Gradient Nails

Well, hello all! I've got some exciting news - my blog has been viewed 1,001 times. Since I'm not some big time blogger, but do this just for the fun of it, seeing that people have looked at my nails and writing 1,001 times is pretty exciting. Okay, nerd gushing is now over.

Today the hubby and I had our pictures taken. We've been together 5 years, married for 6 months, and we have not had any professional pictures taken. Ever. In his words, "I thought the roller coaster pictures from Sea World were a nice touch." This is what I am working with ladies and gentlemen. There is never a dull moment in our home.

I've been dying to try a gradient nail after seeing tons of tutorials and I thought today's photo shoot was the perfect occasion. The dress I found for today's pictures has a fuchsia, blue, white and black pattern that swirls together. I wanted to incorporate those same colors for my nail art. I've never done gradient nails before, so I was not sure how the end result would look. Here is what I got.

I like how it came out. Next time I try this technique out I will use more contrasting colors. It would  be fun, possibly bold. Today, however, did not call for a bold look. I wanted soft, demure, and romantic.

I even took a picture of the colors I used so I could remember them. I decided to do my nails around 10:30 p.m. and once I took pictures and edited them, I was dead tired. Taking a bottle shot was the only way to remember all of the colors. So here they are in all their glory.

From left to right: A-England Order of the Garter, China Glaze Strawberry Fields, Zoya Cristina and Pandora

 I started with two coats of Pandora as my base. Then for the gradient look I used Order of the Garter, Strawberry Fields and Christina. It was all topped with Seche Vite. If you are interested in gradient nails just search "gradient nail tutorials" on Google or any search engine. I got tons of hits and then used the one that made the most sense to me. I like simple approaches so I followed a tutorial that uses a make-up sponge for the color application. Find what you like best.

I can't wait to see how my nails look in the pictures . The photographer took some nice shots of us holding hands and she spot lighted our wedding bands. I'll have to  post those pictures when I get them.

Well that's it for tonight. Ta-ta!

Hugs and love,
Karen

The Bead Parade Nails

Hello ladies! Well last night I had an adventure. A friend and I participated in a local parade last night. What was going to be a promising night turned into a rain-soaked story to grumble about when reminiscing on old times. We got POURED on for about 15 minutes before the float we were on had a chance to actually make in the parade; and then at the end of the parade my friend, myself and five other USF parade participants were stranded in no-man's land for an hour and a half before we were picked up from the end of the parade route. My nail design should have been an indicator of how the night was going to turn out.

The original idea was to use dots so that it looked like the beads we throw out to the crowd were also stranded across my nails. I wanted them to match my shirt that my friend made for me (white, green, gold)The idea did not translate to my nails. The dots look so random and weird. I tried, haha.

Also I dislike, with great passion, Zoya's Christinna. I used it as my base coat because it is the only white I own. It's streaky, I always make a mess out of it and I have to call it quits on this polish. Time to invest in a good white cream polish. The other colors I used for my "beads" were Zoya Midori and a gold China Glaze color that I cannot remember the name of. I would check it out, but my kitten is curled up on my lap and it would be a shame to wake him up. :-)

Overall, the design worked for the event The other girls there liked it a lot. I like the color combo of white, gold and bright green. I'll have to use them again for another day.

Me on the left and Danielle on the right. This is just before we were rained on.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Hugs and love,
Karen

Mermaid Nails

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! I do not have green or rainbow nails for today's post, but I do have something that will still feel like you found the gold at the end of the rainbow. I have mermaid inspired nails. I'm letting the secret out of the bag: I LOVE mermaids. Since it was spring break this week and I have been at the beach as much as possible I wanted the inspiration of those beautiful sea people on my nails. I was able to do it from this simple tutorial on Little Nails. Check it out!

Mermaid's tail inspired

This was such a simple design to create. I only wanted to do an accent nail to try it out and now that I know how simple it is, I will do each nail in this mermaid design for now on.I used bobby pins to make the dots, but I will use a dotting tool next time for larger sized dots. The colors I used for the mermaid nail were: Sinful Colors Cinderella (base coat for all of my nails), Zoya Rica, OPI Planks A Lot, Rally Pretty Pink, Not Like the Movies, and China Glaze Custom Kicks. The other nails then had one coat of Not Like the Movies painted over Cinderella. I wanted them to look like the inside of a sea shell. 

Also, excuse the messed up nails. Right after I finished this beauty I had to save my sister from getting red hair dye all over her face. I haven't had a chance to fix it because I've been so busy hosting my aunt while she visits Florida. Still enjoy the mermaid nail though!


I see many more mermaid manis in my future for summer. I plan on being a beach bunny all summer long and this nail design is perfect for it. 


I hope you all have a happy, fun and safe Saint Patrick's Day.


Hugs and Love,
Karen

Blast From The Past

Hello all! Happy Spring Break to those of you who get to enjoy it. And I am sorry to those of you who don't or are lamenting the fact that your kids out of school for a week. I have mixed feelings because I was able to start work for two days and then I have the entire week off. Perfecting timing!


I will have some amazing spring break inspired nails for you this week, but until then I have for you one of the very first times I painted my nails and then attempted to show off my work to the world. Before this blog I had a Facebook photo album dedicated to my new obsession hobby. I thought it would be fun to see the progress that I have made since I started painting my nails on a regular basis. 

This is Talulah by Zoya. This pretty blue color was one of my first Zoya purchases it. I do not have the bottle right now (my lovely friend, Emily, has it from a polish swap we did) but I remember purchasing it because it was this beautiful sapphire blue in the bottle. And I loved the name. I'm a highland romance junkie. Oh, and this what I said about it at the time of application,  "It only took me 3 tries to get this blue looking good, but it was well worth it!" I still sound the same. :-p


I have to say since July 11, 2011 (that is when this picture was taken) I have done much better when it comes taking care of my nails and making them shine. I also have a new "camera" and pictures look a bit better now; that helps with the blog presentation. I think I need to give Talulah another try since I am better at applying saturated colors such as this one. Ideas of some pretty awesome designs are dancing away in my head.


So, to those of you have been reading my blog I appreciate it. I hope it can only get better. :-)

Hugs and love,
Karen

A Modge Podge of Stuff

Hello all! Today you get to see what happens when I go into a crafting mood (i.e. creating bathroom organization holders and front door wreaths for Valentine's Day). I felt like trying to do something different to keep the crafty juices flowing. The results of today's mani were inspired by yet another Pinterest picture I saw. The blogger (and I am so sorry that I did not pin the picture because I cannot remember her blog or her name) created a stained glass design using foil polishes and a stamping plate. I tried her method and failed. Stamping and I are enemies! So I attempted to create my own version of a stained glass mani. 



I started with a base of Zoya Christinna. Once that was dried I went to town with my make-up sponges and sponged on a modge podge of colors. I used foil polishes, shimmer polishes, and some good old cream polishes. I quite liked the look a lot. I would have left my mani with the different colors but I had to try the next step or I would have gone crazy wondering what would have happened.

Zoya Christinna

Modge Podge of colors.

Next I wanted to create that stained glass look so I used OPI Black Shatter. I know everyone has done and seen the shatter polishes, but I never really used them like crazy when I first got them. I guess I was a little over done when it came to all of the pictures I was seeing of shatter and crackle manis. And I know why I do not touch my Black Shatter that often - it is a super annoying formula. However, I did get the result pictured below. 

Ignore the messy cuticles. It was 1:00 a.m. after all.

It was not exactly what I had pictured in my head. It looks more like a mosaic than stained glass, but hey I had to try. Next time I know I will definitely just keep the sponged look.

I hope that everyone has a Marvelous Monday!

Hugs and love,
Karen

Merry Christmas

Hello all! Merry Christmas! I will not talk much at all, I just wanted to share my festive Christmas Day mani. I kept it simple and sweet with Zoya Kissy and Color Club Perfect Mol-Ten. These are becoming my two favorite colors.

I hope you are all having a joyous holiday! Be safe and enjoy.

 Mr. Grinch wanted to wish you are Merry Christmas too!

Hugs and love,
Karen

It's Graduation Time

Hello all! I'm back and with awesome news.
Tomorrow marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new journey. That's right, 12-11-11 marks the day that I graduate from USF. I'm going to be a teacher. :-) That's a lot of the reason why I haven't been posting lately. Toward the very end of my internship it got busy and down to the wire. I had lots of time to think about what I wanted my nails to look like for graduation though while I got important papers together and a portfolio made. With the work of Zoya and China Glaze I came up with this elegant and understated design. 

I used Zoya Gemma on all of my fingers except my pointer. On my pointer finger I used China Glaze Passion, it's also the color that I used to make the polka dots. Then to add a little sparkle to my pointer fingers I put a dusting of China Glaze Fairy Dust over the Passion.

And what I love about Gemma is that it can look darker in some lighting and lighter in others.The blue shine underneath the green is stunning. I love this look because it came out exactly how I had it pictured in my head! This is my first time making polka dots on my nails. LOVE THEM!


And in case you didn't know, USF's colors are green and gold. Finally, I'm a college graduate!!!

Rica All About It

Hello all! I am sorry that it is a been a while since I last posted. After the last post I tried and failed at a Halloween inspired mani. I know I said I'd share my fails but it was too embarassing. At least my students liked it. I told them I had "monster goo" stained on my nails because a monster came to visit me for Halloween. They were amused. Then I got sick and doing my nails was the last thing on my mind. Really, where is this horrible cold/sinus infection coming from? It seems like everyone has it. 




Well I finally feel better and I thought I'd bring some brightness around since I was feeling quite dreary the last couple of days. I could not have picked a better color for bright either. Rica by Zoya is vibrant and beautiful!

I am going to say that Rica is a stunning orange foil polish. (This is me attempting to categorize and describe nail polish types and colors. Please bear with me. :-p ). I don't even know if orange is the right description of the color. Sometimes it is orange-red and other times in the light it flashes pink. I just love it. 

Here it is with more of a reddish tone to it.

The application of this gem was simple. It was fully opaque in two coats. I did use a
top coat of SV and have yet to see shrinkage. Maybe I will see some a few hours down the road. I'm really digging this color, so I hope not.

On another note, I am dying to try out a new polish brand that I read about on another blog. It's called A England. Anyone ever heard of it before? I found about it through letthemhavepolish.com.(P.s. check out her blog. She's amazing and reading her blog cracks me up) I love every single color that Cristina featured and then I checked out where you can purchase it from and looked at the entire collection. I seriously enjoy them all. It also helps that I'm really into Medieval history and all that jazz, so I'm kind of biased to the name of the collection and polish.


That's it for today. I'm going to enjoy this Sunday by reading a book. 

Hugs and love,
Karen <3

Josh Groban Nails featuring Zoya Gemma

Hello all! I am writing to you today from the high I am on after watching Josh Groban preform live in concert. I loved him as a musician before I saw him live and I love him even more. The concert was phenomenal. I am so happy that my buddy came with me. We both had a blast. I'm revved up and ready for Josh to come to my area again; and this time I am going to meet him!

Of course I had to give my nails some loving for this most special of occasions (it's right up there with my fiance popping the question last January). I was thinking, "What do I see when I listen to Josh's music?" It sounds weird, maybe, but sometimes the music tells a story that I can see in my head and a lot of times it evokes colors and designs. Yeah, I'm weird. Anyway, I came up with this design for the concert. 

My first ever perfect stamping result!

I used Zoya's Gemma for my base. I was not impressed with this color when I saw it online. I thought it was just another green, nothing special. Then I saw it in Ulta one day and I took the time to look at it. I immediately  myself for not purchasing it before. Gemma is a mossy green with a blue undertone to it that shines in the light at certain angles. It is really noticeable in the bottle. The formula was wonderful to apply and the color was fully opaque in two coats. 

I then used China Glaze's Passion for stamping. The pattern is from my new Konad plate B51. OMG I love love love how easy it was to use Passion for stamping. Easiest brand and color so far. Has anyone else experienced this with other China Glaze colors? 

Sadly I topped it all off with SV and I forgot about the shrink factor when you put Zoya and SV together. It's not like it was going to last long anyway. I need to make some Halloween designs for my  kiddos at school. 

I hope you enjoyed this design and post! And just for your enjoyment, here is one of the better pictures I could take with my camera phone while at the concert. Oh goodness how I love Josh Groban! 

He is an angel!