Silver Glitter Manicure with Holographic Stars

I did this mani a while back, but never wrote up a blog entry on it. I had to cut off my nails because they were in rough shape, so I decided to make them super sparkly to take my mind off of losing my long nails.

This was inspired by a manicure that I found that used various kinds of silver glitter.
I don't know who did this manicure, so if it's yours just let me know and I can give you credit (and a link back) for your work. :)

I didn't have all of those funky silver glitters, so I just used what I had on hand and came up with this...

I used the silver glitter two ways; The first way that I used it was just by dipping my finger into the glitter (in a bottle cap), with wet silver polish on my nails, and I let it dry just how it landed on my nail. I did this on my index and pinkie finger.

The second way I used it was just the same as the first, but I used my fan brush to flatten the glitter, by gently tapping it down to make the flat surface of the glitter parallel to my nail. That made the nice flat look even more shiny than the randomly placed glitter.

I topped everything off with a coat of Seche Vite top coat.

Here's some of the pretty supplies I used. The silver loose glitter is just something I picked up in a pack of craft glitter from Walmart. The stars came from a set that I got at the Dollar Tree. I bought a set of 15 nail art brushes from ebay, which included two fan brushes.

I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails "Celeb City" as a base color. One of my favorite colors.

So that's it for this one! I just wanted to add this to my collection here on my blog.

I hope you enjoy the sparkles today...

Creepy Fake Finger and Acrylic Nails

I finally picked up one of those fake fingers to practice on because I want to give myself the opportunity to do freehand painting on a bigger canvas. So far I'm loving it! I've only tried this swatch of "Free Spirit" and "Look Like Rain" by Pure Ice, but I look forward to many new experiments.

I haven't applied a top coat yet, since I am considering adding large, clear rhinestones.

The base color, "Free Spirit", has a slight shimmer. I applied three coats. The small bits of glitter in "Looks Like Rain" are definitely very spring/leaf green. I carefully spaced out the large silver glitter pieces.

I'm pretty excited to see what kids of new things I can learn with my new equipment!

 

 

 

UPDATE:

 

Here's this swatch with a top cat. Shiny and smooth...and beautiful.

 

 



Pretty Pure Ice "Splash!" and "Poppin Bottles"

Just a simple manicure today. I cut my nails down and wanted something that makes short nails still look sweet. It feels very delicate on my fingers. It's shimmery and fun. Pure Ice "Splash!" is a great color for winter, spring or summer. I felt the manicure was a bit simple without an accent nail, so I just added a layer of Pure Ice "Poppin Bottles" to both ring fingers. I'm very happy with the outcome.

If you don't own these colors yet, I think they are worth adding to your collection. I think they are very shimmery and fun, and will definitely attract compliments. I'm very happy with this brand because it is so affordable and their shimmery colors are delicious!

I hope you enjoy!

Pink and Aqua Manicure

I must admit that I love how this turned out. It's so very feminine. I am calling it my "Barbie Manicure." It took me all day to do this, due to the fact that I have a five month old who loves to be snuggled.

I started out with one coat of pink, but quickly realized it would take many coats to get full coverage. So I quickly slapped on one really thick coat of the pink, and topped it off with another thick coat. It was a difficult polish to work with.

The colors I used are: Wet n Wild Wildshine "Tickled Pink" and Sally Hansen Hard as Nails "Celeb City."

I was trying to come up with something creative to do with the "pink and aqua" prompt, even trying swatches of several aqua polishes on paper. I wanted to do aqua roses with delicate green foliage in a pretty floral pattern on one nail, the rest accented with my new silver glitter polish. Or perhaps, aqua candy cane stripes with silver glitter accents.

Nope. "Ain't nobody got time for that." At least not me, anyway.

At 9pm this Mama was tired, and sick of trying to make the decision. So I grabbed my favorite silver polish and the dotting tools. I made one silver dot close to the base of each nail (with the intention to make more dots), but quickly realized that it was a crappy choice to do dotting with! The dots came out uneven. No biggy, I'm a sucker for rhinestones and I happened to have some little aqua rhinestones on hand. I plopped them in the dots before they dried and covered everything with a thick layer of fast drying top coat.

I've found that sometimes the most simple manicures give the biggest impact. When you focus more on the color, or a simple accent, that's what makes it really stand out.

Oh, and of course I have to mention my new, totally amazing engagement ring. Squeeeeee! How could I forget!

31 Day Challenge, Day 6 "Half and Half...Metallic Leopard and Zebra Print

This turned out SO BEAUTIFUL! I can't believe I actually pulled this off in the first try. Wow. This is most definitely my favorite manicure since I started this nail art project less than a month ago.

I watched a few YouTube videos to get the hang of the lines and spots. You really don't know what you're doing until you dive into it, though.

Here's the finished product. What do you think?

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. I'm looking forward to doing this with many different colors in the future!

31 Day Challenge, Day 4 "Happiness" ...Is the Night Sky

I managed to get this done while the baby was playing with his toys. Damn I'm getting fast! It's also my second blog post today!

Today's prompt was "Happiness", and one thing that makes me really happy is watching the moon and twinkling stars. I'm looking forward to my love coming back so I can watch them with him.

I didn't mean to add so much glitter to this design. I wanted to add it to the moon after I painted it on, but found out the base coat was still tacky and the glitter stuck to it. Ha! Oh well, the more twinkles the better.

So everything is glittery over here right now.

It's a bit of a rushed manicure, taking about 20 minutes to complete (not including top coat drying time). maybe in the future I can do those super fancy, time consuming, perfectionist manicures, but for now...this is what you get.

Ta-ta for now...

31 Day Challenge, Day 2 "Tape Mani" ...Mint and Lilac Manicure

I joined Debbie Crumpets Crumpet's Nail Tarts 31 Day Challenge. I'm absolutely nuts, but I will try my hardest to complete it! Because we all know I have plenty of time for that. *insert sarcasm here*

My first mani of the challenge actually fits into three different categories, so I need to figure out which one I want to squeeze it into.

~Follow a tutorial
~Tape mani
~Dotting

I'm not completely happy with how it turned out. My dotting kinda sucks. My first dotticure was amazing. This one? Not so much.

So here's what I came up with

MAJOR DOTTING FAIL!

Yeah, my dotting sucks so bad. I don't know what happened.

...but I love this feminine color combo so much.

Here's the materials I used:

Base color - Pure Ice, Home Run

Dot color - Pure Ice, Lacquered Lilacs

Stripe color - Salon Perfect nail art striper - Silver plated

Dotting tool by Cina

Painter's tape 

Scissors

Well, I'm reaching for the acetone and ready to strip this off and start planning my next design. Wish me luck...

My Unfinished New Year's Nails

Well, I had good intentions, but quickly started to realize that maybe, just maybe...I had other priorities. As the title of this blog implies, I am a mom. As I come into this nail art journey and the New Year, I realize even more than before how this new year is dedicated to my children first...my aspirations second. I have a feeling this will not be my only unfinished manicure this year!

Even though I wasn't able to finish, and the base color started to chip before I even got to the top coat slapped on, I still love looking down at this sparkly wonder.

I was planning on adding different shapes and colors of rhinestones to every finger except my ring fingers which are accented with the glitter polish. Then I would have finished it off with a shiny top coat.

This is how it all went down...

The day after Christmas I went to the mall with my children. I spent some time in Forever 21 looking at all the cute clothes, feeling a bit jealous of all the girls who can wear such cute things. Me? Yeah, I'm still nursing a baby and have to have easy access to my boobs...so I had to walk past all those cute things.

Anyway, at Forever 21 I found an awesome rainbow glitter polish and glow in the dark polish. Honestly, the girl at the check out counter was so rude to me, that I just put them back and walked out of the store. I was mad and I wanted to cry. I just wanted to find something that I could use to make myself feel beautiful. That flew right out the window. I just didn't need that kind of treatment.

The next day I picked up a gift pack of four Elf nail polishes at Walmart after Christmas sale, and I must admit that the glitter polish was the main reason. I paid about $2.50 for the set.

So here's my failed attempt at my New Year's manicure...

The glitter polish accent nails are the only ones that got a top coat.

I'm a happy girl because I got four new polishes to add to my collection which includes this little gem.

The base color is a beautiful silver. It's Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear, color Celeb City. I love this silver. It dried wonderfully, and was flashy and fun.

Anywho, the past few days have been so busy. I guess I'm lucky I got this far. I will try harder to finish my designs in the future, but I can't promise anything at the moment! I have to just go with it.

So far this is my favorite manicure (even though it's unfinished) since I started this journey last month.

Happy New Year to anyone who actually reads this. It's a new year and a new start. I'm ready to embrace it!

Tiny Snowman Mani!

I just joined the Challenge Your Nail Art facebook group, and although I got there very late to do the Christmas challenge, I wanted to truly challenge myself by joining in when the challenge is pretty much done!

So here's my "snowman" entry...

Not too shabby for my first time following a prompt and my first time doing tiny nail art. I also did the body of the snowman while I had the baby on my lap! I can't say that for the details on the snowman, though. Yeah, no...that would be impossible. The buttons and the carrot nose especially.

Now I look at them and I'm thinking I could have added little arms. That would have been cute.

Here's the supplies I used:

Base color - Sinful Colors "Out of this world"

Glitter coat - Forever 21 (no color name)

Snowman body and snow - Sinful Colors "Snow me White"

Snowman buttons, eyes and hat - Revlon "Black Lingerie"

Snowman nose - Sinful Colors "Cloud 9"

Dotting Tools by Cina

Detail Brush - Rose Art paint brush (trimmed to my preferred size)

That was a really fun challenge, and I enjoyed how these turned out! I'm looking for to doing more prompts!

If you liked this design or have any question, please shoot me a comment. Bloggers love comments.