Halloween Mani/Lazy 15- Day 1

Today's post is a double- it's my Halloween design as well as the first challenge for my "Lazy 15 Challenge." (Although technically, the Lazy 15 should be starting on Friday... shhhh!!! Don't tell anyone!! :)

 So I knew that today's manicure was going to have to match my Halloween costume, and I chose gold and white as my colors. Then, the Lazy 15's first theme was a tape manicure, so I created a design I tried out earlier in the summer. It was inspired from a magazine (not sure which one) and is very simple when done with tape. :)

 To do this, you will need two different polish colors (glitters probably won't work well for this). Paint the first color (the one you will see LESS of) on and let is COMPLETELY dry! You will also need to cut masking/painter's tape into little triangles, and apply them to dry nails as shown above.

 After this, you can paint your second color over top. Don't be afraid to cover it completely!! One tip for this step: be sure to paint over all exposed nail. Sometimes, the tape makes it hard to get every area, so be careful.

 After the second polish dries, you can remove the tape, and voila!!! It's a really simple,  but elegant design. I love these two colors together as well!!!

 I bet this exact design would look great for a Grecian or Egyptian costume!!

 And here's my costume!!! I'm going to be Robin Hood, in case you couldn't tell from the little hat. :)

These are my nails against the costume. The golds aren't exactly alike, but I think they're close enough.

As for the colors, I used Sally Hansen Salon minis. They didn't have names on them, so...

Anyways, have a happy- and safe!- Halloween!!!

*EDIT (November 2, 2012): Check out this Phoenix nails post to see all of the other great bloggers that are participating- Phoenix Nails

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New November Nail Challenge- The Lazy 15

Hey everyone!!! I've got some exciting news today- I'm joining another challenge! Yay!!!! I really loved my first nail challenge, "Let's Do the Time Warp" and am looking forward to this one called, "The Lazy 15," created by Phoenix Nails.

And below is a photo of what the schedule will look like. I'm going to try to do it, but with school, I may not be able to keep to the exact schedule the whole time...

Did you notice the first day's challenge? It's tape :) I couldn't be happier. And that will be perfect with the Halloween mani I'm planning for tomorrow...

If you're interested in joining the challenge, check out the above links. Enjoy!!

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P.S. ^ Yes, those are sharks. No, they are not there for any special reason. I just saw them and liked them, and thought I'd share them with you all :)

Candy Corn Carnival

 Hello, and welcome to my third Halloween nail art!!! I can't believe Halloween's only in 4 more days!!! Get ready  for some more nail art, as I'm working on a manicure to go with my Robin Hood Honey costume! :)

 But for today, we have candy corns! I don't think there is anything more iconic of Halloween besides the pumpkin and candy corn. So I chose to do the candy corn several different ways to make it more unique.

We have a gradient design on my first and ring fingers. The thumb and pink were done with, what else- masking tape!! LOL :) (Gotta love me and my obsession with tape... :) My middle finger though is definitely the most creative and different technique out of the three. It's more of an "abstract design" and I want to try it out again with different colors.

The technique I used was based off of this "Sugar Spun" design by Kristine at Pink & Polished. She has a pretty good tutorial for it, so if you're interested, check out her post!! I unfortunately had the same problem she did: impatience. Therefore, the nail didn't turn out as well as it could have...

Here is just another shot that gives a better view of my thumb. I'm pretty happy with the stripes- I think I'm getting neater!! :)

Polishes used:

• Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Lightening
• NYC in Times Square Tangerine Creme
• Wet n Wild in French White Creme

Anyways, enjoy!!!

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Manicare- 1

Hello all!! Sorry for the recent lull in posting, but a hectic weekend, as well as less than perfect nails didn't create the opportune time to post. But I'm back today with some basic nail care products to show you all. Hope you like it. :)

The tips of my nails were all splitting and peeling, so I first trimmed them shorter. Then I used some treatment oil from Mary Kay. This stuff works great!!!!! It helps my nails SOOO much when they get dry!! It does take a while to absorb though, so I left it on for about 10 minutes, then did a quick rinse to get most of it off.

Then, I painted on a coat of Sally Hansen Miracle Nail Thickener. I'm hoping this will help prevent some of the splitting in the future.

Lastly, I used Quick Dry Base Coat from Revlon. I suppose I didn't really have to do this step, but it made my nails shinier. :) Besides, they needed all the help they could get!!!

And here is just a closeup of the three products I tried out, in the order that they were applied. Again, they are: Mary Kay Treatment Oil, Sally Hansen Miracle Nail Thickener, and Revlon Quick Dry Base Coat.

So now that my nails have some TLC, hopefully they'll be on the road to recovery. I'm currently aiming to get some nail art up later this week/this coming weekend, so be checking back often!!

I have a quick question for you all too, what kind of products do you use to take care of your nail?

See you soon!!
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Featuring- Frankenstein

 Halloween is fast approaching! Which means I have more Halloween nail art for you all today! This manicure was inspired by a little character known as Frankenstein. Ever heard of him? I thought so. :)

 On three of my fingers, we have Frankenstein's lime green skin with black stitching. Then, I thought it would be fun to alternate and do a "reverse Frankenstein" on the other two nails.

 I'm really happy with the way the design turned out. And I love this green, it was the perfect polish!

 Unfortunately, my top coat smeared the stitching a bit, but luckily you can't see it in most of the photos.

Colors used: Sinful Colors Nail Art in Sour Apple and Wet n Wild Wild Shine in Black Creme.

Thanks for reading, and I hope that if you like what you see, you'll decide to follow me! :)

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Pumpkin Patch

It's that time of year... HALLOWEEN!! Now while I'm not big into creepy, horror stuff, I do love Halloween. This is mostly because I have an excuse to dress up in a fun costume (different every year :) and get candy! And I seriously LOVE candy! :)

 So for my first Halloween nail art, I've chosen to do jack-o-lanterns! Carving pumpkins has always been one of my favorite fall activities, and visiting the pumpkin patch is definitely a fun treat.

 On each nail, I tried to give the pumpkin a different face from the last one. Some look scary, and then there's ones like my ring finger that are just smiling happily. :)

 When designing this mani, I knew right away that I wanted to try out a silver background. And I'm actually really happy with it! I thought about black, but I think that would have been too much... what do you all think? Should I have done a different background polish?

 A final shot of my right hand... I apologize for all of the pics, but the lighting in my house was terrible, and I really wanted you to be able to get a good idea of what it looks like. It is pretty cute if I do say so myself. :)

And since I'm left-handed, I elected not to try to paint pumpkin faces with my right hand. So I just left the pumpkins plain. I still think they're cute, but do prefer the ones with faces. Which do you like better: plain or carved?

Come back soon for my next Halloween nail art! (Frankenstein- themed! :)

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Versatile Blogger Award

So a couple of weeks ago, I was nominated by Sarah Lou for the Versatile Blogger Award! Thank you SO much Sarah! Her blog is awesome, so I hope you all check it out!

And here are the requirements for the award:

• Nominate up to 15 other bloggers for the award (and let them know you have nominated them)
• Share 7 random facts about yourself
• Thank the person who nominated you in your award post and share a link back to their blog
• Put the Versatile Blogger Award picture on your post

So, here are 7 random facts about me:

• I'm a mix of Puerto Rican, Italian, Irish, and Polish (or, as some people say, I'm a mutt :)
• I live in Baltimore, MD, but my favorite NFL team is the Miami Dolphins (#1dolfan :)
• I Irish dance
• I started a writing club at my school
• I have two hamsters named Sugar and Spice (...and everything nice :)
• I can count to 10 in Danish and Spanish (as well as English :)
• I played soccer for 6/7 years when I was younger

These are the links to the blogs I have nominated for the award:

• Twirl
• Easy Nail Art 1
• Hand-y Feats and Other Treats
• Nicole gets Nailed
• Pink & Polished
• Fishing 4 Beauty
• Lacqueerisa
• Captivating Claws
• Tropical Nail Art

And they're all FABULOUS blogs, so I hope you visit them all!

That's it for now... check back soon for more nail art- Halloween-themed!! :)

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LDTTWC Day 8- Let's Do The Time Warp Again!

 Let's do the time warp again! So for our final day in this challenge, we were to time warp back to one of our favorite manicures and do it all over again!

My design is, "Under the Sea," inspired by this post from Carly. I loved her idea of "The Little Mermaid," for a nostalgic movie and just had to try it out myself. :)

Let's take a look at the results...

 On my first finger, we have part of Ariel's green tail as well as her gorgeous red hair. I thought to myself, "her tail and hair are iconic, but I don't think I can paint a face; plus, I don't have skin colored polish either..." So, my solution was to ditch her face and show a "lower" view. LOL :)

Then, on my middle finger, I painted a coral and shell design inspired by this tutorial by Teen Vogue. I thought it was so cute! Although, theirs is a little better than mine...

And then there's adorable little Flounder swimming his way across my ring finger. Maybe he just got through the seaweed jungle on my pinkie. :)

For my thumb, I created a basic scale-y design using tape! If you don't already know this, I LOVE masking tape for making manicures! It helps create such great shapes and lines that I just can't get with freehand! :)

Colors Used:

• Blue base- Wet n Wild Fast Dry Teal or No Teal
• Coral- Wet n Wild Wild Shine Blazed
• Mint green- OPI Gargantuan Green Grape (I just have to say, I love this name. Don't you? :)
• Lime green- Sinful Colors Nail Art Sour Apple
• Neon blue (for designs)- Sinful Colors Nail Art Hey Dear!
• White- Wet n Wild French White Creme
• Black- Wet n Wild Wild Shine Black Creme
• Yellow- Sally Hansen Insta Dri Lightening
• Red- Revlon Love That Red

Unfortunately, "Let's Do The Time Warp Challenge," hosted by Neverland Nail Blog and Nail Polish Canada is now officially over. :'( There will be prizes though, so we'll have to wait and see if I win. The reward is the Color Club Holographic Hues Collection and 3 polishes of the winners' choice from China Glaze's Wicked Collection. Hope I win! :)

As always, check out the other great manis from other competitors!

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LDTTWC Day 7- You're Timeless to Me!

 The day's theme was something that never goes out of style. It's pretty impressive for something to be popular yesterday, today, and tomorrow! So I thought immediately of blue jeans! They were created in 1873 and have been popular every year since!

I chose to depict the classic blue jean with a stitched pocket, however, this is certainly not the only kind out there! (Sorry for the dark pics, I took them at night :)

It seems as though every year since their creation, the jean has been redone for the times. Let's take a look at some of the jean styles through the ages:

• First was the regular, plain button blue jeans made by Levi's
• Then there were overalls
• In the 70's, flare jeans were popular
• Bootcut and jean shorts hit the scene
• More recently, the skinny jean and "jegging" have been created
• Within the past few years, the style has been to dye jeans in every color of the rainbow
• And I heard that the newest denim fad of the year is metallic colored jeans

So even though they've been around forever, jeans haven't gone out of style, and I think they never will!

Colors Used:

• Maybelline Color Show in Navy Narcissist- and just fyi, this color is amazing!!! The blue is gorgeous and metallic-y. This is possibly my new favorite polish :)
• Pure Ice in Frosted Ice Sky- this color is silver, but on top of the blue, it takes on a slightly purple tint which is really cool

I can't believe there's only one day left in this challenge! It's been great, and I hope you've enjoyed it! Check back later in this week for my final post, a recreation of my design from the challenge.

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