Mini Divas Star & A New Favorite Nail Art Manicure

This is 3 coats of Mini Divas Star. I found this one at the Dollar Tree. The formula is just okay but I love the results! Beautiful sky blue creme that got me tons of compliments.

I got the idea for this manicure back ion November when I did this one. I used my smARTNails stickers to create a rising sun, half moon manicure. I love it!


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April Read Full...

Dexter, Blood Spatter, Halloween Nails

I finally got around to it! I've been thinking of doing this since I first did some splatter nails way back in March for this post. I think think this is my favorite, foolproof Halloween nail look. It's almost impossible to screw up; anybody who doesn't mind a little mess can easily pull this off!

I had Will fling the polish again but there have been some amazing techniques figured out by my fellow polish bloggers. Please be sure to take a look at all of these gorgeous blood splatter nails too!

• First we have Polish-Aholic's straw technique! Great idea!
• Next we have Nevertoomuchglitter's gorgeous version. She used a flesh colored base and a fan brush with amazing results!
• And last, but certainly not least, we have iPolished's floss pick technique! Simply brilliant!

Remember these techniques can all produce beautiful manicures with other colors too.

Thanks for reading!
April Read Full...

Franken Fail, Paintball, Goofy Will & Nail Art!

Will & I played paintball last weekend and it was super fun! I've never been before but I can't wait to go again. I got the prettiest bruise ever on my thigh and Will shot me in the hand. The hand shot was hard enough to blast off some of my nail polish!

I didn't have enough time to completely redo my nails before we went out that night, so I used my smARTnails sticker stencils and China Glaze Ruby Pumps to hide the damage. Someday soon I'll have to use this sticker stencil for making comic book style word bubbles. POW! The base color is my first attempt at frankening a dupe for RBL 360 which is a dusty teal. This one is way too bright!

This next picture is just ridiculous! I was half asleep when we left for paintball and didn't check Will's outfit like I normally do. Believe me it's necessary! We stopped at QuikTrip for gas, I looked up and saw this coming towards the car. That's one of my wife beaters!! Geez Will. You can see more funny Will in this post.


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April Read Full...

Essence Everybody's Talking About & Nail Art

I unexpectedly loved Essence Everybody's Talking About! I've already worn it twice because it just seems like a great summer color. I paired it with Essie Mint Candy Apple and one of my beloved smARTnails sticker stencils for this manicure. One of my favorite manicures for some reason!

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April Read Full...

World Cup Germany vs Spain

I didn't really care who won yesterday's World Cup match. Both teams are good but I never developed any strong feelings for either team. I had a good idea for German nails so I just went with that. This is my tribute to the German Machine, as people have been calling them during this tournament. I love how this one turned out!

I used American Apparel Hassid as a base for all of my nails except for the flag. I used a Tic Tac Red for that one. The next morning I cut a piece of painter's tape to block off the red stripe and painted the rest of the flag with Hassid and American Apparel Manila. Then I used more of my awesome smART Nails sticker stencils & China Glaze Millennium for all of the chrome machine parts.

I'm actually excited that both Spain & the Netherlands are going through to the finals. I liked all four teams but neither Spain nor Holland have ever won the World Cup. Now we'll have a new World Cup Champion no matter the outcome of Sunday's final!

A couple of my friends have been loyal Spain supporters and they painted their nails for Spain during the quarter finals. Here's Kim's Spain nails with a number 9 for Fernando Torres.

And here's Regan's Spanish flag nails on the left and Kim on the right showing their support for La Furia Rojas. I love this picture! Thanks for letting me steal your photos ladies.


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April Read Full...

Soccer Nail Art

I did these for a nail art contest over at Linnie's Favorites. I used BB Couture Poison Ivy for the grass, Konad plate M57 and Sally Hansen White Out for the net, and Migi Nail Art pens for the goal posts and the balls.
I decided to go with the traditional soccer ball pattern instead of the official World Cup 2010 Jabulani ball. The Jabulani just isn't very recognizable or interesting compared with the traditional pattern.
I love how these turned out! You can check out the other great entries and vote for your favorite here. I voted for Claudia!

Thanks for reading!
April Read Full...

World Cup 2010 USA

I did this manicure in support of USA in today's USA vs England World Cup match! I like England's team too, but I've got to root for the home team!

I used smART Nails that I won from All Things Beauty With Skye & I love them!!! So easy & fast with practically foolproof results! smART Nails has an amazing website with lovely pictures and great video tutorials. I love Konad, but this is easier. smART Nails ends up being more expensive than Konad since you can only use each sticker stencil a few times, but I think they are totally worth it! Easy to get great results when using your non-dominant hand too. I used Ruby Kisses Caribbean Blue & Tic Tac (unnamed) and Sally Hansen White Out for the stars & stripes.

Don't forget to enter my giveaways!

explodingmary Art Wallet Giveaway! Ends 6/17.
Cream Perfume Company Review & Giveaway! Ends 6/15.

Thanks for reading!
April Read Full...

Latest Water Marble

I love water marbling! It's pretty easy and the results are cool. This is a base of Essie Adore-a-ball, marbled with Essie Mint Candy Apple, American Apparel Hassid & Essence Go Wild. All of these three polishes worked great for marbling!

There are lots of great tutorials around for doing a water marble, so I'll just tell you what I do differently.

I start by grabbing whatever chapstick I have around and putting that around my nails to make cleaning up my skin much easier. I've tried tape, but i thought it was annoying. Vaseline put on with a brush works great too, but the chapstick is the easiest thing I've tried so far.

I use a dish that is large enough for there to be some water surface without any polish. I then dip my finger straight down into the water without polish and bring it face-up under my favorite part of the design. I think most people put their nail face-down into the design, but I find this awkward. It works great for most people, but if you're feeling frustrated with that method, try it this way and see how it goes.

The part I would really like to improve is making designs in the polish after dropping them into the water. Does anyone have favorite links to tutorials?

explodingmary Art Wallet Giveaway! Ends 6/17.
Cream Perfume Company Review & Giveaway! Ends 6/15.

Thanks for reading!
April

P.S. I can't wait for the World Cup!!!!!! Who's the sexiest player this year? Read Full...

Unknown Toma, Blue Leopard Nails & Awards

This is a Toma that I borrowed from my friend Kim Jantz. No label to identify the color, but I know it's from 2000-2006. She did graphic design for a beauty supplier during those years and has tons of OPI's, CNDs from that time period. Were there any amazing colors from that time period that I should go hunt for at her house?
This is a lovely navy blue shimmer that never looks black. Very pretty!

I'm not really into leopard print but I hadn't used that Konad image (M57) before so I just went for it. I kind of love it! I used Maybelline Matte Blue for stamping.

I don't think Mr. Acorn approved though. I don't know why, but this picture cracks me up!

Thanks to all of the lovely ladies from around the world who have tagged me lately! Here's a list of their blogs. I love finding new nail polish blogs!!!
Biba's Beauty Corner
R3 Daily
Amused Polish
How Doth the Little Crocodile
Mai Senza Smalto
Konad & Me
Thanks again ladies! I wish you all many more new readers!
April

Enter my giveaway here!

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80's Prom Fashion Show Nails or What I Did Friday Night!

My friends Lynn & Robbo put on a huge 80's Prom in Tulsa every year and this time they asked me to be in the fashion show. I'm not a big fan of the 80's as a whole, but I love Lynn & Robbo, so I agreed. It ended up being super fun! The fashion show had 4 segments based on 80's movies. Mannequin, Labyrinth, Say Anything & Lost Boys. I got to be a vampire! Yay! My outfit was over the top as you can see below and I decided to do my nails to match the stripes.

I used American Apparel Cotton & Hassid and a tip I picked up from one of my new favorite blogs, Blue Tape & Nail Tips!! I was in a hurry and nervous about how the night would go, so I wasn't very careful, but they looked great anyway. I cut strips of blue painters tape into fairly uniform strips that I then applied to my nails after the Cotton had dried. Then I just used Hassid for the black stripes. Super simple! You really have to go check out Blue Tape & Nail Tips if you haven't already. Look at her Easter nails!
I love getting dressed up! I had a great time and even got nominated Prom Queen!
Tonight's the last night to enter my Point Blank Design Print Giveaway! Here's her fantastic Dracula print!

Thanks for reading!
April Read Full...

Point Blank Design Nail Art

I love this manicure! I made it to match one of Point Blank Design's prints for our giveaway post.

I used China Glaze Entourage for the base. Then I made Will fling the other colors onto my nails! I used American Apparel Manila & Hassid and China Glaze Shower Together. Super messy and fun! I can't think of any way to do this on your own hands though. Here it is before clean up. Haha!

And here's the end result.

I want to try this technique (if you can call nail polish flicking a technique!) with a white base and a blood red color for some blood spatter pattern Dexter nails!
So what do you think ladies? Will you be having a friend fling some polish on your nails?

Thanks for reading!
April Read Full...

Mad Max Interceptor & Special Pursuit Nails!

I watched Mad Max for the first time last weekend and as soon as I saw the Yellow Interceptor Car, I knew I'd be doing a version of that sweet paint job on my nails!

Below is the Special Pursuit. I used Sinful Secret Admirer with China Glaze Matte Magic to mimic the awesome Special Pursuit. Matte black nails look evil. I love it!

I used China Glaze Solar Power, OPI Red & OPI Blue My Mind for the Interceptor. My beloved Migi Nail Art Pen for the white stripe.

I have a thing for 70's muscle cars. It's bad. My heart goes all a flutter every time I see one.

Please enter my giveaways if you haven't already. Queen's Metal Jewelry Giveaway ends tonight! You can enter here. Clean Rest giveaway ends 3/23. Enter here.

Thanks for reading!
April Read Full...

Treat St. Patrick's Day Like a Real Holiday!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody!!!


This is one of my favorite commercials. It's from 2004. The soccer channel I used to watch soccer on played it constantly and it still makes me happy every time I see it.
Holidays always seem to creep up on me. I wanted to watch some movies and check out some books from the library about Ireland but I never got around to it. There's just always so much going on.
I have the movie Quiet Man that I want to try and watch this weekend. I've never seen it before. It's one of my dads favorites. And of course there's always Darby O'Gill and the Little People. It has a young Sean Connery singing this! It always get stuck in my head (like right now).
I did change my computer background, and strung up these shamrock lights I got from Target a couple of years ago.

What are you guys doing to celebrate St. Patrick's Day?

And now on to the nails.

I did this manicure with OPI Hey Get In Lime! as a base and Tic Tac Green for the art.

On the thumb I did a french manicure with OPI Greenwich Village, but decided I didn't like it enough to do it on all my nails.

This next one took too long to do so I only did it on my thumb. I think it's really cute. It would have taken me 2 or 3 hours to finish though! I got the idea from here.

I used OPI Alpine Snow as a base. For the outline of the Shamrock I used a dotting tool and Orly Enchanted forest. To finish off the flag I used OPI Atomic Orange and OPI Jade is the New Black (one of my new favorite colors!).

The one i'm actually wearing today is much simpler than both of these. Which is more my style.
I'm wearing OPI Jade is the New Black, and on a couple of my fingers I did the Irish flag with the same colors as above.

On my other hand I put the Irish flag on my thumb.

Don't forget to have a Guinness (or several) and wear green!
Thanks for reading.
-Ashley Read Full...

Bee Mine Valentines Manicure

I can't believe I did this! I used Sally Hansen White Out (which I don't recommend) for the base & the amazing Migi Nail Art Pens that I won from Painted Lady Fingers. I could never accomplish this with a brush but the Migi Pens are like drawing with a henna bottle which I can do in my sleep! I'll post pictures of my time as a henna artist someday.
Please enter my giveaway!

Thanks for reading!
April Read Full...

American Apparel Cotton & An American Apparel Water Marble

American Apparel sent me four of their polishes to try out.The colors from left to right are Poppy, Cotton, Manila & Hassid.

I LOVE the bottle shape! I wish flat & rectangular was the standard shape for nail polish bottles. They just stack up so nicely!

While these are not the colors I would have chosen for myself, I immediately thought that the colors looked gorgeous together.

I decided to try Cotton first. It's a soft white creme finish; the color of a nice cold glass of whole milk. This never has that stark, 'I painted my nails with white-out' look.
Cotton looks fantabulous with my skin tone! I ended up wearing it for 5 days!! I usually change my polish every day or two, but this was so nice and went with every outfit. I thought I would just leave it so I could tell you how well it lasted. I took all of these photos on day 5 and there is some minor tipwear, but NO chipping.
This took three coats and I was a little worried when I applied the first very streaky coat. The formula was a little thick so I added a couple of drops of thinner. That fixed the formula right up. I think I can do just two coats next time.

Like I said, I think the colors that American Apparel sent me look great together, so I thought I would try some nail art. I got the idea for the three stripes from this great Lacquer Laine post. I just did one nail and I didn't do nearly as nice of a job as she did, but I think her technique is very doable with a little practice. I love the result.

I also decided to try out my first water marble! I have read that the American Apparel Nail Polish line is very pigmented, so I thought they would work well for this technique. I used dixie cups and one drop each of Poppy, Manila, & Hassid for each nail. This was super easy and the result is so awesome that I can't believe I did this all by myself!

This nail is my personal favorite.

I had so much fun playing with these polishes. What do you ladies think of the American Apparel line so far? I'll be posting Poppy in a few days and tell you more of my thoughts on The American Apparel brand soon.

Thanks for reading!
April

Disclosure: I was provided a product sample by American Apparel. This in no way affects my opinions of the product. For more information read my Disclosure Policy. Read Full...