Make it Monday // DIY Glitzy Stiletto Manicure

There are few things I love more than having an awesome manicure - my #planneraddiction is probably one, and so is coffee.  If I had a million dollars my nails would be on point every day (no pun intended).  I've been drawing a lot of inspiration from Jefree Star ever since I started following him on Snapchat recently.  I've always had a thing for those stiletto nails and even started wearing my nails in a really severe almond shape.  I've been wearing some press on/glue on nails from the drug store for probably about a year now.  Last week my manicure was a set of French tip nails from Kiss and I couldn't recommend those enough!  This week I thought I'd try something new - a little bit of bling and little bit of a stiletto.

 

(this post contains affiliate links, please see my full disclosure here)

I've done this mini stiletto nail before (not sure if I'd ever showed it on any social media) but these nails make for the perfect base.  And the best part is they are super affordable from your local drug store.  I suggest checking out CVS and using your Extra Bucks for some awesome discounts.  They are called Active Oval, but they are more almond to me.  And that shape is perfect for filing into a tiny, mini stiletto point.  I could not function if I had a full stiletto nail - I would not be able to type at all - so the little mini point is cute and interesting.  This shape, I think, is great for long fingers - especially if you want to emphasize the length.  It might be weird but I love how alien they kind of look!!

So anyway, I got together some supplies and I'm going to show you how I did it

Supplies // oval or almond shaped glue on nails (I prefer these from Kiss , nail glue (if not included in your kit), base coat, top coat, coordinating colors of your choice - polish, glitter, rhinestones (I used craft glitter and craft rhinestones from the craft store), file, quick dry spray

 

Begin by picking out the nails to best suit your fingers.  There is a trick to this - you don't want them too wide and you don't want them too narrow.  Once you find a nail that fits your finger, find the size smaller and see how that looks.  If the first one looks better choose that one - but I often see others with glue on nails like these where the nail is way too wide for their finger.  The more natural the nail looks the better.  You may find you have to file down around the edges to make the nail fit your nail bed better.  Take the time to do this step!  This is especially necessary if you find you've run out of the nail size that fits a certain finger best.  This step will ensure that you have the best fitting and most natural looking nails glued one.

If you're a pro at applying glue on nails, go ahead and do your normal routine.  I use a file to scuff up my natural nail a bit so the glue will adhere better.  Lay all the nails out in the order they will be applied and begin to apply them one by one.  I start with my thumbnail on my left hand - I apply glue to the back of the nail then place the nail on to the nail bed starting at the cuticl and sort of rocking it down.  For me, this give the best adhesion.  Continue until all nails are on your little fingers.

 

Begin to shape the nail into a mini point with the file.  Follow the natural angle of each side of your finger to create a nice point.  Shape all the nails into a mini stiletto.  Do not file too much at once but alternate the filing from side to side to get an even point.

Paint your base coat.  Choose the nails that will be covered with glitter, paint every nail except for the ones covered with glitter in the polish color of your choice.  Choose the nails that will remain rhinestone free, paint the top coat on all nails that will remain rhinestone free.

Glitter Nails

Make sure you have a place to make a mess with the glitter!  Paint the top coat, one nail at a time, on the nails that will have glitter.  Pour the glitter over the nail, tap off the excess.  Use the remaining glitter to repeate the process on each glitter nail.

 

If you find you may need to add more glitter, pain the top coat again, pour the glitter again, etc.  If the glitter gets everywhere - which it probably will - use a paint brush to dust off the glitter around your cuticle.  One you are satisfied, paint the final top coat over the nails.

Rhinestone Nails

This one may be a little tricky.  Squeeze out a little bit of glue onto your plate, using the toothpick dip it into the glue then pick up a rhinestone with the glue end of the toothpick and place it on the nail.  Fill the whole nail or do a strip down the middle - it is up to you.  Repeat with however many nails and whatever design you prefer.

 

Once everything is done, if you haven't already, go a ahead a spray the quick dry spray onto your nails.

Now you have a crazy glitzy mini stiletto manicure!  It might be crazy but it's definately worth it!

What is the craziest manicure you've ever had?  Do you find it super fun to play with your nails?

xoxo, Moe

Make it Monday // Create an Awesome Manicure Kit

It's been a long while since I've painted my nails.  I go through phases where I get really into something & then just forget about it.  Since the move I've just not had a reason to paint my nails but now that I get up & get ready in the morning I feel like it's time to start picking up the nail polish again to give my fingers a good look too.  My nail polish collection grew a lot over the last year & every time there was a pretty color or a sale I snatched it up.  I want to share with you how to create an awesome manicure kit that's more than just pretty polish.

Depending on the size of your collection may depend upon the size of the container you store your tools in.  I have an entire basket (as pictured) dedicated to my manicure kit & it lives in a three tiered shelf in the bathroom.  I've had this basket (along with another matching one) for ages & it's really falling apart!  I see a new basket in the near future!  I am also a fan of little plastic zipper travel baggies to separate things into.  I use them when I travel, in my purse (see this DIY blog kit post!), in the bathroom drawers, etc to keep things corraled together.

These little baggies are perfect to keep tools together & top coats grouped so you're not digging around waisting precious manicure time!  I've got a green bag of tools: clippers, cuticle pusher, files (my glass file broke but I still use it!), hand lotion, cuticle oil, & a nail brush.  I've found that if I keep a small travel size of lotion in my kit I don't have to go searching for it when I want to paint my nails.  It's also not anything frilly - just plain moisture!  Since the winter does a wonder on your hands lotion & cuticle oil are important.  I have a nail brush for just plain cleaning & for scrubbing off all the nail polish I get on my skin.  I wait until the nail polish is dry then run over each nail with a soapy brush to clean up the edges.  I don't do the whole q-tip & polish remover thing!

The pink heart bag hold all the top coats.  This is awesome because you don't have to dig around your polishes to find your top coat.  If they are all in the same place you'll be much happier :)

Top coats left to right: Sally Hansen No Chip Top Coat, Sally Hansen Acrylic Gell, Icing No Chip Base & Top Coat, Icing High Shine Top Coat, Naturals Matte Finish Top Coat.

Of course you'll need nail polish remover & cotton balls.  I always just get the cheapest, non-acetone polish remover so it's nearly always the generic store brand - in this case Meijer.  I also have a really awesome pink tray that folds out to sit on your lap if you're painting your nails in bed, on the couch, or sitting in the bathroom.  It was a stocking stuffer ages ago & for the life of me I can't find one to share with you!  I tried all sorts of search terms but it might be something you may be able to find at like Bed, Bath, & Beyond or in the stocking stuffers section of a store near the holidays.  Seriously, it's awesome!  It has three shaped sections to hold the polish & has two wings that fold out across your lap.

There you go, some key ingredients for an awesome manicure kit.  Keeping all the little bits organized makes the manicure kit the most awesome.  No more digging around for tools, now you just have to decide on colors!  I grab & go sit in bed, at the table, or in front of the TV.  I don't have to lug my whole collection around, just the key parts.

What's in your manicure kit? Is it pretty basic or are you like me & have gone all out?

xoxo, Moe

Connect on Twitter // Follow on Pinterest // Peep me at Hello Cotton

Fan Fridays // Don't Go Topless

On your nails I mean! Don't let your manicure go topless!

As you may know, my fave accessories stores are Claire's & Icing.  In fact, I will hardly buy any accessory from any where else.  I just love their aesthetic & their prices.  Usually, a quick stop includes buying way to many nail polishes (as they are always buy one, get one 50% off).  Then a quick look around the sale section, for sale jewelry, what-nots, & clearance polishes.

Not only do they have vibrant & awesome colors (especially their neon ones for this neon spring trend) but their top coat is amazing.  Seriously, their nail polish is no chip!  Even the top coat is no chip!

Their clear polish is both a base & a top coat.  It runs about $4.50 a bottle, cheaper than the good stuff and really doesn't chip.  Have I said it doesn't chip yet?

The best part is that it will make any polish no chip.  Because it creates such a good seal around the colored polish, you can use it even with cheap brands.  I type all day at work so I hated that sometimes my nails would chip right after painting them.  Its been better since I cut my nails short both for pottery & because it seems to be the trend.

Lately I've been prying up carpet, tack strips, & little staples along with hammering, painting, and plain old moving crap around in the new office.  Here's a sneak peak into what's been going down:

See that manicure? That manicure lasted all day.  From ripping up tack strips to moving things around I had near perfect nails the whole day. (I ripped up 3 rooms of that tack strip + the big hallway..don't mess with me!)  I was excited! This is the best test of all of these polishes.  This demolition was on Wednesday,  & it's Friday now....I still have on this manicure with only a little chipping on the free edge of my nail.  So this stuff is awesome!  Here's what I used:

Icing's Do-It-All Top Coat, Wet n Wild's fastdry in Saved by the Blue, & Icing's Electric Saphire glitter

I applied a thin base coat, making sure that I covered the nail evenly.  Then I started in with the fastdry.  The color is super great (perfect for my Something Blue accessory from this post) & vibrant.  It is a true royal blue.  The only downside to this polish seems to be the quick dry property.  Applying too thin of a coat left the tips of my nail with no polish.  So being heavy handed isn't a bad thing with this polish.   It did dry fast too, even with a bit of a gloppy mess I did on my right hand. My left hand was better.  Since I am all about glitter, I put the Electric Saphire next, which is also no chip. I finished it off with a nice coat of the Icing Top Coat making sure to seal up the edges with a swipe of polish near the tip of my finger.  This is an extra little barrier.

I am totally satisfied with this manicure & these products.  The Icing Top Coat makes me completely confident in whatever polish I wear under it.  When I saw this Wet n Wild display, I was a bit skeptical because I remembered my mother's WnW collection of pinks & reds that always seemed to chip.  I have to mention though, that the WnW polish looked like it may hold up on it's own...so don't just take my word as gospel.  I got mine at Walgreens for I think about $1.99 but other WnW products were on sale for .69 cents.  Are you kidding!! I picked up like 3 other colors!

So, I am just saying that Icing's Top Coat is something I swear by.  In fact I gave my own bottle to Zach's mother after recommending the L'Oreal color Versailles Romance as a good neutral pink nail color.  I am going to need to pick another bottle up!

If you work with your hands & are looking for an affordable top coat that comes in a huge bottle, stop by Icing & pick up their no chip top coat.  Also, style Sodalite Blue this spring with Wet n Wild's Saved by the Blue.  And don't go topless!


ps.  I wanted you to know that I did this post out of my own volition.  I love to find products & recommend them.  So as per this morning's post, I just wanted to let you know that no one asked me to do this...I just wanted to share with you some awesomeness.

Make it Monday // Opal Manicure

My sister's birthday is in October giving her Opal as a birthstone.  I've always be jealous since mine is a blue stone for December.  You may remember a Christmas post from last year where I asked Santa for assorted rings.  I ended up getting a lovely opal ring ring from Zach for Christmas.  Ever since then I've been obsessed with mimicking the opal stone in a manicure.

I was inspired by this something I found a while ago (around Christmas time) where there was glitter under red nail polish.  It was pretty cool for the holidays but I was instantly reminded of an opal stone!

I've had one attempt before that didn't turn out too well.  It wasn't opal-y enough.  The glitter nail polish I used was silver & holographic where as this polish has opalescent glitter.  To give it a 3 dimensional look, I put a few coats of an opalescent polish in between glitter coats.  This type of manicure works best with a translucent polish.

I love the glitter in the Essie polish.  It isn't round like in other glitter polishes.  The glitter is actually like flecks.  It makes the manicure mimic the actual opal stone. It is gorgeous!

To create this look I used Mint Dream by Pure Ice & Essie's Shine of the Times.  I hadn't ever bought an Essie nail polish before.  I was in fact just introduced to the brand.  This nail polish is really nice!  I do have one that is a nude shade (I forget the name) & I really like the coverage of the polish.  I guess that's the right way to put it? It's not cheap looking & it looks nice!

This Pure Ice brand though, in Mint Dream, I did not like.  I couldn't find the polish I wanted to use for this when I went to do the manicure.  The one I wanted to use was the Sally Hansen brand that I'd used before on the failed manicure.  This opalescent color by Pure Ice just looked a bit cheap.  It just didn't apply the way I would have liked it.  This however looked like a better opal option.  The translucent-ness was perfect for this manicure though.

Any way, this manicure was the first part of my Michigan trip:

Mint Dream & Shine of the Times, plus my favorite no chip top coat/base coat combo from Icing by Claire's made a great opal manicure.  To create the perfect opal stone effect, I did a layer of Shine of the Times between the Mint Dream.  This layering mimics the stone by giving it a multidimensional appearance. 

The process is: base coat-Mint Dream-Shine of the times-Mint Dream-Shine of the Times-Top Coat
(make sure the layers dry!)

I took it off & swapped it for a super neon green in the middle of the week, but I will definitely go back to this another day.  It would be perfect for a wedding if you were the bride or bridesmaid!

Have you done anything experimental with nail polish? I think it's a pretty creative medium!

Manicure Monday // Holiday Sparkle

Earlier in December I painted my nails red & green with some glitter for the season.  When that started chipping off, I decided to change it up for the actual Christmas time.  I've fallen in love with peach hues & gold glitter.  I am pretty sure that my next few manicures will involve glitter & in fact I am only posting this so I can go take this current nail color off! (I got some more for Christmas & am dying to use them!

I am sure that my nail polish collection is nearly half glitter polishes! I want to thrift a spice rack to hang in the bathroom (or somewhere) to hold them all! I've seen that idea floating around on Pinterest!

Lately, all I've been thinking about is nail polish! When I got home to my parent's house, I noticed my sister's nail polish was too cute! She had a shimmery copper base coat & a shimmery gold crackle on top.  So subtle & so glamourous.  Glitter & peach have been on my mind:

Original images: source source source source

BTW that gorgeous last photo is for sale here in the esty shop joystclaire

I just started a Color board on Pinterest with these as my first pins!

Here were my holiday nails:

The colors used were 14 kt by Claire's & Peach Sangria by Icing.  I am pretty sure I got them both on sale ages ago but any polish with big chunks of glitter should be great.  Try this one (the only one I could find! Though if you can find them on sale......that would be so much better!)

I also threw on a top coat since the glitter makes your nails all kinds of weird, texture wise.  But, like I am sure you know, top coats are important! Maybe one day I'll do a post about a proper manicure since I am supposed to be completing this class!

I've already mentioned that I love Icing's Chip Resistant Nail Polish.  It stays on forever! I recently bought acetone polish remover to get it off easier.  Acetone polish remover is a bit more harsh but boy does it take off glitter polish & chip resistant stuff!

I used to paint my nails a lot when I was younger.  I had the time to actually take care of them.  But now I search out polishes & top coats that promise longer wear.  I don't have the time to keep painting & painting.  When they begin to chip I begin to not care.  I'll leave chipping nail polish on forever and it just looks so horrible.  By the time this starts to chip, I am ready to change it up.

I hope you had a great Christmas! I look forward to looking at all the Christmas posts in blog land in the coming week as we all prepare to ring in the new year!

Fan Friday // Mani-Pedi

So if you've been following me on twitter or instagram you might have seen some pictures/tweets about the nail class I am currently taking. In fact, take a look at this one & how funny nail shapes are.  Shortly, in addition to my BFA in ceramics I will be a licensed Nail Tech.  That sounds really cool, right? To be able to manicures/pedicures all day long? (Well maybe the mani part, still very undecided about feet.....)

I did my first 'professional' manicure on my room mate who chose a great mud brick red color.  The whole process from start to finish is not as intense as I thought it would be.  There is a lot more than just painting your nails.  That's only part of it.  Massage is another big part (which as a person who types all day, I can appreciate).  While doing the manicure on my room mate I had a tough time with the massage part.  Not enough pressure is my deal.  But I have about 1 zillion more practicals to do, so the only thing to do is get better!

Since starting this class I've been thinking a lot about fun manicures I'd like to do.  Since it is my sisters birthday over the weekend, I am hoping she'll be able to come visit so I can practice & giver her something really cool.  Looking around on Pinterest I found some great Mani-Pedi inspiration.  I've added these to my Manicure Pin Board:

source // source // source // source

The one on the upper right was popular in the 1930s where a rosy red polish came on the market (so says my book).  

By the beginning of the 1930s, the US has over 85 factories manufacturing millions of gallons of lacquer for the automotive industry.  This development in quick drying lacquers & pigments carved the way for today's nail polishes.  Max Faktor (the name sake of Max Factor) developed a cream to buff into the nail creating a rosy hue.  Nail enamel was later developed by Charles Revson (behind the name Revlon), his brother, & a chemist.  This was the first opaque nail enamel that was produced in a variety of shades.  And by variety, I mean shades of red: red, dark red, crimson, & vermilion.  Max Factor followed closely behind with his nail enamel.

Excerpt adapted from Salon Fundamentals: Nails

My room mate just got a plain ol manicure but I am hoping to see if my sister is up for a glitter looking one because I really want to try it out.

My Current manicure: OPI & Apple pie & Lighten up, You're Two Pence!

Nail Technology was something I was totally interested in when I was in high school, but was taking too many classes to be able to go to the vocational school.  I really am excited to be able to have a skill that is fun & could be a fall back if I needed one.

Do you get your nails done regularly?

Do you try to manicure at home? Have any tips?