It's below zero...why not wear some floral nails?

It's winter here in Minnesota. It's below zero outside. There are no nice days in the foreseeable future. Christmas is over. It's a looooong time til spring.

Alright. Enough griping about how crummy it is here, let's focus on bright happy things. Floral print sounds nice doesn't it? This mani makes me think of bright, soft, cottony fabric. I needed something to brighten up my icy mood yesterday. :-)

I chose a matte topcoat, because I thought it looked more like fabric. My love for matte topcoats is growing. This one is by NYC and it's called "Matte me crazy". I picked it up at target for under $2!

The two main colors in this mani are OPI's "My Vampire is Buff" and China Glaze "A Rose Among Thorns". For the flowers and the dots, I used my dotting tools!

I'm pretty pleased with my floral print mani, what do you think of it?

When beauty betrays you...

Alright...time for some cold, hard reality. We all know that nail polish is awesome. We all know that the color options out there are staggering. I love painting my nails every day, at times. Sometimes I have 5, 6 or more polishes going on in one mani. 

Sometimes, those lovely colors betray you.

EEEEEEEEEK!!! That is what's left on my nails after removing my Christmas Mani. For the green I used Klean Color's "metallic green". Never again. Never again will I use that color. I had TWO COATS of nail envy under that polish! 

In my crisis, I consulted with some fellow online lacqueristas. I've heard in the past that baking soda, water and lemon is a good way to get rid of staining. My pal Erin had some Christmas staining too, and she recommended that I try making a paste with those three things and SCRUBBING, SCRUBBING, SCRUBBING!!!

I worked with this consistency for awhile, but then added more baking soda until it was more like wet sand. I scrubbed for a very long time, and I have to say...it did work! After I felt like I couldn't scrub anymore, I washed my hands well and grabbed my buffing block. 

HOORAY! 99% stain free. There are still a few faint spots, but I didn't want to buff them anymore than I had already.  Please pardon my dry cuticles. After a couple generous coats of nail envy, at bedtime I loaded my nails up with my new Emerald and Ash Pumpkin Apple Butter cuticle oil!

That cuticle oil just might be my new favorite. It smells delicious, and it soaks into the skin right away. Today, my cuticles feel moisturized and they don't look quite as tore up!

Here is my final result. Much better, right??

Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone! It's Christmas! This is my last Holiday mani for the year, so I thought I'd make it count! I'm also very proud of the stamping in this one. I am really lacking in the nail stamping department, but I like how it turned out! 

I've got a whole lot of colors in this mani...a little bit of Butter London, a little bit of Revlon Top Speed and a LOT of Model City! It's fun, it's festive, and over the top (of course).

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Love,

Cass 

I've got stars in my eyes!

Oh my goodness gracious you guys. I am so in love with this gorgeous rose gold flakie by Indigo Bananas! It is called, "A Star to Sail By" and it is just an beautiful as I'd hoped it would be.

In my pictures I used three coats, and I probably could have used four, for better coverage. 

This polish is so different from the other rose gold sparkles I've seen. Rather than pieces of glitter, this one has flakes of color! It's got a mirror like effect, right?

This color is perfect for a holiday party! It's flashy, without being over the top!

You can find Indigo Bananas on Etsy. Check them out for this, and TONS of other gorgeous colors!

Cozy up with some Christmas sweater nails!

I'm here with a short and sweet post today. I've got some Christmas sweater inspired nail art for you! I took part of a Reddit challenge that asked for ugly Christmas sweater nails...and I must say, I think mine turned out kinda cute!!

I used my DIY nail decal method for this mani. I have a snowflake paper punch that came in super handy!!

The glitter in this Mani is "O Christmas Tree 2.0" by Model City Polish!

Will you be trying any Christmas nail art this season??

My two favorites, teamed up in one CHILLY mani!

We all know that I have a "thing" for Model City polish, but you may not know that I also have a thing for Black Cat Lacquer! They are both incredibly beautiful lines...so many lovely colors! I received a TON of polish in the mail yesterday, and it was like Christmas come early! Model City, Black Cat Lacquer, Julep and ManGlaze! Oooooooh boy!

 You should know that yesterday in MN it was -12 when I got up! 

YIKES!!!

The two colors I chose for this mani are "Cold Snap" by Model City Polish and "Baby it's cold outside" by Black Cat Lacquer. Pretty dang appropriate if you ask me!!!

"Cold Snap" is part of the "Ode to a southern holo" collection. I was looking at my MCP collection and I realized I didn't have any of her vibrant colors! This is a brilliant bright blue with a lovely holographic twist! I could have gotten away with one coat, but just for good measure I did two.

"Baby it's cold outside" is a white crelly (my FAVE) with pastel matte glitters and snowflakes scattered throughout. There is also a subtle holographic silver shimmer to it. It wasn't thick, it wasnt goopy, and I was able to get great coverage with 3 coats. I was gifted this one by a fellow Reddit Polisher! Thanks again ChelseyCheckers!

It's such a soft, icy wintery look, isn't it?

Think warm thoughts for me! I'm gonna go get a heated blanket or something!

Model City Polish and the Christmas collection!

First off, I want to start this post with a little apology. One, to you, the reader. Two, to Nina, the creator and mastermind at MCP. I finally found my Nikon camera and was very excited to take some macro shots with it! Turns out, it doesn't take the best pictures. I'm no photographer, so I did the best with what I had. It's been a little while since I've posted, and I sincerely apologize.

So, lets move on to this fabulous collection! I have 3 of 6 colors in the Holiday lineup. I chose Coal, O Christmas Tree 2.0 and Sugar cookie!

First off, let's talk about Coal. Generally, you don't want to get coal for Christmas. Trust me, this is coal that you want. In all honesty, the pic just doesn't do it justice.

It's a black jelly that is just so beautiful, and sparkly and magical. Every which way you look at it, its sparkling. Another beautiful part of this color is that Nina is donating $2 from the sale of each bottle of Coal to her local Humane Society! So awesome!

Next, we have O Christmas Tree 2.0. This is the one where the picture color got a little funky, so sorry.

O Christmas Tree 2.0 is a glitter topper that has every type of glitter packed into it! Green shreds, silver and blue and gold stars! It's like your decorated Christmas tree on your nails! I used a red base in my pics, but you could wear it SO MANY ways!

Lastly, we have my personal favorite, Sugar Cookie. I'm such a sucker for white crelly polish with glitter in it. This one is adorable! 

Sugar cookie is a white crelly base with gold, red and green metallic glitter mixed into it. It's so yummy looking, I just want to eat it! Baking cookies is my favorite part of the holidays, and this polish just totally captures it. I love it. 

Like I said, there are 3 other shades in this Christmas release and they are ALL lovely!

Nina has these and MANY other pretties over in her Etsy shop! 

Follow Model City Polish on Facebook and Instagram to get all the updates!

Termo Trio and Big Ruby nail tattoos!

Today's post is kind of a two-fer! I got some awesome nail mail on Thursday and I couldn't decide which to focus on, so I chose...both! I got my hands on some Dance Legend and Big Ruby "super cool nail tattoos". I am very excited about these nail tattoos. One, my daughter's name is Ruby. Two, our dog is Big Girl and she is a bulldog, which seems to be BigRuby's mascot!

Anyway, Dance Legend is a professional nail polish brand out of Moscow. If you go check out their website, you can see that they make some really bitchin stuff! I got my bottle from Llarowe, a stockist in the US. Here it is, Termo Trio #1...my first thermal polish!

Most thermals change between light and dark. This one has a third color, when it's in the "warm" stage. So dang cool! The texture of the polish is great. Two smooth, even coats and one coat of seche vite in these pics.

The above pic is in the "cold" stage. It's a dark, purple-ish blue.

Here is the "warm" stage. Kinda pink, kinda purple.

Here is the "hot" stage. A lovely, periwinkle blue!

I spotted BigRuby tattoos over at Chalkboard Nails. What a cute, super easy fun addition to your mani! They are applied exactly like you would apply a temporary tattoo to your skin. I chose the one that looks just like my pup! What do you think? I love them, and I love my new Termo Trio!

DIY nail decals!

In this post I'm gonna show you how to make these super cute nail decals, with just a few simple things you probably already have at home!

I started the idea for this post with a lovely forest green that I purchased at Big Lots for a buck! I was thinking it would be great for another beautiful bargain! I decided then, that it would look beautiful matted! 

Great. Right?

I was inspired to try a multi-day mani challenge by a fellow Reddit lacquer lover and I started trying to come up with ways to change up the plain polish I had on! Pinterest is great for getting inspiration too, and I found a little tutorial on how to make these with a plastic bag, some nail polish and a paper punch! 

Just paint your colors, and let them dry. Let them dry for a long time, or your polish will tear (like the gold did on my bag). For my decals, I used a mini heart punch and a pinking shear!

Paint some topcoat on your nail and stick them on! I used a wax pencil to make picking up and placing them very easy. After you stick them on, throw on some more topcoat and you're good to go! 

(This could be a good UND fan mani!)

I love these DIY nail stickers, and I can't wait to make more!!

You can't go wrong with Charisma. I love Zoya.

Here's my second nimbus mani for you. At first, I had Zoya's Charisma on all of my fingers. I had planned to do a hand-placed glitter mani, á la Chalkboard Nails, but it just wasn't workin for me. I scraped off the glitters and polish and decided to try a matte nimbus mani. 

Charisma is probably my favorite nail color. The thing that's cool about it, is that it fits into a lot of categories! You can wear it for any season. It's purple, it's fuschia, and it's pink; it just depends on what light you're in. The pic above is under my light with "daylight" bulbs in it.

This picture is what it looks like in ACTUAL daylight. Totally different, right? This is the first time I've matted a mani and really liked it! Charisma is beautiful in every way, wouldn't you agree?

Here's another artificially lit pic. It looks more purple here. Either way, it's a great color! 

I'm still hanging on to summer!

I'm not gonna lie, I've been feeling a little un-inspired in the nail "art" categpry lately. Maybe it's because life has been busy and I haven't had the time to sit and play. This evening, I did 3 different nail art themes. THREE! This is the first. It's cute, and I like it. It's just probably better suited for summer! After I finished it, I topcoated it, took these pictures and took it off. Such a shame to waste perfectly good nail art, right?

Aren't they lovely? They remind me of a purple Hydrangea.

 I used my dotting tool to make the flowers with three different purples.

On my ring finger I followed this Nimbus tutorial , from the Nailasarus to get the soft, watercolor effect. I love how all the colors layer together. I did a lot of painting in high school, and this nail 

art reminds me of a lot of the paintings I used to do. 

I will definitely be using the Nimbus technique in the future. In fact, it's making another appearance in tomorrows mani! Stay tuned!

What a shifty shifter!

Today I have for you another amazing color by ILNP.
It's another stunning ultra-chrome like Mutagen and Birefringence, but this time, it's a holo too!!! 

I give you, Cygnus Loop Holo.

I snagged this one when ILNP opened their sale site up for pre orders. There were LOTS of gorgeous colors to look at! I told myself from the start that I could only choose one! I wanted the non-holo version of this before, so my choice was easy.

I used three coats of color and one coat of seche vite in my pictures. 

Cygnus Loop is the shiftiest of the shifters...it's just amazing.

This color goes between bright purple, fuschia, orange and yellow!

This pic is in direct sunlight! Check out that HOLO!!

What makes a nail polish a "Holo"? It means that the polish itself contains something that is called SpectraFlair pigment. I did a little digging around the internet to find that it is basically an additive that has teeny, tiny, little, microscopic light diffracting prisms. Cool, huh? There are TONS of holographic polishes out there, with varying degrees of WOW factor. This one definitely has it. 

Wanna know how to store "Ten Thousand" polishes?

Up until Saturday I was using a toolbox from Home Depot to store all of my polish and supplies.

I grew out of it pretty quickly.

 My husband was getting kind of tired of me always having nail polish "stuff" all over the kitchen table, and honestly, I was too. I found a "how to" online that seemed simple enough, so I showed it to the hubby and we decided to make a rack together. 

In the tutorial it suggested using 1"x2"x8' lumber, so that's what I picked up. Our intention was to make it wide enough to span the space of three studs behind the wall.

There was only two studs in the space we wanted to hang it, hence the wire that is holding it up. My husband put screws in the studs and then we rigged up the wire on the rack to hang it like a big mirror or picture.

This picture shows how we attached everything together. We definitely are not carpenters, so it's not perfect, but it works. We spaced the shelves roughly 2.5 inches apart, and all of my polishes fit perfectly!

The shelf was super wobbly with just the wire holding it up, so he attached brackets on the bottom and top of the rack to stabilize it. Looking at it now, we probably could have just used the brackets since they are screwed into the studs.

Here it is! The only thing I'll change is I want to add some sort of face to it, to keep the polishes from falling off the shelves. I love it! Looks like I have some space to fill ;-)