A Messed Up Swatch for ya!

Nail Fail - Modicure

So! I recently saw a $20 Groupon for a bunch of nail stickers apparently worth $120 -by ModiCure The Modern Manicure. Great deal, right? So I jumped right on that and ordered immediately! Well, now I know why they were practically giving these away.

First of all, this nail sticker required blow-dryer heat to be applied in order to activate the adhesive. Except... it still didn't stick on all that great. Then, it was nearly impossible to file down the edge. They looked so ridiculous that I took them off immediately.

Christmas Tree Xmas Nails

I don't have the proper nail equipment, so I used a regular tiny paint brush to create my tree! The brush actually helped me making it look like a tree's texture!  I also added pink and blue dots as ornaments but you can really only see the pink! What do you think?! Fun, right?!

Candy Cane Nails

So I saw tons of candy cane nails online and wanted to try them myself! Admittedly, they came out a bit messy but I still think they are fun! The tape doesn't take long to lay out and then painting process is easy. I think the main thing to doing candy cane nails is making sure some of the lines are thin and some are thick. You ever notice on a candy cane how some have two thin lines followed by one thick line?

Swivel Nail Tattoo Sticker Nails

I loved how these came out! I used Nail Tattoo Stickers that I ordered on amazon.com- they are pretty easy. They come in a sheet with the designs on it and then you simply cut around the design's shape to size it to your nail. The designs are different sizes on the sheet too. I found that cutting the design small enough so there wasn't much excess clear material was best to help it fit onto the nail. Anyone else have that experience too? If I made the excess material too big, it looked messy on the nail.

I also then took some silver polish and free-handed a little silver tip on each nail. I thought this really made a final touch! Hehe, I thought this swivel nail manicure was so cool!

Halfies Nails

So, this is not a version of Tape Nails, my friends. I wanted to try polishing one layer of one color and then tipping off a half of the nail with another color. I thought it would be cool to do colors in the same family- what do you think?

Baby Shower Nails

Woohoo! One of my best friends is expecting and I recently attended her baby shower, so of course I had to have the proper themed nails done. I thought doing blue and pink nails would be cute and that white dots would add the 'baby' touch to them! I was thinking of putting some question marks on my nails since we don't know the baby's gender but realized it would probably look like scribbly marks if I drew them on, so I opted out of that idea. What do you think? Do you like my Baby Shower nails?

Before the white dots

Thanksgiving Nails

Happy Thanksgiving! Yes, I did a Turkey nail! I was looking up ideas online for Thanksgiving nails and I have to say - wow- I love all the creativity out there. So many of the turkeys looked so great. I don't ever do free-hand but I wanted to at least try an elementary level turkey! It's fun even if it's not amazing like so many others out there! I realize now that I need to get a thin paint brush to try designs like this again in the future. I was trying to use one thin polish brush I have but had to keep dipping it in nail polish remover so each color wouldn't dye the brush... I made do with what I had, though not the correct tool at all. At least I somewhat got a black dot onto the white eye - haha I know this is pretty bad but I'm impressed with myself since I can't do freehand haha!!  I also tried to make a little pilgrim hat on my thumb... of course it got smudged because I didn't wait long enough before painting on the clear top coat. And then I figured the brownish and goldish base colors were Thanksgivingy. Leave me a comment or a link to your own Thanksgiving nails!

Peacock Nail Dress Strips by Kiss

I always start to tire of Kiss Nail Dress Strips and then find myself buying more. Sometimes the designs just draw me in. Again, the photos always look so bad, but I swear in person you can't see all the bumps and rough edges!

Accent Watermarble Nail

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Water marble is still my favorite nail technique, but lately I've been having trouble and wind up removing the polish right away. (The polish hasn't been spreading in my cup lately, not sure why).  So, to give myself a little taste of it, I just did an accent nail marble!

Party Nails - Nail Dress Strips by Kiss

I've said it before and I'll say it again- Kiss Nail Dress Strips look really crappy up-close but really great in person! As you can see, the photos show all the mistakes and rough edges. But in person you can't even tell and they look pretty cool. I always get a ton of compliments.

This edition of the nail strips was actually part of the Halloween Edition, but I thought it looked much more like party nails ... maybe even New Years nails.

Sponge Nails - Halloween Edition

So, I did Sponge Nails earlier this year (click to see) which turned out way, way better than this version did. I still think Sponge Nails are awesome - and a fun process. This time around, I went for some Halloween colors but because they were a bit more watered-down, the end result didn't come out as strong. What do you think?

3 Swatches

I guess I always wind up going for minty greens... I feel like this is the third I've bought in the last couple months.. and I realize they are all starting to look the same! This one is Pastel Pop from Charolette Russe.

This orange swatch is Hazard by Sinful Colors. The photo looks quite orange, and actually one person asked me if this color was 'pumpkin' but I swear in person the color was much more coral looking. I couldn't capture the pinkish tones on camera for some reason.

And then this last swatch here was a weird moment I had... I polished my nails white and then tried a light pink tip, but it wound up barely showing.

Sugar Spun Nails.. but not really

Well, I thought Sugar Spun Nails looked so cool on all the other blogs.. but when I tried it, it totally didn't work lol!  It still came out with a cool textured, lined manicure- but its not really Sugar Spun. The polish never really got thick the way I understand it's supposed to. Instead of dragging the thickened polish over my nails, it was more like I drew the lines on with a toothpick. Any tips anyone?

Base

Black and White Water Marble Nails

Marble Monday! If you read my blog regularly, you know Water Marbling is prob my favorite technique. You never know what you're gonna get, but even if it doesn't look all feathery and professional, it still looks cool!

For this manicure, I used white and black polish, but as you can see- a lot of it turned out gray by mixing together.

Again, to see my other water marbled nails click here and for my post with instructions on How-To do water marbling click here. And as always, I have to request- please tell me in my comments which of the marbles is your favorite one!! Thanks. :)