Twinsie Tuesday... Nail Appliqués

Good morning everyone! I hope you're having a great week so far! 

For today's Twinsie Tuesday post the prompt was nail appliqués. I have to say I groaned when I saw this one... I've never had much luck with nail strips and I was worried that I would be fighting my nails the entire time. But I was pleasantly surprised! Here's what I came up with. 

For this mani I painted 3 coats of OPI Toucan Do It If You Try on my pinky and pointer, then applied Sally Hansens Love Letter nail stripes to my ring and middle fingers. It was my first successful application and I like it! I need practice, I can't stand seeing my nail at the tips like is shown here. But it was a successful attempt so it gives me hope! I think I will always prefer the look and feel of polish though. 

What do you all think of appliqués? Yay or nay? 

Thanks for reading. Be sure to check out my fellow Twinsies for their creations! 

Until next time. 

~casey

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Anna at Going to the Showing

Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Casey at CaseyLane Loves Polish

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Maribeth at Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Rachel at Top Coat It

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Stephanie at A Little Polish

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Traci at DrinkCitra

Guest Post from Polish Frolic

Good morning everyone! Today's guest post is from a lovely girl named Anna. She runs an Instagram account called Polish Frolic. I originally followed Anna on her first Instagram (omgnannerz... love that name) and then she created a mostly nail account.... So of course I had to follow it too. I love her nails and we even did some Bestie Twin Nails a couple of weeks ago. If you didn't get a chance to see that post, you should go check it out here. :) 

So lets see what Anna has in store for us today! 

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Hello to Casey's lovely fans! Welcome to my blog debut (cue the music). Seriously though, When Casey asked me to do a guest post for her blog I was so thrilled. I love Casey's work on Instagram, and hers is the only nail blog I've ever read so this is all very exciting for me. I decided to go with some nail art for the post, so I will give you a little window into me and my nail art . I have been into doing nail art since I found out it was even a thing. Fortunately, that was also before I knew Instagram was a thing, so my earliest and most cringe-worthy manis can stay buried on my hard drive. When I did get on Instagram I realized there was this big, wonderful nail art community and I made friends. I also learned, a LOT! I learned how to take care of my hands, tons of amazing techniques, and I have been having a blast. I have been a polishing fool for about 2 years now and I'm still learning. In fact, the mani I've created for this post was the first time I've painted roses. I wanted to put together something that was a nice summer-to-fall transition. What I landed on was a tape mani with accent nails on either side. Enjoy!

Colors Used:
The base for the colorblocking is Color Club- French Tip. Colors used are: China Glaze- Heart of Africa, OPI- My Vampire is Buff, Sally Hansen- Soy Latte, and Wet n Wild Megalast- Wet Cement (one of my all time favorite polishes, by the way). 

The base for the roses is OPI- My Vampire is Buff. My roses are three different reds: Wet n Wild Megalast- Undercover (lightest), China Glaze- Heart of Africa (darkest), and Milani- Ruby Jewels (glitter). The leaves on the roses are Essie- Sew Psyched. 


That super glittery pinky nail is Milani- Gold Glitz.

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Anna I love this!!!! You know how I have a weakness for roses. :) 

You should all go check out Anna's Instagram, now. Hurry, go follow her right now. I insist! :) 

Thank you so much for your help Anna! 

~casey

Will paint nails for food....

Hi everyone! I hope you’re all having a good weekend so far. I took the day off work yesterday with no errands to run, nowhere to be, nothing in particular to do. And it was wonderful!

Last night we went to a good friend’s house for dinner, my friend Kristen, her husband Tim, and their two girls Claire (9) and Kendall (2). We have been friends since elementary school, I won’t go into detail about how long ago that was, we will just say that it’s been a while. Kristen is always fun, full of laughs, and a great cook. So she made us and her family dinner; fried chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, green beans, rolls, yummmmmm. I took a bottle of Three Olives Strawberry Vodka and a jell-o poke cake. And as a thank you for the tasty meal, I took along my nail polish supplies to do a few manicures.

First up was the baby. I've never painted toddler nails, it’s tricky. Especially when said toddler is feeling a bit sleepy and very squirmy. But with the right amount of distraction from mom and sissy we got the toes done. Kendall picked her own color and it was hilarious. She said “I want piiiiiink”, but her pink sounded like a sigh of love. Girl after my own heart!

After baby Kendall was done it was Claire’s turn. I didn't get a picture of her toes, but she wanted “Hawaiian flowers”. We did pink on pink with silver dots. Then she wanted “puzzle nails”, aka interlocking dots. I didn't get them as cleaned up as I’d like to, she was getting antsy. She’s a super sweet girl and did a great job holding still for me, but by the time we finished her toes and fingers she was at her limit. She was really happy with them, and according to mom she is borderline obsessing over them today. For these we used NOPI Naturally and Sally Hansen Celeb City.

Then it was mamma's turn. She loved the nails that I did for my friend Ashlea a couple of weeks ago, so we did a mani inspired on those. I think her color choices turned out great! We used Sally Hansen Celeb City, Finger Paints Santa’s Magic, chevron decals that I made on a sandwich baggie with China Glaze Liquid Leather, Color Club Beyond, and China Glaze Pink Voltage (neon). Everyone’s got topped w/ Seche Vite and voila!

Hope you all enjoyed these nails as much as I enjoyed doing them!

Happy polishing!

***all products in this post were purchased by me for my own personal use***

Mint Manis for Talia Joy...

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. Things are going good here in our little world. I’m trying to get into the swing of this blogging thing, more mentally than anything else. I’m so excited to get it going, so hopefully I don’t let you all down. I’m hoping to get into a routine and start posting regularly throughout the week. I plan to post nail art and polish swatches all mixed together, because that is what I love.

Today I have some nail art for you, Mint Nails for Talia. For those of you that don’t know, Talia Joy Castellano was a 13 year old with exceptional make up and nail art talent. She had a YouTube channel with a huge following. I only learned about her a few weeks ago, but every interview I read or saw showed how much spirit this little girl had, and a never ending positive attitude. This little girl battled cancer for nearly half of her life, sadly earlier this week she passed away. To learn more about Talia and her battle you can visit the official Facebook page Angels for Talia.

Like I said before, I don’t know much about her. But I started seeing posts on the blogosphere after she passed away about doing tributes in her memory and to raise awareness to childhood cancers. Nicole from Nail Polish Wars organized “Mint Manis for Talia Joy on Friday” as a tribute. The last picture Talia posted on her Instagram was of a matching mint green cream mani she had with her mom and sister. So, joining in to the #mintmanisfortaliajoy tag, I came up with some nail art in her memory. It might seem like a silly thing to some, but the whole time I did the mani I had Talia and her family heavy on my heart and in my prayers, along with all of the other kids (and adults) battling cancer right now. I think it’s a fitting tribute for her.

This is my first leopard print mani and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I’ve never been a big fan of animal print, but in nail art I think I’ve found a new love. For this mani I used Essie Mint Candy Apple, Sally Hansen Extreme Wear Celeb City, and China Glaze Liquid Leather. Last time I wore Mint Candy Apple it stained my nails some, so I doubled up on my OPI Nail Envy Matte base coat and applied 3 coats of polish. Then using a dotting tool I applied “blobs” of Celeb City. I tried to keep them mostly circular, but not too symmetrical. Then I used a fine nail art brush and applied the black lines around the blobs with some dots and lines to fill in the blank areas. There are dozens of leopard tutorials floating around the internet, but I just pulled up some images of leopard print items and used that to help me. The best thing about this kind of nail art is that you can’t really mess it up since it’s not supposed to be perfect. After letting it dry a little I sealed everything in with Seche Vite. I posted a picture of this on my Instagram last night but wanted to do a proper blog post of it today for Talia. I was able to get a few more pictures before the sun went down tonight, enjoy!

***all products in this post were purchased by me for my own personal use***