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Anchors Away!

Ok, long story short, I’ve been in the mood for a little accent nail lately, with a little nail art. I love anchors, so much so I have a tattoo of one. Actually, so does my husband, we got matching tattoos on our honeymoon. I chose the anchor because I felt it was very, very symbolic. I have an anchor on my wrist with the coordinates of where we got married underneath, I felt it symbolized ‘where I dropped my anchor.’ cheesy right? 😉 anyway! Who doesn’t love an anchor? If you do, here are some step by step tips to create one in your mani!

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Pick your colors and start with a full mani. I paint the accent nail first and then paint the rest of my hand so it has time to dry completely. [I used Essie “No More Film” for the blue and Essie “Really Red” for the red, & a Sally Hansen nail art pen in White for the nail art.]

Step one: When whichever nail you’re using as the accent nail is completely dry, start by drawing a straight line across your nail horizontally, towards the top.

Step two: Draw a straight line from the center of the first line all the way down. It will basically look like a T. 

Step three: Close to the bottom of the T but not completely, make two rounded lines, one off of each side. They’re kind of like half parenthesis.

Step four: At the top & center of the T, make a small circle.

Step five: Wait for the art to dry and slap a top coat on there.

There you have it! The anchor is that easy! Test it our yourself and send me pics! Until next time, kisses!

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Spring Fever Manicure

Have you seen the episode of How I Met Your Mother when they all agree to not watch the Super Bowl until they can sit down and watch the recording together? And Ted goes out into the world wearing those ridiculous blinder goggles so he can’t see anything pertaining to the game? Yeah…. I need a pair of those goggles when I go out to drug stores.

I stop at CVS for cotton squares and I leave with my hands full of crap I don’t really need. Case and point: my latest love bird manicure. So remember my anti-Spring manicure that I was ranting and raving about? That lasted all about 2 days… maybe less. While I am still madly in love with my camo-green hue known as Armed and Ready by Essie, something else caught my eye this weekend and I couldn’t wait to get home and try it.

I am such a big fan of Sally Hansen’s nail decals. They’re easy, affordable, and adorable. I actually haven’t used them in a while as I’ve been religiously painting and re-painting my nails every other day, but I found a decal I could just not refuse. So Springy and so cute! Check it out.

Look at the little love birds! They’re just soo cute, I can’t even! NOW! Most of the time when I use these decals, I do the exact opposite of what I did up here. I usually paint all my nails except for the ring finger and apply the decals only to those fingers. But these were so cute to me I opted for the reverse. Then I couldn’t decide wether I wanted to use blue or pink on my ring fingers… so I did both. :]

You will notice the pink on my right hand is my coveted color, Fiesta by Essie. The blue on my left hand is the color I keep talking about using! Blue Away by Sally Hansen. So seriously, doesn’t it look like spring kind of threw up all over my hands? Yeah, I know. This will probably last me until Monday (if that). We all know I have serious ADD when it comes to my nails.

So what do you think? Too much or too cute? I hope you like them!

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Make a Wish Manicure

AS we all know I have become recently obsessed with that website Pinterest. And can we all just share in the frustration of our iPhone’s autocorrecting that to Interest? Because it’s infuriating! But that’s besides the point. Through Pinterest I have discovered wall decals while looking for inspiration for the Baby’s room. I am now obsessed with wall decals and fun wallpaper and I’m trying to decide between the two. One of my favorite decals is a dandelion that looks like it’s blowing in the wind. I love it! But it’s huge and a little too much for the baby’s room I think, so I may have to find another place for it, perhaps the wall behind the couch? I am getting seriously off topic here. Let me get back to the point; this wall decal was the inspiration for my most recent manicure. Take a look!

I think I got way too literal with this manicure, I tried to make them look too much like real little dandelion leaf things. The dandelion itself…. I literally re-did about 15 times. I couldn’t quite get it right and this was the best I could get it. Well, actually, I wasn’t crazy about it but I figured I should just stop trying to perfect it before I drove myself absolutely insane. SO! Here’s whatcha need.

I used Sew Psyched by Essie for the base. I think the darker colors work better for a background if you’re using the Sally Hansen nail art pens. They tend to show up much better on darker hues. I used Sally Hansen and Milani nail art pens/polishes for the details. The Sally Hansen UV Top Coat is a great top coat to use as well because it protects your nails from harsh sunlight and keeps your manicure nice and shiny! It’s perfect.

The steps are super duper easy.

1. Apply two coats of your base color. Let dry completely!

 

 

 

2. When both coats have completely dried draw a little stem with the black nail art pen. 
*(a great test to make sure your nails have fully dried: press them against each other. If they stick together even the tiniest bit they still need time to dry).

3. This step is really easy. Draw a little white plume over the black stem. (this is the part I had the most trouble with because I can be kind of a perfectionist and it just wasn’t coming out right for me).

4. On the rest of your nails, starting with your ring finger and working towards your thumb, draw little leaves of the dandelion as if they’re blowing away in the wind, or someone is blowing on them making a wish.

And that’s that. You’re done! Wait for everything to dry and top it off with a shiny top coat and you’re good to go. Do you guys like my wish inspired nails? I’m enjoying them but I think my next manicure will have to be something super simple. Between my leopard print, Giants manicure, and this… my nails need a creative break!

 

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Super Bowl Manicure: NY Giants Inspired!

Are we all getting super excited for the big game tomorrow? Because I know I am! I’m trying not to think about it too much or else the anxiety will start to set in and I’ll start to panic! So let’s not think about the game… let’s think about how we’re going to prepare for tomorrow’s game, starting with our nails!

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of people coming to my blog looking for Giants inspired manicures based on the last time I posted a manicure inspired by my team, which you can find here. I knew I had to kick it up a notch this time so let’s get started. This is what the final product ended up looking like:

The best part about this kind of manicure? I can only assume it will be on your nails for a day or two, so you can have all the fun in the world with this look. Tomorrow when everything is completely dry I’ll probably add more details and whatnot, but for now, this is what we’re working with.

What you’ll need:

White nail polish – I used Wet n Wild, Wild Shine in White.
Blue nail polish – I used Aruba Blue by Essie
Red Nail Polish – I used Midnight Red by Chanel. 

Nail polish pens in blue, red, and white. I used Sally Hansen and Cina pens.

 

Step one: Paint your nails white. (this is a good base color to start with in case you decide to more nail art on other nails).

 

 

 

 

Step two: With the blue nail art pen, carefully draw the logo. (You can find a big image to go by on Google).

 

 

 

 

Step three: With the same nail art pen, color in the logo. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step four: This is where you have creative freedom. After this, you can pretty much do whatever you want. The logo is going to be the focal point of the manicure, so work around that. In my case, I chose to add another logo to my thumb nail and then colored in my other nails with their colors. Like I said, tomorrow when it gets closer to the game I’ll probably add some more details. With these nail art pens you can really do almost anything as long as you have a steady hand.

Well there ya have it! Your very own NY Giants manicure! What better way for us girls to show our support? If you’re throwing or going to a Super Bowl party tomorrow and don’t want to show up empty handed, a great quick fix is a buffalo chicken dip! SUPER easy to make and you can find my recipe here. The entire thing takes less than an hour to prepare and cook and it gets devoured in about half that time. You’ll be invited back to every party if you show up with this crowd pleaser, I promise!

Everyone have fun tomorrow and be safe and…. GO GIANTS! 

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Nails How To: Leopard Print

Recently I got jungle fever with my nails. And come to find out, the very same manicure was apparently on Lauren Conrad’s blog recently too! Now I got this inspiration from the Sally Hansen nail decals, not from LC. But her manicure looked pretty sweet too, obvi. Nothing that girl does ever looks less than amazing. Here is my fierce manicure.

 

So let’s walk through this shall we? I opted for a light pink for a base color. Fiji by Essie is my absolute favorite color in all the world. As soon as the temperature hit 60 degrees I whipped this bad boy out. It was between Fiji or Sew Psyched but I am so over the fall colors.

 

Here’s all you need: 

A solid color to use as your base.
I used Fiji by Essie.

Nail art pens/polishes in black and white.
I used Sally Hansen nail art pen in white and Milani nail art polish in black.

 

 

 

 

Step one: Paint your nails with your base color, in this case, Fiji.

Step two: Let nails dry completely.

Step three: Apply a second coat of your base color.

Step four: Let nails dry completely.

Step five: With the black nail art pen/polish make little black leopard spots. Leave some of the spots open as if you’re making little curved less than and greater than signs, and close the others to make little black dots basically.
* in this case less is definitely more. The first picture is of my left hand. I got a little carried away with the spots. On my right hand (which you’ll see next) I didn’t do as many spots and I am definitely liking my right hand more.

Step six: Let the black leopard spots dry completely. *Completely, this is very important as they will smudge in the next step if you don’t! 

Step seven: With the white nail art pen fill in some of the open semi-circles, leave some of the other ones open and empty. Draw around the closed in circles to make it almost look like a halo.

Step eight: Let your nails dry completely and cover them with a top coat.

And that’s that! It’s pretty easy but for your other hand you’ll need a pretty steady hand. I’m a righty and oddly enough my right hand came out better than my left. Luckily this manicure is pretty abstract in itself so if you can’t create perfect looking semi-circles and leopard spots you have nothing to worry about. The lines in this mani don’t have to look perfect. So take a stab at it and let me know how they come out! later gators. ;]

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Manicure of the Month!

This month’s manicure is dedicated to my football team, the New York Giants! I am a big believer in jinxes and good/bad luck charms. I don’t carry around a rabbit’s foot, I’m not that crazy, but I do believe that some things could have good vibes attached to them, and others could have bad vibes. I have lucky t-shirts that I rely on. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the Giants haven’t made it this far because I refuse to take off my lucky t-shirt when they play… but, I do believe it helps! (haha, crazy, I know!) I am a creature of habit and when I find something that works for me, I hate to switch it up. But yesterday as my best friend Ashley and I were wandering the mean aisles of Target, we came across this bright idea… Giants themed nails! This was a big step for me, I didn’t want to go too over the top before the game. I believe getting too amped up puts too much pressure on everyone, including the team, haha! So here they are. Our NY Giants inspired nails. Peep this.

We decided to try out the crackle nail polish. A first for both of us. So we went for the Aruba Blue by Essie and opted for the Sally Hansen brand Crackle polish. Be warned: it goes on thick! I really didn’t love the way mine came out so I’ll show you Ashley’s manicure step-by-step instead. (there’s only two steps… it’s pretty fool proof).

What You Need: 

Two colors of your choice: one will be the base, and the other the top coat.

Steps: 

1. Paint your nails with the base coat. We used Aruba Blue and it’s dark and thick enough that you only really need one coat. If you’re using a lighter or more sheer color you can probably get away with two coats. 

2. Wait for the base coat to dry completely.

3. When nails are dry, add a very thin layer of the crackle. I caked mine on a little too thick and I didn’t love the way it came out. Ashley’s, and my little sister Abby’s, came out much better than mine! hah

And viola! The finished product!

So our NY Giants nails proved to be good luck, they were able to beat the 49ers and are now Super Bowl bound, woo! It was a close call though and I blame it all on my choice to wear a Ross jersey instead of my good luck t-shirt. It wasn’t looking so good so I took off my jersey in the 4th quarter and boom! A big win for us. haha see? It’s all out the lucky things! I’m thinking for the Super Bowl I’ll do my nails up big. Something much more creative than just some crackle polish. But for now, this is a super easy manicure to try in your spare time. I hate the way mine look now though, so I’ll be taking this polish off between today and tomorrow and trying something else. I’m feeling creative!

I’m also working on a little self tanner post in the future. I have been experimenting with various self tanners recently and I think everyone can benefit from my trials and tribulations! So stay tuned for that!

Have you guys tried the crackle polish out yet? It was a huge trend not long ago but it seems like it’s kind of fizzled out. What are the experiences you’ve had with this wonder polish? Do tell! 😉