Way way way late Valentine's Mani

Well, better late than never I guess.  

Products Used:

China Glaze Sweet Hook

China Glaze Dance Baby

China Glaze Fuchsia Fanatic

Konad Plate m57

Bundle Monster Plate BM14

Spring Flowers!

I'm back after almost a full month.  After a month in the dumps, doing my nails was the last thing I wanted to do. But today is my first day of spring break, and one of the first days of sunshine in forever (seriously- it snowed yesterday- and the day before) so I forced myself to spend some time here.  And I'm quite pleased with the results!

Products Used:

China Glaze Kinetic Candy

China Glaze Sweet Hook

China Glaze Dance baby

China Glaze Wicked Style

China Glaze Gaga for Green

China Glaze Sunshine Pop

Revlon Top Speed in Royal

As you can see, I used this as an opportunity to break out and check out my new China Glazes from the electropop collection... which I got back in January!  Yeesh.

Another Freehand Floral Mani!

I really loved a few of the floral manis I did previously (here and here) and I'm not opposed to tooting my own horn, so I did another!  I tried out a lovely pink color I got from a friend for Christmas.  It's really bright and gorgeous, so I went with darker grey and black for the roses.  And sprinkled in some little white accent dots and glitter for fun and variety!

Also notice my poor little nubbins? :(  I had a super turbulent flight on the way home, combined with returning to internship, wedding planning, and the Praxis II that I'm taking on Saturday.... and yowza, my nails have had it!

Here you can sort of see the glitter I slapped on there.

Products Used:

Orly Fabulous Flamingo

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On

Essie Pure Pearlfection

Hope everyone is having a fabulous beginning to their 2012!  And may you never have to take the Praxis II!

Floral Mani and Updates All Around

I've been absent for such a long time.  There's two reasons for that...
1. I started my internship.  It takes up SO MUCH of my time and is SO stressful, that I completely chewed off all my nails into tiny nubbins... and THEN I started working on the cuticles.  Not only that, but I've been super concerned with what is appropriate for work, and what isn't as far as nails/nail art.  And I have a confession: I wore the same mani for two weeks in a row.  And I'm using the term mani here very loosely- I slapped on two coats of a sheer polish with no base or topcoat and just called that good- for TWO WEEKS.  By the time I took it off last night, the polish was only in the very center of my nail, and my ridges had actually worn through in some places!  It was disgusting.
2. I lost my Seche Vite!!!!!! I don't know how that happened :(  But I kept saying to myself "no point in spending time on doing my nails if I can't use my SV.  I'll do my nails when I find it."  I hardly even looked!  Well last night I tore my house apart and there's no sign of it, so I just did my nails anyway, because I'd finally reached my limit.

So anyway, like I said, I finally hit my limit last night and said "enough is enough!"  Plus I had just seen this tutorial from Rebecca Like Nails, and was all over it like white on rice.  I love a good floral mani, and even though I was a little nervous to wear it to my internship, I figured go big or go home.

Ugh those cuticles.

Products Used:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement

Maybelline Express Finish in Prompt Petals

ELF nail polish in Fuchsia

Revlon Emerald City

Sally Hansen Double Duty as topcoat

Bundle Monster Plate number BM14

Priti NYC- Darjeeling

Darjeeling is one of the five nail polishes I received in my Priti NYC haul.

Darjeeling, last on the right

Oooooo I am in LOVE with this color.  Darjeeling is the absolute most perfect dusty rose pink that I've ever used.  I love it on my skin, and I am not usually a pink person, but I adore this.  It's my top two favorites from this haul!  (the other being Rabbit Tracks, posted yesterday)

Inside, with flash

Inside, no flash

Looking Back part 2

More designs from my sordid past (part one):

A split-screen scotch tape mani from June 2010

Another scotch tape mani from January 2011

Valentine's day konads from February 2011

Blue with gold hex glitter, matted, from May 2011

Polka Dots and Roses from May 2011

Vintage Inspired Spring Rose Manicure

I knew that daisy french wasn't going to last very long!  Like less than 24 hours.  I decided that since I only spent 5 minutes on my nails last night, I'd spend some time attempting something I've wanted to try for a long, long time but didn't have the time or patience.

I've seen these vintage looking rose designs for a while now, but I never knew how they were done.  So I kind of just made it up as I went along, and I am so excited and proud of my results!  It's one of those things where it's been done before (and better) but I am just so happy that I was able to do it myself and have it come out mostly decent!  I am definitely going to try to take care of these for a while.

This is me not yet mastering the self-timer on my camera 

but still trying to cram all 10 fingers into one frame

Products used:
Base coat: OPI ridge filler
Base color: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirldwind White
Base color (ring finger): China Glaze- For Audrey
Roses: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Rapid Red and Flashy Fuschia
Leaves: Revlon Matte Suede- Emerald City
Top coat: SV