Earth Nails

Hi there! Back to some seriousness after my last post. So, a while back (end of March) I went to see The Host with my friend. And of course, I love to have an occasion to paint my nails! So, if you've read the book, yay! You'll understand why I painted what I did. If not, then basically here's this: The main characters are Wanderer and Melanie. They're in the same body. Wanderer is a pretty alien worm called a Soul. The Souls have taken over Earth and the humans, as well as other planets and species. They're not evil though. Anyway, the Souls can choose what planet they want to live on, and *SPOILER* Wanderer (or Wanda) decides to stay on Earth, because it's her home and she belongs there. Basically. So I painted Earth nails!

(taken with my iPhone because I was in a hurry)

So for my base color, I used a nameless BonBon polish. I just wanted a subtle, shimmery blue. The only other shimmery dark blue I have is China Glaze Frostbite, and that was just waaaay too bright. Then I used a dotting tool and painted random land shapes (some of them do resemble actual country shapes, but I didn't look at a map or anything) with Sinful Colors Happy Ending. These were so shimmery, and perfect for The Host premier without being too difficult. :) 

So, if you haven't read The Host, go read it! It was a great book, really unique. I was very surprised that Stephanie Meyer wrote a really quality book, but then the movie sucked so bad. No offense if you liked it! But it really was awful. At least I had nice nails and a good meal date with my friend to make it suck less, haha. Anyway, thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

MY POLISH IS RADIOACTIVE

Hey there! :D Sorry, this isn't a design or anything. I was just testing some polish that I had recently gotten. And no, my polish isn't actually radioactive. But I did try to take a picture of China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy with my iPhone, and this is the result:

Goodness, that's bright! But seriously, it looks radioactive! Anyway, I'll let you get back to your regularly scheduled blogging. Thanks for reading, have a nice day, and happy painting! :)

Turquoise and Gold Flower Nails

Hi there! See a trend yet? I really like turquoise. I honestly didn't realize how much I wear it until I go back and see just how many posts I have on here with turquoise nail polish. Oops! In the future I'll try to make it a little different! Anyway, this is a basic stamped design, but it is sooooooo pretty. I LOVED this design. I'd do it again any day.

(indoors, natural lighting)

Isn't it pretty?? Gah, I just loved it. For my base color, I used China Glaze Custom Kicks. It was perfect for this design because it has a very subtle gold shimmer in it. I painted two coats of Custom Kicks on all of my nails except for my ring finger, on which I painted two coats of Ulta High Roller. I also used High Roller to stamp the swirly flower design, which is from MASH image plate Mash-40. I absolutely loved how this turned out (except for the bubbles you can plainly see on my ring finger caused by my top coat), but I do think it would have looked much better if I had some chunky gold glitter to put over my ring finger. I apparently don't own any. Welp! I liked it anyway. And I hope you enjoy this too! You don't have to have this specific stamp to replicate this design. I think it would look equally as nice with just a swirly delicate design. It's up to you! Either way, this color combination is unbeatable. So thanks for reading, have a good day, and happy painting! :)

Blurple and Mint Water Marble

Heeeeeeeeeeey guuuurl how you been? Haha, kidding. Anyway, hey there! Today I have a water marble for you! Don't get excited, I hardly ever do water marble designs. I have tried and tried again, but I think I just have to face it... I suck at water marbling. This design turned out great (in my opinion) but it took a lot of tries and a lot of wasted polish. So no thanks, I don't think I'll be attempting this again. But it does look nice!

(indoors, under a lamp)

(indoors, better lighting - this is more accurate to the colors)

I had been aching to use these colors for a while, but I couldn't decide which one I wanted to wear more. So I used both! I used China Glaze Fancy Pants and China Glaze Keep Calm Paint On. So lovely together! The only problem is that both of these polishes are super thick. I don't know if it's just my bottle, or if that's just the formula, but that's what caused the weird streaks in the marble.; I actually really liked them, but I've never seen polish do that before. But that's basically it! It was really nice for spring. So let me know if you try this out, I'd love to see it! Thanks for reading, have a good day, and happy painting! :)

Nautical Nails

Hey there! :) So for this post I have some nautical nails for you! I know it's been done a lot, but I reeeeally love the nautical trend. Love it. So here's my not-so-special take on it:

(indoors)

This design is completely hand painted. For my base color, I used two coats of China Glaze First Mate and then everything else is done with acrylic paints, because they're way easier to work with. I used a white for the horizontal stripes on my index, middle, and pinky fingers, as well as the anchors on my ring finger and thumb. For a nice accent, I used antique gold acrylic paint (it's not actually antique, that's just the color) and did a French tip on my ring finger and thumb, as well as one off-center vertical stripe on my other fingers. It looked awesome! It's perfect for short nails and long nails alike. 

(I have teeny tiny nails, so I used a super tiny brush for these anchors. And loooots of patience.)

(I don't know why that one white stripe randomly cracked...)

Well, I hope you like this one! It's pretty simple, but classy. If you have a hard time hand-painting things, you can skip the anchors and this would still look nice. Maybe try a red accent nail with some glitter! Anyway, let me know if you try it out! Thanks so much for reading, have a good day, and happy painting! :)

Turquoise and Silver Glitter Nails

Hey there! This is going to be an exciting post. So, sometimes I like to just have plain nails (as close to plain as I can get, anyway), and this is what I ended up with:

(natural light, indoors)

This is a pretty normal design for me, but it was nice. The combination of a creme color and a glitter polish as an accent nail can be used for any colors you want. I, of course, used a turquoise and silver glitter. The turquoise is China Glaze For Audrey (it's a really popular polish - but my bottle's formula is gross and goopy, so I don't use it often). And for the silver glitter, I used a base coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City and then one coat of Essie Set In Stones. I feel like this also would have looked very nice without the glitter, but I needed a little bit of glam. 

I reeeeaally liked this manicure, but then something happened. I was pulling my windows down, and one of my nails broke completely down to the skin. Needless to say, it hurt like rip. I had class early that morning, so I had no choice but to pack my nail clippers and a file in my bag and go hide out in the bathroom (really, I went and hid in a stall - it was so weird and I felt sceezy afterwards) to even them out. I didn't take a picture of the nail difference with just that broken nail (because I was in a bathroom stall and it was already weird enough), but I do have these:

(indoors, taken the night before)

(indoors, taken when I got home and repainted my nails)

(Other than the size of my nails, you can also see a huge difference in my cuticles - they're not as gross any more!)

So there you go, it also works on short nails! And I actually found I was waaaay happier with it on my shorter nails. I don't know why. But you can do it no matter what size your nails are. :) So I hope you enjoyed it, even though it's not that special. I liked it! 

Thanks for reading, have a nice day, and happy painting! :)