Hi!

I was nominated for a Liebster Award by both Dream It Up Nails and PlumeriaPainted in the same 24 hours. Not sure if this is exactly following the guidelines, but I guess I'll answer both of their sets of questions and nominate 11 bloggers, not 22... OK, here we go!

Oh, wait, just kidding. I'm not starting just yet. First, I have to copy and paste these rules:

1. You must link back to the blogger who nominated you. 
2. Answer the 11 questions given to you by the blogger who nominated you. 
3. Nominate 11 other bloggers with less than 200 followers.
4. Go to the blogs you nominated and notify them of your nomination.
5. Give your nominees 11 questions to answer

OK, here we go!

COLLEEN'S QUESTIONS (DREAM IT UP NAILS)

1. What made you start blogging?

I'm not sure... I guess I'm a little vain, like when I do cool nail art I want to let the world see it and not just the people I know. But also because I just LOVE nail art and nail polish -- of course!

2. How many nail polishes do you own?

I think I'm currently at 47. 

3. Which nail polish is your absolute favorite?

OK, that's a really, really hard question. Hmmm. I think I'm going to have to go with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mint Sorbet because it's a great minty green color that looks great by itself and it's useful for nail art. 

4. Which one: Chocolate or Vanilla?

Vanilla. I know. Don't judge.

5. Which one: Pastel nail polish or Neon nail polish?

Probably pastel (haha alliteration there...), for no specific reason -- I just like it better :)

6. Do you have any pets? (if so, what kind/what are their names?)

Yep, I have a guinea pig whose name is Penelope!

7. If you could go on a vacation anywhere, where would you go?

Ummm. That's tough. I would probably go somewhere in Central/South America because it just seems interesting! 

8. Are you a fan of textured polish?

Not really... I have this weird thing about needing to have my nails be smooth. 

9. In one word, how would you describe yourself?

OK, that's another hard one. I would say... umm... hmm... well I wouldn't say I'm fun, or weird, or horrible (I'm not THAT honest, haha). I guess I'll go with "nice"...

10. If you had to pick a color to describe you, which would it be?

Green. I'm not sure why, I just feel green (like Kermit!).

11. If you were at the zoo and could only see one animal, which animal would you see?

The hippos! I love how they look all awkward and fat out of the water, but then look so graceful and cool in the water. 

GILLIAN'S QUESTIONS (PLUMERIAPAINTED)

1. Which polish started the nail craze for you?

The first two polishes I bought were Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow and Blue Me Away, as I was intending to do earth nails (I thought I could mix the yellow and the blue, because they didn't have green...apparently I'd never heard of acrylic paint at the time) and I guess they were my gateway polishes :)
2. Top 3 colours of polish?

Green, nude, and white!
3. Favourite genre of book?

Memoirs -- don't know why, I just love them :) Or books about music. I'm not sure which. 
4. Website most addicted to?

Mine! No, I'm kidding... But my favorite site is a nail art blog, of course -- the Nailasaurus (I mean, who doesn't love her blog?).
5. Favourite nail art pattern (e.g. animal print, geometric etc.)

Geometric stuff -- like swirls or cool designs.
6. Favourite nail polish brand?

I don't have much experience in this but I do like the Sephora by O.P.I. polishes :) I have yet to acquire my first O.P.I. and Essie, though.
7. Favourite make up brand?

I don't wear makeup, haha (am I like the only nail art blogger who doesn't? But I am only in high school, so... yeah).
8. Current music you're loving?

COUNTRY! COUNTRY ALL THE WAY! Blake Shelton, Eric Church, Diamond Rio... <3
9. Current favourite app?

Subway Surfers! (so mainstream haha) I'm really bad at it though.
10. Brand of nail polish you wish you had access to?

Essie! I LOVE all their polishes. I feel like I should've said some indie polish maker but tbh I don't know much about them at all :\
11. Film you really want to watch?

Hmm... probably the second part of the Hobbit. I know it isn't out yet but I still want to watch it :) Although the Mortal Instruments looks pretty good too. 

OK! Done! *wipes brow* Actually, that was pretty fun! 

Now for the hard part: here are my nominees (ugh, I think I'm going to end up nominating the same people from the Blog Your Heart Out thing or people that already have like a billion of these things -- but the point is, y'all need to discover these amazing bloggers!)

1. Lacquer Reverie 

2. The Fancy Side 

3. Nail Art Newbie

4. Potions in Motion

5. The Country Nail

6. Hey, Darling Polish!

7. Ithinity Beauty

8. ProcrastiNails

9. The Sequined Nail

10. Nail Polish Sleuth

11. Mani's by Moore

(I know at least a couple of you have received this award already, if you don't want to do a whole extremely long post answering my 11 questions/finding 11 nominees, that's fine!)

MY 11 QUESTIONS:

1. What is your favorite nail polish (sorry, I know it's a super hard question)?

2. What other hobbies do you have, besides nail polish?

3. In your opinion, what is the best mani you've ever done?

4. How did you come up with your blog name?

5. What is your favorite flower?

6. What is the accomplishment you're most proud of?

7. Who is your favorite composer?

8. What's your favorite board game?

9. What sports do you like to watch/what are your favorite teams?

10. What would be your idea of a dream vacation?

11. Do you like country music? And if you do, do you agree that Blake Shelton has a bit of a monopoly over the country radio stations?

Thanks so much for reading these boring rambles about myself, and be sure to check out these nail art blogs because they're all AMAZING! 

The Nail Snail :)

Guest Post for Polished and Glittered - Darling Diva Swatches

Hi!

I think I may have forgotten to mention that I won four Darling Diva polishes in a giveaway by 10 Nice Nails (I know... how did I forget that?) I received the polishes last Saturday and swatched them for a guest post on Polished and Glittered! It was my first try at doing a swatching post, so hopefully I did alright!

Polished and Glittered is a great nail art and swatching blog (beautiful photos, too!) so you should definitely go check it out if you haven't already.

For more photos (like, photos of the actual polish on my nails) check out my guest post! 

Thanks for reading!

The Nail Snail :)

Floral Nails

Hi!

So I've kinda stopped doing Mani Thursdays, my schedule is just too erratic to have nails to post every Thursday *sigh* But oh well, as long as I keep producing nail art I'll be happy!

Speaking of which, I was NOT happy at our soccer tournament this weekend. We played four 90-minute games over the weekend, lost all of them, and in the last game I strained my hamstring (ALWAYS remember to warm up before you start sprinting around!!). But, to look on the bright side, I had to sit around and ice it for a while, which gave me an excuse to do my nails! On to the nail polish!

Today I did a floral nail skittlette design:

And since I thought the flowers were pretty cool, here's a closeup of my thumb:

Not much to say about this... it was very fun to do and I'm pleased with the result! (I wish I had done something else for the pinky though, it looks a little weird)

Polishes Used:

Deborah Lippmann Glitter and Be Gay (glitter)

Jin Soon French Lilac (dark pink)

Sally Hansen White On (white)

Sephora by O.P.I. Neutral Beauty (tan)

Sephora by O.P.I. It's Totally Karma (green)

Sephora by O.P.I. Read My Palm (darker green on the thumb)

Wet n Wild Black Creme (black)

Wet n Wild Tickled Pink (pale pink)

Inspiration/Other Versions/Tutorials:

Nail Art 101 has a nice tutorial on how to do flowers;

I was inspired by this post on Nail Call. 

Thanks for reading!

The Nail Snail :) 

P.S. I think I'm finally getting my photos to look a little more professional... I'm getting better at posing my hand, at least :D

Blog Your Heart Out Award Nomination!

Hi! I've been nominated for the Blog Your Heart Out Award by Katherine from ProcrastiNails! Thanks!!

You've probably heard this same stuff about 50 times by now, but: the way this award works is a) answer 5 questions and then b) nominate 5 other bloggers you like that have less than 100 followers. The general idea is to help new bloggers get followers and allow people to discover amazing less popular blogs that they would delight in reading.

QUESTIONS: 
1. What/who encouraged you to start blogging? The idea just kinda popped into my head earlier this summer, and I thought it would be a great summer project to do. And then it turned into something more than just a summer project!

 2. How did you choose what topic(s) to blog about? It was a little bit trial and error... I had another Wordpress blog where I was blogging with a friend about a bunch of stuff: our summer travels, gardening (I love gardening!), other crafts, and nails. Then I realized that my nail art posts were getting the most likes and comments, so I decided to devote a different blog completely to nails!

 3. What is something most people don't know about you? Ummm. Hmm. I guess (ok, this is kinda boring) that I read a lot. Right now I'm juggling a biography of Stephen Hawking (DENSE), Yellow (which is written by my dad's cousin lol), the City of Dreaming Books, and What is the What (I'm rereading it, it's a FANTASTIC book!).

 4. What three words describe your style? Funky, weird, and happy!

 5. What do you like to do when you aren't blogging? I have a lot of hobbies, including knitting, sewing, and gardening (and I'd like to get into embroidery) but when I'm doing something fun other than blogging I'm usually playing flute competitively or playing competitive soccer.

Many thanks again to Katherine! (yesss, someone actually reads my blog! :-D)

MY NOMINEES:
Nailsss -- mostly nail art but with a sprinkling of cats and makeup; I have no idea why she doesn't have more followers because her nail art is amazing!
Oh No, Not Another Nail Art Blog -- consistently amaaaazing nail art!
PlumeriaPainted -- very creative and unique nail art (she's doing an app nail art series right now!)
The Polished Cowgirl -- a fairly new blog (older than mine though, haha) that does classic nail art! She has WAYYYY too few followers in my opinion :) I've never seen a mani I didn't like on her blog!
Mani's by Moore -- she does all the nail art that's on your to-do list and seems super nice and funny!

 Well I guess that's it (great conclusion, I know). I hope the five blogs I nominated get more followers, because they definitely deserve it!

Thanks for reading!

 The Nail Snail :)

P.S. If any of the links don't work please let me know, Blogger had issues right after I finished writing this rather long post and I had to copy and paste and... it was a mess :P

National Day of... Challenge: Cupcake Day Nails

Hi!

So yesterday I got an email from Colleen of Dream It Up Nails, inviting me to join the National Day of.. Challenge! I'm a bit late with this... yesterday (the 19th) was National Cupcake Day, but I didn't get the email until too late yesterday and there was soccer and flute and SAT prep to be done.

But I thought cupcake nails were just too fun of an opportunity to pass on, so I changed my plans of doing back-to-school nails (apples) and changed it to cupcakes! (Apple nails are hopefully coming next week) I haven't been very creative with this theme, but... well... cupcakes are pretty cool.

The blue with the DL polish over it (my not-so-awesome left hand)

The Process: I started with blue that looked a lot lighter in the bottle than it actually is, Jin Soon Poppy Blue. I had forgotten how dark the blue actually was, so I was a bit dismayed when it turned out to be kind of a dark turquoise instead of a, well, poppy blue. To try and fix the mistake, I covered it over with a coat of Deborah Lippmann When Lightning Strikes, a lovely glitter polish with a mix of midsized white glitters and silver microglitters (these are hard to describe. They're kind of like flakies... kind of). It made the blue a lot softer and more satin-y -- success! It went pretty smoothly from that point, except when I accidentally rubbed off the polish on a couple nails and had to re-do them. I used a mini striper for the dark pink stripes and a bobby pin (my makeshift dotting tool) for the icing. Overall it was a very fun design to do!

Polishes Used:
BK #11 (purple dots)
Deborah Lippmann Scream & Shout (dark pink)
Deborah Lippmann When Lightning Strikes (silver glittery)
Jin Soon Poppy Blue (base blue color)
Sally Hansen White On (white)
Wet n' Wild Tickled Pink (light pink)

Tutorials/Other Versions:
Once again, this design is pretty self-explanatory but Lacquerheads of Oz has a nice tutorial. I also liked Swatch and Learn's version. Oh, and of course Cutepolish has her video too!

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!

The Nail Snail

Striping Tape Geometric Nails

Hi! Happy Monday!

A couple days ago I did my sister's nails. She's in elementary school and has TINY nails, so it was a bit difficult. I usually don't try to do her nails, but I just got the striping tape I've been waiting for and I already did my nails of the week, so... yeah. I'd been wanting to do this design for awhile but I didn't feel like cutting tape up into tiny strips (BORING) so I held off until I received my striping tape :)

Now, I'm not sure if these really count as geometric nails but I decided to call them geometric anyways... I mean, nobody's judging right?

(my sister can't really pose with her hand so I just kinda let it lay there)

I did this mani in what was probably the least smart/efficient way. I started with a base of white polish (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On), used tape to make the next horizontal stripe of light green (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mint Sorbet), and finally used more tape to make the third horizontal stripe of darker green (Sephora by O.P.I. Read My Palm). Then I put the striping tape on in random designs and painted purple over it (BK #26, I think). Unfortunately, I didn't wait for the polish to dry before trying to stick tape on it, so I ended up having to re-do a bunch of the nails and it ended up taking me over an hour. *sigh* If I do this again, I'd just freehand the green stripes -- I mean, you can barely see them anyways -- or maybe do a sponge gradient for the green. 

Though this was not a great first experience with striping tape, I definitely want to try more striping tape designs! Suggestions are welcome :) 

Tutorials/Other Versions:

I originally got the idea from Nail Stories' blog post (it's from a while back). She did it with black and red, yellow, and green stripes but I thought that would be too edgy for my elementary-school-aged sister... 

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think! 

The Nail Snail

P.S. This isn't nail-art related, but... the comment verification thingies ("Please prove you're not a robot" <-- I have now learned they are called captchas!) are a little ridiculous. I mean, seriously, today I got this:

What?? How am I supposed to tell what those numbers are? (or maybe my computer just has problems with images and the rest of y'all are like "what is she talking about those numbers are clear as daylight"...)

Mani Thursdays 3: Citrus Nails

I can't believe it's already been three weeks since I started this blog... time really flies sometimes! Also, I can't believe summer's already almost over -- I'm going back to school on Monday the 26th, and I haven't really gotten anything productive done this summer :\

Anyways, I felt like I had to do a summery nail design for the last summer nails -- next week, I'll be doing back to school nails -- so I chose citrus nails!

I was inspired by Cutepolish's video tutorial, but I decided to use light green as a base color instead of just leaving the bottoms of the nails bare, because my nails are a little stained right now (but I have been using base coat, I swear!). I'd say Cutepolish's way looks better, though, so if you have healthy nails, definitely show them off with this design! (I'm not the only one with bad natural nails... right?)

Overall, it turned out better than expected. Okay, the index finger wasn't the best, I kinda globbed a lot onto the nail when I didn't mean to, but still better than expected. Especially since my nail art brushes, which I've used all of three times, are already falling apart! At least they were only about $2. But still. Any recommendations for fairly cheap but decent quality (e.g., not falling apart after three uses) brushes?

Next week, if my plans proceed correctly (which rarely happens haha) I'm going to do apple nails, and I was actually planning watermelon nails for the last week of August. A bit of a fruit nail art kick, I guess. I'd love to see any fruit nail art designs you've done, and if you try this mani definitely share it with me! 

Polishes Used:

Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet (light green base)

Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow (yellow on ring finger)

Deborah Lippmann Lara's Theme (orange on middle finger)

Deborah Lippmann Harem Silks From Bombay (dark purple on index finger)

and, of course, Sally Hansen Top Coat!

Tutorials/Other Versions:

Cutepolish's video tutorial is the best, but it's pretty self-explanatory;

This video tutorial is different, but also really nice-looking (but you have to be pretty good at drawing straight, solid lines with a striper...)

Thanks for reading!

The Nail Snail :)

Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet

Hi!

Because I'm left-handed, I can never do nail art on my left hand, so usually I end up using some color that goes well with the design on my right hand on my left hand (that was a convoluted sentence...). Last time, with watercolor nails, I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mint Sorbet, a pale green (which I used in watercolor nails and in argyle nails).

I think this is my new favorite nail polish! It's a very nice pastel color, and it looks pretty good on me (unlike a lot of colors). It applies great, and dries quickly. As with all other Xtreme Wear polishes I've tried, it did last for a week with almost no chipping. I love the entire Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear line of polishes, actually, mainly because they're cheap and aren't terrible quality (not exactly a glowing recommendation, I know). Unfortunately, the only other Xtreme Wear colors I have are a bright, bright yellow and a weird blue color that I don't end up using much.

(Note: in this picture my middle fingernail looks like it's a really weird shape... it's actually not, I just applied the polish kinda weirdly. And also look at the sad index finger -- both my index fingernails broke at the beach, sigh)

Thanks for reading!

The Nail Snail :)

Mani Thursdays 2: Watercolor Nails

Hi!

Well, it's Thursday again! I had been wanting to try watercolor nails for a while, because it seemed so simple and fun to do. At first, I tried it with plastic wrap (as Polish and Pearls did) but it didn't turn out so great. So I switched to using acetone to water down the polish, as rebecca likes nails did, and then kind of swirled it around with a small paintbrush. Many of the watercolor manis I looked at used really bright colors, which I thought looked a little... bleh, so I decided to use pastel blues and greens.

This worked much better! I probably watered it down more than rebecca likes nails, but it turned out just fine. On the ring finger, I did a more organized striped pattern. I'm not sure which I like better, the stripes or the random blobby things. What do you think?

Also, I realized that I had used all the polishes in this mani in the argyle nails... And I still have so many polishes I need to try! *sigh* But I really love the Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet, so I guess that's my excuse?

Polishes Used:

Sally Hansen White On (white base)

Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet (light green)

Sephora by O.P.I. Read My Palm (darker green)

Jin Soon Blue Iris (blue)

Tutorials:

rebecca likes nails (pictures) 

Nail Art 101 (has a video as well as pictures)

China Glaze Golden Meringue!

Hi again!

I AM still sticking to the once-per-week doing my nails thing, but, well, since I was doing my nails today and I REALLY wanted to try out this new polish... yeah. So today I tried out my first China Glaze! It's Golden Meringue, which is a pink sheer polish with a tiny bit of a golden shimmer (but you can't tell it has shimmer in the bottle). I picked this up recently at T.J. Maxx for $2.99, which is a pretty good deal for China Glaze... I think...

It applied pretty well, despite my nails not really being properly cleaned up from the black glitter polish. But to be honest, it just didn't look that great on me.

It looks okay in the top photo, but I also included the bottom photo because that's how it looks in real life... not all that complimentary. I tried it out on the ring finger over white polish (see Begone, Gluten's post about sheer polish) but it's kind of an odd peach color that's too sheer to look good over white. 

My nails are pretty yellow (blame the fact that I wear nail polish most of the time) and so I'm willing to show them to the public yet. Definitely not completely bare, and not under this sheer polish either.

I don't think I'll be wearing it much, but maybe as a toe color... Or maybe it would work as something like this, from Roxy's Girl Time. 

- the Nail Snail :)

Argyle Nails

Hi!

Today my friend and fellow blog contributor came over and reluctantly let me do her nails (we also dug the pond, but that's another story). I decided to do a pretty challenging pattern (for me, at least) -- argyle nails.

We had tried this pattern a few weeks earlier, without brushes or stripers or anything, and it was a complete failure. This time it was much improved, although the lines could be better... oh, well.

Polishes:

Sally Hansen "White On" (white);

Sally Hansen "Mint Sorbet" (light green);

Sephora by O.P.I. "Read My Palm" (dark green);

Jin Soon "Blue Iris" (dark blue);

Jin Soon "Poppy Blue" (light blue);

Tutorials:

Cutepolish's tutorial is the best! But if you don't like videos, Kelsie's Nail Files has a similar tutorial. 

- the Nail Snail

Galaxy Nails, again

This might be redundant, but... my mom is taking a photography class and so I got her to take a few pictures of my nails. This was the best one:

- the Nail Snail :)

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Mani Thursdays 1: Galaxy Nails (Tutorial)

Hi! Here's the first post on this blog and the first Mani Thursday. OK, enough pointing out the obvious.

I've done galaxy nails this time because they a) seemed fun to do, and b) seemed fairly easy, which is a major requirement for me.

There are quite a few versions of galaxy nail art out there. I loved Pretty (Squared)'s version but it seemed very difficult. I ended up doing a sort of mixture of Nail Art 101's version and Polish and Pearl's version, with the inspiration for the white stars coming from the Nailasaurus' pastel galaxy nails (which I'll have to try sometime, except I don't have the right colors).

I'm only going to be posting on here once or twice a week, so I thought I might as well do a tutorial -- I mean, just posting a picture once a week seems a little lazy (plus, that's kind of what I'm doing for my Wordpress blog). But enough of me talking. Here we go! (oh, and there aren't photos for the first 2 steps because the photos came out terribly, so I was like "well... blah, I'm not putting those out there")

Materials used:

Tools: Sponge (I used one of those huge sponges you use to wash cars); nail art brush (a thin one!)
Polishes: Revlon base coat; Sally Hansen top coat; Deborah Lippmann Twilight Tone, I Fought the Law, and Invincible; Sally Hansen White Out; Funky Fingers Mood Ring; and Jin Soon Coral Peony

Step 1: paint on a base coat and an opaque coat of black polish (it can have sparkles or not, it doesn't matter; I used black sparkly polish because I don't have plain black).

Step 2: sponge on some white polish in one area. Try not to make it like a huge glob of white in the middle of the nail, which is what happened for me my first try. Sponge it on lightly, not in a circle, and not in the center of the nail.

Step 3: sponge on some green/blue polish (optional). I didn't do this for my first two nails and I don't think it makes a difference, but I had this perfect green/blue sparkly polish that I really wanted to use, so...

Step 4: sponge on some dark blue polish somewhat overlapping with the white. Don't completely cover the white, but make the two colors overlap. Try blending them together with a fresh piece of sponge -- you don't want harsh lines between the colors.

Step 5: sponge on some violet polish, also somewhat overlapping with the white and pretty close to the blue. There should still be a fairly large area of uncovered white. Once again, try to soften the lines between the colors with a fresh piece of sponge.

Step 6: sponge on some orangey-pink, on top of the remaining showing white. For the last time, try to soften the lines between the colors. You'll want this pink to be significantly different from the purple you use, so that it'll stand out a little.

Step 7: add some white starry-like dots on the remaining showing black.

Step 8: add a star somewhere in the purple-blue-pink cloud (this was the hardest part... argh, my hand shakes so much!)

Step 9: top coat! Then remove excess polish with a Q-Tip (or a cheap generic equivalent!)
Step 10: admire nails and take pictures!

This design is pretty much explained by the pictures, though, so you can just skip over all the wordy instruction things that are really not very helpful.

Helpful tip: listen to music while doing this. It makes it so much better (and it stops me from constantly feeling my nails -- "are they dry yet? How about now? Or now? Or... argh, now I have to redo them!!"). Actually, listening to music makes a lot of things better. So... listen to music all the time? Except when you're practicing your instrument -- oh, never mind. Blah. This tip was not very helpful.

But anyways, hope you like it :)

The Nail Snail