The Fighting Illini

Hello everyone! Today is themed Tuesday! Now this past weekend my mother went to an Illini football game and she asked me to paint her nails blue and orange so she could match the team. I, of course, said yes. I also decided to do a little more than just the colors. I wanted to add details! So I drew the ever so famous logo of the Illini, the bold, outlined "I". 
 
I would love to tell you guys what nail polish I used but, I used colors that my mother picked out and I cannot for the life of me remember what brand they are. If I figure that out, I will add that to this post so you all can have the same colors. I thought I would feature this design for today because the whole situation of painting my mother's nails was funny. I painted hers and her friends nails while eating dinner at T.G.I. Fridays. I did not get to eat because I was so busy doing all of the little details on each and every individual nail. Not to mention that they were eating so I was constantly afraid they were going to mess them up. However, I thought they turned out okay for painting them in a restaurant with little to no lighting. 

Let me know what you guys think! If you would like to see a tutorial of this design, or any design, please feel free to email me or drop your suggestion in the tutorial suggestion box. Happy Tuesday everyone!

Solid Monday

Hello ladies! I am back with a strong solid Monday color. It's a pastel blue. Kleancolor does such a nice job picking the perfect shades. Even though this color is more for springtime I cannot get over how pretty the color is. So I had to feature it today. Like I've said a hundred times, Kleancolor is one of my favorite brands of nail polish of all time. It's perfect shades mixed with no chip polish. It goes on and comes off clean and it has one coat coverage. 

This color also goes perfect with my light blue sweater that I have. That's right it's sweater season (at least in the Chicagoland area). The high yesterday was 35 degrees and my father told me that it was 80 degrees in California! I need to move pronto! I hate the cold weather. 

This color, even though lighter than usual for this time of the year, is a perfect color to start off the cold weather. It reminds me of snow. I sure hope that doesn't come any time soon. There you have it ladies my solid Monday color. Please send in pictures of your solid colors and I will feature them on my next Monday post!

I used:
Kleancolor "Pastel Teal" (#142)
Sally Hansen's Double Duty "Base & Top Coat" (#3099)

Delays

Hello everyone! I apologize for this week's posts. I have been overwhelmed with school and my midterms that I have not had the chance to post anything new or even paint my nails. I will start my posts back up at the start of next week. On 10/28 I will be starting a whole new schedule of things. There will be new things that I will feature every week. Please come back and see what is new for next week! Once again I apologize that there are no posts this week. 

Please feel free to still send me questions or tutorial suggestions. Starting on Monday I will be able to post tutorials and answer your questions.

To Try Thursday

Sharpie nail art

Hello everyone! Today is to try Thursday and boy do I have a treat for this week!! This week I am trying a new technique that I discovered while browsing Pinterest. It's Sharpie nail art! I did not know that you could write on your nails with Sharpie permanent markers and be able to take it off with just rubbing alcohol. Of course, I HAD to try this! So, try this one out ladies! Had I known that this was possible, I would have done it a long time ago! Paint your nails with whatever color you want and do a Sharpie nail design! Just remember to put a clear coat over your design to seal it in. Send your designs to my email address and I will post a collage of everyone's designs on Saturday when I post my results! Happy nail painting everyone!

Top 5 Nail Brands

Okay so I have not tried every single brand of nail polish so I'll rephrase that. I am featuring my top five nail brands of right now! Let me start off by saying that are a lot of really good brands of nail polish but if I had to narrow it down, these are the five I would choose. 

#5: Sinful Colors

Sinful colors will always be one of my favorite brands of nail polish solely for the colors they have. If I was comparing quality, Sinful colors would not be on my top five. The colors that they produce are always so beautiful! I am a huge fan of neon colors so, Sinful colors is perfect for me. Most of there colors embrace the feeling of summer to me. They are all so bright and colorful instead of just being dull, boring colors. Again as far as quality goes, they take a long time to dry, they chip easily, and they usually need more than one coat because the polish isn't as thick.

#4: Colorshow
Now Colorshow I like a lot. They have just recently started coming out with new colors and textures. They include all the colors of the rainbow! What do I like most about it? They have crazy colors and they are good quality! They usually only need one coat, (depending on how dark the color is) and they are durable! Colorshow usually lasts up to seven days before chipping. That's a whole lot better than Sinful colors! Right now I am more a fan of them because they have started making a lot of different textured nail polish. I cannot wait to try them all!

#3: O.P.I.
Of course O.P.I. is on my list. They are one of the very top brands of nail polish. They are also very expensive. The only thing I don't like about them is that they don't feature crazy colors like Sinful colors or Colorshow. I believe that O.P.I. is geared more towards older women who are not in the bright color phase anymore. Even though I don't want to face it as women get older, the more they would rather have a solid neutral color on their nails instead of teenager bright colors. O.P.I. is great though because you have one coat coverage, fast drying, and no chipping for up to fourteen days!

#2 Kleancolor
Obviously you all probably knew I was going to put Kleancolor on my top five nail brands. This brand has always been good to me and has always been really cheap. The only bad thing is, you don't see this brand in stores very often, if ever. The only place I have been able to find it is one Amazon. Kleancolor features not only brilliant colors, but also one coat coverage, super fast drying, and no chipping for up to fourteen days. I just fell in love with their colors the minute I laid eyes on all forty of them that my wonderful sister bought for me for my birthday last year 2012. Ever since that day, I have stuck by Kleancolor. There is only one brand that tops them.


#1 Essie 
I have never been so impressed with a nail polish before. Essie has truly outdone itself. Essie not only features those radiant colors but they also promote no chipping for up to two weeks, one coat coverage, and fast drying. The thing I love most about this brand is that there is a HUGE assortment of colors to try! Essie has so many different colors it is hard to decide on one. I have also noticed that Essie doesn't get goopy and thick from sitting for awhile. You know when you have that one nail polish that you never use but then one day you really want to use it but when you open it it is super thick and possibly chunky? I have found that Essie is the only brand that I have never seen this happen to. 


There you have it. My top five favorite nail polish brands. If you want more information on one of these brands, feel free to email me and I will be more than happy to answer your questions! 

Themed Tuesday

Hello ladies! Today is themed Tuesday and like I promised it is a Halloween style! I apologize for the lateness of uploading today. I’m having midterms all this week so I’m a little behind. Today I decided to feature Friday the 13^th nails. For my thumb I put the hockey mask that Jason always wears and for the rest of my nails I put bloody fingerprints. This design was very simple. The only hard part was painting the hockey mask. I did not have my dotting tools with me when I did this design so bear with me on the sloppiness. If you would like a tutorial, I will show you using those special tools to make it look a little neater. This design encompasses a scary look. I used an almost blood red for the fingerprints. I thought it looked really cool.

I am also very happy it is Halloween season because all of the intense scary movies are on television including all of the Friday the 13^th movies, which happen to be some of my favorites. There are many more Halloween designs to come in the next two weeks so please come back and see those. If you have a design you would like to see that is not on my blog please feel free to send a description or a photo and I will do my best to recreate it and make a tutorial for you!

Again, if you would like to see a tutorial on this design feel free to email me or drop a suggestion in the tutorial suggestion box. Happy Halloween everyone!

In this design I used:

Sinful Colors “Snow Me White” (#101)

Sinful Colors “Ruby Ruby” (#369)

Sinful Colors “Black on Black” (#103)

Sally Hansen’s “Double Duty Top & Base Coat” (#3099)

Solid Monday/Fall Surprises

Kleancolor "Jazz Olive" (#118)

Hello everyone! For this week's solid Monday post I chose a metallic green by Kleancolor. I know I need to switch up brands because I always use Kleancolor but I cannot stress enough how amazing this brand is and how cheap it is. For today's post I chose "Jazz Olive" (#118). This color encompasses the Fall season to me. Metallics are in right now especially in the Fall color palette. It's a little harder to match your outfits to green but you could use any metallic color to really pull the Fall look off. If you put a layer of Sally Hansen's Double Duty Top & Base coat, it adds even more shine to your nails to make them even more noticeable. I am also featuring something very special this week! I just found a new nail design trick that I cannot wait to share with all of you! So make sure you come back and see what that's all about!


Fall Season Goodies!

Fall is one of my favorite seasons. I love the pumpkins, Halloween, sweaters, hot cocoa, bonfires, and Thanksgiving. So I decided that today I was going to feature some of my favorite Fall things. (Sorry they don't really have to do with nails at all).

First I would like to start off with 3 of my favorite fall foods. Caramel apples are my all time favorite. When this season rolls around, those are the first things that I pick up from the apple orchard. If you live around the Dekalb, Illinois area there is a great apple orchard to buy these from. It's called Edward's Orchard. Not only do they have great apples but they also have the best apple cider and apple cider donuts. They also include a petting zoo, buffet, live band, and a fun maze for kids to run through. It's an overall great place for families to go. If you have never been there, check it out. The next food item on my list is apple pie bites. They are so cute! You slice up an apple and roll each apple slice into a crescent roll and coat it with cinnamon and sugar. They are to die for and they are so easy! The next food is little pumpkin cheesecakes! They don't even need to bake. These are so incredibly good and very easy to make also. You can even buy some cinnamon sticks for a cute addition! If you love pumpkin, this a must try recipe! I have to links for both recipes below if you'd like to give either a try!

Apple Pie Bites

Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes

Apple Pie Bites

No-Bake Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes

I have one more fall related feature to talk about and ladies that is fall clothing! Sweaters, jeans, leggings, boots, scarves, hats, and mittens! Everything about fall clothes makes me happy. I love wearing big, over-sized sweaters with leggings and a pair of Uggs. Then you come home after school or work and curl up under a blanket and watch crappy movies and sip on hot cocoa. It's my favorite time of the year especially if you have a boy to cuddle up with. This leads to another reason why I love this season so much. Scary movies! I live to find a movie that scares the crap out of me. The one movie that still scares me every time I watch it is Insidious. I also recently saw The Conjuring which gave me the chills. It was super creepy and made me jump multiple times. I also admit that I may have screamed out lot a couple of times in the theater. There are thousands of reasons why I love fall so much but if I listed them all, you would all probably get very bored. 

Make sure you keep checking my blog all week because I will be starting to feature Halloween designs! Once again if there is a design that you wanna see done whether it was from my blog or somewhere else, please email me. I would more than willing to figure it out and post a tutorial! Happy fall everyone!