July Favorites

3. Princessa - Jolly Rancher
I really only had picked this one up because I had never heard of the brand before, but ended up falling in love with how much it glowed!

2. Holo Splatter Nails
As a challenge for Twinsie Tuesday, I used a few Color Club Halo Hues for my first splatter mani, and loved it!

1. Zoo Animals
Definitely my favorite mani I did from this month! They were all pretty easy to do, and so cute!

Twinsie Tuesday - Something New

I was browsing the YouTube and the Google for the inspiration a couple of days ago to decide on "something new" to try, because my bottle of creative juice was 100% empty. I came across this video tutorial, and for a floral design, surprisingly loved it so much that I needed to recreate it! I changed it up a bit to fit my style better, and produced my first ever successfully multi-stamped mani.

That is how this fits today's theme. I have tried double stamping before, but have never been able to stamp more than once and have a good outcome. Tri-stamping is something new to me.

Busy Girl's Summer Nail Art Challenge - Beach

I actually did these nails a little while ago, but I thought they were perfect for this week's challenge, and had to save them for it!

Striping Tape Triangles

I was playing around with striping tape designs the other day and drew up a triangle look. I decided to give it a go on my nails, and this is what I ended up with as a practice run to see how I liked it:

Busy Girl's Summer Nail Art Challenge - Mix Match

I decided to do all water marbles for this week's challenge! I was playing around and testing out different combinations in the water, and just picked five that I liked to put on my nails for today.

Birthday Candles on Foiled Nails

My BFF's birthday was last month (yes, of course her birthday present was nail polish, do you expect anything less from a lacquer addict?!), and her, myself, and the munchkin went out to eat and shop. For the occasion, I decided to do some foiled, rainbow, glowy birthday candle nails!

Twinsie Tuesday - Splatter

I've always liked the splatter manis I have seen, and wanted to try them, but never got around to it. It just seemed like too much of a mess for me.

Since I finally got to try it out, I actually really like it! Even when you tape off your finger, it is a huge mess, so I doubt I do splatter (the version where you dip the end of a straw into polish and blow through the other end) very often, but it does create a pretty neat look!

I started off with a two-coat base of Confetti Black Tie and used some of the Color Club Halo Hues for the splatter: Harp on It (silver) first, then Eternal Beauty (purple), and Over the Moon (blue) last.

Tea Beauty - Vanilla Petals

Oddly, even though it is a nude, this polish stained my nails pretty badly. I'm totally okay with it, though, because I love it! 

Zoya - Vespa

Slowly but surely I've been snagging the Zoya Pixie Dusts! By now, I'm usually sick of a trend. Like the crackle, which only lasted about a month tops for me. I still love the sparkly, textured polishes, though! 

This one is Zoya Vespa at one, two, three, and four coats, from left to right. It isn't bad at two, but needs three for full coverage.

Love & Beauty by Forever 21 - Swatch Spam

I don't go to Forever 21 very often because the closest one to me is about an hour away, but the last time I was there, I found some of their polishes on sale for $1 USD a piece and grabbed one of each. I hadn't tried their polishes, but figured I couldn't really go wrong at a buck a pop.

For the most part, they were what I expected: mostly decent, but not the best.

The first of the six I got is so uniquely named Light Aqua. It required two coats for opacity. It was a little sheer and thin at first, but build-able. It had a shiny finish without topcoat and dried at a kind of medium speed. Faster than, say, Kleancolor, but not super quick.

Quadruplet Collaboration Nails from Instagram

I've teamed up with a few other girls on Instagram to do collaboration nails quite a few times, then I'd Photoshop one picture from each of us together. So I have three to share with you that we've done in the past!

First up, we decided to do owl nails. I wanted to try owls in a way I hadn't before, and these ones were inspired by a Shabby Blogs background image I used to have.

The base gradient for these is Julep Claire and China Glaze Gaga for Green.

I stamped on top of the blue part with Essie Mesmerize and BM222, and over the green with ChG Holly-Day and BM309, then over the whole nail with ChG White on White and a design from BM222.

Glitter Placement Nails - Sequins vs. Glequins vs. Glitter

I see these terms interchanged and misused frequently, so I figured I'd take a minute to explain.

When it comes to glitter, glequins and sequins, they fall into each category depending on their size.

Sequins (see an example here) are large pieces with a small hole in the center, mostly used for crafts and in fashion. They are, in my opinion, way too big to be used in nail art.

Glitter, on the other hand, is just that: teeny pieces, usually in a dust or powder form, that would be impossible to apply individually.

Which brings us to glequins. Glequin is just a made-up word that we in the nail world use to combine the two previous. Glequins are roughly 1-2mm in diameter and come in different shapes from hexes, to squares and diamonds, to circles, and even hearts, stars, and music notes, etc. They typically come in a little pot or jar and are individually adhered to the nail with clear polish. See examples of glequins here and here and here.

Want to see some glitter placement manis I have done just playing around with glequins (which I prefer to call "glitters" or "loose glitters")?

Princessa Brilliant Finish - Jolly Rancher

I picked this one up at a flea market/craft show not too long ago. I had never heard of this brand, so I wanted to grab one. Of the three colors, this was the most appealing. The others were pearl finishes, otherwise I probably would have cleaned the vendor out!

Twinsie Tuesday - Disney Inspired

Did anyone else have as much trouble successfully coming up with a design for today's challenge as I did?

So why is my nail art so bland and lame for today? Well, I ended up doing three different manis trying to come up with something for today, and didn't like a single one of them.

Busy Girl's Summer Nail Art Challenge - Gradient

I love the reciprocal gradient look, so with Sally Hansen Lickety-Split Lime (green), Claire's Breakfast at Tiffany's (aqua), and Wet'n'Wild Casting Call (dusty mauve), and some striping tape, I went for a non-traditional reciprocal gradient.

Zoya Blogger Trio

Belle

Three coats, no topcoat. This polish was perfectly smooth. It has a slight orange shimmer but wanted to photograph more corally orange and is actually a bubble gummy pink.

Zoo Animal Nails

My family went to the zoo a week or so ago, and of course I had to have zoo-appropriate nails for the occasion!

I used mostly no-name Blush brand polishes and acrylic paint for these.

I got the idea for the giraffe from Adventures in Acetone, then did the others based on what types of animals I knew we'd see: a polar bear, a penguin, a monkey, and a lion.

Busy Girl's Summer Nail Art Challenge - Polka Dot

Due to running out of time to create an actual mani for the theme this week, I am using one that I created a while ago that I thought fit this theme perfectly: cows and muddy pigs!

Born Pretty Store - Dust Plug Stylus Review

I always share nail-related products from Born Pretty Store with you, so I decided to throw in something a little different this time. They have a huge variety of nail supplies, but they also carry cell phone cases and accessories, stationary items, and many other things.

Another product I have from them is a touch-screen stylus. This is currently on sale for .99 cents USD, which is a steal! It normally runs $2.50, though, and comes in four different colors: white, pink, black, and gold.

Born Pretty Store - 3D Glitter Rhinestone Review

I received another product from Born Pretty Store to show you! These are multi-colored, sparkly, 5mm rhinestones. The ones I chose were style #9, but they come in various shapes and sizes. These are $2.98 USD for 10.

They are a tad on the larger side, but they're too pretty to even complain! And if you remember this post, they are not nearly as big as those rhinestones, and are much more tolerable!

Twinsie Tuesday - International's Choice

Today, Elizabeth was my ring leader for this challenge. We have three ladies who live outside the U.S. in our group and each got to give mani orders to a few of the members. My challenge was to create some sort of good luck/Hong Kong-inspired nails. 

I went with a simple gold and red combo, using China Glaze Mega Bite, then did a water spotted look on top with Zoya Carmen, and some simple double dotting on my pinky.

Guest Post at Simply Beauty

I have a guest post today over at Simply Beauty!

China Glaze - Want My Bawdy

I never have done an actual four-finger swatch of anything from this collection until now, and even though most people weren't very impressed with them, I actually like them a lot!

Lush Lacquer Swatch Spam

Oopsie Daisy
One coat over one coat of Revlon Hazy. ONE daisy glitter after I painted it onto 10 nails. Lame.

Independence Day Cupcakes

I liked the Julep February Maven colors I used in my first Fourth of July mani so much that I wanted to use them again for another mani, only this time I made cupcakes! ^.^

Busy Girl's Summer Nail Art Challenge - Glitter // Fourth of July Nails - Fishtail Braid

I did a fishtail braid mani for The Fourth last year, and loved it so much that I knew I wanted to do another this year! Plus, this week's theme for the Busy Girl's Summer Nail Art Challenge is glitter!

Since last year's Fourth of July fishtail braid was done in creme polishes and topped with glitter, I wanted to start with sparkly polishes this time, instead. It was a little lumpy, and I could have added more topcoat, but it just wasn't working for me, for some reason.

Twinsie Tuesday - Fourth of July

For TT this week, I wanted to do something a little different. I've been curious as to whether textured polishes will marble or not in water, so I grabbed Zoya Liberty, Zoya Godiva, and P2 Illegal, and went for it!

4th of July Cloud Mani

I did this mani back in February when I got these three colors in my Julep Maven February box, but they made me think of the Fourth when put together, so I went with a simple cloud mani using all three and saved this one for July!