March Nail Polish Picks

Hey guys! This is usually something that I do on my youtube channel (If you aren't subscribed there you should be. www.youtube.com/Jwhackers) but I decided, in an attempt to use my blog more, that I would bring this series over here! I am going to be sharing with you all of the nail polishes I wore this last month! These photos were all taken from my instagram, so if you are interested in seeing my manicures in real time, you should follow me over there (Jwhackers).

March was a pretty rough month on my hands. The winter was so long here (and still sticking around, apparently, as it's currently snowing -Argh!) and it really did a number on my hands. They have been so dry, and my cuticles and nails have been really damaged. Plus, I suffered a pretty bad break near the beginning of the month, so I didn't wear quite as much nail polish as I usually would. But I did manage to get a few manicures in that I really enjoyed, so let's go ahead and get into them,

Julep Lynn and Julep Natalia

Julep Marcy 

Sally Hansen Hard as nail Xtreme wear Ivy League
with Butter London Swinger on top

Probelle Into the blue with Sinful Colors
Petal Be the Day on top

Julep Lulu with Funky Fingers Teen Spirit on Top 

Happy Independence Day!

If you are one of my American readers, happy Independence Day! If not, happy Friday! I thought I would share my patriotic manicure with you today!

The red nails are Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar with Julep's America the Beautiful on top. The Blue Nails are Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Blue It with New York Color Disco Inferno Top Coat. The white nail is Julep Brigitte with accents of Sugar Sugar, Blue It, Sally Hansen Celeb City and a bit of Disco Inferno right in the middle. I love the way these turned out!

Advent Calendar Nail Challenge Day 13: Snow

The theme for Day 13 of the challenge is snow! I really wanted to do another stamping mani and here's what I came up with! I love this snowflake manicure!!

I started out with a white base color. I used Sinful Colors "Snow me White." Then, using the bundle monster image plate number BM14, I stamped on the snow flake design in a random pattern on each nail with Sinful Colors "Endless Blue" Then when that was dry I added a Shades of the Season Glitter polish. They don't have names, but this one is a really pretty iridescent glitter that looks so beautiful with this manicure. Just like fresh sparkling white snow. Considering we got 8 inches of snow dumped on us today, this seemed like an appropriate manicure!

Be sure to check back again and see what I come up with for the rest of this challenge. :)

Advent Calendar Nail Challenge: Days 9 and 10

Today I am bringing you yet another comical attempt at nail art. I hope you're ready to laugh! Note: Ignore the abysmal state of my hands. They are dried out from the acetone I use to remove my nail polish, and I took these photos before I moisturized. Sorry!

Day 9's theme was pine. I decided to attempt little pine trees on each of my nails.

I started out with a base of Julep's Dendrie, a soft grey cream. Then I used a little nail art brush to add the tree details. The brown is Elf's Chocolate. The darker green is China Glaze Holly Day. And the khaki green shade that I used to add accents is Sinful Colors Beau Khaki. You can see some of the trees got a bit smudged, but overall, considering what a novice I am with the nail art brush, I think I did a decent job.

Day 10's theme is lights.

I used Wet n Wild Wild Shine in "French White Creme" as the base color for my nails. The Black that I used for the cord on the lights in NYC Black lace creme. I used a little nail brush to draw on the cord, and then used a small dotting tool to add the lights. The red is NYC "Big Apple Red" the purple is NYC "Purple Pizazz" and the green is NYC "High Line Green"

Hopefully as I continue on with this chalenge I get better at this whole nail art thing. At least my nail art attempts are good for a laugh!

Advent Calendar Nail Challenge Day 5: Blue!

Today's theme for the Advent Calendar Nail Challenge was blue! I couldn't decide which blue I wanted to use, so I decided to use a few of my favorites and create a sort of mix and match mani! I really love the finished result!

On my pinkie finger I simply did two coats of the Wet n Wild Fergie nail polish in the color "Havasu Blue". For my ringer finger, I did three coats of Sinful Colors "Cinderella" and on top of that I did two coats of the China Glaze glitter polish in "Bells Will be Blinging" My middle finger is Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in "Blue It" with Wet n Wild Wild Shine polish in "French White Creme" dotted on top. My index finger is the same "French white Creme" with all three of the previous blues I mentioned done in the saran wrap method on top. And my thumb is once again "French White Creme" with a design from the Bundle Monster BM02 plate stamped on using the Fergie Polish in "Havasu Blue" again. I love the way the different blues compliment one another and adding the same blues in the different designs help tie each nail together to make it look cohesive and cute! I really love this mani and I am going to be sad to take it off tomorrow, when I do day 6 of the challenge!

Thanks for stopping by my blog! Be sure to follow me so you won't miss a single day of the Advent Calendar Nail challenge plus lots more!

Advent Calendar Nail Challenge Day 3: Green!

The theme for Day 3 of the advent calendar nail challenge is green, and I was super excited for this one! I purchased a nail polish that has been on my wish list for ages a while ago and I thought this was the perfect chance to use it! There isn't much art to this particular manicure. Not like yesterday when I did the stamping. But I love it nonetheless. I just wish the picture did it more justice. I found it hard to capture how pretty this is and have it look true to color. I did my best. You all know I am no photographer.

Sorry about the dreadful photo. When I attempted to take it using the flash it turned the green polish I used this bright neon green color, that was not at all true. So this was the best i could do. I used China Glaze Holly Day as the base color. It's a gorgeous christmas tree green from a holiday collection three years ago, if I am not mistaken. And then, the star of the show is Sinful Colors Green Ocean which I put on top. It's a gorgeous green flakie polish that I believe they re-promote every year around St. Patrick's day, but that I managed to find randomly in a sinful colors display at walmart a month or two ago. I love it, and I think it makes the perfect green manicure for this challenge!

Thanks for stopping by my blog! Be sure to follow my blog so you don't miss the rest of this challenge! Tomorrow's theme is "Silver"

Advent Calendar Nail Challenge: Day 1

If you follow me on instagram you might have already seen that this year I am going to attempt to participate in a manicure challenge that I came across while searching for inspiration for nail art for December. It's the Advent Calendar Challenge, which was created by someone named Kristi and Happy Hands and it goes a little something like this.

So each day you create a manicure based on the theme for that day. I thought this would be a great way for me to get back into nail art and challenge myself a bit, all the while giving me fun things to share with you all here on my blog and get me in the mood for the holiday season!

So hopefully everyday leading up until Christmas I will be posting a new fun manicure to share with you. I can't promise I won't skip a day here or there. And I can't promise that each day is going to be amazing, since I am still very much a novice at this whole nail art thing. Needless to say some of my attempts might not be all that "artistic" at all. But, while this is a challenge, I mean for it to be fun so I am going to have fun with it, do my best and not take it terribly seriously! I would love it if any of you would like to join me and begin this challenge as well. Even if, since I posted this so late in the day, you have to start a bit behind.

Day 1 of this challenge is just Red. So I started out super simple!

I painted my nails with two coats of the Sinful Colors Nail Polish in the color Sugar Sugar, which is a gorgeous Metallic Red. Then for a subtle added touch, which doesn't really show up at all in the photos, but promise me it's there, I added a coat of the Wet n Wild Megalast Polish in the shade On the 101 which is a sheer black base with medium red hex glitters. I applied this very thinly so the black base wouldn't effect the color overall much and would just add some subtle glitter. I really like the way it turned out. I wish it translated better in the photos.

So that's it for day 1 of this challenge. I am already thinking about creative ways to create my mani for tomorrow when the theme will be "Gold"! I can't wait! Thanks for stopping by! And if you are interested in getting a sneak peek of these manis before they hit my blog, you should add me on instagram, username Jwhackers, since I will be posting my manicures there as well!!

Mani Monday: Halloween

Hey guys! I am so sorry that I haven't been participating in Mani Monday lately. I've just been feeling rather uninspired lately. But no more, this week's theme is Halloween and I am fired up! So fired up, in fact, that today kicks off the first of 4 Halloween manis that I have ideas for. If everything goes as planned, hopefully I will post a new halloween themed mani everyday until Halloween!But for now let's show off this one for Mani Monday!

 How cute are these adorable little glow in the dark ghost face nails? And super easy! I started out by painting two coats of the Wet n Wild Wild Shine polish in French White, and then topped that with a coat of the Sinful Colors Glow in the dark Polish. Once it was all dry I just used a dotting tool and added the eyes and mouths using Sinful Colors Black on Black. Easy peasy. These are so cute, and super awesome looking in the dark! Love them!

I hope you'll pop by tomorrow and see my next Halloween themed mani! Fingers crossed it turns out as cute in reality as it looks in my head! haha. Thanks for stopping by!

Halloween themed Manicure

It's about the dreariest day possible. It's overcast and chilly and the epitome of fall here in southeast Michigan. That means it's not great lighting for taking photographs, but I wanted to share the mani that I did on myself last night. I wanted to do something sort of halloween themed, but I didn't have time to do a lot of stamping or nail art. So I decided to do something simple, and I love the way it turned out!

On my pinkie and thumb I have 2 coats of Sinful Colors Black on Black. It's a nice, shiny black cream polish. There is also one coat of Sinful Colors Black on Black under a coat of Sinful Colors Black Magic.Black Magic is a clear base chock full of medium sized orange glitter and charcoal colored micro glitter. Black Magic is part of Sinful Colors Halloween line of polishes and it's stunning! On my pointer finger and middle finger there are two coats of Wet n Wild 9.0.2.1.orange. It's a gorgeous sheer orange with tons of gold shimmer running through it.

Together, I think this makes a perfect black and orange halloween themed mani. It's a great manicure that doesn't require any nail art skills, and because the dense glitter polish is only one the one nail, it should be relatively easy to get off.

Hopefully you enjoyed this and maybe got an idea for a cute super easy halloween manicure! Stay tuned for more halloween themed manis as the month progresses! See ya again soon!

Mani Monday: Fall!

Another Monday which means it's time for another Mani Monday post! Are you excited? I'm excited! This week's theme is fall and I had SO many ideas for fall manis. I literally wrote had about 5 different ideas that I could have done but ultimately I decided to do something pretty simple!

I started out with two coats of a Julep polish that I managed to snag off their website for a steal! i had a coupon code for 50% off and this polish was on sale for $7.99! When I plugged in the code. it took 7 dollars off the polish, and since shipping was free, I got it for just 99 cents! The polish screams fall for me! It;s a matte suede polish in the color Minka. It's a redd-y brown sort of rust shade with a beautiful matte finish. It's such an awesome finish. Honestly, I could have just polished my nails with this and called it done and it would be perfect for the fall theme! 

Julep Minka

Julep Minka

But of course, I am never one to leave well enough alone, so I decided I was going to add an accent nail using one of the nail polishes from sinful colors' halloween collection. It's pumpkin spice which is a beautiful mixture of gold and red glitter that just screams "Fall" to me! Well, when I painted it as an accent nail, I liked the way it looked so much that I went ahead and painted it onto all of my nails. Since pumpkin spice has a clear base, you could still see a bit of minka shining through with one coat of the glitter and it just looks beautiful in my opinion. The perfect fall mani! 

Sinful Colors Pumpkin Spice

Sinful Colors Pumpkin Spice over Julep's Minka (with flash) 

Hopefully you enjoyed this fall theme manicure! If you want to check out what some of the other polish enthusiasts came up with for the theme be sure to check out the Mani Mondays facebook page! www.facebook.com/manimondays  and be sure to check back next week for another edition of Mani Monday! Thanks for stopping by! 

Mani Monday: Favorite Nude!

Hey guys! It's time again for Mani Monday and this week the theme is favorite Nude! Nude nail polish is something that I don't own a lot of, but I think it's important for everyone to have a good nude in their nail polish collection. I don't rock nude nails often, but it's great to have in the instance that I want something demure and neutral on the nail. It's also great as a base for nail art, which is how I used it today.

I don't have an all time favorite nude. I just haven't found that holy grail nude polish yet. So for my nails today I picked a nice looking nude-y polish that was untried in my collection. It's a great nude polish with just enough of a rose tone to it that it makes it totally wearable. It's the Rimmel 60 seconds polish in caramel cupcake. This polish applies like a dream. I love the brush on these! They are the flat sort of paddle brush style that I like (think Wet n Wild Megalast) but small enough that I can be really precise with them. Caramel Cupcake is a gorgeous color. It's sort of one of those grandma colors that I personally love so much. And the formula on this polish is great. It was opaque and even in two coats and dries in a flash!

I personally find nude nails a little boring, so I decided to do a little stamping on top to kick this mani up a notch. I wanted to keep with the neutral/nude look of the nails so I decided to stamp with one of my favorite fall time polishes. Sinful Colors Nirvana is one of those fantastic mushroom-y taupe colors that is just fantastic. The formula is fantastic and when paired with Caramel Cupcake this color just pops and looks amazing! The stamp I used is the Bundle Monster stamp # BM10 and I used the stone-like image.

I turned the stamp in different directions as I stamped each nail to give it a bit of a dimension and not have each nail look exactly the same. You can see from the photos that my stamping technique still needs some improvement, but while there are quite a few imperfections, these nails looks so nice at arm's length. I love the combination of the colors, and the pattern on this stamp is awesome. I just wish that this set I purchased from bundle monster didn't have that problem with the images being to small. It's most obvious that I encountered issues with this on my thumb.

Overall I really like this mani!!I really like this stunning nude. I highly reccomend it!

What's your favorite nude? I would love to hear from you! Leave me a comment below or use the contact card on the sidebar of this bloig to get in touch! If you are interested in joining me and sharing your monday mani, check out the group's facebook page at www.facebook.com/ManiMondays and be sure to come back next week and see what I come up with for the theme: Fall!

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark and Sinful Colors Faceted

When I saw Faceted in the Sinful Colors Halloween Display I immediately snatched it up and planned to put it over black. But then when I got home I saw Lincoln Park after Dark sitting on my shelf, still untried, so I decided to pair the two together. I think it looks so awesome!

The pictures really don't do this justice. You have to see it in real life out in the daylight to get the full effect.

I started out with two coats of the cult classic OPI's Lincoln Park After Dark. It's a super dark purple that looks black in practically every light. It's a great vampy shade. It was opaque in two coats but I had a bit of an issue with application. I know everyone raves about OPI, and the formula is nice, but I am not a huge fan of the brush. It's too round or something. It will take some getting used to. But the color is fantastic, and the formula is really nice!

When that was dry I added two coats of Sinful Colors Faceted. It's a stunning glitter polish. It's got small pieces of purple glitter, as well as iridescent bar glitter in a clear base. Unlike some bar glitter, I didn't have any issues with application with this one. It applied relatively evenly and none of the bar glitter curled up on me, which was amazing. Overall I was very impressed with this nail polish, and I just adore the finished look!

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark is part of OPI's permanent collection and can be purchased wherever OPI polishes are sold for around $9.00. .

Sinful Colors Faceted is a limited edition polish that was most recently released with Sinful Color's Halloween Collection. I purchased mine at Walgreens for $1.99

What are you wearing on your nails currently? I would love to hear from you! You can leave me a comment below, or use the contact card on the side bar of the blog to get in touch!!

Nail of the day: More stamping

I have been itching to use one of my latest nail polish purchases for a while now, so I decided to use it as the base color for some more stamping fun! This time, I tried using a stamping plate with a smaller image and stamping that image repeatedly in different colors all over the nails. I LOVE the way this turned out. The stamping was super easy and I really like the combination of colors I chose. What do you think?

I started out by painting on my base color. It's a New York Color Polish in the color tudor city teal. IT is so pretty. It's a light, bright blue green shade that is just gorgeous! Application of this polish was really fantastic! The first coat applied incredibly sheer and I was worried that it was gonna be one of those 4 coater polishes. But the second coat got it opaque and even. This polish is so stunning, especially considering the 99 cent price tag!

After I applied the polish I added my top coat, and once everything was dry I set about the stamping process! I used the Bundle Monster image plate # BM02 (the image indicated)

I did the same stamp repeatedly on each nail in blue, white and black. I used Sinful Colors Black on Black, Sinful Colors Snow Me White and Sinful Colors Endless Blue to stamp with. They all transferred really well and stamped beautifully. Endless Blue didn't show up quite as dark as I had hoped, but it still was really beautiful!

After that I let it dry for a few minutes, applied my top coat and voila! I was left with a beautiful manicure that was super easy but looks much more complicated than it was! I love it! I am really loving stamping! I wish I had tried this so much sooner!

Sorry for the lousy photo quality. I didn't have the best lightning to work with, and I took the photos with my phone. I really need to get a decent camera for capturing my nail art, but for now, I have to work with what I've got! Anyway, hopefully you enjoyed this! Leave me a comment, or else use the contact card to get in touch! I would love to hear from you!