Neon Lights Shine Bright (On Broadway)

    Hey everybody!  We're growing in numbers!  I'm up to a whole 7 followers.  This is great!  Also, see how I kept my promise? #manicuremonday, we've got this.  Maybe I'll even post more often!  Who knows? Okay, into the tutorial.
    1) Gather supplies.  You'll need a dotting tool and polish.  I used Revon: Knockout, Lacura: 406, Love & Beauty: Orange, Yellow, Wet n Wild: Screech/Nerd Alert, I Need a Refresh-Mint, and Claire's: Flashy.

This is a pretty easy design.

    2) Polish all your nails black.  This would probably work with white too.  

    3) Using the dotter, make dots n rainbow order from one top corner of your nail towards the opposite bottom corner.  I found it helped to do all the reds at once, clean the tool, and then proceed to the oranges.  Being the bad blogger that I am, I totally forgot to take pictures of this step.  However, its pretty simple, so here's the finished product.

      As repentance for my slip up in forgetting to photograph the steps, please enjoy these photos od my puppy laying on the floor with my Daddy and my henna.  

Love you all, comments make my day!

~Hannah

Flower Power!

  My blogging mojo has returned!  With such force, in fact, that I'm already here with another post.  Just 5 days after my last post!  I am on FIRE.  Speaking of the girl on fire, did you all see Jennifer Lawrence's new brown Katniss hair?  Thoughts?  I liked the whole honey-blonde business she had going on a bit better, I think. 

     Anyways, I've just been watching Doctor Who by the hour, and now I'm jamming out to a Straight No Chaser mash up of You & Me & the Bottle Makes Three and Single Ladies.  I think yes.  You all have heard of them, right? If not, you must go listen.  You won't be sorry, I could drown in their a cappella wonderfulness all day.

    On to the tutorial!  I felt inspired by the sunshine filled day yesterday, the snowdrops sprouting by my front door, the rising temperatures, and the shedding horses at the barn.  Could spring really be around the corner?  To help coax it along we have an awfully cheery flower manicure :).  

    1) Start with your supplies: Something to make dots/thin lines with, and a surface to drip polish on, as well as polish: I used NYC: French Tip White, Wet n Wild: Nerd Alert/Screech, Finger Paints: Picture This!, Klean Color: Cobalt, and Maybelline: Bold Gold. 

I think that one of those cuticle sticks works really well to make dots of different sizes.

    2) Polish your nails entirely white.  You might need two or three coats, depending on how thick your polish is.

Make sure the polish is really opaque, you won't be covering much of it.

    3) Using the small, pointy side of the cuticle stick, make thin green lines.  Do this by dripping some green polish onto a tupperware lid and then making a straight row of lots of small dots.  These will stand for stems for your flowers.

They should be a little longer than half your nail.

    4) Now, using the other "chisel" tipped side of your cuticle stick, make petals.  Do this by dipping the flat part of the chisel tip into polish and gently touching it to your nail where you want the petal to go.

This doesn't take much pressure, be careful!

    5) Repeat step 4 until you have five-petal flowers on each nail.  Flowers with 5 petals, that is.

Alternate colors!

    6) Using the pointy end of your cuticle stick, make gold centers for each flower with small dots.

And with that, you're finished!

    Hope you guys enjoyed, comments make my day!  More on Monday!

~Hannah

I Pulled Through!

Hey all! So I have a few things to attend to before today's tutorial:
1) Claire!  The dumplings are called Vege Potstickers (No, I didn't just spell that wrong), and we buy them at the Oriental market on Meadow Street.
2) Lill - your photos put my crappy point and shoot tutorial shots to shame. You rock.

Okay!  I have been painting my nails, I just didn't have a chance to upload the tutorial yet.  Here we go!  
Start off as always, with clean, trimmed, polish free nails, or you can put a base coat on if you prefer that.  Then gather your materials:

There's too many polishes here to name, so I'll just tell you what you need:  A light and a dark shade of every color you want to use. I chose to go with the whole rainbow and then some.

All right!  Polish your nails with the lighter shade of each color you'd like to use in your design.  I went from left pinky nail to right pinky nail in rainbow order. 

Like this.  I won't show the right hand, seeing as the nail on my broken finger is kinda gross and the wrong color. Ew.

Then, take scotch tape and place it straight across your nail horizontally, leaving a tip of untaped area at the tip of your nail.  This works best if your nails are square or "squoval" shaped, it just doesn't look as good with rounded nails.  You need to wail until your nails are completely dry before you complete this step.  If you don't, you'll rip off some of the polish and have awkward patches.  Don't be awkward, exercise your powers of patience.

Next, take a the darker shade of the same color and paint over the exposed part of your nail.  Feel free to go a little ways back onto the tape, as you'll get a crisper line in the end between the light and dark shades if you let the tape peel off the excess polish. 

Wait a minute or two for the darker shade to set before removing the tape. Now, very slowly, peel off the tape.  I find this works best if you go reaaaaaaaaaally slowly and pull the tape back along itself instead of up.

Ta-Dah!!!

There you have it, easy, two tone french tips!  This works really well with any color pairing, and can really jazz up your manicure when you're out of ideas for new designs.  Always rely on the old standby!

Here's another example of another way to wear this look:

Black with blue pinkies for Bullying Awareness!

Okay all, there you go :) I hope you enjoyed.  Also, I'm actually really liking this #manicuremonday business.  Maybe that'll be our new thing... a new post every Monday at the least.  We'll see!  Love you all, comments make my day!

~Hannah