Orly Sweet Marbling

Today I was excited to try water marbling for the first time.  I also was thrilled to find the Orly Sweet collection still hanging around my Ulta - I have been looking for it for several weeks now!

Outdoors, partial shade, no flash

For this manicure, I first used my base coat of NailTek, followed by a coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme White On, to give the colors a nice base to go onto.  Then I used Orly Lemonade, Orly Snowcone, and Orly Pixy Stix for my marbling colors, and topped it off with two coats of Seche Vite.

Sweet!

Colors in the water

The water marbling process was fun, although a little (or a lot) messy.  I did get a few bubbles on my nails, which I am not quite sure how to get rid of (advice welcome, of course).  I also don't really have any sort of coherent pattern on the nails, it is just whatever I ended up with.  I may try for a bit more of a pattern next time I marble.  Another thing I noticed, and that you can see in the pictures, is that the application was a bit weird over my silk-and-glue bandage on my middle finger.  You can see quite a lot of white showing through there. However, I think it was a decent first attempt at marbling.

Outdoors, full sun, no flash

I also LOVE these colors!  I know it is a bit pastel for going into fall, but I was just super excited to give them a try.  Besides, sometimes a bit of springtime can be cheerful and fun, even if it is not currently "in season," heh.  I think these colors are very cute together.

What do you guys think?  Do you like it?  Any water marbling tips from the experts?

ALSO - I bought the polish for my very first giveaway today, and I will be posting it very soon (tonight or tomorrow).  It will be followers only, and if you are already a follower when I post it you will automatically get an extra entry if you sign up!  :)

Broken Nail Disaster and Repair Job

  Last night I noticed the worst thing ever to a nail-biter attempting to reform - a big old break in on of my nails!  It was very far back as well, over the nail bed so that it was rather painful.

Broken nail!

After cleaning

  In the past, this would have led me to probably biting off all ten of my nails (sad, I know), but this time I bandaged the nail for the evening, ran off to Sally Beauty this morning and got some items for nail repair.  Overall I am very pleased with the outcome!

The products I used

Wrap + glue (light corrected)

 With some help from the fabulous people at Sally, I picked out some Supernail Swiss Silk wraps, as well as 5 Second Brush-On Nail Glue.  I first cleaned off the nail and made sure it was dirt and oil free, then I cut off a small strip of the silk wrap and applied it to the break.  I took pictures of the process, but unfortunately I had my flash on for some and they were way to bright - I tried to correct them on the computer but only one was salvageable, so I do not have an image of the silk itself.  After the silk, I added two layers of the nail glue to the nail.  After waiting for the glue to dry, which took several minutes, I buffed down the glue and silk as much as possible to smooth them out over the nail surface.  I did not do too much buffing, however, because I did not want to weaken the area since I know it is going to take me a long time to grow this out to the point where I want to trim past the break!

  After buffing down, I added a coat of NailTek I - Maintenance, my normal base coat, then started my normal painting process.  You can see below what the nail looks like with just base coat, as well as with one coat of polish.  With just the one coat you can clearly see the elevated area with the silk.

With base coat

One coat of (messy) polish

I applied another coat of polish (for two coats total), Konad, and two coats of Seche Vite fast dry top coat.  The final results are below.

Fixed up nail (with smeared Konad again, I was in too much of a hurry!)

The final result, all nails together!

  The nail feels very strong now, and I am hopefully that I can keep it together while it grows out, even if I have to repeat this procedure once more.  If you look closely, you can see the raised area where the silk is, but overall it is pretty difficult to see it, and I don't think you would see it if you weren't looking for it.

  What do you all think?  Is this the best way to repair a broken nail, or do you have a better way?  I am definitely open to suggestions - this is just what I found online, as well as what the ladies at Sally Beauty suggested.  I would love to here your thoughts and opinions!

  I am off to the game now with my fixed up Game Day Nails.  Tomorrow, I am going to try water marbling.  I am really excited!  :)

Wildcat Purple NOTD

  Last night I painted my nails in preparation for the Kansas State Wildcats football game on Saturday.  I am a huge K-State fan... so you may be seeing variations of purple/white/maybe silver often.  :)

Outdoors, overcast, no flash

  For these nails, I used OPI Purple with a Purpose.  It took me a long time to find the exact perfect KSU purple and this one is definitely it.  It is also a fairly similar color to OPI Funky Donkey, except this one has a light shimmer.  I love this polish!  This was two coats for full coverage.  Formula and drying time were really great.  For the Konad, I used m78 with Konad Special White.  I wanted to use something that was a bit of a wild animal print, since they are the wildcats, after all!  I may have to pick up the full leopard print Konad at some point in time for another game day.. :)

Indoors, artificial light, no flash (please forgive the fuzzy lack of macro here!)

  Once again, tried to stay a bit cleaner, and think it was much better this time.  I am also excited to try out the paint brush with acetone idea shown to me by one of my followers - hopefully that will help out even more!  Had a bit of problems picking up the full Konad one a few of these nails, but then got them almost all perfect on my non-picture hand.  I guess I should start with that hand and do the picture hand second, haha.  I also had a bit of smearing of the Konad this time, I don't think I waited long enough before the top coat - oops. These smudges are almost impossible to see on the real nails, but the macro sure picks them up well!

Go Cats!

  Do you all paint your nails up special for your favorite sports teams?  I would love to see some of your team-spirit nails!  :)

Evelyn Rose

I am back!  I had an amazing time visiting my sister and brother-in-law and my sweet baby niece, Evie!  She is just about the most precious little baby I have ever seen.  I am in love!

Evelyn Rose, 17 Days Old

Here I am holding her, and she is in her "My Auntie Love Me" outfit that I just had to get for her, plus I hat that I knit for her.  What a sweetie!

I miss this baby so much already.

I did find time while I was down there to do some nail play as well (in between loving up on my sweet baby and my sister having to feed her often).  I tried my best to give Christy some pampering, since as sweet as Evie is she is a bit of a handful and induces sleep deprivation.. haha.  So I gave her a manicure and a pedicure.  I will share the toes tomorrow; today we have Evelyn Rose inspired nails!

Outdoors, partial shade, no flash

Christy really wanted to use this new rose patterned Konad I had just recently purchased in honor of Evie.  And she loved this DS color - another new purchase that I hadn't used yet!  I have to say, I loved the DS - the application, the color, the dry time.. it was amazing!  I can't wait to use it on myself soon.  This is OPI DS Reserve, and I believe I used two coats (sorry, I can't quite remember, but that sounds right to me).  The Konad is plate m65, using Nicole by OPI Positive Energy, a really great silver for Konad stamping.  By this point, I have also gotten much better at Konad - I had practiced on one more mani on myself the night before (which I will share with you in a couple of days), and practiced just the right scraping pressure to get pretty results.  I think I have it mostly down now!

Indoors, artificial light, no flash

I also tried to be a bit cleaner, staying away from the cuticles as much as possible.  Still a bit messy, but better - I am getting there!  You might also notice a bit of a darker pink on the pinkie finger - we tried stamping over it but it didn't really work out, so that was the only finger that got tried on.  :)  This was a really sweet manicure, and I really liked the combo of the light pink and the silver.  And I LOVE the DS polish - I may have to get me some more of it.  Very pretty.

Thanks to all who are following, reading, and commenting!  I hope you continue to enjoy my posts!

Claire's Awesome/Silly Mood Polish

First off, let me say thank you SO much to the people that have commented, followed, and added me to your blog roll.  I really appreciate you helping me to get a good start in the world of nail blogs!  I am planning on doing a giveaway for our one month anniversary, and I will probably give out extra entries for being one of our first X followers (haven't decided the number yet).  But again, thank you, it makes me so happy to know that somebody out there wants to listen to what I have to say!  :)

Last night I tried out my new Claire's Mood Polish.  I picked up four of these when I was at the mall with my little sister Becky last week, and this is the first I have tried.  I also added some Konad from a new plate I got on the same mall trip.

Indoors, Artificial Light, No Flash

Awesome/Silly is a light pink/dark pink combo of color-changing polish; light when warm, dark when cool.  It has the tiniest hint of shimmer to it as well.  I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the polish, having been spoiled by using almost exclusively OPI for several years.  The formula went on a little streaky, and in the end I used 4 coats for complete coverage, although 3 was almost adequate.  The finish is a bit matte, so the drying time was super speedy - I was very pleased with this aspect, and made the multiple coat application not nearly as annoying.  After the full 4 coats everything looked nice a smooth!  I used Seche Vite as the topcoat here - I used one coat after just the color, and then another coat after I decided to Konad.

The color changing aspect is a lot of fun.  I have just barely long enough nails that normally, I have almost all light pink nails with slightly darker tips.

Here you can see the darker colored tips of the nails

It is a lot of fun to watch the color change when you wash your hands.

After cold water

After warm water

The next morning - Indoors, Natural Light, No Flash

For the Konad, I used plate m78 with Konad Special White polish.  I did a lot better this time with the design not smearing - and Seche Vite works wonders with Konad!  However, I did have some problems picking up all of the hearts in the design on some of the nails, which was frustrating.  But overall I find these nails cute and kind of simple.  I wanted to do a light pink and white design since I am going to meet my baby niece tomorrow.  I am very excited to be an aunt!  On that note, I am not sure how much I will be posting from now until Tuesday.  I will be bringing down some nail stuff, to probably redo mine at some point as well as hopefully find time to pamper my stressed out big sister Christy, but not sure whether I will get things posted or not.  So if I am not back until Tuesday, don't give up on me!  I will definitely be back with some awesome new nails to show you early next week.  :D