31DC2014: Day 22

Heeeey! Get ready - this is gonna be a good one.
I was really worried that nothing could come close to last year's Inspired by a Song post with The Thong Song nails (clearly I was ahead of the times with the booty nails last year) so I kept the booty theme going and went for... Anaconda!

I'm sure you're all familiar with Anaconda and the performance at the VMAs! I was totally loving the green sparkly snakeskin outfit and I had to recreate it on my nails.
I actually did these on like the 3rd of September because I was going to use them for the green theme, but then I just had to save them for today. I have been holding them in since then. It's been hard.

They started with a base of China Glaze - Exotic Encounters.
I randomly applied green glitter all over the place with China Glaze - This Is Tree-mendous (lol) and China Glaze - Emerald Sparkled.
The snakeskin stamp is from Bundle Monster plate BM-215 and I first stamped it using Color Club - Perfect Mol-Ten but it wasn't as visible as I wanted, so I added some more in scattered areas with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Lickety-Split Lime and that totally made the effect I wanted.
 

Guhhhhhh I just love how they turned out! I was so mad when I had to take them off after just a few hours.

What do you guys think? Did I capture the look? Green sparkly nails are always my fave, I'll be doing these again as a full mani and wearing them for like a week. For sure. As soon as the challenge is over.

Now take a walk down memory lane and check out my previous day 22 designs:

• 2013: The Thong Song
• 2012: Domino
• 2011: S&M

As Seen On... Once Bitten

(This is a scheduled post. I'm on vacation!)

 

Again, good morning! Isn't it nice that these posts are all scheduled in the morning so you all can see them when you wake up? I like morning posts but lately I'm too tired to make them.

Today's spotlight is on a blogger I don't know too much about, other than the fact that she did some hardcore awesome snakeskin nails that I needed on my own nails.
The blogger is Once Bitten, the post is here, and along with the nails was a tutorial!
She takes lovely photos of her nails, I love the way she positions her hand. (That was a nerdy polish-aholic thing to say.)
Oh, and I also love the way she used Happy Birthday in this mani. Check that out too.

So, my polish stash was missing a few of the key ingredients to her recipe... er, mani.

What do you do when you need a light gray but don't have one? You franken!

I've been wanting to franken a light gray for a while but never got around to it. This was just what I needed to motivate me to do it!
I had a small bottle of white from "The Color Institute" which was a drugstore "manicure set" my aunt gave me for Christmas. It came with 9 small bottles of polish and some nail care tools.
As a white, it was decent, but I prefer my Sally Hansen white. So a franken it became!
I added a small amount of black, and a few drops of China Glaze Below Deck. I'm not sure if the Below Deck did anything though.
Either way, I love it! It's perfect.

The next step is to blob on a bunch of other colors.

It sorta looks like camouflage! 
My blobbing colors were:
China Glaze - Below Deck
OPI - Skull And Glossbones (pretty soon I think I'm going to cave and get the full size of this.)
China Glaze - Recycle
And my gray franken!

Then you add the snakeskin stamp.
Now, Once Bitten used China Glaze VIII as her stamping polish.
That made me mad because many times I have picked up VIII but said "Nah, I don't need that" and put it down.
But apparently now I needed it.
Alas, back to frankening.

Tada!
The stamp is from BM-215 and to get the dark purple stamping polish, I blobbed some China Glaze Midtown Magic onto paper, and mixed in a very small amount of black to darken it just a tad and make it more opaque for stamping. (You can do this to franken all sorts of stamping polishes, as long as they are opaque enough. You need a clean brush to mix it and transfer it into your plate.)

I adore the way it turned out. It's so chic!
If you watch the video in Once Bitten's post you'll see that it is apparently trendy to get an ACTUAL snakeskin manicure. Yes, real skin from a snake, embedded under gel on your nails.

...I'll stick to polish, thanks.

This manicure was actually what started my As Seen On series. I wore this mani for five days and somewhere in there decided it would be cool to recreate 5 more manicures and post them all while on vacation.
(In the middle of my marathon of creating 4 of the manis in 2 hours I felt like it was a bad idea. But I think now it was a good idea. I hope you guys think it was a good idea too!)

Have a lovely day!

nicki minaj inspired nails!

Hi everyone!
You know how sometimes, you get a great idea for nails, and you just feel the need to drop everything and do them? That happened to me at 12:30am last night.

What was I doing that made me feel that way? Watching a Nicki Minaj video.
Now, I'm not a huge Nicki fan, but I do have a thing for the song Super Bass. (Also I'm seeing her in concert with Britney Spears in just over 2 weeks! Haha!)
In the video, she is wearing this ridiculous catsuit that totally inspired me. (You can watch the video here.)

I knew I had a Bundle Monster plate that would totally match that design. So I ran downstairs to my stash and got to work.

And I succeeded! I think these are awesome. I can't stop looking at them!
They look really fake, my nails are getting a bit too long for my liking. I plan on chopping them down before I go away in 2 weeks.

For these nails I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White as a base on all nails, except my accent nails which are Color Club Almost Famous.
I added a 3mm rhinestone to the accent nails, and on the rest of my nails I stamped the giraffe print image from Bundle Monster BM-215 with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Presto Pink.

Stamping is so much harder on long nails! I find it difficult to get the stamp onto my tips because my nails have a pretty big curvature at the tip (meaning they angle downwards as they get longer) so I have to press really hard for the stamper to hit every part of my nail. And as you might know, pressing too hard can ruin your images!

What do you guys think? Are these perfect for summer or what?
:)