Failed It! Pond of broken hearts...



This is another Failed It! mani.  This one actually doesn't look too horrendous it just wasn't what I wanted it to be.  I started with the intention to do a pond mani but with a solid base since I chose yellow and I didn't want it to look like I just had awful yellow nails!  The mistake I made was to make the hearts too big so there's nowhere to add the next layer of them. :(  I also felt like they were all different sizes and they sort of ran a bit when I added the sheer polish which made them look bulky and less well shaped.  At any rate it wasn't my worst mani but it needs work!!

In dreams...



So this design is inspired by a yoga mat that I'm just DYING to have but can't really rationalize. It costs around $100 and I already have TWO yoga mats that are in perfect shape. Still I think it's so gorgeous and I decided that if I couldn't have it maybe I could at least immortalize it's glory on my nails. They came out pretty stellar too! I wore these until I couldn't possibly wear them anymore due to wear. :(  



Isn't it just the most beautiful thing? What's at the top of your wishlist?

Forty Great Nail Art Ideas: Red



Friday is here again! This week its red day in the New Crumpets Nail Tarts. Which should be fairly obvious because you know I'd NEVER do straight red nails otherwise!! My secondary prompt was negative space which I actually love -- on other people! lol...my nails go one of two ways; either they're naked for months or they're constantly polished. Since I've been consistently wearing polish and I'm lazy about base coats I have some not so pretty naked nails. :( But that being said, the base of my nail looks great so this design was a no brainer. I hope you enjoy these! Check out the other girls art below!

Forever the Ugly Duckling



It's the final day of Nail Heroes week with The Digital Dozen and today I'm paying homage to another blogger.  This one is Marina of Forever the Ugly Duckling.  Marina is not strictly a nail blogger, she also blogs about clothes and makeup and various other things.  She's also a vegan so she uses only vegan polishes and I actually have ALL the polishes she used for this cool leopard design. You guys know how I love a good leopard print!! I love Marina because she posts cute, cheap, vegan stuff and she has such a cute personality. Like many bloggers, she sadly hasn't blogged since 2014 and that makes me super sad. :(  But I'm sure she's out there in the real world somewhere living an awesome, vegan life! :P

http://www.forevertheuglyduckling.com/2011/01/notd-glittery-leopard-print-using.html

You can check out these nails and loads of other fun things on Marina's blog by clicking the picture!! Also check out the other girls art below!!




Chalkboard Nails...


For today's design I decided to do a design by Chalkboard Nails. Her designs are AMAZING and her precision is unrivaled.  I think her stuff is beautiful AND she does awesome tutorials. Although she also really loves to do tape mani's and let's face it ya'll...I HATE tape mani's. :P I don't get around to looking at her blog much but I have mad respect for the fact that she's made a HUGE impact on the blogger world and in turn, she has inspired the people who inspire me. I think that deserves a mention this week!! I decided to recreate her Mid Century Modern Nail art and like I expected, it didn't turn out nearly as nice as hers but I do think a major reason is I didn't have the same colors she had and my grey and red particularly are way off.

http://www.chalkboardnails.com/2016/01/mid-century-modern-nail-art.html#more

*Sigh* it's just beautiful though isn't it?  Check out more of Chalkboard Nails' AMAZING (and difficult to recreate!) nail art by clicking on the picture above!! And don't forget to check out the other girls art below!!



Nailasaurus



Today's nail hero should be fairly familiar to everyone! It's Sam from the Nailasaurus!! Sam is another blogger I stumbled onto when I was first getting into nail art and she is totes amazeballs! Not only are her designs crazy polished and perfection, she literally NEVER misses a post.  Like, seriously, the amount of time she must spend blogging is ridic. So I applaud her diligence and her creativity because she's always coming up with fun, new designs.  Also I love that, much like myself, when she nails a new design, she does it in like 100 colors for like weeks on end. lol...I get the same way!  Anyway today I recreated her Short Circuit nail art.  She used China Glaze for her base and I didn't have that color so I'm using Zoya Harlow. Also she made sure her stamps were perfectly centered and while I love that, one thing I hate about stamping is how uniform things can end up looking and I like to mix it up. So I (sort of) centered the one on my accent nail and then placed the others a little offset.

http://www.thenailasaurus.com/2014/06/circuit-board-stamping-nail-art.html

Check out this design and more of Sam's amazing art by clicking on the picture! Also check out the other girls art below!!



The Daily Nail



It's day two of Nail Heroes week with The Digital Dozen and today I'm celebrating the blog that started it all for me...The Daily Nail.  When I was younger, probably 12 or 13 my parents got me some nail polish and a stamping machine and I was IN. HEAVEN. I really wanted to go to Cosmo school but I didn't end up doing it and the stamper broke and as I got older and did more clubs and sports nail art fell by the wayside.  In late 2010 I stumbled upon this blog and *BOOM* like that I was hooked back in.  Melissa inspired me to revisit nail art, start up a blog, and find some stamps again!  I love her for her quirky designs, fun stories, and sense of humor. I decided to recreate her Guild the Lily nail art today. I used different colors and mine has more yellow where hers has more of a tan tone. I also didn't use a top coat because I quite liked the texture of it.

http://www.thedailynailblog.com/2011/02/gild-lily.html?m=1

Please click on the picture to visit The Daily Nail and check out more of Melissa's beautiful and quirky designs!! And check out the other girls art below!!





The Digital Dozen DOES....Nail Heroes!


It's time for another week of Digital Dozen nail art and this week we're paying homage to our heros, be they people, brands, tools, or whatever else inspires us.  I'm starting with the best of the best here with the incomparable Ms. Debbie Crumpet.  I'm sure ALL of you are familiar with her being she heads up this wonderful group of ladies known as The Digital Dozen.  If you're at all in the nail world at all then chances are good you've met her in another group or looked at her witty and informative blog posts.  For those reasons, she's certainly a nail hero worth celebrating.  She's made it easier for all of us to challenge ourselves, be honest about our mistakes, and learn new things (like splodging!).  I'm also celebrating Debbie for other reasons.  I met her fairly early on in my nail blogging and along the way she's been an amazing friend, confidant, and source of never ending support for me. We've had some ups and downs together and ultimately, she's one of the strongest, most resilient and resourceful people I've met in my life. She puts so much heart into everything she does and it really shows. I've been incredibly blessed to have her along for my journey and I've learned so much from her.  There are literally hundreds (probably even thousands) of Crumpet designs to choose from for recreating today but I settled on this one, which incidentally was from one of my favorite Digital Dozen weeks; Vintage Week.

http://www.the-crumpet.com/2014/02/digit-al-dozen-does-vintage-roses.html

I have the colors Debbie used in her original design but I decided to use a slightly different variation for my recreation.  I think they came out fairly well!! Please click the picture to view her original blog and check out the other girls blogs below!!




Forty Great Nail Art Ideas: Love



Today's Forty Great Nail Ideas prompt was love. So I decided to sort of merge together some very literal "love symbols" with a more subtle thing I love which is Kate Spade. lol...so here's a little nod to her gold and black simplistic patterns made out of hearts! Check out the other girls art below!!




Failed it! Squirrelled away...



It's time for another Failed It! mani. These were from a Digital Dozen week, I believe for autumn.  The idea was a little squirrel going up a tree with acorn accents.  The thing is, the squirrel looks like a nightmare and the wood pattern really seemed too busy against him too. I intended at one point to fill him in but that didn't seem like it was going to improve the situation much so ultimately, I scrapped the squirrel altogether and just did another nail with the little acorns. I think if I were gonna do this again I'd leave off the wood pattern and just paint a cute little squirrel face on the accent! The stamp is fairly creepy! What would you change about this failed mani?

Forty Great Nail Art Ideas: Aqua or Turquoise



I'm posting this a little late but last week was my birthday and with that and some MAJOR work issues I just ran behind.  Last week the prompt for New Crumpets Nail Tarts was aqua or turquoise.  My secondary prompt was a needle marble. I've been really working on my needle marbling skills and while I'm still not an expert or anything I think these ones came out pretty stellar. I also recently got a UberChic mat and let me tell you, this thing is a life changer for me. It's made nail art SO much faster and easier for me which will hopefully help me stay on track a little better. But we'll see!!  Anyway I hope you love the look and please check out the other girls prompts and art below!!

L'Oreal Reviatlift


Some of you may be familiar with the company, Influenster.  If you aren't, it's essentially a site where you can review products for free and in doing so, earn more free products.  It's kind of a win/win although I haven't done much on there recently so it's been awhile since I earned a free box.  At any rate about two weeks ago I received a box of the new Revitalift collection from L'Oreal to try out and review.  I was actually really excited about this because if you followed me on my other blog then you know I have major issues finding a skin care routine that works for me.  After searching for YEARS for a routine that's easy, not hard to get ahold of AND works I finally found Ole Henricksen products (which are additionally vegan! Woo!) and I've been in love ever since. So I was excited to try out this routine which has a similar range of products and is quite a bit cheaper and a little easier to find in stores (Ole is only available through his site and Sephora).  With my standard skin care routine I use a micro essence (which you can actually see in the background), a day serum, a night serum, an eye cream, and a moisturizer (I also use Ole's skin cleanser but I feel that's a pretty standard part of anyone's routine). So it's five products a day and three steps in the AM, four steps in the PM.  I stopped using all my standard products (I switched over to an Origins face cleanser) so I could really compare the difference with these. 

Continued below...

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