Fall Floral Nails (elleandish // Janelle Fall Floral Nails recreation)

Hey there! Today I have some fall floral nails to share with you.

This look was inspired by the talented Janelle, the nail artist behind her channel, elleandish // Janelle. I absolutely adore her channel and videos. Every tutorial is meticulously edited--and it shows! Her voiceovers are so calm and chill. Her designs are really cute and fairly easy to do. She's also a terrific teacher and super easy to understand. Really, guys, you should check her out because her videos are the best I've ever seen! One of her videos is a tutorial for fall floral nails, and I decided to try it out. Here is a link for the video: http://youtu.be/tsL1dvKSLj4

I have done floral nails before, and while there are many ways to create flowers on the nails, my favorite way to obtain abstract roses is Janelle's way, which I'll describe in a moment.

(Keep in mind that the instructions I'm giving you are all from Janelle's tutorial, and they're not my own--I simply switched the colors a bit.)

I started off by painting my thumb, pointer, and pinkie nails with a dark green polish. I used Sinful Colors Last Chance, a dark forest green crelly that doesn't creep into the black territory like most dark greens. It's a gorgeous color-- a must if you like green polishes! Beware, this color MAJORLY stains, so I would use two coats of base coat and steer clear of your cuticles! I think I did two or three coats.

I painted my middle and ring fingernails with Sinful Colors Beaches and Cream, a cream color with shimmer that doesn't show up on the nail, but gives it depth. I did three coats because it was a bit streaky.

Then, using Essie Big Spender (a berry-magenta) and Essie Tart Deco (a very orange-toned coral) I made big spots of color on my middle and ring nails using the brush. 

Then, I dipped a toothpick into the cream colored polish and swirled it with the dots to make roses. 

After that, I dipped another toothpick into the dark green and dabbed it onto the nail to make easy leaves. I learned this technique from videos by Cutepolish!

I finished with Essie Good to Go topcoat. 

I really love florals! Do you? Comment down below! See you soon!

XOXO

Is

OPI Fall 2014 Nordic Collection: My Picks

Today I'm going to share my picks from OPI's Fall 2014 Nordic collection with you, and how I wore them.

First up is Do You Have This Color in Stock-holm? This is a dark purple with strong blue undertones. I've seen a lot of swatches where this leans very blue, but it is definitively purple, but very cool-toned. It still manages to be bright and vivid while being dark! It applies perfectly, super-easy formula (not too thick or thin) with two easy coats. Can I just say that I love OPI's brush? It makes application SO easy and it's the perfect size and flexibility.

I paired this with an accent nail of Funky Fingers Sand and Stilettos, a really dense  silver holo glitter topper. One coat is better coverage than you'd think! 

Next up is My Dogsled is a Hybrid, a beautiful jade/seafoam green. It manages to be bright but muted at the same time! It's really a great pop of color for fall without being too loud. And the formula? This polish, I declare, has the best formula I have ever worked with. It just glides on quickly and easily with the help of OPI's ProWide brush, and the polish isn't too thick or thin, again. Two coats.

I wore this polish twice this week--that's how much I like it! I paired it the first time with an accent nail of Essie Beyond Cozy from their winter 2012 collection. (This was a lemming of mine for a while and I recently came upon it in a dusty nail supply store!) It's a gorgeous, sparkly, unique glitter that's opaque on its own on two coats. It's an interesting hue: a very cool-toned gold or a very warm-toned silver. Or platinum... Depending on your skin tone and the light, it can lean gold or silver. 

I'm also wearing this polish for the second time this week as I type this! I saw a beautiful look on Instagram by the super talented Mllr Design and I recreated it with slight modifications to suit my preference as my nail length. Here's the link to her original nail art on her blog: http://www.mllrdesign.com/?p=204

I used Sally Hansen I Heart Nail Art studs in gold and microbeads in copper and Capri. 

It's so pretty in the sun!

I've heard that the formula on all the polishes in this collections is fantastic, so I might go back for Suzi has a Swede Tooth and With a Nice Finn-ish. 

Do you like these polishes? Have you purchased any from this collection? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

XOXO

Is

Be There or Be Square!

In this case it's "be there or be round..."

Say hello!

The great debut of my Roundies. (Wearing OPI Bubble Bath with Wet n Wild's matte topcoat and two Sally Hansen I Heart Nail Art studs.) I enjoy this; yes I do. Subtly chic and trendy.

I broke a corner the other day, and Marta of Chit Chat Nails rounded off her nails too, so it seemed like a good time.

A comparison:

OPI Yodel Me on my Cell on my viciously angular square nails. 

And now for some round spam!

Essie Style Cartel topped with OPI Comet in the Sky. Like a galaxy! Ooh... Ahh...

Sinful Colors Cream Pink. Most certainly not a cream... It's a hot pink with warm undertones and subtle gold shimmer in direct light. Girly!

OPI Do You Have This Color in Stock-holm with an accent of Funky Fingers Sand and Stilettos. I loved this mani!

So there you go! Be there or be square, guys... Except my Roundies are no longer here, lol. I kinda didn't like them after a few days and switched to squoval by squaring off the tips. Ah, there's nothing like the indecisiveness of a nail junkie...

Until next time! What is your favorite nail shape?

XOXO

Is

Les Misérables Nails

¡Hola chicas! Today I have some Broadway-inspired nail art for y'all. My all-time favorite show is Les Misérables. The music is absolutely wonderful! My favorite songs from it change daily, but right now my favorite are On My Own, Master of the House, Red and Black, One Day More, and the Finale/Epilogue. 

I'm actually listening to One Day More now! 

Recently, I actually saw Les Mis on Broadway! It's come back since it was first shown years ago in 1985, and I got to see it! It was just as amazing as I thought it would be. The acting was fantastic, the set was awesome, and the music... *sigh* the music was just magical. Once the lights went on and the curtain closed after the show had finished, I sat in my seat for a good 5 minutes just thinking about it, and appreaciating the magical music. Once I brought myself back to reality, though, I went to get some autographs. ;) 

Before the show, I saw the movie, which I really liked! The music was great. Did you know that every song in the movie was sung right on set? No one did a recording! Amazing! Anne Hathaway was fabulous, I thought, and even though people said that Russel Crowe was awful, I really loved his voice! After I saw the movie, I created several Les Mis stations on Pandora Radio, and I listen to them every day! It's really nice to hear all different versions of the same soundtrack from different productions with different voices.

Obviously, for such an exciting occasion I had to do some Les Mis nail art! I used the cover of one of the albums I'd been looking at for months while listening to the music. This is what was on the playbill from the original production in 1985.

And here is what I came up with! 

On the pointer and pinky nails I created a black and white dry-brush. I started with a base of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On and then swiped an almost-dry brush of Sinful Colors Black on Black. These nails were created to imitate the black and white "scribbled" image of the girl (Cosette) on the original playbill. I then added a gold stud to the base of those nails from the Sally Hansen I Heart Nail Art Studs Kit using a dab of topcoat. This was to imitate the gold lettering on the playbill. Voila!

On the middle and ring nails I used diluted polish on a white base to imitate the smokey red and blue background on the playbill. First I started out with a white base (Sally Hansen White on White). Then, to create the smokey effect, I put a few drops of a dark red polish (Sinful Colors Race Rubber) onto a piece of tinfoil. Then, I added a few drops of acetone-based nail polish remover. Using a small flat paintbrush, I mixed these together to create a watered-down version of the red. Then, using that paintbrush, and dabbed this mixture onto the left thirds of my nails. I then cleaned my brush and repeated this with a dark blue polish (Essie Style Cartel) on the right thirds of my nails. Really, I did a bit more than one-third for each color, because I wanted there to be just a thin strip of white in the middle. It worked really well! The dilution of the colors made them a bit lighter than they are naturally, but it still turned out great, in my opinion. I love how well the smokey effect turned out! It looks just like the playbill to me.

I finished with topcoat, Essie Good to Go, and there you go! :)

My normal hand pose turned the colors upside down, but that's ok, because on the French flag it goes blue-white-red. Win-win!

Playbills are really a great source of inspiration for nail art! What is your favorite Broadway show? Do you like Les Mis? What's your favorite song? I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts in the comments! Thanks for reading, and have a lovely day! 

XOXO

Is

Gold and Black Half Moon Manicure

Hey guys! Ok, I'm going to share a little inconvenience about having really short, small nails. Those of you who have similar nails will relate. Are you ever looking around on YouTube and you find a really gorgeous nail art design you'd like to try, so you attempt it and then it's just... Asjkldhfgh. That was the case with me the other night, when I came across a design by ChristabellNails, one of my favorite nail artists on YouTube, called Gold and Lace. Here's a link for you: http://youtu.be/yadK_2WKGLo. Well, I attempted this, but with my nails being so short, the intricate design just wasn't working. So I removed it, but kept the other bare black and gold ones on, because I really liked the color combo. I wanted to do something simple that would work with short nails, and this is what I came up with!

I freehanded the gold moons and then used some topcoat to adhere the studs tone gold nails. I really like the simple gold half moons on black with the black studs, the studs really pull it all together.

Products used:

Black- Spoiled Visually Slimming

Gold- OPI All Sparkly and Gold

Studs- Sally Hansen I Heart Nail Art Studs kit

This mani just goes to show that just because your nails are small or short, doesn't mean you can't do some cute and easy nail art on them... And also, even if a design got a little messed up, you can improve it. 

XOXO

Is

Glittery Funky French feat. Orly Bubbly Bombshell

This mani was inspired by Erika from Chloe's Nails. Unfortunately, she doesn't post anymore, but her blog is treasure chest of nail art ideas, especially for those of you whose skills lie in tape and stamping rather than freehand. Erika's nails are perfectly squared off, which allows her to use regular Scotch tape to create her signature style, the funky French, usually with black tips. However, my nails aren't perfectly square, so having a perfectly straight tip looks kind of strange on my nails. However, my nails are a bit too square to use the reinforcement method (I showed you that technique in this post; however, it looks best on rounder nails, in my opinion). Finally I figured out how to get the perfect French tip for my nails: freehand it with a tiny brush! Lately I've been doing a lot of freehand work, so I had the idea to use a small brush, because that would be the easiest method for me. 

I started with two coats of Orly Bubbly Bombshell, a super dense, ultra sparkly fuchsia glitter (with the best name. So effervescent!). I actually saw this polish first on Erika's blog, and snapped it up at Sally's! I applied one coat of Essie Good to Go topcoat to smooth out he glitter and I then used Spoiled Visually Slimming and a thin paint brush for the black tips, which is actually Erika's go-to look, as you can gather from her blog. I finished off with one more coat of topcoat. Voila! My first funky French! I adore this look, and I'll definitely be attempting more of them in the future. I've already tried another combo out, Maybelline Impeccable Greys (medium gray) topped with China Glaze Fairy Dust (fine holo glitter topper) with Essie Fiji (light pink) tips. Swoon!

And now for some spam. ;)

Whats your method for creating French tips? Got any suggestions for me? What's your signature look? Comment down below! Thanks so much for reading.

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XOXO

Is

Chains Nail Art

Today I have a really edgy mani to show you. Combining matte black, silver, and chains creates a great punk look. Check it out:

I started with a base of Spoiled Visually Slimming and added a coat of Essie Matte About You. (Which I've spotted in CVS; it's about time it started going retail. Woo-hoo!) I then used a thin brush to paint silver chains zigzagging across my nails, so each chain kind of flowed into the next, making it a little more seamless. I used Essie No Place Like Chrome for the chains. I did not use topcoat for this mani. The contrast between the matte black and the metallic silver is so striking, I think, and the fact that the chains are kind of messy makes it so much more edgy.

What do you think of this mani? 

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XOXO

Is