C'est La Vie

Holy cow, I've been gone a while. I was looking up swatches for a polish and realized my own poor blog has been neglected in favor of Instagram! Here are some recent favorites:

I used China Glaze Tantalize Me and loose glitter from Born Pretty Store.  I loved these, I kept them on until the glitter mostly fell off!

I used the same loose glitter here, over China Glaze Pool Party, and stamped with Winstonia plate W-04 using Pure Ice Silver Mercedes.

This is Orly Ablaze (over white undies), stamped with Maybelline Bold Gold 70, which seems to have been discontinued in favor of Bold Gold 45.  Stamping plate is Pueen 14, from their 2013 plate collection.

For more available updates, my Instagram is nails_on_nails_xo.  See y'all later!

Stamps on Stamps on Stamps

 So a few months ago, I discovered the joy of stamping! These were all done with this set of Pueen plates and a Konad stamper/scraper set.  I've found that American Apparel polishes work well and that China Glaze Goldie But Goodie is an AWESOME gold.

Geometric! Lil' bit of smudging though, bleh.

WHO DAT! Stamped using Goldie But Goodie.

 More pretties after the jump!

Hellooooooooooo!

I've been absent for a while, since school is taking a major toll on my blogging abilities. However, school is out soon-ish for break, and I'm hoping to pick it up again.  I might start doing smaller posts, especially since I've been getting into indie polishes(!) and nail wraps and stamping! I do miss blogging, but it's just something I haven't been able to make time for. I'm currently wearing these nails:

The base is Zoya Mason, which I got in my October Ipsy Glam Bag! I don't know if I was the only one, but mine had some formula problems.  It was almost like there were tiny clumps of pigment and it was a little bumpy before topcoat.  I stamped using China Glaze Goldie But Goodie, using a design from Cheeky Jumbo Plate 1.  Necessary (for my conscience): The "name" of the plate is Viva Mexico, which I have problems with.  Some of the imagery is very stereotypical and I have a massive problem with that. Mexican culture is NOT all Cinco de Mayo, dammit. Most of the images are fine, albeit not exactly "Mexican"-there are some images that are heavily Maya and Nazca inspired.  I just needed to express that on some platform!  See y'al later!

They Both Believed It Was True

I was surprised at how few nail designs I'd done lately-then I realized my phone didn't sync them all.  Oh well, life goes on!

 Abstract floral nails, inspired by my new Toms! I used a bunch of polishes to do a kind of abstract floral thing like I did in this post.

I can't EVEN deal with how gorgeous Color Club Revvvolution is. Beautiful.

New OPIs! Goldeneye and Stranger Tides in a tape mani.

And THEN a real feather mani on my cinderella hand (over Goldeneye).

Polka dot mani! China Glaze Frostbite on Essence L.O.L.

Title: Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

All of Nails and Polish...

I missed the 1-year anniversary of my blog and I am just...blah. I'm doing this post because I am so miserably congested that I can't concentrate on my schoolwork and it makes me feel productive!

Gradient using Sinful Colors Crystal Clear

Water spotting using Julep Millie and Sally Hansen Golden-I

Freehand Evil Eye accent mani.

More Hex Nail Jewelry! This time on a dot/gradient mani.

Gradient/delicate leopard print nails.

New favorite! And ASOS Swim-inspired nails.

Super Bright! China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard, topped with Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat in Fuzz-Sea (adorable).

Title: I switched up "All of time and space" a tiny bit...It's possible I'm in the middle of a Doctor Who marathon.

Slow It Down

It has been a rough week, to say the least.  Just one of those where you want to scream and cry and then adopt a million Scottish Folds and snuggle them all.  As of right now though, I only have six pages of writing and three finals between me and the end of the semester AND my baby cat is sleeping on my legs so...not too bad. Once again, it's going to be a bunch of Instagram pictures. I swear I'll find my camera!

This was a pretty popular post for me and I got a lot of compliments IRL! I used OPI My Vampire Is Buff for the base, as well as China Glaze First Mate, Maybelline Fierce N' Tangy, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Coral Reef, and Julep Annie.

OH LOOK, it's more Vampire and First Mate, but also China Glaze Angel Wings! Also the same flowers...

Zoya Ivanka with a little Vampire on top...

Pretty purple flowers sure make the Vampire look nice, don't they? I used Julep Popva, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac, Wet N' Wild On A Trip, and Sinful Colors Enchanted.

I had to cut my nails to nubs because they were getting too long for me to be super comfortable handling my contacts, so I did some lil' galaxies using the same method/polishes as in this post. 

See y'all soon!

Title: Slow It Down, The Lumineers

Dots on Dots on Dots

So lately I've apparently been on a polka dot kick AND I've decided that not blogging is not an option because it's something I like to do and Instagram just isn't cutting it.

Nautical colors are my favorite! The blue is China Glaze First Mate and I LOVE IT. I've been searching for a navy blue creme for what seems like forever, because every time I found one that seemed ideal, it always ended up having a shimmer to it I didn't like. The ivory is OPI My Vampire Is Buff and the gold is Julep Sienna.

Another mani I absolutely loved. I used Julep Rebel as the base (unfortunately, it was cloudy the day I wore this and it wasn't as gorgeous as it is here). The neon coral is China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy; the purple, mint, and blue are all Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Lacey Lilac, Mint Sorbet, and Breezy Blue.

I did a Purple Nails for Boston Mani as well, using Lacey Lilac as the base, Sinful Colors Enchanted as the first, bigger dot, and Julep Rebel as the smaller dots. I was actually asked if these were nail wraps a few times! Extremely flattering, in my opinion.

I'm The Worst

So life has been hectic and I've been lazy...and here is a bunch of Instagram pictures of everything I've done for like, the last TWO WEEKS. Three? I dunno, but I'll be back to blogging this week!

Glitter Gradient with Zoya Song and Ivanka

Glitter Gradient (Sinful Colors All About You and China Glaze Angel Wings) with Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac, Coral Reef, and Mint Sorbet. Studs from Born Pretty.

Julep Lynn with Born Pretty studs again.

Sally Hansen Coin Flip (LOVE THIS) with white detail (Color Club striping polish) and Born Pretty rhinestones-I have a wheel of these bad boys, so I should probably use them more.

Lacey Lilac again, this time with China Glaze Scattered & Tattered-seriously love this glitter too, part of their Glitz Bitz N' Pieces collection.

St. Patty's water marble with Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet, White On, and Coin Flip, featuring my wallet (from Urban Outfitters).

Current (until later) mani! Julep Popova with All About You and individually placed glitter for the rainbow and pot o' gold.

A couple of my pics didn't show up in my downloads and I'm too lazy to manually download them (sorry guyz), but they are totally on my Instagram!

I Never Could Get The Hang of Thursdays

I've been wearing Zoya Aurora for the past couple of days and it's SO PRETTY YOU GUYS. Unfortunately I did not take a picture before making them into galaxy nails, woo!

I was getting a teeny bit of tip wear, so I decided to kind of reverse a galaxy mani, colorwise. Since Aurora was already on the bottom, I used an eyeshadow sponge to dab on Sinful Colors Nova around the sides and toward the middle, then Sinful Colors What's Your Name on top and a little further out. Both are dark bases with shimmer in them, so they blended nicely and added some depth. Since I'm pickiest about the "stars" I mixed a couple of drops of Sinful Colors Queen of Beauty with a drop of China Glaze Glistening Snow and a little bit of clear topcoat to thin it out, then dabbed that on as well.  I love how the holo and glitter look, and I wish there was sunlight today so I could get a better pic! A couple of coats of Seche Vite smoothed out the (kind grainy) holo glitter and made it super shiny.

Title: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Experiment: "Tribal" Nails

I picked up a set of 7 Color Club nail art polishes with striping brushes for $10 at Marshall's the other day, and I've been itching to try them out, so here you are:

They were pretty easy to use, although I had a few problems keeping my lines as neat on my right hand! I did bring out my dotting tool to do the dots, since I wasn't really able to get dots where I wanted them with the brushes. The white polish was also a little prone to smearing when I did a top coat of Seche Vite, but that was easily avoided by "floating" the top coat so you don't actually touch the nail art with the brush. The base coat is China Glaze "Escaping Reality" from their Cirque du Soleil Worlds Away Collection.

Teeny Tiny Christmas Tree Mani

Mine isn't as cool as my inspiration over at Pshiiit, but I still think it's pretty snazzy. I'm not sure how I feel about the base color-it's a little more olive than gold in some light. Maybe another coat of Seche Vite will make them a little shinier?

Sorry it's Instagram-ed!

Colors Used: China Glaze Angel Wings, Julep Popova, Julep Mischa

Rhinestone from: Born Pretty Store

F*ckloads of Diamonds

China Glaze's Angel Wings, from the Holiday Joy 2012 Collection, is the absolute shiniest thing I've ever put on my nails, and by far the hardest to photograph, so you're going to have to excuse the Christmas tablecloth-the dining room was apparently the best lighting in the house!

I really need to stop using my iPhone camera, but I'm entirely too lazy to go through the effort of editing pictures on my computer when I have the Aviary app on my phone and I always have my phone...oh well!  I do love this color, but it chipped off after a couple of days. I just finished a different mani, so that'll probably be up tomorrow, AND I have (what I think) is an exciting DIY coming up, just as soon as I perfect and photograph my technique. A mystery technique, for now, anyways!

Title: Lily Allen, The Fear

Sandy Sandy Sand

The other day I was SUPER excited to get my China Glaze holographics...unfortunately, I wasn't in the mood for in-your-face nails. I decided that one coat over a neutral basecoat would probably be a nice little place to meet in the middle, and I was right...kind of.

I liked the overall effect-I used one coat of Angel Wings over two coats of Julep's Annette-but I executed it poorly. There were some awkward patches and my cuticles were a hot mess. It was almost like sand in the sunshine though, and a really nice change from a basic neutral. I had to change it today though, especially since I got back to making friendship bracelets and the embroidery thread managed to dent BOTH my thumbs and make my nails peel. Oh well, worth it!