Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day! Since one of my besties is Canadian, I decided to make a Canada Day design. I had to make sure I included the iconic maple leaf, but everything else was just a red and white party. I used Confetti The Red Capet, Konad white, and Spoiled Shuffle the Deck.

Snake Skin Nails

I bought a bunch of new polish in the past few weeks, and I've been trying to figure out how to use them all in clever ways. I've really been wanting to use this brown color.. even though I think it's slightly ugly... but still cool... Anyways, this is Orly Buried Alive from the Dark Shadows collection.

This color looks more like a combination of these two pictures. For some reason, I thought it had more of a green tint to it? 

I also recently bought OPI's Just Spotted the Lizard from The Amazing Spiderman collection. Every time I went to Ulta to buy it, they were out of this color, so I eventually just bought a 4-pack of tiny little ones. I stamped this color on, attempting to make it look like snake skin. This is actually a really cool color! See the blue and brown tints in it?? It does that on my nail, too!

Magic Mike comes out tomorrow!! Are you as pumped as I am? You should be. Since Independence Day is just around the corner, I'd like to show you a picture of some true American heroes in what is soon to be my new favorite movie.

Mood Color Changing Polish

When I was in middle school I had a thing for mood rings. They're super cool/trippy, plus they had hilarious color descriptions. Obviously they didn't work too well - I'm pretty sure I wasn't "feelin' sexy" in the middle of Algebra class - but that didn't matter.

A couple weeks ago I bought a set of Mia Secret MOOD polish on Amazon. I've been dying to try them out! Here's one that changes from purple (cold) to pink (warm).

This is two coats of the polish with no topcoat. It's sort of a matte. It was really weird to apply the purple polish and have it turn pink before you could finish. The ends are still purple since they're colder.

I applied a topcoat and then stuck my fingers in some warm water to show what they'd look like completely pink.

Then I stuck them into some cold water and dried them off a little. Apparently that warmed them up  too much, but I got a cool picture of the transition!

After another million attempts of dipping and drying, I just gave up and took a picture of my wet nails.

Just for the heck of it, I added an orange to yellow polish stamp on one nail. The polish is pretty thin, so it's hard to see...

Here's what my nails look like just chillin'.

 In other news, Magic Mike comes out soon!!! Here's a little preview -

*SIGH*

Post-Swimming Mani

My parents and I signed up for a mini triathlon at the beginning of August. And the training has begun! Today we biked and swam - no running yet.. Anyways, I'm over at my parents' house, so I don't have my polish or camera. But I managed to find some cute polish! This is NYC Midtown (pink) and The Icing's knock-off of the China Glaze Electrify. It's hard to tell from my cell phone picture, but it's nearly identical. And I have a feeling it was way cheaper... lol.

P.S. This Blogger app on my phone is terrible with pictures!! I promise it's not that blurry and filled with checkers... Weird. Dislike.

Minx Summer Splash

I bought Minx Summer Splash at Ulta a while back and have been dying to try it out. I had to force myself to only buy one set, which was extremely though. They're so shiny! They're a little more difficult to apply than other nail stickers, but I'm ok with that. They come with a set for your hands and for your feet, which is a definite plus. I looked at their site, and I'm a little weirded out by the fact that they have dudes wearing some of these... but whatever floats their boat! 

DIY: Movie Ticket Shadow Box

I, like many others, have spent countless hours pinning beautiful pictures and ideas on Pinterest. Many of these are DIY projects that look oh so easy but turn out to be nightmares. There's actually blogs dedicated to people's hilarious attempts at these "easy" activities. My favorite is this one about Cookie Monster cupcakes, since this is exactly how all of my attempts at decorating end up.

Nailed it!

Today I took a break from nail designs (that's a lie, I just painted them a single color) and decided to do a DIY project that is actually simple. I've been collecting movie ticket stubs since middle school (a few have gotten lost along the way) and I kinda got tired of storing them in a little tin hidden from the world. This pin suggested making a shadow box for them all. Brilliant! 

1. I found a suitable frame on Amazon for $20. I think this one was meant to be used as a deep frame where the frame is really thick and the picture is a couple inches in. But since I am oh-so-clever, I took it apart and switched the centerpiece around so that the interior of the frame became a couple inches thick.

 2. Now I needed a background. I thought about drawing one myself or something, but decided to go with something a little more professional. I got an 8 x 10 poster from All Posters.com.

3. Finally I threw it all together and added in my tickets!! I have waaaaaaaay too many, so I only put in a few so that you could see the background.

I added the rest...

It's kinda cool, because you can just shake up the box and see different ones!

Maybe now I'll be inspired to try something a little harder next time!

31 Day Challenge: Day 30 Inspired by a Tutorial

Does anybody else watch The Client List? It's actually a horrible show, but I haven't stopped watching it. It's supposed to be about a masseuse from Beau-frickin-mont whose husband runs away, leaving her with the kids and a pile of debt. She does what apparently all masseurs do when the going gets tough - starts dressing extra slutty and giving "happy endings!" These people have ridiculously stereotypical southern accents and strange close-minded feuds with salon-shop bitches. If you're incredibly bored and want to see Jennifer Love Hewitt's giant boobs on display, you should catch up on this Lifetime gem.

I love Japanese cherry blossoms! I actually had a framed Van Gogh poster of them in college. It now resides in my sister's apartment along with all of my other furnishings. Today's challenge is inspired by a tutorial. I found this one about how to do cherry blossom nails.

I used Ulta Mint Condition as the base and just random black, white, and pink polish - just use what you have!

31 Day Challenge: Day 29 Inspired by the Supernatural

Almost finished with this challenge! I'm so ready to do some summery designs! I'm thinking sunflowers...

Today's challenge is inspired by the supernatural. Being a lover of terrifying show and gorgeous men, I'm a huge Supernatural fan! But if there's anything I've learned from that show, it's not to fuck around with the supernatural. So instead of drawing some crazy symbols on my nails and getting possessed by a demon, I'm going with a more tame version - Goosebumps! I was never allowed to read these books when I was little (mostly because my parents were hardasses back then. They have since become doe-eyed, sappy, rule-less parental units with my siblings). So I actually know nothing about them other than I'm sure I would have loved them 10 years ago. Maybe now? Anyways, at some point in time, I remember seeing a friend of mine reading one of these books with an awesome holographic cover. I tried to find a picture, but the internet failed me. So you'll have to pretend with this one.

Since I still really liked the holographic idea, I started with a base coat of Sally Hansen Crystal Ball.

I wanted to add a little more pizzazz to this, so I put on a layer of a glow-in-the-dark polish. I'm not sure if you've tried to take a picture in the dark lately, but it's harder than it looks. Excuse the blur.

Finally, I drew on the green ooze with Nicole by OPI One Time Lime.

And here they are in the dark!

I'm going out to a couple bars tonight, so I'm looking forward to a bunch of questions about why I have terrifying, oozey, glowing nails.