Review: BPS Silver Spike Studs!

Hey everyone! I have another review today, again from Born Pretty Store. These were done on fake, press on nails, so I apologize if they look a little off in the pics.

I loved spikes and studs. Love 'em. Then again I'm perpetually stuck in some weird punk/goth phase, and have been since I was 15, so..

For this mani, I used the Silver Spike Studs from BPS. You get a lot of them, and they're itty bitty, which is very nice. I attached them using nail glue, no topcoat, and damn, they look pretty badass, yeah? Now, these were just for photos, so they're pretty impractical.. some of the spikes fell off when I removed the nails. If you REALLY want these suckers to stick, I suggest nail glue+topcoat, or nail glue+gel topcoat, and try not to use a lot of the spikes, just a few for accents. Again, spikes aren't very practical as they're prone to catch on things, but they look damn cool. I wouldn't suggest using them for a mani you want to last the week.. these are for a more temporary mani, as in a day or two, for a special event. I'd personally use these for a mani for an event like a concert, or going to a club, or something fun like that. I think these would be fun to experiment with for other make-up applications as well.. they'd likely be easy to attach to skin with eyelash glue or spirit gum. All in all, these are very neat little studs!

Used for this mani:
BPS Silver Spike Studs, silver beads, craft store rhinestones, China Glaze Don't Honk Your Thorn, black acrylic paint

Once again, BPS was kind enough to give me a discount for my followers to use!

Thanks for looking, as always. :3

Mermaid Nails, +Review!

Hey everyone! Spring is starting to kick up(FINALLY), so I've got something pretty for you today. I'm sick of this dull weather, so I thought something semi-flashy was in order for this week, and mermaid nails seem to be pretty in right now.

I also have my first review for you!

Born Pretty was kind enough to reach out to me and send me a few items for review, and I decided to use one of them for this mani. I went with their Gold Metal Shell Studs, and I gotta say, they're pretty nice. They are smaller than I expected, but I should've paid better attention to the dimensions, whoops. They're super easy to use! Just apply a drop of topcoat or nail glue, press them down gently, and let it dry. You can seal them in with additional topcoat for more staying power if you'd like. If you're careful, I've found that you can re-use them. I just carefully pop them off and clean them with a little bit of nail polish remover if I need to, and I can usually get a few more uses out of them before the finish starts to wear. Ocean/Mermaid inspired manis seem to be pretty in right now, and I think the shells add the right amount of flair without being too gaudy.

Products used: Loose glitter, China Glaze Don't Honk Your Thorn, acrylic paint, rhinestones/pearls, BPS shell studs

BPS was also kind enough to give me a 10% off code for my readers to use, if you'd like! Check it out.

As always, thanks for reading! 

Gotta Catch 'Em All!

Gotta catch 'em all, gotta catch 'em all!

Okay, so I may or may not have been playing a lot of Pokemon Black lately.. mainly because I don't have a 3DS, so I can't play X/Y like I really want to. But hey, Pokemon! I know I'm not the only person that wishes they were real. Anyway, I'm not veryyyy happy with these, but they're okay. Pikachu turned out alright. Love me some original starters and electric mice..

Polishes used: China Glaze, Peachy Keen/Tree Hugger/Blue Sparrow/White on White/Liquid Leather; acrylic paint

I have some pretty cool nails coming up soon, hopefully.. plus some awesome product reviews! Stay tuned, and thanks for lookin', as always.

Instagram mani photodump..

Hey everyone! For lack of anything better to post, I have a bunch of manis I've posted to instragram.. I usually don't post these on my blog for various reasons: they're quick, they're done on the fly when I'm out of town, they aren't watermarked.. etc. But I figured you guys might want to see a few of them, so hey, enjoy!

This one, I actually like a lot.. this was a quick mani I did on the fly before a trip to see my boyfriend. Only my second time using gold leaf.

Simple, neon geometric lines. Sorry about the filter.

First time attempting a reciprocal gradient. Again, sorry about the filter. 

Candy cane nails I did like.. the day of Christmas. Keep on slacking, Lex. 

Fighting evil by moonlight..

This was pretty much my first complicated mani since my little rut I went through.. I felt a little ambitious, so I thought hey, why not Sailor Moon? Sailor Moon was the first anime I ever watched, and it'll always have a special place in my heart. The manga itself is absolutely beautiful art-wise, as well, and I still enjoy picking it up for a quick read now and then.

My hands are very unsteady after not doing fine details for a few months, so I really need to start practicing again, clearly.. sigh. Ah well, I've got ideas, just gotta get off my butt and do 'em!

Polishes: OPI Funny Bunny, OPI Pirouette My Whistle, Essie Coat Azure, Sinful Colors Cinderella, China Glaze Blue Sparrow, acrylic paints

Thanks for looking! I apologize for my lack of content, but life has been very busy for me lately. Hopefully things settle down soon, and I can get back to some serious blogging and nail art.

Pretty lacy half-moons.. also, I'm alive!

Hey! Once again, I'm alive, and sorry for not posting.. life kind of.. got in the way. You know how it goes, I'm sure. I went through a pretty bad nail art rut, sadly. But I'm back! Well, trying to come back, at least.

This was just a little half moon/glittery mani I did a while back. These colors actually go quite well together, I wasn't sure at first, but they grew on me. The glitter never photographs well, but it's very sparkly and eye-catching irl.

Polishes: China Glaze Aquadelic, Essie Haute as Hello, loose gold and hex glitter

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

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

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!