My Thanksgiving Manicure

Hello, all! I hope all of you who celebrate it had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'm still recovering from my turkey-induced coma. :) As you can tell, as a beginner I'm sometimes too ambitious with my nail art. This time is no exception. I've shown you proof that I'm just no good yet at stamping. That being said, what did I try on this attempt? Double stamping!

For this look, I used a base of Wet n Wild Megalast in Under Your Spell, which is a rich, vampy burgundy that's full of red shimmer. I then stamped it with a wood grain pattern from Bundle Monster's 2014 CYO collection, plate BM-608. For this I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Bittersweet, which I'd describe more as a creamy milk chocolate color. After a top coat, I stamped a leaf pattern from plate BM-617 using Sally Hansen X-treme Wear in Golden-I. I love this color for stamping because of its super shiny foil finish. I finished it all off with a matte top coat that I got months ago from a Cult Cosmetics buy 1, get 2 free sale.

So, while it's by no means perfect, (some gaps in the stamped images, I flooded a couple cuticles with acetone rushing through clean-up), I'm actually quite happy with how this manicure turned out. I hope you enjoyed it, and thanks so much for looking!

My First Striping Tape Mani...and Fail!

I'd been to several beauty supply stores trying to find striping tape, all to no avail.  Since I had no luck finding any, my very sweet mother ordered this set for me as a surprise. Thanks, Mom! :) She shakes her head at my obsession and enables me all at the same time...that's love! I figured striping tape was something I'd be able to master fairly quickly. Hey, it's tape...how hard can it be to use, right? Well...

For this manicure I used a base of my usual CND Stickey, followed by two coats of Essie No Place Like Chrome. I let it dry and added striping tape, which I then covered with Sally Hansen Midnight in NY and removed the tape. Then, I topped it all with Seche Vite.

What I learned:
In applying the tape, I realize now that in some places it wasn't completely flat on the nail, which means some polish got underneath. I also let the Midnight in NY dry too much on some nails, which caused it to lift in some places when I removed the tape.

Still, I wore this mani for a few days, because it was actually kind of cute (especially if you didn't look too closely), but mostly because...it was my very first time using striping tape! So, while it's clearly not my best work, I'm committed to sharing my failures as well as my successes...it's all about the journey.

Thanks for looking!

My First Halloween Manicure

Today, I did my first Halloween manicure! Here, I attempted a spider-cure I saw on YouTube by Gianna of Lancengi, who posts lots of neat nail art tutorials for beginners. The one I picked can be found here. It wasn't the easiest of the three tutorials, and I'm sure I was a little ambitious in choosing the one I did, but it sure was fun trying! I'm showing it off despite the fact that most of my spiders look like baby frogs. :)

Baby spider-frogs?

Colors used: Julep Kaylen, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Good to Grape, Sinful Colors Black on Black, Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl
Base coat: CND Stickey
Top coat: Seche Vite

Thanks for looking! Where do you get your Halloween mani inspiration?

Hello, World!

  So, here goes...my first attempt at nail art and the first at writing a blog post, as well! I thought I did okay for a n00b and wanted to share. Hey, I've got to start somewhere, right? So, please look over all my newbie mistakes...I hope to get better at it soon, and I wholeheartedly welcome suggestions! I used a base of butter London Blagger, which is one of my fall favorites. I stamped (which I am also new at...my first ever stamping plates arrived just a few days ago!) using a Cheeky jumbo plate (Z1 bundle, plate E, found on Amazon) and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Gilty Pleasure. I then added different sized dots using J nail lacquer in Light Green and finished with a coat of Seche Vite. I'll likely be the only person who ever sees this, but in the event I'm not, thanks for looking! :)