Weekly Blog Roundup!

Grace designed some yummy candy striped nails
Jen created a starry manicure
Sharon is having a giveaway to celebrate her blog birthday
Nicky tested out OPI it’s my year for their new collection
Claire showed us some perfect pearl bridal nails
Ladyluck is also celebrating her blog birthday with a giveaway!
Sarah created a movie buff manicure and demonstrated some SdP plates
Theresa showed us the amazing new Gelish Aurora collection
Stacie played with some holographic paint flakes from ebay

Have a great weekend, lovelies!!!!

Pink Wednesday Tape Manicure Tutorial!

Hi lovelies!  Sorry for the lack of posts this week.  My job has been very demanding of my spare time, so I haven't had a chance to post all the adorable manicures I've been doing lately, but I promise to make some time to schedule some posts because I definitely have a lot to show you!

First, I just want to thank everyone for the great feedback I've been getting with the giveaway entries!  It's not too late to enter, so do it now!  One of the requests I got was to add some functionality so that you can subscribe to my blog through email, so that is now a new block on the ride sidebar, I hope you'll use it!  I also got a request for more tape manicures with tutorial, so I have one of those for you today, and I'll have another one for you next pink Wednesday using the same colors in a different way.

I'll be honest with you, I've had trouble with tape manicures in the best screwing up my base coat, which is why I don't post them often, but I think I've found the solution!  So, first step is to start with a base color of your manicure.  I'm starting with Zoya Purity:

I put a coat of Seche Vite over this and let it dry for a long time to avoid smudging my base coat.  Then I prepped my tape for my manicure.  For the diagonal french, I just needed to pull off a strip of regular tape, then I touched the tape a few times to remove some of the stickiness, and then placed it on my nail diagonally.

Press the tape down well and then paint your second color always going in the same direction so you don't accidentally get under the tape.  My second color is one of the new Zoya Mod Matte shades called Lolly.

Once your finished painting, peel off the tape.  Don't wait for it to dry, this will make sure the tape removes cleanly.

Now that I have my perfect diagonal french, I took a great neon green nail art striper from NaildeRoyale.com along with some cute star sequins also from Nail De Royale and played with them.  You'll see in the pictures below, I played with the placement a bit before I decided on my favorite placement.

This turned out to be such a fun bright manicure!  I got a lot of compliments on it today. 

The neon green striper, star sequins, and Zoya Lolly were all sent to me for my review from Nail De Royale.  If you are looking for good prices on nail polishes, and nail art supplies, definitely check them out!

Hope you liked my first tape manicure tutorial!

Weekly Blog Roundup!

• Sarah stamped this sparkly tiger design
• Claire used craft glitter and shellac to make a gorgeous pedicure
• Ladyluck swatched a rare polish with cute holographic stars and moons in it
• Lena shared BeautyUK Glam nails in Yellow peril
• Stacie create an illustration inspired cupcake manicure
• Sharon swatched the amazing Glitter Gal black holographic
• Grace shows us how to do it like a pro!
• Jen has had a cute fruit themed week
• Emily created a WAH nails inspired look (welcome back em! XD)
• Chell swatched up Butter London in Victoriana - Yum!

Have a great weekend!

Summer Fruit Week - Day 5: Fruity Colors Giveaway!

To finish off Summer Fruit Week I want to celebrate with a little giveaway!  Here is your prize:

This is the L.A. Colors Shimmer Brights Limited Edition Series. These colors are super fun for summer! This giveaway will be open until August 8th. You must be a Google Follower to enter, and you can get extra entries by sharing this giveaway with your blog/twitter followers and by liking my page on facebook. Good Luck!

Summer Fruit Week - Day 4: These nails are GRAPE!

These nails would be great for a wine festival! I started with a base of Revlon Lily.  OMG, what a stunning lilac color!  I just love it!  The color went on really smooth and dried fast, yay!

On top of Lily, I stamped grapes from Bundle Monter's BM108 plate using Zoya Pinta.  I added the green stems using Sally Hansen Lickity Split Lime and an art brush. Note to self, when the camera says it needs new batteries, it means it!  And will not focus properly without them :(  Sorry about the blurry photo.  I hope you get the idea of what it looked like.  I really liked how this came out. 

Are you excited about the stunning conclusion of Summer Fruit Week tomorrow?  I'm definitely excited about having another giveaway!

Summer Fruit Week - Day 3: Strawberries for Pink Wednesday!

Happy Pink Wednesday, Lovelies!  It's day three of summer fruit week.  Hope you are enjoying the manicures so far!  For pink Wednesday I decided to create a strawberry themed manicure! 

I didn't take pix of the steps this time (Sorry!) but here is what I did:

1. Painted all nails, except one accent nail on each hand in Zoya Portia.
2. Painted accent nail in Zoya Dana.
3. On Portia painted nails, add polka dots in Zoya Flora using dotting tool.
4. On Dana nail, add smaller polka dots in Zoya Pippa using dotting tool.
5. On Dana nail, add green lines at the base of the nail for the stem.
6. On Portia nails, add red strawberry shapes using a thin nail art brush.
7. Add yellow dots and tiny green stems to strawberry shapes.

I like using the ring finger as my accent nail, but as you can see in the pictures, I accidentally made my middle finger the accent on my left hand.  Oops!  lol.   I think I like my other strawberry manicure better than this one.  What do you think?

Summer Fruit Week - Day 2: Citrus Fimo French Twist!

Check out that title!  It's like how many concepts can I fit in one manicure?  This manicure is soooooo bright and fun and awesome, and the best part?  I got to use Zoya Pippa again! I love Pippa!  For this mani, I paired her with her bff Jancyn.  Don't they look great together?

Zoya Pippa = yellow nails, Zoya Jancyn = orange nails.

I couldn't stop there though, I had to try the french twist manis that have been circulating lately.  I think these two colors look awesome with it.

Then, since this is summer fruit week, I cut up some orange and lemon fimo sticks and stuck them on with my top coat.

This is such a fun festive summer manicure!  It feels JUICY to me! :)  Hope you're liking fruit week so far!  Any guesses on what other fruits I'm going to take on this week?

Summer Fruit Week - Day 1: Watermelon Nails

Since we are in the middle of summer, I thought it would be appropriate to celebrate with some rooty tooty fruity nails! :P  Everyday this week I will feature different fruit inspired nail designs.  This fun week of nails will end on Friday with a fruity polish giveaway!!!!!  So stay tuned!

Today's nails are watermelon nails.  My hubby LOVES watermelons.  He says these are his favorite nails I've ever done!  lol.

I started my watermelon nails with Orly Hot Shot.  Please forgive the lack of cleanup, I forgot to cleanup before taking the picture.

To complete the look I used China Glaze Four Leaf Clover on my tips, then used my white striper to separate the green from the red.  To finish off the look, I added the seeds with a wet n' wild black with my dotting tool.  Then, I went a little crazy and added some Fairy Dust.

This manicure definitely inspired this whole week of fruity nails!  I can't wait to share the rest of the looks with you!  I know this whole watermelon look is nothing new, so if you've done watermelon nails, I'd love to see them, feel free to link up in the comments!

Weekly Blog Roundup!

• Sharon got her hands a cool Orly flaky
• The Nail Addict was feeling lovey dovey this week
• Claire’s got twinkly fingers this week
• Sarah used her plates to create this celtic knot manicure
• Jen got her party nails sorted with a Holographic from Claire’s
• Lady Luck missed you
• Grace showed us some of the new OPI nice Stems collection
• Stacie freehanded some roses

Also, Zoya is celebrating reaching 50,000 Facebook followers with a Flip Polish Remover Promo!  Just enter ZOYA50K at checkout!

I just placed my order!  I can't wait to try their remover for the first time, I've heard wonderful things about it!  I also picked up a cute color called Kylie2.

Purple Nails with Silver Stamped Tips

I love purple.  It is just my favorite color ever!  When I look at my polish collection, purple definitely outnumbers the rest.  When trying to pick a color recently I picked this new e.l.f. color called Royal Purple.  I got it from Ross in a three-piece set for super cheap.  Then I did the tips with Silver Sweep with a design from Bundle Monster plate 218.

I really like this tip design!  And this color is just GORGEOUS!!!!  I love deep shiny rich purples like this.  I wish Bundle Monster had more all over designs like this one.

What is your favorite polish color?  Have you tried the new Bundle Monster tips.

Random NOTDs

Lately my manicures have kind of been duds! It's hard coming up with gorgeous post-worthy nails EVERY DAY!  Today I didn't have anything new to post, so I went through my images to see if there were any manicures I hadn't posted yet, and here's what I found:

Hand-painted chevron: Zoya Dove base, light pink is Zoya Flora, and dark pink tips is Zoya Areej, outlined with dollar store black. 

Revlon Sunshine Sparkle (a shimmery light yellow, which you can't really tell from this picture) I think the stamp is from konad M77 plate.

Hopefully I'll come up with some fantastic ideas this week, if not, I may have to skip a day until my stock of images builds back up!  If you have any ideas for what kind of posts you'd like to see when I hit an inspiration block, please let me know in comments!

Party Nails!

I am IN LOVE with this holo glitter from Claire's! When my future sister in law (Bevy) came home with it from a recent vacation, I very subtly reminded her about the importance of bringing back souvenirs for the family members who didn't get to go on vacation with you, and she promptly ran her little butt to Claire's to pick me up a bottle! LOL! Isn't she just the best? Don't worry, Bev, when I go on vacation in a few weeks, I'll be hitting up Ulta and bringing you home some goodies! :)

So here are some pics of me playing with "Glitter Top Coat" from Claire's. This really is a top coat, and I should have put on a more solid base coat, but I didn't which meant I had to do FOUR COATS to get full coverage!  OUCH!  It was a huge pain to remove, but ugh, how gorgeous is it under the crackle?

These felt like the perfect nails for a party!  On my other hand I mixed things up by just doing my tips with the crackle, which I didn't love as much.  The holo glitteriness of this polish is something I'll have to play with!  Can't wait to try it over other colors!  Crackle is Black Mesh by China Glaze, btw. 

Weekly Blog Roundup!

• Sarah created a starry night manicure using her SdP-D plate
• Jen celebrated 4th July in style
• Grace shared her favourite coral polish
• Sharon designed a purple floral manicure
• Ladyluck has out of this world nails

True Blood is back baby!

SO why not celebrate with some SOOKEH NAILS!!!!

Zoya Sookie is just THE BEST RED EVER!!!!  I love it!  It just feels classic to me.

So, I didn't want to do much with her.  Just added some simple black tips using Zoya Raven.  Super simple NOTD for ya.  Do you watch True Blood?  I think it is sooooo WEIRD, but also captivating! 

Lunchtime Glitter Sandwich - YUM!

Happy Pink Wednesday, lovelies!  Very exciting news!  This little bloggy of mine reached 250 followers overnight!  So, first I just want to send a big ol' THANK YOU to all of you for following me!  It really brightens my day when I get comments about my manicures!

Ever since seeing this post by Gotham Polish I have been lusting after Milani Jewel FX Gems polish, and of course I couldn't find them anywhere!  UGH!  Don't you hate when that happens?  Luckily, with a little googling I found an online store offering them up at a pretty reasonable price, so I snatched up all three colors!  Now that I had my gems, I had to figure out the best sandwich combo, enter my testing nail wheel:

First step, I painted two "nails" in Zoya Portia and two in a new shade I just got from Sally Hansen called First Kiss.  Then nail one and three got Milani Jewel FX Gems, nail two got a pretty pink sparkle from NYC called Dreamy Glitter (which looked gorgeous, but way too light for a sandwich), the last nail got Milani Jewel FX Gold.  Let's see how they all look with my sheerest pink, Sally Hansen Petal Pusher on top:

The winner ended up being #1.  #2 was just too light, #3 was too bright, #4 was awesome, but I wish there were more small gold glitters, and I don't have anything like that.  So, here's the winning manicure:

SO STINKIN CUTE!!!!!  Like sprinkles on a cupcake!  :)  Have you experimented with Milani Jewel FX yet?  I've noticed on other bloggers that glitter sandwiches turns into a bit of an obsession, and I'm ready to play along!  It is such a cool effect!  Do you use test nail wheels to try out a manicure before you try it?  I think it is a great tool for trying out ideas before having to commit a design to ten nails!

Very Exciting News from Zoya!!!!!

fall 2011 nail color: smoke and mirrors...beautiful illusions

Zoya Nail Polish presents 12 enticing and mysterious new colors for fall 2011.

Zoya Smoke Collection

• Jana (ZP564) - smoky mauve quartz cream
• Petra (ZP565) - smoky eggplant mauve cream
• Codie (ZP566) - smoky brown taupe cream
• Anja (ZP567) - smoky palatinate purple cream
• Cynthia (ZP568) - smoky Prussian blue cream
• Dree (ZP569) - smoky camouflage green cream

Zoya Mirrors Collection

• Nimue (ZP570) - smoky rich thistle metallic
• Marina (ZP571) - smoky steel blue metallic
• Tao (ZP572) - smoky slate gray metallic
• Yara (ZP573) - sparkly olive green metallic
• Neeka (ZP574) - sparkly amethyst purple metallic
• Jem (ZP575) - sparkly fandango pink metallic

Zoya is the new color of fashion... The new Zoya smoke & mirrors colors were designed for and inspired by top fashion designers and beauty icons.

Ultra long-wearing, glossy nail lacquers by Zoya are free of harmful industrial chemicals like toluene, camphor, formaldehyde, resin, dibutyl phthalate (DBP) that are known to cause cancer and birth defects.

Find Zoya smoke & mirrors as well as over 300 other high-fashion Zoya shades at www.zoya.com. As always, each and every Zoya color is made for beautiful women so we name them after beautiful women.

Smoke & Mirrors by Zoya - available July 15, 2011 (USA)

Sug. Retail $8.00 per 0.5 fl. oz. bottle (US)

OMG I am so freaking excited about this!  I love me some Zoya and these colors just feel sooooo fall to me!  What colors are you most looking forward to?  I know I'm very excited about Petra, Cynthia, and Marina!  

Fourth of July Manicure and Pedicure!

I have been loving Pinterest lately!  I have found so much inspiration for my nails.  When trying to find the perfect fourth of July manicure I turned to Pinterest and found this beauty, which I blatanly duplicated because I just loved it so much.  Now, if you follow me on Twitter you got a sneak peek of my mani and pedi on Instagram:

Don't you just love how Instagram makes pictures look?  So artsy fartsy!  LOL!  I didn't take any other pictures of my pedicure so here are the deets: Big toes = Zoya Tallulah with stamps from BM221 and konad M3.  The rest of my toes were painted Zoya Purity with stripes in Zoya Kamilah.

Here are some more shots of my manicure.  I started with a silver base using a silver from LA Colors.  Then on two of the nails I painted blue tips with Zoya Breezi, and added stripes with Zoya Sookie.  On my thumb nail, I used a striping brush to add some fireworks with Breezi, Sookie, and a white.  Then to finish it all off I added rhinestones all over. 

I really love this look!  I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July!  Mine was pretty boring, just a cookout and watching the fireworks on tv.  Are you on Pinterest?  If so, share your link!  Want to join in on the fun?  Drop your email in a comment and I'll send you an invite.

Weekly Blog Roundup!

Check out these AWESOME nail designs this week!

• Grace tried out Primark nail wraps
• The Nail Addict showed us how to do water marbling
• Ladyluck created a spooky manicure
• Sharon reviewed Zoya Danni
• Claire showed us how Axxium and tips work for gorgeous bridal nails
• Jen swam with the dolphins
• Nicole felt patriotic using sparitual
• Sarah created a fabric effect using Fauxnads
• Lingling is having a Deborah Lippman giveaway!
• Stacie flashed her holiday nails

I hope everyone has a FANTASTIC weekend. Here in America it is the Fourth of July, and a three day weekend, so I am stoked, and I will be putting up so cute patriotic nails for you whenever I have a chance.