BEAUTIFY: I Still Always Think of Men When I Hear the Word "Ombré"

I MAEK GOOD FOTO THIS TYME!! YYYAAAAAYYY!!!111!!!

        But some of my nails broke so they're starting to look a bit stumpy all around...GRR!!  My fabulous spouse-man bought me this ombré set of five purple polishes just because he got them in at work and he knew I'd like them!  He sent me a pic of all the color choices and said "Pick one."  D'aww, he's so sweet!  I asked if his assistants tease him at work for buying so much nail polish... because really they should.  HAHA!

        This is just a rehash of my Pop Art Girly Freak Out nails but with a better quality photo so you can actually see what's going on:  DOTS GALORE!!  I keep coming back to this style because IT IS SO EASY TO DO.

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BEAUTIFY: Triangle Man, Triangle Man...

        I'm gonna go ahead and say it:  I have attempted this manicure several times before and it always ends in FAIL.  I've tried using triangle-shaped tape decals, a mini paint brush, and have now had mild success with using a tape stencil as a guide.  I had higher hopes (and more detail) in mind for this but ended up so frustrated that my lines STILL weren't perfectly straight that I just left them like this.  I know, it's not the worst, but I'm a little OCD and these crooked triangles kinda bug me.  At least the colors complement each other and my skin well; I still think it's funny that I actually really like to wear gold now.  It all started with my wedding ring... I had to have nail polish to match it!  I still love all things silver, but this past year has been all about change and I'm more than willing to dive head first into something new... even when that something is as simple as adding a new color to my wardrobe.

        As an added bonus, here is Particle Man by They Might Be Giants.  I was trying to think of a title for this post and this silly song popped into my head, so I went with it.  And if you actually remember seeing this on Tiny Toons, there is a high possibility that we could be friends.

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BEAUTIFY: Blue Valentine!

        Okay, so maybe that's a bad title because all I think about is that terribly sad but also very beautiful movie starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams.  Haven't seen it?  Go rent it already!  (I think it's on Netflix right now too.)  But be prepared to cry your face off for the rest of the day!  (Or is that just me?)  Anyway, here is my version of the stupidly cute Valentine's day manicure that everyone loves to do!  (It's not everyone you say?  Just dorks like me?  Hey, YOU'RE the one still reading this post, so... )  I think this is the fanciest I've made my nails look yet and it was surprisingly pretty easy to do.

        First I painted my nails blue, and while they were drying I painted some scotch tape with the darker polish I was going to cut into strips for the stripes... try saying that five times fast!  I got the idea to paint tape with polish here.  Note:  I would've linked to the site it's actually on, but when clicking through on Pinterest, the picture didn't link to the post with the tutorial and the site was loading terribly slow on my computer so I gave up searching.  Sorry.  You'll just have to forgive my bad netiquette this time.  Once the polish was dry on the tape, I cut it into little slivers and stuck it to my nails.  This was probably the hardest part because I had trouble cutting them all the same width.

        I then fished around in one of the lovely new heart glitter polishes the husband gave me as a gift for V-Day and stuck those itty bitty hearts on top of the stripes with my ulta high-tech, homemade nail dotter tool!  (It's really just a mechanical pencil with a pin stuck in the end... STAY CLASSY!)  The extra glitter on my ring finger is from the polish I'm holding:  Rainbow in the S-Kylie by Nicole.  Pro tip:  Ulta makes a glitter polish that is almost identical to this one and it's cheaper!  I very rarely buy nail polish that costs more than about $3, but when I do it's because I either have a coupon or I just absolutely, positively NEED that specific color.  A lot of the nail art blogs I come across all use the super-cool, custom blended stuff they find online, but I honestly just don't have and can't justify spending as much money as they do on polish.  So if you're looking to make your nails pretty for cheap, you've found the right blog!  But if you're too fancy to use dollar store polish, well... can you send me money?  Hahahah

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BEAUTIFY: Pop Art Girly Freak Out!

        Why was the only photo I took of this manicure done with my stupid phone camera?  It's only my FAVORITE color combo and design I've made for my nails thus far!  DUH!  So why would I want to take a decent photo of THAT?!

The universe holds many mysteries and stupid things...

        It's February and I'm feeling all happy and loved, so I thought I'd go with some pastel girly pink!  But me being me, I couldn't survive with pink alone, so plop! plop! plop! I added some splashes of turquoise, navy, fuchsia, and yellow with my handy-dandy nail dotter.  (It's made from a mechanical pencil with a pin stuck in the eraser. DIY FTW!)

Next time I'll remember to take better pictures.

P.S. - No, I am NOT watching Downton Abbey back there...

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BEAUTIFY: The NAIL FAIL Files!

        Yucky yuck yuck ew!  I decided to try out the nail marbling trend at home which resulted in very mild success.  At least I was a source of entertainment for my hubby who watched as I unceremoniously stuck my fingers into strange, swirly liquids, hoping for the best.  I think I did a decent job not turning my hands into a globbly nail polish mess thanks to the tips from others who have tried this (put tape your fingers or use vaseline, etc.), but it seems almost inevitable that you WILL make some kind of a mess during this process...

Like this!  (from http://www.emybloom.com)

        Thankfully the polish is only a very thin layer, so it's not that hard to clean off.  The designs came out pretty cool on my nails but I had some problems with bubbles and wrinkling on the edges where my nails meet my skin.  Overall it was fun but slightly tedious and I feel like I was using a lot of nail polish for just one nail at a time.  I think I might be happier if I practice this and experiment with proper color combinations because the white base looked really bad with the colors I chose.  (I picked a white base because most of the tutorials suggested that.)  I will totally attempt this again at some point.

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