Viva La Nails--Review

Hey! How was your Tuesday? Mine was okay. I didn't have to work today (yay) but I had class all day (boo). Another plus, Glee was on! Loved it, as usual! Anyways, on with the post..

I have a review for you today! Viva La Nails! They sent me the Blogger Nail Art Sample Pack full of nail art goodies! Now, if you've been with me from the beginning you'll know that I'm not one for nail art. I have the ideas, just not the follow through! However, they sent me such a variety so I was able to try out different types and figure out what I could do!

I sat down with all the stuff and felt overwhelmed, extremely overwhelmed. Feeling that way I decided it was best to pick one of each kind of art and go for it.

I am a changed woman. Why did I think nail art was so difficult? Granted, it may not be a Picasso painting on my nails, but I enjoyed it and I think for my 'first' try it was pretty darn good. Without further ado, I present my nail art:

 Take one: Star shaped sequins and small round ones. Both holographic, and lovely. Easy to apply, easy to remove. Loved them! 

Take Two: One of everything! Thumb: Small blue sequins Index: Black rhinestones Middle: Crushed Shells Ring: Small Gold rhinestones, large gold rhinestone Pinky: Water decal

Another view. The crushed shells are the only ones I really had trouble with. 

Close ups:

I was confused by this:

 Not sure how to use that for nail art. I tried but it did not work. It was one big fail full of goopy feathers. Or rather, feather. Fail. 

Viva La Nails has a large variety of great nail art items. Check them out! I'm definitely going to try a lot more nail art now that I'm such a pro. Or semi-pro. Meh.

Finding the Time...

Hey everyone! Sorry that it's been over a week since my last post! I meant to post earlier but my life has been hectic! I haven't had the time to even polish my nails in the last four days!!

I recently got a sort of promotion at work, so I'm working full time and only have Wednesdays off and every other weekend off. Before this I worked mostly nights, but now I'm working mornings. I'm still adjusting to this so I've been extremely tired lately and it's hard to work up the energy to post or paint my nails! As I'm adjusting, the posts will happen more and more!

My Grandma had surgery on Thursday and is still in the hospital through tomorrow morning. I've been spending my weekend off up in her room keeping her company.  I would have loved to paint my nails but I figured it would be frowned upon in a hospital! When she gets released I'm going to stay at her house with her until she gets a little more mobile. It may be difficult for me to post for the next couple of weeks but I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out. She has internet but her computer is so outdated that I can't stand to use it. I may have to bring over mine...

Anyways, last post you told me you wanted some nail art and who am I to deny you some nail art?

Since jaljen asked for simple nail art, I did as simple as I could.   And I'm going to tell you how to achieve it!

Here's the finished look:

And here's what you need:

A basecoat, one light color, one dark color, a bold accent color, top coat and blue painter's tape.

First, paint your nails with the light color. I used Damone Roberts 1968. My favorite mint green! I used two coats.

Clean up if you want, I did, and apply your topcoat. Let it dry. I added the top coat to make sure the tape didn't take off the polish.

Next, take a piece of tape and tape off the bottom half of your nails at a diagonal.  Paint the exposed top half of your nail with your dark color. I used Rimmel Black Satin. A dark brown would also look nice with mint green.

Remove the tape after the polish dries. I only used one coat of the dark polish, but depending on what color you chose you may need more.

Again, cleanup and apply top coat.  

Here's where it may get tricky for you.  You want to take two pieces of tape and tape off your nail so that only a small triangular piece of nail is showing. Make sure it's on the dark color, coming from the lower side. It should be wider towards the bottom and thinner at the top. Also, the section should only go about half way across. 

Paint that part with your bold accent color, I used Essence Nail Art Twins in Romeo, a great silver shimmer.  Once it dries, peel the tape off, clean it up, do any touchups (I had to straighten my lines with a dotting tool), and apply top coat for the last time. 

Voila! You've completed your nail art! 

I hope you enjoyed this look! If you do any variations, I'd love to see them! Email me pics! :)

Have a great night!
Kayla

P.S. I received Romeo in a swap with Tina from Fleur's Nails & Stuff! She was super sweet and got me amazing polishes! Go check out her blog! 

50th post!

Welcome to my 50th post! Woohoo! Yay! etc.

Nail art. I love it. I wish I had konad so that I could do some decent looking nail art on my nails. I've recently just been testing out looks on nail polish display wheels. I'm happy with the results so far. I just need to transfer that to my nails.

I think I'll grow them out a bit and then they'll be bigger canvases to work on. :) That's what I'll do! Hopefully in the near future I'll start featuring some nail art.

I have a simple design on my nails today. Kind of a geometric style.

Here are the colors I used:

L-R: Color Club Bizerk Turq, Claire's Grey Matte, and Rimmel Minerals Black Satin

Here's the finished look:

I decided to just do the thumb on my left hand and the ring finger on my right. I didn't want it to overwhelm my tiny fingers! I love the color combo! Gorgeous! :)

My contest has gotten a few more entries in the last couple days! Spread the word so we can get a ton of entries and make it a little tougher! Everyone has done a fabulous job! It's so exciting! 

There's a new giveaway going on right now over at Yardsticks 4 Lunatics! She's curing our summertime blues by giving away some beautiful blue polishes! Check it out:

And she says there's more to come! Exciting!! Get over there and check it out!

Have a great weekend! I hope you have fantastic weather to enjoy! I'm off to work in an hour so I need to go enjoy the great weather while I can! 

Kayla