flat on my nails, but they still ended up falling off within two days. But that was probably because I didn't bend them enough. Thankfully, I didn't lose them and they're still in good shape, so I can probably reuse them! :)

So I know this was super simple and a week late, but I still hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

KBShimmer "Clown Puke" Swatch

Alrighty, another indie! KBShimmer Clown Puke. Woohoo! I LOVE THIS ONE. So much. It was on my list of polishes that I need for a very long time. It's perfect in every way - So I'm super excited to show you my swatch! You know the drill by now, I'll show you the swatch first and then talk more about the polish afterward. :)

This is one perfect coat of Clown Puke over two coats of Essie Mint Candy Apple (I also tried it over my universal glitter base color, OPI Gargantuan Green Grape, and I didn't like it as much! So MCA it is.) This indie is loaded with glitter of every size in every shape - hex, square, circle, stars, hearts, you name it! And they're in every color!! My favorite glitters were the giant circle glitters, which you can just barely see one on my thumb in the first picture. It's so good. And like I said, this is one coat. It's so full of glitter. I had to do minimal placing of glitters as well, they just kind of fell where I wanted them to go. And the formula is fantastic, of course. Despite the sheer magnitude of glitter in this polish, it isn't thick at all. So basically, I give it a 10/10, would wear over and over again because it's perfect and beautiful.

I received this polish for Christmas, so my opinion is honest and hopefully it convinced you that you need this polish. Everyone needs it, for real. And if you feel that you need it as badly as I did, you can purchase it on KBShimmer's Etsy shop and their website.

So I hope you enjoyed! Thanks so much for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

Subtle Purple Filigree Stamping

Hey there! I feel like I'm posting so much right now, even though I'm not. It's because we've literally had the whole week off from classes due to the lovely weather right now - The joys of living in Georgia. So I get four snow days while the state shuts down. In all seriousness, we are just not equipped to handle this weather, and the ice is terrible still. So we have our reasons for freaking out.

So since the weather is so cruddy, I've got a really subtle, dark design for you. But hopefully this design is not cruddy. ;)

(with flash)

So for this design I started with two coats of China Glaze Up All Night (this color has recently found its way into my collection, and it is STUNNING) and then I stamped the filigree stamp from Cheeky's Jumbo Plate #8, the Princess Charming plate, with China Glaze Love's a Beach. That polish is a neon shimmer polish, but it's sheer enough that it made the stamp look purple over the blue! It was very subtle, which I LOVE. I love how the slightly different stamp shade is just visible enough to pique someone's interest, and then they have to look closely to see it, and I just love it. Is that conceited of me? Pffft, nah. 

So that's it! It was super simple, and I hope you like it! Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)