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Alright guys. It's been a while. That's partly because I'm quite embarrassed. I have only had time to do one design and it is so bad that it is funny. However, I decided to upload and edit the photo's so that you all can get a good laugh too.

Fish Food

I went to a Halloween party the weekend before Hurricane Sandy hit, and I had to do my nails according to my costume. When I was getting ready for the party, I had no idea how I was going to paint my nails, so I decided to modify the design I was already wearing.

The prompt for the challenge I was in was witches, so I was still sporting my witches brew. Since I didn't have much time to come up with anything new, I painted right on top.

For this manicure, I used the watercolor method. Here's a great tutorial from Beauty Geeks.

In order to make it look more like "fish food," I added a flaky glitter on top.

I'm sorry for the bad quality of the pictures and my even worse attempt to paint over the edge of my nail where the polish had already worn off. I was rushed and didn't have time for a real photo shoot or for fixing them. I kinda like how they came out, though. It's so colorful and sparkly. This manicure was perfect for what I was going for and it worked out really well. :)

I'm just going to go over the colors I used for the second part of this manicure. Those were: China Glaze Coconut Kiss, China Glaze Custom Kicks, Sinful Colors Kissy, Sally Hansen Insta- Dri Co-Bolt Blue, and China Glaze Luxe and Lush.

This is me in my costume trying to do a serious pose... It's so bad, it's funny! I crack up every time I see this picture. I hope it makes you all laugh too. :P

TIHC Oct 22: Gradient

This is going to be a very quick post. I wasn't even planning on participating today, but decided that I could fit in something quick.

I originally wanted to do candy corn gradient, but decided against it. I figured several people would do it, and I was right.

I love the way the purple and black look together. It's very spooky!

(I'm really sorry about the lighting, the quality of the photos, and my really bad attempt to clean up my nails)

So, I don't know if you can tell, but all of my nails are gooooneeeee. It's so depressing. They all got in an accident over the weekend :( I was playing frisbee and figured out a bit too late that long nails are not meant for it. I broke 3 nails (and one of those I broke twice) and had to even them all out. They look so stubby to me..

For this design, I used Maybelline Color Show Onyx Rush as the base. Then I used China Glaze Coconut Kiss for the gradient effect. Once that dried, I sponged some Fantasy Makers Rest in Pieces right on top.


Wish me luck on my US1 midterm tomorrow!


You can view the upcoming challenges here.

Day 6: Grape Nails

Whew! I'm relieved that I made it before midnight. I promise I didn't forget. I wasn't supposed to work tonight but ended up filling in for one of my coworkers. I had enough time to paint and take pictures of my nails before work, but not enough time to upload them and make my post.

Anyway, welcome to fall! I've been doing mainly summer fruits because, let's face it, there aren't a lot of fall fruits. I'm glad I finally made it to them, though.

I absolutely love how I chose to do my nails, but I did make one obvious mistake. I didn't think about which way I was going to photograph them, so I painted the grapes upside down. Oops... That's what happens when I'm in a rush, I guess.

At least they look good sideways, right? :P

My favorite nail is the accent nail on my ring finger. Grapes are nice, but I am pretty obsessed with polka dots. I think that finger turned out pretty awesome.

The idea for these nails came from all the different colors of grapes there are. I think I covered all of them!

For this manicure, I used China Glaze Gothic Lolita for the base of 4 of my nails and some of the dots on my accent finger. I used China Glaze Oxygen for the ring finger base color and the "white" grapes. The rest of the colors are China Glaze High Roller, China Glaze Urban-Night, China Glaze Entourage, and China Glaze Mahogany Magic. The stems of the grapes were originally brown, but the color didn't show up too well against the purple, so I used Zoya Meg to really make it pop.

Rainbow Stripes

So at 11pm on Thursday night, I decided that I HAD to change up my nail design. By that time, I was completely exhausted and wanted to go to bed, but I figured sleep could wait. I really wanted to do a design with all the colors of the rainbow. The thought of making thin and neat stripes out of the 8 colors I had in mind made me groan. Then a thought hit me. Why do I have to make my nails neat? I can paint them messily if I want to! And so I did. Here is the result..

 I think they didn't turn out too bad. The idea was to make them messy, so I kind of dig the disheveled look.

I saw my cousins today at a family reunion/ baby shower and the first thing one of them said was," Niiiice, gay pride nails!" That wasn't what I was going for, but sure, why not. Plain jane rainbows are boring anyway. ;)

The day before I did this design, I became absolutely fed up with my nail polish remover. I decided it was time to buy 100% pure acetone. It's the best product I have ever used in my life, and I would swear by it if it weren't for one small, yet obvious problem. If you take a look at my pinky finger in the picture below, you'll notice how dry and wrinkled my skin is. That is from the acetone. Unfortunately, I didn't notice until 15 minutes ago when I was putting my watermark on my pictures. Looks like I'll need to buy lots of hand lotion.

For the record, my skin is longer that dry. Thank goodness for Vaseline!

Here are all of the colors I used in order from the base of my nail to the tip:

Maybelline Color Show Onyx Rush
China Glaze Gothic Lolita
Sinful Colors Aquamarine
China Glaze Aquadelic
China Glaze Entourage
Piggy Polish Lemonade 5 ¢

Piggy Polish Damsel in This Dress
China Glaze High Roller

And for the base, I used Piggy Polish 6 Impossible Things

Whew. That was a lot of polish.