Something a little more delicate..

I know it's Halloween, but for some reason.. I didn't feel like doing Halloween nails. Huh. For some reason, I felt like something really girly/delicate. I rarely do sheer, but I like how this looks a lot with my longer nails. I threw the blue swirls on for a little pop of color. Not bad, all in all.

Polishes used: OPI Pirouette My Whistle, cheap white polish thinned out with clear polish, acrylic paint

Pre-Halloween makeup experiment: Skeleton!

Hey everyone! So, like many people, I am super stoked for Halloween. I decided to practice and play around with makeup, so I can decide on a costume, and I have to say I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out! I'm sorry for the quality of the pictures, but it's all I took that day. I've seen many people doing this look this year, and I think it's rad. The only thing I want to improve upon are the teeth.

I used Mehron Celebre Foundation in Eurasian ivory, black liquid liner, and black eyeshadow for this.

What do you think: yay or nay for Halloween?

Candy corn drips!

So, I tried a different little spin on the candy corn mani.. why not drips? Then I remember I absolutely hate doing drips because I'm terrible at them.. sigh. The drips also glow in the dark, but I sadly couldn't snap a picture of that. I suppose they aren't bad, though! My friends and family seemed to enjoy them quite a bit.

Polishes used: China Glaze Liquid Leather, dollar store white polish, China Glaze Peachy Keen, Sally Hansen Yellow Mellow

Leather effect/skull nails!

For some reason, I'm been in such a skeleton mood. I actually did these when I was quite sick, but I was so bored out of my mind, I had to do something. My mother picked up the Nails Inc leather effect polish randomly, and I LOVE it. Seriously, I'm not a fan of the textured polish trend, but I love this polish. It's just textured enough to make it feel leathery, and very.. I don't know.. badass? I felt like a badass wearing it. It wore incredibly well on me considering you can't use a topcoat on it, too. Highly recommend!

Polishes used: Nails Inc. Leather Effect Noho

Stained glass manicure.

This was my first attempt at trying a stained glass kind of design.. it looked very pretty irl! This was all done with loose glitter mixed with clear polish, over a nude polish base, then outlined in black. Slightly time-consuming, but I think I may try it again and try to get more concise/thinner lines. It's hard to get precise lines over the gritty glitter, but I think doing a coat of topcoat first may help with that..

Polishes used: Essie Sand Tropez, China Glaze Liquid Leather

M-m-monster!

This manicure was inspired by the fantastic artist Melita Curphy, also known as Missmonster! I received that adorable plushie from her(his name is Momo!), and I just had to do some cute nails to match him. Everyone got a kick out of these, and they were super fun to do. I was sad when I had to take them off. The base was China Glaze For Audrey, and all the rest was done in acrylic paint.

You can check Missmonster out here for more of her amazing work and designs.

Polishes used: China Glaze For Audrey

I'm alive!

I am, really! I'm so sorry this hasn't been updated in so long.. real life has been kicking my ass. I've been sick for about a month, and I've had zero energy to do anything, sadly. But I'm back! And I swear I'll try to keep this thing a little more updated.

 In the meantime, I'm putting some posts in my queue to try and get things hopping again. I'm hoping to have some really cool makeup posts for halloween as well, if anyone is interested in that sort of thing!

Simple summery gradient

Pretty self explanatory.. just a simple gradient in some summery colors, with a black border. These really pop IRL, I was surprised by how much I liked them.

Polishes:
China Glaze, Aquadelic/Neon & On & On/Liquid Leather
Sally Hansen, Lightening

You could be the king, but watch the queen conquer..

I'll be blunt.. I've been feeling like a royal bitch this past week(or two). Bad times all around for Lex. I haven't been doing nails much as a result, but I banged these out last night while I was messing around with some CND Shellac. If you're gonna be a bitch, might as well feel like and be the queen bitch..

As a bonus, here's some nails from.. two weeks ago? Before I got all angry and grumpy. Just another simply bow design. Loved the colors, though.

Stripes and bows!

Hello everyone! Hope you're all doing well. How 'bout this weird summer weather, huh? I don't know about y'all, but it's been pretty weird here in Chicago-land..  so much rain!

Anyway, nails for this weekend! I'm going out with my friends tomorrow, and there's a pinup theme, so I wanted some cute, girly nails. As you can see, I really need to practice sculpting things with acrylic.. lol.

The ol' classic.. Starry Night

I've done this design so often I could probably do it in my sleep by now.. but hey, it never gets old. This was my first time trying it with acrylic paints instead of polish. And I only did two accents instead of a full set because I was damn tired.. I'm getting so lazy in my 'old' age, lol.

When in doubt.. blue and white china print!

Yes, another blu and white china print.. as much as I do it, it never really gets old. It's such a clean combination of colors that looks good on pretty much anyone, and it's very striking.

I used Sally Hansen White On, and acrylic paints for this.

In other news.. I went to a concert on thursday, and boy, I feel like I got my ass kicked, haha. I guess I'm a little to old to be duking it out in the pit with teenagers, now. I hurt in places I didn't even know existed.. oof. Oh well, I had fun!

Now that summer is rolling around, hopefully I'll be updating more!

Playing with neon

Hello! I'd say I hope everyone has been enjoying the spring weather, but it's been a liiiiittle out of control lately.. I've got friends still getting snow.. what gives?

Anyway, I was just messing around with some neon color here. Forgive the pics, but we haven't had good sunlight in like two days so I had to make due. This is the longest my natural nails have been in a while.. I've grown pretty find of this shape, I don't know if I could go back to square nails again!

Chains and stripes

Well, this is a fairly self-explanatory mani.. I was pretty bored and not feeling extremely creative, but I wanted something different than what I usually do. Pretty much threw whatever I grabbed from my kit onto my nails.. chains, studs, glitter, gold foil.. aaaaand it came out like this, lol. I do like the thumb and ring finger, but the rest are pretty meh. I was too tired to redo it, however. I'd probably just go for solid black next time since I cannot do stripes no matter what..

Koi fish nails

Hello everyone! Anyone else sick of all this gross wintery weather in the middle of frickin' April? I know I am..

Anywho.. these came about because I wanted to experiment with some loose hex glitter in a different way. I thought it might make an interesting way to accent scales and make them pop, so I went with a koi fish kind of color pattern. I'm not totally happy, but they're interesting!

Sunflower nails

Pretty self-explanatory.. again, this is a design I did before a while ago, and decided to revisit. I like it much better this time around. I really, really want summer to get here.. chase this chill out of my bones. Ugh.

Again, sorry I don't post regularly.. I'm still sick(ugh), and last week my boyfriend of 2 years dumped me. I haven't been in the best mood, understandably. I'm really trying to stay positive, but it's super hard right now.. sigh. I hope you all are having a better spring than I am!

All of Time and Space..

I've seen these done before, but I've been watching Doctor Who with my mum lately, so I had to give them a go.. I think she likes them more than I do, haha. Painting an itty bitty police box is no easy task, lemme tell ya.. it's also been ages since I've done nebula nails, so that was challenging.

I haven't really been doing nails lately.. I've been sick for the past four weeks with something really bad. Doctor's have no idea what it is, either. Kinda scary. But I felt alright enough today, so I did these, because doing my nails helps me feel normal. Just want you guys to know, in case I'm absent for a long period, again.

Simple skull accents, plus my v-day mani.

Helloooo everyone! As you can see, I have iiiitty bitty stumps right now.. I put acrylics on myself for v-day, and after I removed them I trimmed my nails down as short as I could, because I wanted some new growth, and because they were a little thin. It's easier for me to work with short nails, anyways. They looked a little sad, so I slapped on some Revlon "Facets of Fuchsia" and some little skull accents for fun.

These are what they looked like before I took my acrylics off.. sparkly sparkly, haha. I don't do many acrylics on my clients, so I like playing around on myself sometimes.

Fall Out Boy nails.. light 'em up!

So.. most of you probably aren't aware, but I am  HUGE Fall Out Boy fan. Huge. Ever since 2003. I love them to death, and just today, they came off a 3 year hiatus to announce a new album/tour. I AM SO HAPPY. I cried a little, I'll admit it. People don't understand how much this band means to me.

These are based on the new video for the single remix, where all their old merch and albums are being burned.. I loved it. Great symbolism. I'm really happy with the way these turned out.. and I hope to God I can get tickets for their tour.

Turquoise stone nails

Hello! Have some pretty, shiny turquoise nails for you this week.. I saw someone do these on tumblr with the water-spotted method, which I tried, and wasn't a huge fan of on its own. I ended up going back and reworking the black veins by hand with polish and acetone to get the look I wanted. I might do a tutorial since people have been asking about it on tumblr, we'll see if my camera cooperates or not..

Anyway! I love these. LOVE. My old as hell camera does them no justice at all, they seriously look like real turquoise irl.

Colors:
Turquoise and Caicos, Essie
Ga-Loshes Glow, Venique
Black Magic, Milani
DS Glow, OPI

Throwback art deco nails

Helloooo, everyone! Bit of a throwback today.. I did this design about a year ago and really loved it. I was feeling a bit uninspired, so I browsed through my blog and thought hey, why not do that again? Haha. I like it even better on oval nails, actually.

Classic snakeskin

Alright, I'll admit it.. I'm getting a little addicted to snakeskin. I can't help it, it just looks so neat. I really, really wish I had a better camera, because they look so sick in real life. Sigh. Oh well.

I might do a tutorial on this look since people elsewhere seemed interested when I posted it.

Game of Thrones, House Targaryen Nails!

Hey everyone! These are actually a bit old, I just never photographed them properly.. I took the opportunity to do so when I mounted them on my sample board recently. Inspired by House Targaryen from Game of Thrones, my favorite house. Fire and blood, baby. Anyways.. hate the accent nail. Too lazy to do another one. Also not happy with how.. derpy the dragon looks, but it's not completely awful. I like the scales, though. This was the first time I did scales, and as you can see from my previous post, I've kept the same technique.

That's all for now.. sorry my posts are never terribly exciting, but I live a rather boring life, haha. I'm planning on doing some fun nails in the future though, hopefully they turn out. Thanks for reading, as usual!

Snakeskin nails!

Been messing around with some snakeskin looking nails.. I love snakes. They're so neat and beautiful to look at. I wish they'd photographed better, the colors look pretty irl.. sigh. Oh well.

Here's another mockup I did with more 'normal' coloring. Probably should've stuck with this one my own nails, but.. eh. I was bored.