Thursday, April 25, 2013

Pink Gradient Mani with Studs

Look at me!  I keep attempting nail art!  This was my first attempt at a gradient, it's not terrible, but I don't love it.  Don't they always say that you are your own worst critic?  ;-)


First off, I did three coats Ulta's Baby Doll, which was giving me trouble as always.  Maybe I'm just cursed to never be able to use light, delicate colors because they will never dry without terrible smudging or they will just be super streaky.

Anyways, after my base color finally dried, I painted two thick lines on my handy dandy make up sponge.  For this mani I choose Zoya's Sweet and Morgan.  I dabbed the sponge and still wet paint onto my finger nails to transfer the color over.  Before they dried, I did a quick coat of ORLY's Shine on Crazy Diamond.  Partially to blend the colors together, but mostly because I adore the light sparkling of holo glitter that it gives.

Finally, I drew a line of nail glue down my ring finger and stuck on my awesome Born Pretty Store nail studs that I love.  The glue dried kind of quickly so my studs ended up a little crooked, but I thought they still looked cool.

I topped the whole thing off with a thick layer of Sally Hansen's Insta Dry and called it a night.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Born Pretty Store Matte Top Coat Review

I adore getting mail.  Anything that is in the mail box with my name on it makes me very happy.  It doesn't really matter what it is, an envelope, a post card, a box.  I love it.  And before you say, "Well Lisa, what about bills?  Do you love getting those?"  I don't get physical bills, that's why I signed up for e-statements! :-P  But that's a whole different topic for a whole different blog.

For a while now I've been seeing a lot of blogs talk about the Born Pretty Store.  It's a great place to get all sorts of neat nail art supplies, jewelry, and accessories for cheap.  It's like eBay, but a lot more controlled and only from one vendor, which is nice.  I finally made an order from them a while ago and bought all sorts of cool stuff, like awesome studs that I used for my Las Vegas Mani, and some neon green glow in the dark polish that I'm going to use for a nerdy mani one of these days.  

I loved everything I had ordered, except for this guy.  Their Super Matte Change Surface Glossy Oil Nail Polish.  It was terrible!  Once it dried, it left my polish all bumpy and streaky.  It also shrunk away from my cuticles, leaving jagged looking edges.  I was not a happy camper.

For all I know, I did it wrong and it works just fine. But then if it's that complicated, it's not worth my time.


Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Julep Spring Mystery Box and Spring Bunny Mani

Sorry I've been away for so long guys!  I moved, got a new job, and have been stuck in training for the past three weeks.  Things are finally starting to slow down again, so I'm back!

So after having a Julep subscription for five months, I finally went out and ordered one of the their Mystery Boxes.  I talked myself out of the Christmas and New Years ones, which I regret because they had nifty bags and it looked like the stuff people got was worth it.  The Valentine's Day box, from my understanding, kind of sucked.  I guess people got a lot of repeat and similar colors.  So I finally bit the bullet and got the Spring Mystery box.  All in all, I was pretty happy.  I got three nail polishes, Lauren, Camille, and Ashley, face and hand sunscreen, a nail file, nail polish remover pads, and hair ties.  Totally worth the $25 I spent on it.  



I wanted to do a spring mani using the polishes I got and I kept seeing bunnies on Instagram, so I felt like trying something new.  I painted my nails with two coats of Julep's Ashley, a pale orange with gold shimmer and used China Glaze's White on White for some polka dots.   Then I did a coat of Camille on my thumb and pinkie.  I kind of love Camille.  It's a clear chunky glitter  that almost looks holo and totally reminds me of the fake snow in snow globes.  It makes me want to do nail art inspired by the collectable snow globes from Fallout New Vegas.




And finally, on my ring finger I painted a bunny using my dotting tools.  The white is the same one I used for the polka dots.  His little blue eyes are Sally Hansen's Calypso Blue, and his nose and ears are Zoya's Sweet.  I painted on his whiskers with a black striper.  

I was really proud of myself for actually being able to pull this one off.  People kept complimenting them and were surprised that I had done it myself.  :-)