4th of July Manicure

I wanted to practice a bit before the 4th and this is what I came up with! Normally I glue the jewels on with nail glue, but I ran out so I decided to try it without.

Polish Used

Avon - Base coat
Essie - Escapades
OPI - NLB54 11010 (The blue one, it didn't have a name on the bottle)
Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri Top Coat


Add your jewels while the polish is still a bit wet if you aren't using a glue, or use some top/base coat as a glue!

I used a small nail brush for the firework.

I went out a while after I did them and in the sunlight I noticed the red seemed a little sparkly which I didn't realize at first! It's hardly noticeable but I think it really adds something to it. After I finished them I felt like they needed more blue. If I ever recreated this design I would probably add blue jewels instead of white at the base of the nails, or something along those lines. I do like the white and blue stars together though.

Sally Hansen Magnetic Polish

So this was one of my birthday gifts and I finally decided to try it.

It was kinda hard to get it to show up on the smaller nails but I managed to and then the top coat kinda got rid of the design on the big ones which was hard to get in becayse my nails are bigger then the magnet and theyre round to the magnet is just flat.

This is what I used and in order left to right. I used one coat of the base coat. One coat of the magnetic polish on the smaller toes and kind of two (I did it quickly) for the bigger toes. I did them one at a time using the magnet while it was still wet. Then I put the glitter studs on with nail art glue from another little kit thing I have but it would probably work without the glue. Then one coat of the insta-dri and I made sure to get it over the studs really well.

 

 Overall I liked this polish and would recommend it. It would probably work better on finger nails. :)

Pink & Black Gradient Nails

I found this Youtube video a while back and decided to try it. It's really cool and super easy to do!

Here is a picture I took after I painted them and removed most of the nail polish off of my fingers. You can use Vaseline to help not get it all over your fingers but make sure you don't get any on your nails. I tried that when I did my Easter nails.

In her video she says to use 2 coats of white, I only used 1. So in order I used 1 base coat, 1 coat of white, how ever much color I needed to cover the white with the sponge and have it look the way I wanted it to and then a fast drying top coat.

Here is the type of sponge I used. Just a regular makeup sponge and I cut it down to size. Though I think a wedge shaped one like in her video might work better then this thinner round one. 

Below are pictures of my nails 9 days after I painted them. So far no major cracking or chipping. :)