Taped - My first taped mani! Zig Zags

Thanks to the lovely Chloe's Nails, Ive had this idea waiting for a while. 

Ive been reluctant to try tape but got ballzy the other night.

Turned out totally awesome! I love the colors I chose.

But after close inspection, I realized that I messed the zags up!

I followed her tutorial but apparently I got way ahead of myself, thinking, "Oh easy! I got this!"

Yea well, needless to say, I ended up with the shimmer color all in the middle sections with the purple and black alternating the tips and beds. But ya know what, I bet you wouldnt have noticed if I hadnt pointed it out, right?

Im always my own worst critic!

But I did say I still loved how it turned out so Im not totally bad :-p

My base purple is ORLY Purple Velvet, shimmer is Borghese Stellar Notte (thanks Jess for the heads up to try it again!) and black is my favorite Wet N Wild Black (such thick coverage for only $.99, can't beat that!)

Petite Pink Mattified

Saw this manicure and had to try it.

BUT after I added the silver tape, the ends just didn't want to stay put. So my solution? Top coat it! Well that made them stick up even more! Ug! Frustration forced me to wipe that accent nail completely clean and just go for a silver striper brush :-) Problem solved!

I'm so swooning over the matte though. And I'm not really a pink kind gal!

ORLY Cotton Candy,

Hard Candy (heheh^^) Matte-ly in Love matte top coat,

Kiss nail art pen striper in silver

Soccer Nails!

My totally awesome lil' 1st grader had his first soccer game of the season yesterday so to celebrate with him, I sported soccer nails. He thought they were so cool (even though I was looking at a soccer ball picture to make sure I got the pattern correct, it still wasn't right...only me!)

Yea yea so they don't keep score, but I did! They rocked the other team 3-1 :-)

So starting off with the main nails, I used French Tip Dip bright white base, then used the Kiss nail art paint black striper. Finished off with Wet N Wild black tips using my French Tip Dip tool.

Accent nail is a base of Sinful Colors Envy with Avon Sweet Mint sponged over it. Then I took Bundle Monster plate BM-209 and stamped with Wet N Wild white across the tip in a diagonal line to be the goal net. Kiss nail art paint striper in white was used across the open edge of it to act as the net bar. Acrylic paint was used for the soccer ball.

Tips - Hello Kitty

Time for some cute Hello Kitty tips.

Please excuse the ugly orange stained nails but the Hello Kitty is totally cute.

Tips done with French Tip Dip tool and their Bright White.

Kiss nail art paint striper in silver across the base of the tip.

Acrylic for the rest.

 Please excuse the dorky hand form. 

I somehow managed to smudge darn near every tip while drying so many repairs had to be done, including the horrible smudge on the silver stripe on my pointer finger. I re-striped over the smudge so that stripe is mucht thicker. Figured I try and picture it at an angle so you cant tell :-p

Polka Dots - Pale Blue

Another night of spending a good 20 minutes surfing through my nail photos to decide what I should do on my nails. I landed with polka dots (i seem to have the most ideas with these and french tips).

I used ORLYSnowcone as the base color, then large dotted with French Tip Dip white, then small dotted with Wet N Wild Black

My accent nail is the W&W black base, then I French Tip Dipped Snowcone on, then small dotted in the same W&W black. From there I added Kiss nail art paint in silver as a stripe across the bottom edge of the blue tip. Then added a cute fimo flower (I've had my eye on this flower since I got it and hadn't come across a manicure I could add it to. Until now!

Tips - Pinkle Sparkle (not quite glitter)

Because I already had a Pinkle Glitter manicure, I didn't know what to name this one so I went with Pinkle Sparkle. More sparkly than glittery. Inspired by Chloe (still one of my favorite manicurists).

I didn't have a shade quite as awesome as hers (odd being that I could walk up to the store and grab that SH now) but I figured with how many polishes I already have, just use one close (as I LOVED her color combo).

So I went with Color Club OH MY GOSH ITS NAMELESS!

(yup, so nameless. If you  know the name, please let me know!)

Then added OPI Sparkl-icious (see, the title even says sparkle)

Then went with a tip of the same nameless Color Club with my French Tip Dip.

Revlon Royal

After being awed by another swatch from Let Them Have Polish, I had to have it.

It looked like the most amazing gradient manicure I had seen then after close looking, I realized it wasn't a gradient but the way the polish lays on the nail! Her tips showed a different shade than the nail bed and it just looked awesome. So I popped Royal on my WL with the intentions of buying it next time at Rite Aid.

Well, I picked this beauty up last night (the last one too!)

Seems everyone saw one post and went crazy over it :-)

I'm a tad bummed that mine didn't come out as awesome as hers but the photos show a little shade difference that I can't really see in person (which that is usually opposite).

Application was ok. First coats always suck for me (I think because of my basecoat). But a second application and it covered nicely. The gel-like formula has a gorgeous color to it. Yet it dries with a matte-like finish. Now I'm a huge fan of matte but this finish just looked a tad silly. One coat of SV fixes that right up.