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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50's Engagement Nails

A couple months ago we took our engagement pics and we got all dolled up. We decided we wanted a retro flare to our Harry Potter-themed engagement pic shoot, and I went and got a gooooorgeous pincurl hair style and a cute little dress and... it was so much fun.

But deciding on nails was VERY important. Since we were going super classy with our style, we decided our nails had to stay simple, classy, and cute. I'm a jerk and didn't get a final pic of the nails in the lightbox, but they did show up in our pics. ;)
I went with Hot Rod Red and Arctic White half moons, while my fiancée went with A Little Cream Please and Need A Tan in a very Gwen-Stefani-OPI-inspired look ;) Here's another look at our nails:
And some more pics ;) We made the brooms ourselves -- and yes, our awesome photographer strung up the broom to have us sit on it. It was scary. And painful. But awesome.

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Gelish Mani Sunday | A Game of Nails

My roommate is a big fan of the A Song of Ice and Fire book series, and for the newest season of Game of Thrones she request nails inspired by her favorite house, House Martell. Now that I've seen a few episodes of the new season, I can see why she likes them!

#Badass.

I knew nothing about the Martells and she told me "sand and sunspear", so I went with that.
I finally tried something I've been wanting to try: gel polish sugar nails. I drool every time I see Zoya Pixie Dust pop up on my Instagram feed, and I've really wanted to try to replicate that effect with Gelish. First I tried decorative sand from the craft store, but the grains were way too big, then I tried salt - better, but still large. I stuck with the salt, but I might try actual sugar next time ;)

To do it I mixed a tiny bit of salt with a few drops of polish, then scooped it up with a wide nail art brush and patted it onto the nail. After curing it I got a slightly darker polish color and stippled it across the nail to give it some dimension. Another cure, then I stippled a tiny bit of brown glitter across the nail and finished with a light coat of Top It Off. The technique definitely needs some refining, but at least it kinda worked!

For the above manicure I did the following:

Thumb Nail:

1. • 1 coat Allure, 1 coat Danny's Little Helpers, and 1 more coat Allure, cure all coats
2. • Wipe tacky layer. Hand-painted the red sun with Hot Rod Red, cure
3. • Wipe tacky layer. Hand-painted the spear with yellow and black Folk Art acrylic paint. Let paint dry completely.
4. • Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cure all coats

Index Nail:

1. • 3 coats Lust at First Sight, cure all coats
2. • Dabbed Gelish Structure onto the polish and pressed the studs in, cure
3. • Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cure all coats

Middle Nail:

1. • 1 coat Lust at First Sight, cure
2. • 1 coat All That Glitters Is Gold, cure
3. • 1 coat Lust at First Sight, cure
4. • 1 coat of TIO, cure
5. • Wipe tacky layer. Stamp image using Konad White and MoYou Pro 06 plate. Let dry completely.
6. • Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

Ring Nail:

1. • Mix Lust At First Sight with salt and pat onto nail, cure
2. • Stipple A Little Cream Please with nail art brush, cure
3. • Press a small amount of brown glitter into tacky layer
4. • Finished with 1 thin coat of TIO, cure

Pinky Nail:

1. • 2 coats Lust At First sight, cure all coats
2. • Press gold foil into the tacky layer until desired look is achieved
3. • Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

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Spring-y Easter Nails

This one's a little late, but still worth posting! My coworker wanted another shot at spring nails, and this time? NO BLACK! So I picked some bright spring-y colors to put on her from last year's Love In Bloom collection
I've been kinda poo-pooing cutesy Easter nails, the ones with little bunnies and chicks. But then I bonded with a Michael's employee over nail art and she had the CUTEST little chick in an egg on her nail and I was like, okay. That's cute.

For the yellow I used my favorite go-to: Gella 'Lily'. On the thumb I used 2 coats of Arctic White and then layed down two chevron vinyl stickers and painted the yellow chick. I added Pinch of Pepper to the white parts and used Sweet Morning Dew to make a tiny little beak. The index finger is Lily with foil. On the middle finger I used the chevron nail vinyls to create the little egg design, painted with A Mint of Spring and All Dahlia-ed Up, topped off with Lots of Dots. The ring finger is A Mint of Spring with studs and the pinky is All Dahlia-ed Up topped off with Too Tough To Be Sweet.

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Gelish Mani Monday | Mermaid Spring Nails

It's spring! And I've been craving some gorgeous spring colors on my nails, but I haven't really been inspired to wear "spring" nails - like flowers and bunnies and all that jazz. I knew I wanted to use Seafoam and Sweet Morning Dew, then I decided I wanted to use my seashell studs, and from there mermaid nails were born.
I'm in love with these nails. IN LOVE. I don't even have them on anymore and I'm still in love with them. If my nails hadn't been freakishly long (for my tastes) I would've kept them on for a third week. I loved the colors and the studs (gurl, I went STUD CRAZY) and OMG THE FOIL NAIL. Right now I'm like:
No joke. I also used the Gelish VitaGel Nourishing as the base coat for this mani. I've been hesitant to pick up a VitaGel because I read horrible reviews when they first came out. But my nails are just... guys, they're tore up. Not even gonna lie. It's because I use too many coats of Top It Off combined with Structure and studs and... it makes removal really, really hard on my nails.

But I'm happy to report I'm writing this up a day after removal with the VitaGel basecoat and... removal was fantastic!! I thought it'd be a particularly hard removal sesh, as the studs + the Structure make it difficult for the acetone to break down the polish, but the Vitagel came off super smooth and in solid pieces. I used it exactly as I would've used regular Foundation, dry brush and all, and I had absolutely no problems with wear. No peeling or lifting, removal was great, and my nails looked substantially less tore up once I got the polish off. I think I might switch exclusively over to VitaGel for my manis here on out!

Oh, and I'm stoopid for not taking before/after pics for the VitaGel. Lots of fail right there.

For the above manicure I did the following:

Thumb Nail:

1. • 2 coats Sweet Morning Dew, cure all coats
2. • Dabbed Gelish Structure onto the polish and pressed the studs in, cure
3. • Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cure all coats

Index Nail:

1. • 3 coats Seafoam, cure all coats
2. • 1 coat Candy Shop, cure
3. • Dabbed Gelish Structure onto the polish and pressed the studs in, cure
4. • Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cure all coats

Middle Nail:

1. • 1 coat Oocha Coocha, cure
2. • 1 coat Are You Feeling It?, cure
3. • 1 coat Oocha Coocha, cure
4. • 1 coat of TIO, cure
5. • Wipe tacky layer. Stamp image using Konad White and MoYou Suki 01 plate. Let dry completely.
6. • Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

Ring Nail:

1. • 2 coats Sweet Morning Dew, cure all coats
2. • Dabbed Gelish Structure onto the polish and pressed the studs in, cure
3. • Finished with 2 coats of TIO, cure all coats

Pinky Nail:

1. • 3 coats Seafoam, cure all coats
2. • Press gold foil into the tacky layer until desired look is achieved
3. • Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

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