DIY Glitter Polish {st. patrick's day nails}

My girl loves glitter polish, and I have kinda been loving it lately too.  Did you know that you can make your own on the cheap?

I was googling glitter polish the other day (who knows why) and came across tons and tons of post about making your own.  HELLO, endless possibilities!!

All you need is some clear polish (a sheer color polish would probably look awesome too), and some glitter.  You want your polish to have a little bit of head space at the top, ie. not be a new unused bottle.  I should have poured a bit out of mine to make more room.  

My polish costs a whole .99 cents at ULTA and I had this micro glitter in my stash.  

Pour some glitter into your polish using a paper funnel.  Sidebar, a lot of posts that came up on google actually showed you how to make a funnel w/ paper.  If you're a functioning adult capable of getting on the internet I'll assume you can figure out how to make a funnel.

Ok, back to glitter, pour some in.  Give it a good shake.  

Voila!

 Now paint your nails with your cheap glitter polish.  For mine I did white tips then two coats of green glitter.  SUPER FUN for St. Patty's Day. 

Please excuse my overly dry cuticles that need some TLC.  

I think it looks pretty darn awesome!  I'm gonna do Brooke's later today.  And I can't wait to get some more springy colors and make her a whole set.  Possible Easter gift?  

Word to the wise:  The glitter will settle after awhile, but just give it some good shakes to redistribute it.  Real glitter polish has a special something that helps keep the glitter suspended.   Also depending on the glitter you use, your clear polish make take on some of the glitter color.  After a bit mine turned slightly green, but it didn't affect application at all.  If you used cosmetic grade glitter this probably wouldn't happen.  But since this is a cheap project using stuff I had on hand, I wasn't to concerned about either of these issues. 

PS. Is it me or do I look like I have a freakishly short pinky finger?

Gray w/ Silver Sponged Tips {nails}

Gray.  Who knew?  But I kinda love it!  The gray is super cheap NYC Sidewalkers. 

It is actually really great polish, surprisingly.  Goes on smooth, and after three days showed no major signs of wear.  Even without a topcoat.  But after those three I decided to add some flair to my tips.

Gradient silver tips.  Fun, right?!

(This post is mostly an effort to see how well posting from my phones goes, checking formatting and stuff.)

ETA: Blogger app=epic fail.  At least for Android.  Pictures were throw in at bottom of post and not in the order I uploaded them.  Pictures were grainy and didn't look right at all and wouldn't enlarge.  Ended up emailing them to myself and reposting from blogger dashboard online.  If you want to post from the app just a plain text post, go for it.  That worked.  But if you plan on adding pictures (which is what makes reading post interesting anyways), I'd steer clear.  

Glitter French Tips {how to}

Source: None via Amanda on Pinterest

I LOVE to do my nails!!  I normally just have french tips on them. Which apparently EVERYONE knows.  This is the exchange a good friend of mine had with her daughter the other day.
"I was asking her different questions about different shapes. I asked her to think of something that was a small square. She said, "I can think of something small and square-ish that is the same size as your two front teeth, Momma." OK, what Lauren? "Amanda's fingernails, when they're long with white on the top." This girl doesn't miss ANYTHING!!! :)"
HA!  So basically my nails are famous. Using the above as my pinspiration (stole this term from my buddy Jen) I decided to do orange glitter tips.  Consider it a stay-at-home mom's idea of bling :)

I used the same glitter that I had on hand from my glitter frames.  I filed my nails, then applied polish just to the tips and sprinkled on the glitter.  Do this one at a time, paint tip, sprinkle glitter, paint tip, sprinkle glitter and so on.  This way your tip is wet enough with polish to really grab the glitter.  And you'll want to do it over some paper so you can gently tap off the excess.    Let them dry, which actually for me didn't take that long.  Then I took a small eye shadow brush (a small paint brush would probably work too) and gently brushed off my nail and finger that still had glitter lingering.

Now you're ready to apply a top coat.  Originally I was gonna use my Mod Podge spray sealer (I know crazy idea), but when Ben saw me with it he said "do you think that's a good idea?" in such a husbandly way and it made me rethink it.  But I just didn't want all my hard work to go down the drain by applying a typical top coat, my thinking was if I could "spray" a top coat on all my glitter would stay intact.  Well under my husband's advice I went with a standard clear top coat, and it worked!  You can see from the pics, it did pick up a little glitter and transfer it, but I actually think it looks pretty that way.

So there you have it, GLITTER FRENCH TIPS.

Are you gonna try this?  I'd love to see pics if you do!

Linking to:
Today's Creative Blog
Someday Crafts
Tip Junkie
Blue Cricket Designs