Neon Pink Stripes

I thought I should get all the neon out of my system before I have to pull out the Fall colors. So here goes ...

I am ashamed to say I have absolutely no idea what the name of this pink is. It is my sister's nail polish that accidentally got mixed in with mine. I couldn't resist using it before I gave it back to her. For some reason, she took the name sticker off the bottom. Seriously? Who does that??? Though looking at swatches it may or may not be either Sinful Colors Fusion Neon or 24/7.

The name of this color aside it is a beautifully bright pink. What better use for a pink this bright than doing stripes with China Glaze White on White?

How about taking it one step further? This was done with the help of some weird cut scissors. I put a piece of tape on some wax paper and cut it down the middle with ragged cut scissors. Cutting the tape down the middle let me have enough tape for two nails. I angled the tape just slightly on my nails and painted over with black. I think this created a really awesome pattern. It almost looks like the black is running down my nails in some spots. I can already see a few more uses for these scissors.

How do you feel about using weird cut scissors as part of a tape mani?

HauteLook and Orly

I'm not sure how many of you are already signed up for HauteLook, but if you're not already you really should be. Until Saturday 8AM Pacific time, HauteLook will have Orly nail polishes for $4.50. Halloween Creme and Halloween Glitter are $9.00 and the 6 set Romance Collection is only $27 compared to it's usual price of $51! There are also a few others at various prices. This is a steal in my opinion given that Orly is usually $8.50 a bottle. I have very few Orly in my collection due to their price and my small nail polish budget. So, at this price I already have 6 in my cart. :)

Well, I'm off to place my order, just thought I would let you guys know about this awesome deal in case you want to add some Orly to your collection too.

C is for ...

Here is my mani for C in the ABC Challenge. I had so many ideas for C. The classic caged bird flying away design, cats, checkered, color blocking. However, I finally decided C is for ...

Chucky complete with blood drips. The Bride of Chucky movie is definitely one of my favorite 'horror' movies, right up there with Seed of Chucky. The only horror movies I like more are the Resident Evil movies.

I love the blood drips over white in this mani. These come from a tutorial over at Nails by Kayla Shevonne. I was left slightly disappointed at my Chucky. He came together so well but the overall effect just doesn't scream Chucky at me. I don't think I managed to capture that essential craziness he does so well.

However, this mani is chilling no matter if it looks completely like Chucky. So, if I must, C can also be for chilling.

B is for ...

I stumbled across the ABC Challenge last week and decided I wanted to take part. This is my first challenge like this since I usually come in way, way too late.

The ABC's of Nail Polish is pretty much exactly what it sounds like — an ABC nail art challenge hosted by the Llama Nails group on Facebook. The challenge started September 12th and will run through to March 6th. 26 weeks for 26 letters. Posting is every Wednesday. You only need to do one manicure a week and it's okay if you miss a week. However, the big rule is that, each week, something in your manicure must begin with the letter for that week. It can be the name of the polish brand you'll be using, the name of the polish itself, the technique, the stamp, the color, the item depicted on your nails ... really the sky is the limit!

I would love it if any other nail artists or enthusiasts joined me for this challenge!!

I missed the letter A since I came in late for this challenge. I wanted to make up for that by doing two B manicures. So ...

B is for Beard

This beard mani is something I've been wanting to do for a really long time. However, it's not something I could wear anywhere ... even just around the house. It's very impractical! This challenge gave me the perfect chance to do this idea though. I made the beard, mustache, and bushy eyebrows from a cotton ball and attached them with clear nail polish. Oddly enough, the face was added after all the hair.

B is for Bricks

Somehow this all turned into a really Christmas-y mani set. I think after doing the beard mani and seeing how much like Santa it looked like all I could think of after that was the old fashioned brick fireplaces. I can just see an accent finger with a roaring fire cut into the bricks. Still, these brick nails were really fun to do. You can't see it in this picture but I sponged on a darker red in hopes of getting a speckled brick pattern but once I added the white it kind of got lost. Oh well.

That's it for this post. I hope to see you in the Llama Nails group doing the challenge beside me. :) Be on the lookout for my C mani in my next post.

Hazard

'ello girlies. I hope you guys have a great weekend. I'm going to keep today's post fairly simple. It's a color swatch. It's been a while since I did a simple color swatch.

This is Hazard from Sinful Colors. I was browsing the nail polish section of Walmart when I caught sight of this color out of the corner of my eye. It isn't my usual choice of color but I was absurdly drawn to it for some reason. I just had to have it!

I'm really glad I decided to buy Hazard. It is a lovely shade of warm coral pink that turns this equally as gorgeous cool shade of salmon in some lights. I don't know how Sinful Colors managed to capture such warm and cool shades together in one bottle, but they did an amazing job!

No matter if it turns coral or salmon, it is so beautiful! However, you know me! I can't just wear a plain polish, no matter how pretty. I had to do something.

I took some of my 2mm round gold studs that I purchased from the Born Pretty Store and used them to create tips over Hazard. The Born Pretty Store has come out with some really awesome studs (and other products too). They have round studs in various colors, square in silver and gold that can be turned to create diamond shaped studs, as well comma, rectangle, actual diamond, and star studs! My next order will definitely include some square studs and maybe some of those stars! Did I mention they also just came out with velvet powder? Yep, I'll have that too! :)

What do you think of Hazard?

Give Me Your Suggestions

Hey girlies! The posts are all set for the next week, and I feel like I can take a bit of a breather. Since I won't be scrambling for nail art to post I thought I would take a moment and ask you what you want to see.

So, what are you looking for on this blog? Do you want to see a specific nail art? More of my attempts at stamping? A better variety of color swatches? What??

You tell me what you want to see and I'll try to make it happen. I can't promise that I will be able to do everything you guys requests, but I would love to give it a try. You can leave requests and suggestions in the comments or you can email them to me if you like.

♥ Ashley

Whiten Your Nails At Home (Tutorial)

I don't know about you, but no matter how well my base coat works, after all this nail art my nails start to look yellow. I finally got fed up with this yellowing last month and searched all over the internet for a DIY whitening. And I found one, a really good one, and I'm going to share it with you!

The ingredients are simple! You just need some baking soda and some hydrogen peroxide. It doesn't matter how much or how little you pay for these. I had some brand name baking soda and some Rite Aid peroxide on hand so I decided to use them. So, don't feel bad about getting off brand products if you're on a budget! Just make sure your peroxide is 3%. If you can't find 3% listed on the front, check the active ingredients list; hydrogen peroxide should be listed there as 3%.

You'll need a bowl or a cup. I've tried both and found I preferred the bowl but will go with a slightly smaller bowl next time. You'll get a whiter look if you have something to scrub your nails with. I used an old, soft toothbrush.

The original instructions said to make a paste from 1 teaspoon of peroxide and 2 1/4 teaspoons of baking soda. However, I found this mixture was too runny to call a 'paste' so I simply dumped in more baking soda and peroxide until I had a suitably thick paste, as seen in the picture above. Keep in mind that your body heat will cause the paste to melt slightly.

After you have your paste made to your liking, you can choose to layer some of it over your nails. I decided to soak my nails in the paste instead. Not only was it less tiring than keeping my hand elevated and completely still, but there was less chance of making a mess by dripping the paste everywhere. I had the patience to soak my nails for about 20-30 minutes per hand. (Whiten your nails while you watch your favorite television show!) Occasionally remove your hand from the mixture and lightly scrub with your brush. Don't scrub too hard as the graininess of the baking soda can damage to your nails.

Simply wash your hands and nails of the remaining paste and they should be noticeably whiter. I recommend putting on a good hand and nail cream after this.

Here are my nails before ... very yellow at the tips especially around my nail line ...

And here are my nails after two whitening treatments done over two weeks, one a week.

From some of the other recipes I found during my search you can add a small amount of lemon juice to this mixture to speed up whitening. I didn't have any lemons on hand so I couldn't try this. I will say that I had a small amount of pain and irritation under some of my nails after soaking them. The irritation faded quickly but I'm not sure how adding lemon would affect this. Certainly don't use this, with or without lemon, if you have any cuts or open wounds on or around your hands!

I would love to know if you try this recipe and if it works for you. I would also love to know if you know of a better one!

Talk Like A Pirate Day

Tomorrow is my usual Wednesday nail post, but how many of you know that tomorrow is also Talk Like A Pirate Day?? There is always something fun happening on Talk Like A Pirate Day if you know where to look.

For instance, if you decide to eat at a Long John Silver's tomorrow, actually talk like a pirate and they'll give you a free piece of their classic Whitefish with your order. Don't worry, they say, you don't have to talk true buccaneer, just give it your best shot. Not up to talking like a pirate? Dress like a pirate instead and they'll give you the same deal!

Want more fun?? Starting tomorrow at 4am PDT (be sure to convert for you local time) Swagbucks will be hosting a Swag Code Treasure Hunt! Participants in this treasure hunt will have the chance of finding 7 codes randomly distributed throughout the day that can score them 60 Swag Bucks in total. Swagbucks has even created their own treasure map for us to follow. It can be found here and will be updated throughout the day tomorrow to guide you from code to code.

In addition to the treasure hunt, tomorrow is Mega Swag Booty Day. Do all your searching through the Swagbucks search engine tomorrow and have the opportunity to win BIG! You have the chance to win anywhere from 30 to 1000 Swag Bucks with just ONE search. Think of the gift cards you could get with that many Swag Bucks.

Not a member of Swagbucks yet? That's okay! Just sign up tonight (or even tomorrow but you might miss a few codes), read through the help section to learn the ins and outs of being a Swaggernaut, and join in the hunt for treasure tomorrow. You might just be cashing in your hard won booty for a gift card by tomorrow night if you're lucky!

Arrrgg! Good luck me mateys!!

My Coffee Obsession

My not-so-well kept secret is that I love coffee. I would drink it all day, every day if I could. And to me, the cup is just as important as the coffee. I can't just put my coffee in any cup. My family knows this and they are nice enough to get me some of the prettiest cups. Today's nail art is inspired by one of these cups.

Here are the (not so perfect) finished nails. I can't for the life of me get my stamper to work consistently. Though it hardly ever stamps this bad. This likely had something to do with the fine and delicate etching for the flower petals.

And here is the cup that inspired these nails. I started with three coats of Lightening from Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri line of polish.

 It's one of the most perfect yellow polishes, in my opinion. I have owned light yellows and sheer yellows but before Lightening I have never owned an actual, true yellow.

To get the yellow gingham pattern from the cup I used tape and China Glaze's White on White.

I used three strips of tape from cuticle to nail tip and three strips of tape from side to side before painting over the nail with white. This is such an easy design to do and creates such an amazing affect!!

My coffee cup has such gorgeous flowers in various colors, but the ones that catch my eye most are definitely the blue morning glories. To complete this design there just had to be flowers. Sadly, the only flowers I can do without a good deal of time are swirly roses and daisy-like flowers using a dotting tool. I had to use my stamper. I want so much to be good at stamping ... but I'm just not. :( I did manage to get one nearly perfect flower and it really did make the design come to life! It makes me all the more longing of a deft stamping hand.

I could definitely see this gingham pattern being used in a picnic nail art. Use red in place of the yellow and a dotting tool with some black to create an ant or two scuttling their way over the picnic blanket. If you have fimo fruit slices it would certainly add life to the design. :)

Resident Evil: Retribution

Hello girlies! I'm sorry for the long wait between posts. There's been some super huge 'end of spring' cleaning happening in my house and I managed to cut my finger. I wanted to let it heal a bit before risking nail polish remover. That said, I should have enough room for another nail polish drawer before I know it!! ♥

However, I could't let the theater debut of the new Resident Evil movie (Resident Evil: Retribution) pass without some nail art!! I apologize for the extreme brightness of this picture. I had to take it with flash since the sunlight made the red disappear completely into the black.

I knew immediately what I wanted to do for this design. It was getting it onto my nails that was nearly impossible. I decided to create my own nail stickers in hopes of making the completion of this design easier. The Umbrella symbol was made so much easier with this method. It gave me a flat surface to work on, one that I could twist and turn to get the best angle. A dot in the middle, triangles in alternating red and white around this dot, and curved tops. I did blood splatter as I always do, but I loved the way nail stickers gave me the option of choosing the splatter pattern I wanted instead of having to go with what came out of the straw.

The hardest part by far was the bloody fingerprint. It had me almost giving up a few times before I came up with a design I liked. While this idea came from a tutorial I found on deviantART, I had to adapt it so that it would work for me and this design. I painted the pad of my index finger with black and stamped a fingerprint onto my homemade sticker. I left my finger on the sticker until it was almost permanently stuck so that it would leave an imprint on the sticker just in case the black polish didn't get left behind right. With a small brush I traced an approximation of my fingerprint over the black. It wasn't exact but it came through well enough to get the idea across.

So, what's your favorite horror movie? While I used to be a huge horror movie buff The Resident Evil series and the Bride of Chucky are just about the only horror movies I'll watch anymore unless I'm feeling nostalgic.

It's Raining Glitter

I've been calling this my raining glitter mani so I decided to use that for the title. I wanted to do something a bit different than the usual glitter tips that naturally happen when I break out the glitter.



So, I decided to flip the glitter from tip to cuticle and drag it down my nails in lines ... or 'rain'. My sister has taken a liking to these nails so I'll probably be doing them again soon on a different set of nails. :)

This mani uses two coats of White on White from China Glaze as a base for the neon. The neon is Color Club's Mrs. Robinson. I used two coats but seeing the pictures, and the white showing through near the tips, I realize I should have used three or maybe even four coats. The glitter is Wet n Wild Kaleidoscope.

This picture isn't the best quality but it was taken in full sunlight and shows Mrs. Robinson more true to color than shown in the first two pictures.

Drum Roll Please ...

The winners of my recent giveaway, The Great Sephora Giveaway, have now been chosen. And the winners are ...

$50 egift card winner

ScarsLikeLace, owner of Nails Like Lace

... and ...

$10 egift card winner

Katie E., owner of The Nailaholic

Congratulations to the winners!!

I am sorry about the delay in choosing the winners. Yesterday was Labor Day in the US, and I know some people take a long holiday weekend for Labor Day. I made the decision to delay sending out winning emails in an effort to be fair and give all chosen winners the best chance of claiming their prizes.

Winners have 24 hours to reply to my email before I have to choose new winners.

Turquoise Gemstone Nails

Hello again! I know, I know, I'm posting this a bit later than usual; it's been a busy day. I won't bore you with the details, but I will say that my nails are the same length they started the day and my basement is much cleaner. :)

Today's post was inspired by turquoise gemstones and uses a method I've never tried before.

When I saw plastic wrap sponging mentioned on a blog I thought the outcome was pretty but it didn't intrigue me too terribly much. For those who haven't heard of this method, you take a piece of plastic wrap and crinkle it to create a pattern. After that simply dip a bit of the crinkled plastic wrap into some nail polish and dab it onto your nails like using a sponge. You can dab first onto a piece of paper to make sure you like the pattern created. I thought it was a very innovative use for plastic wrap but wasn't really interested in trying this method. However, when I caught a glimpse of a nail design on Pinterest using this method I knew it was something I had to try.

For those of you who know your gemstones you'll notice the big mistake with my turquoise. I started with a two coat base of Wet n Wild's I Need a Refresh-Mint. I thought this made a great gemstone base, and I like to think I was right.

However, the problem came about when I decided to use Sally Hansen Antiqued Gold for the gemstone's veining. Antiqued Gold is one of Sally Hansen's crackle top coats and is a (slightly less bright) match to the gold veining found in a lot of turquoise gems. I thought using a crackle would help add to the pattern using plastic wrap creates. It was perfect ... except that in small amounts Antiqued Gold isn't gold; it's SILVER! So, while the outcome was still very pretty, it wasn't exactly what I had in mind from the start.

Still, I got to try something new and that's always great fun!!

Doctor Who Season Premiere

'ello girlies! I don't know about anyone else, but I am so excited about the new season of Doctor Who that premieres tonight!! I was just brimming with Doctor Who nail art ideas. In my mind, I just have to have Doctor Who nails to watch the premiere. :)

On my pinky nail is the Doctor's bow tie and suspenders. The middle and ring finger each have a Tardis door complete with the sign on the middle finger. I thought it was a cute and clever idea, almost like being able to open the doors if I could just move my fingers right. The index finger has the Doctor Who, DW, logo.

And what Doctor Who design is complete without at least one galaxy nail??