Tea Baggin' and more

So I have taken the plunge and become a Julep Maven! Nowadays I find myself with so many colors I don't know what to do with them. With being a Maven I automatically get sent 2-3 polishes a month, kinda like the Sephora birthday gift- only every month. So this month I received:

Rose oil for cuticles 

Nail glitter, Bornpretty.com

Toni & Michelle

I'm hoping to get alot out of the rose oil because with this cold weather my nails and hair need serious moisturizing attention. Hence my need to tea bag my nails. Teabagging is a technique where you use a stretching material with nail glue or clear polish as a mini bandaid when you have a tear in your nail.

Just nail glue and piece of teabag

With rose oil and coat of clear polish 

Once filed and buffed it's polish as usual:

one coat

Thanks for reading!

A Bed of Roses

So it's been a bit of time since I've written because I was on vacation. 

Jamican sunset

I'm back for a quick post. Let me preface my pics by saying I have been dying to use nail foils and they finally came in the mail! For this post I used a base coat of Essie- "Blanco" and Nail Foil Design- "English Rose" (which I got from ebay). I used two different top coats because a lot of reviews complained of wrinkling that happens with fast drying. So I used Sally Hansen first and Seche Vite for longevity and shine!

Before the clean-up and top coat

Left hand with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear- "Invisible" and Seche Vite 

Right hand with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear- "Invisible" and Seche Vite

Glitter: Shine Vs. Matte

So I'm trying to get into glitter, mainly because this whole matte glitter trend is really wowing me right now. But I didn't want to totally discount the joys of glitter with shine, after all it is the original way to go! So for my shine glitter example I used one coat of OPI: "Big Apple Red" which is a great jelly red and then two coats of OPI: "Be-Claus I Said So". For the kisses I used Bundle Monster 02.

  

 

I tried to take pics of this glitter in different lights but I still feel the overall shine of this polish wasn't represented 100% by the camera.

VS.

Next I used a matte glitter that I've been dying to use since the first time I saw it, Amy's Nail Boutique: "Pink Lemonade".

 My amateur palm tree is my attempt at free-hand designs... I really have to brush up on my free hand skills! Thanks for reading and Happy Bloggin'!

Stamping Leaves a Great First Impression!

Every time I think I have a favorite nail design style I discover something new and decide instantly that THIS must be the greatest thing ever. At least until tomorrow when I see something else that grabs my attention. Thats what happened with nail stamping, so many options, so easily done and only so many fingers!

                                     

                             

A lil Tape Goes a Long Way.

So today's entry I wanted to dedicate to tape manicures. When I first purchased my nail tape I didn't think much of it except that it would look pretty, so I focused on designs like
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unfortunately this manicure didn't last too long as the tape started peeling off 2 days after I did my manicure!

So after some soul searching I started creating the more typical design you expect from tape manicures like this pic ------------>
And honestly this manicure did last MUCH longer.

Further along my journey I stumbled across Nailside Blog which helped open my eyes to this brilliant nail community. I was also inspired to recreate some of her designs.

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And lastly there are always blunders along the way. Usually nail tape peels away clean but I've found two things save me from particularly thick designs/polishes, an occasional coat of Seche Vite as I go and trying to make the tape color to the polish color as much as possible.

Thanks for reading!

Sometimes things ARE Black or White... or both.

Happy Election Day!

I wish I could say I was inspired to do something a bit more patriotic but hopefully my happy flag makes up for my lack of red, white and blue.

What I used: Essie- "Marshmellow"; Konad- "Black"; and Nails Inc; "Electric Lane"; Seche Vite- Top Coat

Base coat

"Electric Lane" applied to half my nail as the base for my BM stamp

I was trying to capture the glitter under my nail stamp, it's better in person.

Top Coat and done!

 Thanks for reading!!