Snowflake with Essie Parka Perfect

It's funny...I wanted to do some type of nail design yesterday with a snowflake, and then it snowed outside! Gave me perfect reason to do the manicure I did. Pretty happy with how it turned out. I am in LOVE with my ring finger and think I'll be using that design a lot more often. It creates such a cool pattern on your nails!

I used Essie's Parka Perfect as my base. In the bottle this color is so pretty, a muted greyish blue with a hint of silver shimmer, but I'm not such a fan of this color on my nails. The formula was pretty hit or miss. Sometimes it went on thin and sometimes it went on thick and gloopy. It did eventually self level, but it took time and needed a little extra work while applying. The shimmer didn't come through at all, and I really wanted it to have that snow glisten effect, so I used Essie Pure Pearlfection (an effect top coat to add a sparkly iridescent shimmer). It's such a pretty effect!  I think this would look so awesome over so many different colors.

On my middle finger I used a black nail art pen and drew a snowflake. I could not, for the life of me, draw a snowflake using my left hand, so I don't have one on my right hand. :( Oh well. I used 6 pieces of striping tape to create the cross pattern on my ring finger. *drool* I used Zoya Pixie Dust London for the grey. The Pixie Dust line is their version of a textured polish. Using the texture on top gave it so much more dimension. It almost looks like I have an embossed nail.

I finally am able to use my light box, but it's not as easy as I was hoping it would be. I still have to play around with the lighting a lot. I do have a lot less glare, but I don't have as much light either. Nothing will compare to taking pics outside, but I'm hoping I can get it figured out enough to have decent looking pictures.

Thanks for checking out my post! Much love and polish!

Know anyone in the Denver Metro Area that needs handyman, tradesman or A/V services? Have them check out www.tysdesign.com! Competitive pricing and customer service tailored specifically for you!

Disclaimer: All items shown were purchased with my own money. All opinions are my own and honest.

New Year's Design using Gwen Stefani's Collection & Review!

OPI's new Gwen Stefani Collecion just came out and I was really really excited about a few of these polishes, so I went and grabbed them (yes, I'm becoming that girl). I realized the three I purchased are great New Year's colors, so I thought I'd try them together. I really like how this manicure turned out and it was so simple! I will absolutely be doing this twist on a french manicure again with lots of color combos! To create the V shape I just used tape. It's that easy!

The Gwen Stefani collection consists of 7 polishes. Some of the shades I felt were nothing to write home about, so I only picked up 3. The ones I did not purchases were In True Stefani Fashion (a silver and holographic glitter that I almost bought), I Sing In Color (dark vampy red creme that I already own), Hey Baby (bright pink creme), and Over & Over A-Gwen (her signature red).

The 3 I purchased are Love.Angel.Music.Baby (gold satin), 4 in the Morning (black satin), and Push and Shove (silver chrome). I love the sleeve they put on the caps too, easily labeled and cute geometric shapes.

Christmas Trees

Lately it seems like I'm not having much luck with my manicures. They either aren't turning out very pretty or they are just getting messed up. Initially for this manicure I wanted to do Christmas trees and presents. The presents didn't turn out very well at all and then this happened...

Sorry for the poor image quality!

I didn't feel like fixing that finger so instead I decided to take off my presents and try something else. On my right hand I ended up doing more Christmas trees and my left I did stripes. My left hand turned out okay, but because I had to let my nails dry before top coat I ended up smudging a couple fingers. I went back and fixed the smudges, but it still looked better before.

NOTW: Fall Colors

This manicure sounded like a good idea, but I'm not very happy with it. Pretty simple, painted a base color, used wavy scissors to cut tape, and then applied another color. This top color dried matte so on two of the nails (thumb and ring) I applied a top coat. Thought it was okay and then I showed it to my husband and he said, "Yeah, it looks cool, it's like a southwest design." Me, ready to defend myself, reply with, "No, it's -- oh man, you're right. Now I don't like it."  And I don't. I hate southwest designs and now that he said that that's all I think about when I look at it. Was planning on leaving this on over Thanksgiving, but now I'm pretty sure that I'm taking some polish with me to NM and changing it...probably tomorrow.

My base color is Essie Miss Fancy Pants. It's a beautiful taupey gray color, and I think it's a great neutral. I must mention too, that it has an AMAZING formula. Easy to work with, dried quick and self-leveled. What more could you ask for?

SinfulColors Get It On, is the burgundy wine color I used on top. In the bottle it looks pretty vibrant, but since it's matte it actually dries much darker. Applying a top coat does help lighten the color, but I still think it dries darker than what you see in the bottle. In the picture it looks much brighter than what it actually is. Not very true to color. :( Pretty good formula on this one also.

What should I paint on my nails for Thanksgiving?

I tired taking the pic in different lighting, this one looks better.  Isn't it crazy how different the same polishes look in different lights?  This one is much truer to color. I think I'll start taking pics in this lighting till I get my lightbox made.

 Thanks for checking out my post! Much love and polish!

Know anyone in the Denver Metro Area that needs handyman, tradesman or A/V services? Have them check out www.tysdesign.com! Competitive pricing and customer service tailored specifically for you!

Disclaimer: All items shown were purchased with my own money. All opinions are my own and honest.

Stripes and Dots

I don't know why, but I am in love with this manicure. I'm already thinking of different colors I can use and other ways I can use this. It was really easy and I just kinda went with it. I started painting my nails, not really sure what I wanted to do and then I came up with this.

Pretty self explanatory, but all I did was paint all my nails blue and then used striping tape and a large dotting tool (only used one size) to make all the dots.

I love the peach color....it's the perfect amount of pink and orange and it just makes me happy looking at it. Is that weird?  Formula for the blue was pretty good and I have to say the formula on the peach was really great. Perfect consistency and very easy to work with.

A side note....I have decided I really need to make a light box. Since I'm losing sunlight I'm really having a hard time coming up with my pics. I have used my bathroom a lot, but there is awful glare and it doesn't always pull very good colors. My pics tend to have a really bad yellow coloring to them and it washes out the colors.

Another side note...I have some ideas for blogs coming up that aren't focused on polish. I really want to do one on storage/organization ideas, compare a few different top coats, talk about "3-free" and some other things.  Those obviously just take a lot longer to do, but I want to do them soon!

Anyway, here are my pics.

Thanks for checking out my post! Much love and polish!

Know anyone in the Denver Metro Area that needs handyman, tradesman or A/V services? Have them check out www.tysdesign.com! Competitive pricing and customer service tailored specifically for you!

Disclaimer: All items shown were purchased with my own money. All opinions are my own and honest.

Final Halloween Mani

I tried soooo hard to get this up before Halloween, but last week I was hardly even home; much less had time to post this. I'm kinda bummed anyway because pretty much all my pics on this turned out really bad and so I'm just gonna show one okay pic of the end result and tell you what I did.

Initially on this mani I wanted to do a cat's face on my thumb, but even after practicing multiple times it just wasn't turning out the way I wanted. So, I ditched that idea and just did a witch hat on my ring finger. I still don't like the way the hat turned out in this mani either, but that's what this is all about!  Trying things out and seeing if it works.

On my purple fingers I applied a black crackle over the purple and then I used a hologram top coat that I have. It's really awesome!  The top coat is called Northern Lights by inm. I got it at Sally Beauty Supply.

On my pointer finger I just painted it green and then applied a silver and black glitter. The glitter has several types and sizes.

On my ring finger I used tape to make the point, painted the tip and then used stripers and a dotting tool to complete the rest.

The rest of the polishes I used:

Essie Mojito Madness (green)

SinfulShine Slick (purple)

OPI Black Oynx (black)

China Glaze Black Mesh (crackle)

Sally Hansen Silver Streamers (silver/black glitter)

black and silver glitter stripers by Jordana 

Thanks for checking out my post! Much love and polish!

Know anyone in the Denver Metro Area that needs handyman, tradesman or A/V services? Have them check out www.tysdesign.com! Competitive pricing and customer service tailored specifically for you!

Disclaimer: All items shown were purchased with my own money. All opinions are my own and honest.

Matte & Shiny

I meant to have this up a few days ago and then after all my car drama I just felt kinda blah. Anyway, here is a design that I thought turned out pretty cool. I do have another "cute" design I plan on still getting in before Halloween, but I wanted something a little more "dark." So I came up with this.

I started with a dark red polish, and applied a matte top coat. After some dry time I cut some triangles in scotch tape and applied it to my nail. I used black polish and then quickly applied a shiny top coat. I really like the contrast between the matte and the shiny. I also think this design could work with a huge variety of colors, and I'd like to try it again with more contrasting colors and maybe switch the matte and glossy part. 

Just a quick post for this one! Hope you guys like it and it gives you some inspiration!

And if you are wondering here are the colors I used (sorry no bottle shots):

SinfulShine Mirror Mirror (red)

OPI Black Onyx

I also used OPI Matte Top Coat and Seche Vite for my Glossy Top Coat.

Thanks for checking out my post! Much love and polish!

Know anyone in the Denver Metro Area that needs handyman, tradesman or A/V services? Have them check out www.tysdesign.com! Competitive pricing and customer service tailored specifically for you!

Disclaimer: All items shown were purchased with my own money. All opinions are my own and honest

Candy Corn, Pumpkins & Glitter, Oh My!

Time for more Halloween nails!! So far these have gotten more recognition than my Frankenstein nails. These are a little more flashy too. These nails were easy to do. The pumpkins were a little tricky though, and doing them on my right hand just wasn't happening....but you could still try! This is pretty picture heavy, just FYI...


 Here are all the polishes/tools I used to create the candy corn and pumpkin nails.

Side note: I got the Rimmel Cocktail Colour polishes (there is an orange one in a pic below) on clearance at Walgreens for $.62!!! They had Sally Hansen and Essie polishes for $2.00 too. I got them just a few days ago so you may want to see if your Walgreens has any!

Start off with a white base on all nails. Give a little dry time for your nails.

For the candy corn nails you start with painting an orange horizontal stripe. A tip to help keep your lines straight is to rotate your finger and keep your brush still. Allow the orange to dry for a few minutes and then do the same process with the yellow. Once your nails are dry if you want to add some sparkle or if your lines aren't as straight as you like you can use a glitter striper. You can use a nail art brush dipped in gold glitter too. 

For the pumpkin nails you start by drawing kind of a lopsided 'x' shape. We are trying to get a heart shape for our end result. After you have your 'x' shape then you fill in the rest. Try to make your lines as smooth as possible because we will not be covering them up. After your orange pumpkins have dried for a bit, then use a green glitter polish to add the stems. Using a white nail striper, add three lines to your pumpkin to add detail. The center line is straight and the outside lines are curved to match the pumpkin. You can stop with this step or if you want you can use a nail art pen dipped in green glitter to go on top of the white stripes. Depending on your green polish (mine was sheer) you want to make sure you do the white stripe first so your colored polish will show up against the orange.

Clean up any polish on your skin, add a shiny top coat, and then your nails are done!

Here is an alternative if you don't want to do pumpkin nails.... 

On my right hand I couldn't do pumpkins so I just did glitter nails instead. On my pointer finger I used a fine orange glitter in an orange base and my ring finger I used a small red and gold glitter in a clear base. I have a white base on those two nails also.

Thanks for checking out my post! Much love and polish!

Know anyone in the Denver Metro Area that needs handyman, tradesman or A/V services? Have them check out www.tysdesign.com! Competitive pricing and customer service tailored specifically for you!

Disclaimer: All items shown were purchased with my own money. All opinions are my own and honest.

Frankenstein!

It's Halloween time! I don't know how many of these I will get up, but I'm hoping to at least do three!

Here's my first one: Frankenstein! I wore these nails subbing today and I had so many people do a double take to look and see what was on my nails! These nails turned out so cute and they are so easy to do.

Here's what you need:

• Green, black, and white nail polish
• Black nail art pen (You could use a striper, but it would be harder to do)
• 2 different size dotting tools (or whatever you use to make dots)
• Obviously a base and top coat.

Essie The More the Merrier, Xtreme Wear in White On and Black Out

Obviously, the first step is to paint all your nails green (after base coat of course).

You could do all your nails with a Frankenstein face or just one. Whatever suits you. For the Frankenstein hair you start with the nail art pen and just draw a zig-zag line. It doesn't need to be neat at all, you really can't mess this up. Then just fill in the hair with your pen. I did have to do this 3-4 times to make it opaque. I did notice the black was cracking a little while it was drying which I just touched up. 

For the eyes you start with your larger doting tool and make two black dots. I didn't mean to make mine crooked, but I ended up giving it a crooked mouth too (on purpose) and I think it ended up giving it a little more detail. After the black dots, use your same dotting tool dipped in white polish and create two smaller dots. Then take your smaller dotting tool and place two small black dots to finish the eyes. 

For the mouth you use your nail art pen again and draw a horizontal line (straight or not) and then smaller vertical lines for the stitches. Then those nails are done!

For the remaining nails you do the same thing you did with the mouth to create a stitched look. I just placed mine randomly.

Allow some dry time so you don't smear any of your hard work, apply top coat, and you are finished!

Thanks for checking out my post! Much love and polish!

Know anyone in the Denver Metro Area that needs handyman, tradesman or A/V services? Have them check out www.tysdesign.com! Competitive pricing and customer service tailored specifically for you!

Disclaimer: All items shown were purchased with my own money. All opinions are my own and honest.

Gold and Black(ish) Stripe Design!

I am so excited to share this with you! I took lots of pics this time so I can show you the whole process. The funny thing is that since I was taking so many pictures I took my time and painted a lot slower so the manicure as a whole came out a lot better than normal! I'll have to remember to slow down and then they should come out a lot better, ha!  This one did take me a little longer than I would have liked, but I think there are some things I can do next time to speed it up a little. Hope you enjoy this one!!

Obviously you can use any colors/glitters that you want with this design, I chose to go with a gold and charcoal color design. The first thing you need to paint all of your colors your base color, which I used a metallic gold. Even though you are applying a different color on top I would still recommend two coats of polish. After your base is down if you want to do an accent nail I would suggest doing that now just so that nail is finished and you don't have to worry about it anymore. I used two coats of a gold glitter polish and then applied top coat. Just a tip, whenever I do a nail that's all glitter I normally apply two heavy coats of your top coat. This helps seal in any bumpy edges you may have due to the glitter. After that, depending on your polish, you need to let your other nails COMPLETELY dry. I usually wait an hour or so (maybe even up to two depending on the polish I am using).

Once you are sure your nails are good to go then you can apply the tape. I am using striping tape, but you can use scotch tape also. The scotch tape may be trickier because you have to cut very thin, straight lines, so if you plan on doing a lot of this type of art work I would suggest striping tape. **You can get it very inexpensively on Amazon, and my next post is actually going to be about nail art supplies and how CHEAPLY you can get them all, so make sure you come back to read that!**  Anyhoo, back to nails... I would suggest cutting up several pieces at a time; it seems to go smoother and save time this way. I didn't have anywhere to really put mine, so I used my desk lamp....hey it works!

Once you have your strips cut, then go ahead and apply them to your nails in any direction/design that you want. You really can't mess this up. I think it's awesome because every single one of your nails can be different! After tape is applied, apply one heavy coat (since you can't do two) and give it about 30 seconds (or until it is slightly tacky) and then pull the tape off. I have an important suggestion here that I think will save you time. I've seen people use tweezers to pull off the tape and my response has always been, "Pshh, tweezers? Why would you need those, you have fingers!" Well now after doing a few manicures like this, I now say, "Use tweezers, it will save you time and frustration!!" Why you ask? When you pull the tape off you obviously have wet polish on it, and not to mention wet nails. The tape is sticky and sticks all over you and it's hard to get off and it can get stuck to other nails...and...and (see my point?). So use tweezers! I will never make that mistake again.

I totally have a type-o...Don't forget to take the TAPE off

...jeez Katie...

Once all your nails are finished make sure your top polish is pretty dry before applying top coat. The last thing you want is to apply top coat and make your polish run in all your pretty lines! Some of my pictures are portraying bumpy looking nails, I think the camera was just picking up the detail because they do not look like that in real life.

Polishes used are listed down below.

I hope this post was helpful to anyone who wants to try something similar to this. Let me know if you have any questions!  If you are inspired by this manicure I'd love to see a picture so tag me on Facebook! You can also email it to me: totalpolishjunkie@gmail.com. Also let me know if you have any nail designs you want me to try, I love hearing all the ideas other people have.

Oh, one more thing. In case you are wondering how I edited my photos I found a really awesome online photo editor that I will now be using. There is a free version (and a paid monthly upgrade if you so choose). Go check them out, picmonkey. 

Epic Fail Ombre! + Why I am Starting This Blog.

Before we get into the nail stuff I just want to mention really quick why I decided to start a nail blog. First of all, I've always enjoyed blogging, but the last few years I haven't done it much due to school, work, my son, you know, life in general. However, I have been finding myself drawn towards doing blogs again. I recently started another blog about how I'm changing my lifestyle to be a healthy one and that blog is ahealthierkatie.blogspot.com.  Since I've become SO obsessed with polish and nail art I decided this would be a good way to document the different designs that I do, what polish I like/don't like and my overall progress (hopefully I will continue to get better with time!). If I end up being the only one who reads this...than cool. But I'm hoping that I will find some people along the way who want to watch my progress too and maybe even inspire a few people.

Okay, let's get started with the good stuff.

I. Am. So. Disappointed. I was so looking forward to doing my neon color ombre manicure and it didn't turn out well at all. I made two mistakes that I think made it an epic fail. This is only my second ombre manicure, so I think a little more practice would help also. The first mistake I made was using the wrong side of my sponge. I cut my sponge and then ended up painting on the longer side of my sponge and didn't realize it till I had already painted 7 of my nails. I wasn't getting any of my top color (purple) on my nails and I just couldn't figure out why! The second mistake I made was cutting my nails too short. I typically wear my nails on the longer side, but decided they were getting too long and so I cut them. However, I cut them shorter than I wanted them to be and I think that made it harder for me because I'm not used to doing nails designs on shorter nails. On some nails I didn't go a great job of covering up all the white either. Practice makes perfect.

Getting the true color of neon colors on camera is hard. I have tried so many different types of lighting and none of them really capture the colors. The colors are much brighter and very neon in real life, so please remember that while looking at the pics.

Now all of this being said I don't think they look horrible, but I don't think they look good either. Part of me almost took it all off because I was so upset, but I spent a lot of time on it so I decided to keep it on. I'll probably only keep this for a few days though before I decided to do something different. I don't know how long I'll be able to look at it and feel okay with it.

For those of you who aren't familiar with ombre designs I'll explain it a little bit for you. It's really just a gradient design with multiple colors. I've seen them done with 2-5 different colors, but in my opinion I think three colors works the best. First you need to paint your nails with a white base and make sure you use two coats. Do not skip this step! The white really helps bring out the colors in the polish (especially with neon colors) and make sure you have a nice thick coat of polish. And I actually want to take a second and talk about the white polish I used. I used China Glaze White on White and I can tell you I really don't know if I'll use this polish again. The end result (forgot to take a pic before ombre) was good, but I really dislike the formula. It was gloopy and uneven and hard to apply and work with. Just because it looks like white out doesn't mean it should be like white out!  I usually use Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On, but I think I'm going to try OPI Alpine Snow next time.

Anyway, once you get your base done then you take a makeup wedge sponge and cut it to the length and width that fits your nail bed. I cut a new sponge to show you since my other sponge I used got all messed up.

Then just paint on your colors that you want to use. Make sure you use a generous amount of polish since the sponge typically sucks some up.

After you filled your sponge with polish you then just sponge it onto your nail. Make sure you apply new polish for every finger that you do. And voila! if you did it right (unlike me) you will have a beautiful gradient design!

Here are the polishes I used:

                    (White)                        (Neon Orange)                 (Neon Pink)              (Neon Purple)     

                     China Glaze                      China Glaze                     China Glaze                 Essie  

                   White on White                Sun Worshiper                    Pool Party           DJ Play That Song

Again, like I mentioned, the colors do not pull well from the camera. The orange is a nice bright neon and the pink is a dark vibrant hot pink neon. Same things goes for the purple, it is very bright and pretty.

Happy (Late) 4th of July!

Hey everyone! I am starting a blog where I can post all about my nail polish obsession and share things with you all. I'm thinking of doing reviews and different fun things, so be sure to check back regularly!!

So, I know it's a few days past the 4th, but I loved how my manicure came out so I wanted to share with you all what I did!!

Please excuse the mess on my nails, I forgot to do clean-up before I took a picture (this was taken right after I finished). Anyway, I do have to say that I can't take all the credit for this idea. I've found a lot of fun ideas on Pinterest, YouTube and just random Google searching. So I took all the different things I found and mashed them all together. My husband did help me paint on the stars though, he's a much better artist than me. I really thought this was a cute and festive design and I have received so many compliments on it. Here are all the polishes I used:

Red- OPI Big Apple Red

Blue- Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Pacific Blue

White- Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On

Silver- China Glaze Cheers To You

Silver Glitter- Wet n Wild Fergie collection in You Know I Gotta Shine

White Glitter- OPI Lights of Emerald City

I also used some different size dotting tools and a nail art striping brush. Other than the stars (at least for me) this manicure was simple and easy. I had a lot of fun doing this one! Let me know what you think!