Kisses for Valentine's Day!

I was able to get one more V-Day mani in. I wanted this to have lots of red and of course glitter! Simple nail art, but still looks adorable! I got my inspiration from cutepolish on YouTube. I'm using two of her designs and just added coordinating colors. I used a striper and dotting tool to create the xoxo on my thumb, and a smaller dotting tool to create the lips on my ring finger. You can go check out her channel for some really neat designs!

I got a little lazy with my Cinderella hand...I've done so many manicures and swatches this week and it's made me a little polished out (I bet you didn't think that could happen, huh?) so I just did some glitter nails. Nothing fancy, but my hands go together so it's fine. 

Not a super long post, I just wanted to share what I did!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

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.

Sally Hansen NEW Triple Shine

Sally Hansen recently came out with a new line called Triple Shine. Some colors looked promising, and others I felt were pretty blah and nothing spectacular. Although I didn't like the higher price tag, I thought I would pick one up to see how I liked it. The polish I bought is called Sparks Fly. This polish has a blue base with muli-sized silver glitters. Since this is a glitter polish, my review may not be fair to the whole line, but a glitter polish should still have a good formula. Unfortunately though, all I can say about this polish is yuck. Didn't like the formula, size, packaging or price. I layered this polish over OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. Lots of pics and my review after the jump!

NOTW: Fall Flakies

I am behind with my manicures so at some point you may see two NOTW posts in a week. Oh, well.

This one I wore over Thanksgiving. I like flakies polishes and I think they look cool over a variety of colors. My base color is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Malbec. It's a really really deep purple. So dark is almost looks black. Pretty decent formula, but a little thick. I do like this one better than some of the other Complete Salon Manicures though. The flakies polish I used is Luxe and Lush by China Glaze. Formula was as expected, a little sparse and had to dab on. In the picture I used one coat of the flakies. On my left hand I used two coats, but thought it was too much and didn't like it as much. Also, I would recommend using two coats of top coat as some of the glitter can peek through. If you are using a thick top coat one may be okay.

 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.

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.

NOTW: Irritating.

I can't believe how frustrating this mani became. It's nothing hard or time consuming....or at least I thought. In my opinion, the Complete Salon Manicure line from Sally Hansen is so hit or miss. Some polishes I love and some not so much. This one in particular took sooooooo long to dry and even after applying my top coat (which normally makes nails hard within 10 min) it was still squishy and annoying. I had to redo my left thumb seriously like 10 times. No exaggeration. Something kept hitting it and I was just getting ready to lose my mind. I had to redo my accent nail twice because even after 20 min of dry time when I applied top coat it still smeared horribly and didn't even look kind of good. The only reason I didn't give up on this mani altogether was because we took pics today so they had to look nice. I got a ton of shrinkage on my tips too which was also irritating.

The house ended up being extended a week and I ended up getting tonsiliths over the weekend which I am still recovering from. First time I've ever had it and I've never hated eating or drinking so much in my life (wait I take that back, the only other time was when I had strep like 10 years ago). So this week, other than subbing, that's really all that's on my agenda (still cleaning at the house). But I WILL start some Halloween type manis this week. I really want to get quite a few in this month! No promises they will be any good, but I'll try!

Anyway....

Love the color. Formula was really thick and took FOREVER to dry. Ugh. Oh, but the white is a great formula and for the price, you can't beat it!

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure ~ Resurrection & Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear ~ White On

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.