Review

Shimmer Polish Review!

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Hello there!  How are you all on this fine day??  I'm doing well and am super excited to share with you my first ever swatch post!!!  At the end of September, Shimmer Polish contacted me asking to review some of her amazing glitter polishes.  I could NOT say no to this incredible opportunity.  

A few days later, 5 bottles of gorgeous, shimmery glitters arrived in the mail.  Sadly, while swatching, I had a horrible accident and broke one of the bottles.  Poor Jovie, it didn't stand a chance against the floor.  Such a pretty pink glitter also.  Sigh.  

Despite the tragedy, I'm able to bring you these four gorgeous glitters today!!!  Bear with my photos as this is my first ever swatching post and it was really capturing a polish versus capturing nail art.  Literally a whole new experience!

Bow Mani

Bow Manicure - Inspired by CaseyLane Loves Polish

9:00:00 AM


Hi polished world!  How are you on this fine Saturday morning?  I'm doing well, especially since I'm now able to share some of the manicures that I have been dying to share for so long now.  It's kind of bittersweet though since the manicures are awesome but the pictures aren't as great as I remember.  Maybe that's because my pictures are changing now that I'm in the lightbox and these are outdoor photos?  Who knows.  Just know I'm not 100% happy with the photos.

This manicure was inspired by one that my dear friend Casey from CaseyLane Loves Polish did before she started blogging.  I fell in love with the bow dotticure and HAD to copy.  The dots and bows went together so well with the amazing teal color.  I put it on a list of must do manicures then never got around to it.  After being out of ideas one night, I remembered this amazing manicure and decided it was the perfect time do try it!

Let's take a look.



Colors Used:
  • OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls
  • OPI - Can't Find My Czechbook
  • Orly - Liquid Vinyl
Adorable right?  The best part, the manicure looks extremely time consuming, but it really wasn't!!  To get the bows, I started off with a base coat of OPI - Cant Find My Czechbook, the most gorgeous dusty teal ever.  I'm so happy I purchased this polish despite having two colors which are practical dupes of it.  In my opinion, you can never have too many teal polishes.  When the base was dry, I create a large circle in the center of the nail with a dotting tool.  With a nail art brush, I drew the rest of the bow coming off the side of the circle.  After the bow was dried, I used my nail art brush and added the detail to the bow with black polish.

During the bow dry time, I dotted all my other nails using the random sizes of dotters.  Since I stink at the normal polka dot, and loved how Casey's nails looked, I did the many random sized dots all mixed together on the nail.

What do you think?  Liking the bows and dots?  Loving the color choice?

So happy I finally got to share this cute manicure with you all today!!!  Hope you have a great one!

Until next time, <3.

Tutorial

Fancy Schmancy Movember Tuxedo Men! + Tutorial

9:00:00 AM

Hey everyone!  How are you on this fine Wednesday?  It's supposed to be rather warm today and I have the day off, so I'm rather happy.  I'm going to use this day to put all the Christmas lights on the bushes that way I'm not out there in the 20 degree weather doing it.  Don't worry, I won't turn the lights on until after Thanksgiving.

Despite having a gazillion manicures to show you from before my Halloween manicure extravaganza, I've decided to share with you a cute little Movember manicure I still have on my nails!  I wasn't planning on posting these right away, but after sharing a sneak peek on Monday of these little guys during #madpropsmonday on Instagram, I thought I should put them up on the blog now!

I originally did these fancy schmancy Movember men on the neighbor's nails almost two years ago when I was just starting to paint nails.  She was dying to have mustaches and I had just seen a monocle man manicure so I gave her that option and she was in love.  To make them super fancy, I decided to do tuxedos as well.

Now that I have become a better nail artist, I decided this would be a good manicure to reattempt on my own nails for Movember.  Let's take a look!




Colors Used:
  • OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls
  • Color Club - Eternal Beauty, Over the Moon, Miss Bliss (Who wouldn't want holo bow ties?)
  • Orly - Liquid Vinyl and Jet Black Instant Artist

Tutorial Time!

Mustache Men

  1. Start off with a base coat of white polish
  2. With a medium sized dotting tool and black polish, create two dots for the eyes, then below the eyes, two connecting dots for the "body" of the mustache
  3. With a nail art brush or even a smaller dotting tool, extend two little lines from the mustache dots.
  4. From the tip of the mustache, connect the line back down to the bottom of the dot.
  5. Create the monocle by drawing a circle around one of the eyes with a nail art brush.  With a dotting tool, or even the nail art brush, create little dots to represent the chain that the monocle is connected to.  You could technically draw a curvy line if you would like
  6. With the nail art brush, draw a diagonal line over the other eye and add the top part of the top hat.
Tuxedos
  1. Start off with a base coat of white polish.  If you're feeling daring, you can create colored shirts.
  2. With any color polish, create a bow tie with a medium sized dotting tool.  To do so, I started with one dot in the center, then added two dots on each side.  In the end, it kind of looked like a bone, but it works very well for a bow tie also.
  3. With the same dotting tool, draw two dots down the nail to resemble the buttons on the shirt.
  4. With a striper or nail art brush, Draw two diagonal lines at the tip of the nail.  You can also draw two lines going up the nail beside the bow tie and buttons to represent suspenders. 
  5. Fill in the tip of the nail with the black polish.
Don't forget to finish off with your favorite top coat!  I topped mine with some Out the Door which is pictured here in my fancy schmancy bottle shot.  Now that I'm back to using my light box for the winter, I might as well do some bottle shots, right?


Overall, I'm in love with this manicure.  I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.  A lot of people asked me if they were stickers, and to me that is such a huge compliment.  I feel a lot of the time that my art is rather messy, or not 100% perfect, so when someone thinks that they're brand nail wraps, it's flattering.

What do you think?  Liking the fancy schmancy men?  Think you'll do them on your nails?

Hopefully next post I will share some manicures I keep talking about.  Maybe some galaxies or a kitchen sink? hmmm, decisions decisions.

Until next time, <3.


Nail Artist of the Month

November Nail Artist of the Month - Lovely Muggle Nails

9:00:00 AM


Happy November or Movember hehe.  How are all you today??  I've been off the past week, not feeling well and kind of burned out.  I actually haven't had nail art on my nails since Halloween, and those nails were painted last Monday.  That's right, I haven't busted out a dotting tool or nail art brush in almost a week.  Maybe tomorrow I'll feel up to doing a crazy design, or at least a dot manicure.

Since it's the first post of the month though, I'm not the one who is bringing you nail art today!  That's right, it's time to introduce you to yet another Nail Artist of the Month!  I'm pleased to introduce Tiffani from Lovely Muggle Nails!  I found Tiffani's Instagram account after I posted a few months ago looking for a new Nail Artist to feature.  I started following her personal account after seeing some of the nails she posted, and I knew I just had to feature her!

Enough of my babbling, let's all meet Tiffani!
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Hello! It was an honor to be asked by Alaina to be her nail artist of the month! She’s an absolutely amazing artist and I’m constantly inspired by her work. My name is Tiffani, I’m 25 and I live in the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico. I’ve been experimenting with nail art for about 3 years. I feel like it is such a great outlet for my creativity. I work in an office and it’s totally not my element. I would rather be outside with my dogs or in my small art room creating things. I love to water color, make hair pieces, crochet, sew, and of course paint nails! I’m always being inspired by so many things and also other artists.

A lot of my inspiration comes from the colors themselves. I love picking a palette and seeing where I go with it. After I’ve chosen the colors that I want to use in my manicure I will paint swatches on a piece of paper and play with ideas there. I use small brushes that I trim down to get the details in my manicures. I love working with super creamy opaque colors. 

I have natural nails and I change my nail shape often. I am a huge fan of every shape out there. Right now I have some shorties and I’m super enjoying them after having talons for so long. I feel like I can be less serious with short nails and can have more goofy nails. Hence the little man face on my pointer finger in this manicure. My favorite base coat is Nail Magic, it gives me awesome results, and for a top coat I switch between Sally Hansen’s line of fast drying top coats and Seche Vite.





I hope you like my manicure. My only goal was to use some fall colors. My thought process behind a lot of my manicures is pretty random. My little man was inspired by the art from mrcandiipants.

Thank you so much for this opportunity Alaina!

Blog- http://lovelymugglenails.tumblr.com/

Instagram (nails only) lovelymugglenails

Instagram (personal + nails) lovelymuggle

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I love this manicure so much because it just shows how talented Tiffani is.  She did so much and showed off so many different techniques.  She really, truly made her nails into little canvases!  

I just noticed that her little guys on her pointer fingers have mustaches on them, which make this post perfectly fitting for Movember!  I don't think that Tiffani realized it, but it's so perfect!  I love that I just noticed that!

Please head on over to Tiffani's Instagram & Blog to follow her!  You won't be sorry at all.  

Thank you so much Tiffany for this awesome post!!!

Until next time, <3.