Nail Art Experimenting.. Water Color Nail Art With Markers!

Hi everyone! So the other day I was sitting on the floor trying to see if I could think up a new nail art technique that no one had done before. Then, my eyes wandered to the other side of the room, where I had a bunch of markers sitting out from when I had been drawing, and I had an idea. No, I did not paint my nails just with marker, although I did have fun doing that as a kid. I was thinking of the times where I had drawn on a smooth surface and didn't wait long enough before running my finger over it, and it smudged. I started wondering, what if I could do something like that on my nails to make a cool water color effect?

The answer is yes ladies and gentleman, yes I can. Here's what to do if you want to try this,

1. Paint 1 coat of white polish on your nails (I used Sinful Colors White on White. You can use another coat if it looks really streaky, but be careful, because you're going to use a whole bunch of top coat and you don't want your mani to be really thick.)

2. Paint on a coat of your favorite shiny top coat. (I used Out The Door)

3. Let dry COMPLETELY. (This is important because the next step will dent the top coat if it's not totally dry)

4. Use a marker of your choice to draw on your nails. Leave plenty of white space. I chose to draw chevrons. Make sure you press to get as much marker ink as possibly on your nail.

5. Before the marker ink has any time to draw, quickly paint over it with top coat. Press down with the brush to really pull the marker color through. You might have to go over places twice to get even coverage. 

It took some trial and error to get this right. I drew some nail shapes on paper and covered it with tape to try it on that first. Then I could see which colors and which markers worked best. I found that dark colors and permanent markers worked the best, because they are more pigmented and have a stronger, more visible water color effect, although crayola markers worked too if you want a more subtle effect anyway. You also want to work fast with the top layer of top coat, because if you don't two things could happen. One is that the marker ink will dry and you won't be able to get good streaks of color, or even coverage, and the other is that the top coat you already put on will start to dry and will smear, which doesn't look good.

So, what do you think? If you like it, try it for yourself. Let's see if we can start a trend! If this does catch on, I vote to call the art made with this technique "Marker Manis". :)

Despicable Me Minions Nail Art

Hi everyone! So..first i'd like to give you an update about whats been going on in my life. For the next few months i'm going to be working with my aunt. She's a kindergarten teacher, and everyday I've been helping in her classroom. It's a lot of hard work, but I love the kids and the job. Plus it will give me great experience for when I go to college and start studying early childhood education.
So..for the first day of school I was thinking about what I could put on my nails. I wanted to do some cute nail art, with something that would appeal to kids. So..I thought of doing this.

Minion nails! I've seen some people do them before, so I decided to put a little bit of my own twist on it. Instead of making a minion on all of my nails, I made one on my accent nails and spelled out "Bah Nah Nah" across the others others. This was inspired by the minions love of bananas, and of the song that they sing in the Despicable Me 2 trailer.

I even made a little banana on my thumb. Also, I apologize for the slightly less than appealing background in my pictures. I haven't quite located a good place to take pictures up here in Maryland yet. 

So..what do you think? I'm pretty proud of myself because this is my first nail art involving letters(Not counting the XOXO in my textured valentine nail art). Yay for milestones! :)

LA Girl Birthday Cake Review and Swatch

Hi everyone! Okay, something about me is that I absolutely love crelly and creme glitter polishes. Ever since I saw swatches of Kbshimmer Oh Splat online..I've been hooked. So when I was in Rite Aid..I saw this beauty sitting on the shelf and I just had to have it.

LA Girl birthday cake, a pink creme base with rainbow colored glitter. Let's get on to the review shall we?

Application

I had no trouble with the formula. It went on nice and evenly in 2-3 coats. I like that the glitter spread out evenly too, instead of clumping together or gathering at the tips.

Look

LOVE. Crelly and creme glitters are just beautiful. This one is no exception.

Price

$2.99 at Rite aid. I'm definitely not complaining at all here!

Overall

I've seen a lot of this type of polish ever since Deborah Lippmann Candy Shop came out. A lot of brands have been trying the whole pink base rainbow glitter thing. But I think this one is different because instead of it having a sheer-ish jelly base, it's a creme. That makes it a lot more opaque with a lot less coats, which means no glitter clumps! Plus it's a LOT cheaper than the Deborah Lippmann. So, of all the "Candy Shop" type polishes I've seen, this one has my vote.

So, what do you think? Will you be buying this polish? Do you love crelly glitters too? Let me know! I'dlove to hear from you!

Nail Art Experimenting..Textured Sugar Spun Nails

Hi everyone! So a while back I was bored..and decided to try to come up with something that not many people have tried before. So, after a while, I came up with something. We've all heard of sugar spun nails..but what about textured sugar spun? I've never seen anyone try that before. Well, I decided to try it, and here's how it turned out.

At first I wasn't really sure about it. At first I thought that this must be why nobody had done textured sugar spun nails, and I almost called it a fail. But after a while..it kind of grew on me. It's different..but I like it.

Here's how I did it for those of you who want to try this for yourself. I didn't take pictures at the time, but if any of you want a picture tutorial just let me know.

1. Paint your nails a base color. I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White.
2. Choose your textures. I chose to use the Rimmel London Sweetie, because they're sparkly and not too chunky. Plus..the technique is called "sugar spun".
3. Put drops of the first color onto a piece of plastic. I put scotch tape on a piece of paper and put it on there.
4. Wait a little bit, and every so often dip a tooth pick into the drops. Wait until it thickens enough that when you dip the tooth pick into the drops and lift up, strings of the polish come with it.
5. When it reaches the right thickness, touch the tooth pick gently to where you want a string to start, then lift up and move the toothpick across the nail so its just above it without touching it. This should cause the string to stretch across your nail.
6. Continue placing all the strings you want.

It took some practice getting the strings to go all the way across my nail, but I think over all I succeeded in what I was trying to do.
What do you think, will textured sugar spun nails be the next trend? :)

Lemon Nail Art

Hi everyone! I'm back! Sorry for the long wait! For a while there I just posted to Instagram, and I apologize for neglecting those of you who see me on here. Anyway,  recently I finally had a nice opportunity. I got to go buy some Funky Fingers polishes. I previously hadn't gotten the opportunity to get them because they are only sold at Five Below stores, and the closest Five Below to my house is over an hour away. But the other day I went on a trip to visit family and they happen to have a five below near their house. So I got to go! Yay! I didn't want to spend too much money since I already gone a bit polish crazy with my graduation money, and I do want to save some of that. So I just limited myself to four polishes, two from Funky Fingers and two Fresh Paint.  I'll have swatches of those soon enough, but today I want to show you some simple nail art I did with one of the Funky Fingers polishes.

This polish caught my eye in the store, not just because of the color, but also because of the name. Alex's Lemonade. For those of you don't know, Alex's Lemonade is a charity that raises money to benefit research for childhood cancer. Right now Five Below is supporting them by selling this limited edition polish with a portion of the profits going to the charity. I think that's really nice, so I bought one.

It's a good polish, a bright yellow creme, that surprised me by also being lemon scented! The formula of the polish is good, being nicely opaque for a yellow. I used two coats, three on one nail to even it out a bit more. It also dried nice and shiny. I also used Nuance Black Dahlia with Sally Hansen Lite to paint little lemon slices on my nails.

Cute right? And it benefits a charity. Overall, I'm really happy with it.

So what do you think? Let me know in the comments! I'd love to hear from you!

Rainbow Cotton Candy Nail Art Using Rimmel Sweetie Crush Polishes

Hi everyone! So the other day I showed you my swatches of the Rimmel London Sweetie Crush polishes. Well I was looking at them, and I was thinking that despite the fact that they are all supposed to based on different candies, they all remind me of rainbow cotton candy. So..I decided to do this!

Rainbow cotton candy nails! How cute are they! What I did was use Sinful Colors Snow Me White as a base, then I painted the cotton candy shapes using Wet n Wild Black Creme and painted around each one with a pastel color that matched a Sweetie Crush polish. The background colors are LA Colors Unnamed(pink), Essie Mint Candy Apple(blue), and Claire's Rubber Ducky(yellow). I didn't have a pastel green so the color I used on my ring finger is a mix between Crayola Green Apple and Sinful Colors Snow Me White. The only Sweetie Crush polish I didn't use in this was the purple one, Violet Swizzle, mostly because I didn't have a lavender creme polish. Maybe next time I'll use it.

So what do you think? Do you like cotton candy? Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments! 

Rimmel London Sweetie Crush Collection Swatches

Hi everyone! Who's ready for summer? I know I am! I love the beach, the BBQs, the flip flops, and of course, the new nail polish collections! I have one of them to show you today. This collection actually as released around march, but it's technically for summer so i''m reviewing it now! It's also an accomplishment for me, as it's the first full collection of polishes that I bought that I didn't get in a box set. Yay for milestones! I started off buying one, then put it in my swatch book and immediately went to the store and bought all of them. These are that pretty.

So without further ado, here it is, the Rimmel London Sweetie Crush collection! Five sparkly texture polishes that were inspired by candy! I love polishes that remind me of food!

The first one is Candyfloss Cutie. I love the name, the fact that these are from the UK makes the names cool. Anyway, it's a sparkly, pearly, cotton candy pink texture. It was a bit sheer but built nicely. This is 3 coats.

Next is Violet Swizzle, a pale lavender purple pearly texture. I thought this one would be really sheer but it's actually not. This is 2 coats.

Next is Blueberry Whizz, a sparkly blue texture. This was the brightest color of the bunch. 2 coats.

Next is Fizzy Applelicious, a pale apple green texture. Sparkly and kind of pearly. Really pretty. This was the first one I picked up before I decided that I wanted the others.

Next up is Sherbert Sweetheart. Its a sparkly yellow texture with some iridescent yellow glitter in it. This was the most sheer of all of them. It also had a slightly different formula then the others. It was kind of strange. It managed to be thick and sheer at the same time, and it also liked to get in my cuticles. This is 3 thick coats.

Thats the collection! Pretty right? They're available at Rite Aid and CVS for $2.25 each. 

So what do you think? Do you like texture polishes? What about food inspired polishes? Let me know in the comments!