Tape Mani

This week's theme was a tape mani. I think that they're more hassel than they're usually worth, but I decided to give it a go anyway. I'm not completely thrilled with how my chevrons turned out, but it was beyond my patience to try to make more chevrons with each nail out of tape. The design is growing on me. I love how the colours look together, though. I used Spa Ritual's Low Tide and OPI's No Room for the Blues.

An InLinkz Link-up

America's Rockin' Roller Coast!

Every year since I turned 16, we have gone to celebrate my birthday at Cedar Point. Before that we just went at some point during the summer. But this will by my last time because I'm moving back to Australia and getting married, although last year I was in Australia as well. The mani that I did yesterday was to both to celebrate my birthday and Cedar Point!

I was quite happy how my left hand turned out; especially the Cedar Point logo since I've had trouble with logos before.

My right hand didn't turn out as well as I would have hoped because my cuticles are an absolute mess on the balloons. I do like the cupcake, though. I used different glitter polishes as the sprinkles and it really made it look like a cupcake instead of a lump of white stuff.

For my seventeenth birthday, they even opened a new ride, which is my favourite! (It was delayed for a couple weeks.) My friends and I were among the first few thousand riders and we got t-shirts!

UPDATE: 

On Sunday, I started to notice that the balloons were getting weird looking. The white was getting really dirty and the colours, especially the red, appeared to be melting with the white. On Monday, I noticed that, not only were the balloons worse, but the red on the roller coaster cars and the silver structure of the roller coaster were completely gone! Those three colours (red, white, and silver) were all Wet N Wild Wild Shine. I won't be buying that brand again!

Emerald

This week's theme for NAIL is Emerald. I absolutely love the colour green and emeralds are my birthstone, so I was excited about this one. I decided a few weeks ago that my inspiration was going to by my favourite necklace, which was given to my by my soon to be mother-in-law just a day or so before her son proposed! It isn't emerald, but it is glass with various shades of green. Here's a picture of my sisters and me at Christmas when I was wearing the necklace.

I started off with painting my nails black. I often do my base colour the night before I do the rest of the mani to make sure that it is completely dry and the black, which I never wear on my nails unless for nail art, made me feel goth.

Then I took my blue-ish green polish, which is Candid Cameron by OPI, part of the Modern Family collection. I thought that it was perfect for the large circles.

Finally I filled in the rest of the black space. First I tried a green from Old Navy that was similar, but less blue. Then I used my green from China Glaze's Magnetix. That colour provided more contrast, which I liked better.

Overall, I wasn't too pleased with the mani, although it's not the worst one I've done. The black was just too dark so that the other colours weren't as vibrant as I thought that they would be. It looked a million times better in the sun, though, because of how the greens reflected the light. Also, I tried to replicate the triangular pieces of colour by using a brush, but a dotting tool probably would have made it look better.

The saddest part about today, though, is that a few hours later I went downtown and my necklace broke! I was trying to readjust the chain so that the clasp wasn't in the front and the silver part that held the glass part on the chain broke! For some reason, that metal had been wearing through. I'm just glad that it fell off in my hand so I didn't lose it and that I should be able to go get the metal soldered together if I go to a jeweller.

UPDATE:
I got my necklace fixed the other day. (Actually two necklaces because I broke my other favourite one less than a week later!) It cost quite a bit more than I was expecting to get them fixed, but I was happy to get my necklaces fixed. Plus the guy's wife liked me and he did more work than he said he was going to. He even cleaned my engagement ring for me when we were checking out! It is now so extra shiny and sparkly. I felt like I was newly engaged again because I couldn't stop looking at it!

An InLinkz Link-up

Clouds

This week's theme for NAIL is clouds. I wasn't sure if I was going to do this one or not because I couldn't think of anything to do. Inspiration can often come at weird times, though. On Sunday, I was visiting my grandma and her napkins gave me an idea. Instead of just clouds on my nails, I would also put butterflies and dragonflies, which were what were printed on them.

First I had to remove my old mani and used the most amazing nail polish remover! (which can be seen here.) I wanted to paint my nails blue and then use a sponge to dab on some white. However, I could not for the life of me find one in my house. I read on many different manicures and nail blogs that make-up sponges are perfect for some manis, but I don't wear make-up. I thought that maybe my mom had an extra one, but she rarely wears make-up and only had the one that came with what she has. Then a stroke of genius hit me in the form of a toe separator. Those are spongy! I thought what the heck, I'll give it a try!

Then a funny thing happened... it looked great!

It's a little hard to tell in the picture, but the sponging effect gives it a texture. I wanted to paint dragonflies and butterflies, so I wanted to smooth out that texture to make it easier to paint the details. The first picture shows it right after doing the sponging while the next two pictures of after adding a layer, and then two, of clear polish.

These are my finished nails. As usual, I think that my left hand turned out better, although that mostly has to do with that I cleaned it off better. But doing nail art is one of the occasions when it pays to be semi-ambidextrous! (Thank you, brain tumour!)

NAIL challenge

The Most Amazing Nail Polish Remover EVER

I was at the mall with my parents yesterday and my mom and I went to go look at the nail polish at the Sephora in JC Penney. I was feeling down and oggling at nail polish makes me feel better. We were the only ones there, so the saleswoman was talking to us about what we were looking for.

I noticed some nail polish remover wipes that said that they remove nail polish in one swipe, so I asked her if they worked. She had never tried them before, so she did then. They worked, but she told us of another nail polish remover that works even better. It's part of the Sephora Formula X line and it's call Delete All- 5-
finger nail polish remover. She said you just need to put your hands in the solution for 20 seconds and it comes off perfectly.

My mom and I decided to get some of that, as well as the basecoat for Formula X. I looked at the reviews online today and everyone seems to love Formula X! I removed my mani to do another one today and I decided to take a video to show just how quick the stuff works. It was completely gone in 20 seconds, even though the instructions say up to 60 seconds for creams and up to 2 minutes for glitters.

UPDATE:
I've been keeping track of how many times my mom and I used it so that we could see how long it lasts. This is the only downfall of the product. We have used it a total of twelve times and it's pretty gross already. In fact, it started to get pretty nasty around 8 uses. It leaves a nasty residue because the old nail polish just gets left in there with the remover. It also takes longer for the nail polish to come off and it doesn't seem to come off at the cracks along the sides of my nail bed. I'm pretty disappointed in that, but I'm pretty sure it's just the use of removers of this kind with the sponge. I want to try the delete-all formula X that isn't the five finger sponge to see if that works as well as this did in the beginning.

Happy Mother's Day!

I gave my mom a mani for Mother's Day on Friday since we left to visit family this weekend. I decided to do my own take on a nail art that I saw on pinterest. The post was of white daisies, but I decided to change it to sunflowers. I loved how it turned out!

Here's a picture of my mom and I getting ice cream on Mother's Day before we left to go home.

The big 0-7!

My nephew turned 7 on May 6th and his birthday party is today. His party doesn't really have a theme, but the invitations were sports themed, so I went with that for my nails.

His favourite sports are basketball, baseball, and football so I included those. His favourite team is University of Michigan and the school that he attends is the same colours, so I did the 7 nail in blue and yellow.

I debated with what I should do with my thumb because there aren't any other sports that he really likes. Then I remembered that he loves to fish, which can be a sport even though he does it recreationally. (Also, I realise that the fish is WAY too small to be able to catch that worm, so I made up a story that he is behind it and swimming toward it. Well, that and it was just more aesthetically pleasing that way!)

Travel (to Australia!)

The theme for NAIL this week is Travel, in honour of Tourism Day tomorrow. Pretty weird holiday, but hey it gives me a good excuse to do the mani that I've been wanting.

Last week, I was planning to do some Australian Aboriginal-style art on my nails. I looked up pictures for inspiration and everything. But when I had done the mani before, I decided to change that to be for breast cancer awareness and kept that up until my mani last week for Tulip Time.

I decided to do my interpretation of this piece of Australian Aboriginal art that I found on a google search.

I like how my thumb turned out, but the rest of the sunrise/set looks pretty messy to me. I think it's mostly because I had a hard time making small enough dots using the dotting tool that I have, so they mostly overlapped. 

Right before painting my nails, I realised that it may be difficult to try to do it on both hands, so I decided to do other Australian symbols on my right hand.

My pinky is the Southern Cross, which is the constellation on the Australian flag.

My ring finger is flip flops, or thongs if I want to stay in the Australian theme. They didn't turn out quite as I had imagined.

My middle finger is Australia. It looks more like Australia and less like a blob in real life.

My index finger is the Sydney Opera House.

My thumb is the flag for the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The red represents the dirt, since the dirt, especially in the outback, is bright red. The black represents the skin of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The yellow circle represents the sun.

NAIL challenge

Tip Toe Through the Tulips!

Where I grew up, Holland, MI, has a Tulip Time festival every May to celebrate its Dutch heritage. When I was little, I watched my sisters Dutch Dance and when I got older I spent my four years in high school and one of my years of college doing Dutch Dance, so it's always had a special place in my heart.

My parents, sister, niece, and I are all going to Holland this weekend for the start of the Tulip Time festival. I, of course, decided to do my nails for the occasion. My mom also let me do her nails. 

I chose to go with a Delft-style paint for my nails since that's always been very Dutch to me. 

For my mom's nails, I went with basic tulips. I made a few design options for her when I was bored at work and she picked these ones. She decided to have the tulips all one colour for her fingers and her thumbs are my UV purple. I think that they turned out nicely, but it's hard to see the purple (it looks more silvery like when I accidentally added the drying drops) because today is very overcast. If the sun comes out more in the next day or so, I'll try to remember to take a better picture to post.