52 Week Challenge: Half-Moon

Today you guys get to see the mani I'm actually wearing!... like right now, at this very moment. Are you all excited?! I know I am!.. </unnecessary sarcasm>

Ok I'm going to be honest, I suck at doing half moon manis. I guess they're cute if done right, so maybe I just need practice. Also decided to break out the Crackle polishes today! Underneath all those cracks are my horrible failed first attempt at magnetic polish, something else I'm going to have to practice with. hah

 I thought this was ok, but decided to get really fancy and break out the matte top coat too!

 I mattified everything except for the half moon, glittery part because, of course, I wanted to keep the bling!

What I used:
Base Coat: China Glaze Magnetix Attraction
Crackle: China Glaze Crackle Cracked Concrete and Fault Line
Glitter Half Moon: Color Club Magic Attraction
Matte: China Glaze Matte Magic

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*

Red Light, Green Light, 1-2-3.

I don't if you guys can tell, but I kinda love animal prints. hah Here's some more, I was inspired again by WAH NAILS. They really are great for inspiration when you have no idea what do to.

Green: Color Club The Lime Starts Here

Red: China Glaze Heli-yum

Stamp: Konad M w/Sinful Colors Black on Black

To do the green spots over the red I first did a dot of white polish, then the green on top

I loved these so much, but sadly this was before I realized that my Seche Vite was the reason for my nail polish peeling off, and they all came off within 24 hours. :( 

On an awesome note though, due to cleaning up some stuff in preparation for the hurricane that never happened, I found my stash of acrylic paint! I will definitely be trying some new crazy nail art with that asap!

Fail-ish attempt at a half moon.

Ok so seeing as how I have been procrastinating my life lately, I have some manis I did months ago that I just never uploaded. So for now I'm going to try to catch up on some of those.
Lets not even lie though, it's cause I'm lazy really. hah They are on my computer already and already partly edited.

I liked the idea I had with this one, but it's somewhat of a fail in execution. I think I may try a half moon mani again soon, but using these circle stickers I got from Staples (also months ago... do you see a trend here hah).
Ohhh and I think I was going for some sort of watermelon theme here..

I painted a base of Finger Paints Art You Wondering?, when it dried I put the circle sticker on, and covered the whole thing with China Glaze Electric Pineapple. Then touched up the half moon with a pink stripping polish.

Pink (Tiger) Wednesday, and a Gelish Question.

Rawr!

heh

 I loves me some tiger (..or is it zebra?? ehh... let's just call it animal print)! 

Did a gradient with Finger Paints Outta Sight Orange and added Sinful Colors Creme Pink to the tips really messily and on an angle, it was pretty haphazard really, but I wanted it like that so it would look more like a gradient. Then topped it all with WnW Kaleidoscope, which IMHO blends the gradient and makes it a look smoother.

Still loving the new Bundle Monster plates, and I cannot wait till Fall so I can use the awesome Halloween ones! And by Fall I mean September. hah Needless to say I LOVE Halloween! I love Fall in general, but Halloween... yeah it's my favorite holiday.

I used Sinful Colors Black on Black with BM 2?? (this plate is currently MIA, and I may cry) *Edit:Just found it, along with about 20 other plates!!! This just made my day! Finally cleaning pays off!*

So my Gelish question is this.. I'm thinking I may buy this starter kit from Sally's seeing as how I would love to have my manis last 21(ish) days rather than 2 tops. The UV lamps they have there look pretty shit. I mean battery operated, really?! Anyone have any advice on where to find a decently prices UV lamp, or even on the Gelish system in general?? 

Thank you guys in advance for any help, you're all awesome! :)

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!