Nail Challenge Week 24: Flag Nails

Ladies and Gentlemen of the USA ~ Happy Flag Day!!!! In honor of today's day (Thank you, Betsy Ross for designing an awesome flag), I have American Flags on my nails! This actually wasn't my first time doing flag nails... last 4th of July I attempted them as well.

Insert Star-Spangled Banner music here.... lol

So, how did they get to that point? Well, after OPI Base Coat, I did two coats of Sinful Colors GoGo Girl (still my favorite red polish to date).

Once it dried, I used CoverGirl Blue You (which, p.s. I got for $.25 at a yard sale;) to do the top corners over the red. I used two coats of this also to make sure the red was completely covered.

Even the colors just like this look pretty fun;) But after MORE dry time, then it was time to do the stars and stripes! I used my Sally Hansen Nail Art pen in Pearly White (it's too bad I accidentally picked that one up a couple months ago. I think plain white would've had more dramatic lines)

And finally! I used my Migi Nail art pens (yay!) I couldn't draw whole stars, so I just made dots (which honestly, if you're looking at a flag in the distance, don't they kinda look like dots??;)

There you have it! Hope you have a simply amazing flag day!! Even if you aren't an American;) What other flags would be fun to put on your nails? Canadian? Australian? Italian? :)

Nail Challenge Week 19: Floral Mani

Hi Lovelies! Another week and another nail challenge! This week is floral mani! Flowers can be one of the easiest or hardest nail art designs to achieve depending on what kind of flowers and how you go about doing it. I probably could've used some pretty stamps for this, but since I just did stamping for last week's Cartoon Mani challenge, I decided to use my Migi Nail Art pens and do some dot-daisies.

I started with two coats of Sinful Colors Mint Apple which is a creamy almost iridescent light green color.

After it was dry, I put two dots of my yellow Migi Nail Art pen on each nail followed by five pink dots around each yellow dot to make them look like little daisies.

Ta-da! Very simple, very easy, very feminine!

Did you do a floral mani? How would you do yours?

Nail Challenge Week 15: Easter Day Mani

Happy Easter, Lovelies! I hope you all are having a fabulous day celebrating with friends and family! This week's nail challenge is Easter Day. Obviously the first thing that comes to mind with Easter is bunnies and eggs; flowers and crosses; and pretty pastel colors!

Instead of using all pastels (I know a lot of girls used yellow and minty green), I stuck with just pink, purple, and blue. I wanted to keep it simple; so I did it in the same order on both hands... purple, pink blue, purple, pink, blue, etc.

 I used Essie "fiji," Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear "Lacy Lilac" (my favorite polish!), and Color Club "Hydrangea Kiss."

I was going to leave my nails just like that. I liked the simplicity of it. But it seemed too boring to blog about, so I added a little nail art using both my Sally Hansen Art Pens and my Migi Nail Art Pens.

I started by using the Sally Hansen pens just to do some little zigzag marks and dots on my nails--kinda like decorating Easter eggs. Then I decided to do a little something more on each middle finger as an accent nail and put tiny flowers using the Migi pens.

This is how it turned out:

I think they turned out pretty well; and in the end I almost wished I'd done flowers on all of them! But, I'm sure I'll get around to that in another nail challenge;)

What do you think? How did you do your nails for Easter? Have you tried the Sally Hansen and the Migi Nail Art pens? Do you have a favorite? :)

Migi Nail Art -- My new obsession...

Helloooo Lovelies!! So I've been putting this off for a while now to share with you my latest obsession!! You've probably already seen these fabulous little items showing up in several of my Nail Challenge posts. They are wonderful!! And the perfect item to anyone's inventory of nail art supplies!!

Now, before I get too in depth on the product, I want to share a quick story with you of how I even found these! Last month was the Florida State Fair and I loooooove the Fair!! I am far from being an outdoorsy/farmy kind of gal, but I've always loved going to the fair! Growing up in southwestern PA, there were a lot of outdoorsy/farmy girls lol (and all the boys hunted and fished) [you know Corey? Leah's now ex-husband on Teen Mom 2? A lot of the boys in my high school were just like that!] Anyway, going to the Fair and seeing all the cows, pigs, etc. remind me of my younger days! Plus, who doesn't love some funnel cake and good fried foods?

Anyway, so I'm at the Fair walking through the vendor building, and what do I see but a NAIL ART BOOTH! You've got to be kidding me! So of course I went over to see what it was they were selling. I didn't even need to see her do a demonstration of how they worked, I just jumped in and asked her how much the kits were!

"Have you used our products before?" She asked. Well, no, but I had every intention of staring to use them if she would just sell them to me! lol But she insisted on explaining it all to me first. Migi Nail Art Pens are actually real polish. There's a brush at one end to paint your nails, then the other end has the pen tip so you can squeeze and draw/paint on the nail (think fabric paint). They come in sets of eight--they look like big pens, but they all come apart so they're smaller. AND (this is the big news) LIFETIME REFILLS!! So if you run out of one of the colors, you just let them know and they SEND YOU A NEW ONE!!! How awesome is that?!?! No need to worry about rationing one of your colors, just use the heck out if and get a new one! (the fine print is that you do need to register with them in order to get your refill!)

Not one to impulse purchase (even though, you can imagine how badly I *needed* these pens!) I said, "okay, thank you, I'll think about it..." and walked away. YES! I walked away!! And started pulling up reviews on my phone. They were a little cheaper at Amazon, but then there would be shipping.. and I'd have to wait to get them...

Then I thought, well, Sally Hansen pens are like $8 or something for ONE. I'm getting EIGHT colors for $25 AND they can be polish OR nail art!

I went back. And got the pastel set. And I have been soooo thankful that I did!!

I wanted to do a full comparison on these vs. the Sally Hansen pens; but the truth is, since I got these, I've been using them only and haven't even touched my Sally Hansen ones; so that review will have to wait.

For now, you definitely need to check out their site! (p.s. it's for CANADIAN and AUSTRALIAN people too!!!:) AND they have a referral program!! So if you DO want to buy them, send me a note. I'll give you the info you need to get the referral for me! (then you can tell all your friends and get your referral gift!!)

 BUY THEM HERE!!:)

Bottom line, I love love love love love love love these! And I'm not sure how I survived without them before!

And before you say, "Oh, I don't need to buy pens. I just use polish I have and toothpicks or thin brushes" Well, good for you! I'm glad you have the patience and skill for that! For me, it's just easier to have it in a squeezable pen form!:)

Do you have any of the Migi Nail Art pens?? What do you think about them?? Am I just craaazzzyyy for loving them so much???:)

Nail Challenge Week 11: St. Patrick's Day Nails

Hey Lovelies!! This week's nail challenge is St. Patrick's Day nails! I'm sure a lot of girls are going to do four leaf clovers, Irish flags, lots of green, etc. I took a slightly different approach. I'm not Irish, but I'm a fan of Irish things... potatoes... sauerkraut (or is that German?:) lol... But my FAVORITE Irish thing is LUCKY CHARMS!! I was rarely allowed to eat this cereal as a child (too much sugar; my mom was all about feeding us "good" cereals like Kix and Life lol) so I now always have Lucky Charms in my house!

I started with a base of Essie All in One Base, two coats of NYC Quick Dry polish in Mulberry Street, then used my awesome Migi Nail Art pens (post on them coming soon! Promise!) to draw the marshmallows!:)

Left Hand

Right Hand

And here are a few closeups of ones that turned out pretty good:)

rainbow

pot of gold

heart

moon

horseshoe

And there you have it! My St. Patty's Day Nails!!:) How did you do yours? Are you having as much fun with the Nail Challenge as I am??:)

Nail Challenge Week 10: Polka Dot Nails

I was super excited about this week's nail challenge! Polka Dot Nails! To say I love polka dots would be a bit of an understatement as I have 2 pairs shoes, 3 shirts, 2 headbands, 4 panties, 2 bathing suits, 2 pairs of sunglasses, a lanyard and badge holder all in polka dot pattern. Not to mention my blog background?! Lol, so yes, I'm a fan of polka dots:) I've loved them for even longer than they've been popular! My favorite dress when I was little was navy blue with big white polka dots. I think it's a very classic and classy design!

I've also done polka dot nails before (it's probably one of the easiest nail art designs to master;) Keep in mind this is an old picture (pre-blogging days) so it's kinda messy!

So without further ado, let me just warn you that I got a LITTLE carried away with my nails this week. I was going to do the spots just on half the nail, kind of angled up, but... they were so fun! and colorful! and pretty! ... I just kept going...

No Flash

With Flash

For this look I used a coat of OPI base, two coats of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Black Out, spots from nearly all my Migi Nail Art pens, and a finishing coat from Seche Vite.

What do you think?? Did you do this week's challenge? Did you go basic black and white or switch it up some?? :)

Nail Challenge Week 9: Vintage Nails

Hi Lovelies! For Week 9's Nail Challenge, it's Vintage Nails. I racked my brainmost of the week trying to figure out what I was going to do! As always, Google is my friend;) When you first search for "Vintage Nails" on Google, a lot of the images are pretty baby blue and mint green nails with pink and red roses. I understand this is very vintage'y and looks like a Victorian curtain or couch or something lol, but I just don't think I can master that on my nails.

So! I kept looking. I decided to interpret vintage as to what ladies used to do to their nails in the 40s or something! I found some good links and decided I'd try for something like this:

via

via

So this is what I did!

Two Coats Essie Innocent

Migi Nail Art Pen

Finished!

What I used

Another challenge completed! It's not fabulous, but it was definitely fun to try doing my nails similar as to what was done in the past:)

Have you done Vintage Nails yet? How did yours turn out??