Happy Valentine's Day!

All around.. Well.. Yeah. All around, people are generally doing Valentine's Day manicures with hearts and whatnot. I did that last year when I first started the whole nail art hobby. This time I decided to take a little more traditionally untraditional route with gourmet strawberries. See, cause that's a real life om nom cliche` for Valentine's.. But not on nails.. Hearts are... ....... ANYWAYS. I almost did a design with another cat though and hearts, but I thought of this and it seemed cooler. I mean, I haven't ever sugar spun nails before so I was all over this idea.

Now, I would have to say that these would look ten times better on oval nails, but I couldn't dare to part with my squares. I love them too much.

My right index finger nail is broken. As well as my left ring finger's nail, but it's almost grown out. I'm so scared. D;

What I used for this mani:

• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
• Butter London 'Pillar Box Red'
• Stripe Rites: Yellow and Green
• China Glaze 'Mahogany Magic'
• China Glaze 'Liquid Leather'
• Essie 'Blanc'
• Julep 'Carrie'
• Seche` Vite

Lunar New Year!

Lunar New Year was Sunday. The only down part about having uploaded my Mardi Gras nails on time (and in chronological order) is uploading these late. :C

Anyways, I started off with a design I thought would be neat but as soon as I put the top coat on it started smudging and looking terrible.

Seeeeeee the top one... I thought it would be cool.. But it also came out a little more Christmas-y feeling than New Years. So I took that off aaaaaaaaaaaaand..........

Wallah!

I fell in love with this mani. And that cat stole my heart. Also, this Butter London is probably my favorite red nail polish in the world.

For this mani I used:

• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
• Butter London 'Pillar Box Red'
• Butter London 'West End Wonderland'
• Butter London 'The Full Monty'
• Stripe Rites: White, Black, Red, Green, Pink, Yellow

Mardi Gras!

I actually did these two weeks early for Mardi Gras but my procrastination works out because now I'm uploading them accurately! :D

....

So I didn't know what to do, but after much brainstorming, I decided on checkers and Zoya's gold flakie top coat. Personally, I don't like the gold flakies too much but I really enjoy how I used them. I also obsessed over the green sparkly polish I got from my Julep New Year's mystery box. It's gorgeousssssssss.

What I used for this mani:

• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
• Julep's 'Cindy'
• Stripe Rite: Purple
• Zoya's 24k Gold Top Coat
• Seche` Vite

My little sister's dry marble.

Again, sorry I don't frequent with this. I'm more of a Reddit and Tumblr gal myself.

Anyways, I painted my little sister's nails using the dry marble technique. She wanted me to paint her nails but didn't know what she wanted exactly. Which led me to think about giving her the dry marble design. So I asked her what three colors she wanted and she chose red, blue, and purple. In the end, it turned out to look like a fruit roll-up.

A messy fruit roll-up.

I live in Texas. And the weather down here is pretty confusing.

Such as it being cold for two days, then warm the next two days, then cold again the next three days. It's just a vicious fluctuating weather cycle. Which is how I got my inspiration for my nails! In honor of the cold weather.

NOW, before anyone says, "But Texas is one of the warmest states-" and something along the lines of trying to live up North where the real cold is... No. Just no. I had a friend at work explain to me that the cold from up North is dry. In Texas, we've always got wind chills. 9 times out of 10 we do. There was a day or two with dry cold.. It was wonderful.

Anywayssssssssssssssssssssssss..

Side note: I don't like to use dotting tools when I'm using my Stripe Rites because the Stripe Rites dry so incredibly fast while the dots are still wet and smudge when I drag top coat over them. So I dotted with my Stripe Rite.

Alsoooooooooo.... My thumb nail is shorter than the others because it broke two weeks or so ago.. She's making a slow recovery. What's even sadder though is that my other thumb nail is also broken (on both sides even) and as well as my dominant hand's ring finger nail. Yup. Right under that little penguin is a split. ;(

For this mani I used:

• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
• China Glaze 'Kinetic Candy'
• Zoya 'Maisie'
• Stripe Rite: White, Black, Orange
• Seche` Vite

Pastels are the "it" thing right now, right?

Therefore, I decided to finally do some cotton candy nails. Sad to say, I don't take pictures during my process often so no one will know my gradient process. Not that anyone currrrrs. But I do take pictures of my process and graduating steps on Instagram.

Follow my Instagram @mrs_longbone !

These were crazy time consuming though. I wanted to make sure that they were super blended together! Here is the end product!

What I used for this mani:

• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
• Julep 'Eileen' 
• China Glaze 'Sweet Hook'
• China Glaze 'Kinetic Candy'
• Zoya 'Shelby'
• China Glaze 'Fairy Dust'
• Seche` Vite

<3

My mommy wanted snowflakes.

My mom was whining about how I hadn't painted her nails yet. Mainly because our schedules are opposite and I work when she's at home and vice versa for her. One magical night happened, where I wasn't working and wasn't with my boyfriend, and didn't need to paint my own nails. So I had time to paint hers.

It took about four hours... Mainly because I took a loooooooooooooooooooooooong break because I got sick in my stomach after laying down the base color on all her nails. It was so agonizingly painful. The noises rumbling from my stomach could be heard from afar. They even startled her because they were so loud. I guess it's really gross to get sick in the stomach while painting someone's nails.. If it makes anyone feel better I washed my hands twice.... ( ._.)"""

After that was all said and done, I drew on her snowflakes (which took a while because she wouldn't stop being itchy and moving) and added the jewels.. And walaaah! :D

What I used for this mani:

• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
• Zoya 'Song'
• Sally Girl 'Way to Disco'
• Stripe Rite: White
• Some nail jewel
• Seche` Vite

She wore this for like.. Three days. It chipped and then before I could even think about repairing it for her, she had already picked off 6 out of 10 nails' polish. She had the audacity to ask me to fix it for her. PSHHHH. Not after purposefully picking them all off! >:C