A Springy Braid + Tutorial!

I decided to do another braided look because it's so easy and I love the way it looks! I wanted to do something a little softer and springy, so I grabbed a white and some blue and got to work! I was texting my friend, Sarah, and when I told her I was doing a braid, she said I still needed to show her how to do one. So I decided to make my very first picture tutorial. It was a bit time consuming, but I had a lot of fun with it! I hope it's helpful for anyone wanting to try out braided nails!

The colors I used were OPI- My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Essie- Mint Candy Apple, and Essie- In the Cab-ana.

Step 1. Paint your base color
Step 2. Start at one "corner" of your cuticle and paint a stripe (doesn't have to go clear to the other side, just needs to cover the middle)
Step 3. Paint another stripe from the opposite "corner"
Step 4. Overlapping your first stripe, paint another with your base color
Step 5. Continue adding stripes, alternating colors
Step 6. When you get to the end, be sure to cap the tips to make your polish last longer!
Step 7. Paint your last stripe!
Step 8. Clean up around your nails and add a top coat to smooth everything out!

I hope you enjoyed this one! Let me know if there is any other design you would like a tutorial for! I'll see what I can do :)

Go Niners!

To be perfectly honest, I don't care much about football. But my husband is from Sacramento and is a huge 49ers fan, so these are for him :) They're playing the Seahawks tomorrow and he says he thinks this game is going to be bigger than the superbowl, so I decided I probably should do some nails for the occasion.

I'm really loving the braid look lately. It's easy and just looks so cool! For this one I used OPI- My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Color Club- Berry and Bright, and SquareHue- Honor. My accent nail was done with Berry and Bright and black and white Nail Ritz pens. My husband loved them, so mission accomplished!

 My girls also wanted 49ers nails! This picture is of my almost 2-year-old's nails. I had to be quick for obvious reasons, so don't mind the messy job with lack of cleanup :) I've been painting her toenails since she was 3 months old, but this is only the second time I've done her fingernails. It's cute how she wants to show everyone :)

This one is my other two girls. The top hand is my 4-year-old, the bottom is my 8-year-old. They thought it was so fun that they all had matching nails. I tried to get a picture of all 3 of them, but my baby wasn't having it.

Anyone else rooting for the Niners??

Suds n Stickers

My friend Sarah recently told me about this Facebook page, Suds n Stickers, they do custom vinyl stickers, and vinyl nail decals! Like their page to see all of their amazing stuff! I liked their page and they were doing a giveaway, and I won one of the grab bags!! I was super excited, I never win anything! They asked if I had a preference of design for the nail decals, and I said I loved the large chevron. So I was expecting a little sheet of the chevron design to try them out. I got way more than I thought!

This is all of the decals that they sent! There are so many cool things to play with!

As if that wasn't generous enough, they also sent a polish with it all! It's OPI DS Magic! I only have one other Designer Series OPI, so I was super excited to see this! It's a gorgeous blue/purple duo chrome.

I decided to start with something that seemed easy. I picked this cute little heart design. With a pair of tweezers I peeled it up and applied it to my nail. I like this one because you can basically use the same design for 3 different nails. One with the outline, which was my favorite, one with the solid heart, and then last you can use the remaining piece as a stencil. I haven't tried that yet.

 I applied the decals over 3 coats of Butter London- Disco Biscuit. I did two coats of HK Girl over the decals to make sure they were good and sealed in.

I had two main concerns, one was that they would stick up off the nails and catch on things, like I had happen with the Jamberry strips. That didn't happen at all! They were stuck down really well and didn't come up until I was ready to remove them. The other concern was that they might be difficult to remove. That wasn't the case at all. As soon as the acetone got through the top coat, they peeled right off. I'm really impressed with them and can't wait to try more designs!

Can't leave out a swatch of Magic! The picture doesn't do it justice. It's so pretty!

Braided

So I finally did it. I took the plunge. I download Candy Crush. I probably shouldn't have, but at 3am when I couldn't sleep, I needed something to do! And now I'm hooked. And stuck. On level 34. I've heard about the dreaded level 65 and am not looking forward to it.

On to today's look...I have lots of braided nails on my Pinterest board. I love how they look. I've always wanted to try it, but like I always say, just never got around to it. I got so many amazing new polishes for my birthday, I really need to work my way through them! So I used 3 of my new ones for this look.

I started with 2 coats of Essie- In the Cab-ana on all but my ring finger. This color is amazing! The formula was perfect, I could have easily gotten away with one coat. On my ring finger I did 2 coats of OPI- My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I've been lemming that color for a loooong time, and finally got it :) For the braid part, I used those two colors along with Essie- Bobbing for Baubles. It looks pretty black in these pictures, but it's such a gorgeous dark gray. I love it.

I thought my braid actually turned out better on my right hand (weird since I'm right handed!) So I threw in a close up of that one as well.

Have you done braided nails? I thought doing it just as an accent would be easier, but after playing a round of Candy Crush in between each swipe to wait for it to dry, my phone died and I realized if I had done them all braided, by the time I got to my 10th nail, the 1st would be dry and it probably would have been quicker in the end. Talk about a run-on sentence!