Late Night Halloween Nails :D

Good afternoon all :)

In case you missed yesterdays post, I am having another giveaway!  You should go check it out.  And while you're at it, you should go tell a friend ;)

Today's mani was done a couple of nights ago when I couldn't sleep.  My new husband and I are having a very tough time sleeping in the same bed together, he moves around a lot and I like to sprawl out lol.  Needless to say, I've been reluctant to climb into bed :\  So I busted out my polishes and kep myself occupied for an hour haha...

 Colors Used (L to R): Confetti - Lonesome Dove, Revlon - Posh, Wet n Wild - Nerd Alert Screech, O.P.I. - Just Tea-Sing!, Wet n Wild - Straight A Jesse, Sally Hansen - Mellow Yellow, Sally Hansen - White On, Rimmel - Black Satin

Phew!  So many colors!

The Frankenstein and mummy were inspired by pics I saw when I Googled Halloween nail art images.  There were A Lot of them...

Sooo... it's 20 day's 'til Halloween and this may be a little premature, but I think I've outdone myself and I had to post it lol.

I suppose that's all for now :)

Until next time!

Stef <3

A Sunny Gradient :D

Good morning, friends!  The week is winding down but I'm not foreseeing any rest for me *le sigh*  I hope you all are much more fortunate hahaha.

For today I have my first gradient mani to share with you.  I did this about a month ago and didn't share it because I had mixed feelings.  It's not great but it's not terrible either.  I'll let you decide...

Colors Used: Julep - Blake, Confetti - They Call Me Mellow Yellow

Pro's... I think yellow is an awesome color for me.  It's one of my favorite colors to wear :)  I also really like how simple it was.  Con's... The gradient isn't drastic enough and the colors didn't blend as well as I thought they would together :\

Blake really is a lovely color to work with and the Confetti is really shimmery... it make me happy just looking at it :P  I can't remember how many coats were applied of each.  I know I used a make-up sponge in this mani.  I'm also pretty positive that I topped it off with Seche Vite.  

One last pic...

I don't really have anything else to add.  What do you think?  Have you tried this look?  Do you have any tips/tricks that work well for you?

Until next time!

Stef <3

Think Pink... A Subdued Finale ;)

Hey there!  I hope everyone is having a pleasant weekend :)  I'm on the run here so this post is going to be short(ish) and sweet hahaha...

It's my last day of "Think Pink" week and I thought I'd do something a little mellow/simple (because quite frankly I am OVER wearing pink! lol).  So here it is...

 Colors Used: Confetti - Heartthrob, Savina - Heavenly

Simple and sweet (with a heart on the important finger teehee...)

I applied 3 coats of Heartthrob and then used a dotting tool to dab out the heart.  I went back with a striping brush and acetone to clean up the edges of the heart and ta-da!  I topped it off with one coat of Out The Door.

And the big-un...

A little boring?  Maybe, but sometimes boring is exactly what I need to restart my creative juices :)

That's all for now I suppose.  I'll have another haul to post in the upcoming days and a story to go along with it, woohoo!!  Haha...

Until next time!

Stef <3

Church Mani: Think Pink!

Good afternoon/evening y'all!  It has been a crazy-busy weekend, one of those where I feel like I need another weekend to recuperate from this one lol.

I have some news.  Not great, not horrible.  Maybe a little bit interesting / exciting.  I have decided to challenge myself this week and do only pink mani's! *gasp!*  I know... I have shocked / disgusted myself with this idea, which is why it's great :D  I plan on producing the most horrifically girly pink mani's that I can manage and rock them out (in public!) for the entire week.

Seeing as it's Sunday and technically the start of the new week I figured why not start now?  Buuuuutttt church mani day is supposed to be fairly simple so here is what I came up with...

Colors used: Sinful Colors - Snow Me White, Sally Hasnsen - French White Creme, JLB - 06, Savina - Heavenly, Confetti - Heartthrob, China Glaze - Love Letters

With flash and without (indoor)

The reason why I used two different whites for the tips is that I haven't found the perfect white polish yet.  Sinful Colors is almost perfect in one coat, with just some slight streaking, but it's super thick.  The Sally Hansen is really thin and requires almost 3 coats to be opaque.  So I used one coat Sinful first and then applied one coast of Sally to cover up any bald spots.  I then used my dotting tools to create the different sized dots and voila... mani!

That's all there is for today folks!  I will have my polish hauls from the last 2 weeks up with tomorrows mani and then for Tuesday I will show you how I store my pretties :D  I hope you're weekend has been wonderful and blessed!

Until next time!

Stef <3

A Monochromatic Mani (aka Ombre :P)

Good day to you nail art / polish lovers!  It's almost the weekend as much as I love my time off, the next few days are going to be busy and hectic.. bleh.

Well, for today's mani I decided to do a full ombre look (I did a frenchie ombre that you can view here if you'd like :) ).  I love the color grey... a lot!  And grey scale nails just sounded like a great idea, so here they are haha...

 These are my favorite grey's in my collection.  I really like the ombre look, I think it's very fun!  There is another technique that I want to try out where you just use one color polish and add drops of black or white to change the shade. 

Here are the colors used...

Rimmel - Black Satin, Charlotte Russe - Smolder, Julep - Meryl, Confetti - Lonesome Dove, O.P.I. - Skull & Glossbones

Of course, I can't just leave plain polish on my fingers.  I need some pizazz!  Lol so I added my go to glimmer on top.  You know what it is I'm sure...

 China Glaze - Fairy Dust

It's my favorite, what can I say?  It's just so sparkly!!

As a side note, I've had a couple of friends ask me about my manicure techniques.  While I'm still learning myself, I have found some of the tips at Nails by Kayla Shevonne to be quite helpful!  Her "Manicuring 101" series is pretty awesome :)

So that's my post for today... unless you are curious about my recent polish haul ;)  It's after the jump!

"It is not slime, it is mucus!"

Happy Friday everyone!  The weekend (for all intensive purposes) is here and I am glad, glad, glad!!

I understand that princess week was last week?  I don't know how I missed that, but it's been bugging me!  So I decided to do a princess mani to make me feel a little bit better lol.  I tossed around a lot of ideas as to which princess to choose (Aurora is my fave, but I hate pink... Alice doesn't really count... etc.), what to do design-wise and which colors to choose.  I decided to go with Tiana :)  She is an incredibly fierce princess and I haven't really seen a lot of nail art for her.  Here 'tis...

 w/o flash...

w/ flash...

 For the colors used I'm going to list them in rainbow order (yellow, blue, green, blue, pink, purple black, white and grey).  Color's Used: Confetti - They Call Me Mellow Yellow, Sally Hansen - Green with Envy, NYC - High Line Green, Love & Beauty - Teal, Confetti - Bayou Blue, E.L.F. - Flirty Fuchsia, Sinful Colors - Dream On, Confetti - Black Tie, Wet n' Wild - French White Creme, O.P.I. - Skull & Glossbones, NYC - Mulberry Street and China Glaze - Fairy Dust.

As you can see, starting at the thumb, I did Mardi Gras beads, a crown, Tiana's dress, a frog and a firefly. I think I covered the basics lol. I really had fun with this mani and I think they're pretty cute :)

I had said in a previous post that I'd have some guest nails to show buuuuuut... so far, the girlies have asked for cupcakes... and cupcakes... and... cupcakes!  I guess I'll just have to do some more mani's on myself.  Drat ;)  Have a safe weekend ladies...

Until next time!

Stef <3

Church Mani: A Shimmery Champange and Black Frenchie

Good morning lovelies!  It's the beginning of a new week and so my count down to Friday shall begin *le sigh*...

I wanted to share with you the mani that I wore to church yesterday.  I've decided that this is something I'll be doing every Sunday when I get home from church / after-church activities.  I also said I would offer you and explanation, so here it is....

I recently started singing at a BIG church (that shall remain nameless) and because of it's following there are certain rules for attire that must be followed if you are going to sing with the choir.  No jewelry (except for wedding bands, obvi), I can't wear pants that will show below my choir robes, the hair style / make-up I come in with is the one I have to keep for both services... You get the idea haha.  Now while no one has specifically told me that I can't wear colorful polishes, I don't want to run the risk of being reprimanded.  So I've made the executive decision to "keep it simple, stupid!" on Sundays.  I'm a stickler for rules in general and this will be like a personal challenge for me, simple but fun mani's on Sunday's... yaaaaayyyyy!  Lol.

So without further blabber, here it is...

Started with Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails as the base coat.

Colors Used: NYC - Mulberry Street and Confetti - Black Tie

Finished with 2 coats Seche Vite

Alright, a couple of things that I don't like right off the bat... The NYC - Mulberry Street is awful, awful, AWFUL!  It is a really streaky, tacky, way-too-fast drying polish.  After 3 coats I gave up on it being even and clung to the hope that Seche Vite would even things out (which it did *phew*!).  Secondly, I don't think the picture does justice to the color :(  It's a really pretty champange-shimmer color that just isn't coming across well, which is just bums!

The things I do like... I like that I'm getting better with french tips and I like the polka dots (I'm a little obsessed with them if you haven't noticed by now hahaha).

That's all I have for this post.  Pretty short.  Maybe even a little boring. Cest la vie!

  I'm expecting some exciting things to be arriving in the mail and waiting for me when I get home this evening and I'll be sure to post it soon (along with pics of the goodies I got from my first trip to ULTA... ackkkk!!!)  With that being said...

Until next time!

Stef <3 

Time for Something Sweet!

Good evening, friends!  I hope everyone had a safe and happy Sunday :)

This is the mani that I had on this past Thursday.  It was inspired by a pin I saw on Pintrest.  I did a search for more images and then started painting and this is what I came up with...

Base Coat - Sally Hansen Hard as Nails .  Top Coat - Seche Vite

Colors Used (starting at thumb, then L to R): Elf - Smokin' Hot, China Glaze - Hey Sailor, Confetti - Margarita Senorita, Cosmetic Arts - Explosive, Sally Hansen - Green With Envy, NYC - High Line Green, Revlon - Blue Lagoon, Confetti - Bayou Blue, Essie - Lilacism and Sally Hansen - Rock Bottom.  

For the frosting I used Wet n' Wild - French White Creme, the sprinkles are Spoiled - I Have No Reception and for the cherry-on-top I used Love & Beauty - Red/Multi.

I got a lot of compliments from the kids and staff at work.  I thought they were very cute but a little tooooo busy for everyday wear (plus, what outfit would I wear to match them?? lol).  So then I simplified it to this...

 Base Coat - Sally Hansen Hard as Nails .  Top Coat - Seche Vite

 The darker blue on the tips is Confetti - Bayou Blue.

This personally was much more manageable and subtle.  More "me" :) 

I generally change my nail polish every other day.  I had these on until last night (Saturday) because they were just so darn cute!  And I would have kept them on for longer but I sing in a church choir on Sunday mornings and the dress code is a little strict.  I didn't want to take the risk.  I'll post my "Church Mani" tomorrow with a more detailed explanation (maybe I'll make it a regular Sunday thing?).

So what do you think?  Any questions, comments, advice??  Love to you all :D

Until next time!

Stef <3