Valentine’s Day Nail Art

Some Polishes Provided for Review

Hello All my Lovely Readers! Today I’m using my stash to create a fun Valentine’s Day inspired mani. But, because I didn’t go all heart crazy it will work for just about any time! I used a fun and easy nail art technique that can be used with any combination of polishes.

I used three polishes for this nail art look. MOD Lacquer – Baby Flamingo, Northern Star – Protego Totalum, and Crows Toes – Edgy Ocean Blue. I’ve reviewed all of these before so I won’t go into that in this post.

Crows Toes – Edgy Ocean Blue, Northern Star – Protego Totalum, MOD Lacquer – Baby Flamingo (Left to Right)

The first step was the base color. For the base of my mani I used MOD Lacquer – Baby Flamingo. I used two coats to give it a nice base for my upcoming nail art:

MOD Lacquer – Baby Flamingo

Next I used a latex barrier around my cuticles because I knew things were going to get messy. I used Digital Nails – Questionable Browser History, though I do not think that it’s available any longer. Latex barriers are pretty easy to find these days though and there are a lot of good ones on the market!

Nail Art Preparation

Then using a fan brush I started adding the detail. I got this brush for a set off Amazon, you can find them pretty easily and they don’t cost a lot of money:

Fan Brush

To create my art I started by putting a several drops of Northern Star – Protego Totalum on my silicone mat and I dipped the tip of the fan brush in it. I then swiped it across my nails to create stripes. After I did all of my nails with Protego Totalum I went back and cleaned the brush in acetone and then put several drops of Crows Toes – Edgy Ocean Blue on my silicone mat and followed the same process right over the stripes I made earlier:

Valentine’s Nail Art Progress

I was glad I did use the latex barrier, reds and blues are particularly hard to clean up off of skin. This way all I had to do was peel most of it away and then touch up just a tiny bit around the edges!

I topped everything off with Ciate Gelology Top Coat that I got in my Ipsy Bag last month. I thought I would try it out because it’s supposed to be super shiny, squishy, and hard wearing. It doesn’t dry as fast as a quick dry top coat but it does dry super shiny! I don’t know about the wear yet but if it doesn’t provide at least several days wear I will update this post!

Valentine’s Day Nail Art

There you have it a quick, fun, and EASY nail art look that is perfect for Valentine’s day or any time!

Valentine’s Day Nail Art

Boom Shaka Lacquer is Back

Feb9

This is gonna be a short post. And while this particular post won’t have any pretty polishes or nail art it will have an explanation for my absence and some things to look forward to. Also, I’d love your input as well if there’s something that you’d like to see let me know and I’ll see what I can do to fulfill those requests!

Back in May around the time of my last post I was having a serious bout of blogger burnout and I sort of was letting things slide a bit. I planned some posts and did some nail art but I just couldn’t get it to come together. I needed a break and badly.

In July, my aunt (who is disabled and I am caregiver for) had a serious heart attack. Needless to say this rocked my/our world in more ways that can be imagined. She’s recovering well, but we had a rocky time. About the time things started to look up with her health it was the holidays…well that’s never a good time to get back to blogging what with all the other holiday shenanigans going on.

But, lately I’ve been doing my nails more, doing more nail art, and even posting on Instagram some (as many of you may have noticed). Most importantly, I’ve missed all my lovely readers!

I have some travel coming up this summer so I’m on a pretty serious no-buy BUT I have a huge stash of polish and quite a bit that I’ve never shown you. So I will be challenging myself to use and blog my stash for you all. This means you’ll see more nail art, some LEs and discontinued polishes (which you may be able to find on the second-hand market), and some things that never made it to the blog before.

What would you like to see? Do you want me to test nail art techniques or tutorials and tell you my thoughts on how easy or hard they may be? Do you want to see my fails as well as my successes? I promise you I fail hard at nail art sometimes! Let me know in the comments.

The Switching Post – Featuring Polished Pathology!

May1

Hello my lovely readers! I’m so delighted to be bringing you another installment of the blogger collaboration, The Switching Post! This month I’m switching with one of my dear friends and an absolutely astounding blogger, Polished Pathology. Seriously, if you don’t follow her already, then definitely follow the links at the bottom of the post to go check out more of her awesome posts! Let’s get right down to her post now oh and if you’re looking for mine, well you’ll just have to head on over to her blog!
Hello all! I’m Jenne with Polished Pathology, and I’m switching with Karel this month! We decided to focus on more a fashion theme, and this is the picture we chose:

Isn’t that outfit gorgeous?

When I was looking for colors to match this photo, I realize that I must hate burgundy colors…because I have almost ZERO!I managed to find some that were similar to the photo above. I used the following:

Zoya Nail Polish in Sam

OPI Nail Lacquer in Pepe’s Purple Pasion

China Glaze in Ruby Pumps

In order to get this look, I decided to use my Border Patrol latex from Girly Bits Cosmetics. I swooped it over my base color, which was two coats of Zoya Sam.

Then, I did one layer of OPI’s Pepe Purple Passion, waited a minute or so, and then one layer of Ruby Pumps. I easily peeled off the latex, then I added a coat of HK Girl. This is my final result!

I think if I had given myself more space to use the glitter, it would be more contrasting, but I also really like how subtle it is. I really like how Ruby Pumps blended in with the colors! What do you guys think? Thanks for visiting, and be sure to follow both Karel and I on social media, and if you’d like to be a part of The Switching Post series, look us up on Facebook!

Polished Pathology Blog | Facebook Page | Instagram

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The Switching Post – Featuring The Fancy Side

Mar24

Hello all my lovely readers! I have something that has been in the works for a little while finally ready to go. Some time ago I decided to get together with some other bloggers to create a new collaboration. Each month we will pair off and Switch Posts. Today is a post courtesy of Amy from The Fancy Side blog and she will have a post from lil’ ole me! I think this is going to be a lot of fun and I hope ya’ll like this as much as we have enjoyed switching. So let’s see what Amy has in store for us today. Welcome to the very first

Hi All, I’m Amy from over at The Fancy Side! I’ve been blogging for a little over 4 years now about all kinds of polish from indie to mainstream. I’m excited to be switching posts with Karel today, to bring you some fun neon nails. We decided to do a bright anti-pastel look because we tend to get overwhelmed with pastel nails around these days.

For today’s look, I put together a cute but BRIGHT in your face neon pink look. I started with a base of Morgan Taylor Pink Flame-ingo and then got my Russian nail artist on by adding a needle drag marble center in the each of nail. The drags were done with Cirque Colors PLUR a bright neon holographic pink.

The Fancy Side – Neon Pink Nail Art

I hope you’ve enjoyed our first Switching Post. You can check out the links to everyone else below, including Karel’s post over at my blog. She’s an overachiever and did two cool looks, so be sure to pop over and check them out!

Enjoy & until next time, Amy Lee

The Fancy Side

Blog | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

There you have it my dearest readers, our first switch is complete! Be sure to check out the InLinkz below to see other bloggers trade places for a day. Also, if you haven’t already why don’t you go show Amy some love and visit her on Social Media! Let me know how ya’ll like this new feature, you know I always love to hear from ya’ll!

Until next time, dear readers, may your days be filled with Glitter and Flakies!

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Boom Shaka Lacquer

For Indie Nail Polish Addicts, by an Indie Nail Polish Addict

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Valentine’s Day Nail Art

Boom Shaka Lacquer is Back

The Switching Post – Featuring Polished Pathology!

The Switching Post – Featuring The Fancy Side