Nautical Skittles + Anchor Tutorial

I've been such a bad blogger lately! Sorry about that - I've been really busy with friends and my internship. I have a tutorial to make up for it :)

Nautical skittles! I really wanted to try out vertical lines, and it made me think of a nautical theme so I did an anchor accent as well. Here's the tutorial for how to freehand an anchor:

It's pretty straightforward, really.

For my thumb and middle finger, I used a base of China Glaze Sea Spray then topped it with two coats of Candeo Colors Divebomb. For my index finger and pink, I started with a base of OPI Goldeneye. I let that dry completely, then I used striping tape and China Glaze First Mate to create the vertical stripes.

For the anchor nail, I started with a base of China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise and used a makeup sponge to add a gradient of Goldeneye. I freehanded the anchor using First Mate and a striping brush. All of my nails are sealed with Seche Vite for smoothness and shininess :)

I really love how these turned out! Vertical stripes really appeal to me, and I think my accent nail is especially cute.

Candeo Colors: Jellybean

You know what I love? Jellybeans (specifically Jellie Bellies, but I digress). Today's polish is inspired by those fruity candies. It's called, you guessed it, Jellybean by Candeo Colors.

Jellybean is a pastel yellow creme loaded with satin hex glitters in blue, peach, and lavender. There are some tinier square glitters in there as well.

I used two coats of Jellybean on its own to achieve full opacity. It went on well, and I had no problems with the glitters. They distributed evenly and without any fuss. The base is sheer enough that the first layer of glitter still shows through, which I like!

This polish reminds me of Easter! I think it's really lovely. Candeo Colors is available on their own website or from Llarowe.

Halloween Nails: Gypsy/Pirate

I didn't actually dress up on Halloween this year, but I did dress up for Halloweekend, aka the weekend closest to Halloween where college students dress up and throw parties. I hate spending money on costumes, so I came up with ideas that were relatively easy to dress up as. I was a gypsy the first night, and the second night my friends and I dressed up as the characters from Peter Pan. I was Captain Hook :) I decided to do nails that could work for both costumes. They needed to be glittery and over the top. So I came up with these!

These (sadly) are iPhone pictures as well, so I apologize for any lack in quality! Anyway, I started out with a base of Midtown Magic by China Glaze, an almost black brown with lots of different color shimmer. Then I used a makeup sponge to add a few layers of a glitter gradient. I started with Another Heart Breaks by Dandy Nails, then I added Divebomb by Candeo Colors, and finally topped those off with Batman by Daring Digits. I loved how it looked just like that, but I decided to go bigger.

I pulled out some rhinestones that I purchased from the Born Pretty store online and added them to every nail. I picked colors that complimented the colors of the glitter, too. I think the rhinestones gave this mani the extra drama it needed for Halloween!

I'm a big fan of dramatic Halloween makeup, so these nails were a lot of fun for me to do! My friends and I had a great time, and we took lots of great pictures :)

Here's me as Captain Hook:

Hope you all had a great Halloween as well - even if this is a bit late!