Happy Fourth of July Nails!

Pin It HAPPPPYYYY 4THHHHHHHHHHH OF JULYYYYY! And stuff.

 

Would you expect anything less from me, seriously? Haha WELP! I have a tutorial for you too and how to execute this also! :]

French Manicure w/ Flowers

Pin It This post is a manicure to go along with makeup done by Pretty Face, Happy Bank! Check out her post here :]

A neutral, French manicure spiced up a little with some pink flowers and gold accents! I have a short tutorial for you after the jump!

Random Monday Night Swatches & Nail Art

Pin It Man! I wasn't expecting to be this busy today! My mom and I went to pick blueberries for a few hours this afternoon at a local blueberry farm. 8lbs of berries total! All for $15!

Anywho! Here are some random swatches I have since I didn't get a chance to finish up the post I wanted to do today. Oh but first: Happy Memorial Day to those who served, those serving and ESPECIALLY the fallen.

Nicole OPI Green Up Your Act

I had this one on my wishlist for a few months, in Feb. I actually found it on clearance at Target! LOVE when that happens! I LOVE this color, Green Up Your Act is a deep grey green. Reminds me of some of the colors in the Air Force/Army digital camo print. This was 3 coats, I was hoping for 2 but I had a little bit of balding/thin polish issues. Still love it though!

I haven't seen this shade in stores after it went on clearance, at least not none of the Target stores I've been to. However, it is still available on Target's website! [Don't forget to use your Ebates! 3% back, sign up link on the right!]... cheaper than eBay for almost $20! Jesus!

 Zoya Marley

YAYYYY! I finally have Zoya Marley! After getting it confussed with their jelly version of this shade, Miley, I'm super happy to have this! Marley is a super soft purple with a pearl like shine. Very light, delicate and girly. This was 2 coats with no issues, of course!

You can find Zoya Marley, here for $8/bottle.

French Manicure Nail Art

This is what happens when you get bored haha. You try to play nail lady on your nails when you suck at french design manicures. It was pretty cute actually, but just not for me! I used Zoya Tru, Sinful Colors Black on Black, and MAC Cosmetics Immortal Gold. I used a Konad plate (forget which one!) for the flower and stuck a Dollar Tree microbead in the center of the flowers!

Polka Dot Contrast Manicure

Here, I replicated some nail design I've seen floating around my Blogger RSS Feed. Some people might not like the color combo haha but I LOVE it quite honestly! I used Orly Ever Burgundy and Milani Key West and a small dotting tool! Simple as that :] I love manis that you can replicate in hundreds of color combos!

Captain America nails

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Have you seen The Avengers movie? If you didn't - you should! It's one heck of a movie! After a friend of mine saw the movie she sent me a picture of a Captain America manicure, which DUH, Steve Rodgers is husband #2 so I HAD to replicate it! I used Sinful Colors Why Not, Zoya Sooki (my favorite red!) and Sinful Colors Snow Me White and a striping brush! SO much awesome on my fingers!!!!!

I hope you guys enjoyed my super random post! As always, any questions - just ask!

Until tomorrow,
Lacey

Super Easy Lace French Tip Mani (with Konad)

Pin It Okay, so I'm not a big nail art person. But I'm figuring once I get a "big girl job" my opportunity for awesome nail art will drop greatly. Sooooo I'm trying to take advantage. After swatching a few colors I honestly had ZERO idea what I wanted to do with my nails. Then I remembered Plasmaspeedo's mani she posted a few days ago and decided to give it a go.

Straight up, I suck at stamping. I just do lol. I'm thinking it's because I have the mini stamper over the larger duo end stamper (on the to buy list). Bit I was able to execute this easily without having to redo 5+ fingers haha.

Here is the video Andrea posted:


I used Zoya Avril as my sheer base. Then I used the same Konad plate from the video (m57) and chose the lace design. I used Sinful Colors Black on Black to stamp with (always do!). I stamped just below the nail tip line and then filled from the top of the design up with the black.

Way easy. Way cute!

I could have done some detailing with glitter or rhinestones, but I just wasn't feeling it haha.

I love the look of this! LOVE! It's girl but still edgy at the same time. It's just do perfect! I want to try it in white sometime to see how that looks. :)

I hope you find this as easy and stunning as I did if you do give it a shot!

Until next time,
Lacey

CHINA GLAZE Haul Post 1

Pin It Alrighty, So I went a little crazy ordering from 8ty8beauty.com. I did get 2 Color Club polishes (Mol-ten and Wish Upon a Rockstar), but mostly all were China Glaze haha. Here's what I got:

 

L to R: It's Alive, Street Chic (I ordered Below Deck?), First Mate,

Traffic Jam, Four Leaf Clover, Doll House and Life Preserver

I'm only going to review 4 of them on this post, and I'll post the other 3 later this weekend! Please bare with me on the pictures. I usually use my iPhone 4, but I found my point and shoot in some of the boxes we haven't unpacked. They both have issues picking up particular colors. Ughhhh!

First up, It's Alive from the 2011 Haunting Collection: 2 Coats

I saw this swatch when it came out a few months ago and fell in love with it! I'm loving the olive green medium and small glitters! This is perfect to wear whenever, or layer it over black and it's the perfect haunting Halloween color (or well any other time bahaha, but it sure does change over black!):

I also found this a lot easier to remove than most glitter polishes.

Next up, Street Chic from the Fall 2011 Metro Collection: 2 Coats

Gorgeous, chocolate brown creme polish. Two thin coats did well for full coverage! This wasn't what I ordered. I was a little confused when I got it since I have Milani's Teddy-Bare which is SLIGHTLY similar but SC is darker and more rich, less gray. I don't mind SC at all! I just wish I had Below Deck instead haha.

Here is the comparison between China Glaze Street Chic and Milani's Teddy-Bare, to show... and to ease my mind a little haha. The difference is a lot more evident when they're next to each other, in the bottle they look a lot a like:

 

As you can see, Teddy-Bare is more gray and Street Chic is a lot more rich and chocolatey. I like them both equally, might do a brownish gradient some time soon maybe.

Third, First Mate Spring 2011 Anchors Away Collection: 2 Coats

 

IN LOVE. This is what I was looking for when I purchased Milani's Midnight Satin (which is more black). This is a gorgeous navy creme polish. Again, 2 coats did the trick! Such a smooth, beautiful navy blue! This is a must have!

And for the record, it's Anchors Aweigh ;] not Away, lettin' the Navy wife in me come out a little haha.

Lastly for today, Traffic Jam again, the Fall 2011 Metro Collection - Uptown: 2 Coats

I would consider this a raspberry, magenta, creme I think. It is a beautiful color for sure! A great go-to pink. It is verrrryyy similar to Revlon's Plummy, which is SLIGHTLY darker than Traffic Jam. Two thin coats, like the other cremes I posted today. Just a beautiful color!

And I leave you with 2 nail arts. A black french matte mani, which a friend requested on Instagram (@LACERZ if you want to follow/stalk) and the mani I finished with after swatching these CGs haha.

Sinful's Black on Black and Hard Candy's Matte-ly in Love. I only left it on for a day, I'm not a big fan of black nails on me haha. I DO love this matte polish though. I've tried both Essie and ELF's mattes. ELFs is horrid, to be honest. So streaky and rarely went matte in the 3 bottles I had! Essie's wasn't bad but I had issues with it un-matte-ing when I used my hand lotion. 

Zoya Marina, which I added last minute to their get 2 free polishes/free ship $25+ promo. I LOVE it. Beautiful dusty, metallic blue. I added a quick konad stamp using Black on Black by Sinful so it wasn't so boring for a few days haha.

I leave you with this long post haha

Until next time,

Lacey

MILANI: Teddy-Bare, ZOYA: Kennedy, and MAC: Immortal Gold

Pin It Just a quick manicure I did today with my Konad stamper, I'm getting better with the stamper! I feel like my fingernails are still oddly shaped for it haha but I'll deal :]

I really like Milani's Teddy-Bare, I got it during their cyber monday sale. This is 2 coats, and it went on pretty well and dried in the decent amount of time.

The pink is Zoya's Kennedy which is from the Feel collection, which I'm IN LOVE with. This also took about 2 coats, I could see through spots at the tips of my nails but since I was stamping I didn't add a 3rd coat. Seche Vite also saved me again with Kennedy, it took awhile to dry I thought.

Teddy-Bare and Kennedy go really well together, they both have grey-ish undertones.

I also added MAC's Immortal gold for accents on the cheetah konad stamp. I'm glad I chose it because it is a very nice and sparkly gold! I have yet to use it as a full mani, since I just got it for Christmas, but it's great for accenting!

Until next time,
Lacey