September 2014 Nail Art Recap

Here's the nails I did all month, until before the Zoya Ultra PixieDust swatches.

05 SEPTEMBER 2014

08 SEPTEMBER 2014

09 SEPTEMBER 2014

11 SEPTEMBER 2014

14 SEPTEMBER 2014

17 SEPTEMBER 2014

 19 SEPTEMBER 2014

Minimalist Disney Princess

Good morning lovelies! Yesterday I was looking online to find some nail art inspiration, and I saw these minimalist Disney posters and I wanted to give them a try! I've done Mickey & Friends before and they weren't so great as I was barely starting to get into nail art again at that time and I didn't have Seche Vite (I think it really helps put the look together and finish the artwork). But if you wish to see it, you can find the picture here. Anyways, I wanted to give the princess nails a shot so here they are!

Fourth of July!

Hi there my loves! Today I'm sharing with you the nails I did for 4th of July. I initially planned to do a non-traditional design. I wanted a white base with blue and red florals but when I started painting, it didn't look anything like what I had in mind and I didn't know what else to do but the typical American flag nails. I think it still looked pretty ok though. I really should've used striping tape to get the stripes perfectly, but it was already late and I was too lazy and tired to deal with the tape. So here it is! Enjoy!

Sheer Florals

I'm so happy to finally get my hands on the OPI Sheer Tints collection. When I was at BZ, I was having a hard time deciding whether I should get them or not. I knew I couldn't just choose one or two. If I were to buy them it had to be all or none, and I think that I made the right decision. A part of me was a little hesitant because for the price of all four of them, I could've bought 7 China Glaze of Color Club polishes, but no regrets. I love how these polishes look and the possibilities are endless! I can't wait to keep trying and find out what else they have to offer.

Here's the first mani I've done since I got it and I'm not sure if I'm in love with them but it's okay. I'm limiting myself to doing my nails at least every 3 days. It's getting really bad to where I paint them almost every day. I need to control myself! Haha.

To matte or not to matte, that is the question

I've always been a fan of Lindsey of Wondrously Polished. Her designs are always flawless, and just plain beautiful. When I first found her blog, I was amazed. Her floral manicures (well, all her manicures actually) are just to die for. I thought to myself, if I could just make my nails look half as beautiful as hers, I would be so proud of myself. So I went through her blog and found a design that wasn't too complicated for me, but has something I've never done before. I chose to try and remake her primary colors rose nail art that can be found here. Although I've done rose nail designs in the past, I thought this was different simply because of the white dots that I like to think are an abstract form of baby's breath. I loved the way it turned out after I put 2 coats of Seche Vite to get a smooth texture. But since her seemed to look matte, I decided to make mine matte as well.

Speaking of matte top coats, I got myself a bottle of Essie Matte About You maybe a year or two ago. And I liked it but after some time, it became thick and just hard to use and so I figured I should just get a new matte top coat. I've been reading different blogs trying to see which one is the best, but yesterday I was at Target and I saw that they had a few bottles of the NYC Matte me Crazy top coat. I was scared that the finish wouldn't be the kind of matte that I like, but to my surprise it's exactly what I was looking for! And for the price of $2.04 (+tax), I think it's a great steal! It dries quickly and is very smooth to touch. In less than 15 minutes after applying one coat, I found myself wearing gloves and washing the dishes. I'm not sure how long the matte finish will last but as of right now, I am totally in love with this polish. I hope it lasts at least a week. But I'll be happy if it even lasts for 4 days. LOL

Para Para Paradise

I've always seen sunset / palm tree nails online but I've never tried them on my own. And now I can finally say that I have! After watching different tutorials on Instagram and YouTube, I've decided to give it a try and I can say that it's really not that hard! I've done gradient nails using the sponge method several times now and I always use a white base in order to allow the sponged colors to pop. But whenever I clean the cuticle area to get rid of the excess color, the white base always tends to show. So for this mani, I decided to use one of the gradient colors as a base. Although it looked better after the clean up, I noticed it was harder to sponge the gradient onto my nails because the orange-y shade didn't show very well. I had to use 2 different shades of orange polish to get the color that I wanted, and I thought that was a bit of a waste of polish. But it turned out pretty good, so I shouldn't complain. LOL

Happiest Place on Earth!

Recently, I went on a daycation to the Happiest Place on Earth, and of course my nails had to be Disneyland themed. Because, you know, that's just the thing to do! I mean, how can you go to Disneyland and not have Disney nails? That's just absurd! LOL. Anyways, I was being my indecisive self and couldn't make up my mind on which Disney character(s) to do. I've seen a lot of Mickey / Minnie nails and a lot of them are cute! But I thought maybe not. Well, to be honest I did a mani before this one which included Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Daisy and Donald Duck, and of course Goofy. But that was before I got a hold of a new bottle of Seche Vite so I had to use a Sally Hansen top coat which wasn't the same so I had to re-do my nails. I found a picture of Lilo & Stitch nails on Pinterest and I immediately fell in love with it. So I knew I had to use that design! 

It didn't come out exactly the same as hers because I've lost my touch and I need more practice. But I think it looks pretty good! Let me know what you think?