Lisa Frank Nails: Zebra Shark

As semi-promised (though mostly stated), I have started going thru my stack of Lisa Frank stickers looking for inspiration. This look is from the shark stickers (see below). I have no idea if the shark had a name ever, but I took the zebra print from the backround behind the stickers and the various bubbles from the water.

Now to be completely honest, I am not 100% sold on this mani. It feels very cluttered to me, so I am thinking back to the drawing board to find a better way to represent the Zebra Shark. For a first try its not bad. I am really thinking true bubbles next time and lighter cream polishes for the two tone transition behind the zebra print.

But, for anyone who may be interested in what I did on this first try here we go. First I took OPI Ogre-the-top Blue and uncarefully laid it on the bottom half of my nails.

Next I took OPI Jade is the new Black and uncarefully laid it on the other half of the nail creating a two tone effect. I actually like my nails how they are here alone before I added the other elements. I think I might do this again at some point and stipple a lighter inbetween shade along the center.

Once the blue and green were completely dry, I took my Konad plate m57 and used pastel pink, violet purple and green from konad to make the zebra stripes. After I laid down a coat of Seche Vite top coat. Then I took a tooth pick and placed the dots with white and konad pastel blue. I more than likely would have done another coat of top coat, but I just wasnt feeling the design and took everything off the next day. I tried this almost a week ago... this weekend I plan on trying another idea for this sticker look. Either way I will post my findings.

Blingtastic holos

Yea my title choice is lame... whatever. Last night I was kinda bored... and I had started a mani the other day with my China Glaze Swing Baby from the Vintage Vixen collection but I got inturpted and the next day I helped tear an engine out of a car.

Needless to say my mani was trashed by the end of the day. Today I did a ton of house work and laundry which trashed it even more. So I have decided to just give up on my previous idea and try out a polish I have seen tons of raves on.

I bought the Milani 3D polish in HD along with a bunch of them a few weeks back. Have not gotten around to playing with this specific color yet, so I did a mani with the silverish shade and my Konad plate m65.

Now sadly I ran out of Seche Vite on my last mani... or shall I say I was so close to being out I scraped what I could out of the bottle and threw it out. Need to make a trip to Sally's or Ulta this week. So I am currently stuck with an old bottle of Sally Hansen Inta-Dri Top Coat. I am surprised that it doesnt smear the konad, as I have used other Sally Hansen Top Coats while visiting friends and doing their nails (yeah I get forgetful sometimes and forget all my supplies) and have had many problems with Konad designs getting messed up from brush drag. So I would say this specific top coat would be a good alturnative if I werent already in love with seche vite.

End result: I think I love this look. And this polish is AWESOME. The pictures I have seen just do not do it justice. Even my pictures here dont. It really has an amazing holo effect to it. I did use the yellow 3D milani color in a previous look but not by itself. May be a future nail look will be calling me to it.

Indian Summer

This look was really easy. Alot of the things I do have a few steps and take me large amounts of time to get right ect... this was basically just thrown together.

First off I love the colors from the new china glaze vintage vixen collection. I personally only picked up two of the colors when I visited Sally's the other day. Alot of the colors are really pretty but I felt like I already had something similar to many of the shades. The brown I used in this look is from the Vintage Vixen Collection. This color is called Goin' my way?. The other I picked up is called Swing Baby, and I have a strong feeling I will be wearing it in my wedding next year.

So as per my usual nail routine, I used a basecoat and then two coats of Goin' my way?.

Next I busted out my Konad. I got m77 awhile back and have loved the designs on it but never have taken the time to really use them. Something about fall almost being here, and the summer sun still being out all combined with the two fall colors I bought made me think of indian summers. The feathers on this plate just felt right. So i took my konad special polish in silver and made various feather patterns all over my nails. Many of my nails were stamped two or three times with the image turned in various ways.



End result, a cute and somewhat classy look. I normally tread toward wild and crazy but this just fit my mood. Oh and as always I put a single layer of Seche Vite top coat to seal everything up.

Rising Sun

Every now and then (ok more often than I should admit really)a song will inspire me to do my nails or makeup a certian way. Muse was to blame for this look. I was rocking out to a random playlist with heavy rotation of Muse tracks last weekend and this look formed in my head. The fact that the song was "house of the rising sun" couldnt have had ANYTHING to do with it *shifty eyes*.

To get my base color I took LemonGello by Milani and put two coats over a base coat. Next I did one coat of 3D by Milani on top of that and let everything dry for about ten minutes. I am sure it could have been less time but I have a horrible addiction to apps on Facebook and ended up having to shift change my resturaunt. Yes yes... I probably need help or something.

Once my nails were more than dry enough, I grabbed my Konad plate S6. This look could be done without the Konad with a very steady hand (but im a bit lazy when i have this at my finger tips).

Taking three special polishes I did a line of black, then red, then yellow on the design I chose. Scraping in the same direction as i painted the lines so that the colors would have minimal color mixing. I grabbed my double sided stamper and used the large side to pick up the design. I oriented the stamper so that black would be closest to my cutical and rolled it across my nail.

Last as always, I took my top coat to seal everything in and make a nice shine over my nails. I personally love SecheVite for Konad designs. It doesnt drag or smear the stamped art like alot of others have a tendency to do. Ive been using Seche Vite for a long time, before I ever even started using the konad system. So I have never bothered to invest in Konads top coat.

Lisa Frank Nails: Leopard

First off, I CANNOT take credit for this at all. As with most things I was inspired by someone else and ran with their idea and tweeked it. So please pay attention and realize that Sayanythingbr00ke (see video right below) from youtube posted a video on this idea, which was then reposted by xsparkage and now is being passed on by muah!



Ok with that disclaimer out of the way, I have to say I LOVE this look. Though I wasnt as impressed with the way brookes nails turned out. Maybe I am bias, but I just found the holo nail polish too much off base from the stickers. This is my own opinion though and you should take it with a grain of salt. Br00ke herself says you can use any color combination.. well that exactly what I did.



I somehow actually have the stickers Br00ke talks about in her video. Yeah I am a total 80s child. I think I may actually do a series of nail inspired looks based on these stickers after going thru them. They are alot of fun and very colorful. As you can see the stickers are not holo at all, they are in fact matte. Which is why I went the cream polish route with my own nails.

The colors I went with in my own look are (from left to right): Ogre-the-top blue, Entourage, Do You Lilac it?, You're Such a kabuki queen. I would strongly suggest alternating colors and not making every nail look exactly the same. I have seen pictures of others who have done Br00kes look in this manner and I can see the stripes easily where as if you have the colors differently on each nail, the eye has a harder time focusing on the lines and it looks more tie-dye with leopard on top. I would even say if you are daring make small shapes of color instead of lines to break things up.

In my look I used Konad plate m57. I bought my konad from wowsocool.com I used the black konad special polish and the large side of my double sided stamper. In many of my nail looks in the future I will be using this exact system to achive many nail looks. For the lisa frank look this system is not needed though.

A konad plate can be used to achieve this look easily, but if you do not have one, take a tooth pic and any dark nail polish. You do not have to use black for this. Let your creativity flow. As you can see from the stickers the original design was lighter colors with a deep dark purple on top. With the tooth pic (or if you have a double ended nail tool use that) make a "c" and then a backwards "c" oposite from it with the dark nail polish. If what I just said is confusing just watch this video. Just do NOT do a spot before making the two "c" patterns. I personally feel the smaller the better with this particular look. Start watching the video at about 4:04 to skip past a bunch of un-needed info for this particular look.

So go enjoy some fun funky 80s-ish nails. Change this look up however you see fit and dont forget to comment. Would love to see how others interpert this design and change it up even.

Im revamping my whole blog

So after ignoring this blog for soo long, and completely having no passion for blogging for just as long, I have decided to revamp this blog completely. I think I now have something to actually blog about that isnt myself, my kids yada yada yada. Soo typical crap stuff that no one really cares about unless they are cyber stalking you trying to find out info.

So that being said... over the next week or so this blog is going to become my nail blog. Everything related to one of my passions NAIL POLISH! Now i know tons of people have nail blogs and how to tips. But i seldom find amazing info. I have a few book marked pages but I may have a slightly different slant on a blog of this type. We will see.

So to anyone who may possibly still view this blog, you have been warned now. If you arent interested in a blog about nail polish and design (more than likely the occasional makeup review or tips as well) then you may want to delete me.