Venturing into Gels and Acrylics!

Truth be told, I wrote this up months ago, so you can see my level of procrastination. hah

Oh hey guys!! I'm back(ish). Life's been crazy, and I've been quite uninspired in all artistic aspects of my life, including nails. Also my nails have been breaking like crazy and are nubs, hence why I decided to try the whole acrylic tips thing. From what I've read the soak off gels, are the least damaging to the nails as well. Hopefully when they grow out a little I can ditch the tips and just stick with some gel, so these babies don't keep breaking on me.

Here's the results of  my first attempt at venturing into soak gels with acrylic tips. I think it came out decent, but I have a long way to go!

• Acrylic tips
• IBD Dehydrate 
• IBD Clear gel
• IBD Builder gel
• ECO Soak Off Gel Color in Bare Foot Pink (2 coats I believe)
• Clear gel mixed with some AC Moore glitter, trying to make it as flat as possible
• Another thin coat of Clear 
• For the leopard spots just a no name Hot Topic polish and some black stripping polish 
• Topped it all off with a coat of the IBD UV Top Coat. I found you can use regular polish on top of the gels, with the UV Top Coat, and it lasts pretty much as long as the nails last, with maybe just a little cracking of the polish. 

My thoughts:
Truth be told these were a little thick, but after a few days I got used to them. The glitter on in the tips is a little messy.

I used the IBD Soak Off Gel System, (bought it here, http://www.8ty8beauty.com/uv-gels/uv-gels.htm, as I've said before, I love these guys!) for these. It's a great starter kit for gels!

One last nautical themed nail..

I really had to get in a nautical nail post before the end of the Summer! I love the whole nautical theme, partly because it meshes so well with rockabilly/pinup style, which I have somewhat of an obsession with. I don't necessarily dress like it...I mean I would say my style meshes multiple genres.. I wear bows in my hair, have piercings, funky colored hair, vary from wearing cute little dresses to jeans, t-shirts and Converse. Sooo.. yeah. hah

I digress, back to nails again.

Ignore the huge chunk out of my middle finger..

The anchor could be a little less messy.. meh...

*I'll add the polish names a little later, just wanted to get this post up*

So many nails, so little time. *Warning-Hella images*

Seeing as how I haven't posted in so long, I figured I'd make it for lost time with this massive post. Some of these nails I just did for fun, and one wheel I actually used for a party that I painted nails at. Are you ready for this? Take a deep breath!.....

And, go!

Complete with a lovely view of my couch and cell phone.

First up, we have some designs I hand painted, using nail polish and various nail art brushes and paint brushes.

1: Orly Ancient Jade
Flowers- Random white polish, Centers-OPI DS Passion
2: China Glaze Something Sweet
Tips-WnW Lavender Creme
3: WnW Lavender Creme
Tips-CG Electric Pineapple
Seeds/Highlights-Black & White Striping Polish
4: ????
Tips- Milani Fresh Teal; Random glitter polish

Leopard explosion!! <3333!

All done with the Konad M57, and Sinful Colors Black on Black (unless otherwise stated)
5: Orly Luxe
6: Finger Paints Don't Make a Scene, Stamp-???
7: Milani Freh Teal; Spots-Milani Cyberspace
8: WnW Lavender Creme; Spots- OPI DS Passion
9: Color Club The Lime Starts Here, Spots-Color Club Ultra-Astral
10: Estee Lauder Cool Lilac, Spots- Color Club Fashion Addict

NUDES!!! 
hehe
Color- Mabelline Express Finish Blushing Bride
Dare I say my favorite sheer nude?!
11: Random White Polish, Random holo gold glitter (that is MIA right now)
12: Stamp-Konad Special Polish in white
Konad M26
Pink Rhinestones

Some more hand-painted designs I did, I think I got the design from the Wah Nails site, which is great for inspiration!
Both done with a black polish and paint brushes.
13: Color Club You Got a Soul
14: Color Club I always Get my Man-darian

I <3 the shit out of neons, I really need to get more in before the Summer is over!

Both using Finger Paints Don't Make a Scene as a base. 

15: Used a pink feather I got from ACMoore, attached with a layer of T/C, trimmed the excess, and then did two layers of T/C on top. I love this but it's oh so very un-vegan of me.. I already could hear the crap I would get from my friends if I wore this.. I'll probably do it anyway. ha

16: Outlined heart with pink/purple striping polish, filled in heart with T/C and sprinkled glitter. Topped with two coats of T/c of course.

Attempt at sandwiching, all with a layer of color, topped with WnW Party of Five Glitters, then topped with the color again.

17: Oke Doke Hot Tomato

18: Fingers Paints lost the the name ha

19: NYC Luxury Lime Creme

20: City Color No Name pink jelly

21: City Color No Name

Experiments in Mattifying and Glitters

22:Milani Fresh Teal; Topped with WnW Party of Five Glitters; Matted with Esssie Matte About You

23: The Above without Matte

24: Wnw Ebony Hates Chris; Topped with Pure Ice Busted; Matted with Essie Matte About you

25: The above without matte

26: WnW Ebony Hates Chris; Topped with Pure Ice Spit Fire and Pure Ice Cheatin

The black base with Busted on top is so freakin' pretty, you can somewhat see the duo chrome effect here. When it's matted, it takes on a whole other look.

All using WnW Ebondy Hates Chris as a base
27: Topped with Pure Ice Spit Fire and Pure Ice Cheatin; Matted with Essie Matte About You
28: Topped with Pure Ice Spit Fire
29: Topped with Cheatin
30: Topped with WnW Party of Five Glitters
31: Topped with WnW Party of Five Glitters; Matted with Essie Matte About You

I LOVED all of these SOOO much! But then again I have a serious addiction to black polish and glitter in genral, so combine the two, and it's game over! I thought 27 looked especially awesome when matted, it reminds me of an gallaxy you'd see on the Hubbell telescope. I'm definitely going to be painting at least one of these on my nails ASAP.

Well that's it everyone, and boy was that rough.. my hands are seriously cramping from typing so much right now. hah Hope you all enjoyed it! 

"Patriotic" Nails, and a Guest Aperance

So those that know me, know I'm not exactly ehh patriotic, but I had this great idea for these nails. When I get a creative idea I'll be damned if anything will stand in my way! So my mom is always begging me to do my nails (literally begging, at least once a week hah), so I forced her to wear this for a few days. Well I didn't force, she was actually really happy with it..But anyway that's how these nails were born.

Oh and I did these a few days ago, but just took the photos today, so ignore the tip wear. 

You can kind of see the holo in the gold glitter here

What I Used:

Color: Orly Star of Bombay

Stripes: Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in White

Tips: Sinful Colors Gogo Girl

         China Glaze Cleopatra

I FINALLY Graduated!!!

It's been a long 8 years!.. and you would think being in college 8 years I'd be getting my masters. Nope. Just a good 'ol Bachelors. Which maybe 8 years ago would be fine, but in this horrible economy, and with my horrible major (horrible in the sense of actually getting a job easily), it's looking like grad school is going to be in my near future. Of course I wouldn't mind that, in fact I always wanted to go to grad school... but I'm beyond broke! Ok, this rant needs to be over now. hah Sorry about that..
So my nails..

Sorry for this horrible picture, my mom took it on the train, on my
way to graduation. ha

This was my first time using an actual nail art pen, and I can definitely use more practice. It works wonders for doing lettering though! The picture below is of my right hand, which came out OK. I was worried it wouldn't even be readable, because I am dreadful at writing with my left hand.

OK, so I wasn't a big fan of my school, FIT.. clearly. hah I was just happy to be out. I think my friends and classmates got a laugh out of these nails too. 

I didn't realize how horrible of a clean up job I did on my nails (I had a million things on my mind)... eww. Sorry for that. I was running super late, as usual, and wound up just finishing my mom's nails at 11 the night before graduation (which was the next morning at 9am!! wtf?@?!).

YAY for Class of 2011!!
Congrats to everyone else who graduated this year! It feels so good to be able to breathe again! My life was such INSANITY this last semester! I actually have the time to update my blog much more frequently now, horrah!

...now to find a job.

What I used:

Color: China Glaze Pink Voltage

Tips: Sinful Colors Black on Black

with Wet 'n Wild Party of Five Glitters

Nail Art: Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen