Cherry, baby!

Today in the challenge, it's Fruit Salad!

..Okay, so I might not have a whole lotta fruits goin on, but I was happy with this mani=]  Who doesn't love cherries?  What better way to try out my new favorite red=]  I love how much more comfortable I've become with doing nail art, I think I need to invest in a variety of other brushes hmm..









This is (except my rings) a base of e.l.f medium red and two coats of OPI Moonsooner or Later over that.  Don't ask why, I was tryin out some layering..I'm not sure if it even made a difference lol
 On the rings I have a base of Revlon Temptress, and I used my itty bitty brush to make the cherries, with Moonsooner or Later and The Jungle Look for the stems.

don't break my heart..

More summer challenging!  I told y'all I was getting better this month=]

Honestly, I googled images of buttercups lol and I'm not even positive if this is an alright interpretation, I don't know if they really have dark spotty things in their lady bits but something else had to go in there. I don't think I could get tired of creating floral manis.  On my ring finger is a hair lol I trimmed my bangs yesterday at the nail/makeup/hairdoin' desk and didn't exactly clean up very well.  What?  I'm lazy..

 This is what I used to create these lovelies! Left to right: Deborah Lippman Almost Paradise & Let's Hear It For the Boy, China Glaze Gaga for Green, Sally Hansen mellow yellow, China Glaze agro, Zoya Bevin, Kleancolor Neon Yellow, as well as my palette and brush=]

It's my party I'll do the PCF SC if I want to

Today's theme is GREASE!  It's actually Summer Lovin' but...where else should my mind go? Oh my goodness, the movie that initially started my absolute love of musicals.  My musical movies are by far the movies I have seen the most of in my lifetime, probably a tie between the Rocky Horror Picture Show and Rent, I cannot count how many times, but both my DVDs skip badly.  Actually I think I lent my RHPS to somebody a long time ago and haven't seen it since, which would really piss me off if I didn't know it scene by scene, song for song.  They can have the skipping DVD!  Anyway, I didn't do anything overly Grease-like, but I did decide I wanted to do something vintage, since it's a movie that's made to look like the 50's. I give you, floral-ly goodness!

This is a base of Zoya Cho, then the roses are made from e.l.f medium red (darker) and OPI Monsooner or Later, and Ulta the Jungle Look (darker) with Zoya Traci for the greens

Matte, and outside:

So, if you can't tell, I'm quite proud of this!  I'd been wanting to do floral print for a while.  This last photo was actually the third going on fourth day of this mani.  Yeah. You can probably tell that I've cut my nails down, and therefore, less chippage!  Actually none at all for this one..I's pleased=]

If you've stayed to read this long, today is my birthday! I love that this challenge is on my birthday because I absolutely loved creating it.

Summer Challenge: Sea shells!

Hey guys=] Today's challenge is my favorite so far, because for one: this mani can be used on more than one day (score!) and for two: I think it turned out super cool, and really I made it up as I went along.

I really took a lot of pictures, but these were the best ones I could find out of the bunch.  I was trying to figure out what I could do to recycle Zuza, I had been wearing it for a day or so.  I decided a beach theme would definitely work since Zuza looks like how I would imagine some really breathtaking ocean water would look.  Everything I used is above: Color Club Coral Cascade, China Glaze Fast Track, China Glaze Kinetic Candy, Noname Maurices teal color, Sally Hansen French White Tip, Sally Hansen black, and Zoya Zuza.  Below are my brushes I used, and the underside of a nail wheel, which I find are handy for doing nail art as little palettes.

I painted on the sand (fast track) and then some waves (noname teal) and then the splash of the wave (kinetic candy) and then some little shore things, in random shapes mean to be the actual shells (coral and white and black) and then a little crab on my index, ain't he cute?  Yes, he has legs, they are just small and my camera doesn't like beach scenes..or me..
I added top coat because I wanted this to last a couple days. I was so proud of this one.  I almost didn't though, because I like how textured it looked with the waves.  I sort of did a sweeping of the polish alongside the teal line and then smudged it kind of with the brush.  I know what you're thinking, wow that beach is cluttered.

This reminds me of two of my aunts, they both used to live in Texas.  My aunt Donna died when I was younger which really bites, but my other aunt still loves the beach just as much even though she hardly gets to see it anymore.  She's one of those types that themes their house in beach-like art and such, which is cool=]  I do miss visiting Texas every summer though, I haven't been in about 10 years.

MSMD, my take on RLN

Happy monday!  I'm kidding.  But it is memorial day, and that's something to be happy about!  Wait, no it isn't.  But it's so festive, with barbecues and seeing family, hanging out outdoors, burning your skin to a crisp...

But more important than that (to me) it's Monkey See, Monkey Do Monday!  For today's mani, I took inspiration from Rebecca Likes Nails' blog post on her modified leopard french!  I love hers being nude, but as she explains in her post, her nail stains were magically gone is what sort of inspired her to do this as a nude french.  Mine are here to stay lol I was quite happy with how this turned out, and I will be recreating this again in the future, but alas, I was busy getting posts together for this challenge, so this was worn for all of like 20 minutes.  Yeah.  Dedication.  Look it up. oh yeah, click that pic to go see her post=]

As a wise young lad once told me, "Here you go!"

This is my very first free handed leopard print done on myself, and I had only done one other on my little cousins bitten way down nubs so I thought it would be super easy to do to myself.  It was, but the thing is I spaced my brown dots waaaay too close together.  Definitely gonna remember to disperse them further apart next time.  Other than that, I have no qualms with this manicure=]

This is three coats of Deborah Lippman Footloose, I taped off and did my tips in Color Club Disco Nap.  For my brown dots I used OPI A-taupe the Space Needle, and the black leopardness with Sally Hansen Hard as Nails..whatever the name of that black is. it's just black y'all!  I did all that little stuff with my teeny dotting tools.

I topped this off with Poshe, and started with Sally Hansen Double Duty.

What do you think?  Is anyone else going over to their grandma's house for memorial day?  Are you gonna wear sunscreen?  Um, even if you don't celebrate you should still wear that.

On a different note, I start cosmetology school on Tuesday!  OH MY GOD.  My mom took me makeup shopping yesterday, because she loves me and knows I'm broke.  Since I got home from that, I haven't been able to sleep.  Remember those first day jitters from high school, and even college?  Did you ever get them so bad two days in advance?  Seriously.  I cannot freaking wait.  I'm going part-time since I'm still gonna work full-time, so it's gonna take me about two years.  I think it will be fun=]  Any other cosmetology school veterans out there? Tips, tricks?

Oh ps- that definitely means a makeup haul post is in the making

...it mostly rhymes with shmrevlon. =]

Summer Challenge: Day Four!

Oh, hey there!  I've been absent..
Not to get into a lot, but my grandmother has just had surgery, so I've just spent my last two days off over at her house helping her out and stuff...and putting off getting together summer challenge stuff!  Family is important though, and that's why i was not only watching over my grandmother, but my two young cousins (8 and 9) and let me assure you, I was not on a manicure rest!  I have been painting, removing, pressing tiny girly looking adhesive nails on, peeling them off, putting different ones on, peeling those off, painting again...and none of it on myself!  Well, okay I did find the time to do my own nails last night, and I think this manicure can double up on my summer challenges!  Not too sure, I may actually want to do a different one for the future challenge day.  I did miss Wednesday's challenge, the theme was summer dots.  I already did a dotting mani earlier that I feel is the perfect summer dot manicure so can I just cheat and lead you to that one..?

Okay, so today's challenge is orange freestyle themed.  And I feel like it could double over onto June 29: Underneath the stars.  If you don't agree, then I hereby surrender myself to the crumpet, and shall take my punishment accordingly.

Picture spam alert! I not only got my camera issues fixed, but I am quite proud of how this turned out!

inside:

outside:

blurry inside:

blurry outside:

emphasis on the thumb inside:

thumb outside:

blurry outside again, just 'cause =]

Galaxy nails! I have been wanting to do these for quite some time, but haven't been able to sponge correctly or use the colors I felt were right for it.  Some of these are obviously blurry to show the awesomeness of the holographic glitter=]
Specs:
Base coat: Sally Hansen Double Duty.
One coat of China Glaze Smoke and Ashes from the Hunger Games collection (the PERFECT galaxy base, in my opinion)
Index, middle, ring & pinky:
sponged on Revlon Dreamer in the middle in oddly shaped circles and stuff
sponged on one side China Glaze Tree Hugger
on another OPI My Address is Hollywood
on another Revlon Not so Blueberry (which is scented, and I'm not sure but I might be okay with that.  Maybe.)
sponged in the center Maybelline Color Show Porcelain Party
sponged the tips with CG Smoke and Ashes, and a bit around the sides til I was happy
To pull it all together, China Glaze Fairy Dust.  I really mean it.  This mani would not be the same without it.  Ever since I first saw it I knew it would be the perfect topper to a galaxy mani.  I've been lookin' around a lot, okay?  I see people all the time free-handing their own stars or dots in white on their galaxies, and I just think it totally takes away from it all, for me that is.  It just looks more realistic with the shimmering holographic bits in there, I think.

For my thumbs:
First, I sponged on Maybelline Color Show Porcelain Party, so the other colors would show up better.  This is an explosion of some kind.  I sponged on Revlon Fearless, and then alternated between that and Kleancolor Neon Yellow and Neon Orange, slowly making my way toward the tip of the nail, finishing with Revlon Fearless.  Then I topped that off with CG Fairy Dust.

Okay, so it isn't all about orange, but I have really been wanting to try this one out for a while, and it turned out even better than I expected!  So I needed an excuse to post it and tie it into the summer challenge lol

What's your favorite galaxy mani?  Am I offending you with my dislike of free handed stars instead of glitter?  Am I breaking the rules of the summer challenge too hard (um because there aren't any, get your facts right!) Wanna whine about it in a comment?  You can whine about anything down there, you know.
I'll read it, and respond in a timely manner with my thoughtfully thought thoughts =]

peacock marble

If you've been keeping up with either my blog or Cuti-Clue-Les' (whom btw has totally redone her background recently and it looks awesooome) then you will know that I have just discovered a new love: water marbles.  Oh my god.  I think I could do water marbles forever and ever, and never get tired of them!

For color inspiration, because I always feel like I'll throw together something awful, I look to fashion magazines.  Yeah.  I read 'em.  So what?  Anyway, the writers/staff at these mags might not know exactly how I feel on every subject, especially my stance on being submissive to men, (sometimes Cosmo, I really do love ya, other times I feel like you're trying to subliminally message me into becoming an oral machine..) and the fashion stuff is always craaaaazy expensive and normally just impractical for my life.  I don't work on a runway!  But they're normally pretty good at puttin' colors together=]  I swear, since my nails became my obsession, magazines have just become these idea books for me, they're also really great for patterns and designs.

Anyway, so I got this month's Marie Claire, and found a page with a girl wearing this weird peacock dress.  It had all of the peacock-ish colors and a couple feather designs I think, but mostly the colors were just there all together, swirled and going in different directions..  I thought that would be cool to recreate!  Everyone is loving the peacock design right now, put your own spin on it if you're interested but kind of unsure!

Some of these are still blurry, sorry!  I promise I got my camera issues fixed, but these were taken the other day..
Anyway, I started with a base of Maybelline Color Show Porcelain party, then did my marble with Pure Ice French Kiss, Maybelline Color Show Tenacious Teal and Kleancolor Neon Yellow, as well as Finger Paints Art You Wondering, which didn't show up so much in pictures.

I really just love marbles now, they're so fun and easy!  Once you have your colors, you're good to go!  I use the tape method, so clean up is a breeze, and I get better with each one I do!  If you have been put off by a marble mani, or are unsure of whether or not to try one because of maybe things you might have read about them or whatever...don't be!  Practice is the only way to get better.  Basically what it comes down to is, if I can do it, then there's gotta be a way that you can do it too.  If you have any questions at all, let me know!

And I did not forget about yesterday's summer challenge that I missed, but I do however feel that I can make up for it tomorrow.  Have a fantastic day=]

Sakura and other lovely florals =]

Hello!  Today my post will be about a manicure that I have been wanting to try out for a while now, and now that I have the right tools I thought, "Why not?"

My inspiration comes from one of my oldest besties who loves anything and everything Japanese.  I took a semester of Japanese in college and uh..I remember the day someone in the class was all "You know, English is actually one of the hardest languages to learn.." I was like...uhh where are you getting your intel, buddy?  I'm pretty sure I read somewhere it's one of the easiest for a lot of reasons, and one of them being that normally all of our words just generally have one meaning, and we don't normally use the same word to mean a lot of different things.  Also the way our sentences are put together is easier to understand.  Someone stop me if I'm wrong!  Needless to say, that class was really hard..

I had been getting my ideas just from googling "cherry blossom nails" for a while now, and there are a lot of variations, so i just used the basics as my base, a nude (or minty blue) background, a branch here and there, and then little pink and white flowers all over the place =] and let my mani lead itself as I went along.

 inside

outside

inside

This is one coat of Gelous, two coats of Zoya Cho, topped with Seche Vite.

I used tape to help make my tips, and painted them in Revlon Minted.  I used my really fine brush with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Flirt to make little branches on my thumb and ring fingers, starting at either top or bottom (I alternated the starting points on my right hand) and then for my cherry blossoms I used my brush again in OPI My Address Is Hollywood, and Sally Hansen French Tip White for the middles.  Topped off again with Seche Vite.

I loved loved loved this mani so much.  My friends seemed to like it, and my only problem with it is that I think I definitely should've used dotting tools to make the flowers, but I was on a roll with my brush lol I love that thing..

A little something else is another review.  I hope everyone likes reviews, because I think I'll start doing them a little more.  Not a lot, mostly things that I have received in past Birchboxes that I still have (mainly perfume samples)  I promise they won't all always be as long as my May Birchbox Review post lol I tend to get carried away...

Anyway, last month Birchbox sent me a sample of Taylor Swift's new perfume, Wonderstruck.  I love the way this smells! If you love floral and fruity scents, this is something you need to take a whiff of!  At Birchbox 3.4oz of the stuff is $59.50.  The bottle is so magical looking, purple with a gold top, and little golden charms all around the cap.  I don't know how much you guys like Taylor Swift, or country/pop in general, but I can't help myself.  Her songs are catchy, and her voice is great.  And she really seems like the type of girl who still has a good head on her shoulders in the world of celebrities, really girl-next-door-ish.  She brings out the "country girl" in me that I used to stifle and be embarrassed of, but where I'm from it's damn near impossible to not have a little backwoods coursing through your veins.  Also, this "country girl" (ha.) does not pay the high prices for perfumes and stuff..I'm the type of girl, if I don't get it for Christmas or buy it right before Christmas when VS has that lovely "Buy a million lotions and sprays for $this" then I'm not getting any perfume.  If I WERE the type of girl to have money to splurge on such things...then $60 wouldn't be so bad to pay for this lovely bit of goodness..I guess..

What's your favorite smell?

MSMD takin' notes from the Chalkboard

This is my first Monkey See, Monkey Do Monday!

Here is the link to the fb page with the list of other bloggers who participate! (Aka- i forgot to do this last night when i was writing this post and am now on my tablet which makes everything a little different)all the cool kids!

I got my idea from this post from the seriously talented Sarah at Chalkboard Nails! Her title Ants at the picnic! is an accurate description of what this manicure represents.  Here you are, chillin' on your gingham blanket (why have I never seen one of those in real life?!) munchin' on some grindage, and your watermelon-y goodness is just waaay too much for these little dickheads to keep away from.  Hide your melons, hide your glasses of sweet southern iced tea!

I couldn't completely replicate the manicure, but really who wants to totally copy someone else? I had been wanting to do something with watermelons ever since I picked up my bottle of Finger Paints Louvre This Pink.  It is THE perfect shade for watermelon!  Then I came across that post and I was like oooh I gotta try it.  I'm glad I did!  You should hop on over and look at the original photos of what this mani SHOULD look like lol

 Alright, so I have a shit basket.  I did not keep the basket.  I tried, I really did! I think having more colors would have helped?  I just don't think mine were very baskety.. My basket is a base coat of OPI A-taupe the Space Needle as well as lines of French Quarter For Your Thoughts, and then some of A-taupe the Space Needle mixed with white for some..depth? Geez I dono.  At one point I said screw it trying to make little perforated lines and just vertical and horizontal.  And that's what makes a shit basket, y'all! I took that off, and had a different idea to try.

 For my take, I painted half my nail in Sally Hansen Hard as Nails French White, two coats, then stripes in Finger Paints Gogh Red! (maybe, I'm pretty sure that's what it is..)  and Pure Ice Black Rage for my ants.  For the grass I used China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise (I think this one is a neon..I got it so long ago)

For my index and pinky, I did the same as my thumb, just without the grass.  I tried to get the ants to march in line and to be following the sugary trail.  For my middle and ring fingers I did a base of Finger Paints Louvre This Pink, then painted on with Color Club Age of Aquarius right above the rind, and then my other no-name Maurices polish, some shade of dark teal.  For my seeds i used Pure Ice Black Rage.  I topped all of this off with Seche Vite, because it was time to go do laundry and upload these pics, and all that involves a trip to my parent's house. 

My seeds look a little irregular, and I do think I should have made way fewer of them.  Pretty much all of this except the base and top coats were done with my super teeny tiny nail art brush that I got at Sally's.  My right hand which I didn't take pictures of actually looks the same as my left, if not better.  I love my tiny nail art brush =]  Overall, it doesn't look perfect (uh probably because I did it) but it looks way better than what I could've done a while ago, without the right tools.  So I'm happy with it!  Perfect for summer=]

I am really enjoying posting..do you know how happy I am that 12 people wanna follow me?  Okay really ten because when I set it up I wanted to make sure it worked so I followed myself from both my accounts.  How lame am I?  TEN PEOPLE! =]

I am also now on facebook, I will soon be getting a button or something put on here to link to that www.facebook.com/ambersnailblog  Can you believe that nevernakednails, never.naked.nails, and nevernakednailsblog were supposedly "taken" fb names?  I looked em up, they don't exist! whatever..I decided if ambersnailblog didn't work I was just leaving it the way it came lol

Thanks for stopping by =]