Autumn Trees

Summer's just about to be in full swing, but I'm always ready for the fall! I'm not a fan of hot weather (unless I'm on the beach, that is) so I have some autumnal nails to distract from the heat.

See what colors I used after the jump!

Going Bananas

My stamping skills have definitely improved since I started this blog, and I have a really cool stamping manicure for you today! It's pretty Warhol-esque and I love it.

Bananas! When I was little people always tried to call me Hannah Banana, but I hated it and refused to let anyone call me that.

Anyway, onto the polish. I started with three coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mellow Yellow. I let that dry, then I used a Cheeky stamping plate and China Glaze Liquid Leather to stamp on the banana image.

As usual, everything's sealed in with a coat of Seche Vite.

I love this pattern and will definitely be using it again! I also totally recommend Cheeky brand stamping plates; they always give a really clean image and come in a cute little storage box

Lime Crime Splits and Studs

So sorry I haven't posted in so long! Finals came along and I got really busy, but I'm back :) I'll try to stick to more regular posting again.

Today I have some fun nail art featuring the Lime Crime polishes again.

To do this mani, I started by painting all of my nails in the lighter of the two colors I would use. So for my thumb, I painted it entirely yellow, my pointer blue, etc. I let all of that dry.

I was lazy (oops) so I didn't use tape for this mani. I painted another Lime Crime color over half of each nail. Then I used some silver square studs from the Born Pretty store and put them in the center of each nail. Added some top coat, then we're done!

The colors I used were all Lime Crime:

Orange: Peaches <3 Cream

Yellow: Crema de Limon

Green: Pastelchio

Blue: Once in a Blue Mousse

Purple: Lavendairy

I really, really love the Lime Crime polishes!

Black and Yellow Skittles

As you may or may not know, I go to college in the great steel town of Pittsburgh, PA. It's definitely an interesting place to live, and I have to say, I did miss it while I was abroad. And today's nails are unintentionally Pittsburgh colored skittles!

I started by painting all of my nails (except my ring fingers) with a base of Sun Kissed by China Glaze, a neon yellow. I used Liquid Leather by China Glaze for my ring fingers, then topped that with two coats of Humblebee by Ninja Polish. 

I used a makeup sponge for the gradient, a dotting tool on my pinky, and freehanded the stripes and flower.

Pittsburgh's sports culture is borderline obsessive - everyone here really loves their Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates (I personally am not a fan of their teams, but I digress). All of the teams share the same color scheme of black and yellow. Although I originally based my color scheme on the colors in Humblebee, my friends all commented about the Pittsburgh colors!

I have to say, I'm gonna miss this city when I graduate. And I do love the contrast of black and yellow.

Pink Lemonade Lightning

Sorry it's been so long since my last post! I recently moved back to Pittsburgh for the semester, and I guess I just let time get away from me.

Anyway, today's manicure features some lightning.

I started with a white base so the neon would really pop. I've been on the hunt for a new white polish, and I tried Essie Blanc. I did not like it. It was too thin and runny! But it did the job after three careful coats. Then I used China Glaze Hang-Ten Toes for all of my fingers except the ring finger. On that one, I used China Glaze Sun-Kissed.

For the accent nail, I let the yellow dry, then I used tape and Hang-Ten Toes to make the lightning bolt. On the rest of my fingers, I used Elevation Polish in Huangshan which is a very unique yellow glitter.

It's filled with iridescent hexes and matte neon yellow hexes and circles.

The mix of colors reminds me of pink lemonade. I think this mani came out pretty cute!

Serum No. 5: Day Glow

As you may or may not know, I am a complete child on the inside. So obviously the whimsy of anything glow-in-the-dark greatly appeals to me, especially when it's in nail polish form. I owned a few glow polishes already, but I heard that Serum No. 5's Day Glow was the glow-in-the-dark polish. Naturally, I had to have it.

Day Glow is that pale yellow color that I associate with glow-in-the-dark stuff. I layered three coats of it over white to make it even.

The formula was okay; a little difficult but nothing too bad. And it's totally worth it for the glow on this polish. I "charged" it under a light for like fifteen seconds, then took the following picture:

It glows spectacularly! I couldn't stop staring at my nails when I was trying to sleep, ha! And the glow lasted quite a while too.

Overall I'm very pleased with this polish, and I definitely want to buy the rest of Serum No. 5's glow polishes!

You can purchase Serum No. 5 on their website or their Etsy shop.

Snow Globe Skittles

Welcome to another Throwback Thursday! These nails are a little messy, but that just shows how far I've come since then. But I love how the glitter looks here anyway.

Starting with my thumb, the green is OPI in Gargantuan Green Grape, glue is Essie is Coat Azure, Purple is ORLY in Frolic, yellow is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mellow Yellow, and lilac is Essie in Lapiz of Luxury. They're all topped with a coat of China Glaze Snow Globe.

Thanks for reading :)

Throwback Thursday: Yellow Polka Dots

Here's another Throwback Thursday post for you!

I have to say, I love polka dots. They're such a fun and easy way to spice up a plain manicure! For this one, I used a base of Caribbean Coral by Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear and used a dotting tool to add dots in Mellow Yellow, also by Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear.

Thanks for reading :)

Harry Potter Nail Art: Revisited (Plus Hogwarts Crest Tutorial)

Sorry for the lack of posts lately! I've had a really busy week. On Monday and Tuesday I was in London, then Wednesday was my 21st birthday! Thursday was a bit of a recovery day, haha. But anyway, I'm really excited about the nail art I have to show you today.

On Tuesday, my friends and I went to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour! I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan, so I knew I had to do some nail art for the occasion.

This post is pretty picture heavy, so you can see the rest (and the tutorial) after the jump!

Feathers and Skittles

Nails Inc. recently came out with some new, limited edition Feather Effects polishes. The polishes are filled with teeny tiny bar glitters suspended in a clear base that mimic the appearance of feathers. I saw the polishes on display recently, but since they're kinda expensive, I decided to just buy my favorite one: Chester.

Like I said, Chester is a bunch of tiny bar glitters in a clear base. It has turquoise, orange, and yellow glitters, so I decided to use Chester for accent nails and add some nail art to my other nails using those same colors. Chester was easy to apply, but I wish it was a little bit more glitter dense.

I never did any proper Easter nails since I was travelling over the holidays, so I did something a little Easter-y! I used Barry M Gelly Hi Shine in Greenberry and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed and Mellow Yellow to do the nail art. I used a dotting tool for the dots, and I freehanded the rest with a medium length striping nail art brush.

I believe I used 3 coats of Chester over one coat of Greenberry, and as you can see, it's still just shy of being entirely full coverage.

I think they came out super cute and appropriate for spring!

Glitter Accent Fishtails

I tried a new (for me) type of manicure today: the fishtail. Also known as a braided mani. Either way, it's simple to do and looks awesome. (Side note: these are the last of the iPhone photos! I got another new camera - same model as last time. But this time it's red!)

I followed a tutorial from Lucy's Stash, which you can find here, because explaining this in words will be difficult. But basically, you paint your nails a base color, and then you paint overlapping diagonal stripes. You use 3 colors total. It's really easy, it just takes a bit of patience! It's also best to use colors that are pretty opaque so you don't have to go over each stripe a million times.

The colors I used are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mellow Yellow and Sun Kissed, and Milani One Coat Glitter in Purple Gleam. It's all sealed with a coat of Seche Vite, as usual.

I really like the fishtail technique! I'll definitely be doing it again. It's an easy way to incorporate several colors into your mani which is always a plus. It also makes a great accent nail if you don't have the time or patience to do a full mani.

Neon Puzzle Pieces

I have some really fun nail art for you today - neon puzzle pieces! I'm quite proud of how these came out. And as an added bonus, they're really bright, which is just how I like my nail polish.

There are more pictures than usual, so you can see the rest after the jump :)

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.

Day 3: Yellow

I've certainly had a busy weekend - I was on call for work, and I also came down with a terrible cold :( But I'm feeling a bit better now despite my incredibly raspy voice. Onto the nails:

The theme of Day 3 is yellow! This mani turned out to be almost as much purple as yellow, but oh well.

I started out with three coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mellow Yellow. I started this mani with the intention of doing a glitter gradient with a stamped accent nail, but that's not really what happened.

I used a makeup sponge to add Milani One Coat Glitter in Purple Gleam to my tips. I decided I didn't really like how it looked on its own, so I added a little bit of Another Heart Breaks by Dandy Nails onto the gradient.

I originally wanted to do a stamping accent nail. I tried stamping a pattern on with Sexy Divide by Essie, but I decided it was too light. So I redid my finger with a yellow base and freehanded some swirls with a striping brush. Then on a whim, I added some dots of Purple Gleam to all of my nails.

Also, my new light box came in! I had fun playing around with it. I think I need to get some better lights though. It's kind of a pain to set up every time I want to take pictures, but it's also nice that it folds up for storage. I don't wanna take up too much room; I do have roommates after all!

The next day's theme is green. But I don't know - I think I might do every other mani as a challenge mani. I just have so many indies that I want to try out! At that rate, it'll be slow going with this challenge, but I really did it for some inspiration for nail art.

Happy Hands: Flowers On The Highway

I have another indie for you today. This one is by Happy Hands; it's called Flowers On The Highway.

Flowers On The Highway is a glitter topcoat. It contains an assortment of matte/satin glitters: small pink and black hexes; medium green, lavendar, and pink hexes; and large yellow and white hexes. I love the name of this one. It really does remind me of flowers growing wildly along the highway!

Glitter close-up

I decided to layer this over one of my new polishes: Kalahari Kiss by China Glaze. Kalahari Kiss is a camel creme. I used two coats of that, then added just one coat of FOTH. Look at how dense that glitter is!

It did take some dabbing to get the bigger hexes where I wanted them. They had a tendency to migrate to the end of the nail, but I was able to move them around.

Even though it did require some dabbing, I didn't have to fish for any of the bigger glitters! What you see on the nail is what came out on the brush. I topped it off with one coat of Seche Vite. My nails feel a little bumpy (if that bothers you, I'm sure another coat of top coat would smooth it out), but the glitter lays flat to the nail.

Thumb detail

Overall, I'm really impressed with this polish! There are so many layering possibilities. I can't wait to try out the other polish I purchased along with this one. It's called Afternoon Thunderstorms.

Happy Hands polish can be purchased from their Etsy store. Full-sized bottles go for $8.00, a pretty good price for an indie brand!