NOTD - Blue Christmas Snowflakes

Every year, I look forward to creating some pretty Christmas nails. This year, I decided to go with a twinkling snowflake design. Hope you like!

This was before I cleaned up my nails, unfortunately!

What I used:

Seche Clear (base coat)

Seche Vite (top coat)

Wet n Wild "French White"

L'Oreal "Not a Cloud in Sight"

Zoya "Neve"

Wet n Wild "Bling It On!"

Confetti "Ice Ice Baby"

H&M "Blue"

H&M Blue Glitter

Did you paint your nails a funky Christmas design this year? I'd love to see! Share in the comments!

-Claudia

NOTD - Sugar Skull Phalanges

What I used:

Seche Clear (base coat)

Seche Vite (top coat)

Deborah Lippmann "Mermaid's Dream"

Acrylic paint for the Sugar Skull

Rhinestones

I painted this nail design last month before Halloween. I had anticipated taking some more pictures of my nails, so this is a shot before the cleanup step. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to take another picture and the acrylic paint began chipping off hours later. 

I love how it turned out, just wish it had lasted a bit longer!!


-Claudia

NOTD - Lemon Wedge Nails

I've been looking for some nail-spiration for Summer. There are so many GREAT nail ideas on Instagram and Pinterest. I saw this next idea on Pinterest and decided to try my hand at it. The colors are so bright, I couldn't get a good picture of them. These nails POP!

What I used:

Essie Base Coat

Essie Top Coat

theBalm "Don't Pink and Drive"

Circus by Andrea's Choice "Spectacle"

Circus by Andrea's Choice "Somersault"

Sinful Colors "Snow Me White"

What nails are you rocking for Summer?

-Claudia

NOTD - Bearly There

Rain, umbrellas, flowers. These are all things that remind me of Spring. But you know what has been long left out? Bears. Specifically, teddy bears!! Winter is over and those fuzzy darlings are coming out of hibernation. I saw the cutest teddy bear nail design on Instagram yesterday and decided to recreate it.

What I used:

Essie Base Coat

Essie Top Coat

ORLY "Sheer White Tips"

Essie "Petal Pink"

OPI "I Don't Give a Rotterdam" or NYC 220B "Canal Street"

Color Club "Get a Clue" or theBalm "Don't Pink About It"

Wet n Wild "Ebony Hates Chris"

I couldn't decide on which bear color, so I decided on two: Brown and gray!

I think my right hand came out pretty nicely!

And of course here is the inspiration behind the bear nails:

What kind of nail designs remind you of Spring?

-Claudia

NOTD - Sparkling Cat Fancy

Hey guys! I wanted to share yet another nail of the day. This time, I'll be showing you one of my other obsessions:

CATS!!

Cats and glitter.

What I used:

Essie Base Coat

Essie Top Coat

Essie St. Lucia Lilac

theBalm "Don't Pink and Drive"

Zoya Shelby

Sinful Colors "Snow Me White"

Sinful Colors "Ebony Hates Chris"

Wet n Wild 435G "Sparked"

Some of the glitter had already come off since I took these pictures at work. 

Would you ever rock crazy cat lady nails? Did you notice the tiny bows? Let me know in the comments!!

-Claudia

NOTD - Spring Flowers

Hello guys and gals!

I wanted to share this NOTD I recently did. I wanted to paint something Spring-y, even though it's been on and off arctic temperatures here in Chicago since Spring began.

Anywho, here's the design:

What I used:

Essie Base Coat

Essie Top Coat

Sinful Colors "Innocent"

Sinful Colors "Snow Me White"

Circus by Andrea's Choice "Somersault"

Essie "As Gold as it Gets"

Confetti "Ice Ice Baby"

Here is the nail design that inspired me: 

I wish I could get those tiny petals as perfectly as Mademoiselle Emma did! WOW!

I would've liked to have picked a softer shade of green, but this is all I have. The nails are a bit rough, because I'm still learning. I decided to keep the butterfly out because 1. I'm terrified of bugs 2. Mostly, I really liked how the flowers were turning out. 

Have you guys made the spring into spring? Show me your spring nails in the comments!

-Claudia

NOTD - 80's Nails

Hi there! Here are a few pictures of an "80's" nail design I recently put together. I started these nails for an 80's themed surprise party last Saturday, but didn't finish because I fell in love with so many of the nails I saw online.

I actually decided to finally purchase a nail brush kit to improve my nail art ability. :) BOY do actual nail brushes make a difference to regular art brushes, haha.

Here are the nails I had Saturday:

...And here are my updated nails: 

What I used:

Essie Base Coat
Essie Top Coat

Sinful Colors "Snow Me White"

Circus by Andrea's Choice "Spectacle"

Circus by Andrea's Choice " Somersault"

theBalm "Don't Pink and Drive"

Zoya "Kylie #2"

L'Oreal "Not a Cloud in Sight"

Wet n Wild "Ebony Hates Chris"

Here are some of the inspiration pictures I found online:

-Claudia

NOTD - Chocolate Covered Strawberry Nails

To celebrate unofficial Chocolate Celebration month, I decided to paint my nails. I followed a tutorial {here} from Andrea's Choice: Chocolate covered strawberry nails! Because I have no brown polish, I created my own shade using green, red, and black. I re-took these pictures after work (the first round was a bit too blurry, sorry!), so there is a bit of chipping already. Sorry for that!

Hope you enjoy and hope this gives you some nailspiration!

What I used: 

Essie Base Coat
Essie Top Coat

Sinful Colors "Snow Me White"

Sinful Colors "Innocent" + Nailtini "Bloody Mary" + Wet n Wild "Ebony Hates Chris"

I think that the mixture of brown I used made it difficult to swirl the color onto my nails. It dried much too quickly after it got tacky and it was a lot thinner than it should have for this project. I would LOVE to try this again, but with an actual brown polish this time!

Would you try out this nail? Show me some pictures, if you do!

-Claudia

NOTD - Valentine's Day Nails

Last week, I came across the most ridiculously awesome display inside a Hallmark store:

How could anyone not rush off and buy this little guy?

In honor of this happy little pigglet, I decided to come up with my own Valentine's nail of the day! Hope you guys like.

What I used:

Essie Base Coat
Essie Top Coat
Essie "Petal Pink" (ring finger)
Sinful Colors "Snow Me White"
Zoya "Shelby"
Wet n Wild "429 D - Dreamy Poppy" 
China Glaze "Sex on the Beach"

I was inspired by a few Valentine's nail looks floating out there and, as you can see, I couldn't decide which to go with. On my pointer and pinky fingers, I used nail polish remover to create the heart shape and filled it in with Zoya's "Shelby." I painted my ring finger in the classic french manicure style, except for the two hearts I added. For my middle finger...well, I attempted to paint a bow and arrow. It's a bit off center, haha.

That dreaded left hand of mine:

Here is the main picture that inspired this look:

Posted on is Girlshue.com

What are you doing for Valentine's Day? Did you fall in love with little Cupid, as well??

-Claudia

NOTD - Turquoise Chevron

I've seen these nails around pinterest quite a bit and I finally decided to try it out myself!

What I used:

Essie Protein Base Coat

Essie "Good to Go," topcoat

L'Oreal "Not a Cloud in Sight"

Sinful Colors "Snow Me White"

Expo Dry Erase marker, black

I didn't have a black nail pen or a regular fine tip marker, so I decided to just use my dry-erase marker. I mostly wanted to see if I could pull it off. I think it came out pretty ok!

My tip for...using a dry erase marker...is wait for it to dry a bit, then lightly apply a topcoat. I did this twice, as the topcoat did remove the marker very slightly.

Here's the dreaded left hand:

Not so bad!


The inspiration:

credit to: hiyapapaya.com

From the picture, you can see she used nail tape for the look. Bear me with me, because I used none!


Have you tried out chevron nails? Show me your pictures!

-Claudia

NOTD - Space Nails!

Hello all! I've been wearing nail polish pretty often lately and have been looking around for some neat tutorials to try out. I found this one on the space nails trend by Cutepolish that I decided to try out a few days ago. My nails still need a bit of cleaning up on the sides, but I wanted to show you guys because I'm pretty proud of how the design turned out.

I used quite a few nail polishes for this look (you can view Cutepolish's tutorial on this nail to get more details). 

{What I used}:

Cosmetic sponge

Tweezers

Essie protein base coat

Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris (black)

Wet n Wild 449c (white)

L'Oreal After Hours (dark blue, swatch above)

NYC Lexington Yellow

ZOYA Shelby (pastel, bubblegum pink)

Sinful Colors in Nail Junkie (blue-green with loads of glitter, swatch above)

Confetti Ice Ice Baby (glitter with white and blue flecks)

Essie Good to Go top coat

"Space Nails" doesn't sound as chic as "Galaxy Nails," but I like the sillyness Space Nails brings. There is no filter on the nail picture -- just thought I should toss that out there! I'll post a cleaner picture of my nails soon. Hope you liked them!

Have you tried the Space Nails trend? Share your pictures!

-Claudia