Cupcake Nails With A Cherry On Top

Cupcake nails have kinda been on my bucket list of "Nail Trends To Try".  It's such a cute and easy design idea I thought it'd work great with gel polish.
I used Go Girl, Gossip Girl, Arctic Freeze, and Lots of Dots on the cupcake. The index nail is Garden Teal Party and the middle finger is a mix of Are You Feeling It? and Too Tough To Be Sweet. I've really been enjoying the trend of almost-nude nails, where you can see a lot of the natural nail but there's a tiny bit of decoration, so I went with that on the cherry nail. I really enjoyed this mani and had no problems with the pinks fading!

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MoYou Punk Spring Nails

A simple one today! My coworker came in to get her nails done and told me, "I want spring-y nails!" However, with her style and attitude I could NOT shake myself of my tendancy to use black on her. So I went with a slightly punk-ish variation on a spring nail.
I used Black Shadow, Go Girl, and Garden Teal Party. I had been really wanting to try using MoYou stamping as a kind of... negative-space accent, which I tried out on her thumb with Pro plate 06 (also used this plate on her pinky). I really like that look!

I hand-painted the flower on her ring finger and loaded studs on to her middle finger.

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Tribal Native American Nails And Migi Nail Art Pens

This past weekend my coworker came back over for her next manicure. She wanted some tribal nails and a dreamcatcher nail, so I ordered a stamping plate with a tribal design and figured I could free-hand the dreamcatcher. Unfortunately, the stamping plate didn't arrive in time >:( I decided to take the opportunity to really try out the Migi Nail Art Pens I bought last month and see how much control and detail I could get out of them.
I was very happy with the results! I used the black and white Migi pens for all the details on this manicure and was REALLY happy with the amount of control I had with the pens. I enjoyed using these much more than using brushes - AND they shaved about 40 minutes off the manicure. They were super quick and super easy! I'm excited about buying up some more colors -- I feel like these will open up a whole new world of nail art. :D
I took the pic with my phone, so the quality is fairly meh. I used Gelish Garden Teal Party and Lust At First Sight for this mani and I topped the nail art with TIO. For the index finger I was trying to create that turquoise stone effect I've been seeing more and more.

By lacquerstyle
I think when people do the effect on regular polish they put a drop of black polish in a glass of water, as if to watermarble, spritz it with hairspray, and the alcohol in the hairspray causes the polish to "crackle" across the surface of the water. You then dip your turquoise-painted nail in and - ta-da! Instant turquoise stone effect. I didn't have the time to test this effect out on Gelish polish, so I freehanded it with the nail art pens. I need to put this on my 31-day Nail Art Challenge list...

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Gelish Mani Sunday | Reverse Half Moons

We went really simple this week for my GF's manicure. The manicure is inspired by one she found on Pinterest:

By Madeline Pool
There isn't anything too revolutionary to report. I free-handed the reverse half-moons which was pretty easy. Quick, simple, and classy!

For the above manicure I did the following:

1. 2 coats of Black Shadow (Sheek White on the Ring finger), cured all coats
2. 1 coat of TIO, cured all coats
3. 2 coats of Garden Teal Party, shaping the reverse half moon before curing, cured all coats
4. Dabbed Foundation onto the polish and pressed the studs in, cured
5. Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cured all coats

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Gelish Mani Sunday | Beachy Japanese Seashell Manicure

It's official: I FINALLY GOT MY SEASHELL STUDS!!!
Aren't they purdy!? A couple weeks ago I was poking around Instagram, looking for nail art, when I saw an announcement by a new account called shopthenailroom that they would be opening their Japanese nail stud store within the week and that it would contain seashell nail studs.
Some of you may be familiar with my epic search of doom for seashell nail studs. I was so, so stoked to find a seller on this side of the pacific that would be selling these studs. I immediately came to my blog and updated my previous post with the info cuz, let's face it - the vast majority of hits I get on this thing are from people looking for those shells!

By some strange circumstance, the store owner, oshimanails found my blog and hit me up, offering me a 15% blogger discount that I'm happy to pass on to you! I'm not getting any kind of commission, this is just a "help the nailists of the world" kind of thing ;)

shopthenailroom.com - Get 15% off order over $20 with code GELISHGEEKERY.

Right now she has gold and silver 5mm and 3.5mm seashell studs :D I'm just so glad my quest is finally done.
And now: on to the manicure!
I'm kinda sorta in LOVE with this Gelish mani. It's my favorite one since the nude & gold pearl mani. So, initially I was like, "OMG I WANT BEACHY NAILS BUT I CAN'T DECIDE WHAT I LIKE BEST SO HOW ABOUT ALL OF THEM!!" Like srsly I was going to do one of each of these on my nails:

By daily_charme

By MyMakeupMania

By CaptivatingClaws

PLUS the gold glitter nail that I ended up keeping. The night before I did my manicure I decided to do my first Gelish pedicure (linked to pedi pic because sometimes feet are weird to look at) and I ended up loving the Japanese nail art-inspired style so much I decided to recreate it on my nails. Thankfully, I decided to simplify things - but I still had to keep that cute beachy gradient by daily_charme. I used my new Gelish Garden Teal Party and lemme tell you - that formula is THICK! I tend to put my Gelish on thicker than I should (but somehow not thick enough to cause wrinkling) but this one gave me a run for my money. If the whole Love In Bloom collection is like this I bet it'd make great Gelish nail art polish. I also got to use my new 5mm seashell stud from shopthenailroom. Yup, it's just as awesome as I thought it'd be.

For the above manicure I did the following:

Index, Middle, and Pink Nails:

1. 3 coats of Garden Teal Party, cured all coats
2. Dabbed Foundation onto the polish and pressed the studs in, cured
3. Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cured all coats

Thumb Nail:

1. 2 coats of Up In The Blue, cured all coats
2. 2 coats of Garden Teal Party, sponging off the first gradient fade, cured all coats
3. 2 coats of Seafoam, sponging off the second gradient fade, cured all coats
4. 2 coats of Skinny Vanilla Latte at the tip, sponging off the third gradient fade, cured all coats
5. Scrubbed mix of gold and brown glitter into the tip of the nail
6. 1 coat TIO, cure
7. Dabbed Foundation onto the TIO and pressed the stud in, cured
8. Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cured all coats

Ring Nail:

1. 3 coats of Skinny Vanilla Latte, cured all coats
2. Scrubbed mix of gold and brown glitter into the whole nail
3. 1 coat TIO, cure
4. Dabbed Foundation onto the TIO and pressed the studs in, cured
5. Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cured all coats

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New Polish & Swatches

A coworker of mine is getting married and was lamenting the fact that her normal nail salon didn't have any neutral colors available for her wedding day. She didn't really want to go with a french manicure and I thought, well, I have a ton of polishes and some nice neutral shades... why don't I swatch some up for her and let her borrow my colors so her nail lady can apply them professionally?

So I stopped by a Sally's I hadn't yet visited to pick up a swatch wheel and - of course - I had to check out their clearanced Gelish... Jackpot!!! I found four more colors I didn't have - 3 at $10.95 and 1 at $8.95. But, when they rang them up, I got one for $8.95, one for $7.95, and 2 for $4.95... MEGA JACKPOT!!!


The colors I picked up completed some of my Gelish collections, too. So double woot!!

Izzy Wizzy, Let's Get Busy

Fashion Week Chic

Angel In Disguise

Garden Teal Party

So I swore up and down this wouldn't be a blog for swatches, but seeing as I did swatch a bunch of neutral Gelish combinations, I thought I'd throw them up for anyone who was curious.

1. (3 coats) Skinny Vanilla Latte 2. (3 coats) Skinny Vanilla Latte, (2 coats) Night Shimmer 3. (3 coats) Skinny Vanilla Latte, (2 coats) June Bride 4. (3 coats) Skinny Vanilla Latte, (2 coats) Twinkle	5. (3 coats) Glamour Queen 6. (3 coats) Glamour Queen, (2 coats) June Bride 7. (3 coats) Glamour Queen, (2 coats) Night Shimmer 8. (3 coats) Glamour Queen, (2 coats) Izzy Wizzy, Let's Get Busy
9. (2 coats) Sheek White, (2 coats) Night Shimmer 10. (2 coats) Sheek White, (2 coats) June Bride 11. (2 coats) Sheek White, (2 coats) Izzy Wizzy, Let's Get Busy 12. (2 coats) Sheek White, (2 coats) Little Miss Sparkle	13. (1 coat) Sheek White, (2 coats) Cashmere Kind Of Gal, (2 coats) Night Shimmer 14. (1 coat) Sheek White, (2 coats) Cashmere Kind Of Gal, (2 coats) Izzy Wizzy, Let's Get Busy 15. (1 coat) Sheek White, (3 coats) Danny's Little Helpers, (2 coats) Twinkle

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